jaw.
“Good morning, Alexi,” she murmured in an intimate lovers’-morning-after tone.
Mikhail’s body stiffened, but the quick movement of his lips was a smile, soon hidden. While Alexi stood, silent and forbidding, Mikhail nodded formally. “Good morning, Jessica.”
Jarek grinned widely. “Yes, good morning.”
Jessica walked to Alexi and thoroughly enjoyed his fierce scowl. “Here you go,” she said lightly, and dropped the boots intentionally close to his sock-covered feet. She handed the jacket and gloves to him, then yawned and stretched. “Did I hear something mentioned about breakfast?”
The quick narrowing of Alexi’s eyes was meant to warn, so was the slapping of the leather gloves against his hand. Instead she took the gestures as a challenge.
“You are not invited, Mrs. Sterling,” he said carefully.
“Oh, I’m disappointed. I was hoping to spend more time with you.” She feigned an apologetic half smile and batted her lashes at him again, enjoying the waves of frustration and anger coming from Alexi. He would learn not to play games with her. “It was rude of me to invite myself.”
“Not rude at all. Our parents would love to have you,” Mikhail said briskly.
“Are you certain? Oh, that would be lovely. I would just be a minute freshening up, and I do need to make the bed.” Jessica looked up at Alexi. “But Alexi doesn’t want—”
“He’ll feel better after he eats,” Jarek stated and, with a chuckle, stepped outside the door. With a brisk nod, Mikhail followed.
Alexi jammed on his boots, laced them furiously and jerked on his coat, buttoning it. He scowled down at her, a muscle in his jaw clenching. “Now see what you have done. They think we are involved. You come out of my room, looking all soft and warm and—and you know exactly what picture you presented—as if we had spent the night making love. My family and friends have been trying to set me up with women for years. I have finally managed some peace, and now you tear it away. Once you move on, I will be left to deal with a steady flow of women wanting husbands—or lovers.”
His desperation was perfect—she’d truly scored. “You’re so arrogant. I suppose you think you are in demand, huh, Mr. Sex Magnet?” she taunted, serving his earlier label back at him.
“It would appear so. You want me, do you not?”
Jessica tilted her head and refused to be baited. “When you’re emotional, your accent slips out.”
“I am never emotional,” Alexi stated firmly.
“Tell that to someone else. I’ve seen you at your worst.” Jessica smiled coldly and crossed her arms. “You called this game, Stepanov. I’m just playing it. You’re not exactly a sweetheart, and neither am I. I offered you a business deal. You haven’t given me an answer yet. But you will.”
He scowled down at her, his fist wrapping in her jacket to draw her up to his face. “You do not play with me,” he ordered, spacing the words.
“I want you to take care of Willow. Will you, and how much—or won’t you?”
“Who is Howard?”
She hadn’t expected the harsh question. “Someone I know.”
“A married man who is pursuing you, just as you want.”
“I never encouraged Howard. He’s my husband’s son, and he’s in an open marriage. Just because my husband—and I loved Robert—passed away, I’m not up for grabs.” Howard had started “pursuing” her the minute that he knew his father, Robert, was interested in Jessica. When Robert and Jessica had married, Howard had been bitter, an unseated heir to the chain of Sterling Stops. As Robert’s terminal illness had progressed, he’d put Jessica at the head of the company, rather than his self-serving son.
Enraged, Howard had begun to battle her on two fronts, business and personal. When she dealt with him, Jessica was always very careful to consider that her husband had dearly loved his only son. She kept Howard involved in a minor position in Sterling Stops and monitored his work herself. He was overpaid for the position, ineffective and disinterested. As executrix of her husband’s estate, Jessica also monitored monthly payments to Howard and he resented her holding “Dad’s purse strings.”
Remembering how Alexi had interfered with Howard’s call last night, Jessica said, “And I don’t need anyone’s protection—or interference. I handle my own business.”
Alexi leveled a determined look at her. “I will not be your ‘business.’ You are to clear up any misconceptions immediately.”
“You should have thought of that before you made me ruin these shoes.” She allowed herself a smirk. “Can’t you handle it, bud?”
With a low, feral growl, he leaned closer. “I tell you again—do not play games with me.”
His forearm brushed her breast and Alexi inhaled sharply, pushing her away. His stare ripped from her face down to her breasts, and for just a moment, sensuality quivered between them. Then his hard blue eyes locked with hers. “Keep that jacket on.”
“Orders? I don’t like that. I give them, Stepanov, not take them.”
When Alexi stormed out of the workroom, Jessica allowed herself a shaky but triumphant smile. He would do the job she asked, or she would make his life a living hell—and she thought she just might enjoy that.
Jessica studied herself in Alexi’s shaving mirror. Her carefully applied cosmetics, her everyday protective shield behind which she ran a huge corporation, were gone—only the remains of her mascara lay smudged beneath her eyes. With a deep breath she looked at her choices from the table beneath the mirror. Willow’s unscented but luxurious soap and a clean washcloth revealed the woman Jessica protected—an almost pixie-ish face with huge green eyes framed by dark brown lashes, a brief bit of a nose, high cheekbones and full lips that she carefully tried to diminish.
She used Alexi’s brush carefully, drawing back her long hair into a rubber band to create a ponytail.
She looked like little more than a shiny-faced, scrubbed-clean teenager, with all the gloss and polish she had learned to protect herself placed aside. “Game time,” she said quietly, determined to finish what Alexi had started.
Jessica studied herself in the mirror. “He could have given me a simple answer, and he didn’t. I wasted a lot of time and energy checking him out. He is the best man for the job, but if he wants a difficult game, I know how to play. Now, let’s just see what he’s got.”
She stepped out onto the porch and shaded her eyes against the brilliant daylight ricocheting off the snow. Fresh lumber had been stacked against the house and three tall men, with evident family resemblances, stood waiting.
Jarek and Mikhail nodded and walked toward the huge flatbed lumber truck.
Alexi put his hands on his hips and stared coldly at her. When she came to stand in front of him, he looked down at the sweatshirt she had placed over her light jacket. That flare of his nostrils told her that she’d scored another hit to his temper by wearing his clothes. He glared at her, then down to her shoes. “I must carry
