Regency Romance: A Duchess in Disguise (Historical 19th Century Victorian Romance) (Duke Fantasy Billionaire Romance) (38 page)

“I thought you were in the secret service,” I asked solemnly.

“I was.  If you wish to move up, in this country, you serve your country as a protector.  I lost interest in politics after I saw my fair share of shady deals.”

I walked back inside, stepping lightly on the cold floor. “I wouldn’t mind hearing some stories about these
medals,
if you would like to tell some.”

He joined me
indoors
and plucked a medal from the dresser.

“This
medal
instills the title ‘Hero of
Russia.’
It might be
simple,
but it’s one of the grandest honors you can receive.”

I took the
simple
painted gold star and examined it
closely
. “How did you get this one?”

“I doubt you’d believe me, even if I told you.”

“Try me,” I said with a grin.

“I stopped a terrorist threat against the state and had to disarm a bomb beneath the
Kremlin
while being shot at by radicals.  They say I saved around 5,000 lives that day.  Anton received one as
well. H
e held the enemy at bay, which gave me enough time to disarm the bomb.  I will give it to our child someday.”

Then I heard something I didn’t think I would hear ever again. 

“Viktor, are
a congratulations
in order?”

I turned, only to see Anton sitting in a chair in the corner of the bedroom, gun in hand.  He clicked the light on, illuminating several cuts and bandages covering most of
the exposed
skin.

“The bandages are new. I’d thank the men who gave them to me, but they won’t be hearing much ever again.”

“You killed them,” I uttered.

“How else do you escape that many armed guards?”

“Anton, I should have just had them kill you.”

I leaned over the dresser as they talked, covering it slightly with my blanket, and edged the gun out from under the medals, staying as silently as I could.

Viktor’s fists
were clenched
so tight that they were beginning to turn white. 

“So, what’s this I hear about a child?” Anton stood from the corner and began to move closer.  I stepped back, hoping to avoid having him touch me again. 

“It was nothing, just a bit of speculative talk,” Viktor said, his voice cracking a bit as he spoke.

“Viktor, we worked together long enough, I always know when you’re lying.”

Viktor lost his temper and attempted a charge at Anton, but Anton was too quick.  He pointed his raised gun at Viktor and pulled the trigger, piercing his shoulder.

“Tsk, tsk, Viktor.  Unless you want to lose your progeny,” Anton said, pointing his gun at me, and it wasn’t just me; it
was pointed
at my unborn child.

“Anton, don’t.  Whatever anger you have, take it out on me.  Don’t touch her.”

Anton let out another chortle.

“Viktor, you always did know how to make me laugh.  Considering the position you’re in, you shouldn’t be demanding anything.”

Anton reached out a hand toward me.

“Hand me the medal.  I would like to see Viktor’s reward.”

I dropped the brass star into his waiting palm and took another step back.  I felt the gun in my hand getting heavier as I was becoming increasingly nervous and worried about the life of my child.  I knew I only had one shot to do
anything,
and I had to make it count.

“Viktor told you he got this from disarming a bomb.  Which is true, but do you think he would
tell you
that he knew the person that planted it?”

I shook my head ‘no’.

“His
own
father did it.  He was
a true
Russian, through and through.  Always wanted everything back to the old way, and was willing to go
to any lengths
to get it.”

It was shocking to think that Viktor’s father was capable of doing such a thing.  I could see
fear
in Viktor’s eyes as the story was
being revealed
.

“I wonder if Viktor would have told you about what happened after he stopped that bomb.”

I once again shook my head.

“I drove to his father’s house, walked in the front door, and shot him straight
through
the skull.”

Anton was beginning to tremble while telling the story. 

“Of course, seeing as how his old man was still quite high up in government, his death would mean a trip to the gulag for anyone that took the blame.  Your
wonderful
man, Viktor, my partner, decided that his guilt was too much to bear.  Not even a month after we received our medals and he turned me in.”

He threw the medal at Viktor.  Viktor looked toward the ground defeated.

“You murdered my father,” Viktor said.

“And, you destroyed my life!” Anton shouted back.

I continued to back
away. I
t might not be
much,
but it was something to keep me from going mad from being so close to his rage.

“Viktor, have you ever spent a winter in a Gulag?  There is no heat; you hope that the next day will be your last, while simultaneously planning your revenge, holding out for the slim chance you might have it.”

Anton leaned against the dresser and sighed deeply.

“I’m not a bad person, everything I’ve done has been for my country.  I am here for my one piece of respite, and it’s almost too perfect.  I killed your father, and now I get to kill your child.”

Anton raised the gun again to fire; I was shaking from fear so
much,
and tears were streaming down my cheeks. 

Viktor stood up, holding his shoulder to staunch the blood loss.

“Anton,” he said.

Anton wheeled around and looked back at Viktor.

“Viktor, there’s nothing you can say that will change my mind now.  I need this.”

“Anton, I will pay you anything, I will give you whatever you want, but leave Brandy and my child out of our feud.”

Anton lowered the gun for a moment, but I caught a gleam of sudden rage in his eye as I saw him quickly turn toward me. 

I was ready for
it,
though.  As he began to turn, I whipped off the blanket I was wearing and threw it at him as quickly as possible. 

A gunshot rang out and deafened the room.  I whipped the gun in my hand up and pointed it at Anton.  My hand shook so much I didn’t think I’d hit anything. 

My thoughts flooded into my head all at
once. This wasn’t
just for me; this was for the future
and for
my child.  I found a sense of calm in the depth of my being that I never
felt,
and suddenly everything seemed so easy.

I aimed the gun and pulled the trigger.  A shot echoed around the room
again, then
another, and another.  I kept pulling the trigger, over and over, until Anton fell to the floor.  I kept the gun trained on him and kept pulling the trigger for everything that had gone wrong over the course of my entire life.  I kept pulling the trigger for every time I felt weak and for every time my nerves got the better of me.  I pulled the
trigger.
I killed him, and a piece of me died there with him.

I dropped the gun while tears flowed from my eyes; while pain wracked every last inch of my body.  I didn’t want to open my eyes again and see the sight that would
be forever burned
into my memory.

Viktor was on me, quickly.  He covered me with kisses and checked every inch of me to make sure I was alright.  Thankfully I was
unharmed,
not a single scratch showed itself. 

“You’re alright!” he shouted at me, I could hear him crying out of joy or sadness I couldn’t tell.

“I killed him,” I said.

“Yes, yes you did.”

“I killed him,” I repeated.

Viktor nodded and hugged me closer.  I heard the doors to the room
open
and a
couple
of security men stormed in with guns at the ready.

“We’re alright,” Viktor proclaimed.

The men lowered their weapons.  I still stared at the blanket, now covered in blood.

“I killed him,” I
repeated again
, sobbing into my hands.

Viktor picked me up and carried me from the room.  One of his guards
handed
him another blanket
that
he took and threw over me.

He took me down the hall to another room, quite a bit smaller, but still quite cozy.  He sat me in a chair just inside the entrance and got down on his knees in front of me. 

I finally realized how badly he was bleeding, running my hand over his wound on his shoulder.

“Viktor, you’re hurt.  You need to see a medic.”

He tensed in
pain
and pulled my hand away from his shoulder.

“I’ll see one
soon. T
here’s an ambulance on the way.”

“Viktor, I killed Anton.”

“I know,” he replied. 

Viktor took my head between his hands, grasping it hard and staring directly into my eyes.  I could feel his intensity again.

“You saved our child,” he said.

All thought left
me,
I hadn’t considered that.

“With your
actions,
you have given our child the chance to live, to grow, to love.  You made that happen, and you will make that happen.”

I could feel my tears beginning to dry up.  Thinking about saving a life, rather than taking one was helping.  I stared back into Viktor’s eyes and smiled.  Not all my anger and frustration
was
gone, but I could feel them
dulling
.

The medics found us inside the building briefly afterward.  And, it took a bit of coercing to pry Viktor from me for a while so they would be able to have a look at his shoulder wound.  With their examination they discovered that it was a deep wound but didn’t hit anything major, expecting him to make a full recovery.

I looked up at the wall in the room we were in and noticed something familiar.

“Viktor, is that the painting you bought from me when we first met?”

Viktor sheepishly nodded.

“It is. I hid it in here during the party to keep it from drunken guests.  I prefer
it
to be hung
in my bedroom.”

It was a pale blue piece, with concentric circles flowing in and around each other in so many colors; it was impossible to keep track of them all.

“I remember when I sold it to you
I
thought it was hideous, but now I might be turning around on it.”

Viktor laughed.

“It’s a funny thing, that, how our opinions can change so quickly.”

We bought plenty of art over the years, but that first picture never left our collection.  And, we never met anyone else like Anton. 

*****

THE END

1

Aisha had been working for Mr. Conner for a
week
when she first met Sandy. Of course, she had no way of knowing just how Sandy would affect her life then, but there was something about the woman that made Aisha take notice.

Aisha was just out of college, and it had been her dream to become a sports agent. She had moved to New York after graduating from Boston, though she had been born and raised in
Michigan
, twenty miles outside of Detroit. Boston had been something of a culture shock, but nothing had prepared her for New York. The massive buildings themselves seemed overpowering at first, oppressive even. Going out on the street, the throngs of people on the sidewalks, the unending stream of yellow cabs in the streets. It was all too much at first. But if she wanted to make it as a sports agent, she needed to be there. The Big City, practically trademarked.

When Anthony Conner was
younger,
he had been a hot shot agent with the largest sports agency in the world. A decade ago he had left to open his
own
agency, CSA. Now it was the largest sports
agency
in the world, and Aisha’s top marks in her classes at Boston had been enough to land her a job as his assistant. Of course, getting coffee and making copies wasn’t exactly what she wanted to do, but she knew you had to start somewhere.

And so she had been sitting at a small desk outside of Mr. Conner’s large corner office when someone approached her. She had been typing up a contract Anthony had needed quickly, and she only glanced
up,
at first, to see if she knew who it was who was tapping their foot impatiently in front of her desk. She hadn’t recognized the woman, so Aisha had gone on typing as the spoke.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I need to see Anthony,” the woman said.

“I’m sorry, do you have an appointment?”

“I don’t need an appointment,” the woman snapped, and Aisha stifled a sigh and looked up. The woman was Aisha’s opposite it just about every way. Aisha was black, her skin dark, like coffee with just a splash of milk mixed in. The woman in front of her was pale, with high cheekbones and strawberry blonde hair while Aisha had a round face and hair as black as coal. The woman was tall, almost as tall as Mr. Connor himself, and Aisha had always been short, but it worked for her, and added to her feminine qualities, like a curvaceous hourglass figure made up of
wide
hips and an ample bosom, she looked like something straight out of most men's fantasies.
The
white woman was
angular
and sharp, beautiful to be sure, but simply in a different way than Aisha was.

“I’m sorry,” Aisha went on. “He’s booked completely today.”

“Shut up,” the woman snapped, and then she marched past Aisha’s desk and into Mr. Conner’s office.

Aisha
was up on her feet in a flash, but she was too slow to stop the white woman, so all she could do was march in after her, and call to Mr. Conner over the woman’s shoulder.

The man sat at his richly lacquered mahogany desk, typing on his laptop. She was glad he wasn’t on his phone, she knew he would be annoyed to be interrupted, but he would have been furious to be pulled off of a call with one of his clients.

“This woman just barged in,” Aisha said, feeling foolish.
Of course,
she had, and she knew Mr. Conner would be able to tell
that
since the woman was in the process of barging in. Her boss looked
up,
and his eyes widened a bit when he saw the white woman.

“It’s fine,” Mr. Conner said to Aisha, holding his hand up, indicating she should leave. Aisha felt
anger
swell inside of her for a moment,
an anger
that confused her, and she
left
silently, thinking about it. Why had she gotten angry? A woman barged in, and her boss was letting her stay. So what? Why would that make Aisha angry?

As she sat at her desk once
more,
she realized it had not been anger, not exactly, but more so jealous. Mr. Conner was a powerful man, and one that Aisha
was simultaneously attracted
to, and
respectful of
. She had wanted him to send the lady out, to get mad, to rise from his chair and point to the door, and tell her to leave.
Instead,
he had held up his hand to her, and Aisha had been the one sent away.

Mr. Conner was
a nice
man
and a great boss. Aisha was sure he
was attracted
to her, the same way she was attracted to him, and he paid her the same attention most men did. She was gorgeous, and she knew it, and she wasn’t the type of woman to be ashamed by that. Nor did she have a problem flaunting some aspects of her body. To put it simply, it made life easier sometimes. The job with Mr. Conner
was an important first step
to a career in her field, and it had
been sought
after by quite a few applicants. Men and women alike. So she had interviewed in professional but somewhat sexual clothes. Low cut tops, short skirts. She knew some women would balk at such tactics, but Aisha thought it was foolish not to use whatever you could to get ahead, and she knew thinking like that would only help her in her chosen field, one that
was filled
with backstabbing and people looking to do nothing but further themselves.

Of course, Aisha drew the line in
places too
. She would never sleep with anyone for a job. That wasn’t the kind of thing she was comfortable with, and it wasn’t the sort of
thing
she respected. Of course showing off her tits and her legs, and her ass in a tight skirt was different. She wouldn’t sleep with Mr. Conner for her career, but she didn’t mind if he wanted to fuck her. If he did, that was only good for her. He was a man who had everything. Making him want something he couldn’t have would be good for him as well.

The hard thing was Aisha wanted to fuck him too. Badly. But she had dealt with crushes before. Having them, being wanted, it was no big deal, and she was going to control herself, and she was going to keep teasing her boss, and make it on her own.

She got back to typing up the contract Mr. Conner needed, but she couldn’t help but overhear the woman and her boss in his office.
Overhear
wasn’t the right word, not exactly. She couldn’t tell what was
being said;
she could only make out that the woman was speaking very loudly, almost yelling. She didn’t hear her boss raise his voice at all, but due to the pauses between the screeching woman’s words, she was sure he was trying to speak to her.

After ten minutes or so, the door to Mr. Conner’s office swung open and banged loudly against the wall. The tall woman stormed out, her face red and pulled into an angry scowl. “Of course,” she said as she stopped just long enough to look at Aisha, and then she was going again. As she stomped on
sky-high
heels towards the elevator
that
would lead down to the lobby, heads turned
in cubicles
to watch her go.

Aisha swiveled
in her chair
to see that her boss was standing in his doorway. She smiled and cracked a joke. “Another satisfied client?”

Anthony Conner laughed. “Something like that,” he said, and then he wiped his forehead,
feigning
exasperation. “I need a drink.”

“It’s only ten in the morning,” Aisha said.

“Well, tell me when it’s noon. I’ll take you to lunch. As long as you don’t mind if I drink mine.”

Aisha giggled and shook her head. “Fine by me,” she said, and Anthony turned into his office and shut the door.

Mr. Connor had never asked her to lunch, but she had been hoping he would. Any time spent with her boss, so she could impress him with her natural talent when it came to their very
specific
work, was good. Great in fact. She typed up the contract and took it into his office, and then went back and watched the clock on the corner of her computer screen slowly click upwards towards twelve.

Right at
noon,
she went into her boss's
office
and waited until he got off the phone. She leaned against the wall next to the door, listening as he spoke to a very famous baseball player who was nearing the end of his contract, and who desperately wanted off of the small market team he
played for
. When the conversation
was done,
Anthony looked to his
gorgeous
assistant and let his head tilt to the side.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Well, it’s time for-” Aisha started, but Anthony spoke over her, cutting her off. “Do you always listen in on people’s conversations?”

“Oh, I should have waited out-” Aisha started again, but once more she
was cut
off, this time by Mr. Conner’s infectious laugh. It was booming and loud, and it made Aisha laugh every time she heard it,
but, this time,
she fought her
own
laughter
away
and remained
stone-faced
.

“I’m kidding,” Anthony said. “I like messing with new people,” he said.

“Well I don’t like it at all,” the young woman snapped.

“I’m sorry,” Anthony said, holding his hands up, suddenly taken aback.

“I don’t care if you're sorry,” Aisha said, she then stormed forward and slapped her palms down on his desk, leaning over, so he would surely get
a nice
view of her supple cleavage. “I quit.”

“Aisha!” Anthony stammered, trying to keep his eyes on hers, but failing spectacularly in the face of her large, perfect, breasts.

“Kidding,” Aisha said, standing upright and laughing. “And my eyes are up here,” she
added
before she laughed harder. Anthony sat wide eyed for a moment, and then he too burst into infectious laughter.

“Are you busting my chops?” he asked as he stood and grabbed the suit jacket he had draped over the back of his chair and pulled it on over his very expensive shirt and tie.

“I
think
so,” Aisha said, and they walked out of his office together.

She paused
for a moment
to gather her things, a coat to fight off the oncoming autumn air, and her purse, and then they walked together down the row of cubicles and to the elevator. Aisha couldn’t help but notice
a number of
people watched as they walked by, and she wondered if they thought Mr. Connor, who was her boss and
theirs,
of course, was taking her to
lunch
or is she was going to sit in the backseat of his car with her and suck him off. She knew what some women did to get ahead, and she admitted to herself she would be wondering the same thing if she saw Anthony and another
pretty
young
woman
walk by together at noon.

She knew tongues would be wagging as soon as they were out of earshot, and she stole a glance at her boss. If he was thinking the same thing, his impassive face didn’t show it. They got to the
elevator,
and Mr. Conner pressed the button to call it up to their floor. As they
waited,
Aisha let her mind run wild some more. First she thought about going down to the parking garage and indeed slipping into the backseat. Would he slip in with her? If she just sat back there, and held the door open for him, leaning out of the car to do so and affording him another great view of her tits, would he get in with her? Would he be hard? Would he object if she pulled his engorged member out of his pants and went to town on it? She bet he would get in with her, but he wouldn’t object.

And then she thought again of her co-workers, and she had to hide a smile. She liked the idea of them wondering. She knew that there was a whole other level, with her being black, as sad as that was in the modern age. He was a successful white man, almost double her age. She was a young black girl. She wondered if he had ever been with a black girl. He didn’t seem like the type who would discriminate, but most people felt more comfortable with lovers of their
own
race, even if they weren’t discriminatory. You
were just drawn
to people like you. And it was true for Aisha as well. She had never dated anything other than black
men
though
in college
she had spent one wild night with her
Asian
roommate, who was a woman.

In the elevator Aisha felt something, standing so close to her boss, alone with him in the small box. It felt as though there was an attraction there, something tangible in the
air
though Aisha was sure she could just be imagining it.