She blinked as the joy came back through her. He’d realized he could trust her!
“Nikos,” she breathed. She crossed the room in five steps and, pulling back his chair, climbed in his lap and threw her arms around him. “You won’t regret it,” she murmured against the warm skin of his neck. “I’ll never let you down. I’ll be true to you until the day I die. We’re going to be so happy...”
She kissed him then, a long, lingering kiss that held her whole heart in every breath.
“Stop, Anna. Just stop.” Pushing her off his lap, he stood up, rubbing his temples. His whole body was tense. He didn’t seem like a man who was about to get married. He seemed miserable. And furious. Like a wounded lion with a thorn in his paw. He seemed both hurt and dangerous.
“What is it?” she asked warily. “What’s wrong?”
He picked up a file from his desk and held it out to her without a word, careful not to let their hands touch. Pulling the papers out of the file, she looked down at the first page and her knees felt weak.
She looked up at him slowly, her mouth dry. “I don’t...I don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand. I’m giving you joint custody. You can live wherever you like, and I’ll provide you with a generous allowance. Enough to clear your family’s debt. Enough to support your mother and sister. My brownstone in the Upper East Side will be transferred to your name. My son will have every support, the best schools, vacations abroad—whatever you think best. All I ask is that I have visitation at will, as well as some arrangement to be made for holidays.”
Her head was spinning. “But I don’t need custody papers. Once we’re married we—”
He was shaking his head grimly. “That was a fairy tale, Anna, nothing more. I wanted you in my bed, that’s all.”
“No.” She frowned at him, feeling like she’d fallen into some strange nightmare. “You could have had me in your bed long ago. You were the one who insisted we wait. You’ve done everything under the sun to convince me to marry you. Why would you change your mind now? It doesn’t make sense.”
He gave her a careless smile. “I guess I’m just not marriage material.”
“But you are!” she gasped. “I know you are. You’ve changed over the last weeks. You’ve become the husband I’ve always wanted, the father I dreamed of for Misha. Kind, brave, strong.” She closed her eyes, a thousand images going through her of all the time they’d spent together over the last weeks. Working together. Laughing. Nikos playing with their child. “All the time we’ve spent together—”
“It was a trick, Anna. God, don’t you get it? It was all an act. I wanted you. I would have pretended anything to win you. It was pride, I suppose. I couldn’t stand the thought of you leaving me. But now—” he shrugged. “The charade’s already growing old. I don’t want the burden of a wife or the full-time care of a child. I want my freedom.”
“It’s not true! You’re lying!”
He grabbed her wrist, searing her with his hot, dark gaze. “You know me,” he said cruelly. “You know how I am. So many beautiful women, so little time. Did you really think I could ever settle down with one woman? With you?”
She felt like she’d just gotten punched. She looked up into his face as tears filled her eyes. “Why are you saying this?”
For an instant something like regret and pain washed over his handsome face. “It’s better for you to be free,” he said finally. “Forget about me, Anna. You deserve a man who will truly love you.”
“But you love me. You said so,” she whispered.
He shook his head, and now his eyes were only cold. “I lied. I don’t love anyone. I don’t know how.”
At those words, all the hope she’d been holding in her chest disappeared.
Nikos didn’t love her. He’d chased her out of pride, out of his determination to possess her, to beat his rival. But now that she’d given him her heart he was already bored with her.
For the first time she believed him, and she felt sick. She turned away.
“Fine.” She was relieved that her voice didn’t tremble. She tried to remember the plan she’d once had—the plan that had sounded so wonderful before she’d fallen back in love with Nikos. “I guess I’ll...I’ll go back to New York and get a job.”
“No.” His voice was dark, inexorable. “I told you. You’ll never need to work again.”
She looked up at him, pressing her fingernails into her palms to fight back tears. She had her pride too—too much pride to ever cry in front of him again.
“I won’t take a penny from a man who doesn’t love me. I’m going to find a job. Whether you give me a recommendation or not.”
He blinked at her, then turned away, clenching his jaw. “I didn’t want it to end like this.”
“How did you expect it to end?”
He didn’t answer the question. His dark eyes looked haunted as he gazed down at her. “You’re right. If you truly want to work, I can’t stop you. I have no right to stop you,” he said in a low voice. “All I can do is ask that you make the decision carefully. And I know you will. I see now that you’ll always look out for Misha. I just have one favor to ask. When you marry again, choose well. Choose carefully for our son.”
“I thought I had,” she said softly. Her feelings were rushing through her, almost uncontrollable. He’d finally agreed that she could work, but even that didn’t matter anymore. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, to weep, to beg him not to leave her.
But she was the great-granddaughter of a princess. She was Misha’s mother and she had to be strong. Anna clung to her dignity and pride. They were all she had left.
Reaching into her purse, she quietly handed him two pieces of paper. “Here.”
“What are these?” he said, sounding shaken.
“The two best résumés for an executive secretary. I lied when I said they weren’t any good because I hoped you’d hire me instead. But now that I’m leaving I don’t want the company to suffer. I care too much about the company. I care too much about you. I love you.”
“Anna—”
She stepped away from him, looking into his eyes. “Goodbye, Nikos. Good luck.”
She turned to go, still praying he’d stop her.
He didn’t.
Going into the next room, she found the overnight bag Mrs. Burbridge had packed for her the previous night and put on a T-shirt and jeans. She carefully placed the custody agreement into her old diaper bag. She fed and changed Misha and cuddled him close.
Taking a deep breath, she glanced down the hall, hoping against hope that Nikos would appear, put his strong arms around her, and tell her this had all been a horrible mistake.
But Nikos’s office door remained closed.
He didn’t even care enough to say goodbye. He was probably already phoning the employment agency about the résumés. Or maybe he was calling some sexy showgirl to ask for a date.
Apparently she was easy to replace. In every way.
Straightening, she held on to the frayed edges of her dignity and walked out of the penthouse where, just an hour ago, she’d thought she found love and security at last. She wouldn’t let herself cry. Not in his casino, where his men and his security cameras were everywhere.
She managed to hold back her sobs until she reached the sidewalk on Las Vegas Boulevard. Where to now? There was a taxi stand at the hotel across the street. She could barely see through her tears as she stepped off the curb. Just in time she saw the van barreling toward her in the sparse early morning traffic. She jumped back on the sidewalk in a cold sweat, frightened at how close she’d come to walking into traffic with her son.
“Just who I was looking for,” a cold voice said. She looked up with a gasp to see Victor sitting inside the van’s open door with several of his men. “What? No snappy comeback? Not so brave when you’re alone, are you? Grab the kid,” he ordered.
Anna started to fight and scream, trying to run away, but it was hopeless. When Misha was ripped from her arms she immediately surrendered. Ten seconds later she was tied up in the back of the van, on her way to hell. Victor faced her with cold eyes and an oily smile.
“You have a choice to make, loobemaya. What happens next is up to you.”
* * *
Nikos had a sick feeling in his gut.
Pacing around his L’Hermitage penthouse, he poured himself a bourbon, then put it down untasted. He went to his home office, started to check his email, then closed the laptop without reading a single message. He finally went to the window overlooking Las Vegas. Twenty floors above the city, he had a clear view. He could see the wide desert beyond the city to the far mountains. It seemed to stretch forever. The emptiness was everywhere.