Читать книгу The Platinum Collection: A Convenient Proposal: His Diamond of Convenience / The Highest Price to Pay / His Ring Is Not Enough - Maisey Yates - Страница 11

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS A shock to go from the carefully cultivated comfort of Dmitri’s private plane out into the thick afternoon air of New Orleans.

Victoria breathed a sigh of relief as they transferred from the tarmac to the black car that was waiting for them.

The flight over had been uneventful. Victoria had spent the majority of it in the private bedroom trying to get herself on the proper time schedule, even though she knew it would be somewhat futile. Jet lag was very often wicked no matter what tricks she tried to employ en route. But whether or not it helped with her sleep pattern it had helped her avoid Dmitri. That made it worth it.

Yes, she knew that she had to find some more companionable feelings for him, but she wasn’t about to do it when she was trapped thirty thousand feet above the ground in a small metal tube with the man. No, thank you. Much better to deal with him when her feet were on solid ground and she was feeling more in control of the situation.

And she would, once they managed to get to their Royal Street accommodations in the French Quarter. It was amazing what money could accomplish, and in this case it meant exclusive use of the boutique hotel for both their event and for the guests making a commute to the event. Dmitri had a lot of money, and that meant there was no end to what she could accomplish. At least seemingly. She also had plans coming together for an event in New York next week with a venue that was nearly impossible to get an entire year in advance, forget less than a month. Following that would be the final launch party in London, which would see the opening of Dmitri’s charity as a rousing success, and the closing of their engagement as a rousing one, too. All in closer to a month and a half, rather than three months as she’d originally quoted.

All she had to do was manage the slight tension she felt whenever she was in close proximity with him. And that should be simple.

A little bit of insanity when he ran his hands through her hair in his office was understandable. She had not been inoculated to his magnetism yet. And really, now she thought about it, assuming that you were the one exception to a specific danger was foolishness. And she had to confess, even if only to herself, that she had been foolish going into her dealings with Dmitri.

Because she had spent so many years inured to male charms, she’d assumed it would transfer to him.

Problematically, it had not.

But she wouldn’t waste time beating herself up about it. Better women than her had fallen to the likes of him, so there was nothing for it but to simply accept that she found him attractive and move on from it. Finding someone attractive did not mean you had to act on it.

Of course, Stavros had come with a reputation of his own. While not a playboy per se, he was a prince, and a nice-looking one at that, meaning he was custom designed to be irresistible. He’d had his share of lovers, and the other women who had been vying for his affections at the time had been positively giddy over him, while Victoria had remained mainly immune.

She could still remember feeling the most intense sense of relief the first time he’d nearly kissed her. Not because he’d been about to kiss her, but because in the end, for whatever reason, he had decided not to.

She’d been baiting him, trying to get him to make that all-important lip-to-lip contact, but he hadn’t. Later, it had become clear that it was because he had fallen for their matchmaker, Jessica Carter, but at the time she hadn’t understood why. Only that she had been extremely happy not to have to deal with a physical relationship just yet.

She simply hadn’t been in a space to be dealing with it. She had subsumed all of her sexual feelings after that unfortunate incident with Nathan. Because it had been easier. Because it made things much simpler. It was much easier to keep her eyes on the prize, to keep moving toward the goal of redemption when she wasn’t distracted by nonessentials.

Unfortunately, Dmitri was part and parcel of essentials. And whatever had insulated her against Stavros’s charms was not working here. She took a deep breath. Oh well, she had acknowledged it. Acknowledging it was the first step to ignoring it, or something like that.

Victoria reached around behind her head and coiled her hair around her wrist, lifting it up off her neck. Her skin was already sticky. “Is there some way we can turn the air-conditioning up?” she asked, keeping her eyes on this view outside. So far the expressway was typical—modern buildings and palm trees whizzing past. There was a creek running alongside the road, and children with small nets trying to catch something in the murky waters.

“I believe it’s up as high as it goes.”

“It’s like a very wet oven,” she said, knowing she sounded a bit whiny and a lot snobby. But this was a heat quite unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It wasn’t simply the temperature, but the air quality.

“It is that. I take it you’ve never been here before?”

“No, I haven’t been. Have you?”

“I was here once before with Colvin.” He kept his eyes fixed on the view outside the window. “This was back when I was still fighting. We came to help hurricane relief. Things were very different then.”

“I imagine so.”

“I always admired the lengths he went to in order to help others. The lengths he went to in order to help me, and anyone else he felt needed it. Certainly his interest in me wasn’t entirely altruistic, as I did end up making him quite a lot of money. But he had no way of knowing that for sure. He had an instinct, he had his gut, but there were no guarantees that sinking hours of free training into an angry street urchin were going to amount to anything.”

“How did he end up in London? How did you end up in London?”

“I ended up in London by way of Colvin. He went for the usual reason. A woman. Though it didn’t work out, because by the time I was on the scene she was not.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“Russia.”

“Where in Russia?” He simply stared at her, his dark eyes impassive, his chiseled jaw set. He was far too handsome for his own good. For her own good. Really, it was gratuitous. “You realize Russia’s a very big country.”

“I do.” He smiled, somewhat ruefully. “Moscow. I was fighting in bars at the time. Cage matches. Very unsophisticated, very few rules. Lots of blood.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. I spoke little English, beyond a few foul swearwords. And Colvin spoke no Russian. But he knew potential when he saw it, and he offered me some very good vodka when I desperately needed some, so we sat down to try to have a chat. He was there talent scouting, looking for actual trained fighters. And he wandered into a bar the night that I fought a particularly crushing victory. He told me I had potential, which seemed laughable when I had just left a man stone-cold unconscious in the middle of the cage. In my mind, I was unstoppable. But he told me he would bring me back to London and teach me how to fight for real so that we could both make a whole lot more money.”

“And you just went with him? Just like that?”

He lifted his shoulder. “What did I have to fear?”

“I don’t know. Going off with a stranger seems rather dangerous.”

“Perhaps to you. But I had just demonstrated to the man that I could effectively disable someone with one well-placed hit. I was angry, I didn’t fear pain and I had nothing to lose. I was very close to being an animal. I saw no reason not to jump at the chance to escape from Russia, to escape from the hell that I was living in. A chance to fight for more than pocket change and a bed for the night? It was another choice. After years of feeling as though I had none. I was intrigued.”

“I can imagine.” Although it was very difficult.

Victoria’s life had always been very shiny. Very ornate. She lived with the weight of expectation, yes, and it had been far from perfect. Just as she had been. But it was nothing like what Dmitri described. Cage fighting in bars. There was something about the way he said it that was very bleak. Well, she imagined that it was a reality that could sound nothing but bleak. Especially by comparison to her own well-appointed upbringing.

“The first place we went to in London was the gym that you met me in.” The gym that had, to Victoria, seemed very low scale.

“It was a palace to me,” he said, as though he had just read her mind. “After the stench in those bars, after the mildew and dampness of the rooms in the cellars and above the places where we fought, where we would sleep with nothing more than a cot and a thin blanket, the accommodations that Colvin offered were nothing short of luxurious. I thought no matter whether or not he made us rich, whether or not he made me famous, I could do no worse than where I already was.”

“It must’ve been...” Victoria searched for the proper words and found she didn’t have any. She had no experience in such things, no experience of life under those circumstances. She couldn’t imagine viewing the hovel of the gym back in London as though it were a mansion. But Dmitri had. And the realization twisted something inside of her, made her stomach feel tight and strange. Made it feel as if she could scarcely breathe.

“In the beginning it was very frustrating. I expected to be fighting. I expected to be doing more of what I was already doing. But from the first moment I arrived in London, he kept me inactive. At least, to my view. He had me doing training exercises. Basic forms and martial arts. All this stuff that seemed very much like a waste of my time. I used to ask him if he was some kind of ninja master.” He laughed at his own memory. “I didn’t know very much English when I came to him, but I learned insults very quickly got the point across in any language.”

“He trained you in martial arts first?”

“I already had the brute strength down. Already had that cage fighting sensibility. But I lacked in form and technique. And what I lacked in most of all was control. When he introduced me to martial arts I learned that there were better ways. That anger makes an opponent weak. That a lack of form betrays your next move. That by watching those who had inferior technique to myself I could guess where they were going to go next. That’s the chess game.”

“You told me chess wasn’t enough,” she said, thinking back to the conversation they’d had in his office. Of course, thinking of that made her think of the moment when he touched her hair. More than touched her hair...caressed it. Ran his fingers deep through it.

She tried to ignore the rising tension in her body.

“It isn’t. That’s why Colvin reminded me to keep with me what I already had. My gut. Intuition. Training combined with raw talent made me an unstoppable fighter in the ring. And from there I got my sponsorships.”

“How does a boy from the streets of Moscow go from fighting in bars to owning one of the largest conglomerates of retail shops in the world?”

“From my sponsorships came modeling opportunities. Which, as you can guess, weren’t really my thing. But that gave me the opportunity to work very closely with the owner of an athletic wear company, Sport Limited. I gave him some suggestions on how to tweak some of the gear we were using. I ended up with my own line. He told me I had a good head on my shoulders, that I had a good mind for business. So, I took some of the money I had been earning in my fights and started taking classes. When Hugh was ready to sell Sport Limited, I had the money and the know-how to take it over. From there, I started buying out more places. Failing retail lines that I felt that I could revamp.”

“You ended up with London Diva,” she said, an empty statement of fact that served very little purpose. Just a reminder for her. Of why she was here. Of the real point of his story, of all of this.

“Yes. For a while I bought up everything I possibly could. And it turned out I had an eye for where to place certain stores, and for what the next high-demand items might be. I have done well. My world expanded after Colvin took me in, after he taught me and trained me. I began to think about more than just where my next meal might come from, or where I might sleep that night. It changed everything for me. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities.

“I want to do that for these children who might come into my gym. Into these gyms that will hopefully be established by the foundation. I want to provide not only training, but the kind of emotional support that I received. It changed who I was. I was fueled by anger when I lived in Russia. The path I was on was narrow. And it had one end. But when I went to England? That was when I saw all the different directions that path could turn. And it all started with a simple bit of training that I resented so much at first.”

“It’s an amazing story.” Victoria swallowed hard. “One I feel people cannot help but be moved by. You should tell it when you give your speech at the charity gala this week.”

“You want me to speak?”

“Well, it is your charity.”

“Didn’t you get a celebrity emcee?”

She lifted a shoulder. “I did, but I think you’ll find it will be much more powerful for you to share your personal story. Celebrities are only marginally impressed by other celebrities.”

He titled his head to the side, one dark brow lifting. “You may not realize this, but some people find me off-putting.”

She raised her brows and gave him her best surprised look. “Indeed. I guessed something like that.”

“I thought you might have. Though, most women are much more fond of me than you seem to be.”

Victoria’s cheeks heated “Well, most women are after something different than I am. Which is the source of many of your issues with the press. Seeing as you are a...let me see if I can call up some of the finer terms used to describe you... A manwhore. A home wrecker. A corruptor of innocents.”

“I’ve never corrupted an innocent in my life,” he said, his tone casual. “The rest of it is probably true.” He shifted in his seat, one long leg bent at the knee, his elbow resting on it, his chin resting on his hand. He looked too large to be contained in such a small space, too feral to be enclosed in something so luxurious. Reflecting on the time since she’d met him, Victoria decided he was a man who never seemed to fit into his surroundings. Not entirely at the gym, and not entirely here, either. There was something more to him, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Something intriguing, which made it dangerous. Because she should not be intrigued by him. Not now, not ever. He was simply a means to an end; he was nothing to get excited about.

She cleared her throat. “Either way, I think you will be well served to share your story. I found it inspiring.”

“Did you, Victoria? If so, I’m surprised.”

“Why is that?”

“You don’t seem the type to be moved by human interest pieces.”

Victoria wasn’t quite sure how to take that. “I’m not sure what you mean. I have been celebrated for my work in charity.”

“I fail to see what charity work has to do with the way things actually make you feel. You seem a woman more motivated by the bottom line than by altruism.”

She made an indignant sound. “I love altruism. I’m a huge fan of it. I also like people to be fed. I like them to have shelter. I don’t think I like the personality that you seem to be ascribing to me.” His words stung a bit. But it wasn’t as if she was doing a good job of being honest with him about how much her charity work meant to her. But it was personal, and she didn’t like to share personal.

In her experience, sharing personal pieces of herself only led to rejection. It was one thing to risk that for her father, or for the man she’d thought herself in love with. She saw no point risking that with Dmitri.

“Do not be offended. I am merely saying it as I see it. I am not a man given to sentimentality, either. Except in this case. Except where Colvin, and his legacy, are concerned. Because of what he did for me personally I want him remembered, what he did remembered. And more importantly, I want the essence of who he was to keep living.”

Well, now she felt slightly guilty for withholding honesty since his response was completely genuine. She cleared her throat. “Good. Channel all of that into a speech about how incredibly your life changed because of your experiences with martial arts and the opportunities the mind-set opened up to you.”

The scenery had started to change, the buildings growing older as they went deeper into the city. A track line for trolleys ran through the center of a busy street, lined with large hotels, fast-food restaurants and upscale boutiques, as though everything had sort of crashed into each other and settled like this.

They turned off the main drive, all of the architecture here reminiscent of things more commonly found in Europe than in the United States. But there was something else, too. An open friendliness to go with the stateliness that was unlike any place she had ever been before. Magnolia trees grew on the sidewalks, large white blossoms punctuating the dark green leaves, strands of colored beads trapped in the branches, like Christmas decorations that had been left behind.

The buildings were connected, tall and narrow, made from stone with ornate iron balconies that wrapped around the facades. And every few feet there were signs hanging down from the balconies, advertising rentals that came in two varieties: haunted and non.

“I forgot to ask about ghosts.” She was trying to lighten up the topic of conversation now. Trying to move it away from his personal take on her as a human being, which she was almost certain she didn’t like it all. “It appears there are ghostly options here. I hope very much I have not put us on the wrong side of those options.”

He waved a hand. “It’s New Orleans. As far as I know every place has its ghost, and if it doesn’t...the owners are lying.”

“I don’t want any ghosts coming in and spoiling our party.”

“How do you know they would spoil it? They may very well enhance it.”

“For a man who is so confident in his ability to manage the ghosts of the past, you seem open to the idea of them coming into the present.”

“Someone else’s ghosts are fine. It’s my own that I prefer to keep buried.”

That made her laugh. “I’ll drink to that. In fact, perhaps we should, later.”

“An excellent idea.”

The car came to a stop in front of a pink building that wrapped around a street corner. It was three floors high with hanging plants and vines growing over the balconies, doing their part to obscure the windows, and those who might be behind them, from the street below.

“This is it,” she said, “I recognize it from the pictures online.”

“An excellent venue—I have faith that those who came looking for something uniquely New Orleans will be satisfied.”

Victoria certainly hoped so. She had made sure to tell him that there would be no guarantees on her end of the deal. After all, there was no way she could force people to change their opinion of him. But the fact remained that she wanted to do the best job possible. It was important to her, because when she said she would do something, she felt she’d better bloody well do it. The fact was she had enough of letting people down. Yes, it had been only one major mistake, but it had been a major mistake. One her own father could scarcely forgive her for.

She had never felt clean after. She wasn’t sure she ever would. Wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to obliterate the stain from her record. But she had to try, she had to. That was why she was here now. That was why she was doing her damnedest to accomplish this for her father, and suddenly, she felt driven to accomplish this for Dmitri, as well.

He meant nothing to her, not personally. But his story was compelling, his goal was noble.

He spoke about how Colvin had changed his life and that made her want to be a part of this. It made her want to change the lives of the children his program would impact. Because if Dmitri Markin could come from a dirty bar in Moscow, Russia, to be one of the wealthiest men in all of Europe, then truly anything was possible. Even reconciliation with her father.

And she knew she wouldn’t be the only one who came away from this week’s gala feeling that way.

“I do hope you brought suitable gowns,” he said.

“Of course I brought suitable gowns. I have an entire closet full of nothing but suitable gowns. It is all but my profession to attend these kinds of events.”

“Yes, I do realize that. But you’re not attending as Victoria Calder. You are attending as Victoria Calder, lover to Dmitri Markin, and my lovers have standards.”

She snorted. “Maybe you have raised your standards since the last time you appeared with a lover.”

He laughed and opened the back door to the car, leaving her sitting in the air-conditioned space by herself. She unbuckled and scrambled out her side, stumbling as she placed her foot on the uneven pavement just outside the vehicle. “Good Lord.” She righted herself. “Just one second,” she said. “What exactly do you think is so funny? I’m very classy.”

“In my experience, Victoria, when someone has to tell you they are something, they are not it.”

She spread her hands. “I exude class.”

“Certainly you do.” He regarded her closely, looking up and down as though she was a car he was interested in buying and not a human being. “The problem is my lovers tend not to.”

“I thought we went over this. The press would expect you to be with a woman who had a little bit of fight in her. Maybe ultimately the press will be expecting for you to end up with a woman who doesn’t fit your normal repertoire.”

“Perhaps.” He rounded to her side of the car and knocked on the front passenger window. The driver rolled it down. Dmitri leaned in. “Have the bags sent up. I need to get Ms. Calder out of the car as I believe the Southern weather has thoroughly rumpled her rather delicate English temperament.”

Victoria harrumphed. “My delicate English temperament,” she muttered. “You’re from Russia. I would’ve expected you to melt by now.”

“I’m not that easy to get rid of.” He turned his broad back to her, the sun glinting off the black fabric of his suit jacket. She was roasting just looking at him. He began to walk in toward the hotel entrance and she followed, dodging the dips and dents in the sidewalk. She had read online about the sidewalks in New Orleans being notoriously bad, but she had still worn high heels for travel day, and she was starting to question the sanity of that. Fortunately, she had brought an entire suitcase filled with sensible shoes for when she would be walking outside the hotel. The kinds of shoes that did not ask a man to bend her over anything and do anything to her.

The memory of that interaction made her face burn.

Her face still burned even when they walked into the very ornate lobby. The air was cool inside, but it did nothing to make her feel any less hot and bothered. Though, she imagined that the heat Dmitri made her feel was completely independent of the heat outside. It had to be, because she’d been hot since before they left England.

Acknowledging it is the first step to dealing with it. So deal with it, Victoria.

She had to; she had no other choice. Because the only other option was giving in. And she had already vowed that she would never do that, never again.

* * *

Dmitri found himself fascinated by Victoria, and he found that fascination annoying. She was icy, she was prickly—in short, she was a female version of himself. Though, he knew how to be softer with a lover. Victoria seemed capable of being only one way with him. She did not seem capable of playing a part. It should bother him because it put their entire ruse in jeopardy. But it didn’t, or rather, it did, but only in the sense that it made him determined to figure out a way beneath the hard shell exterior she wore around her like armor.

They had gone their separate ways once they were inside the hotel, Victoria saying she needed a shower to get rid of the film of stickiness she had accumulated over her skin since landing in Louisiana. He had not seen reason to argue, though he had wanted to stay with her, not wanting to give her reprieve, not wanting to give her the chance to rebuild her control. And he could have stayed with her, seeing as they were sharing a multiroom suite in the interest of keeping up appearances, but he had not.

Because he felt as if every time they parted she had her walls back up even more firmly than before they left each other.

Because the fact was, he seemed to be breaching them to a degree. A triumph if ever there was one, though, only depending on how you looked at it.

He should not want to be intrigued by Victoria, not on a personal level. But the fact remained that he was. She was as beautiful as she had been the moment he had first seen her, and as bad an idea as she had been from that moment, too. His body did not seem to care. His body seemed to think that because she was wearing his ring, no matter the terms, she should also be in his bed.

His stomach tightened, blood flowing south, making him hard.

Yes, there was no denying that he was physically intrigued by Victoria.

Though right now she seemed intent on denying him her presence. He had asked her to meet him down in the lobby, where he was currently waiting for her, and she was most definitely late.

He looked around the room, at the marble walls and floors. Crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. He was used to this kind of ornate architecture. It was everywhere in London. Finely done architecture, intricate stonework. Everything that glittered most definitely gold. And yet, every time he was in a new place, he found himself admiring it all the same. As though it were the first time.

He found that no matter how much he wanted to be, he could not be jaded about this kind of beauty. The same way he could not be jaded about the type of beauty Victoria had.

He had been with many women, most especially since his rise to fame and fortune. And at this point, one beautiful woman should be same as the next. But they weren’t. They never were. Soft luxuries in his life he appreciated, every time, without fail.

Victoria all the more. Because she had a particular quality of luxury to her that was almost indefinable. She was the painting in the museum flanked by guards. Cordoned off by thick velvet ropes and signs that warned you it was okay to look but never to touch. She was the next level of luxury. And she was everything he craved, whether he should or not.

The fact remained that when there was art around that could be touched, could be purchased easily, it made no sense to covet the piece that was unattainable.

It made no sense, but it was human nature.

Which was why he desired Victoria, though he should not.

The plane ride over had not even been helped by the fact that she had spent most of it hiding in the bedroom. He had still been intensely aware of her presence. As he had been intensely aware of her in the car. That awareness had caused him to lower his guard. Had caused him to spill forth the kind of honesty he rarely allowed.

His past was not impossible to discover. Even so, he often avoided speaking about it. There were no happy memories back in the mists of time. Nothing he liked to revisit.

With her, the story had seemed easy to tell. He had wanted to tell her, and he could not quite understand why. To make her understand? To make her see the gravity of it all? Why he needed things to work out as he did. Yes, that made sense, and he could not be faulted for that. Because this charity felt essential to him, and he did not want her to view it as having any less importance.

He felt her come into the foyer before he saw her, every muscle in his body tensing, his nerves on high alert. And then he saw a fine-boned, pale hand resting on the banister, followed by a slender ankle on the stairs, then her foot in a pair of elegant, flat shoes pressing down on the rich burgundy carpet of the bottom step.

And then finally the rest of her was in sight. Her golden hair cascading around her shoulders, slender curves outlined to perfection by a pair of ankle-length pants that conformed to her curves and a flowing top in a slate gray.

The outfit was demure in every sense of the word, and yet, perhaps for that specific reason it was unspeakably arousing. It revealed not a flash more skin than was strictly necessary, and that false sense of the demure managed to capture his imagination in ways that something more revealing never could.

That made him wonder if perhaps he was a bit more jaded than he had ever given himself credit for. If the endless array of models and flashier women had finally become monotonous. If his array of choice had spoiled him.

Though, until meeting Victoria, he had not been aware of them seeming monotonous. No, in fact he had been very happy with his sex life. And with his choice of sexual partners. It was only since meeting Victoria that he experienced a different desire. As though discovering delicacies he had not known existed before. Delicacies his body had now decided it craved beyond all else.

“So,” she said, the pristine crystal tone back firmly in place, as formal as their surroundings. “Are you going to take me for that drink you promised?”

“I had thought we might take a few moments together. If for no other reason than to make sure we are on the same page when it comes to the gala.”

“That seems like a good idea.”

“And yet, you seem annoyed with me.”

She waved her hand, his ring glittering on her fourth finger, catching the light from the chandelier and putting the crystals above their heads to shame. “Not any more than usual. I should have liked to recede into my bed and enjoy a little bit of room service, but I will not be seriously wounded by going out, either.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. That you would not be seriously wounded, that is.” She had a look on her face that he had come to recognize as being very practiced. It was not a natural facial expression—that was for certain. It was one that was pulled tight, schooled into a smoothness that simply didn’t ring true. He had seen it break so rarely, the only time in recent memory the moment in his office when he had sifted his fingers through her hair, when he had treated her like a lover and not a business partner.

Well, not so much like a lover as he might’ve liked.

“Shall we go?”

“Yes, we shall. You’ll be pleased to know that I have arranged for us to dine privately on the balcony here in the hotel.”

“Dining even? A whole meal? I was expecting just one drink.”

“That’s the thing with me, Ms. Calder, I don’t do anything by halves.”

And that right there caused a blush of color to blossom in her cheeks. That subtle innuendo caused a disturbance in her otherwise-unruffled appearance.

She felt it, too. This thing between them. It made his blood run hotter. And it made him want to push.

“Is that a promise, Mr. Markin?” Her tone was as cold as ever, but he knew the truth now. It was written over her pale skin, a rose-colored letter signifying her body’s interest.

“Oh, yes. It is a promise. For you most especially. Should you ever want to test me, I will be more than happy to rise to the occasion.”

He could see that she knew he was baiting her, knew that he was taking the conversation away from neutral territory, that he was moving things into the realm of the sexual, which he had purposed upon first meeting her not to do.

He had never been a capricious man; his lifestyle had never lent itself to that. At least not the lifestyle he had found himself in when he’d been cast onto the streets.

From that moment on, planning had been of the utmost importance, finding a course and staying it.

But right now he was contemplating going off-plan altogether. Considering what it might be like if he were to ignore the chess game and surrender to what felt inevitable. He prized his control above all else—men who came from the depths that he had come from could afford to do nothing else. Because he knew what it was like when he let his emotions wreak havoc in his life. And when you came from a place where you let your anger control you, you held no control. There was nothing but blood, nothing but violence. And after that, nothing but an endless well of anger, a black pit that had no bottom that he had seemed to fall through endlessly, waiting for a crushing end to the fall that had simply never happened.

It had been eternal darkness. It had been hell.

Until Colvin had lifted him out of it and shown him a better way. Sure, it was a painful road. One paved with blood and broken bones, but it was no more than he’d deserved. He couldn’t imagine a more fitting exit from his personal hell.

Yes, there were many reasons he had purposed to live a life that was led by something other than emotion. Reasons he had buried his old self, and risen again new, clean, different. A baptism by blood and pain, in the truest sense. He’d had to be born again, to accept what he’d become so he could move on, and so he had been. He had not lied when he’d told Victoria that.

She had forced them together and he resented that. It made it all the more important that he not indulge his desire for her because he’d been manipulated into this and he would not let her lead him around by his male anatomy in addition to everything else.

But, with her so near, golden hair so soft, so tempting and close enough to touch again, to wrap around his finger, he wanted to indulge.

You want to go back to that again? To having no choice? To having your hand forced?

His stomach tightened hard as memory closed in around him.

Overwhelming fear, blinding rage, a gunshot and a scream in the air, leaving his entire life shattered, never to be mended again.

No, he could not pursue this.

Control was everything, and the fact that he had forgotten that even for a moment, the fact that he had been on the verge of justifying giving in to temptation meant that he could not.

“It’s just upstairs, Victoria. Shall we go?” he repeated, reminding himself of why they were here, what they were doing.

She treated him to one of her tightly controlled smiles. If anything, he should use Victoria as an example of how he should behave. He should admire the fact that she didn’t break, rather than being tempted to shatter her.

“An excellent idea, Mr. Markin. I eagerly look forward to our dinner.”

He extended his arm, and she curled her own around it. He tried to ignore the flash of heat that rioted through him.

But this was not settled. Nothing was inevitable. Not even this.

He didn’t have to give in.

“As do I.”