Roulette (5 page)

“Poor baby,” I tease. “My father didn’t
meet
me until I was seven.”

“The few times I was home from school, my mother left every night after dinner to sleep at her lover’s house.” The words are like notches on the bedpost of a miserable childhood.

“My mother brings her lovers to dinner. Occasionally to the same dinner.”

“My father married my mother for her money.”

“My father never bothered to marry my mother.” I give him a smirk. “I could do this all day. It’s kind of therapeutic.”

He keeps staring out at the rooftops. “Can we go have some fun now?” He sounds tired for the first time. “Have I paid my toll?”

I feel that keenly. Damn him. I suppose I am trying to taunt him, or wring something out of him, and now I regret it. “I’m sorry, Rome.”

“No worries. Deep down, everyone wants to pry. My best-performing newspapers are the most salacious.” He raises one
shoulder like nothing really bothers him anymore.

“Oh, I don’t mean it like that. I meant . . . I’m really sorry for all your stupid-parent stories. I’m sorry for mine, too.” When he turns to face me, I see the briefest flash of sadness in those magnetic blue eyes.

“So am I. For both of us,” he adds. When he speaks like that, without any undertone of pleasure or mischief, he cuts so deep into me I can’t really breathe.

“I think that might be the truth after all,” I whisper.

“Might be.” He smiles again, running fast from the depth of the conversation. “So, do you need to work?” He gestures with his coffee cup toward the huge desk. “I’m at your disposal. I can tell you all the terrible stories about my competitors and help you run the numbers on the bastards.”

“I bet you can.” I look out the window, away from his too-knowing gaze. It is a gorgeous spring morning in Saint Petersburg. Suddenly, I don’t want to squander it indoors.

It’s not like this one day is going to make a difference to anyone. And I am in Saint Petersburg, and nothing I do here really matters back in my real life. And even if Landon ever gets wind of my gallivanting around Palace Square with Jérôme de Villiers, it is all business anyway. Colleague of my father and all that.

Work, work, work. That’s me. The worker bee.

I shake my head.

Damn my mother. This is all her fault. I always secretly suspected I was going to be struck down one day by her congenital lust. On the bright side, as lightning strikes go, I’m sure I can contain this.

“You know what?”

“What?” He is smiling again, liking the hint of optimism in my voice.

“Let’s forget about work. What’s one day?”

“Only one day?” he asks with a goofy puppy-dog look of supplication.

“How many days of
fun
did you have in mind?” I ask.

“
Alors
, when you say it like that, I might like many, many days.”

I open my mouth to protest, but he speaks quickly to stay my retort.

“
Mais
I will settle for one day . . . and one night. A day and a night in Saint Petersburg to get to know each other. Then”—he snaps his fingers—“
poof.
Back to floppy ties . . . and cardiologists.”

My heart starts pounding again. “What do you know about cardiologists?”

“I have Google, too, remember? I wouldn’t be a very good snoop if I stopped at your teacher page on the USC website, now, would I? And I saw he has a very successful career ahead of him.”

I look away. “He does. But—”

“But?” Rome isn’t leading me on, exactly, but for some reason I feel like he strips away all my bullshit. When I look at him, I want to say everything that I really feel. Rome makes me honest. I certainly don’t feel coerced into bad-mouthing Landon. I want to.

“But he’s not all that
fun
.” I smile at our overuse of the word. “He’s a really good, solid man, and good relationships are supposed to be solid, right?” I look to Rome to weigh in.

“Don’t look at me! I know nothing about what the words
good
and
relationship
mean in the same sentence.”

I shake my head to clear my thoughts. “It’s probably wrong to talk about him to you anyway.”

“No, it’s not. You can talk to me about anything.”

And the strangest part is, I totally believe him. He reminds me of my friend Margot Montespan from MIT. We met on the first day of classes and were pretty much inseparable from then on. We clicked. Whenever I try to hedge around my feelings, she always calls me on it. I feel more honest when I am with her than I do when I am by myself.

It dawns on me that
she
would never move in with Landon just for a white fence and an imaginary dog. Margot might be as cautious as I am in certain ways, but she would never spend the rest of her life in a relationship just because it was safe. Now that I think about it, that is probably why the two of us have lost touch over the past year. Deep down, I know she’d ask me all the hard questions about what I
really
want to be doing with my life . . . and with whom.

“You remind me of my friend Margot.”

“Is she handsome and charming?”

I smile. “She’s quite beautiful, actually. In that dark hair–fair skin way.”

“Sounds lovely. Go on.”

“She always makes me feel like I have nothing to do but tell the whole truth. You kind of make me feel like that.”

“You make me feel like that, too,” he adds softly.

I take a deep breath and feel like I am blindfolded and stepping off a cliff. “Okay.” I look at the neat desk and realize there isn’t really anything else I need to do until Friday afternoon, when Alexei wants me to meet with the board. “This can all wait. Let’s go have some fun.”

“Excellent.”

“First off, I need to get cleaned up.” I glance down at my wrinkled blouse and skirt, then catch his eyes on me.

“Debatable.” He looks up with something in his expression that I can describe only as raw desire. I lose my breath for a few seconds.

“Trust me. You want me to take a shower.” My voice is all scratchy.

He stands up slowly, his body trailing up mine in the narrow triangle of space created by the two chairs where we were sitting on one side and the large desk on the other. “Oh, I trust you.”

I watch with a strange detachment as his right hand reaches up to my face and traces the line of my jaw. I hold my breath. That touch sends a wave of heat right through me. My chest tightens; my lips gape slightly.

“Where should I get you?” he whispers as his finger trails down my neck, so slowly.

“Uh . . .” I pretty much lose the power of speech. “Uh . . .” My reptile brain is screaming,
There! You should get me right there! Where your finger is! And lower!

“Where are you sleeping?” he asks. The low roll of his voice coats every word with sexual tension.

Of course he doesn’t say, “
What hotel are you staying at?
” No, he says, “
Where are you sleeping?
” I am lost.

“A-at the Astoria,” I manage. It is so difficult to concentrate when I want to lean into him and inhale him. The grief. The sleep deprivation. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but the ever-practical Miki Durand has obviously left the building.

“Me, too. Let’s go.” He reaches his strong fingers around to the back of my neck and rubs at the tension there. The stiffness in my muscles from my night at the desk begins to ebb.

“God, that feels great.” I lean back into the strength of his hand at my neck and let my eyes slide shut, which is a pity because I was enjoying the view of his lips a few inches away.

“Let’s get your things and get out of here.” He finishes rubbing my neck, then puts both of his hands on my upper arms. “You okay?”

I open my eyes slowly. “I’m good.” I shiver. “Let me just grab my computer, and we can go to the hotel together. I mean—”

“I know what you mean.” He steps away from the narrow space where we were standing to let me pass.

I put a Post-it note on the Segezha file for Alexei. My hands are shaking, and I feel like my fingers are swollen and inept. I power down my laptop.

Rome is standing by the door with his arms folded across his broad chest.

I take a deep breath.
What the hell am I doing? A last hurrah? A little fling before settling down with one of LA’s most eligible bachelors?
It doesn’t have to be anything destructive, I keep telling myself. I can just be Audrey Hepburn on the back of Gregory Peck’s scooter, I keep telling myself. I exhale slowly, then slip my laptop into my bag and sling it over my shoulder. I look around one last time. “Okay. I guess all of this will keep for . . . one day.”

“And one night.” He smiles and opens the door.

CHAPTER SIX

I
let the hot water of the shower wash away my insanity. What in the world am I doing? Or thinking of doing? Maybe I’m going through some sort of post-traumatic stress, doing something crazy and irresponsible so soon after my father’s death. Or maybe I just want to have sex with Rome de Villiers.

I convince myself that it can be that simple, an isolated incident, nothing to do with my real life. An interlude.

I turn off the shower and scrub myself with one of the enormous white towels. I am trying to apply all sorts of statistical analyses to the facts, but the bottom line is, I want to get into bed with that man, and that fact pretty much trumps any other variables for or against. I brush my long blond hair with firm strokes, then weave it into a thick braid down my back. I look at my face in the mirror to make sure I got rid of any residual mascara, then brush my teeth and put on a bit of lip gloss. I rarely wear makeup during the day, and I am not about to start now. If my messy appearance earlier didn’t scare him off, maybe the circles under my eyes will.

I put on a pair of jeans and a gray cashmere sweater, then slip into a pair of heeled boots. I pull my laptop out of my bag and store it in the safe in the closet. I grab my leather jacket and head to the lobby.

When the elevator doors open, I see Rome talking to a beautiful young Russian woman who works at the hotel. She is blond and ultra-skinny, and—like so many of the model-thin women in Saint Petersburg—she makes me feel clunky. I am in good shape, but I’m definitely not skinny. I surf and run and like to hit a punching bag a couple of times a week. I inherited my father’s shoulders. I like feeling strong. The only downside—if you could even call it a downside—is the rare occasion when I allow myself to buy into the stupid cultural stereotype that every man really wants a woman with a little-girl body. I am never going to be a waif.

When Rome sees me over the woman’s shoulder, I am instantly and firmly recommitted to strength over waifdom. His face lights up at the sight of me, and he quickly says good-bye to the skeletal thing and crosses the lobby in a few powerful strides to meet me.

He went to his room while I got changed, and he’s put on a light jacket of buttery brown suede. He leans in and kisses me lightly on the lips, as if we are the oldest and closest friends meeting for breakfast in Saint Petersburg. He slides his arm around my waist and starts leading me out of the hotel.

“I love a woman who can look like that after a fifteen-minute shower and wardrobe change, by the way.”

I lean into his strength, enjoying the way my shoulder fits neatly into the space beneath his arm. I reached around his lower back so we can walk in tandem more easily. It feels good. He’s so casual about everything. So easy. It is going to be a fun day. And don’t I deserve this after my father’s death?

We walk everywhere. Miles and miles through the Hermitage, the two of us stopping and gaping and sighing over the same Rembrandts and Titians and Matisses. We spend nearly an hour staring at
The Red Room
by Matisse.

When I was a girl, I always wanted to be an art history major, or even a painter, but it all seemed too ridiculous. Too artsy. Too dependent on the whims of others. Too much like my mother. I always tested strongly in math, and that seemed to make my mother roll her eyes, so I figured it was a good way to go.

But staring at that Matisse, so deceptively primitive and so glorious, brings all of that visceral adolescent joy surging back, all of the ecstatic freedom I used to allow myself when I would spend long afternoons alone at the Getty Museum. That joy doesn’t feel adolescent anymore; it feels all grown-up and subtle, because now that ephemeral feeling is being buoyed by this laughing, strong man next to me, subtly seducing me with his murmured French suggestions and his stray caresses along my forearm or lower back or cheek. I feel like my younger self is bubbling to the surface, but with adult desires and a man who can fulfill them.

All the while, Rome is looking at the painting and then looking at me. He murmurs something academic about the composition of the chair, and then he dips his face into the curve of my neck and kisses me there. I sigh like a schoolgirl.

How is it that at USC or when I’m out with Landon, I always feel rushed and pressed for time, yet I haven’t spent even one whole day with Rome and he makes me feel as if this single day could go on forever if we wanted it to?

Again, I return my attention to the image and my imaginings. Is she a maid? Is she the mistress of the house? Does her arrangement of the fruit and flowers give her pleasure, or is it drudgery? Is she in the room, in that space and time, because she wants to be there or because she has to be there? Is she so happily focused on her tasks that none of those other worlds even matters?

Have I created that kind of interior world in my own life? I wonder.

I don’t realize that I’ve asked the question aloud.

“We all do. That’s why it’s such a powerful painting,” Rome says. He touches my wrist gently while he speaks.

I turn to look at him. He is just as powerful as the painting but much harder to read. Does he know he is helping me disassemble my life, one light caress at a time? He is joyful and boyish, and, as he stated the moment he walked into my father’s office, spoiled and impatient. Every touch and gesture is part of his wanting me. Winning me. He’s already won, on some level, but his eagerness is delicious. In a moment of candor, I tell him about my vision of the two of us on the innocent scooter, and he laughs so hard he almost chokes. I don’t bother mentioning the whole throw-me-to-the-ground part of my imaginary scenario, because the last thing Rome needs is to be encouraged in that department.

We finally leave the museum in the late afternoon, and Rome suggests we make our way to a teahouse on Vasilyevsky Island, near the university. The late afternoon sun is bright and the wind is cool off the Neva as we cross the Palace Bridge. He is holding me in that possessive way again, folded into him somehow, and when we are about three-quarters of the way across the bridge, he turns me so my back presses against the stone balustrade and his big arms wrap me into a cocoon. He leans in and kisses me.

Properly.

If I was having any residual guilt or doubt, the kiss puts a stop to all that. There is nothing in the world at this moment except the two of us.

Rome is glorious. Not just his mouth and the smell of him, but the way he pulls me into him, against him, with a firm hand at the small of my back so I can feel the strength and pleasure we are giving and taking all at once.

His other hand slides tenderly around my neck while our lips explore and we begin to open up to each other—at first tentatively and then with a sort of wild abandon. My hands slip eagerly into the warm space between his suede jacket and crisp white shirt, palms stroking along his hard abdomen and broad chest. When this powerful man suddenly melts under my touch, it’s fabulously exhilarating. My hands are all over him, and his answering groans are intoxicating as I tease and explore.

When my hands start to roam lower, he gasps slightly and pulls his lips away from mine. He looks into my eyes with an intensity I can’t really process and then turns to look back toward the Hermitage. The afternoon sun gives everything a golden edge, including the angles of his face. I lean my forehead against his chest and take a deep breath. I keep thinking—not thoughts, really; I can barely think at all—but what goes through me when I inhale and feel him all around me is a deep and promising freedom.

I chastise myself for my romantic silliness—what the hell are face angles and the smell of freedom, anyway? Just bone and muscle and sinew! I suddenly picture one of Landon’s anatomy books with the intricate paintings of tendons and joints. I scowl.

Rome brings his hand under my chin, and I lift my eyes to his. “Fun, remember?”

I smile and turn my lips into the palm of his hand, then catch his gaze again. “Bring it on.”

We wander around Pushkin House, then have drinks at a university bar that makes me feel a bit old and stodgy—because it reminds me I’m a teacher at USC and I wouldn’t be socializing with my students if I were back in University Park, even though I am only a few years older than most of the kids here. All these students are smoking and drinking and looking entirely carefree. Rome has this way of engaging people right at their level. When some rough-and-tumble college kid asks him a question while they are jostling at the bar, he makes a comment about some hip French rap band that I’ve never heard of. When the Pushkin House attendant asks him something in French, he replies immediately, interested and attentive.

We go to a tiny restaurant with about four tables, and an older woman comes out from the back and embraces Rome like a long-lost son. He kisses both her cheeks, and she actually blushes. He is a disgusting flirt, and I am disgusting for wanting to remind the old woman that he’s with me. She serves us a wonderful mix of homemade food that her husband makes in the tiny kitchen at the back—traditional
shashlik
and
khachapuri
on mismatched plates with banged-up cutlery—and it is really . . . fun.

We finish the simple meal with strong coffee and a plate of powdered rosewater sweets. For all his supposed eagerness, I am starting to feel like Rome has decided he wants to make me wait—or lead, or something—before we go to the next level.

I take another sip from the tiny demitasse cup. The saucer is delicate Russian porcelain, edged in a swirl of pink, chipped at one side. Like so much in Russia, I think, delicate and slightly damaged, but enduring nonetheless. I look up to see Rome has finished paying the older woman and is staring at me. He reaches across the small, rough wood table and tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. His touch sends a thrill down my spine.

“Ready?” he asks softly.

“I was.” I tilt my head. “But now I’m not so sure.”

He smiles sweetly and raises his palms. “I am at your command. Take as long as you like.” He glances at the dregs of my espresso and the half-a-sweet that’s sitting on the mismatched porcelain plate between us, even though we both know we are no longer talking about whether or not to leave the restaurant.

He pulls out a cigarette and lights it. I watch as his cheeks pull in on the drag and his eyes crease and narrow. I watch the way his finger lightly touches his bottom lip as he pulls the cigarette away from his mouth. I am so turned on by his mouth.

“I can’t believe you are still allowed to smoke in restaurants here,” I say, trying to change the subject. As if that’s the reason I’m staring at his lips.

“Funny ideas of freedom, eh? In your land of the free?”

I look away from him. Why must he talk about freedom? It crashes my mood right down to the cracked and patched linoleum floor beneath my feet.

When I finally meet his eyes again, he pauses to see if I want to answer, then flicks the ash of his cigarette into the ashtray and shrugs. “Sorry. I guess talk of freedom is not fun.”

“You’re right. It’s not.” I sound moody, and I don’t like it. “Let me have a cigarette.”

He smiles like the devil he is. Corrupting the youth. He tips the cigarette out of the pack, and I feel like a million girls have had the same hand make the same offering gesture. And then I look into his eyes and feel like the only woman in the world. I put the cigarette to my lips, and he snaps the gold lighter open and strikes the flint.

I inhale and try to look seductive . . . then cough horribly, eyes watering, chest burning. That smoke is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever experienced. “Ewww!” I gasp between inhalations of clean air and sips of water. “That is so revolting. What the hell are you thinking?” I drink more water.

He takes the cigarette out of my hand and slowly stamps it out in the brown glass ashtray on the table. I wipe at my eyes with my napkin.

“Honestly, I think I might throw up,” I wheeze.

“Maybe the French ones are too strong for you.”

I know what he’s saying: maybe
he
is too strong for me. I have to give him credit—in a backward way, he’s trying to be a gentleman, to give me a last opportunity to scuttle away from my imminent indiscretion.