The Bride Who Wouldn't
Read The Bride Who Wouldn't Online
Authors: Carol Marinelli
Tags: #Contemporary, #Contemporary Fiction, #romance, #Literature & Fiction
a honeymoon novella
Carol Marinelli
Tule Publishing Group
The Bride Who Wouldn’t
Copyright © 2014 Carol Marinelli
Kindle Edition
The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
ISBN: 978-1-940296-51-7
“T
here is a
gentleman here to see you.”
Kate knew, even before Jasmine said his name, just who was here to see her and she felt like correcting the receptionist.
Isaak Zaretsky was no gentleman.
The Zaretsky brothers featured regularly in the business sections of the financial spreads but it was their playboy reputation that had women flocking to the magazine racks whenever Isaak or Roman graced their covers.
Kate had guessed that it would be Isaak that would come and see her. Roman’s reputation had been tamed by his marriage and more recently the death of his wife.
Yes, she had known it would be Isaak—notorious, ruthless, and now he had the power to crush Kate and her family in the palm of his hand.
“I’m about to start a class,” Kate said, winding a long dark curl around her finger and trying to keep the nervousness from her voice. “I shan’t be available for another hour.”
Kate knew too what the response would be as she tried to delay the inevitable, and she closed her eyes as Jasmine relayed the message to the formidable man downstairs. “He says that he’ll wait.”
Kate ended the call but instead of heading out to her class she took a moment to look Isaak up on her laptop, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she could find something about him that did not make her insides fold in terror. But no, unlike his uncle, Ivor, it would appear that Isaak did not have a benevolent bone in his body.
There were scorned women galore lamenting their loss but that wasn’t what Kate was interested in and she searched for business articles praying to stumble upon what she didn’t quite know but the word that came up over and over was ruthless.
The Zaretsky brothers circled over failing businesses like vultures, swooping in just prior to them declaring bankruptcy and making a majority shareholder offer—invariably resurrecting the ailing company but with the addition of the Zaretsky name.
There was a knock on her door and Kate jumped but it was just Taylor, a colleague, who reminded Kate that her class should have started ten minutes ago.
A historian, Kate’s passion was genealogy and she held classes at the library, helping people to trace their families back generations.
It was how she had met Ivor Zaretsky and the reason she now found herself in this mess.
“Thanks Taylor, I’ll be there in just a moment,” Kate said but just before she went to close her laptop and head across the hall, she clicked on a photo. Isaak’s black hair was always cut short, almost cropped, sometimes he was clean shaven, often he wore a few days growth but always he was immaculate and always,
always
he seemed to be scowling.
She clicked on another photo and took a sharp inward breath. His handsome chiselled features she would soon confront. His eyes were a deep navy and as cold and uninviting as the ocean at night.
And Kate owed him a million.
“Why did you have to die, Ivor?” Kate asked out loud but of course, she got no answer.
Kate blinked back tears and let out a breath, telling herself that she must not break down here; her students would already be upset.
Kate stepped in to the room where she held her classes and solemn faces greeted her. “I’m sorry I’m late…” she looked around the room, Michael, one of the students must just have been told because he was dabbing his eyes and his shoulders were shaking. “I know that we’re all devastated to hear about Ivor…”
For more than a year, he had been a part of their lives, sharing a bit of his history, making the class laugh with his wit and humour.
He would be missed so.
The class started late and finished late too. Her hour of grace avoiding Isaak was already up but, when Michael asked a question, instead of concluding the class, Kate chose to answer.
Isaak would just have to wait.
“When you and Ivor went to Russia, did he find the answers he was seeking?”
The class knew a little of Ivor’s story though Kate knew far much more.
He had trusted Kate with his secrets and in turn, she had trusted Ivor with secrets of her own.
“No.” Kate shook her head. “We did find some paintings in a museum where a woman was wearing a ring that looked similar, perhaps from the same designer and we were going to examine those paintings more closely. I’ll do that myself now.”
“Did you find anything in the death records?” Michael asked.
“A few leads,” Kate said. “But it is going to be a painstaking process.” She gave the class a smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s someone I need to meet with and I’m already late.”
*
Isaak glanced at
the ancient clock on the library wall, inwardly seething. He had arrived before midday and it was now well after one. Kate Edwards was pushing him beyond the limit of his patience.
He waited for no one—usually it was the other way around, but as he sat in the old London library Isaak had no thought of leaving.
He would outstay her.
Still, the surroundings he now found himself in had come as a surprise. Isaak had expected his uncle’s tart’s workplace to be a brothel or a strip club certainly not this magnificent building.
How had Kate Edwards done it? How had this woman managed to get his astute uncle to sign over the last of his fortune?
Isaak could guess how!
The contract in his hand was so revolting Isaak was tempted to curl it in a ball here and now. Isaak did not care about the money; his uncle’s estate was the equivalent of loose change to him. More, he was livid with this woman who had somehow made a usually wise old man her prey.
“Mr Zaretsky!”
He had not heard her approach and Isaak looked up from unusual disadvantage for he would have preferred to be standing when they met.
He rectified that immediately, but not before he got a glimpse of dark stockinged legs in velvet Cuban-heeled shoes and heard the soft, slightly nervous edge to her voice. “You wanted to see me.”
“I do.”
As Isaak rose Kate stepped back a fraction for she had not anticipated his height nor just how imposing his actual presence would be.
She was met by the unshaven version of Isaak today and although he was wearing a suit and his attire was immaculate, somehow he looked as if he had just fallen out of bed. His eyes were bloodshot, though she guessed that it was from excess rather than grieving the loss of his uncle.
Or was that his reputation clouding her judgement? Kate truly did not know.
“Should we go somewhere private?” Isaak asked and Kate hesitated. His Russian accent was rich, his voice deep and definitely not soothing. The curt edge to his tone and the way his lip curled in distaste told Kate what he thought of her. “If not,” Isaak responded to her silence, “we can discuss things here. I have no issue with that.”
A few of her students were walking down the stairs, all looking over their shoulders for a second glimpse of Isaak. They all knew he was Ivor’s nephew but his arrival in the library was curious and his beauty was worth a second look, that was for sure.
“Your office?” Isaak’s brusque call for a response broke into her thoughts and Kate glanced down to the contract he held in his hand and nodded. Certainly she did not want her business discussed here.
“Follow me.”
Her heels made
no noise as they walked along the corridor, Isaak noted—the reason for her stealth-like approach.
Her scent was a contradiction.
Floral, light, sweet, it trailed her lightly as Isaak followed Kate up the stairs.
Everything about her was contrary to the image he had conjured. Her figure was subtle, Isaak noted. Well, what he could make of it for her clothes were shapeless, from the heavy skirt to the ill-fitting cardigan. Her long dark curls were worn in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck.
And those eyes.
Isaak could not decide if they were green or hazel—he would find out soon, for she unlocked her office and invited him in.
“Excuse the mess.”
It was inexcusable! Isaak glanced at the stacks of books and papers. There were maps and photos and several white boards all filled with scribble. From his neat corporate mind, he wondered how the hell she got anything done. Isaak half expected a cat to jump out as she moved some files to free up a seat.
He was about to say the same but changed his mind.
Humour had no place in this conversation.
“I assume you know the reason for my visit?” Isaak said when she invited him to take a seat.
“I’m sorry for the loss of your uncle,” Kate offered, the tip of her nose reddening, tears filling her eyes, and still Isaak could not decide on their colour. “He was a wonderful man.”
“Spare me the tears,” Isaak said, irritated by his own fascination with her. Tossing the contract onto the littered desk, he watched her flinch. “You recognise this I presume?”
“I do.”
For the first time she met his gaze, and though nervous, she held it.
You can do this, Kate, she told herself. Soon this uncomfortable meeting would be over and she would be able to get on with her life.
Except there was an awful lot of money that she couldn’t repay.
He watched her attempt to assert herself. How she sat straighter in the chair and attempted to fix him with her gaze and amazing eyes.
God, but she was stunning. Now he could see how his uncle had been beguiled. There was smatter of freckles on her neat, slightly snubbed nose that told him her creamy, flawless complexion did not come from a bottle and her wide, generous mouth had Isaak briefly wonder what it would look like if she smiled.
He would not be finding out, Isaak swiftly decided and his eyes abhorred her as she spoke.
“I’d like to say that just because there was money involved in our relationship I still cared for your uncle.”
“Please!” Isaak scoffed. “How come he never mentioned you to me?”
Kate shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” he retorted. “Because he must have known I would tell him that he was being taken as a fool.”
“Your uncle was far from foolish. He was a very intelligent man.”
“So, when were you to announce your engagement?” Isaak asked.
“We hadn’t decided.”
“And when was the marriage to take place?”
“We hadn’t got to that yet,” Kate said and heard Isaak’s hiss of irritation at her vague response.
“How did you two meet?”
Kate avoided his gaze and looked to the pile of reference books in front of her, choosing not to answer, for it was Isaak’s history, too, that was up for question. “I don’t have to answer that.”