“To con people somewhere else.”
“It was all I knew how to do.” Bree lifted her gaze. “It never occurred to me that I could change. Not until…”
Her voice trailed off.
Yes, Vladimir, I’ll marry you. He could almost hear her joyful, choked voice that Christmas night, see the tears in her beautiful eyes as she’d thrown her arms around him and whispered, “I’m not good enough for you, not by half. But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be.”
Now, his hands tightened into fists. “You had plenty of chances to tell me the truth. Instead, you let me find out about your con from Kasimir. You let me shout at him and throw him out of your cabin as a damned liar. You let me leave that night, still not knowing the truth. Until I started getting phone calls the next morning, and discovered from reporters that everything he’d told me about you was true.”
“I wanted to tell you. But I was afraid.”
“Afraid,” he sneered.
“Yes,” she cried. “Afraid you wouldn’t listen to my side. That you’d abandon me, and I’d be left with no money and no defenses against the wolves circling us. I was afraid,” she whispered, “you’d stop loving me.”
That was exactly what had happened.
“If that is true, and you were truly intending to change purely because of this love for me,” he said, his voice dripping scorn, “why didn’t you go back to your old life of cheating and lying the instant I left?”
Her eyes widened, then fell. “It wasn’t just for you,” she muttered. “It was for me, too.” She looked up. “And Josie. I wanted to be a good example. I wanted us to live a safe, boring, respectable life.” Hugging her knees to her chest, she blinked fast, her eyes suspiciously wet. “But we couldn’t.”
“You couldn’t be respectable?”
“We never felt safe.” She licked her lips. “Back in Alaska, some men had threatened to hurt us if I didn’t replace money we’d stolen. But my father had already spent it all and more. It was a million dollars, impossible to repay. So for the last ten years, I made sure we stayed off the radar. No job promotions. No college for Josie. Never staying too long anywhere.” Bree’s lips twisted. “Not much of a life, but at least no legs got broken.”
His hands clenched as he remembered the angry looks of the players at the poker game, when she’d told them how she’d cheated them. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“I did,” she said, bewildered at his reaction. “A few times.”
“You told me you had debts,” he said tightly. “Everyone has debts. You didn’t tell me some men were threatening to break your legs.”
She took a deep breath, her face filled with pain.
“Not mine,” she whispered. “Josie’s.”
Vladimir rose to his feet. Still naked, he paced three steps, clenching his hands. His shoulders felt so tense they burned. He was having a physical reaction.
If he’d been wrong about Bree, what else had he been wrong about?
He stopped as he remembered his brother’s face, contorted beneath the lights of the Christmas tree. You’re taking her word over mine? You just met this girl two months ago. I’ve looked up to you my whole life. Why can’t you believe I might know more than you—just once?
But Vladimir, two years older, had always been the leader, the protector. He could still remember six-year-old Kasimir panting as he struggled through the snowy two miles to school. Wait for me, Volodya! Wait for me!
But he’d never waited. If you want to follow me, keep up, Kasimir. Stop being slow.
Now, as Vladimir remembered that long-lost adoration in his brother’s eyes, his heart gave a strange, sickening jump in his chest. Tightening his jaw, he pushed the memory away. He looked at Bree.
“No one will ever threaten you or yours again.”
Her lips parted. “What will you do?”
He narrowed his eyes. “They threatened to break a child’s legs,” he said roughly. “So I’ll break every bone in their bodies. First their legs. Then their arms. Then—”
“Who are you?” she cried.
He stopped, surprised at the horror on her face. “What?”
“You’re so ruthless.” She swallowed. “There is no mercy in you. It’s true what they say.”