Hidden Motives

“It is in the historical archives for anyone to read.”

“Anyone with access to the private files.”

“I am queen. I get access.”

Fedir opened his mouth and then shut it again without a word being uttered, his face settling into a frown.

Oxana turned to face Demyan, effectively cutting Fedir out of the conversation. “Promise me one thing.”

“Yes.” He didn’t have to ask what it was. He trusted Oxana in a way he didn’t trust anyone besides Maks.

If she wanted a promise, he would give it to her.

“Don’t tell this woman, Chanel Tanner, that you love her unless you mean it. Love isn’t a bartering tool.”

“She loves me.” Chanel hadn’t said so, but he was sure of it.

It’s what he’d been working toward since he’d first walked into her office.

“No doubt. You are an eminently lovable man, but you owe it to her and to your own sense of honor not to lie about something so important.”

“I never lied to you,” Fedir inserted.

“Nothing has ever hurt as much as realizing Fedir had only said the words to convince me to give him the heir he needed for the throne.”

“I did love you. I do love you.”

Oxana spun to face her husband, but not her lover. “Like a sister. The few times you shared my bed, you called out her name at the critical moment.”

This was so much more than Demyan wanted to know, but he saw no way of extricating himself from the situation. He could walk out easily enough, but he wouldn’t leave Oxana to face the aftereffects of the emotional bloodletting that had been decades in the making.

“You knew about Bhodana from the beginning.”

“You told me you loved me. I thought that meant you were going to let her go.”

“I never promised you that.”

“No, you were very careful not to.”

“Oxana.”

She waved her hand, dismissing him and his words as she turned back to Demyan. “You promise me, be the better man. Do not make declarations you don’t mean.”

“You have my word.”

“I look forward to meeting her.”

“I didn’t plan to bring her here before the wedding.”

“You don’t want to scare her away.”

“No.” Unlike many women, Chanel was less likely to marry a prince than a normal man. “I’ve taken great care not to frighten her off.”

“Does she know the real you?” Oxana asked.

He thought about their time in bed, intimacy during which his plans flew straight to heaven in the face of his body’s response to Chanel. He’d try to convince himself that it would only be the first time, but subsequent sessions of lovemaking had proven otherwise.

“Yes,” Demyan said. “She may not realize it, but definitely.”

“Then all will be well. She is marrying the man you are at your core, Demyan, my son, not your title or the corporate shark who runs our company’s operations so efficiently.”

He hoped once Chanel saw his true persona and position, she would agree with her future mother-in-law. It was the one element to his plan that he could not be absolutely sure about.

With another woman, maybe, but with Chanel…learning he was a de facto prince could turn her right off him.

Excited anticipation buzzed through Chanel as the limousine taking her to meet Demyan rolled through the wet streets of Seattle.

His flight had arrived that morning, but he’d had a full day of meetings. Thankfully he’d told her about them before she offered to take a vacation day to spend with him.

Needy much?

She cringed at how much she’d missed him and was fairly certain allowing him to see the extent of it might not be the best thing to do. Even someone as socially inept as Chanel realized that.

Still, it had been hard to play it cool and agree to let him send a driver for her without gushing over the idea of seeing him tonight and not having to wait until tomorrow.

They were attending an avant-garde live theater production downtown. No dinner. Demyan’s schedule had not permitted.

Chanel was just glad he hadn’t put off seeing her, but he’d seemed almost as eager to be with her as she felt about seeing him again. Considering the number of times their short phone call had been interrupted, she knew he’d had to force a slot into his schedule for her.

Knowing she was going to see him had made focusing on her work nearly impossible. Chanel had ended up taking the afternoon off and calling her sister for a last-minute shopping trip. Laura had helped Chanel pick out an outfit that was guaranteed to drive the guy crazy.

The sapphire-blue three-quarter-length-sleeve top was deceptively simple. With a scoop neckline outlined by a double line of black stitching and mock tuxedo tucking in the front, it was tailored in along her torso to emphasize her curves. The semi-transparent silk was worn over a bra in the same color. Not overtly slutty with the pleats in front, it still did a lovely job of highlighting Chanel’s femininity.

The black silk trousers appeared conservative enough. Until she sat down, bent over or walked. Then the slit from midthigh to ankle hidden by the tuxedo stripe when she was standing gave intriguing glimpses of naked skin.

She’d never worn anything so revealing, but Laura insisted the peek-a-boo slit was interesting and not cheap. At the prices Chanel had paid for each piece of the outfit, she supposed cheap would not be a term that would ever apply to the clothing.

It had looked sophisticated in the boutique’s full-length mirror, a little more scandalous in her own.

Laura had insisted on styling Chanel’s ensemble as well, adding a demure rope of pearls knotted right below her breasts in an interesting juxtaposition that drew attention to the curves as effectively as the blue silk.

Her heels were strappy black sandals with what Laura called a do-me-baby heel. Chanel hadn’t bothered to admonish her sister about the description.

She’d decided years ago that Laura was light-years ahead of Chanel in the girl-boy department. She didn’t know if her baby sister was still a virgin like Chanel had been when she met Demyan, and honestly she had absolutely no desire to know.

The limousine slid to a halt and Chanel took a calming breath that did exactly no good.

She resisted the urge to pull at the carefully styled curls her sister had worked so hard to effect and waited for the driver to open the door.

It wasn’t the chauffeur’s hand reaching in to help her out of the limousine, though.

It was Demyan’s, and his dark eyes glittered with lust as he took in her exposed thigh before meeting her gaze. “Hello, sérdeńko. I am very happy to see you.”

She made no effort to stifle the smile that took over her features as she surged forward to exit the limo. If he hadn’t been there with a steadying hand and then his arm around her waist, she would have fallen flat on her face.

But he was there and part of her heart was beginning to believe maybe he always would be.

He tucked her into his body protectively before leaning down to kiss her hello, right there in front of the crowd making their way into the theater.

She responded with more enthusiasm than probably was warranted, but he didn’t seem to mind.

The kiss ended and he smiled down at her. “You look beautiful tonight. Very sexy.”

“Laura played stylist.”

“Your younger sister?”

“Yes. She’s got even more acute fashion sense than Mom.”

“Tell her I approve.”

“She said you would.”

His gaze skimmed her body. “Though I am not sure how I feel about everyone else seeing your body.”

“They’re just legs.”

“Nice ones.”

“It’s the tae kwon do.” Chanel’s mother had heard somewhere that taking martial arts could improve Chanel’s grace.

It hadn’t done much for her poise and composure, but Chanel had discovered she enjoyed the classes. She’d insisted on continuing when her mother would have preferred she take a dance class.

Just one of many arguments between her and Beatrice during Chanel’s formative years marked with parent-child acrimony.

“Then I am very grateful for your interest in Korean martial arts.”

“You’ve never asked what color belt I am,” she observed as he led her into the theater.

His thumb brushed up and down against her waist as if he couldn’t help touching her. “What color?”

“Third-level black belt.”

“Sixth-level black in judo,” he said by way of reply.

“Want to spar?” she teased breathlessly.

The silk of her shirt transmitted the heat from his skin to hers and she wondered if she was the one who was going to end up teased to distraction by her outfit tonight.

“I spar with my cousin. I prefer less competitive physical pursuits with you.”

She looked up into the side of his face, loving the line of his jaw, the way he held himself with such confidence. “Me, too.”

He groaned.

“What?”

He stopped in the lobby and pulled her around so their gazes locked.

His was heated. “How can you ask what? You are dressed in a way guaranteed to keep my thoughts off the play and on what I plan to do to you once we get back to my condo.”

CHAPTER SIX

HE SHOOK HIS HEAD as if trying to clear it. “What do you think has me groaning? It has been three nights.”

She tried not to look as pleased as she felt, but was afraid she wasn’t doing a very good job.

So she averted her head and met the envious gaze of another woman. Chanel ignored it, the envy having no power to pierce the bubble of happiness around her.

Demyan was with her and showed zero interest in being with, or even looking at, another woman.

She looked up at the sound of his laughter. He was watching her.

“I’m funny?” she asked.

“You are very pleased with yourself.”

“I am happy with life, and you most of all,” she offered.

She wasn’t one to share her feelings easily, but Laura hadn’t spent the afternoon just coaching Chanel on fashion choices. Her little sister had told Chanel that if she really liked this man, she needed to open up to him.

“You can’t do that thing you do with Mom and Dad and everyone else besides me and Andrew,” Laura had said.

Even though Chanel thought she knew, she’d asked, “What thing?”

“The way you hold the real you back so no one can hurt her.”

“You’re pretty insightful.”

“For a teenager, you mean.”

“For anyone.” Their mother was nearly fifty and Beatrice had less understanding of her oldest daughter’s nature.

Demyan’s hand slid down her hip, his fingertips playing across her exposed flesh through the slit.

Chanel gasped and jerked away from the touch.

His look was predatory. “I don’t like to be ignored.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you.”

“You weren’t thinking about me.”

“How can you tell?”

“I know.”

“You’re arrogant.”

“So you have said, but you know I do not agree.”

And the more she knew of him, the less she believed the accusation herself. There was a very hard-to-detect strain of vulnerability running through the man at her side. You had to look very closely to see it, but she watched him with every bit of her formidable scientist’s brain focused entirely on one thing. Deciphering the data that made up Demyan Zaretsky.

“I’m thinking about you now,” she promised.

“I know.”

She laughed, feeling a light airiness that buoyed her through the crowd.

“Demyan!” a feminine voice called.

There was no mistaking the way his body tensed at the sound, not with him so close to Chanel as they walked.

He was coiled tightly, even as he turned them toward the woman who had called his name, with one of those fake smiles Chanel hadn’t seen since their very first dates on his face. “Madeleine.”

Madeleine’s fashion sense and poise was everything Chanel’s mother wished for her daughter.

Unfortunately, Chanel refused to make it a mission in life to live up to such hopes. She’d learned too young that nothing she did would ever be enough; therefore, what would be the point in trying to be someone she was not?

Madeleine’s blond hair probably wasn’t natural, but there were no telltale indicators. She wore her Givenchy dress with supreme confidence, her accessories in perfect proportion to the designer ensemble.

Chanel couldn’t tell the other woman’s age by looking at her but guessed it was somewhere between thirty and a well-preserved forty-five.

The look she gave Demyan said he knew her age, intimately.

If this had happened a month ago, Chanel would have withdrawn into herself and given up the playing field.

But what she’d denied on their third date was a certainty now. She was head over heels in love with Demyan Zaretsky, though she hadn’t had a chance to tell him yet. Wasn’t sure exactly when she wanted to.

While he’d never said the words, either, he hinted at a future together almost every time she saw him.

That love and his commitment to their future gave her strength.

Drawing on a bit of her mother’s aplomb, Chanel stepped forward and extended her hand. “Chanel Tanner. Are you an old friend of Demyan’s?”

Madeleine didn’t miss Chanel’s slight emphasis on the word old, her eyes narrowing just slightly with anger but no righteous indignation. So, she was older than she looked.

“You could say that.” Madeleine put her hand on Demyan’s sleeve. “We know each other quite well, though I admit I didn’t know he wore glasses.”

Demyan adroitly stepped away from the touch while keeping a proprietary arm around Chanel. “Is your husband here tonight, Madeleine?”

Stress made Chanel’s body rigid. Had Demyan and this woman had an affair? He’d said he didn’t believe in infidelity.

Had he been lying?

“He couldn’t get away from the Microsoft people. I’m quite on my own tonight.” Madeleine smiled up at Demyan, her expression expectant.

It was clear she was angling for an invitation to join them, though Chanel wasn’t sure how that was supposed to happen.

Their tickets had assigned seats.

Demyan ignored the hint completely. “The cost of being married to a man with his responsibilities.”

The older woman frowned again, this time genuine anger lying right below the surface. “Does your little friend here know that? Or is she still in the honeymoon phase of believing you’ll make her a priority in your life?”

“She is a priority.” He pulled Chanel closer.

She didn’t know if the move was a conscious one, but Madeleine noticed it, too.

That made Madeleine flinch and Chanel felt unexpected compassion well up inside her. “I’m sure you’re a priority to your husband. He works to make a good life for you both.”

That’s what she remembered her father saying to her mother.

“I knew what I was getting when I married him.” Madeleine gave a significant look to Demyan. “And what I was giving up. I liked my chances with Franklin better.”

“He married you. You read the situation right.” There was a message in Demyan’s voice for the other woman.

He was telling her he wouldn’t have married her, and her words had put Chanel’s mind at rest about the affair. Oh, it was clear the two had shared a bed at one time, but it was equally obvious that circumstance had ended before Madeleine married Franklin.

“How long were you two together?” Chanel asked with her infamous lack of tact but no desire to pull the question back once it was uttered.

It might be awkward, but it struck her how very little she really knew about Demyan.

“Didn’t he tell you about me?” Madeleine asked, her tone just this side of snide.

And still Chanel couldn’t feel anything but pity for her. She didn’t look happy with her choices in life.

“No.”

The other woman didn’t seem happy with the answer. Maybe Madeleine had thought she’d made a bigger impact on Demyan’s life than she had. “You’re a blunt one, aren’t you? Did your mother teach you no tact?”

“To her eternal disappointment, no.”

That brought an unexpected but small smile to Madeleine’s lips.

Demyan leaned down and kissed Chanel’s temple, no annoyance with her in his manner at all. “She is refreshingly direct,” he said to Madeleine while looking at Chanel. “There is no artifice in her.”

“So, she does not see the artifice in you,” Madeleine opined, sounding sad rather than bitter.

“He holds things back,” Chanel answered before Demyan could, but she did the older woman the courtesy of meeting her gaze to do so. “But if I know that, he’s not hiding anything. I understand how hard it can be to share your true self with someone else.”

“Heavens, don’t you have any filters?” Madeleine demanded.

“No.”

It was Demyan’s turn to laugh, the sound genuine and apparently shocking to the other woman. Madeleine stared at him for a count of five full seconds, her mouth agape, her eyes widened comically.

Finally, she said, “I’ve never heard you make that sound.”

“He’s just laughing.” Okay, so he didn’t do it often, but the man had an undeniable sense of humor.

“Just, she says. This young thing really doesn’t know you at all, does she?” Madeleine was the one looking with pity on Chanel now.

“It was a pleasure to run into you, but we need to find our seats. If you will excuse us,” Demyan said, his tone brooking no obstacles and implying the exact opposite to his words.

Madeleine said nothing as they walked away.

When they reached their seats Chanel understood how the other woman had thought she might be included in their evening. Demyan had a box.

Although there was room for at least eight seats in it, there were only two burgundy-velvet-covered Queen Anne-style chairs. A small table with a bottle of champagne and two-person hors d’oeuvres tray stood between them.

Demyan led her to one of the seats, making sure she was comfortable before taking his own.

He looked out over the auditorium, stretching his long legs in front of him. “She’s wrong, you know.”

“Madeleine?”

“Yes.”

“About what?”

He turned his head, looking at her in that way only he had ever done. As if she was a woman worthy of intense desire, of inciting his lust. “You know the man at the base of my nature.”

“I hardly know anything about you.” The words came from the scientist’s nature even as her heart knew he spoke the truth.

That man who lost his control when he tried so hard not to, that man was the real Demyan.

Demyan shook his head, his dark eyes glowing with sensual lights she now recognized very well. “You know the most personal things about me.”

“So does she.”

“No.”

“You had sex with her.” And even though she now knew that Madeleine hadn’t been married at the time, Chanel realized it still bothered her a little.

She knew he’d been with other lovers. Probably lots of them, but she really didn’t want to keep running into them.

“She never saw the more primal side of my nature. No other woman has seen it.”

“You think I know you better than anyone else because you don’t show absolute control in the bedroom?” It’s what she’d thought only seconds before, but saying it aloud made the very concept seem unreal.

“Yes.”

“I want to know about your past. Not names of every woman you’ve been with. I hope I never meet another one, but I don’t know anything about you.” Except that to him, she was special.

She kept that to herself. She wanted more.

“It’s the future that counts between us.”

“But without a connection to the past, there is no basis for understanding the future.” Historians made that claim all the time and scientists knew it to be true as well, for different reasons.

“I thought scientists were all about progress.”

“Building on the discoveries of the past.”

“Not making something entirely new?”

“Nothing is new, just newly discovered.”

“Like your sexy fashion sense?” he teased.

“That’s all Laura.”

“I don’t see Laura here now.”

“I’d like you to meet her.” If they had a future, they had to share their present lives.

Even the less-than-pleasant bits, which meant he’d have to meet her mother and Perry, as well.

“I would enjoy that very much.”

“You would?”

“Naturally. She is your sister.”

“A part of my past.”

“And your present and your future.”

“Yes, so?” she prompted.

He gave her a wary look she didn’t understand. “You want to meet my family?”

“Very much. Unless…Do you not get on?” Maybe his relationship with his parents was worse than hers with Beatrice and Perry.

“I get on very well with the aunt and uncle who raised me.”

“What happened to your parents?”

“Ambition.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They gave me to be raised by my aunt and uncle to feed their own ambition.”

There had to be more to the story than that, but she understood this was something Demyan didn’t share with everyone. “Do you ever see them?”

“My aunt and uncle? Often. In fact, that’s where I spent the last three days.”

“I thought it was business.”

“I did not say that.”

“You didn’t say anything at all.”

“You did not ask.”

“Do I have the right to ask?”

“Absolutely.”

That was definitive and welcome. “Okay.”

“My parents come to family social occasions,” he offered without making her ask again, proving he’d known what she meant the first time around.

“And?”

“They do not consider me their son.”

“Or their beloved nephew.”

“Not beloved anything.” His expression relayed none of the hurt that must cause him.

“I am sorry.”

“You don’t have it much better with your mother and Perry.”

“I’m not sure I have it better at all,” she admitted.

“Your parents do not understand you.”

“They don’t approve of me. That’s worse, believe me.” It would have been so much easier for her if her mother and Perry simply found her an enigma.

Instead, they considered her a defective model that needed constant attempts at fixing.

“I approve of you completely.”

“Thank you.” She grinned at him, letting her love shine in her eyes. She had a feeling the words weren’t far from her lips, either. “I approve of you, too.”

“I am very glad to hear that.” He picked up the champagne bottle and poured them each a glass.

“Why champagne?” she asked.

If it was his favored wine of choice, she wouldn’t ask, but he’d shared with her he drank champagne on only very special occasions.

He handed her a glass. “I’m hoping to have something to celebrate in very short order.”

Goose bumps broke out over Chanel’s skin, her heart going into her throat. “Oh?”

He reached into his pocket and brandished a small box that was unmistakable in size and intent.

“Isn’t this supposed to happen after a five-course dinner and roses, and…” Her breath ran out and so did Chanel’s words.

“I am not a man who follows other people’s dictated scripts.”

She had no trouble believing that. “Just your own.”

Something passed through his eyes, almost like guilt, but that didn’t make any sense. He might be bossy outside the bedroom a bit, too, but it was nothing to feel guilty about.

Chanel was no shrinking violet that she couldn’t stand up to him if need be.

He moved, and suddenly he was on one knee in front of her, the ring box open and in his palm. “Marry me, Chanel.”

“You…I…This…How can you want…It’s only been a month…”

“Is longer than three dates. I knew I wanted to marry you from the beginning.” There could be no questioning the truth of that statement.