Stay With Me (A BWWM Russian Billionaire Romance Novel) (Imani's Russian Billionaire Series Book 1) (2 page)

“No, I didn’t,” she said, and she just knew that from now on anything related to sugar was going to make her think of him.

Great. He’s famous and ridiculously rich, like a gazillionaire or something, he’s got women from here to Timbuktu, and I can’t stop staring. Get some self respect, Thania!

“You know that old song ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’?” Len asked, interrupting her musings.

“Yes…” she replied warily, afraid of where he was going.

“Well, he can pour his sugar on
me
anytime, doll,” Len said, and Thania laughed loud enough to have a few people around them look over.

“I know exactly what you mean,” she said with a smile.

S
he had been coiffed
and plucked and stuffed into one of her own designs. She was ready. On the outside anyway. On the inside, she was a mess.

Vladislav had finished up and had disappeared behind the curtains of the changing area. She tried to pay attention to the photographer and the magazine’s fashion editor, who were both giving her instructions.

“You are going to be great, Thania. Just act natural,” the photographer said.

“We want you to be your authentic self,” the editor said, and Thania nodded absently, wondering exactly what that meant. Her authentic self did not get coiffed and plucked and stuffed.

“Don’t turn around,” a gravelly male voice said from behind her, and without even looking, she knew it was him.

Even without his Russian accent, his voice would have been recognizable to her, as impossible as that sounded. She closed her eyes as the thrum of his voice sent a wave of heat pulsing throughout her body.

“I wish they had paired us together,” he continued, so close now that his breath was hitting her hair.

She kept her eyes closed, not really capable of anything else at that moment. His body was so near that an invisible string seemed to be pulling her back toward him.

“You are exquisite,” he said, his mouth practically touching her ear now, and she bit her lip hard to keep from making any noise.

She said nothing because she didn’t know what to say. He backed off and she heard his footsteps as they took him further and further away. She took several deep breaths before she opened her eyes. The photographer and the editor were looking at her with renewed interest, and she turned to her right only to see Len smirking again from his makeup station.

“Sugar, doll!” he called out, making a show of taking a big drink from his coffee cup.

Thania rolled her eyes and fought to keep her head from floating off her shoulders and onto the ceiling.

C
oncentrating
on the photo shoot after that encounter with Vladislav Sakharov was very difficult for Thania. She was dazzled, she could admit it, at least to herself. He was sexy and gorgeous, and he was so famous that most people knew his name. It was beyond flattering that he would seek her out like that.

But that still didn’t explain her reaction to him. She kept replaying the whole thing over in her head—from the moment she had noticed him to the moment he had left. She was aware enough to do what the photographer and editor asked of her—‘tilt your head, smile slightly, cross your legs’—but she wasn’t really there in her mind.

In her mind, she was imagining what it would have been like if he had continued talking to her, and it made her cheeks flushed to the point that Len had to come over and powder her up a few times.

“Something got you hot and bothered, doll?” he said with a laugh the last time he’d come over.

She rolled her eyes at him. Oddly, she felt as if she had known Len forever, when she had only just met him that day.

“You did a great job, Thania!” the photographer said with a smile, and Thania was surprised it was over that quickly. It had all gone by in a blur once Vladislav had left.

“I hope some of them come out alright,” she said, worried now that she hadn’t given it her all, and it would show in the pictures.

“Oh, they’ll be more than alright,” the editor said. “You look stunning in the photos we’ve already seen.”

She said goodbye, changed clothes, removed her makeup, and walked out the magazine’s doors onto the sidewalk. She felt like a completely different person than she had when she’d walked through those same doors just a few hours earlier.

V
lad heard Maks talk
, but he didn’t really listen; his mind was back at the photo shoot from yesterday, thinking about the woman he had seen there. It seems that was all he had been doing since first laying eyes on her.

She was breathtaking. She wore gold bracelets, and they glinted against her skin like bronze in the sunlight. As soon as he saw her, he knew he had to have her. It was really that simple. He was used to getting what he wanted, but he wasn’t sure how to find her.

“Vlad…Vlad!” Maksim Pelegin tried to get his attention, and Vlad swung his eyes toward the company’s chief counsel.

“Sorry,” Vlad murmured, still somewhat lost in thought.

“What has got you so distracted?” Vlad looked across the conference table at the man that asked the question, Mickhail Dvortsov, the heir to the jewelry empire.

These two men were the people he trusted most in the world, but something held him back from sharing his thoughts with them.

“We’ve discussed all of our business. In fact, I think it’s time for a cocktail,” Maks said, as he got up and walked over to the cherry wood bar built in to the corner of the conference room.

There was no need to ask what the other two men would be drinking—Maks reached into the specially designed chiller and pulled out a freezing bottle of Elit by Stolichnaya. He pulled three vintage Dyatkovsky crystal vodka glasses from the shelf and poured a generous amount in each. Careful not to clink the 200-year-old crystal glasses against each other, he carried them back to the table, placing one in front of each of his friends. Finally, he sat down in his seat, pushing the Eames chair back so that he could relax and cross his legs.

The three men were used to the very best that life had to offer. None of them batted an eye at Maks opening yet another $3,000 bottle of vodka, or drinking it out of $500 crystal glasses made in the oldest factory in Russia.

“So, what is going on?” Mick asked once they had all pushed back from the table and gotten comfortable after a few sips of the vodka.

Vlad abruptly stood up and started to pace. Mick and Maks exchanged looks—neither of them had seen Vlad act like this before. Vlad finally stopped pacing and stood facing the floor-to-ceiling windows with his hands in his pockets. He looked at the darkened skyline, the tall buildings in the city beautiful at night, in a way that they weren’t during the day. This was his favorite view since coming to America.

“There’s a woman,” he said in a low voice without turning around.

Maks laughed, and Vlad finally looked back.

“A woman has you pent up like this? Vlad, you turn women away every day.”

“Yes, but not this woman. She was…ethereal.” The other men just looked at Vlad, realizing that he was serious.

“Why don’t you just ask her to dinner?” Mick asked, with a perplexed look on his face. So far, the other men could not see what the dilemma was.

“I can’t. I don’t know her name, or where she works. I don’t know anything about her, really.” Vlad slumped down into his chair again, unbuttoning his collar and loosening his tie before taking another sip of the vodka and sitting back.

“Where did you see her?” Maks asked, matching Vlad’s serious tone.

“At the photo shoot yesterday.”

“Well, if she is a model it should be easy to track her down. I’ll call—”

“She’s not a model. At least, I don’t think she is.”

“What was she doing there, then?”

“I don’t know. It looked like she was going to be the subject of the shoot right after mine, but she did not have the look of a model. She was…I don’t know...as soon as I saw her, I knew I had to speak to her, to see her up close.”

Maks and Mick exchanged another glance; Vlad had never spoken about a woman with such a reverent tone.

Vlad ran one hand through his hair, causing the thick strands to stand up.

“I went up to her. I spoke to her. Her skin is the color of dark caramel, and when I came up behind her she smelled so sexy I did not trust myself to look directly into her eyes. And her
body
…so many beautiful curves, like a real woman should have. Not like these models I see everywhere.” He stopped abruptly and took a large sip from the crystal glass.

The other two men were silent, listening to Vlad recite this woman’s attributes.

“I can find her for you,” Maks said after a few moments of silence.

“How?”

“I have my ways. Don’t worry about how.” Vlad narrowed his eyes at him.

“That sounds underhanded, Maks. I don’t want to do anything that could be considered wrong, especially if she found out.” Even as Vlad spoke the words, there was hope in his eyes.

“It’s not underhanded, my friend. Just tell me everything you remember about her.”

“I don’t know…”

“Well, I
do
,” Maks interrupted. “The Vlad Sakharov that
I
know has never pined for a woman before.”

“I’m not pining…”

“Yes, you are,” Maks interrupted him again. “I’ll find out who she is, simply because I must see this magical creature that has brought my friend Vlad to heel.”

Maks and Mick laughed, while Vlad said nothing, secretly hoping Maks actually could find her.

A
half an hour later
, Vlad’s executive assistant Karen walked into his office, carrying a stack of papers and looking tired.

“What are you still doing here?” He asked her, surprised. It was almost eight o’clock, and Karen had a family.

“Just getting some extra work done but I’m leaving now,” she said with a small smile, as she put the paperwork into the leather bin on his desk for him to read through at his leisure.

“Okay, have a good night then,” he said, and she waved goodbye.

She was almost to the door when she turned around quickly. “Oh! I almost forgot. Maks asked me to give this to you before you left for the night.”

He reached his hand out for the small piece of paper she was extending to him, not able to read what was on it from upside down. Just then the phone rang on his desk. Karen started to reach for it, but hesitated.

“Go home,” Vlad told her, as he put the small paper inside his jacket pocket.

She waved again and was gone.

“Vladislav Sakharov,” he said as he pressed the speaker phone button.

“Hello, my love.” Vlad sighed and stood up, intending to refill his crystal glass at the built in bar. It was his ex-girlfriend, Irina.

“I’m not your love, Irina. In fact, I’m not your anything anymore,” he said flatly as he poured a generous amount of Elit in his glass and took a strong swig.

“Oh darling, please don’t be like that. I made one tiny mistake, and you’ve thrown me away,” she said, her thick Russian accent even more pronounced when she used her little girl voice. That voice used to have an unfortunate effect on him; for two years she could get him to do almost anything if she used that voice.

But no longer
.

“What do you want?” He settled in his chair behind his desk and started to sort through the stack of papers Karen had left for him in his leather bin.

“I want you, Vlad,” Irina said, suddenly serious.

The little girl inflection in her voice was mysteriously gone. Vlad didn’t respond; there really was not anything to say that hadn’t already been said.

“We broke up six months ago, Irina,” he reminded her.

“No, we didn’t!” she yelled, and he realized that she was drunk again.

“Irina, I’m not doing this again.”

“Doing what, Vlad? Staying in a relationship with the love of your life?”

Vlad laughed bitterly at her words, and this seemed to set her off even more.

“Don’t laugh at me! You…you never appreciated me! I’m beautiful! I’m a famous model and I could have any man I want. I made
one mistake,
and you throw me away like trash!”

“I didn’t throw you away, Irina. And it wasn’t one mistake.”

“I’m not perfect, Vlad, but you’ll never have someone like me again. You’ll regret the day you left me, and when you, do I won’t…I won’t be around to take you back.”

“I’m sorry that you are in pain,” he said, and he meant it.

He had cared deeply for Irina at one time, but her drinking had split them up even if she didn’t want to admit she had a problem. He was done pretending everything was fine and then cleaning up her messes so no one would find out.

“Why won’t you take me back?” she asked, the little girl voice back again.

Vlad sighed. “We both need to move on with our lives, Irina. It’s been six months. I only want you to be happy.”

“Well, if that was true, you would still be with me! Have I ever told you what an asshole you are?”

Yes, many times
.

“I’m hanging up now, Irina.”

“Don’t you
dare
hang up on me! I swear Vlad, if you hang—”

He pressed the button to end the call and took a deep breath. He had stayed far too long in that relationship. The woman from the day before sprang into his mind again, and he smiled just thinking about her.

He shut things down for the day, and had almost reached the elevator before he remembered the small piece of paper in his pocket. He took it out and was amazed at what he read. Maks had done it.