stop loving me.”
That was exactly what had happened.
“If that is true, and you were truly intending to change purely because of this love for me,” he said, his voice dripping scorn, “why didn’t you go back to your old life of cheating and lying the instant I left?”
Her eyes widened, then fell. “It wasn’t just for you,” she muttered. “It was for me, too.” She looked up. “And Josie. I wanted to be a good example. I wanted us to live a safe, boring, respectable life.” Hugging her knees to her chest, she blinked fast, her eyes suspiciously wet. “But we couldn’t.”
“You couldn’t be respectable?”
“We never felt safe.” She licked her lips. “Back in Alaska, some men had threatened to hurt us if I didn’t replace money we’d stolen. But my father had already spent it all and more. It was a million dollars, impossible to repay. So for the last ten years, I made sure we stayed off the radar. No job promotions. No college for Josie. Never staying too long anywhere.” Bree’s lips twisted. “Not much of a life, but at least no legs got broken.”
His hands clenched as he remembered the angry looks of the players at the poker game, when she’d told them how she’d cheated them. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“I did,” she said, bewildered at his reaction. “A few times.”
“You told me you had debts,” he said tightly. “Everyone has debts. You didn’t tell me some men were threatening to break your legs.”
She took a deep breath, her face filled with pain.
“Not mine,” she whispered. “Josie’s.”
Vladimir rose to his feet. Still naked, he paced three steps, clenching his hands. His shoulders felt so tense they burned. He was having a physical reaction.
If he’d been wrong about Bree, what else had he been wrong about?
He stopped as he remembered his brother’s face, contorted beneath the lights of the Christmas tree. You’re taking her word over mine? You just met this girl two months ago. I’ve looked up to you my whole life. Why can’t you believe I might know more than you—just once?
But Vladimir, two years older, had always been the leader, the protector. He could still remember six-year-old Kasimir panting as he struggled through the snowy two miles to school. Wait for me, Volodya! Wait for me!
But he’d never waited. If you want to follow me, keep up, Kasimir. Stop being slow.
Now, as Vladimir remembered that long-lost adoration in his brother’s eyes, his heart gave a strange, sickening jump in his chest. Tightening his jaw, he pushed the memory away. He looked at Bree.
“No one will ever threaten you or yours again.”
Her lips parted. “What will you do?”
He narrowed his eyes. “They threatened to break a child’s legs,” he said roughly. “So I’ll break every bone in their bodies. First their legs. Then their arms. Then—”
“Who are you?” she cried.
He stopped, surprised at the horror on her face. “What?”
“You’re so ruthless.” She swallowed. “There is no mercy in you. It’s true what they say.”
“You expect me to, what—give them a cookie and tuck them into bed?”
“No, but—” she spread her arms helplessly “—break every single bone? You don’t just want to win, you want to crush them. Torture them. You’ve become the kind of man who …” Her eyes seared his. “Who’d destroy his own brother.”
For a moment, Vladimir was speechless. Then he glared at her. “Kasimir made his own choice. When I wouldn’t listen to his words about you, he told the story to a reporter. He betrayed me, and when I suggested we split up our partnership, it was his choice to agree—”
“You deliberately cheated your own brother,” she interrupted, “out of millions of dollars. And you’ve spent ten years trying to destroy him. You don’t just get revenge, Vladimir. You deal a double dose of pain—breaking not just their legs, but their arms!”
Pacing two steps, he clawed back his dark hair angrily. “What would you have me do, Breanna? Let them threaten you? Pay them off? Let them win? Let my brother take over my company? Not defend myself?”
“But you don’t just defend yourself,” she said. “You’re ruthless. And you revel in it.” Her eyes lifted to his. “Has it made you happy, Vladimir? Has destroying other people’s lives made yours better?”
He flashed hot, then cold. As they faced each other, naked without touching, in a bedroom deep with shadows and frosted with moonlight, a mixture of emotions raced through his bloodstream that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time—emotions he could barely recognize.
Bree took a deep, ragged breath.
“I loved you. I loved the honest, openhearted man you were.” Tears glistened like icicles against her pale skin. “The truth is, I love him still.”
Vladimir sucked in his breath. What was she saying?
“But the man you are now …” She looked at him. “I hate the man you’ve become, Vladimir,” she whispered. “I hate you now. With all my heart.”
He took a single staggering step. He held out his hand and heard his own hoarse, shaking voice. “Bree …”
“No!” She nearly fell off the bed to avoid his touch. Snatching the crumpled, pink silk robe off the floor, she covered her naked body. “I should never have let you touch me. Ever!”
She fled from the bedroom, racing down the hall.
For an instant, Vladimir stood frozen, paralyzed with shock.
Then, narrowing his eyes, he yanked on a pair of jeans and followed her grimly. Downstairs, he heard the door that led to the pool bang. He followed the sound outside. From the corner of his eye, beneath dark silhouettes of palm trees against the sapphire sky, he saw a pale flash going down the cliff toward the beach.
He followed. Striding around the pool, he pushed through the gate and went down steps chiseled into the rock, leading to the private, white-sand beach. At the bottom, surrounded by the noisy roar of the surf lapping the sand at his feet, he looked right and left.
Where was she?
The large Hawaiian moon glowed like an opalescent pearl across the dark blue velvet ocean, its light sparkling like diamonds.
I loved the honest, openhearted man you were. Her poignant words echoed in his mind. I hate the man you’ve become.
Closing his eyes, he thought of how he’d spent the past ten years, constantly proving to himself how hard and heartless he could be. Betraying others before they could even think of turning on him.
Half the world called him ruthless; the other
