Taken by the Billionaire (10 page)

“That was incredible,” I gasped, panting heavily as I tried to recover from my orgasm. “That was the best thing I’ve ever felt, Peter.”

“I’m glad,” he whispered to me, and he removed the blindfold and put his arms around me to hold me close.

“You didn’t have an orgasm this time, did you?” I asked quietly. I’d always felt it when he came inside me before, and I didn’t
think
I’d missed it this time. I could have been wrong, though; this had been the most intense, most delightfully sinful sex I’d ever had.

“No, but don’t worry,” he answered. “This one was just for you.”

I snuggled against him in his arms, and I felt myself start to drift toward sleep as he held me close to him, keeping me warm and safe. He lifted me up in his arms, laid me down on his bed, and pulled a blanket up and over me.

“Sweet dreams, darling,” he whispered. I thought that was what he said, at least; it sounded so very far away, somewhere beyond the haze of euphoria and fatigue that was enveloping me.

A
clap of thunder rattled the windows and woke me up with a start.

Rain poured down outside, splattering loudly against the glass panes, and I was alone in bed. Peter was here last night when I fell asleep; I knew he was. I remembered his arms around me, holding me close to him, the warmth of his body against mine…

…but now I was alone in his cold, empty bed. Was it just the dream after all? Was that all was remembering?

No, he was here
, I thought, trying to reassure myself. I certainly remembered our savage lovemaking and him carrying me to bed when we were finally sated and exhausted. Of course it wasn’t a dream, I thought; I was still wearing the corset. It was clammy and sticky now from my sweat, and I quickly reached behind my back, untied the knotting, and peeled it off of my body.

I didn’t know where Peter was now, but he certainly had been here last night. It never ceased to amaze me how he could change so quickly from passion to romance and from romance to cold and calculating precision. He’d gotten up before me and run off to do… whatever it was he did around the estate these days.

Was he running his business? Trying to talk to his mother? Spying on his brother? I had no idea. Whatever he was doing, I thought, he’d left his tie behind. The deep blue and black striped tie lay draped over his metal briefcase on writing table.

If only Peter could make up his mind about who he was, maybe I could make up my mind about whether or not I was in love with him.

The familiar clattering of plates and silverware rose from beneath me—Peter’s bedroom was directly above the kitchen, after all—and my stomach growled, reminding me not to neglect it. Anneke’s servants were probably getting ready to serve breakfast.

As I sat up in bed, I suddenly remembered Peter’s words early last night, and my heart started to pound.

Sergei was going to try to kill me.

Okay… no, calm down
, I told myself.
Be reasonable now. Nobody’s going to kill you.

There was no point getting scared over what he’d said; he was going to be keeping an eye on Sergei, I was staying by his mother’s side for safety, and frankly Sergei probably wasn’t planning anything in the first place.

The entire idea was ridiculous! Why would his brother try to kill me?

Someone tried to kill me once already, though.

The gunman shot at me in the garage, and it was only by the sheer grace of God—and the briefcase should get some credit too, I guess—that I wasn’t in a morgue right now. Could he have fired at Peter and simply had terrible aim? No, it didn’t seem likely, I thought. That bullet would have hit me squarely in the chest if not for the briefcase. The gunman had aimed at me.

I climbed nervously out of Peter’s bed, naked but for my black underwear, and quickly slipped into my pajamas from the night before. On went the flannel pants, followed immediately by the faded blue tank-top. Now that I was at least modestly clothed, I felt more comfortable.

If Peter was really worried that Sergei would kill you,
I thought,
then why did he leave you alone?

I wracked my brain searching for the answer to my own question, and just as I was about to write his entire warning off as pure nuttery, a glint of metal at the foot of the door caught my eye.

It was the key; Peter had locked the door and slid the key back under to me when he left.

I glanced down at the key, then back at the bed, and then back at the key again. Why not just stay here if I was in so much danger?

You said you’d find out what Sergei was up to, what he was telling Anneke, remember?

Right… I’d almost forgotten.

I glanced back at Peter’s tie, still lying atop his briefcase. I’d never seen him not wear a tie, I realized. Well, I had seen him not wearing
anything
, but that wasn’t quite the same, I decided. That counted as special circumstances in my book!

I unlocked the door, glanced out into the hallway, and then bolted down the hallway toward my own room. The clay-tiled floor of the corridor nearly froze my feet from the morning chill, and I was grateful for the carpet in my room when I finally made it to the other end of the seemingly endless hall.

I rummaged through the dresser drawers, uncertain of what I should wear. Were these clothes for me? I had no idea. They were all crisp and new, and the only other women in the house were Anneke and the maids. There was no way Anneke wore any of these outfits; they looked to be almost exactly my size, and the old woman was much shorter and heavier-set than I was anyway. Did they belong to Katrina? I hoped not; I’d feel terrible after all the help she’d been to me, getting me into that gorgeous black dress, if I found out I’d gone around wearing her clothes!

Flannel pajamas for the morning? No… no way that’d fly at the breakfast table in this house. Not after how fancy last night’s dinner was. God, what a beautiful dress that was, though! I had to wear
something
, and these clothes—whoever they belonged to—were all I had.

I turned and looked at the stunning black dress over my shoulder; it was hanging neatly from its hanger on the closet door. Peter must have picked it up sometime in the night, because I was certain it had been in a crumpled pile against the wall when we went to bed last night. I’d left it right where he'd taken it off of me.

I felt a sudden pang of loneliness, and I shook my head, embarrassed at myself. He’d been gone for a few hours at most, and I was already missing him? How stupid of me.

I’d wanted to wake up next to him, though. I’d wanted to see his gray eyes staring back into mine, warm and inviting, and to hold him as I got ready to face the day. Instead, he was gone and I was alone. Every time I thought that he’d finally opened up to me, he slammed himself shut again. I knew what I’d seen beneath the corporate façade, the suit of executive armor, were glimpses of the real Peter. I longed for
that
man to come out and to stay out. Maybe once the strange undercurrent of intrigue in his family had passed—whatever it was that had brought us all the way to Croatia—he could open up to me.

My stomach growled loudly, and I pushed the thought of Peter into the back of my mind, threw on a pair of jeans and a purple turtleneck, and ran downstairs to breakfast.

Anneke was the only person in the dining room when I arrived, and she sat at the small, round table near the window and stared out the floor-to-ceiling picture windows into the garden. She dipped a toasted croissant first into olive oil, then into crumbled parmesan cheese, and finally munched on it contentedly as she watched the rain streaming down outside. A tiny pile of Kalamata olives rounded out her meal, and though it seemed like a strange breakfast combination to me, who was I to criticize the woman’s tastes?

Anneke waved to me, greeting me warmly this time judging by her body language, and she gestured to the empty, white wicker seat across from her.

“How are you doing this morning?” I signed to her, and she nodded back to me.

“I am well. Slept very nicely. And yourself?”

“The same. It was a very comfortable room. Very lovely!”

The butler, Alex, apparently did double duty as waiter in the morning, and he brought me a muffin and a glass of orange juice. I took a bite of it. Sesame seed.

Anneke stared at me for a long time, her eyes sharp and bright, before signing again.

“Peter told me I need to babysit you today,” she signed, and I let out a sigh of relief. I hadn’t figured out how to broach that subject yet, and I was grateful that she had done it for me.

“He told me the same thing about you,” I signed back, and Anneke rolled her eyes.

“My stupid son knows nothing at all. I don’t need a babysitter; I need my children to stop bickering with each other and to grow up.”

Anneke shook her head and finished off the last bite of her croissant.

As she got up from her chair, she pulled a tiny notebook from her pocket, scribbled something down in it, and then slid it across the table to me.

"Grocery list," it read.

“You want me to make up the grocery list?” I signed to her, trying to clarify her note, and she shook her head.

“Ask the cook, then put on whatever else you want, and we will go together when the rain stops.”

I stared down at the note for a moment. Something still didn’t make sense to me.

It’s in English,
I suddenly realized, and I looked back up at her again.

“You know English too?”

“I can read it, yes. Have to for business,” she signed to me, nodding.

Fluent in Croatian sign language, writes in English, but comes from Russia? Anneke certainly had her oddities.

****

“I’m surprised that you are doing your own grocery shopping,” I signed to Anneke as we left the market. My arms felt like they were about to pop out of their sockets under the weight of the bags as Anneke walked at a snail’s pace across the cobblestone square at my side.

“I need exercise, and I get bored too,” she signed back, and she waved to a toddler as the little girl passed, clinging to her mother’s arm. Anneke looked at me with a toothy smile.

“Very cute. Reminds me of when my sons were that age.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Damned if I can remember.”

I burst out laughing, and Anneke winked at me.

I slowly guided the woman across the square, and the crowd parted and cleared a path for her toward the black car waiting at the far end. Everyone seemed to be leaving an awfully large circle around her. Was that just Croatian custom, or did they know who she was? Were they scared of her? I had no idea.

“Do they always stay away from you like this?” I signed to her. My arms ached from lifting the bags as I ran through the signs, and I decided that regardless of her answer, I was done talking until we got to the car.

“They hear rumors and make up their own stories to fit them,” she signed back. “They think—“

Anneke caught her foot on a loose cobblestone and suddenly pitched forward. I reached out and blocked her fall—pushing her back upright again—but the grocery bags dragged me off balance in her place and I toppled to the ground with a loud thud.

“Goddamnit!” I hissed, rocking back and forth melodramatically and holding my knee.

I could feel the burning of my skinned knee, and a little reddish-black spot was already spreading on my jeans as they soaked up the blood. Anneke slowly chased after a green pepper that was doing its best to escape into the crowd, and as I struggled to my feet, someone reached down to help me up.

“Hey, you okay?” said a very familiar man’s voice, and as the outstretched hand yanked me to my feet, I stared straight into the face of Sergei Ibramovic.

“Um… yes. Yes, I’m okay,” I stuttered, staring into his almost unrealistically brown eyes. He smiled back at me and then squeezed my hand once before releasing it.

“Careful there, Sarah. Got to keep an eye on where you’re going or you might get hurt.”

Was that supposed to be a threat? I couldn’t tell. He flashed a bright and friendly grin, and I wrote my interpretation off as a combination of personal paranoia and the language barrier.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, smiling back at him. “Thanks for your help.”

“No problems at all,” he said, flashing that same, almost rehearsed grin. “How is my dear mother doing today?”

“Anneke is doing just fine, thank you,” I answered, suddenly feeling defensive toward the old lady.

Something about the way Sergei asked the question put me on edge, but I still couldn’t figure out why. Was he really that threatening, or had Peter poisoned the well and biased me against his brother so completely?

“Good, I am glad,” he said, still smiling at me oddly, and he crouched down beside me to help pick up the spilled groceries.

“You don’t like me, do you?” he suddenly asked as he handed me a spilled bunch of grapes.

“No… well, I… I don’t know,” I stammered. “Peter hates you, and everything I know about you is from him.”

“Of course he hates me,” said Sergei, almost purring. “My brother is a stereotypical miserable millionaire. He spent his entire life building up that company of his and forgot about everything else. Forgot about his family, about his personal life…”

He glanced up at me and shrugged before continuing.

“As for me? I’m doing just fine for myself. I’m not as wealthy as Peter, but I’ve got a million to my name, and I don’t need any more than that. I’m ten times as happy as he will ever be.”

“Is that really all there is to it?” I asked. He made a good point about Peter’s company—as far as I knew at least—but I’d seen beyond Peter’s disguise before, and I believed there was more to him.

Sergei turned away from me, and just as I thought he was going to ignore me and leave, he turned back to me again.

“Peter’s intuition is terrible about many things,” he said, leaning in uncomfortably close to me, “but there is one thing, one detail, that he is exactly right about.”

“And that is?”

“That I’m fucking
crazy
about you,” he whispered, “and have been since the day I first saw you.”