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While Mikhail made our meals, I watched in slack-jawed wonder as he sliced the fresh loaf of bread and twisted open a jar of pickles. The way his shirt pulled against his muscles and his firm, sure hands wielded the bread knife held me in thrall until he turned around again. I quickly pretended to study my long-neglected fingernails.
He handed me a plate with a fat turkey and cheese sandwich, a pickle slice, and apple wedges on the side. I almost waited for him to hand me a juice box with the straw already in it, but he plopped a water bottle down instead. I had to stop feeling childish around him. It was driving me nuts, especially since I couldn’t stop ogling him.
“So, it’s been a long time,” he said, once again sitting across from me so I had the full glorious view every time he lifted a bite to his lips.
“About two years,” I agreed.
Not long enough. Since I had stopped having dreams about him, I thought I was over my infatuation, but it was back like it never left. The only way I could truly get over him was to cut all ties with Kristina, so I was never faced with his picture or had to hear his name, then force myself into a relationship with an appropriate man my age. Those options were abhorrent to me, especially cutting off my oldest and dearest friend.
He asked me what I’d been up to and seemed to be eagerly awaiting my response. I couldn’t tell him about my current project because he’d ruined it, putting me back in a bad mood. So, I updated him about my investigation firm in Moscow, Leo’s most recent facial recognition program, and then we gossiped about people we both knew. He didn’t bring Kristina up again, or my father and I followed suit. It was almost like I wanted to be there, not conked over the head and dragged aboard.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” I urged, sandwiches long finished.
I could feel the plane slowly dropping altitude and didn’t want to face the unknown yet. As soon as the plane landed, I’d have to be on the lookout for escape options, and right then… I didn’t really want to escape.
A dark cloud seemed to pass over his face, his eyes shuttering. “Things are good,” he said slowly.
“Oh yeah, I can tell by your face that things are thriving.”
He shouted with laughter and shook his head. “It’s just the same old thing. Fighting for power, gaining power, having to fight someone new for it all over again.”
I was stunned. Was he actually letting me into his deepest thoughts? Treating me like an adult?
“Rough time lately?” I asked, fighting the urge to move to his side and take his hand.
“Really rough time,” he said. The flight attendant stuck her head through a door near the front of the cabin and told us we should buckle up for landing. I frowned at her, wanting to share more with Mikhail. But he only gave me an arch look as he reached for his seatbelt. “I was supposed to be on vacation, you know.”
He wasn’t really chastening me, or I would have let him have it again. He was joking around like he might have with any friend. Still treating me like an adult and not a wayward child.
I really liked it. If he could see me as an adult—a peer and not someone he was responsible for—that opened up a world of possibilities. A bunch of those delicious possibilities passed through my mind in a rush, and I snuck a glance at him while I buckled my safety belt. He looked straight at me in a way I couldn’t quite place, certainly unlike any look he’d ever given me before. Wait a second.
Was he thinking of the possibilities as well?
I nearly cracked myself up at that. Of course, he wasn’t because he didn’t see me as an adult. He was probably appeasing me, like a child, to keep me from having a tantrum. Which I had basically done. Like a child. I scowled, and he rolled his eyes and looked away.
The plane landed a few minutes later with a mild thump, and I gathered my anger around me to defuse the last traces of lust Mikhail had once again drawn forward. It needed to stay stuffed down because I had been days, hours, maybe only minutes from a breakthrough in bringing the Novikoffs to their knees. And Mikhail had wrecked that, left behind all my equipment, and was going to keep me locked up who-knew-where until my Papa collected me like I got lost in a shopping center.
But not if I escaped first.
Oh, I tried really hard to stay pissed off, but then I caught him looking at me again. And I started thinking again about the possibilities. Maybe I could get him out of my system once and for all? If I had to spend the foreseeable future cooped up with him, surely I could get something out of it to ease my disappointment.
The fuse had been sparked, and I didn’t know how long it would burn before it exploded.
Chapter 6 - Mikhail
She was going to kill me. I was positive of it. I’d almost forgotten her fiery nature, and her heated response to finding out she was in the air and on her way back to Miami would have amused me if it didn’t turn me on so damn much. Combined with her curves, her little outburst only fanned the flames of the desire I was trying my hardest to douse.
Once I all but shoved her back onto the couch, she still looked up at me with rage burning in her eyes. Still, underneath it, there was a deep disappointment I would have done anything to assuage. I wasn’t trying to destroy her dreams, damn it. I was trying to keep her safe. But she was having none of it.
She flat-out refused to accept she was in danger, only focused on her goal. Admirable if she didn’t have a price on her head.
It took all my willpower not to wrap my fingers in her lustrous hair and yank her head back so her pouting lips would be easier to claim. It would have been a very nice way to shut her up. Then she had the absolute gall to shrug me off and pretend to agree with me. As if I hadn’t seen that gambit before, hundreds of times, from both Evelina and Kristina. Infuriating.
She wasn’t selfish, and when I brought up the possible danger she’d put her best friend in, she instantly became contrite. It was clear she was sincerely sorry, going pale at the thought of Kristina being in danger, and all my anger evaporated. Just like it did when they learned their lesson back in the day. Within minutes we were on easy terms again, and I was making her a sandwich, just like the old days.
God, I wished I could stop thinking of my daughter and Evelina’s history together, forget the past between us and just see her as the sexy, vibrant woman she was today. I’d love to tell her how impressed I was that she’d managed to infiltrate one of the most powerful families in New York, but I had to stay stern. Had to keep that boundary.
As I watched her enjoy her meal, her tongue darting out to lick away a crumb, I began to wonder why I was so intent on keeping her distant. Why was that tongue not trailing down my chest and lower… She was a gorgeous, fiercely independent, intelligent, and ambitious woman. She’d be someone I’d be seriously interested in if I’d just met her.
