NIKOLAI (Her Russian Protector #4) (23 page)

I bit my lower lip as anxiety
flooded my core. "I'm not very good at taking
chances."

He grinned. "That's not true.
You're marrying me, aren't you?"

I rolled my eyes. "That's
different."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I love you," I
answered simply.

He unlatched his seatbelt and
leaned across the middle console. Threading his fingers through my
loose hair, he clasped the back of my head and stared into my eyes.
I lost myself in the greenish pools of his irises. "Because I love
you, we're sitting down tonight and coming up with a plan for you.
I love you too much to sit back and watch you waste your
potential."

As if sealing a vow, he pressed
his mouth to mine in a tender kiss. Mindful of his injured
shoulder, I let my hands fall to his upper arms. I didn't want the
kiss to end but since that night in the library when things had
gotten so dangerously heated between us, he'd been very careful
with me.

Even last night, as we'd kissed
to celebrate the start of a new year, he'd only allowed the wicked
mating of our mouths to progress to a certain point before easing
off. He was driving me crazy with these teasing kisses that
promised so much more but I understood that he was only giving me
what I wanted.

Every time we touched, I
started to doubt my decision to wait. I had discovered newfound
respect for the couples I'd known who had made it a year or two
between their first dates and marriage.

"Let's get inside." He
unlatched my seatbelt and sneaked in one more playful kiss before
sliding out of his seat. By the time, he came around to open my
door, Sergei and another couple of men had arrived. Two of them
stayed in the SUV but Sergei came in with us, just in case we
needed help moving around the bigger canvases. Though he wouldn't
ever admit it, Nikolai's shoulder and ribs weren't in good enough
shape for him to be dragging around heavy objects.

I shivered as we stepped inside
the chilly interior of the studio. As usual, I scanned the tables
and walls to make sure everything was exactly as I'd left it. The
memories of the last time I'd been here and of that terrible fight
I'd had with Nikolai flashed before my eyes. My heart ached as I
remembered the way he'd spoken to me and the way I'd shoved
him.

As if sharing that memory,
Nikolai slid his arm around my waist and pressed a gentle kiss to
my temple. I glanced up at him and saw the regret etched into his
face. I'm sure he saw the same reflected in my eyes. I hated that
we'd been so ugly with one another, but in some ways, I was glad it
had happened. That fight had been like a thunderstorm. All those
raging emotions we'd kept so tightly concealed had been forced into
the open. Each angry thunderclap between us had cleared the
air.

Sergei started toward the back
wall. "Which paintings are going in the truck?"

I slipped out of Nikolai's
embrace and trailed Sergei. When I reached the rack of canvases, I
started pointing to the ones that would be going with Gustavo
today. As I started ticking them off, I realized I was one painting
short.

My stomach clenched as I rushed
to the rack and touched the empty space where the painting of the
night I'd been shot normally sat. The cover was missing as well.
"Kolya!"

He appeared next to me and
reached out to touch the same empty spot. Our fingers brushed
together and our gazes clashed. I didn't want to think that he'd
done something to it—but he had been so upset that night when I'd
stormed out of the studio.

He must have been able to read
the mistrust in my face because he winced. "I would not do that
you, Vee."

Feeling guilty for even
thinking he'd do something so cruel, I placed my hand against his
chest. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head as if to
indicate that he wasn't hurt by my silent insinuation, but I could
see it plain as day in his eyes. He turned his narrowed gaze toward
Sergei and quickly interrogated him. "Who came into the studio
after we were attacked?"

Sergei shrugged. "I'm not sure,
Boss. It got crazy. I was trying to keep you from bleeding to death
and Kostya was cleaning up the scene before the police arrived. We
had Alexei and Danny chasing after the SUV that had
her."

Just then, we were interrupted
by the rumbling sound of a moving truck arriving outside. I began
to despair about the upcoming show. There were only a few days to
get everything just right—and now the main piece of the show was
missing.

"I'll find your painting,
Vee."

If any man could accomplish the
seemingly impossible, it was Nikolai.

* * *

A few nights later, Nikolai
cruised down a quiet street and turned into Kostya's driveway. The
modest ranch style house on a corner lot didn't look like the type
of place a mob cleaner would live but then Kostya had never
embraced such stereotypes. As he waited for his friend to answer
the front door, Nikolai stared at the strange little garden gnomes
hidden among the pansies in the front flower beds. Kostya had the
oddest sense of humor…

The door opened and Kostya
waved him inside. "It's back here."

When they had discovered
Vivian's painting missing, Nikolai had instantly suspected Kostya
of taking it. Not in a malicious way, of course, but in a misguided
attempt to protect him. Kostya's unwavering loyalty sometimes
manifested in strange ways—like taking the
painting.

Kostya led him to the master
bedroom. Nikolai's eyebrows shot to his hairline when he saw the
painting in question hanging on the wall directly across from the
bed. "Is there a reason you have Vee's painting in your
bedroom?"

"I like staring at your naked
chest before I fall asleep. It's soothing." Kostya betrayed his
deadpan delivery with the tiniest twitch of a smile playing upon
his lips.

"Funny," Nikolai grumbled. When
Kostya took down the canvas, it made a scraping sound against the
wall, and he cringed. "Be careful. She'll be broken-hearted if
something happens to this one."

"I can't believe you're going
to let her show it." Kostya wrapped the protective cloth around the
canvas.

"I probably shouldn't," Nikolai
agreed, "but the truth is out between us. We're not going back to
the way it was."

"You realize Santos probably
saw your chest tattoos at the hospital. If he's at the gallery
tonight, he's going to recognize you."

It was a risky outcome he'd
been considering since agreeing to let Vivian show the painting. "I
promised her she could show it."

"And how is that promise going
to feel when you're sitting in prison?"

Unclear on where he stood
legally, Nikolai didn't know how to answer that question so he
remained silent. When he reached for the painting, Kostya kept a
tight grip and refused to let go. Nikolai's hardened stare finally
forced his friend to relent. Sighing heavily, Kostya warned,
"You're going to regret this."

Kostya's parting shot
ricocheted round and round in Nikolai's head as he ferried the
painting to Vivian and her biggest showing yet. The heavily
congested downtown traffic slowed his progress and gave him plenty
of time to think about what he was doing. His gaze skipped from the
windshield to the covered painting squeezed into the backseat of
the car.

Warring with his conscience, he
considered how easy it would be to lie to her and tell her that it
had been destroyed or that he hadn't been able to locate it. He
hadn't revealed to Vivian that Kostya had taken it so it would be
easy enough to pretend it was lost forever.

Imagining the sad look on her
face kept him from pulling over, ripping the canvas with his knife
and trashing it one of the many garbage bins along his route. He
couldn't do that to her. He couldn't destroy something she'd
created, even if it put him at risk.

When he pulled into the private
parking area along the back of the gallery, his phone started to
ring. Recognizing Vivian's ringtone, he answered while climbing out
of the front seat. "What's wrong, Vee?"

"Nothing," she answered
brightly. "Where are you?"

"I'm here." He opened the back
passenger door. "I have a surprise for you."

"You found the painting." She
said it breathlessly, her voice filled with hope.

"Yes." Sliding the phone
between his ear and shoulder, he grimaced as he reached in for the
canvas. Though he was healing well, his battered body still
protested certain movements and position.

"Don't bring it in,
Kolya."

Bent in half, he went still.
"What?"

"I'm not showing
it."

"You built the show around this
painting—"

"I did, but you're more
important to me than showing that piece of art. I've moved some
pieces around and substituted the painting of Ivan for the one of
that night. The narrative still flows well."

He straightened up and placed
his hand along the roof of his car. The frigid metal burned his
palm. "You don't have to do this, Vee."

"I do. I've been thinking about
us and about what it would risk to show it, especially if someone
recognizes you. I don't know what the statute of limitations is for
what happened that night, but I don't want you going to prison over
it. Everything that happened that night was a mistake. We've both
paid for it over the years. It's done. I want it buried in the
past—where it belongs."

His body relaxed and tension he
hadn't even realized he'd been holding melted from his bones. Some
part of him still believed that he deserved to be punished for what
he'd done. He doubted that guilt would ever leave him—and rightly
so.

But the thought of losing
everything that he was trying to build with Vivian made him shut
and lock the door of his car. Tonight, she was making a sacrifice
for their future. He would do everything in his power to make sure
that she never regretted it.

"Come find me," she said with a
hint of a smile in her voice.

He pocketed his phone and
touched his tie before buttoning up the front of his suit jacket.
Despite the January cold, he hadn't bothered with a coat for the
short journey between his car and the gallery. He showed his VIP
pass to one of the clipboard wielding assistants manning the back
entrance and was waved into the building.

There was still a quarter of an
hour before the official opening of her show but some of their
friends and a small group of Houston's fine art crowd had already
trickled inside. He spotted Vivian within seconds of stepping into
the brightly-lit gallery space. Standing with Gustavo, the gallery
owner, and his partner, a high-end art dealer with several
international locations, she looked totally at ease and in her
element.

She took his breath away in
that flirty little cocktail dress and the strappy high heels. From
this distance, the black lace dress looked scandalously short and
see-through. In fact, he'd nearly choked to death when she'd come
downstairs wearing it earlier that evening. It wasn't until she'd
drawn closer that he'd noticed the cleverly crafted illusion of the
nude-colored tulle beneath the black lace.

Nikolai didn't often feel
uncomfortable. He'd risen to a certain level of prominence within
the underworld, and with that came a great deal of power, but this
glamorous art world that Vivian had been invited to inhabit was
totally alien to him.

"You look as wound up as
Ivan."

Drawn by Erin Hanson's soft
voice, he turned to his left and found her standing next to him
with a glass of champagne. With her pixie-like haircut, slender,
petite frame and gentle sweetness, she was the absolute last woman
in the world Nikolai ever would have imagined his friend marrying.
Well-educated and from an upper middle class family, Erin wasn't
the type who would typically give a man like Ivan a second glance
but damned if she hadn't fallen in love with him at first sight—if
his friend's version of their whirlwind romance was to be
believed.

"This isn't my
scene."

She laughed. "I can't stand
those awful fights that Ivan drags me to but I've learned to sit
through them and smile. I've taught myself the rules of
mixed-martial arts and the ways the tournaments work because I know
it makes him happy to have me there supporting him and his
fighters, even if I am cringing inside every time one of them gets
hit."

"There seems to be a higher
learning curve when it comes to fine art."