Shadow Alpha (26 page)

“Kat has been sick—”

“Katya is a warm and wonderful woman who should never have been allowed within a hundred feet of your son!” Gregori bit out icily. “And my request for Dair to release him is only so that I might have the pleasure of disposing of the vermin myself!”

“I cannot—” Ivan broke off his protest as Gregori stood up to his full imposing height.

He looked down the length of his nose at the older man. “I will give you my terms for peace, Ivan, you may take them or leave them.”

“And if I choose to leave them?”

“Then there will be war between your family and mine, and I will inform all the other families of your son’s duplicity.” Gregori’s mouth twisted disdainfully. “We are what we are, Orlov, but even amongst those such as us there is a code of honor. We both know your son has broken that code.”

Kat almost felt sorry for Ivan in that moment. Almost. But she was too aware of his influence in what had happened to her these past two months to allow more than that brief moment of sympathy.

“You may release him now, if it pleases you, Dair,” Gregori prompted as Sergei’s gasps for breath became audible.

It didn’t ‘please’ Dair at all, and he continued to look at the younger, still struggling man for several more long seconds before releasing him so suddenly Sergei dropped to his knees, coughing and choking as he tried to draw breath into his starved lungs.

“As I said, there was no legal marriage between my sister and your son,” Gregori continued coldly. “So the twenty million pounds you will settle on Katya now will be recompense for her even having to breathe the same air as him,” he ignored Kat’s gasp as he continued. “You will publically and irrevocably disown Sergei as your son—none of these conditions are negotiable,” he assured as the other man paled. “You should realize I am doing you a favor, Ivan,” he scorned. “Because once you are gone no one will accept Sergei or work with or for him as head of the Orlov organization. I will personally ensure that they don’t.”

Kat hadn’t known what to expect of this meeting, but it certainly hadn’t been this. If Ivan agreed to disown Sergei then the younger man would become a pariah in the world he had strutted through so arrogantly all of his life.

“Your intentions were admirable, Dair.” Gregori looked down contemptuously at the still coughing and choking Sergei. “But I believe I prefer him to suffer a living death,” he added ominously.

Sergei’s head came up. “Father!”

As if aware of Kat’s brief moment of empathy earlier, Ivan now turned to her appealingly. “Is this what you want, Kat? To see the man you were married to disowned, and reduced to being an outcast to all that he knows and loves?”

What Kat wanted was never to have met Sergei, let alone have ‘married’ him.

“He was also the father of your baby,” Ivan obviously misunderstood her silence for weakness.

A weakness that Dair’s desire for her had ensured no longer existed.

“He also killed it.” Kat stood up, ice having hardened her heart at the mention of her baby. “You’ve heard Gregori’s terms for peace, Ivan, I suggest you agree to them. And you,” she turned to where Sergei was still kneeling on the floor, Dair looming over him. “If I ever see or hear of you again I’ll make sure the knife doesn’t miss next time!” She turned on her heel and walked out of the study, head held high, despite feeling a desperate need to run from the house where she had been so unhappy.

Dair watched Kat admiringly as she walked out of the room looking as regal as any queen. He had never felt more pride, more respect for her, than he did at that moment. She had gone through the fires of hell, and really had emerged from them as tempered steel.

His expression hardened as he looked down at the man still groveling at his feet. A man who wasn’t even worth bruising his knuckles on.

Nevertheless. “And if I ever hear you’re so much as in the same country as Kat, then I’ll be the one you answer to,” he ground out dangerously soft. “Do you hear me?” He nudged the other man’s thigh with his booted foot.

“I hear you,” Sergei muttered resentfully.

Dair turned his icy stare on Ivan Orlov. “The same goes for you.”

The older man’s eyes glittered with fury. “You cannot come into my home talk to me in this way—”

“Oh yes, he most certainly can,” Gregori was the one to affirm pleasantly.

“Because he’s Kat’s lover!” Sergei sneered.

“Leave, please, Dair,” Gregori advised in that same pleasant voice, only the matte black of his eyes revealing that he was still in killer mode. “Sergei and I have just a little more to say to each other, and then I will join you and Kat in the car.”

Dair gave the man on the floor one last contemptuous glance before following to catch up with Kat as she stood outside in the warm sunshine.

She was all that was important.

“So what happens now?” Kat prompted curiously once they had arrived back at the airport and boarded the plane.

Her brother had obviously still been furious by the time he left the Orlov house and strode over to where Kat and Dair sat in silence in the back of the limousine, his only comment being, ‘It is settled.’ But the abrasions on his knuckles showed that the agreement hadn’t all been of a verbal kind.

Kat had reached instinctively for Dair’s hand at that moment, relaxing slightly as his fingers curled reassuringly about hers, and had remained that way on the drive back to the airport.

“We will return to London,” Gregori answered her now. “Where I will endeavor—I have no idea how—to make up for the years you have suffered living here.”

“I—”

“I want Kat to come back to Venice with me,” Dair put in abruptly, causing Kat to turn and look at him in surprise.

Gregori raised one dark, arrogant eyebrow. “The question is, does Kat
wish
to return to Venice with you?” He looked at her enquiringly.

Dair’s jaw tightened as he also turned to look at her. “Do you?”

Kat couldn’t read anything from Dair’s expression. Which meant she also had no idea
why
he wanted her to go back to Venice with him.

Did he think she needed a holiday, now that all the tension was over and done with?

Did he want more of that raw and primal sex between them?

Or did he want them to spend some time together getting to know each other better, now that the problem of the Orlovs was no longer looming so heavily in the background?

Which of those was it?

Or perhaps it was something else entirely, such as he felt sorry for her, and believed she needed time to recuperate from her ordeal?

There was no doubting that Kat had just been through one of the worst hours of her life. Even being in the same room with Sergei had been suffocating, but she had been determined that neither Ivan nor Sergei would know that beneath her cool exterior she was trembling inside.

A part of her had really wanted Dair to just keep squeezing Sergei’s throat until he stopped breathing and his eyes glazed over. Dair’s presence had been what kept her grounded; she had known, to the depths of her being that while Dair was near no one would be able to hurt her.

She had been dreading their parting to the same depths of her being, but if all Dair was offering her was a place of refuge in Venice, until she felt ready to go back to London, then she couldn’t accept his invitation.

She was in love with Dair, she had no doubts about that, but she wasn’t accepting scraps from any man ever again. Dair himself was responsible for showing her that she deserved more than that. That
she
was more than that—

“Please come back to Venice with me, Kat,” Dair spoke huskily as Kat’s silence dragged on. Every muscle in his body was tense, even his damned teeth were aching from where his jaw was tightly clenched as he waited for her to answer.

Instead of answering him, Kat now turned to her brother. “Would you excuse us while Dair and I go into the bedroom to discuss this further?” she prompted lightly.

“I think that might be for the best, yes.” Gregori gave a pointed glance at the other men on the plane with them, all of them trying to look as if they weren’t eavesdropping on the conversation.

Dair had left two of his own men in New York, Gregori two more, to ensure that the agreement with Ivan Orlov was carried out, but there were still half a dozen of Gregori’s men as well as Lijah on the plane.

“Perhaps you might like to keep in mind that the walls of this plane are not soundproof?” Gregori added dryly, no doubt in reference to Kat’s ‘purrs’ he had heard this morning.

Dair had a feeling that at least one of these men had heard Kat do more than purr when they were out on the balcony together last night, as well as seen Dair bare-assed naked and groaning his own pleasure.

Kat felt the warmth in her cheeks even as she held her hand out to Dair. “We’ll do that,” she answered her brother ruefully. “Well?” She looked at Dair speculatively.

He stood up and placed his hand in hers, neither of them speaking as they walked to the back of the plane.

Kat paused in the doorway to turn and smile at her brother. “You really should get yourself a private jet, Gregori; I think you might find traveling more…enjoyable, in future if you did.” She gave him an impish smile as she followed Dair into the bedroom and closed the door behind her, then leaned back against it, arms folded in front of her breasts. “Why?”

He frowned at her from across the compact space. “You know exactly why I almost choked that bastard Sergei—”

“Oh to hell with Sergei.” Kat stepped further into the room. “He’s the past. Yesterday’s news. Finished. Gone.”

Dair gave a wry smile. “You’re over him then?”

“I was never
on
him,” Kat dismissed impatiently. “My father arranged the marriage, you know that. Any tolerance I might have had for him died with my baby.”

“Kat—”

“Stop right there, Dair.” She held up her hands as he would have moved to take her in his arms. “We need to talk, and I can’t think straight when you touch me.”

He gave a grin. “Really?”

“Yes—really.” She eyed him exasperatedly. “Now tell me why you want me to go back to Venice with you?”

“I did promise to take you to a masked ball—”

“Don’t play games, Dair,” she warned wearily. “This is just too important, one of those once-in-a-lifetime windows of opportunity that may never be open again.”

“What the hell does that mean?” He scowled darkly.

She sighed. “You know exactly what it means, Dair.”

“What do you want me to say?” He ran his hand through his hair. “You’ve just gone through two months of hell. We haven’t stayed in the same place for longer than a few hours at a time since I got you out of the clinic. That meeting with the Orlovs was traumatic for you, to say the least.”

“So you’re offering me a holiday in your palace in Venice?”

His jaw tightened. “I’m offering you some time away from all the stress. Time to stop looking over your shoulder every minute of every day and night.”

Kat’s eyes were narrowed. “That’s not good enough, Dair.” She turned back to open the door out into the main cabin.

Only to have Dair’s arms shoot over both her shoulders, the palms of his hands on the door slamming it shut again.

Kat stopped breathing as he stepped in close behind her, the length of his body pressed intimately against her back, making her completely aware of the hard length of his arousal against her spine.

“Tell me what you want from me, Kat?” He spoke against the side of her throat, his breath a warm caress against her sensitized flesh.

Kat couldn’t allow herself to be reduced to that now-familiar puddle of need; this really was too important. “What do you want from me, Dair?” she spoke softly, aware—so very aware—of the warm, intoxicating smell of his body. That incredibly hard and muscled body she knew better than her own. “A few days, maybe a week, of more amazing sex before you fly me back to England and forget about me?”

The sex really was incredible, Dair acknowledged with satisfaction. Off-the-charts amazing. Better than anything he had ever known before. Kat was more woman than any he had ever known before.

“The amazing sex will do for starters—”

“No,” Kat choked in denial. “No, it really won’t, Dair.” She ducked beneath his arm and stepped away from him. “I thank you for the offer, and I’ll always remember you made it and our time together, but I’ll only let you break my heart once in a lifetime!”

Dair turned slowly to face her, a frown between his eyes. “When did I break your heart?”

Tears swam in Kat’s eyes even as she smiled. “I know you were barely aware of my existence all those years ago, but I loved you. And then you just disappeared.”

His frown grew pained. “I’ve explained why that was.” Kat had been
in love
with him then? She had told him it was just a teenage crush, one she had easily gotten over years ago. Hell, she had been fifteen years old to his eighteen; how the hell was he supposed to know that those dark eyes that followed him around were full of love?

And she was wrong about him—he had been very much aware of Katya Markovic’s existence. She had been that shining light in a world of violence. Innocence and sunshine. He couldn’t claim to have spent the past fifteen years pining for her, but he had never forgotten her either. It was the reason he had agreed when Gregori had asked him to find her and bring her home, if necessary.