His Ballerina Bride

Present and accounted for. Physically, at least. His thoughts, along with his libido, still lingered back in the kitchen with the intriguing Miss Rose.

“At long last. It’s been two months since Dad died. To what do we owe the honor of your presence?” Dalton twirled his pen, a Montblanc. Just like the one their father had always used. It could have been the same one, for all Artem knew. That would have been an appropriate bequest.

Far more appropriate than leaving Artem in charge of this place when he’d done nothing more than pass out checks and attend charity galas since he’d been on the payroll.

The only Drake who spent less time in the building than he did was their sister, Diana. She was busy training for the Olympic equestrian team with her horse, which was appropriately named Diamond.

Artem narrowed his gaze at his brother. “I’ve been busy.”

“Busy,” Dalton said flatly. “Right. I think I remember reading something about that in Page Six.”

“And here I thought you only read the financial pages. Don’t tell me you’ve lowered yourself to reading Page Six, brother.”

“I have to, don’t I? How else would I keep apprised of your whereabouts?” The smile on Dalton’s face grew tight.

A dull ache throbbed to life in Artem’s temples, and he remembered why he’d put off this meeting for as long as he had. It wasn’t as if he and Dalton had ever been close, but at least they’d managed to be cordial to one another while their father was alive. Now it appeared the gloves were off.

The thing was, he sympathized with Dalton. Surely his older brother had expected to be next in line to run the company. Hell, everyone had expected that to be the case.

He didn’t feel too sorry for Dalton, though. He was about to get exactly what he wanted. Besides, Artem would not let Dalton ruin his mood. He’d had a pleasant enough evening at the symphony gala, which had led to a rather sexually satisfying morning.

Oddly enough, though, it had been the unexpected encounter with Ophelia Rose that had put the spring in his step.

He found her interesting. And quite lovely. She would have made it almost tolerable to come to work every day, if he had any intention of doing such a thing. Which he didn’t.

“Has it occurred to you that having the Drake name in the papers is good PR?” Artem said blithely.

“PR. Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?” Dalton rolled his eyes.

It took every ounce of Artem’s self-restraint not to point out how badly his brother needed to get laid. “I didn’t come here to discuss my social life, Dalton. As difficult as you might find it to believe, I’m ready to discuss business.”

Dalton nodded. Slowly. “I’m glad to hear that, brother. Very glad.”

He’d be even happier once Artem made his announcement. So would Artem. He had no desire to engage in this sort of exchange on a daily basis. He was a grown man. He didn’t need his brother’s input on his lifestyle. And he sure as hell didn’t want to sit behind a desk all day at a place where he’d never been welcomed when his father had been alive.

According to the attorneys, his father had changed the provisions of his will less than a week before he’d died. One might suppose senility to be behind the change, if not for the fact that his dad had been too stubborn to lose his mind. Shrewd. Cold. And sharp as a tack until the day he passed.

“Listen,” Artem said. “I don’t know why Dad left me in charge. It’s as much of a mystery to me as it is to you.”

“Don’t.” Dalton shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. You’re here. That’s a start. I’ve had Dad’s office cleaned out. It’s yours now.”

Artem went still. “What?”

Dalton shrugged one shoulder. “Where else are you going to work?”

Artem didn’t have an answer for that.

Dalton continued, “Listen, it’s going to take a few days to get you up to speed. We have one pressing matter, though, that just can’t wait. If you hadn’t rolled in here by the end of the week, I was going to beat down your door at the Plaza and insist you talk to me.”

Whatever the pressing matter was, Artem had a feeling that he didn’t want to hear about it. He didn’t need to. It wasn’t his problem. This idea that he would actually run the company was a joke.

“Before the heart attack...” Dalton’s voice lost a bit of its edge.

The change in his composure was barely perceptible, but Artem noticed. He’d actually expected his brother to be more of a mess. Dalton, after all, had been the jewel in their father’s crown. He’d been a son, whereas Artem had been a stranger to the Drakes for the first five years of his life.

“...Dad invested in a new mine in Australia. I didn’t even know about it until last week.” Dalton raised his brows, as if Artem had something to say.

Artem let out a laugh. “Surely you’re not suggesting that he told me about it.”

His brother sighed. “I suppose not, although I wish he had. I wish someone had stopped him. It doesn’t matter, anyway. What’s done is done. The mine was a bust. It’s worthless, and now it’s put the business in a rather precarious position.”

“Precarious? Exactly how much did he spend on this mine?”

Dalton took too long to answer. He exhaled a slow, measured breath and finally said, “Three billion.”

“Three billion dollars.” Artem blinked. That was a lot of money. An astronomical amount, even to a man who lived on the eighteenth floor of the Plaza and flew his own Boeing business jet, which, ironically enough, Artem used for pleasure far more than he did for business. “The company has billions in assets, though. If not trillions.”

“Yes, but not all those assets are liquid. With the loss from the mine, we’re sitting at a twenty-five million dollar deficit. We need to figure something out.”

We. Since when did any of the Drakes consider Artem part of a we?

He should just get up and walk right out of Dalton’s office. He didn’t owe the Drakes a thing.

Somehow, though, his backside remained rooted to the spot. “What about the diamond?”

“The diamond? The Drake diamond?” Dalton shook his head. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. I know you’re not one for sentimentality, brother, but even you wouldn’t suggest that we sell the Drake diamond.”

Actually, he would. “It’s a rock, Dalton. A pretty rock, but a rock nonetheless.”

Dalton shook his head so hard that Artem thought it might snap clear off his neck. “It’s a piece of history. Our family name was built on that rock.”

Our family name. Right.

Artem cleared his throat. “How much is it worth?”

“It doesn’t matter, because we’re not selling it.”

“How much, Dalton? As your superior, I demand that you tell me.” It was a low blow. Artem would have liked to think that a small part of him didn’t get a perverse sort of pleasure from throwing his position in Dalton’s face, but it did. So be it.

“Fifty million dollars,” Dalton said. “But I repeat, it’s not for sale, and it never will be.”

Never.

If Artem had learned one thing since becoming acquainted with his father—since being “welcomed” into the Drake fold—it was that never was an awfully strong word. “That’s not your call, though, is it, brother?”

* * *

Ophelia hadn’t planned on stopping by the animal shelter on the way home from work. She had, after all, already volunteered three times this week. Possibly four. She’d lost count.

She couldn’t go home yet, though. Not after the day she’d had. Dealing with all the happily engaged couples was bad enough, but she was growing accustomed to it. She didn’t have much of a choice, did she? But the unexpected encounter with Artem Drake had somehow thrown her completely off-kilter.

It wasn’t only the embarrassment of getting caught inhaling one of the fifteen dollar petits fours that had gotten her so rattled. It was him. Artem.

Mr. Drake. Not Artem. He’s your boss, not your friend. Or anything else.

He wasn’t even her boss anymore, she supposed. Which was for the best. Obviously. She hadn’t exactly made a glowing first impression. Now she could start over with whoever took his place. So really, there was no logical reason for the acute tug of disappointment she’d felt when he’d told her about his plans to resign. None whatsoever.

There was also no logical reason that she’d kept looking around all afternoon for a glimpse of him as he exited the building. Nor for the way she’d gone all fluttery when she’d caught a flash of tuxedoed pant leg beyond the closing elevator doors after her shift had ended. It hadn’t been Artem, anyway. Just another, less dashing man dressed to the nines.

What was her problem, anyway? She was acting as though she’d never met a handsome man before. Artem Drake wasn’t merely handsome, though. He was charming.

Too charming. Dangerously so.

Ophelia had felt uncharacteristically vulnerable in the presence of all that charm. Raw. Empty. And acutely aware of all that she’d lost, all that she’d never have.

She couldn’t go home to the apartment she’d inherited from her grandmother. She couldn’t spend another evening sifting through her grandmother’s things—the grainy black-and-white photographs, her tattered pointe shoes. Her grandmother had been the only family that Ophelia had known since the tender age of two, when a car accident claimed the lives of her parents. Natalia Baronova had been more than a grandparent. She’d been Ophelia’s world. Her mother figure, her best friend and her ballet teacher.

She’d died a week before Ophelia’s diagnosis. As much as Ophelia had needed someone to lean on in those first dark days, she’d been grateful that the great Natalia Baronova, star ballerina of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the 1940s and ’50s, died without the knowledge that her beloved granddaughter would never dance again.

“Ophelia?” Beth, the shelter manager, shook her head and planted her hands on her hips as Ophelia slipped off her coat and hung it on one of the pegs by the door. “Again? I didn’t see your name on the volunteer schedule for this evening.”

“It’s not. But I thought you could use an extra pair of hands.” Ophelia flipped through the notebook that contained the animals’ daily feeding schedule.

“You know better than anybody we always need help around here, but surely you have somewhere else to be on a Friday night.”

Nowhere, actually. “You know how much I enjoy spending time with the animals.” Plus, the shelter was now caring for a litter of eight three-week-old kittens that had to be bottle-fed every three hours. The skimpy volunteer staff could barely keep up, especially now that the city was blanketed with snow. People liked to stay home when it snowed. And that meant at any given moment, one of the kittens was hungry.

Beth nodded. “I know, love. Just be careful. I’d hate for you to ruin that pretty dress you’re wearing.”

The dress had belonged to Ophelia’s grandmother. In addition to mountains of dance memorabilia, she’d left behind a gorgeous collection of vintage clothing. Like the apartment, it had been a godsend. When she’d been dancing, Ophelia had lived in a leotard and tights. Most days, she’d even worn her dance clothes to school, since she’d typically had to go straight from rehearsal to class at the New York School of Design. She couldn’t very well show up to work at Drake Diamonds dressed in a wraparound sweater, pink tights and leg warmers.

Neither could she simply go out and buy a whole new work wardrobe. Between her student loan bills and the exorbitant cost of the biweekly injections to manage her MS, she barely made ends meet. Plus there were the medical bills from that first, awful attack, before she’d even known why the vision out of her left eye sometimes went blurry or why her fingers occasionally felt numb. Sometimes she left rehearsal with such crippling fatigue she felt as if she were walking through Jell-O. She’d blamed it on the stress of dealing with her grandmother’s recent illness. She’d blamed it on the rigorous physical demands of her solo role in the company production of Giselle. Mostly, though, she’d simply ignored her symptoms because she couldn’t quite face the prospect that something was seriously wrong. Then one night she’d fallen out of a pirouette. Onstage, midperformance. The fact that she’d been unable to peel herself off the floor had only made matters worse.

And now she’d never perform again.

Sometimes, in her most unguarded moments, Ophelia found herself pointing her toes and moving her foot in the familiar, sweeping motion of a rond de jambe. Then she’d close her eyes and remember the sickening thud as she’d come down on the wooden stage floor. She’d remember the pitying expressions on the faces of her fellow dancers and the way the crimson stage curtains had drawn closed on the spectacle with a solemn hush. Her career, her life, everything she’d worked for, had ended with that whisper of red velvet.

She had every reason to be grateful, though. She had a nice apartment in Manhattan. She had clothes on her back and a job. She’d even had the forethought to enroll in school while she’d been dancing, because she’d known that the day would come when she’d be unable to dance for a living. She just hadn’t realized that day would come so soon. She’d thought she’d had time. So much time. Time to dance, time to love, time to dream.

She’d never planned on spending her Friday nights feeding kittens at an animal shelter, but it wasn’t such a bad place to be. She actually enjoyed it quite a bit.

“I’ll be careful, Beth. I promise.” Ophelia draped a towel over the front of her dress and reached into the cabinet above a row of cat enclosures for a bottle and a fresh can of kitten formula.

As she cracked the can open and positioned it over the tiny bottle, her gaze flitted to the cage in the corner. Her hand paused midpour when she realized the wire pen was empty.

“Where’s the little white kitten?” she asked, fighting against the rapidly forming lump in her throat.

“She hasn’t been adopted, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Beth cast her a knowing glance. “She’s getting her picture taken for some charity thing.”

“Oh.” Ophelia hated herself for the swell of relief that washed over her. The shelter’s mission was to find homes for all their animals, after all. Everyone deserved a home. And love. And affection.

The lump in her throat grew tenfold. “That’s too bad.”

“Is it?” Beth lifted a sardonic brow.

Ophelia busied herself with securing the top on the bottle and lifting one of the squirming kittens out of the pen lined with a heating pad that served as a makeshift incubator. “Of course it is.”

She steadfastly refused to meet Beth’s gaze, lest she give away her true feelings on the matter, inappropriate as they were.

But there was no fooling Beth. “For the life of me, I don’t know why you won’t just adopt her. Don’t get me wrong—I appreciate your help around here. But I have a sneaky suspicion that the reason you came by tonight has more to do with visiting your fluffy friend than with feeding our hungry little monsters. You’re besotted with that cat.”

“And you’re exaggerating.” The orange kitten in Ophelia’s hand mewed at a volume that belied its tiny size. Ophelia nestled the poor thing against her chest, and it began suckling on the bottle at once. “Besides, I told you. I can’t have a pet. My apartment doesn’t allow them.”

It was a shameless lie. But how else was she supposed to explain her reluctance to adopt an animal she so clearly adored?

The truth was that she’d love to adopt the white Persian mix. She’d love coming home to the sound of its dainty feet pattering across the floor of her empty apartment. If the cat could come live with her, Ophelia would let it sleep at the foot of her bed, and feed it gourmet food from a can. If...

But she couldn’t do it. She was in no condition to let anyone depend on her for their survival. Not even an animal. She was a ticking time bomb with an unknown deadline for detonation.

Ophelia braced herself for an ardent sales pitch. Beth obviously wasn’t buying the excuses she’d manufactured. Fortunately, before Beth went into full-on lecture mode, they were interrupted by none other than the adorable white cat they’d been discussing. The snow-white feline entered the room in the arms of a statuesque woman dressed in a glittering, sequined floor-length dress.

Ophelia was so momentarily confused to see a woman wearing an evening gown at the animal shelter that at first she didn’t seem to notice that the sequin-clad Barbie was also on the arm of a companion. And that companion was none other than Artem Drake.

Him.

Again? Seriously?

She could hardly believe her eyes. What on earth was he doing here?

For some ridiculous reason, Ophelia’s first instinct was to hide. She didn’t want to see him again. Especially here. Now. When he had a glamorous supermodel draped all over him and Ophelia was sitting in a plastic chair, chest covered in stained terry cloth while she bottle-fed a yelping orange tabby. And, oh, God, he was dressed in another perfect tuxedo. Had the man come strutting out of the womb in black tie?

She wondered what he’d look like in something more casual, a pair of soft faded jeans, maybe. Shirtless. Heck, as long as she was fantasizing, bottomless. Then she wondered why, exactly, she was wondering about such things.

“My, my, who do we have here?” Artem tilted his head.

Ophelia had been so busy dreaming of what he had going on beneath all that sleek Armani wool that she’d neglected to make herself invisible. Super.

“Um...” She struggled for something to say as his gaze dropped to her chest. Her nipples went tingly under his inspection, until she realized he was looking at the kitten, not her. Of course.

Why, oh, why hadn’t she gone straight home after work?

He lifted his gaze so that he was once again looking her directly in the eyes. “Miss Rose, we meet again.”

“You two know each other?” Beth asked, head swiveling back and forth between Ophelia and Artem.

Ophelia shook her head and centered all her concentration on not being attracted to him, while the orange kitten squirmed against her chest. “No, not really,” she said.

“Why, yes. Yes, we do,” Artem said at that exact instant.

The grin on his face was nothing short of suggestive. Or maybe that was just his default expression. Resting playboy face.

Heat pooled in her center, much to her mortification and surprise. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d experienced anything remotely resembling desire. Unless this morning in the kitchen of Drake Diamonds counted. Which, if she was being honest, it most definitely did.

Beth frowned. Artem’s date lifted an agitated brow.

Ophelia clarified the matter before Ms. Supermodel got the wrong idea and thought she was one of his sexual conquests, which no doubt were plentiful. “We’ve met. But we don’t actually know one another.” Not at all.

Artem directed his attention toward Beth and, by way of explanation, said, “Miss Rose works for me.”

Worked, past tense, since he’d resigned from his family’s business. Who did that, anyway?

“Drake Diamonds.” Beth nodded. “Of course. Ophelia’s told me all about it. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what a treasure you’ve found in her. She’s one of our best volunteers. Such a hard worker.”

“A hard worker,” Artem echoed, with only a subtle hint of sarcasm in his smoky voice. Then, presumably to ensure that Ophelia knew he hadn’t forgotten about her indiscretion in the kitchen, he flashed a wink in her direction. “Quite.”

The wink floated through her in a riot of awareness. He’s not flirting with you. He’s goading you. There was a difference. Right?

Beth continued gushing, oblivious to Artem’s sarcastic undertones. “I don’t know what we’d do without her. She’s such a cat lover, here almost every night of the week. Weekends, too.”

So now she sounded like a lonely cat lady. Perfect. “Beth, I’m sure Mr. Drake isn’t here to hear about my volunteer work.” Again, why exactly was he here?

“Oh, sorry. Of course he isn’t. Mr. Drake, thank you so much for the generous donation on behalf of your family, as well as for being photographed with one of our charges. Having your picture in the newspaper with one of the animals will definitely bring attention to our cause.” Beth beamed at Artem.

So he’d given a donation to the shelter. A generous donation...and right when Ophelia had been wishing for something that would make him seem less appealing. Thank goodness she’d no longer be running into him at work. He was too...too much.

“My pleasure,” Artem said smoothly, and ran a manly hand over the white kitty still nestled in his date’s arms.

Ophelia’s kitty.

Not hers, technically. Not hers at all. But that didn’t stop the sting of possessiveness she felt as she watched the cat being cuddled by someone else. And not just anyone else. Someone who was clearly on a date with Artem Drake.

It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Very much.

“That’s actually Ophelia’s favorite cat you have there.” Beth smiled.

“She’s awfully sweet,” Artem’s date cooed.

Ophelia felt sick all of a sudden. What if Artem’s companion adopted it? Her cat? She took a deep breath and fought against the image that sprang to her mind of the woman and Artem in the back of a stretch limo with the white kitten nestled between them. Did everything in life have to be so unfair?

“Is it now?” Artem slid his gaze toward Ophelia. “Your favorite?”

She nodded. There was no sense denying it, especially since she had that odd transparent feeling again. Like he could see straight into her heart.

“I keep insisting Ophelia should adopt her.” An awkward smile creased Beth’s face. Artem’s date still had a firm grip on the kitten. Clearly, Beth was hinting that Ophelia needed to speak now or forever hold her peace.

She needed to get out of here before she did something monumentally stupid like snatch the kitten out of the woman’s arms.

“I should be going.” Ophelia stood and returned the tiny orange kitten to the incubator. “It was lovely seeing you again, Mr. Drake. Beth.”

She nodded at Artem’s date, whose name she still didn’t know, and kept her gaze glued to the floor so she wouldn’t have to see the kitten purring away in the woman’s arms.

Artem ignored Ophelia’s farewell altogether and looked right past her, toward Beth. “How much is the kitten? I’d like to purchase it for Miss Rose.”

What?

“That would be delightful, Mr. Drake. The adoption fee is fifty dollars, but of course we’ll waive it for one of our generous donors.” Beth beamed.

Artem plucked the kitten out of his date’s arms. Ophelia had to give the woman credit; she didn’t hesitate to hand over the cat, but kept a firm grip on Artem’s bicep. Ophelia felt like reassuring her. He’s all yours. She wasn’t going home with her former boss.

Nor was she going home with the kitten. “Mr. Drake, I need to have a word with you. Alone.”

Beth weaved her arm around Artem’s date’s elbow and peeled her away. “Come with me, dear. I’ll give you a tour of our facility.”

Beth gave Ophelia a parting wink as she ushered the woman out the door toward the large kennels. Surely she wasn’t trying to play matchmaker. That would have been absurd. Then again, everything about this situation was absurd.

Ophelia crossed her arms and glared at Artem. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He shrugged. “Buying you a cat. Consider it an early Christmas bonus. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“No.” She shook her head.

Was he insane? And did he have to stand there, looking so unbelievably hot in that tuxedo, while he stroked the kitten like he was Mr. December in a billionaires-with-baby-animals wall calendar?

“No?” His blue eyes went steely. Clearly, he’d never heard such a sentiment come out of a woman’s mouth before.

“No. Thank you. It’s a generous gesture, but...” She glanced at the kitten. Big mistake. Her delicate little nose quivered. She looked impossibly helpless and tiny snuggled against Artem’s impressive chest. How was Ophelia supposed to say no to that face? How was she supposed to say no to him? She cleared her throat. “...but no.”