Nikolai 2 (Her Russian Protector #6) (38 page)

"A few days after the brawl, the word got out that Tatiana had a lover. Someone at the party must have seen something. Artyom, Ten, Vanya—they would never have breathed a word of it. It had to have been a member of the catering staff or a guest. Maksim and Mikhail—Tatiana's father—were furious. I had hoped to use her indiscretion as a way to quietly end the arrangement—but they wanted blood."

"Her own father wanted her dead?"

"She had brought shame to their family. She had embarrassed him. She put him in an impossible position with Maksim." Nikolai scratched the top of his head. "I knew exactly how it would end.
Mokroye delo
." He grimaced. "A total fucking wet job."

Vivian shuddered next to him. She wouldn't have to think hard to fill in those blanks.

"I grabbed her in the middle of the night, threw together one suitcase and put her in a stolen car. I took her to one of Kostya's bolt-holes to hide out while I figured out what the hell to do with her—and that's when she told me that she was pregnant."

Vivian gasped. "She was pregnant? With Eric's baby?"

"Yes." Now familiar with the overwhelming need to protect his own baby, Nikolai better understood Tatiana's desperate desire to save hers. "I had to do something. Kostya made the arrangements while I sniffed around to make sure no one had seen her with Eric. We got lucky. Neither Maksim nor her father knew she had been fucking around with a Mexican cop." He blew out a strangled breath. "They would have gone ballistic if they had connected the dots back to your father." Then, with a harsh laugh, he added, "Of course, I went right ahead and drew a straight line to Romero eight years later."

Vivian seemed to mull over his statement. "Do you regret it?"

"What? Helping Tatiana disappear?"

"No. Drawing that straight line. Marrying me."

His gaze snapped to her face. "Never. I've said it before, and I'll say it again and again and again. You are the best thing that's ever happened to me." He cupped her pregnant belly. "The family we're building is the greatest achievement in my life. You and this baby are my reason for living."

Satisfied with his response, Vivian nestled into his embrace. "How did you help Tatiana disappear?"

Nikolai didn't want to burden her with too many of the gruesome details, but he had promised to tell her the truth about everything. "Kostya bruised her up, wrecked a car and stuck her in it. He covered her in blood and glass. We made sure Ten was with me when Kostya called to tell me that he had been chasing her, and it had gone wrong. We needed a witness. Ten and I found the scene Kostya had staged."

"And then?"

"Ten was tasked with getting rid of the car. Kostya wrapped Tatiana sedated body in a tarp and put her in the back of his SUV. I went with him to his workshop where the rest of it was done."

"What do you mean?"

"Kostya got ahold of a fresh male body. He figured that a Latino guy would be the best cover, especially if someone had gotten a glimpse of Eric. We needed to make sure the bosses over in the old country had no reason to come over here to sniff around and ask questions. Kostya ruined the dead man's face to make sure that no one would be able to tell if it was Eric or not."

"Where did he get a body?"

"
Sladkaya.
" He kissed her forehead. "We don't ask questions like that of Kostya."

"Never?"

He shook his head. "There are things that even I don't want to know."

"So what happened next?"

"We took photographs—and fingers."

Vivian sucked in a horrified breath. "You cut off her finger!"

Nikolai cringed. "It was distasteful in the extreme, but it had to be done. Kostya made sure the procedure was as painless as possible and as safe for the baby as he could make it. He took the pinkie off her right hand. It was sent back to Russia with the man's finger. Maksim and Mikhail accepted the proof—and that was that."

"But Ten must have seen Eric later. And Arty and Ivan," she added. "What did they think?"

"They didn't need to think anything. Tatiana was dead. The big bosses were happy. That's all that mattered. If they did think anything, it was that Kostya had accidentally clipped the wrong man. But it was done. Finished. There was no point in talking about it or asking questions."

"Why did you send her to Hong Kong?"

"We didn't. Not at first. She went to Sydney to lay low until the baby was born." He didn't want to tell her this part of the story, but there was no stopping now. "She lost the baby around twenty weeks. There was some sort of birth defect. Bad chromosomes." He swallowed hard at the fear of something so terrible happening to his own child. "It was a girl."

"Does Eric know?"

"No."

"Why not?" Anger filled her voice. "He was that baby's father. He has a right to know!"

"Tatiana didn't want him to come looking for her. It wasn't safe. I agreed with that. We planned to tell him when the time was right…but then she lost the baby and she decided that it was better to let him go."

"What about Eric? What about what he wanted?"

"That wasn't my problem or my concern." Vivian clicked her teeth, and he cast a glance her way. "I know how cold that sounds, but it's the truth. Tatiana was my friend. Eric wasn't. I protected her and him at great cost to myself."

She digested that statement before asking, "Didn't Eric dig around and look for her?"

"He did. He only came up against dead ends. You know what Kostya is like. He's frighteningly thorough. We made it look as if she had packed up and run in the middle of the night. There was no trace of the car wreck we had staged for Maksim and her father."

Nikolai hesitated before admitting, "Eric came to see me one night, in the alley behind Samovar. He was drunk and angry. He tried to force me to confess to hurting her, but I wouldn't. He attacked me. We fought. It was bloody and violent. The little bastard cut me with a beer bottle he scrounged out of the garbage, and I knocked him out with a knee to the head."

"That's awful!"

"It was."

Vivian's finger traced the thick, knotted scar that arced across his chest. "Here?"

Nikolai nodded. "We've been enemies ever since. Everyone in the underworld assumed I had had Tatiana and her boyfriend killed. I was happy to let them all think that, including Eric."

"Nikolai," she said sadly.

He patted her hand. "It was the right thing to do. People think the worst of me anyway. Better to let them think I had clipped my fiancée and the man she cuckolded me with than to have them questioning my authority or resolve."

"I still don't like it."

"I know you don't. I did it to protect both of them. It was the only way."

Vivian sighed. "If you went to all of this trouble to help her disappear and to build a new life as Tatiana Melnikova, why in the world is she back now? Why is she risking everything?"

"Her father is dead. Her brother is dead. She has no blood family left. Her father's crime family has fallen to pieces. Most of it was absorbed into Maksim's organization. There is no threat to her life or Eric's now." He paused to re-evaluate his words. "Well—there shouldn't be, but I think Maksim is unhappy that she's still alive."

"Because you lied to him?"

"That's part of it, yes." He trailed his finger down her cheek and along her jaw. "She found something during an audit this spring. There's a series of payments twice every year that go from a Moscow bank account to various accounts from Hong Kong to San Francisco to Houston. She tracked the funds back to one of Maksim's shell corporations. She assumed I was on the other end of that transaction, but I’m not. We don't know who he is paying, but it's a lot of money. It goes back twenty years."

"Twenty!"

"Curious, huh?"

"Very."

"But the main reason Tatiana wanted to see me is that she's been offered an amazing new job. Evgeni Zhukov has been trying to headhunt her to join his firm. If she makes the jump, she might have business that would bring her to Houston. She didn't want to cause problems for me."

"But she did cause problems for you," Vivian insisted.

"Yes, she did." He brushed his knuckles along her face. "But most of that trouble was of my own making. I should have been straight with you about Tatiana and Eric. I should have told you she was back in town. I should have told you that we were going to have a private meeting."

"But you didn’t," Vivian whispered.

Shame gutted him. "I didn't."

"Why?"

"I don't know." He shook his head. "I never wanted any of that to touch you. I didn't want to put you in a position where you had to keep a secret from Eric. I didn't want you to worry about this woman coming back into my life." He touched his forehead to hers. "It was stupid. I made it worse by trying to shield you." He gulped anxiously. "Can you ever forgive me?"

"Yes." She gave her answer freely and without reluctance or hesitation.

"I don’t deserve it."

"I love you. I want to make our marriage work—but you have to work with me."

"I understand that now. Lately, I've done everything wrong. I've hurt you and made you cry. I'm a miserable fucking bastard for that. I'll try harder, Vivian." He held her gaze and swore his vow. "I'll try so fucking hard to be good and to make you proud. I'll do anything, Vivian. I'll do anything you want."

Her elegantly shaped brows arched. "Anything?"

"Anything."

She pushed up onto one palm and gazed down at him. For a long, unnerving stretch of seconds, she studied him. He couldn't read her face. The shadows in their dark bedroom hid her expressive eyes. The corners of her mouth twitched. He spotted her soft pink tongue flick out against her lower lip. It was a sight that aroused him as he thought of all the other ways he would enjoy seeing that pink of tongue of hers.

"Vee?"

As if gathering her courage, she breathed in deeply. "I want you flat on your back. Put your hands behind your head and keep them there."

"What?" He blinked with surprise at her order. When had she grown so empowered? Why did he find the thought of his sweet, innocent Vee taking charge so damned exhilarating?

"You heard me." She traced the tattoo of Orthodox wedding crowns with their names and wedding date inscribed underneath. "You said you would do anything for me. I want this." She circled his nipple and then pinched it with enough of a bite that he hissed. "On your back. Hands behind your head."

God help him, but his cock went rock-hard. The stiff length of it tented the towel still twisted around his waist. Vivian moved into a kneeling position next to his hips. She waited for him to comply with her instruction. He didn't move immediately. "Where did you learn this?"

"I spent a very illuminating afternoon and evening with Niels."

Remembering those sensual photos, Nikolai burned with jealousy. What had Niels taught her and how? "If he touched you—"

"I know, I know," Vivian said with a dramatic huff and a roll of her eyes. "You'll cut off his fingers and break his legs." With a sinful smile that promised a romp he would never forget, Vivian gave his shoulder a hard push that forced him onto his back. "But later." She lifted one leg at a decadently slow pace and straddled his upper thighs. "Right now, it's my turn to play."

His breathing turned hard and fast. "
Solnyshka
."

Grasping his hands, she interlaced their fingers and brought his arms up and over his head. She pinned him to the mattress and teased her mouth against his. He tried to kiss her but she denied him. "No."

A pounding thrum of need pulsed through his body. Astounded by this change in his wife, he asked, "What happened to you while I was away?"

She leaned down and nipped his lower lip. The sting of it sent a shockwave through his chest and stomach. "I've finally learned my place."

Nikolai had feared those words would come back to haunt him. He had a sneaking suspicion he was about to do his full penance.

Chapter Twenty

You can do this.

Still awash in the exalted relief of seeing Nikolai in the flesh and unharmed, I straddled his upper thighs and held him in place by trapping his hands overhead. I looked him over for signs of fresh wounds or scars but found none. I still hadn't asked him where he had been for the last five days.

Over dinner, Niels had finally let slip that he had been tracking Nikolai's movements across Europe. The sneaky Dane wouldn't tell me why all this cloak-and-dagger nonsense had been necessary, but he had promised that Nikolai would be returned to me before sunrise, whole and unharmed.

And now here he was, flat on his back beneath me and staring up at me with bewilderment.

I witnessed the briefest flash of panic in his pale eyes, and I smiled encouragingly. After the horrible abuse he had survived as a child, I had to be extremely careful with him. There was a reason he always liked to be in control—in the bedroom and outside of it. It was a defense mechanism for him and a way to ensure that he would never be harmed again.