The Bride Who Wouldn't (11 page)

“Show me…”

“Kate.”

“Show me what you’d do if I wasn’t here.”

“If you were not here then I would not be in this situation,” Isaak said, because it was the turn of her to his body and the scent of her that had him aching with arousal.

“Please.”

He had said she should not be ashamed of something so natural, and so it was time to walk the talk. In fact, for Isaak it was an incredible turn-on knowing she was watching and that she was near.

She watched his hand move down and he stroked himself through his hipsters. “First up, I would not be wearing these.”

He slid them down and in an impressive move, kicked them off and then he lifted her chin, and his mouth searched hers. “I’m so turned on,” he said, his mouth seeking hers, kissing her with a frantic edge, and as his hand left her face, she terminated the kiss, turning her head to see.

Her leg moved over his thigh as he stroked himself, her lips parted and she could feel the hair on his chest tickling her lips. She wanted to kiss his chest yet she wanted to watch. Briefly, she tasted one flat nipple, and the sound of him moaning his approval as she sucked and licked had a pulse quivering between her legs, and so she sucked more. She liked the salty taste of him and the scent of him—the sensual sexy scent of him—and the sound of his hand and the feel of his tension building.

His other hand moved from the curve of her hip, roaming her buttock as her own hand moved to his stomach, trailing the snake of hair.

“Feel,” Isaak said halting, and she ran her fingers down his thick length and tried to imagine how she would ever get that inside, yet it felt alive—both hard and silk, and slowly she stroked it.

He wanted to tell her to go harder, faster, yet he was locked in the bliss of her tentative hand on him and her slight startle as he started to drizzle pre-come.

He turned and kissed her, and Kate felt his hand close over hers as his kiss deepened. How badly she wanted to see, yet she was locked in his kiss, a deep sexy kiss that felt as if he was swallowing her, his tongue taking her mind to between her legs as he turned to his side. Her leg moved over his thigh and she could feel him, stroking himself against her, and she pulled back a fraction.

“I won’t,” Isaak breathed then returned to deep kisses. Kate was kissing him back but she wanted to correct him, for she knew that he could. She was open to the cock nudging at her entrance. She was trying to push down, to offer consent, to beg him to fill her, as Isaak resisted from doing just that, and then there was a low carnal moan from him that finished her and she arched in his arms, hot, sweating, alarmed by the intensity of her orgasm and the sudden still of Isaak. Even his tongue paused, and then he moaned again deep into her mouth, and she felt the jerk of him, the hot pulse of him showering her sex, and her receding come gathered and crashed back again as he stroked the last drops over her.

“Isaak…” She didn’t know how to say how badly she’d wanted it, she just lay there, hot, sated, breathless as he massaged it in, and she lay there, eyes closed in pleasure as his fingers explored her, warm and wet from their intimate spilling, and she knew—Kate just knew—that soon they’d be lovers.

It was what she wanted, Kate told herself as she lay in his arms.

Yet why was she trying not to cry?

K
ate awoke with
Isaak spooned into her and she opened her eyes to the knowledge that last night had been foolish beyond belief.

How to tell Isaak that she wasn’t even on the pill?

She had been so adamant, so sure that the marriage would never be consummated. Kate wasn’t naive enough not to know that last night had crossed too many lines and as his mouth started nudging her shoulder, as she felt him stir into life, Kate knew that soon this marriage would be consummated.

And then what?

“I’m going to have a shower,” Kate said and moved from his embrace.

In the bathroom, she pulled off her nightdress and jumped into the shower, wondering if last night could have consequences, if she should find a
pharmacie
but then what? She could barely order coffee in French, how the hell was she going to get the morning-after pill.

Perhaps she should tell Isaak, but she could just imagine the roll of his eyes, or his hiss of irritation at her neurosis.

She remembered his condom jibe, about it being nice to have a year off them, and Kate was suddenly doing her best not to cry as she stood in the shower, because she couldn’t hand herself over to him for a year—it wasn’t just her body that she’d be loaning out to him, but her heart.

“It’s our last full day here,” Isaak said as she came out in her bathrobe. “And our last night.”

“I know,” Kate said. She couldn’t believe it had gone so quickly, four days and nights had seemed like forever at first, but now their honeymoon was almost over, and suddenly it seemed far too soon.

“What would you like to do?” Isaak offered.

“I’m easy.”

“You are so far from easy,” Isaak teased pulling her down onto the bed.

“What would you like to do?” Kate smiled.

“The truth?” Isaak checked, and she nodded. “Top of my list is not doable yet,” he said kissing the top of her head, “but I have high hopes it soon will be. Second on my list, I want to find out more about my
babushka
’s lover. Tell me what you know.”

“Your grandmother had a sister…”

“She died years ago,” Isaak said.

“Yes, but she had a niece and Ivor wanted to see if she knew anything, whether or not your great aunt might have known anything and passed it on to her.”

“And did she?”

“We tried to trace her but she’d moved a few times. In the end, we found her and Ivor called and asked if he could come and visit.”

“And did you?”

“No,” Kate said. “She said there was no need to visit, that she didn’t know anything. Her mother had never spoken about her sister taking a lover. She was very offended.”

“Why tell me this,” Isaak said, and Kate smiled at his irritation. “Why tell me this if it goes nowhere? For a moment, I thought you had found something out. I don’t need to know what hasn’t worked.”

“Yes you do,” Kate corrected, “or you’ll end up covering the same ground that I have.” She could feel his impatience. “Isaak, you might never find out. Ivor didn’t.”

He hated that the most.

“Imagine dying and not knowing who your father was. I am determined to find out.” He took her hand. “With you working on it full time…”

“I shan’t be working on it full time,” Kate said. “We agreed that I could keep my job.”

“But…”

“But what?” Kate challenged, removing her hand from his. She simply couldn’t do it, could not immerse herself in the Zaretsky family history for a year. Examine their past, live with Isaak, sleep with Isaak, get more and more into Isaak, knowing that in the future, she’d be discharged with a golden handshake.

“We’ll discuss it later,” Isaak said.

“There’s nothing
to
discuss,” Kate said and Isaak, who was far too used to getting his own way, even if he had to pay for it, let out an irritated breath. “If you want a full time genealogist on the case, of course I’ll work with them, but Ivor and I agreed I would help him in my spare time. I’m not giving up my job.”

Isaak gave a brief nod. He knew she was right, and all that they had agreed to. He tried to concentrate as Kate spoke on.

“His mother gave him the money and jewellery when he returned from two years serving in the army. He was twenty-two then. We think his real father must have died while Ivor was drafted.”

“Why?”

“Because despite a difficult life, she was always cheerful when she wrote to him, and Ivor looked forward to her letters while he served. He remembered there was a long gap between them at one point, and when she did resume writing, they were melancholy.”

“Perhaps from the beatings,” Isaak suggested, “Or perhaps because she missed her son.”

“Possibly, but it was the most we had to go on,” Kate said. “We looked through death records around that time for anyone prominent anyone who might have had access to such exquisite jewels.”

“Any luck?”

“There were a few names that we were going to chase and some paintings we were going to examine more closely.”

“Your work really is interesting,” Isaak said. “I can see why you don’t want to give it up.”

“It’s different when it’s personal though,” Kate said and Isaak nodded.

“I’ve been having dreams,” he admitted.

“It happens.”

“Remember that crib?” he asked. “The one in the elevator?”

Kate nodded.

“I feel as if I’ve seen it before.”

“Could you have?” Kate asked. “You said you’ve stayed here before. Maybe you saw it in an elevator or being moved through the foyer.”

“Perhaps,” Isaak said, liking that practical answer. “I must have seen it then.”

He took a call from the jeweller who had a couple of names of jewellers that they might want to look up.

“We could go to the library,” Kate suggested.

“If you had told me a month ago I would be married, I would not have believed you, and if you had told me I would be spending half my honeymoon in a library…”

“We can go out for coffee then.” Kate smiled, but she knew that the library had won.

*

Here she was
in her element and Isaak watched as she pored through old books, making notes, barely looking up and he knew it would be almost an impossible ask to find out who his
babushka
’s lover had been without her here.

“What?” Kate looked up from a book and smiled.

“Did you find anything?”

“If you ask me that again….” Kate rolled her eyes and got back to work but then frowned in irritation as Isaak broke a universal rule when his phone went off.

Kate wasn’t the only one frowning.

“Pardon,” Isaak said, but he did not turn his phone off, instead he answered it as he walked out.

“Hey,” Isaak said to his brother, “How are you?”

“Freezing,” Roman said. “Hungover.”

“So, you are good then,” Isaak smiled.

“No.”

Isaak stood in the hallway outside the reference section and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes as Roman shared the reason he was ringing.

“I know that there have been a few false alarms,” Roman said. “But I really don’t think that he has much time, he’s asking for you.”

“I see.”

“You need to see him.”

“No, Roman, I don’t.”

“Isaak, listen to me. I was so angry with Ava, I still am. But when she was in intensive care, a nurse told me to try and put it aside, and it is the one thing, out of this whole sorry mess, that I am glad I did.”

“You haven’t forgiven her though.”

“I doubt I shall,” Roman said “But she died thinking I had. She had some peace.”

“I don’t want him to have peace,” Isaak retorted. “What peace did he bring to our mother? What peace did he bring to our lives? I have nothing that I wish to say to the man.”

He ended the call and looked up to see Kate walking out.

“We’re being thrown out.”

“Because of a phone call?”

“No, because it’s 9 p.m.”

They had both been so immersed they had completely lost track of the time.

“Wow,” Isaak said putting his arm around her shoulders as they stepped out into the night. “You could lose years of your life with this.”

“I have!” Kate said.

“Not lost.” Isaak kissed the top of her head. He was trying to speak normally but his heart was hammering. The thought of his father lying there old, feeble, and ill and asking for him had guilt tugging at his heart even as his mind insisted he owed that man nothing.

“We could climb it,” Isaak said pointing to the Eiffel Tower.

“No thanks,” Kate said. “I like my views from the ground up.” She looked at his pensive face. “What did Roman want?”

Isaak was not used to answering to anyone, and certainly this was news that he would prefer to process alone, but he pushed through it and answered. “My father is asking to see me.”

“If you want to cut short our time here…” Kate offered.

Isaak let out a breath of tension for a part of him was thinking the same thing and no, he did not want some tender deathbed reunion with a brute, who had made life hell.

“Maybe you should think about seeing him,” Kate persisted.

“And maybe you should stop trying to run my life,” Isaak snapped, but he regretted his harsh tone straight away. “Kate, you don’t know what it was like.”

“I know that I don’t.”

“And if you did, you would understand why I am not hopping on a plane.”

He did not want to think about his father. “These letters to Ivor when he was in the army, do you have them?”

“They’re in the safe in my office but I have copies on my computer. Ivor’s been over and over them. There are no clues there, just that she seemed very flat.”

“Can you send me them?”

“Of course, or just go on my computer,” Kate offered.

“Just send them.” Isaak gave a wry smile. She was just so open. He could not imagine anyone else inviting him to snoop on their computer. “You really don’t have anything to hide, do you?”