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A marriage to Roman wasn’t in the cards. He had the look of someone in love — and not with her.
Disappointing, but she was used to being disappointed, had learned long ago to waste no time mourning the things she couldn’t have. It was wiser to focus on what she could have, and right now the most tantalizing offering of all was on the table: liberation.
Satisfied the driver hadn’t tailed her into the store, she made her way to the lingerie section. She found Roman already there, looking impossibly huge but right at home as he browsed a rack of bustiers in a shade of deep raspberry.
She joined him, studying the matching lace panties. “Looking for a gift?”
She made a point not to look at him. She didn’t believe she’d been followed but she couldn’t say the same about Roman, although he was clearly shrewd to still be alive after declaring war on his father.
Still, he was a marked man, and the last thing she needed was to be marked along with him when her freedom was close enough to touch.
“I prefer La Perla,” he said.
“You’re a wise man, Roman Kalashnik.”
He chuckled and she caught a hint of spicy cologne. “If you move toward me to look at the garters, I’ll slip the vial into your bag.”
“So forward,” she scolded. “You don’t enjoy foreplay?”
“I love foreplay.” His voice hinted at dark and delicious things and she was unsurprised to find herself wet. “But I prefer to focus on something as important as pleasure without fear of a target on my back.”
A fresh wave of regret washed over her. They really would have been good together.
“Very well,” she said, moving to the rack of garters next to the bustiers. “We’ll focus on business. If you insist.”
She flipped through the garters mindlessly and a moment later felt Roman bump against her as he bent to check the lower rack.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
She gave him her most withering glare. “What a boor.”
He laughed. “I quite like you, Valeriya Orlov. I look forward to our future friendship.”
“You won’t be rich enough to be my friend,” she said.
“You might be surprised,” he said. “The vial is in your bag. Just a drop or two will do it.”
She swallowed, the gravity of what she was about to do hitting her all over again now that they’d concluded their banter. “And you’re sure no one will know?”
“If they do an autopsy, it will look like a heart attack,” Roman said. “And they may not bother. Your father is old and far from healthy.”
It was true that her father ate and drank like a king — not to mention the disgusting cigars he enjoyed — without regard for his health, but he’d always seemed larger than life to Valeriya, an unstoppable force. It was strange to think of him as a mere mortal, a coroner surveying him through clinical eyes and determining that he was simply another old man dead of a heart attack.
“How long will it take?” Valeriya asked.
She didn’t want her father to suffer. She simply wanted her rightful inheritance before it ended up in the hands of a flunky like Ek Kalashnik and his father because Valeriya had been forced into a marriage she didn’t want.
“It should take effect within ten minutes,” Roman said. “After that, the end will come in under a minute.”
Valeriya forced a deep breath, an unfamiliar wave of anxiety washing over her.
She wasn’t an anxious person, mostly because she had little reason to be anxious. All of her problems could be solved with her father’s money — except the ones created by it.
“All right,” she said.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Me?”
