Keeping Thyme (Thyme Trilogy) (11 page)

The busboy holds his hands behind his back and offers a slight bow. “Please come.” He waves his white-gloved hand towards the red velvet couches. “I’m Aleksandr, the only full-time professional vodka sommelier in all of Russia. Mr Tench you are a very respected client in our hotel. I’d love for you to try our selection of famous caviars and I will match our premium vodkas with each.”

“Have you ever had Beluga caviar, Miranda?” Tench asks with an excited pitch.

I smile shyly and shake my head. Surprisingly, in all of my high-class living, I haven’t yet tried Russian caviar.

“Ooooh, you’re in for a real treat, gorgeous.” Tench pulls me into him with a squeeze.

He seems to be enjoying our first holiday together. I decide to allow myself to just enjoy tonight and get straight onto work tomorrow morning when I meet up with Mei-Mei, and hopefully my brother and Liz. What if Mei-Mei is a double agent and plans to have us assassinated? Why am I even drawing out scenarios like that? I’m hoping that paranoia is just an annoying side effect of working undercover for the government, surrounded by murdering egotistical misogynists.

“This suite is named after the famous tenor after he toured Russia. He stayed here throughout the tour.” The gloating, as only Tench does best, has me smirking in amusement. “What are you grinning at, gorgeous?” He pulls me to him again and claims total ownership over me with his kiss.

This guy is not fooling around. He would surely kill me if he ever found out the truth about me. I hear the guys around us shuffle uncomfortably at our public display of affection.

“Well, I can’t wait to have Beluga.” Toni claps his hands together loudly.

I open my eyes to find Tench staring into me.

“I’m so happy to be here with you,” I whisper into his ear, and kiss my way back to his lips.

He grips onto me and pulls me to him. I love the way he feels so much that I hate it. He softly grinds against me.
Yep, definitely hate it
. I throw myself back into his mouth and let him just consume me, despite the audience around us. I smile as he softly bites on my lip. I feel his eyes on me again so my smile breaks into a grin and I chuckle. My eyes open to his coffee-coloured panty dropper’s up close.
Definitely hate it
, I convince myself. Finally we pull out of our embrace and make our way over to the two-seater couch left spare, especially for us. I take my hat off and another man dressed in a structured coat with gold trim approaches me from the doorway to the right of the room.

“Would you like me to hang your coat, Miss?” The man politely says.

We have our own butler here. Of course we do. Why wouldn’t we? I remove my hat and quickly look towards Tench.

“Can I take this to the bedroom please? I can barely bring myself to leave it out of my sight for even a moment. Plus, it will give me a quick moment to freshen up after our long flight over here.” I bat my lashes.

“Of course, gorgeous.” Tench almost waves me away.

He was a little too eager to get rid of me then. Is there more to his eagerness? Damn, I need to get to some bugs ASAP. Where are our bags already?

“When will our luggage be arriving?” I ask the butler.

“Please see to that immediately,” Tench adds from behind me. “I’d expect it to be here by now.”

The butler scurries back through the door he entered the room from and I wait patiently beside the foyer door for the arrival of our luggage. I look at the various portraits of Pavarotti around the suite as I listen to Tench and the others talk to one another in Russian. I need to find my old roommate, Kira, immediately if I’m going to stand a chance at understanding what they’re all saying to one another.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I follow the
trolley full of designer luggage through a series of grand sitting rooms to the bedroom. I can’t act too eager, so I stroll behind the attendants. No one I meet through Tench, can be trusted, Mei-Mei included. I really need to play this as casually as possible. I can’t allow any of them to suspect a thing.

I walk into the bedroom and spot a closet on the far side of the room. I make a beeline for it and hang my coat up delicately. Reaching for the note within the pocket, I slide it down the front of my bra in one fluid movement.
I glance behind me and check the busboy, who is still looking the other way. No one even noticed me. I grab my handbag and make my way into the bathroom and immediately lock the door behind me. I make a quick scan around the room, which I’m hoping to pass off as excitedly checking a room out, and quickly reach for the note within my bra the moment I know I’m alone. I open it up and read the address.

The House Of Books, Dom Knigi

The Bronze Horseman
, A. Pushkin

I study the words for a moment. The Bronze Horseman was a famous poem written by Alexander Pushkin. I’m gathering The House Of Books is a bookstore. I lay the note in the sparkling water of the toilet bowl and watch as the words disintegrate in front of me. Then I flush the toilet and watch it disappear.

By the time I’m out of the bathroom, the
members of staff have disappeared. Once again, I check around the room for anyone left behind. When I’ve cleared the room, I get my toiletries bag and race around, placing the odd black circle bug in unassuming points within the room. I need to place them where hotel staff won’t find them. I slide a draw out in the dresser and stick a bug underneath the draw and slide the draw back in, and put another one under the base of a lamp.

I
dart through to the bathroom, strip off and jump into the shower, which instantly wakes me up from my jetlag. I pull on a body-hugging long-sleeved red dress. Smoothing over where it hugs the back of my ass perfectly, I let my hair drop past my shoulders. I slip into knee-high boots and touch up my barely-there make-up.

As I move back towards the lounge room, I notice the noise level has risen since I left
, and the spicy scent of cigars hangs in the air. Another four men have joined the party. Out of the new arrivals, one man in particular looks familiar. Dmitri Kozar, the kingpin. Jackpot! He looks every inch the stereotypical European gangster in his full black outfit, complete with a black leather jacket and gold chain. He’s the first to notice me, and clears his throat. The chatter amongst them ceases immediately and they all turn their attention to me. I smile and try to look as shy as possible as I make my way to Tench. His smile is genuine happiness. Dmitri, on the other hand, looks annoyed by my presence.

“Come here
, gorgeous. Come meet my sem’ya, my famil.” Tench says, cigar smoke smoothly escaping out from his lips as he speaks.

I slide in next to him and run
my hand along his leg as I sit. A shiver of revulsion rolls across me as I do it. I try and shake it but I see Dima staring at me through narrowed eyes.
Did he just see me squirm with Tench then?
I watch all eyes track down to my thigh as my dress slips back and exposes the bare skin between my boot and dress.
Humph
… men. I turn my attention to Tench and kiss him on the cheek to boost his ego and keep him right where I need him.

“This is my favourite cousin
, Dima; he has taught me everything I know.” He waves towards my kingpin.

“Ah, young Joe. You made yourself.” Dima’s sentence is broken with a gravely Russian accent
. “… And you must be the girl who has stolen this poor boy’s heart.” He offers me no hand. He arrogantly leans back into the armchair instead and takes a long draw of his cigar. His eyes slither over me and make the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. I think Tench has eyes that are the doorway to his evil, but Dima’s are like a magnifying glass. He doesn’t trust me one bit. He probably
shouldn’t
ever
trust me.

I smile
, sickly sweet, and turn my attention back to Tench as he speaks. “And this is Dima’s brother, Misha.” A younger and more handsome version of Tench holds his hand out for me to shake.

“Pleased to meet you finally
, Miranda. We were thinking you were a … how do you say? … Make-up?”

“Make
-believe?” I reply with a chuckle, “Nope. I’m real.” I look to Tench and grin.

“I can see that
,” Misha cheekily replies before he catches Tench’s glare. “What, cousin?” He playfully shrugs his shoulders.

“That’s Boris over by the door,” Tench points to a towering Russian who looks like he boxed in every
Rocky
movie, “and this is my other cousin, Luka.”

I meet his eyes first. They’re like swimming pools, as blue as a blue wren. He smirks and I try not to become mesmerised by his lips. The dimples that frame his smile make me want to do things to him, bad things, and let him do bad things to me. His hair is a tuft of thick black waves that I want to
run my fingers though, and grip onto. I feel my nipples react. Thank goodness I’m wearing a bra for once. He leans over the coffee table in front of me and stretches his hand out. Once he takes it, he gently kisses my knuckles. Oh
not
smooth, buddy. I snort obnoxiously under my breath, enough for Tench to hear it. He chuckles and squeezes me. I roll my eyes jovially at his cousin’s miserable failure in trying to woo me. It’s a shame, really.

“Or Casanova
, as we like to call him,” Dima adds and the whole room erupts with laughter at Luka’s expense.

I can tell that Luka and Misha are trouble together
; it’s no wonder Tench is angry with them. To make matters worse, they’re both handsome in ways that make Aussie men look below average. I’ve met their kind of trouble before. Add a vagina and they become instant dickheads. I need to find out
everything
, but I need to stay the hell away from these two. Even the cheapest temptations can break you when you’re being seduced by Russian vodka and expensive caviar.

I relish every
variant of caviar served to me, and every kind of vodka they provide to chase it down with. Wow, these Russians can drink. The men have been surprising respectful and have spoken in their broken English for most of the time, but I can tell as soon as they start talking business. They all break out in their mother tongue before quickly reverting back to English, paying me the odd glance to see if I’m listening. It wouldn’t matter if I am right now, I don’t understand a single word they’re saying. This is a slight oversight of the operation. I only know one word in Russian, and that’s thank you. Right now, that isn’t going to help me at all. I feel Tench give me a light squeeze as the conversation becomes less spoken in English than it is in Russian.

“I might go and catch up on some sleep and shake this jetlag
,” I speak softly to Tench. “Plus, I really want to get up early tomorrow and go to a book store to get a copy of Pushkin’s
Bronze Horseman
. I am in his hometown, right?” I smile.

Tench smooths my hair back and palms the side of my face
. “I have a lot of work to do tomorrow, gorgeous, so we’ll have to leave it for another day.”

I nod slowly, purposely showing my disappointment.

“Or … you could take one of the boys with you … Luka.” He blasts out Luka’s name.

Everyone
else’s conversations stop, and Tench speaks to Luka in Russian. I feel eyes on me before they all laugh at Tench when he finishes his sentence. Whatever he said, it was definitely at my expense.

I lean in to Tench
. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to put anyone out. I can just wait around the hotel until you’re done and we can go together.”

My tactic pays off
. “Nonsense. I won’t have you wasting this trip waiting for me the whole time. Luka will come by the hotel tomorrow morning and take you to a bookstore just around the corner from here called Dom Knigi. It’s the grandest bookstore in all St Petersburg.”

Cha-ching
. I smile at Tench, hiding the true reason for my delight.

“That sounds wonderful
, but I wish you were coming with me.” I pout.

“Maybe the next day I’ll take you on a tour of this city. If everything goes to plan here, we should be back in Sydney in a week
’s time.”

“I’m so glad I came. Goodnight.” I kiss Tench before I get up
. “Goodnight, gentlemen. Please go easy on my man tonight. I may need him later on.” I wink at Tench.

He grins and slaps me on the ass as I walk away. My performance
, although sickening to me, seems to work its charm on my targets. Except Dima; I have a feeling he’s going to be a tough egg to crack.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The weather this
time of the year gets close to zero degrees Celsius, which is about fourteen degrees past freezing for me. Like most Aussies, I think anything below ten is freezing, so I rug up as much as possible before I head out into the chilly autumn of Russia. I leave my hat on but don’t wear my coat until I’m outside the hotel—apparently that’s custom here. Thank goodness the entire hotel is heated to a toasty level. Today I wear a white cashmere jumper tucked into a white pair of Ralph Lauren jeans with tall brown knee-high boots and a matching brown belt. I bring my hair into a smooth low pony so that I can wear my Cossack hat for the whole day. I like that the height of my Cossack makes me look even taller than I already am. With the added heels, I look almost at height with Tench as we stride through the foyer of the hotel.