The Unwilling Bride (11 page)

“So. How was the sex?”

Paige rolled her eyes. All those “Yes, Gwens” hadn’t gained her an inch. You could tell a stranger, a mom, a best friend—anyone on earth—to mind their own business. There was just no purpose in trying to tell a sister. At least one of
her
sisters. “Hey. I haven’t admitted to doing anything yet,” she said dryly.

Gwen hadn’t been labeled the bulldog in the family for nothing. “Just tell me how it was on a scale of one to ten. Ten being Mel Gibson, and one being folding laundry would have been more fun.”

“If I tell you it was a fifty-seven, would you quit prying?”

“Fifty-seven? Hot spit and holy horsefeathers.” The receiver creaked. A door slammed. And then all background noises emanating from her sister’s house in St. Augustine abruptly died. “Maybe I’d better fly home. If he’s that potent a package, I don’t trust your judgment. I think Abby and I should get a look at him, and if you need protection—”

“If either of you show up here, you die.” Paige rubbed two fingers on her temples. Maybe she never intended to let that fifty-seven slip out, but it certainly served to divert Gwen from her own problems. And that was good. Her sister had always been meant to mother a small planet. She thrived on being needed. Only Paige was well aware that her sisters were more than capable of arriving and playing Mounties, because tarnation, she’d leap in to interfere and rescue them the same way. “I was joking,” she said firmly. “Just trying to make you laugh. I’ve been busy with work. That’s all that’s going on.”

“You never could lie worth peas. Dammit. I
knew
you were in trouble. You’re in love with him?”

Paige squeezed her eyes closed. “Hey. You haven’t said one word about how my two hellion nephews are doing. Or your job. Or how things are going with your ex…”

Gwen wasn’t easily put off. When it came to the care and maintenance of family, neither of her sisters were easily derailed. But sisters or no sisters, Paige wasn’t ready to share anything about Stefan yet. Her emotions for him were too turbulent and confused and way too private.

As soon as she hung up, she bounded up the stairs to change clothes. She needed to work. Now. She hadn’t touched a tool or a cameo in three days, which
seemed impossible. Work was never off her mind. Her whole life was boundaried by the rigid discipline and concentration she counted on in her work.

In her room, she peeled off clothes and scrambled around for fresh jeans, a sweatshirt, socks. It was only by accident that she caught her reflection in the dresser mirror.

A stranger stared back. It wasn’t her. The plain white bra and utilitarian panties were familiar. So was the same old ordinary body. But the woman in the mirror had a long, loose cascade of hair streaming down her back. Stefan had lost her hairpins, claimed he couldn’t find a rubber band in his whole house to hold a braid together. Stefan had put those beardblushes on her skin, too. But it was more than the marks of loving or wantonly streaming hair that made her reflection look different.

Her eyes were soft. Softer than dreams. Her skin had a flush that refused to go away. Her mouth looked shamelessly vulnerable. The woman in the mirror had just come from the bed of a lover—a lover who’d upended her whole world—and it showed. When she lifted her hands, she discovered them trembling.

She yanked on socks. Sweatshirt. Jeans. She was supposed to be a tough, strong, self-reliant, selfsufficient, sturdy New England woman. Not a trembler.

Likely it was guilt making her tremble. Anytime, over the past three days, she could have said no. Stefan had never once forced her, never even really seduced her. She had wanted him. Endlessly. Powerfully. Beyond reason, beyond any compelling force that she had ever dreamed of.

Do you love him, Gwen had asked her.

An unbearably unfair question. That damn Russian had owned her heart, probably from the day he’d put out the fire in her kitchen and started one in her emotions. If she didn’t love him, she could dismiss the past three days as the crazed but understandable behavior of a sex-starved spinster. If she hadn’t fallen head over sinking, drowning heels, she would never have worried about how badly he could get hurt.

It was a worry she couldn’t shake. A boy had died, the one time in her life when she’d been wildly irresponsible. When anyone let hormones rule their life, someone was bound to get hurt. Hormones made people blind. Maybe that was human, but Paige had been too damn human once. And the only way she had learned to forgive herself was being sure—damn sure—she’d changed.

Outside, the snowstorm had long died. The February sun was stunningly bright. Icicles hung from the eaves, dripping rainbows. Those prisms of color shot off the walls and glowed on the jade cameo on her dresser.

She stared at the carved profile of the woman, no different than she had, a dozen times. Until these past three days with Stefan, she could have sworn there was nothing similar between that sensually abandoned woman and herself. Now she felt frightened. All this time, she thought she
knew
herself. All this time, she’d been so sure of what mattered to her, sure of who she was, sure of what a good woman was. The woman she
wanted
to be.

Be honest with yourself, her mind counseled her. But she had always been ruthlessly honest with herself. Truth guided everything she did—even her work. Every time she carved a cameo, she was driven by the
age-old sculpting principle that the artist could not create truth. The truth was always there; her job was only to carve away what wasn’t the truth.

Yet if she carved away what couldn’t be…she came up with her and Stefan. He was so strong. A man of unbendable ideals and unshakable values. He never made a secret of what he wanted and needed from a woman. He wanted it all. A woman’s heart, soul, body, and total loyalty. A woman who could give with no holds barred. A woman who could embrace life with the same exuberance and joy and whole heart that he did.

Paige could wish to be that woman for Stefan all day long, but her fear of failing him seemed an insolvable problem. And wishing alone wouldn’t give her courage and confidence she simply didn’t have.

She could not carve beauty into a cameo if that beauty wasn’t already inherent in the stone. This was no different. She could not make herself into a woman who wasn’t there.

Feeling a thick, hard lump well in her throat, she picked up the jade cameo and carried it downstairs. Heaven knew why she’d postponed making the decision that she should have made weeks ago.

She’d send it to Harry.

He’d sell it.

And she’d be rid of it.

“S
tefan, you went to so much trouble! You never had to do this.”

“Well, of course I did. You finished the cameo. Clearly a celebration was called for.” Stefan had carried the coral cameo she’d made for her sister out of the shop. Flanked by two candles, it made the centerpiece on their dinner table.

Paige’s work on the cameo had kept her too busy to see him for the past several days. He understood that certain work took intense concentration. He understood that there were certain stages in a project when it was utterly frustrating to be interrupted.

He understood, perfectly well, that she’d been avoiding him as zealously as a cat hid from’a pending thunderstorm.

“Paige…” He motioned to the cameo again. “I
really don’t know how you did this, but I can’t tell you enough times—it’s beyond beautiful.”

Her gaze strayed to the cameo, too—in between bites of dinner. It had taken him three trips from the car to cart in the whole feast. He’d promised her a sampling of Russian foods weeks ago. She’d been wary and suspicious of the first course—red caviar, mounded on crackers and served with champagne—but her eyes lit up after the first taste. The Ukrainian borscht had not gone over so well. After one spoonful, he’d seen the unforgettable expression on her face—and whisked the bowl out of sight. Beet soup was clearly never going to be her cuppa.

She was diving into the shashlik—broiled lambnow. No avalanche or runaway train, he mused, had better get between his lady and her food when she loved something. And as long as the conversation stayed within the boundaries of food or her work, she was easy and relaxed with him.

“I never know how any cameo is going to turn out.” Her left hand reached out to trace a fingertip on the cameo’s profile. “But I have to admit, I’m pleased with this. Gwen’s birthday is a couple of months away yet. I built in enough time to start over if I didn’t like how this project worked out, but in the strangest way, this just couldn’t be more perfect for her.”

“How so?” His praise had come from the heart. He really didn’t know how she’d done it. Somehow there seemed to be two women in the coral. One was a profile of a woman with short-cropped hair and delicate cheekbones, whose face was set in a grave expression. Behind her—it almost seemed as if it were a trick of light—the same woman with the short-cropped hair
was profiled in the darker shade of coral, but she was laughing, happy, her face tilted to the sun.

“Well…the way it turned out…it’s like there’s a shadow of the real woman hiding in the background. You see?” When Stefan nodded, Paige struggled to explain. “That’s so like my sister. Gwen doesn’t see herself as beautiful. She’s always so busy, always does so much for other people, that it’s like she’s never had time to really look at herself.”

Maybe that applied to her sister, but Stefan thought his own lady fit that shadow idea, too. Paige had hidden parts of her personality for years, buried needs and feelings out of sight. So typically, she was wearing a voluminous sweatshirt that concealed every feminine curve. A tightly woven braid concealed a waterfall of rich, lustrously thick hair that caught a thousand points of light when let loose. It was too late to hide such things from him.

He’d heard her laughter pealing free. He’d seen her eyes darken with desire, her face naked with vulnerability. He’d seen, felt, touched every inch of her skin. He knew her giving nature and the huge wealth of emotions in her heart.

Pretty damn clear he knew too much, because as fast as he’d told her he loved her, Paige had buried herself behind an answering machine and judicious, defensive and inarguably justified excuses such as work.

Food, temporarily, had brought her out of hiding.

Stefan served her two more dishes. He’d been considering the problem for several days now. Food was good. Food was effective. Food was a pretty damn helpful method of tempting Paige, but it wasn’t getting the job done. This particular kitten was ready to
bolt at the first sign of lightning. Nothing he’d done yet had lessened her fear of thunderstorms one iota.

He was losing right now, and knew it. For a man who’d never backed down from risk, who had followed his heart and conscience no matter what prices he’d had to pay, Stefan could not remember being this scared. Either he gambled for the whole pot, or Paige might never budge past go.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Vatrushka.
A kind of cheese pastry.” He set the dishes in front of her. “And the small thin pancakes with jam are called
blinchikis.
Is disgracefully unbalanced meal, I know. But I just wanted to give you a whole range of Russian foods to sample.”

“Oh, God. Oh, God. How many of these
blinchikis
did you make?”

From the look in her eyes, not enough. If there was ever going to be a good time to pull off a bluff, this was it. “I thought a lot about what you said,” he mentioned casually.

“Hmm?” She had a mouthful of
blinchikis,
which she swallowed quickly. “About what?”

“You were simply right, toots. About the two of us needing to cool down. I’m not settled, not financially secure, not nothing. If I were a woman, I’d put a relationship with such a man on a back furnace.”

“Back burner.” She corrected him gently. But for the first time since her tongue discovered those
blinchikis,
her eyes were on his, straight on his, instead of on the food.

He’d fed her food before. Now he fed her what she’d claimed—always claimed—to want to hear. “The more I thought about it, the more I think it would be totally unfair to complicate your life…to
complicate either of our lives…right now.” He watched her pick up a forkful of
blinchikis.
The fork stalled midair. She seemed to have forgotten it. “It was what you said all along, yes, that it would be best to be friends? Just not a good time to pursue more. Not a good time to invite chaos, so to speak.”

“Yes. Exactly.” She repeated, “Exactly.”

He expected to see relief in her eyes. He was the same as promising the kitten that she never had to face thunder and lightning, never even had to risk getting her paws wet. But there was a sudden stricken stillness in her face. And when the piece of
blinchinki
fell off her fork, she didn’t seem to notice. Stefan swallowed acid. He’d never gone for broke on a bluff before, but either a man played for the whole pot or nothing. “By the way, I have pinned down job.”

“I…” She dropped the fork altogether. And then smiled. Brilliantly. “That’s wonderful news! Tell me all about it. Where’s the job?”

“Well, originally I had offers from several places. MIT. Yale. Berkeley. California pretty damn hot. The other two…I think they are great places, with great people, but they both seemed a little stuffed in the lip.”

“I think you mean ‘stiff upper lip,’” Paige said gently.

“Whatever. There was a…properness…in their discussions with me. I was unsure if I would fit in. I can put on a tie but my nature is a small bit on the exuberant, boisterous side. Almost sure, actually lowdown dead sure, that they would not like me.”

“Stefan! They would love you! Anyone would love you, you doofus!”

“Doofus? This is a word I haven’t heard before.”

“It’s an insult,” she informed him. “Particularly useful when you’re trying to scold someone.”

Perhaps, he thought. But if he’d offered her a Godiva chocolate, he doubted she could leap to his defense faster. And whatever this “doofus” really meant, he heard the way she said the word and saw the fire of loyalty in her eyes. She could insult him all day this way if she wanted. “Anyway. Weeks ago, I decided to look at other schools, universities closer to here. I called a few up, talked to a few deans. Unfortunately, I am a complicated person to hire, because I am not a full-fledged American citizen yet. But I looked at Bennington, Middlebury, and Dartmouth just over the border in New Hampshire.”

“All terrific schools.”

“Middlebury is the closest.” He added carefully, deliberately, “But still not commuting distance from here.”

“Way too far to commute,” she agreed swiftly.

“But it does seem they don’t starve their professors. A house comes with the job. A ton of complicated paperwork would have to be worked out. And they pushed pretty hard for a decision. They’d want me there by mid-March.”

“Mid-March?” Her fork clattered to the floor. She never even glanced at it. “But that’s only a few weeks away.”

“Uh-huh. I think they sense fish on the line. Better reel in, before I have time to consider other opportunities. I believe they are hot to expand their physics program. The dean in the physics department was pretty low-down excited. Good man. We were talking the same language so quickly it was like we were old friends. And fish or no fish, the timing would work
well.” Stefan only had one more card to play. “I only rented the house from Jasper until the end of March. I have no reason to think he would mind extending the lease, but that was the original time frame deal.”

“You never told me that before.” Her elbow collided with a wineglass. It almost toppled. “I mean…I knew you were only here temporarily, but I had no idea you had to move so soon.”

He raised his eyebrows. “It was no secret. I would have told you. You never asked. Now…what can I serve you more?”

“Heavens, nothing. I couldn’t eat another bite. Dinner was beyond splendiferous…but very filling.”

“Da. Russian cooking is heavy. So heavy it would give anyone a justifiable excuse for a lazy nap after dinner.”

“You can say that again—”

“But I have a much better solution for that problem.” Maybe it was his teasing tone that made her cheeks suddenly flush, but Stefan suspected he knew what crossed her mind. She thought his solution was to whisk her off to bed.

Heaven knew, he wanted to.

Instead he surged out of his chair and disappeared into the hall. Seconds later, he came back, holding her jacket, gloves and boots. She shook her head violently. He nodded just as violently. “Fresh air great cure for full stomach,” he said coaxingly.

“Forget it, you bully. I like the nap idea much, much better. I’m all comfortable and warm and full. It’s
cold
out there. And dark. Hey, you—come back here and argue with me—”

He emerged from the hall again, this time carrying his jacket and boots. “I have yet to make a snowman. This is a sacred American custom, isn’t it?”

“It’s a
daylight
custom.”

“How can you be American and not know the Sinatra song? When you’re American, you can sometimes revise the rules and do it
your
way.”

“No. No, no, no. This is insane, Michaelovich. Not a little insane. This is big-time crazy—”

She loved crazy. Stefan could never fathom why she didn’t realize it. She thrived on impulse, on fun, on laughter. She came alive and turned on like a ray of fresh sunshine. She was so happy by nature—when she let herself be.

He not only wanted her happy, but temporarily he wanted her too busy to dwell on the whole previous conversation. So he argued with her, and bullied her into trundling up, and dragged her outside to make a snowman by moonlight. She protested the whole time at this childish enterprise…but she packed the first snowball, perfect and round, before rolling it in the fresh powder of her backyard.

The night was bitter-biting freezing. No wind, but the exquisite and beautiful shower of moonlight wasn’t worth an ounce of warmth. The snowman project kept her far too busy to think, and the cold kept her far too busy to stand still long enough to even consider thinking—at least about serious problems.

They argued, long and loudly, about theory. He just wanted a plain old roly-poly American snowman. But Paige was an artist, and incapable of leaving it at that. Stacking a trio of round snowballs didn’t begin to cut her mustard. She wanted a Russian snowman, and she wanted him fancy. Towering tall with a cossack hat.
Pinecones for buttons. She poked itsy twigs into his chin to give him whiskers, then chased around the yard to find something brown she could use to give him thick, brooding eyebrows. Still, she wasn’t done.
Somewhere
there was a bush with red winter berries that she claimed would be ideal for his cheeks and mouth.

Hells bells, the woman would have played all night. By then her fingers and toes had to be threatening frostbite. His were. The same way he’d hustled and conned her into going out, he now had to bully and cajole her into heading inside again.

He herded her as far as the door—and Paige even opened it—but then she whisked around again, standing with the yellow pool of warm light behind her, determined to get one more look at their snowman. “He’s beautiful,” she announced. “A prizewinner. Conceivably the most unforgettable snowman that has ever been created in the history of time.”

So was she—unforgettable—when she tipped her face to his. Her hat was crusted with snow, her gloves caked solid. Snow was melting, glittering in her short eyelashes like miniature diamonds. Her cheeks were as red as flame, and so was her moist, red mouth.

He reached for her—awkwardly, because his gloved hands, too, were numb and snow-caked. And his mouth was as icy cold as hers when their lips first connected.

It was in her eyes, that she expected him to come in, expected they would warm each other by making love. He hadn’t touched her in days now, but her eyes were liquid with the memories of when he had. No matter what fears or objections she built up in her mind, the
power of her heart had overcome them before. Her heart had already said yes.

He kissed her hard, fast, fiercely. Desperately, if she only knew. A man who’d deliberately gotten a woman chilled was honor bound to warm her, and yet a kiss that started rough and wild turned slow and quiet. Moonlight quiet. Crystal-clear night quiet. Soul quiet, except for her sudden rushed breathing. And his.

He lifted his head, his gaze sweeping over her face. Her soft mouth was unsteady, her skin vulnerably flushed. The naked yearning in her eyes, though, turned uneasy when he continued to say nothing and failed to smile. She was used to smiles from him. As she should be. His nature had always been to snatch every ounce of happiness and laughter he could wrench from life, and it had become his nature to share it. With her.