One Kiss in... Moscow: Kholodov's Last Mistress / The Man She Shouldn't Crave / Strangers When We Meet

Each word was a hammer blow, or perhaps a dagger wound, for the pain was sharp and cutting. Maybe she was deluded after all, Hannah thought numbly.

She looked up, saw Sergei watching her closely. Saw how tense he was, his body rigid, thrumming with suppressed emotion. And suddenly she knew she wasn’t deluded after all. If he’d been bored by her, he’d have turned away already. Dismissed her with a drawl. He wouldn’t be here, as cagey as a crouched tiger, watching, waiting.

She took a step forward, and now she was the one to touch his cheek. Gently, her caress a balm. ‘No, Sergei,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t believe that. You’re trying to push me away and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because you’re afraid of hurting me, or maybe you’re just afraid. And maybe tonight was just meant to be that—a night. I’m not quite so deluded that I think there’s something more between us so quickly, but—’ She swallowed, her hand resting on his cheek, felt the muscle bunch in his jaw. ‘But I also know you’re not telling me the truth.’ She spoke out of deep instinct, and felt her own words resonate through her. She was not imagining this—

‘Sergei.’

Hannah stilled as the door to the private dining room was thrown open. She turned and saw a woman stumble in. She was dressed in a stretchy black Lycra tube top and a red leather skirt that rode high on her thighs. Stiletto-heeled knee-high boots in black patent leather completed the outrageous outfit. Her hair fell nearly to her waist, tangled and peroxideblonde, her face beautiful yet ravaged and overly made-up. She exuded cheap and blatant sexuality, and from the way she smiled at Sergei it was clear they knew each other very well.

‘Sergei …’ She let out a drunken giggle before speaking in Russian too slurred for Hannah even to attempt to understand.

‘No,’ Sergei said flatly, stepping away from Hannah, speaking English no doubt for her unhappy benefit. ‘You weren’t interrupting something. In fact, Varya,’ he continued, his voice turning so very smooth, ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

Hannah watched in shock as Sergei approached the woman—Varya—and snaked an arm around her waist, both steadying her and drawing her to him. She went unresistingly, naturally, curving into his solid strength as she leaned her head against his shoulder and giggled again. He murmured in Russian and she answered, her head still lolling against his shoulder, and when Sergei dropped a deliberate kiss on her forehead and drew her even closer Hannah felt her whole world come crashing down.

It was a strange feeling, surreal, just as the rest of this evening had been. Why the sight of Sergei with this woman should make her feel as if all the values and beliefs she’d built her life on were toppling Hannah couldn’t yet say; all she knew was at that moment everything she’d counted on, everything she’d believed in, felt false. As if all the cynical implications Sergei had made were true, and her own optimistic assertions had been no more than the misguided sputterings of a naive schoolgirl.

She really was deluded. About everything.

‘Well.’ From somewhere she found her voice, croaky and hoarse as it was. ‘I guess I’ll leave both of you to it.’

Varya glanced at her blearily and Sergei just gave her a coolly challenging smile. ‘Why don’t you?’ he said, and turned back to Varya.

Blindly Hannah walked from the room. One leg in front of the other, step by torturous step, until she was at the door. From behind her she heard Sergei murmur something to Varya, something that sounded loving.

Hannah paused. Something didn’t feel right about this. Surely a man of such sophisticated tastes as Sergei would choose someone other than a worn-out-looking woman like Varya. All of his actions had seemed so deliberate, so …

staged.

What was happening?

Her hand still on the doorknob, she turned around. Varya’s head was still lolling on Sergei’s shoulder, and he gazed down at her with an expression, Hannah thought, of unbearable sadness.

Then he looked up and saw her still standing there, and his expression froze, icier than ever.

Hannah didn’t know where she found the words, only that she meant them. Deeply. ‘You’re a better man than you think you are, Sergei.’

Something flashed across his face but was gone before Hannah could guess what it was. ‘Deluded,’ he drawled softly, and turned away.

Bleakly Hannah thought he must be right, and without another word she left the room.

Sergei heard the door click softly shut and let out the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.

‘You’re always so good to me, Sergei,’ Varya mumbled in Russian, her head still on his shoulder. Her breath stank of cheap vodka. Sighing, Sergei stroked her hair.

‘Have you seen Grigori?’

‘I don’t want him to see me like this,’ Varya said, her voice ending on a hiccuppy sob. She’d always been a sentimental drunk.

‘Then let’s get you cleaned up.’ Sergei started leading her towards the door in the back of the room that led to a private corridor. Hannah’s shocked face was imprinted in his mind’s eye, and the hurt and honesty in those wide violet eyes lacerated his soul with guilt and regret. Regret he couldn’t afford to feel. It was better this way, he knew. He couldn’t have timed Varya’s entrance more perfectly. It had been a sure-fire way to rid himself of Hannah, and destroy the illusions she’d so optimistically harboured.

You’re a better man than you think you are.

She really was appallingly naive.

With his arm around her he guided Varya down the corridor to a suite of rooms he kept reserved solely for her use. Varya’s reappearances were fairly regular yet still unpredictable; he never knew when she was going to stumble back into his life. Still, his entire staff knew always to let her through. She had the most unrestricted access to him of any acquaintance, man or woman. They had too much history together for anything else.

Varya sat on the edge of the bed sniffling softly while Sergei ran a large bubble bath. He ordered a tray of food and fresh clothes delivered to the room and when he’d rung off Varya looked up at him with liquid eyes, mascara now streaking her cheeks.

‘You’re so good to me, Sergei. You should pretend you don’t know me and never speak to me again.’ She gave another hiccuppy sob.

Sergei smiled and sat next to her on the bed, tucking a hank of hair behind her ear. ‘I could never pretend such a thing, Varya. We’ve known each other since we were children.’

She offered him a watery smile. ‘Not much of a childhood, eh?’

‘No.’ Sergei observed her with a weary despair. Every time Varya drifted back into his life, she looked more worn, more used. The lines on her face, the caked make-up, the bloodshot eyes … all of it told a story he’d tried so hard to rewrite. Yet Varya had never wanted to take a handout, and she’d always felt ill at ease in Sergei’s new world. She only came to him when she was desperate, and left as soon as she could.

‘You’re good to me,’ Varya said again, sniff ling. ‘But you’re so alone, Serozyha,’ she continued, using her pet name for him from childhood. ‘So lonely. You never let anyone close. Not even me.’

I find that very sad. ‘Old habits die hard, Varya.’

She looked up at him blearily. ‘I want you to be happy.’

Happy? Sergei couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such an emotion. Satisfaction, yes. Triumph, certainly. But a genuine joy? Never. ‘Let’s worry about you,’ Sergei replied, helping her up from the bed. ‘Come get in the bath.’ He helped her undress, as if she were a child, knowing in her current state she couldn’t do it by herself. When she finally sank beneath the bubbles and closed her eyes, Sergei left her in peace but kept the door ajar so he could check on her.

A knock sounded on the door of the suite, and after Sergei called to enter Grigori slipped into the room. His face was pale except for the port-wine birthmark that had been the reason he’d been abandoned, and had made his childhood at the orphanage a misery.

‘Sergei, I’m so sorry. Security told me that Varya had been looking for you, but I didn’t realise she’d found you in the restaurant—’

‘It’s all right,’ Sergei cut off his assistant’s frantic apologies. ‘I’m glad she found me.’

Grigori still looked anxious, although whether for his sake or Varya’s Sergei didn’t know. Grigori had never told Sergei he loved Varya, but it was obvious from the naked need on his face.

‘Is she—?’

‘She needs a bath and a hot meal and about twelve hours’ sleep,’ Sergei said. Grigori nodded; they both knew Varya needed a lot more than that, just as they knew she would never take it. Life on the street had been a lot harder for her than it had been for them. A woman was far more vulnerable and those hard years had marked Varya for ever.

‘And Miss Pearl …?’ he asked, hesitantly, and Sergei looked away. He could still feel the softness of her hand on his cheek, the kind urgency of her words. She’d wanted to believe in him. He was glad he’d shattered at least that illusion. He turned back to Grigori.

‘You can help her with her visa and passport tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I don’t intend ever to see her again.’

CHAPTER FIVE

One year later

SERGEI stared moodily out at the Manhattan skyline as several businessmen around the conference table rustled their papers.

‘Mr Kholodov …?’

Reluctantly he turned back to the table of executives, who were all eyeing him with different degrees of wary unease. He was acquiring their company, and this meeting was no more than a formality, the signing of a few papers. Clearly he was taking too long. He beckoned to the man nearest to him.

‘I’m ready to sign.’

Sergei scrawled his signatures on half a dozen forms, his mind still on the city skyline.

Hadley Springs … about four hours north of New York City.

Even now, a year later, he hadn’t forgotten. He hadn’t forgotten a single thing about that evening. About Hannah Pearl.

He pushed the papers away, barely listening to the babble of voices as they went over the transferring of assets. What was one more company when he already had a dozen? Too restless to sit any longer, he rose from the table and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over midtown, Central Park a green haze in the distance.

‘Keep talking,’ he said tersely, his back to the table. ‘I’m listening.’ He wasn’t.

Was she the same? he wondered. As naive and optimistic and unspoiled as she’d been that night?

You’re a better man than you think you are.

Or maybe life had finally taught her something, helped her to grow a necessarily calloused and cynical hide. Maybe he had. The thought gave him a little pang of loss, as absurd an emotion as that was. Everyone needed to toughen up. How else did you survive?

‘Mr Kholodov …’

Did she still have her shop? It had seemed a lonely life, toiling away in a little shop she didn’t seem to really like all by herself. She didn’t even like knitting. Yet she’d kept at it, out of loyalty to her parents, and maybe a misplaced optimism that she could make it work. He knew enough about business to have assessed in a second that struggling little shops in the middle of nowhere didn’t last long.

Had she moved, then? Found a life for herself somewhere else? Who knew, maybe she’d gone back to school. Maybe she was married.

I wouldn’t even know where to go.

Amazing, Sergei thought distantly, how much he remembered. How much he still thought about her, even when he tried not to. Amazing how one night had made such a difference.

Several months after Hannah had left—Grigori had made sure she had her documents and a first-class plane ticket—Sergei had done something he’d never, ever considered doing before.

He’d contacted a private investigator, and issued instructions for the man to make initial inquiries about Alyona. About finally finding her. He hadn’t seen her in over twenty years … since she was four years old, and he fourteen, both of them already weary of life.

Now the investigator was still trying to follow up various leads. The records at the orphanage had been spotty and sometimes plain wrong. And twice Sergei had told him to stop, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Then he’d thought of Hannah, of her guileless smile.

Tell me one really good thing that’s happened to you. Or, better yet, one really good person …

Someone who made a difference.

And he’d ordered the man to start his inquiries again. Maybe he did, after all these years, want to believe. Believe as Hannah did, in something—someone—good.

You have to be the most refreshingly—and annoyingly—optimistic person I’ve ever met.

It was annoying, Sergei reflected, that he couldn’t seem to get her out of his head. Even now it made him angry.

‘Mr Kholodov …’

Finally Sergei turned from the window, focused on the dozen executives waiting for him. He hadn’t been listening at all.

‘Fine,’ he said brusquely, and they all nodded in relief. He had no idea what he’d just agreed to, but it hardly mattered. He’d signed the papers.

He turned back to the window. Hadley Springs was just four hours away. It would only be a matter of minutes on the internet to determine if she still lived there, and what her address was. And if she did … he could hire a car and be there this afternoon.

The thought shocked him, even though it felt right. Amazingly right. He could see her again, finally satisfy his curiosity—and more than that. The attraction that had exploded between them was real, and if it was finally satisfied he could get her out of his head. Forget her completely.

Wasn’t that what he wanted?

Or did he just want to see her again, and never mind the reason?

It didn’t matter. He’d always been a man of action, and now he knew his course. He turned back to the men assembled at the table, waiting on his word.

‘I believe we’re finished here, gentlemen.’

The bell on the front door to Knit & Pearl jingled merrily and Hannah looked up from her rather grim perusal of the account books. ‘Hi, Lisa.’

The older woman smiled in return and placed a carrier bag of hand-knit sweaters on the counter. ‘How’s it looking?’ she said with a nod to the books.

Hannah grimaced. ‘Not good.’ Lisa nodded in sympathy and, smiling, Hannah closed the book and nodded towards the bag. ‘You brought some more sweaters?’

‘And some hat and mitten sets. I know it’s nearly spring, but it’s still chilly and some people like to do their Christmas shopping early.’

‘Great.’ Hannah rose to look through the merchandise. Lisa Leyland had become a great friend over the last year. She’d sailed into the empty shop one chilly spring morning, several weeks after Hannah had returned from Moscow and had been feeling particularly low. After her husband had been made redundant, Lisa had needed some creative sources of income, and she’d suggested to Hannah that she sell her hand-knit sweaters through the shop and take a fifty-per-cent cut; they were some of the most popular items that Hannah had ever sold. A few months after that Lisa offered to run knitting classes in the evenings, which had brought in a little more business.

Still, none of it was enough to keep the shop afloat, a conclusion Hannah had been drawing steadily over the last few months. No wonder her parents had racked up such huge bills, she’d realised dismally. The shop had never been a going concern, and her little improvements—the ones she could afford—weren’t making much of a difference.

She refolded the last of the sweaters and put them to one side for pricing. ‘These are beautiful, Lisa.’

Lisa nodded her thanks before gesturing once again to the account books lying on the counter. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked quietly.

Hannah sighed and rubbed her forehead. She felt the beginnings of a headache and an incredible weariness in every joint and muscle. She’d been trying to make this shop work for so long—certainly the last year, and sometimes it felt like her whole life. And she wasn’t sure she could do it any more. She knew she didn’t want to.

‘Keep going as long as I can, I suppose,’ she said to Lisa. ‘I don’t know what else I can do.’

‘You could sell it.’

Hannah stilled. This wasn’t the first time they’d talked about this issue, but it was the first time Lisa had said it so directly. Sell the shop. Give up on everything her parents had done, had believed in … or at least she’d thought they believed in.

Since returning from Russia, she’d sometimes wondered. The things Sergei Kholodov had made her question, the discovery of their deceit she’d made upon her return … they’d changed her. Perhaps for ever.

‘I’m not ready to sell it,’ she told Lisa. ‘I’m not even sure there’s a buyer.’

‘You don’t know until you try.’

Hannah shook her head. She wasn’t ready to think like that. This shop—just as she’d once told Sergei—had been everything to her parents, and it was all she had left of them now. Letting it go made her feel both sad and scared—and guilty, because part of her desperately wanted to do it.

I don’t even know where I would go.

Funny, and strange, that it had all started with Sergei. Even now she tried not to think of him, but she just couldn’t help herself. He slipped into her thoughts, under her defences. With a few pointed observations—and a devastating kiss—he’d set her doubts in motion. They’d toppled her certainties like dominoes, one after the other, creating an inevitable and depressing chain reaction until her whole world felt flattened and empty.

Now she wasn’t certain of anything any more. She wasn’t annoyingly optimistic either. Not that he would care. Not that he’d ever given her a thought this last year.

I don’t do virgins … especially not ones who barely know how to kiss.

Even now the memory made Hannah cringe. What had she been thinking, telling him she didn’t believe him? Insisting he wanted her? The memory could still make her flush with humiliation. She’d had a lot of certainties ripped away from her, starting with the most basic: that Sergei had been interested in her at all.

Forcing her mind away from the memories, she turned to Lisa with as cheerful a smile as she could muster. ‘Anyway, you shouldn’t be telling me to sell! This is your livelihood too, you know.’

Lisa smiled wryly. ‘I’m hardly making millions selling a few sweaters, Hannah. And I want to see you happy.’

‘I am happy.’ The response was automatic, instinctive, and also a lie. She wasn’t happy. Not the way she’d once been, or at least thought she’d been. Annoyingly optimistic. She wondered if she even knew how to be that kind of happy again, if such a thing were possible.

Or maybe she’d just grown up.

‘I should go,’ Lisa said as she buttoned up her coat once more. ‘Dave has a job interview this afternoon and I want to be home when he gets back.’

‘I hope it went well.’ Lisa’s husband had been on several job interviews, and none of them had panned out yet. They’d been surviving on Lisa’s income and what temporary work Dave could get.

‘Hope springs eternal,’ Lisa said with a smile. She laid a comforting hand on Hannah’s shoulder. ‘Take care of yourself, sweetie. And think about it.’

Hannah just nodded, her gaze sliding away from Lisa because she knew her friend saw too much. She didn’t want to make promises she couldn’t keep, wasn’t ready even to think about. She couldn’t sell the shop. Even the thought still felt like a betrayal.

You are thinking about selling this shop. You need to have your own dream.

Hannah let out a groan of frustration, annoyed at herself for still thinking about Sergei Kholodov. Still remembering just about every word he’d said. It had been over a year since the night they’d had dinner, since they’d kissed. A kiss she couldn’t forget, a kiss that lived on in her dreams and left her restless, awakened by aching and unfulfilled desire.

She shoved the account books into a drawer, determined to think about it later. But when? The question was a near-constant refrain. For the last year she’d been focused on keeping the shop afloat, trying what new initiatives and merchandise she could afford, but nothing was enough. The mortgage on the shop and house were paid, and she made enough to live a frugal, meagre existence, but that was all the income from the shop provided. One bad season, an unforeseen repair or accident … bankruptcy and destitution hovered just a breath away.

The string of bells on the door jingled again, and Hannah turned with a ready if rather weary smile for a customer. She felt the smile freeze on her face as she took in the dark-suited figure standing so incongruously in the doorway of the cosy craft shop. It was Sergei.

She was the same. Exactly the same. Sergei felt a fierce rush of something close to joy—mingled with relief—at the sight of Hannah standing there, her hair tousled about her face, the sunlight catching its glinting strands, her eyes as wide and violet as he remembered. Smiling. Always smiling. Perhaps she was actually glad to see him.

After Grigori had done some digging and confirmed that Hannah still lived in Hadley Springs, still had her little shop, Sergei had hired a car and driven all afternoon to get here. He’d cruised down the one main street, noticing the dilapidated diner, the for-rent signs in blank-faced shop windows. The only stores doing a decent business were a discount warehouse and a garage that sold tractor parts. And Hannah’s shop. No wonder it was struggling. Housed in an old weathered barn on the edge of the tiny town, the paint was flaking, the sign barely discernible. Inside it was a little better, with cubbyholes filled with bright wool and stacks of sweaters, but Hadley Springs was hardly a tourist spot. It was small and shabby and depressing and even though he was glad—too glad—to see her, Sergei was half amazed that Hannah was still here.

‘Hello, Hannah.’

Sergei watched the smile slide off her face and he felt a jolt because he recognised the blankness that replaced it, that careful ironing out of expression. He did it himself all the time, had ever since he’d been a child and realised that tears and laughter both earned punishment. Better to be silent. Better not to reveal a single thing.

Yet he hadn’t expected it from Hannah.

‘What are you—?’ She paused, moistened her lips—just as rose-pink as he remembered—and started again. ‘What are you doing here?’

He smiled faintly. ‘Well, I didn’t come to see the sights, I can assure you.’ She still looked blank so he clarified, ‘I came to see you.’

‘To see me,’ Hannah repeated. At first Sergei thought Hannah sounded incredulous, which he could understand, but then she let out a hollow laugh and with another jolt of shock he realised she sounded like him. She sounded cynical.

Perhaps she had changed after all.

Hannah stared at Sergei in disbelief, half expecting him to disappear, like a mirage or an impostor. Maybe a ghost. He couldn’t be real. He couldn’t be here, having come all the way from Russia just to see her?

It was impossible. Ridiculous. Real. He was here, and he was still staring at her, smiling faintly, waiting.

For what?

Her mind spun, unable to fathom why. The memory of the derisive, dismissive smile he’d given her as he’d put his arm around that woman—Varya—was still frozen in her brain. In her heart. He’d tired of her, just as he’d said. He’d wanted her gone. So why on earth had he come and found her?

She lifted her chin, regarding him coolly. ‘What do you want?’

‘I told you, to see you.’

‘Why?’

He paused, his head cocked, his gaze sweeping slowly over her. Something flickered across his face, a dark emotion Hannah couldn’t identify, and then his face cleared. Blanked. ‘I wanted to see if you were the same.’