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“Can I ask what happened?”
He’s quiet for a moment, which makes me worry I’ve overstepped. We agreed from the get-go that this was supposed to be casual sex. Am I crossing the line by trying to get to know him? He’s certainly the last man on Earth I thought I’d ever want to get close to, given who we are and how our goals are destined to collide.
And yet.
“A bad case of pneumonia,” he answers after a while. “My mother was always in poor health, and after a particularly shocking discovery, her system never quite recovered.”
“A shocking discovery?”
Andrei exhales slowly. “My father—the rat bastard—had been sneaking around with a mistress for almost half a year. When my mother found out, she… Well, I can’t imagine the stress helped her feel better. She passed away a few months later.”
I frown. “That’s awful.”
“It’s fine,” he says resolutely. “Everything happens for a reason, right?”
“Right,” I echo, my eyelids suddenly feeling very heavy.
Andrei chuckles, low and warm like honey. “Stay with me tonight,” he murmurs.
I think about saying no. I’ve already been away for far too long. My bodyguards are going to worry. Myfamilyis going to worry.It’s too hard to care, though, when I feel so damn good right where I am. Right where I’m meant to be.
I sit up and reach for my cell phone and send Vance a message. I’m staying her for the night. I tell him to get himself a room and meet me downstairs early in the morning.
“Okay,” I mutter softly against his chest.
The moment I close my eyes, I’m out like a light.
Chapter 21
Andrei
The golden light of sunrise filters in through the crack in the curtains, filling the hotel room with warmth and the promise of a new day. Beside me, Sandra’s red locks have curled slightly in her sleep, spilling out like tendrils of copper. I spend a little too long drinking in the sight, her beauty unmatched in all things worldly or otherwise. I silently pray for time to stop. I want to capture this moment for all eternity and bask in it, breathing in the scent of vanilla and admiring her pretty face.
But my phone goes off, vibrating angrily on the bedside table. She stirs, eyes fluttering open. When she realizes where she is, Sandra sits up quickly with a gasp.
“Oh my God, I need to go,” she says, hurriedly throwing the covers off to climb out of bed. There’s no time to appreciate the love bites I’ve left all over her body. There’s no doubt in my mind my own back looks like a warzone.
“What’s the hurry?” I ask her, reaching for my phone.
“My guard are waiting downstair, I’m sure.” She gets dressed hastily, combing her fingers through her hair. “And my family is probably worried even if he did send them a message.”
My phone rings again. This is turning out to be a chaotic way to start the day.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” she asks as she rushes into the adjacent bathroom. The sink runs, followed by the splash of water.
With a heavy sigh, I answer. “What?”
“We’ve got a problem,” Leo says without so much as ahow-do-you-do.
“Talk to me.”
“Our supplier out of Latvia just got busted by the Feds. We’re looking at a severe supply shortage in the coming weeks.”
“Give me the numbers.”
“We’re looking at a loss of roughly thirty million if we don’t figure this out.”
My head spins. I have half a mind to crawl back into bed and pretend the world doesn’t exist. Losses and gains are a natural part of running a business, butthirty million? I’m not willing to allow that kind of loss.
