CHAPTER THREE
Is the Sullivan Heiress Kazarov’s Latest Squeeze?
HIS VOICE WAS harsh, hard, and she flinched from the coldness in it. A moment ago, he’d been kissing her as if nothing had ever gone wrong between them. And now he was back to hating her.
“I have no idea what you mean,” she said coolly. In spite of his lethal appeal, she would not fold. She would do nothing except what she wanted to do. And she would win this battle in the end. That’s all she cared about: winning.
Thank God he’d kissed her, she thought. Because now she knew she could survive it.
Roman let her go and shoved a hand through his hair. Her lips still tingled from his kiss, and her body still ached with want. It was disconcerting. She realized she was cold and turned to search for the wrap, which must have fallen when she’d gone into his arms. She found it and dragged it over her bare shoulders again, shoring up her resolve as she did so.
“You lied about your address,” Roman said.
Her heart seemed to stop in her chest for the longest moment before kicking hard again. Of course he’d known she hadn’t given the correct address. “I did. I admit it. But how did you know?”
“Because it is my business to know everything about the people whose companies I intend to acquire.” It was said without a trace of irony, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world for him to know where she lived after all this time. To not only know, but to let her try and deceive him without once saying a word. It made her furious. And anxious.
“You could have said something,” she told him tightly. “And saved me the trouble of continuing the lie.”
“And miss this charming interlude? I think not. But tell me why you did it.”
Caroline licked her lips. Ryan would be in bed by now, his little body tucked under his race car blankets. He would not come bounding out the door. Nor would he have if she’d let the driver take her home in the first place. She’d simply panicked at the thought, and look where it had gotten her. Fool.
She needed time to think. God knew she wasn’t thinking very well at the moment. She’d been stressed and overworked these last few weeks. There was so much to do, so much to work out, if Sullivan’s was to make their next loan payment to the bank. She should be at home, working on the projections before her meeting with the bank tomorrow, not sparring with this ruthless man.
Roman was watching her curiously. And she didn’t kid herself that he was anything less than a threat. Under the curiosity lay a tiger waiting to pounce. One sign of weakness, one more mistake in judgment, and she would be toast.
“I lied because I was angry. I didn’t want you taking me home.” She sniffed. “It was quite a shock seeing you again, I admit. And then you got into the taxi with me, though you were not invited.”
He looked dangerous. “That doesn’t explain what happened next.”
Caroline’s face flamed. No, it certainly didn’t explain the panic that had made her try to use the promise of sex to distract him. She lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. Let him think the worst of her. She did not care. “It’s not the first time I’ve thrown myself at you. Perhaps I was feeling nostalgic.”
Roman snorted. “Of course. This explains everything.”
“And on that note, I think I should go home now,” she said, stiffening her spine and facing him with all the haughtiness she possessed. “Clearly, I made a mistake.”
His eyes narrowed as he continued to study her. “Da, you should go.” He strode past her and back inside, where he picked up her purse and handed it to her. Caroline gripped the clutch tightly, embarrassment and fury warring within her for dominance.
Once, he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Once, she’d gloried in the knowledge that she could make this man burn for her. Now, he was throwing her out. Which was what she wanted, of course—and yet it pricked her pride, too. No longer was she irresistible to him.
As if to prove the point, Roman’s gaze traveled insultingly slowly down her body before finding its way to her face again. “I find that, while you still have the ability to excite me, I’m not precisely moved to take you to my bed.”
“What a relief,” she snapped, though inside his words smarted. “Though I’m not stupid enough to presume you’ll be changing your plans for Sullivan’s, I am relieved to know they no longer include me in the bargain.”
His laugh was low, deep, sexy, and it sent tiny waves of rebellious delight crashing through her.
“Oh, I still have plans for you, solnyshko. Just none for tonight.”
Roman stood on the terrace once she’d gone, glass of Scotch in hand, and gazed out at the lights of Manhattan. Though he was on the top floor, he could still hear the sounds of traffic below—the screech of brakes, the sharp clarion of a siren. Somewhere in that traffic, Caroline rode toward her home in Greenwich Village, her perfect blond hair smooth, her lipstick refreshed, her composure intact.
Nothing touched Caroline for long. He’d learned that five years ago. When she’d been in his arms, in his bed, their bodies entwined and straining together, she’d been completely and utterly his.
When they’d dressed again and he’d put her in a cab home—because she’d insisted she could not stay overnight and rouse her parents’ curiosity—she’d left him completely behind, forgotten until the next time.
He, however, had lain awake thinking of her. Thinking of how he could make her his permanently. Such a fool he’d been.
Their affair had been brief, a matter of weeks only, but he’d fallen hard. And she had not fallen at all. He’d had a long time to think about why he’d done something so uncharacteristic. And what he’d decided, what he’d realized for the pitiful truth, was that she’d represented something golden and unattainable. He, Roman Kazarov, son of a violent, evil monster and a gentle woman who’d married down, before she’d realized she’d made a terrible mistake, had possessed the ultimate prize in his all-American golden girl.
He’d fallen for Caroline because she’d made him believe his circumstances didn’t matter, that his worth had nothing to do with where he’d come from. And then, once he’d believed her, she’d yanked the rug out from under him.
Roman took a sip of the Scotch, let the liquid scour his throat on the way down. She’d made him forget what was most important in his life. He’d lost sight of his reason for being in America in the first place, and it had cost him dearly. His mother’s last months were spent not in the lush nursing home he’d been paying for while he worked at Sullivan’s, but in a run-down two-bedroom apartment where he and his brothers did their best to care for her as she slipped further and further into sickness.
He didn’t blame Caroline for it; he blamed himself. Acquiring Sullivan’s wouldn’t bring his mother back from the grave, or change her last months of suffering, but he planned to do it anyway. To remind himself of the folly of allowing anything or anyone to come between him and his goals.
He thought of the kiss he and Caroline had shared tonight, and a tendril of heat slid through his groin. He had
