Anna ignored her. “Look around, Nikos. There’s no money. I was planning to get a job as a translator to support us. I can’t just leave her.”
“I’m twenty-two! I can take care of myself!”
Anna whirled around to face her young sister. “You barely speak Russian, and all you know about is art. Mother doesn’t have any more money to send you, and neither do I. What do you expect to eat? Paintbrushes?”
The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “Maybe if we went to Vitya he would...”
“No!” Anna shouted.
Who was Vitya? Nikos wondered. Another impoverished aristocrat like Anna’s father had been? For most of Anna’s young life he’d forced his family to live off the charity of wealthy friends. She’d once dryly commented that that was how she’d learned to speak fluent French, Russian, Spanish and Italian—begging the Marquis de Savoie and Contessa di Ferazza for book money.
Although of course that had been before Alexander Rostoff had realized it would be simpler to just embezzle the money.
Aristocrats, he thought scornfully. Rather than live in the comforts of Nikos’s house near Las Vegas, his brownstone in New York, or his villa in Santorini, Anna had kidnapped his baby son and moved from one cheap apartment to another.
His lip curled as he looked around the room. The back of the palace had been turned into a cheerless Soviet-era apartment. It was a little disorienting to be smack in the real thing, especially since Anna seemed to be using nineteenth-century standards to light and heat the room.
“How could you force my son to live like this?” he abruptly demanded. “What kind of mother are you?”
Anna’s turquoise eyes widened as she gripped the gilded edge of a high-backed chair. “I kept him warm and safe—”
“Warm?” Incredulously, he looked at the single inadequate fireplace, the flickering candles on the wooden table, the frost lining the inside of the window. “Safe?”
Anna flinched. “I did the best I could.”
Nikos shook his head with a derisive snort as Cooper, his right-hand man and director of security, entered the room. He gave Nikos a nod.
Nikos made a show of glancing at his sleek platinum watch. “Your things are packed in the truck. Are you coming, or should we toss your suitcases in the snow?”
“We just need a minute for Natalie to pack her things—”
“Perhaps I have not made myself clear? There is no way in hell that I’m taking your sister with us. You’re lucky I’m bringing you.”
Anna folded her arms, thrusting up her chin. He knew that expression all too well. She was ready to be stubborn, to fight, to prolong this argument until he had to drag her out of this place by her fingernails.
“Stay, then.” He turned to leave, motioning for Cooper and his bodyguards to follow. “Feel free to visit our son next Christmas.”
Precisely as he’d expected, Anna grabbed his arm.
“Wait. I’m coming with you. You know I am. But I can’t just abandon Natalie.”
He tried to shake off her grip, but she wouldn’t let go. He looked into those beautiful blue-green eyes, wet with unshed tears. What was it about women and tears? How were they able to instantly manufacture them to get what they wanted? Well, it wouldn’t work on him. He wouldn’t be manipulated in this way. He wouldn’t let her...
“You might have to go with him, Anna,” Natalie said defiantly. “But I don’t. I’m staying.”
Nikos glanced at Anna’s sister. The girl had fought like a crazed harpy to protect her nephew. Now, she just looked heartbreakingly young.
Something like guilt went through him. Angrily, he pushed it aside. If the Rostoffs were penniless, it wasn’t his fault. As his secretary, Anna had been paid a six-figure salary for the last five years—enough to support her whole family in decent comfort.
So where had that money gone? He’d never seen Anna splurge on clothes or jewelry or cars. She bought things that were simple and well made but, unlike his current secretary, she avoided flashy luxury.
Anna’s sister didn’t look terribly royal either. In her bulky sweatsuit, covered by an artist’s smock, she stood by the frost-lined window with a bowed head. She was staring wistfully at the broken pieces of the blue china teacup he’d smashed against the fireplace.
His jaw tightened.
He gestured to Cooper, who instantly came forward. “Yes?”
“See that the girl has all the money and assistance she requires to live here or return to New York, as she wishes.” In a lower voice, he added, “And find a replacement for that damn cup. At any price.”
Cooper gave a single efficient nod. Nikos turned to Anna. “Satisfied?”
Anna raised her chin. Even now, when he’d given her far more than she deserved, she was defiant. “But how do I know you’ll keep your word?”
That one small question made fury rise tight against his throat. He always kept his word. Always. And yet she dared insinuate that he was the one who was untrustworthy. After her father had stolen his money. After she herself had stolen his child.
He hated her so much at that moment he almost did leave her behind. He wanted to do it. But not at the cost of hurting his son. Damn her.
Gritting his teeth, he said, “Call your sister when we reach Las Vegas. You’ll see I’ve kept my word.”
“Very well.” Anna’s face was pale as she knelt beside her sister. “You’ll accept his help, won’t you, Natalie? Please.”
The girl hesitated, and for a moment Nikos thought she would refuse. Then her expression hardened. “All right. Since he’s only paying back what he took from Father.”
What the hell had Anna told her? Surrounded by bodyguards, he didn’t have the time or inclination to find out. He’d tried to spare Anna the truth about her father, but he was done coddling her. It was time she knew the kind of man he really was. He would enjoy telling her.
And more than that, Nikos promised himself as they left the palace. Once they’d returned to his own private fiefdom in Las Vegas he would make her pay for her crimes. In private. In ways she couldn’t even imagine.
Oh, yes, he promised himself grimly. She’d pay.
CHAPTER TWO
RIDING IN THE limo from the Las Vegas airport to Nikos’s desert estate twenty miles outside the city gave Anna an odd sense of unreality.
In one long night she’d left darkness and winter behind. But it wasn’t just the bright morning light that threw her. It wasn’t just the harsh blue sky, or the dried sagebrush tumbling across the long private road, or the feel of the hot Nevada sun on her face.
It was the fact that nothing had changed. And yet everything had changed.
“Hello, miss,” the housekeeper said as they entered the grand foyer.
“Welcome back, miss,” a maid said, smiling shyly at the baby in Anna’s arms.
The moment their limo had arrived inside the guarded gate the house steward and a small army of assistants had descended upon Nikos. He walked ahead with them now, signing papers and giving orders as he led them through the luxurious fortress he called a home. Members of his house staff had already spirited away her luggage.
Where had they taken it? Anna wondered. A guestroom? A dungeon?
Nikos’s bedroom?
She shivered at the thought. No, surely not his bedroom. But for most of her pregnancy his room had been her home. She’d slept naked in his arms on hot summer nights. She’d caressed his body and kissed him with her heart on her lips. She’d dreamed of wearing his engagement ring and prayed to God that it would last. She’d been so sure that if he left her she would die.
But in the end she’d been the one who left.
Because the moment he’d found out she was pregnant he’d fired her. She’d gone from being his powerful, trusted assistant to a prisoner in this gilded cage. He’d ordered her to take her leisure, practically forcing her into bedrest, although she’d had a normal, healthy pregnancy.
Nikos had taken the job she loved and given it to a young, gorgeous blonde with no secretarial skills. He’d ordered the household staff to block the calls of her mother and sister. Then, during her final trimester, he’d suddenly refused to touch her. He’d abandoned her to go and stay, with his secretary Lindsey on hand, at the newly finished penthouse at L’Hermitage Casino Resort.
That should have been enough to make Anna leave him. That should have been more than enough. But it hadn’t been until she’d found those papers showing that Nikos had deliberately destroyed her father’s textiles company that she’d finally been fed up. Anna’s hands tightened. Running away had been an act of self-defense for her and her child.
But now they were back. As Anna entered a wide gallery lined with old portraits, she could smell the flowers of the high desert. Spring was swift in southern Nevada, sometimes lasting only weeks. Wind and light cascaded through high open windows, oscillating the curtains. Her footsteps echoed in the wide hall as she followed Nikos and his men.