Kholodov's Last Mistress (13 page)

‘We need a bath,’ Sergei announced, and Hannah gave him an impish smile.

‘I did notice that tub was big enough for two.’

‘And,’ Sergei agreed solemnly, ‘we don’t want to waste any water.’

The tub was indeed big enough for two, and plenty of hot water and bubbles besides. Sergei didn’t think he’d ever experienced anything as sweetly erotic as Hannah nestled against him, her hair and body wet and gleaming, as she took a flannel and began to slowly soap his chest.

‘How,’ she asked slowly, ‘did you go from orphan to millionaire? You must be incredibly smart.’

He gave a little laugh. ‘Lucky, more like.’ He’d been in the right place at the right time more than once.

She glanced up at him, her eyes dark and serious. ‘Luck only takes you so far. You have to have talent and determination too. And sometimes that doesn’t even see you through.’ He knew she was thinking of her little shop, but then her expression cleared and she gave him a playful smile. ‘I don’t even know what this Kholodov Enterprises of yours does.’

‘Nothing illegal, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ She was driving him slightly crazy with the slow, mesmerising way she was drawing lazy circles on his body, popping any bubbles with a gentle, exploratory finger.

‘I wasn’t thinking that!’ she protested, and Sergei hauled her up so her legs were wrapped around his waist, her body pressed intimately against his.

‘Now this,’ he said with a wicked little smile, ‘is getting interesting.’

He shifted, deliberately, and Hannah gasped aloud.
‘Oh—’

Sergei slipped his hands around her bottom and drew her even closer. ‘Now what were you saying?’ he asked, eyebrows innocently arched.

‘Something—about—business—’ Hannah managed, her expression glazing, lips parting, and as Sergei finally sank inside her both of them stopped speaking altogether.

Later, dressed only in Sergei’s dressing gown with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows and her hair piled on top of her head, Hannah made them both eggs and toast.

‘It’s not much, I know, but I’m afraid I’m not much of a cook.’

‘Good thing I like eggs.’

They ate in front of the wood stove, balancing their plates on their laps, and Sergei didn’t think he’d ever seen anything as unbearably sweet as Hannah in his dressing gown, a forkful of egg held aloft.

‘So what does Kholodov Enterprises
do
, exactly?’

More questions. He didn’t mind them as much now, but they still made him feel uncomfortable. Tense. There were still things he hadn’t told Hannah, terrible things, shocking things. Things he was afraid would horrify her, and make her change her mind. ‘A bit of everything. Mainly property and technology, but I’m willing to take on whatever looks profitable.’

She gazed at him seriously. ‘And what do you like most about it?’

Sergei considered the question. ‘The feeling of accomplishment, I suppose,’ he said, ‘and stability.’

‘And do you ever keep in touch with anyone from the …’ She stopped slowly, realisation dawning. ‘Grigori.’

‘Yes.’

‘And Ivan too, probably.’ Sergei nodded. Hannah didn’t speak for a moment, still thinking. ‘And Varya,’ she finally said, softly, and Sergei just shrugged.

Hannah leaned forward, touching his cheek, her fingers as light as a whisper. ‘Was there anyone you didn’t try to save?’ she asked, and he let out a laugh that sounded far too harsh in the fire-lit intimacy of the room.

‘Plenty of people. And plenty of people don’t even want to be saved.’

She nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I’ve come to realise you can’t make someone want something, can you?’

Sergei was kept from answering by the buzz of his mobile phone. He hesitated, then, with a quick, apologetic glance at Hannah, reached for it. ‘It could be important,’ he murmured, and felt his heart freeze when he saw who the call was from. The private investigator he’d hired.

‘Yes?’

‘Mr Kholodov? I have news.’

Sergei angled his body slightly away from Hannah. ‘And?’ he asked, his voice terse.

‘I’ve found her, Mr Kholodov. I’ve found Alyona.’

S
ERGEI
’S fingers clenched around the phone. He was conscious of his own hard-thudding heart, of Hannah hearing every word, and of the gnawing fear inside him that made him wonder if he even wanted to hear any more.

‘Tell me,’ he finally said, his voice low, and then listened as the investigator recited his newly found facts.

‘She goes by the name of Allison Whitelaw. She lives in San Francisco. She’s twenty-six years old—’

‘I know
that—
’

‘Works as a nursery school teacher. Unmarried. I have her phone number and email address.’

Sergei swallowed. He felt dizzy, his mouth so dry he had to force the words out. ‘Give them to me, please.’

‘Would you like me to make contact first?’ the investigator asked, his tone carefully tactful. ‘Sudden contact can be—distressing—for some. Sometimes having an intermediary helps.’

‘I see.’ Sergei could feel Hannah’s curiosity like a palpable thing. He turned away a little more. ‘Yes, perhaps you should—initiate contact first. I’ll send you the draft of an email today.’

‘Very good.’

‘I’d like you to—to contact her as soon as possible.’

‘Understood.’

Sergei disconnected the call and then turned back to Hannah. She bent to clear their plates, her hair falling from its clip, a tendril resting against her cheek. ‘That was delicious, if I do say so myself,’ she murmured, taking the plates to the little kitchen, and with a pang of something between regret and relief Sergei realised she wasn’t going to ask any questions.

He watched her for a moment, rinsing and stacking the plates in the sink, positively swimming in his dressing gown, and he realised with a sudden fierceness how good she looked standing there, in his home, the only home he’d ever felt he’d had. And not just good, but
right,
right in a bone-deep way that made him blurt, ‘That call—it was from a private investigator. He’s been looking for Alyona.’

She turned slowly. ‘And did he find her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Sergei—’

‘He’s been looking, on and off, for over a year,’ Sergei said quietly. ‘Since I met you.’ Hannah shook her head, not understanding, and he continued, ‘I’d never tried to look for her before because I didn’t want to think about it. About her. I wanted to forget, and I was also afraid of what I might find if I did look for her. Maybe she’d forgotten me.’ Hannah said nothing, although he saw the sorrow reflected in the storm of her eyes. ‘Then I met you, and you amazed me with your innocence and optimism, even if I seemed like I scorned it.’ He gave her a small smile. ‘And I decided to look. And then I—What is the expression? I chickened out and stopped. And then started again. And now she’s been found, living in California.’ He shook his head slowly, still trying to process the news.

‘After so many years,’ Hannah said softly. ‘It must be hard to imagine.’

‘It is.’

‘Are you going to contact her?’

‘Yes. We’ll see.’ How would Alyona react? Would she even remember him? Hannah crossed to him suddenly, put her arms around him and drew him into a fierce hug.

‘Oh, Sergei,’ she said, ‘how exciting it is.’

And as he put his arms around her and drew her close, he believed her.

They had three days. Three days of lazing and lounging around, of long, meandering walks and a few swims and lots of making love. They were a wonderful three days, and even though Hannah could tell Sergei was anxious about contacting Alyona, he didn’t let it detract from their time together, and that both humbled and gratified her.

He was, she realised, quite an incredible man, and she was completely in love with him. It had been easy after all. Amazingly easy, so it was hard to believe that only a few days ago she’d been sitting morosely in a Moscow café wondering if any of it would work.

It was working wonderfully now, and it did for those three days. Then everything began to come crashing down.

It started with a phone call. Sergei’s mobile phone buzzed while they were out on a walk through the estate, following twisting paths through a cluster of pines, the air cool and damp. He reached for it, and Hannah tensed as she saw his face cloud, his brows snap together.

‘What has happened?’

That was all she heard, for the rest of the conversation was conducted in hurried Russian. Yet Hannah understood the urgent, upset tone, and she knew with a sinking certainty that their idyll was over.

Several minutes later Sergei slid his phone back into his pocket. ‘We have to return to Moscow.’

‘What’s happened?’

Sergei hesitated, his mouth hardening. He almost looked angry, and with a tremor of fear Hannah wondered if their relationship could survive reality. Maybe anyone could fall in love in the Russian countryside, with champagne and truffles and bubble baths for two.

‘Sergei?’ she prompted quietly, and his glance slid away from her.

‘It’s Varya,’ he said, and that was all.

They packed mostly in silence, the little house seeming almost reproachful at their sudden departure. Even the sky had darkened with rain clouds, and as Sergei threw their cases in the back of his car the first drops began to fall.

‘What’s happened with—with Varya?’ Hannah finally ventured to ask as they drove away from the house, the trees lining the avenue bowed down under the wind and rain. Even though she knew nothing had happened between Sergei and Varya—at least she didn’t
think
anything had happened—just saying the woman’s name reminded her of that painful, humiliating episode, the way Sergei had snugged his arm around Varya’s waist and told Hannah to leave, and now her doubts and uncertainties came creeping back.

‘She’s been hurt,’ Sergei said shortly. ‘Again.’

‘Again?’

His hands tensed and flexed on the steering wheel, his expression like granite. ‘Varya is always getting into trouble. I’ve—I’ve tried to help her, but she resists.’ He lowered his head, his expression unbearably grim. ‘Like you said, you can’t make someone want something.’

They drove mostly in silence back to Moscow. The rain had stopped, the sky clearing to a fragile, wispy blue as Sergei pulled into the car park of one of Moscow’s best hospitals.

Clearly the staff was aware of Sergei’s wealth and power, for they fairly snapped to attention as he stalked through the hospital entrance. Grigori was waiting outside Varya’s room,
his expression so fatigued and desperate that Hannah’s heart immediately ached for him.

He spoke quickly in Russian to Sergei, and she saw Sergei grasp Grigori’s wrist and clap him on the shoulder in an expression of comfort and sympathy.

Hannah waited, anxious, unneeded, as Sergei spoke to doctors and nurses, and then went alone into Varya’s room. It was absolutely absurd to feel jealous, Hannah told herself. She knew that. And she didn’t feel jealous, not exactly, just … insecure. Whatever was between her and Sergei was still too new to be tested like this. She was afraid it might not survive.

Grigori took a seat next to her in the waiting room. Although still clearly worried, he gave her a shy smile. ‘There is a saying in Russian—”Love is like a mouse falling into a box. There is no way out.”’

Hannah managed a smile back. ‘That’s rather a grim saying.’

‘But true, yes?’

‘Yes,’ she conceded with a sigh, and when Grigori nodded in vigorous yet rather resigned agreement, the penny finally dropped. ‘Varya,’ she said slowly. ‘You love her?’

Grigori spread his hands. ‘Since we were children. We stayed together in the orphanage, two gawky dreamers. Sergei always protected us.’

A lump rose in Hannah’s throat. ‘Did he?’ she whispered. She could believe that, picture it even.

‘And then also when we left the orphanage—Sergei is a year older than us. He left first, and then he came and fetched us when Varya and I turned sixteen.’ He shook his head. ‘It is a fearsome thing—to be out on the street with nothing but the clothes on your back, but that’s how it was in those days. Sergei made sure we had food, a place to stay, but Varya …’ He sighed. ‘She caught the attention of a boy. A man, really,
he was maybe twenty. The head of a gang.’ He shook his head. ‘It was not good for her.’

‘No, I imagine not,’ Hannah said quietly, although in truth she could hardly imagine any of it.

‘Sergei tried to protect her, but she wouldn’t have it. She has always been proud, Varya. Proud and ashamed all at the same time. And then when Sergei went—’ He stopped, shaking his head. ‘But I talk too much. Sergei would not like me to say these things.’ He gave her a small, hesitant smile. ‘You love him.’

Hannah blushed but nodded. ‘Yes.’

Grigori nodded back, slowly, considering. ‘It is good for him. No one has loved him before. Not like that, the love of a woman.’ He smiled, adding, ‘There is another saying in Russia. “You cannot live without the sun, and you cannot live without your beloved.”’ The door to the waiting room opened and Grigori stood. ‘I pray it goes well with you,’ he said quietly, and turned to Sergei.

Sergei looked unbearably tired and sad, his face haggard and unshaven. ‘She wants to see you, Grigori,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you can make her see sense.’

He turned to Hannah, his expression turning terribly bland, and Hannah felt her heart clench. He was closing himself off. Again. She could see it, sense it, and she didn’t know what to do.

‘Sergei—’

‘It’s late. Let’s go home.’

Home.
That was encouraging, at least. Wordlessly Hannah followed him out of the hospital.

They didn’t speak all the way back to the penthouse.

Sergei unlocked the door, and before he’d even flicked on the lights he turned to Hannah, pulling her roughly into his arms and kissing her with a kind of sorrowful desperation that made her heart ache even as desire flooded through her
and she kissed him back with every ounce of her love and every fibre of her being.

Then suddenly Sergei thrust her away and stalked to the other side of the room, his back to her, facing the night. Hannah leaned against the door, her legs watery, her body aching. ‘Sergei, what’s going on?’ she asked in as steady a voice as she could manage.

‘It’s always the same,’ he said in a low voice. He drove his fingers through his hair and then wearily dropped them to his sides. ‘Nothing ever changes.’

‘I can understand,’ Hannah said, ‘why you feel that way right now—’

‘Can you?’ Sergei cut her off harshly. ‘You have no idea.’ He drew in a shuddering breath, his back still to her. ‘No idea how it feels, like you can never escape your past, the person you were. Like a ghost it haunts you.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘I am my own ghost. And Varya feels the same. It never lets you go, never leaves you alone.’ He shook his head, his body blazing tension. ‘And you have no idea what we’ve seen, what we’ve
done—
you’ve been in your cosy little world and you just have no—damned—
clue
!’ His voice rang out, loud with anger, ragged with pain.

Hannah took a deep breath, let it out slowly. ‘You’re right,’ she said quietly, ‘I don’t.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a moment. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I shouldn’t have expected you to understand.’

You weren’t,
Hannah wanted to say.
You were expecting me not to understand, and I want to. Don’t close me off, Sergei, please.

But she didn’t get a chance to say any of it, because Sergei’s mobile phone buzzed and he reached for it with a resigned air.

Hannah tensed, a sudden, awful premonition rippling through her that this phone call was going to change everything.
Change
them.
Her mouth dried, and she tried to speak. ‘Sergei, don’t—’

‘Hello?’ Hannah watched, holding her breath, as Sergei listened intently, tension tautening his body even further.

‘Thank you,’ he said after a minute or two of silence from his end, his voice icily polite. ‘Thank you very much.’ He disconnected the call, his back still to Hannah.

‘What—’

‘Excuse me,’ he said softly, so softly, and somehow that made it worse. Death came with a whisper.

For as Sergei left the room, closing the bedroom door behind him with a final little click, Hannah had a terrible feeling that something monumental had just happened, in the space of a few seconds. Something terrible.