Modern Romance October 2015 Books 1-4. Annie West

striking man,’ he said slowly. ‘Tall and muscular, with tawny hair and blue eyes. I remember how much the maids used to idolise him and how women turned to look at him whenever he walked by. But most of all, he was kind. I didn’t realise that men could be kind. It never occurred to me to question why he used to spend so much time with me—way more than my father ever did. It didn’t even occur to me until much later that whenever I looked at him, it was like looking in the mirror. But afterwards I wished he’d said something—something to acknowledge that I was his. But he never did.’ He saw how wide her green eyes had grown. ‘Shocked, Erin?’

      ‘Not half as shocked as you must have been.’ She seemed to choose her next words with care. ‘But if your other father knew you weren’t his child, then why did he stay with your mother? Why didn’t he just divorce her and cut his losses?’

      ‘And lose face?’ Dimitri gave a hollow laugh. ‘Admit that some labourer had succeeded where he had failed? No. That wasn’t the way he operated. My mother’s punishment was to remain in a loveless marriage. Locked in a relationship based on fear with a man who despised her. And I think she felt the same way about me. I can certainly never remember her being warm towards me.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘Maybe she didn’t dare show me affection because she knew it would enrage my father. Or maybe she saw me as a constant reminder of what she had done. Maybe I represented the failure she’d made of her life and her relationships.’

      ‘And the gardener? What happened to him?’

      There was a long silence before he shrugged. ‘One morning he just wasn’t there any more. I remember it was winter and the front door was open and I went looking for my mother. I found her in the forest, in the little shed where he used to keep his tools. She was curled up on the floor crying her eyes out, half mad with grief.’

      ‘And did you...’ Erin’s hand crept over his and squeezed it. ‘Did you ever meet up with him again? Did you ever form some kind of relationship and make peace with the past?’

      His eyes were icier than she’d ever seen them—and that was saying something about a man who could do every degree of ice.

      ‘No,’ he said abruptly. ‘Although I tried. After my mother died I attempted to track him and that was when I discovered that he had been executed some years before.’

      ‘Executed?’

      ‘Killed by a single bullet to the head in a Moscow alleyway. It was, as they say in the business, a professional hit.’

      ‘And you think...’ She licked her lips. ‘You think your father was behind it?’

      ‘I’m no longer a gambling man,’ he said, but she saw the awful knowledge written in his eyes.

      Erin squeezed his hand tighter as she began to understand why he’d wanted to escape from the reality of his past. Because he had said himself that everyone was a product of their own experience. And Dimitri’s was darker than most. His was the kind of past which kept psychiatrists in business. A mother who didn’t show her love and a cold-hearted crook who hated you because you weren’t his son. A crook who had probably ordered an execution, thus effectively cutting off any opportunity for reconciliation between Dimitri and his real father. Was it any wonder that he’d gone off the rails quite so spectacularly?

      She rested her head against his shoulder, even though she wanted to do so much more. She wanted to hug him tightly and tell him everything was going to be all right. She wanted to cover his golden face with kisses and tell him she was there for him and would always be there for him, if only he would let her. But some instinct stopped her. She reminded herself that she didn’t do emotional stuff like that and, more important, neither did he. Yet it was hard to restrain her instinct to reach out to him and it left her feeling confused.

      She told herself that what she was feeling was just natural sympathy after hearing a particularly grim story. Except that it wasn’t—because it felt like something more. Something which she’d tried to convince herself was the biggest con in the world and one she was never going to fall for again.

      She swallowed as she turned her face away from his.

      It felt uncomfortably like love.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

      NOW WHAT?

      Dimitri glanced across the room to where Leo was teaching Erin how to play the popular card game of P’yanitsa. A game the boy hadn’t known how to play until earlier that week, but he was a quick learner—and now he was playing it as well as any Russian. Dimitri felt a stir of pride whisper over him as he studied the bent head of dark gold—so like his own—as once again the question nagged at him.

      What was he going to do about the problem of a small boy and a woman who talked more than was comfortable?

      His eyes moved to the woman in question as he watched Erin smiling as Leo scooped up a handful of cards with a triumphant whoop. To look at her now—you would never have guessed that a few hours ago he had been deep inside her while the rest of the house still slept. She had ridden him as he had shown her how he liked to be ridden, his hands on either side of her hips as he had positioned her to make penetration even deeper. And afterwards she had choked out her sigh as his tongue had slid down over her and he’d tasted her flesh.

      ‘You must learn to be a good sport, darling,’ she was saying softly. ‘And to play fair.’

      Play fair. It wouldn’t have been the lesson Dimitri would have focused on. In fact, up until a week ago, he would have said the opposite—that playing fair never got you anywhere. That in the big, harsh world out there, it was dog eat dog. But now he could see that you shouldn’t teach a child to cut corners, or to operate ruthlessly. He understood that you needed to show them how to do things right in order for them to live right. Just because his own childhood had been messed up, that was no reason for him to try to impose his own cynicism on someone else.

      And Erin had shown him that—by example rather than preaching. She was patient and understanding with Leo—pretty much every minute of every day—and Dimitri knew with a heavy certainty that he could never be the instrument to drive the two of them apart. His heart pounded. Because hadn’t that been a consideration when he’d first found out about Leo—thinking he might be able to lure the boy away using the power of his wealth and influence? He’d planned to show the child that he could have more fun in penthouses and private jets than he ever could living in the cramped quarters above his aunt’s café. But that option wasn’t on the cards any more—and it made him uncomfortable to think he could have ever entertained such a ruthless strategy.

      He stared out of the window, where the grey skies were heavy with snow and the occasional stray flake drifted past like a white feather. But experience told him that the snow would not fall tonight and it looked as if Leo wouldn’t get his snowman, no matter how hard he wished for it. Tomorrow they were flying back to England because half-term was almost over and Dimitri knew he needed to come to some sort of decision about what was going to happen.

      He waited until Leo had gone through his bedtime routine and, once he’d been embraced in a sleepy bear hug, Dimitri went downstairs to wait for Erin in the library while she read a bedtime story.

      He lit a fire, which crackled magnificently—the light from the flames flickering over the rows of books which lined the room, while Shostakovich played in the background. He spoke to Svetlana and soon two crystal flutes were standing beside a bottle in an ice bucket, but Erin’s footsteps were so quiet that he didn’t realise she was in the room until she was standing right in front of him.

      She had changed and brushed her hair, so that it gleamed like a dark waterfall around her shoulders, and a soft woollen dress was hugging her slender hips. He noticed that she frowned slightly when she saw the bottle standing on the table next to the peach blossom bonsai tree.

      ‘Champagne?’ she said lightly. ‘Why, are we celebrating something?’

      ‘I don’t