One Kiss In… Moscow. Кейт Хьюит

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,’