Dealing Her Final Card (Princes Untamed 1)

She glared at him. “Because you know I would poison you!”

“I know you won’t, because we will share the meal.” He leaned forward and said softly, “Tonight I am craving…something delicious.” She saw the edge of his tongue flick the corner of his sensual lips. “Something sinful.”

Even though he was talking about food, his low voice caused a shiver of awareness down her spine. She swallowed.

“Well, were you thinking chicken noodle soup from a can?” she suggested weakly. “Because I know how to make that.”

“Tempting. But no.” He tilted his head. “A goat cheese soufflé with Provençal herbs.”

Her mouth dropped. “Are you kidding?”

“Try it.” His lips turned up at the corners. “You might like it.”

“I might like to eat it, but I can’t cook it!”

“If you cook it, I will allow you to have some.”

“Generous of you.”

“Of course.” Innocently, he spread his arms wide. “What am I, some kind of heartless brute?”

“You really want me to answer that?”

He gave a low, wicked laugh. “It’s a beautiful night. You will come out onto the lanai and cook for me.”

“Fine.” She looked at him dubiously. “It’s your funeral.”

And so half an hour later, Bree found herself on the patio beside the pool, in the sheltered outdoor kitchen, struggling to sauté garlic and flour in garlic oil.

“This recipe is ridiculous!” She sneezed violently as minced thyme sprinkled the air like snowflakes, instead of coating the melted butter in the soufflé pan. “It’s meant for four cooks and a sous-chef, not one person!”

Vladimir, who sat at the large granite table with an amazing view of the sunset-swept Pacific beyond the infinity pool, sipped an extremely expensive wine as he read a Russian newspaper. “You’re exaggerating. For a clever woman like you, surely arranging a few herbs and whipping up a few eggs is not so difficult. How hard can it be to chop and sauté?”

She waved her knife at him furiously. “Come a little closer and I’ll show you!”

“Stop complaining,” he said coldly, taking another sip of merlot.

“Oh,” Bree gasped, realizing she was supposed to be whisking flour and garlic in the hot olive oil. She tried to focus, not wanting to let Vladimir break her, but cooking had never been her skill. Supervising a kitchen staff? No problem. Cracking the eggs herself? A huge mess. She suddenly smelled burning oil, and remembered she was supposed to keep stirring the milk and white wine in the pan until it boiled. As she rushed across the outdoor kitchen, her bare feet slid on an egg white she’d spilled earlier. She skidded, then slipped, and as her tailbone slammed against the tile floor, the whisked egg yolks in her bowl flew up in the air before landing, wet and sticky, in her hair.

Suddenly, Vladimir was kneeling beside her. “Are you hurt, Breanna?”

She stared at him. She felt his powerful arms around her, protective and strong, as he lifted her to her feet.

Trembling, Bree stared up at him, wide-eyed. “You called me Breanna.”

He stiffened. Abruptly, he released her.

“It is your name,” he said coldly.

Without his arms encircling her, she felt suddenly cold and shivery and—alone. For a moment she’d seen an emotion flicker in his eyes that had made her wonder if he…

No. She’d been wrong. He didn’t care about her. Whatever feelings he’d once had for her had disappeared at the first sign of trouble.

Right?

Bree had certainly never intended to love him. The night they’d met, she’d known him only as the young CEO of a start-up mining company, whose family had once owned the land her father had bought in trust for Josie a few years before. “Promise me,” Black Jack had wheezed from the hospital bed, before he died. “Promise me you’ll always take care of your sister.”

In her desperation to be free and keep Josie safe, Bree had known she’d do anything to get the money she needed. And the best way to make Vladimir Xendzov careless about his money was to make him care about her. To dazzle him.