The Russian's Tender Lover (The Sisterhood) (2 page)

Sure enough, as soon as she stepped out of the car, her legs gave out on her, too tired from hours of dancing in painfully high heeled sandals. That’s what happens when one doesn’t train for these things correctly.

Matt didn’t laugh, didn’t joke or say “I told you so”. He simply put a long, muscular arm around her waist and took most of her weight onto his side, practically carrying her inside.

The lights were dim and she sighed with pleasure as she spotted her bed, quilt turned back and pillows even fluffed. “Dave’s a good guy,” she sighed as Matt lowered her to the bed. He even bent down and pulled her sneakers off.

“He sure is, love. Go to sleep,” he said but he didn’t need to tell her. Darcy had already slid down onto the mattress, jeans and all, her arms curled up under her pillow as she sighed with happiness.

Chapter 3

Sergei Anchova’s cup stopped mid way to his mouth, his concentration broken by the doors to his office bursting open, his baby sister in tears as she stomped up to his desk. He was busy reviewing the latest financial reports on one of his companies and wasn’t amused by the interruption.

“You have to do something, Sergei! This has to stop!”

Sergei considered family most important, until they gave him orders. His little sister was generally a beautiful woman with her blond hair curling softly around her shoulders. That image was distorted at the moment since her brown eyes were tearfully shooting daggers at him. Besides her lovely exterior beauty that could so easily be destroyed by her anger issues, she also possessed a lamentable addiction to being spoiled and a sense of entitlement that he couldn’t seem to break her free of. On more than one occasion, he’d considered cutting off her allowance and forcing her to work for a living, but his mother had always talked him out of it somehow.

Carefully setting the china cup back onto the saucer, he looked calmly at the crazed looking termagant standing in front of him. “Good afternoon, Anya. To what do I owe this…not so unprecedented outburst?”

Anya was a decent sort, tending to be a bit impetuous but he attributed this latest outburst to her upcoming nuptials, assuming something else with one of her vendors had gone wrong and she wanted him to fix it. Again.

“I told you. Get rid of her!”

Sergei leaned back in his chair, noting the color in his sister’s cheeks and the tears artfully dropping from her long, black lashes. She really was a lovely girl, if she would just grow up and gain some perspective. Obtaining employment would be advantageous to her temperament, although he doubted she would follow through on anything.

It was probably his fault though. Being thirteen years older, he tended to see her as more of a child. It didn’t help that she acted like one more often than he cared to admit. But she was getting married, albeit to a man he didn’t fully approve of yet. If Sergei had his way, he’d marry his sister off to someone with a bit more back bone. Anya tended to walk over her fiancée, Nicolai, who did everything she demanded of him.

She claimed to love him though, so he’d allowed the wedding to proceed. Although he was currently tempted to send her to her room rather than indulge in yet another fit of outrage over something probably as trivial as the napkins being rose instead of blush, a detail he couldn’t give a damn about but was apparently of utmost importance to a bride.

“Could you be a bit more specific?” he inquired, nodding to one of the chairs in front of his desk, silently ordering his sister to take a seat and calm down.

Anya didn’t heed the warning, but continued to rant and rave, becoming more agitated when she realized that her big brother, the man who always came to her rescue, was not as outraged at this latest atrocity as she thought he should be. “That woman! She’s stealing Nico from me!”

A napkin was one thing. An insult to his family name and honor was entirely a different matter. With deadly calm, Sergei stared his sister into silence. “Please explain in more detail, Anya,” he commanded.

Now that she had her brother’s full attention, she took a deep breath and sat down in one of the chairs. “That witch! That stupid, vile, fiancé stealer has put some sort of spell on Nico and now he wants to call off the wedding. A month before the date! I’ve already had my final fitting!”

Sergei didn’t give a whit about her dress. A cheating fiancé, on the other hand, was a completely different subject. That implied weakness on his part, something he would not allow to persist. In business, any sign of weakness was considered an invitation to raid.

He wouldn’t allow anyone to consider him, or his family, weak.

“Tell me more,” he said with soft, deadly patience.

Anya hesitated, not sure that coming to her merciless older brother was such a good idea now. “You won’t hurt him, Sergei!” she sniffed.

“I will do what needs to be done. Tell me why you think he’s cheating on you.”

She hesitated once more, but wasn’t willing to let her Nicolai go to this tramp of a woman. She loved him too much and she needed desperately to marry him. Although she couldn’t tell her brother that, or he’d…she shuddered, not wanting to contemplate what he might do if he knew the truth. Sergei was not just merciless, he was terrifying when he put actions into play. She’d seen him crush his competition over the years and even as a small girl, she’d known not to get in his way.

Anya was eternally glad that he was on her side, she thought as she took a deep breath. “Over the past week, I’d noticed that he kept calling one phone number repeatedly, so last night, I stole his cell phone and found the number. After finding out who it was, I was livid. I told him to delete the number from both his cell phone as well as his memory and never see her again, but he refused. He said he was in love with her and had to find out if there was anything between them.”

Sergei raised a thin eyebrow at her words. “Your fiancé is in love with another woman? And you still want him?”

She scoffed. “Nico isn’t in love with that tramp! He’s just having pre-wedding jitters. But it’s humiliating and I want it stopped. You’re the only one I could turn to who wouldn’t blab the news all over the tabloids.”

Sergei acknowledged her assumptions with a nod of his head. “It was wise of you to bring this to me. Although I would recommend that you eliminate him from your life, despite the wedding. He isn’t worthy of your love if he’s going off calling another woman.”

“But don’t you see? He really does love me. And he’s perfect for me. I just know we’ll be happy once he forgets her and comes back to me. It’s all just a silly little crush that he’s using as a way to weasel out of the wedding. He’ll be fine once he understands that.”

“Why don’t you talk to him?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, trying to control the tears that threatened her makeup once again. “Because he’s gone off in search of this….”

Cutting her off before she started voicing more foul language which would only delay understanding of the issue, he smoothly interrupted, “Why did he have to leave?”

Anya waved her hand in the air as if his question was silly. “Because no one knows where she goes. The rumor mill has her in a million different places so even I can’t find her. I’ve even called all my favors with the press and they’re stumped. You wouldn’t believe what I had to promise to make sure this didn’t get into the tabloids.”

Sergei sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Perhaps you should fill in the details. A name would be helpful.”

“Darcy DiAngelo,” she said with exasperation. “Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said?”

“Yes. Of course, but I can assure you that at no point in our conversation did you ever provide a name for this mysterious vixen.”

Anya was having none of that. “Don’t call her anything so complimentary. She’s horrible and she’s ruining my life!”

“I would argue that perhaps Nicolai is the responsible party. Or more specifically, you are giving someone the power to do that to you.”

She waved that aside. “Don’t give me that philosophical mumbo-jumbo, Sergei. Will you help me or not?”

“Of course. I cannot have your fiancé embarrassing the Anchova name. I will have him back at your side for the Brenizi party.”

Anya jumped up, all smiles once again now that her latest problem had been resolved and she didn’t have to lift a finger.

Chapter 4

Darcy woke up and stretched, feeling refreshed and relaxed. Glancing at the clock, she wasn’t surprised to find that it was already two o’clock in the afternoon. Getting in at dawn tended to shift one’s sleep patterns.

Just like the previous evening, Darcy knew how to overcome the shift in daily routine, having done this so many times in the past.

She made herself a cup of herbal tea, stuck a piece of toast into the toaster and walked around in her fluffy pink slippers, humming to herself and doing small chores around the house as her mind and body came fully awake and alert, all the while dodging two gray kittens, one with only half an ear on one side, three dogs and ignoring the rooster that was probably perched right outside her kitchen doorway, waiting in ambush for her to come out and feed him. Darcy wasn’t overly concerned about the rooster, knowing that Matt or Dave had already fed the little beast but he wanted more and thought he could sucker her into giving him an extra handful of corn. He was probably right. Darcy was always amazed that a rooster could have soulful, desperate eyes. Matt and Dave simply shook their heads when she explained why the rooster was begging but Darcy knew that the rooster could beg, even if they couldn’t see it themselves.

The dogs weren’t really the problem this morning. It was the gray kittens that were dodging in between her legs. Although she’d gotten more than enough sleep, that didn’t mean her feet had recovered from the abuse she’d put them through the previous night in her four inch strappy sandal heels. So instead of risking either of the little felines getting hurt, she simply picked both of them up and perched them on her shoulders, exactly where they wanted to be anyway. As soon as they’d gotten their grip on her pink, fluffy robe, they started purring and rubbing her ears trying to get a pet in between the feedings of the dogs.

Matt knocked on the door, then walked in without waiting for a response. “You were a very naughty girl last night!” he said, tossing the latest gossip magazine onto the worn kitchen table. “I think you deserve a break from all these ridiculous creatures,” he replied, bending down to scratch Fred, a monstrously huge German Sheppard behind the ears. Fred groaned, plopping his hairless behind onto the tile floor and closing his eyes in ecstasy. “Don’t you? Are you going to give her some space, you silly dog?”

Matt knew that Fred would do no such thing but the dog loved the attention. Matt stopped scratching and took the only other seat at the table. “So how did it go last night? Everyone behave?” he asked, petting Fred’s head since the dog put his head on Matt’s thigh, right where Fred’s wet nose would barely touch Matt’s hand as if it were a prize to be won. Ginger, a sweet little mutt of unknown heritage, not liking the fact that Fred was getting so much attention, moved closer to Matt and laid across his feet, laying claim to that area of her friend.

“Jeremy was the client last night and he was very much a gentleman.” The water started to boil and Darcy took down two cups from hooks underneath her cabinet.

“Don’t make any of that vile brew for me, dear. If it doesn’t have caffeine in it, there’s really no point.”

Darcy ignored him and poured the boiling water over both herbal tea bags, handing him one with a teaspoon of sugar. “Man can’t live on coffee and soda alone, my friend.” She took the opposite chair and put both kittens back onto the floor, giving them a scratch and a pat in the direction of their food bowls, which were underneath a cabinet where only a creature their size could get to easily. It was the only way she could guarantee that the dogs wouldn’t eat their food.

“And Simon was bar tending last night so he put extra lemon in my drinks so I had added vitamins, thanks to your suggestion, I’m guessing?”

He looked up from the tabloid paper and smiled cheekily at her. “Yep. You mentioned how much you hated the green olives. The lemon peel is just as sophisticated but doesn’t have the ick factor for you.”

She winked in his direction, very grateful for the interference. “Much appreciated. Those olives were doable for the first few drinks but after about ten or eleven, they started to make me gag.”

“What were the pills you were popping last night?” he asked as he read through the article about her exploits from the previous night, taking a sip of the herbal tea and grimacing before putting it back on the table next to him.

She groaned as her own hot tea soothed her sore throat, scratchy this morning from all the smoke in the night club and from yelling over the loud music. “Tylenol. The music and lights were pretty strong last night and I was getting a headache.

He chuckled and shook his head. “You did a great job. I like the little pocket you came up with in the neckline of your dress. Someone saw you reach in ‘subtly’ to get your fix last night and sold it to the paparazzi. Good idea!”