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Seeing herself like this, knowing that Aleksander had imagined her like this, she felt changed by it. The dress exposed as much as it concealed and the duality of it made her feel both sensual and beautiful, confident and powerful in a way she hadn’t experienced before.
A message appeared on her phone, asking her to meet him at the bar of the hotel’s casino. Her fingers flexed around the thin case.
You are asking for the impossible. There is nothing more in me, Henna.
She believed that he was wrong. But she’d asked. She’d asked and he’d refused her and she wasn’t going to ask again.
Aleksander exited the private lift from his suite to the ground floor, frustrated that he’d been delayed by a call from Javier, confirming the organisation’s agreement with his plan. That it gave him what he wanted was nothing compared to the fact that he’d made Henna wait.
The thought pulled him up midstride and he paused, his hand reaching towards his temples and lowering again before betraying such an obvious sign of frustration. The realisation of just how important she had become to him had him almost turning on his heel. Until he caught sight of a flash of blue silk. Fists flexing and heart pounding, he took one step and then another, enthralled by the siren’s call of her exposed skin and the need to feel it, anywhere against him and anyway. He watched as the barman placed a martini glass on the marble top in front of Henna and in the reflection of the mirrored glass behind the bar she caught his gaze.
A hundred little explosions shattered his equilibrium to the point where he was genuinely surprised the entire bank of bottles containing some of the world’s most expensive alcohol hadn’t collapsed and smashed to the floor. Shards of jade scattered across Henna’s irises before she blinked them away and lifted the glass to her lips without breaking their connection.
He felt his own pupils widen in response to the power of her gaze. There was neither challenge nor submission in it—simply a recognition of self-worth and it made her devastating. The acute awareness of the impact she had on him was to the point of near pain as the physical and emotional threatened to coalesce. Her lips opened just slightly—as if perhaps she was about to say something—when Aleksander became aware of a figure approaching from his left.
Marshalling himself with a ruthlessness honed from years of practice, he turned to greet the short, stocky suited man and his extremely tall companion. Aware of the attention they were drawing, Aleksander was conscious that it was unusual for two members of the organisation to greet each other so openly, but then again Kozlov had just sold his shares in the company he’d built from the ground up because Aleksander and Lykos had been able to obtain controlling shares. It would be best to remember that Kozlov was a man who would cut off his nose to spite his face. It made him dangerous. It also made the Russian very angry.
‘Your Majesty,’ Kozlov greeted him with a considerable amount of venom.
In response, Aleksander inclined his head, his features masking his own fury. Looking closely, he could see the suspicion beneath the anger simmering in the Russian’s gaze.
‘What are you doing here?’ the oligarch demanded and Aleksander couldn’t work out if it was the man’s stupidity or intolerable arrogance that made him feel he could address royalty in such a way.
‘I heard that the Sultan of Bur’hran was here and I plan to relieve him of his favourite thoroughbreds, so if you’ll excuse me,’ Aleksander said, making to walk away.
‘What, you do not wish to try your hand against me again?’ The jeer in Kozlov’s tone was music to Aleksander’s ears, slowing his steps and turning him back. ‘Worried you might lose this time?’
‘You have nothing left that interests me, Kozlov,’ Aleksander dismissed.
For a moment the mask slipped on the face of the statuesque blonde on the Russian’s arm, her eyes widening in shock, before Kozlov yanked her back into place on his arm. The move nearly pulled the woman off her feet and Aleksander’s hackles rose with the need to wipe the sneer off the billionaire’s face. He should never have been permitted as a member of the organisation. The organisation should be there to protect others from people like this.
‘But you have somethingIwant,’ Kozlov snapped. His tone grated against Aleksander’s nerves, but the way he ignored the evident discomfort of the woman beside him was unconscionable.
‘Spit it out or hold it in, Kozlov. You’re wasting my time,’ Aleksander said, not bothering to hide his disdain.
Ilian glared at him, the man’s cheeks going an unhealthy shade of red.
‘I want a seat at the table. Thetoptable.’
Aleksander’s smile was lethal. ‘No.’ He walked off, his pulse racing in his chest, counting the footsteps that took him further and further away from the Russian.One, two, three—
‘I’ll play you for it. If you win, I will give up my membership. If I win, I will take yours.’
The thrill that went through Aleksander was like lightning. He turned back, making his response seem behind disbelief. ‘Without complaint? I don’t trust you, Kozlov.’
‘We can draw up an agreement in advance. The house will witness and hold the ante.’ Such agreements were ill advised and irregular, but not unheard of and exactly what Aleksander had hoped for. All the sweeter that Kozlov believed it was his idea. Desperation practically dripped from the man. A desperation that was all too familiar to Aleksander.
Consenting to the wager Kozlov thought was his, they went through the requirements with the casino’s concierge and Aleksander realised that there had been a time in his life when things could have been very different for him. Publicly, he had never put a foot wrong, he’d never come off the rails, missed an exam, received anything less than a merit in school and college. But privately, he had skated very close to a very thin edge. Alcohol and gambling had been within easy reach of a very rich royal who was happy to roll the dice between the temptation of oblivion and the pressure of a role that had cost him the girl he’d loved and a child he’d desperately wanted. Because hehadalways wanted children. Whether because it was required of him and the role he was born to play, or whether it was innate within him, it hadn’t mattered.
But when that possibility had been taken away from him it had shattered that softer, happy, carefree part of him. Until he’d played a single hand of cards with the man who would become his mentor. Aleksander honestly couldn’t have said what the older man had seen in him, but he’d be eternally thankful that he’d been pulled back from the brink of disaster before he could ruin his life irrevocably. Aleksander had lost that innocent part of him, but he had been stopped from embracing the darkness completely.
But even now, sitting at the private poker table away from the murmur of conversation and voices placing bets and bemoaning losses, Aleksander felt that same sweep of recklessness pulling at him. Half of his attention was back at the bar where he’d left Henna twenty minutes ago. He would give her any number of apologies she needed, but Kozlov had to be handled now.
He lifted the tips of his two cards and looked at the four in the centre of the table. He’d played Kozlov enough times that they didn’t need to feel each other out. Although he often seemed erratic, there was a blunt driving force behind the way the oligarch played his hands. He quickly assessed the Russian’s chips—he was down against Aleksander, but that could change in a hand or two. Even then, he decided to let go of this hand and folded.
Kozlov swept up the chips on the table and ordered a vodka. Aleksander checked his watch before the waiter turned to him, distracting Aleksander from the approach of the concierge.
‘Gentlemen, we have another player. This is amenable to you?’
