Dani Collins - His Best Acquisition - The Russian's Acquisition / A Deal Before the Altar / A Deal with Demakis

The implication behind her simple question crashed and reverberated in Aleksy’s head, as swift and unexpected as the knife that had cut the line into his face. A dark maelstrom of emotion threatened, the kind he hadn’t allowed himself in years. He fought it back, master of everything he felt or didn’t feel, but it shocked him that she’d almost pulled something out of him that he no longer allowed. Chagrin. Loss. Rage.

“Are you accusing me of murdering him? Intentionally?” He was able to keep his tone impersonal, but she didn’t mistake the threat beneath. She paled.

“N-no.” Her voice was weak.

“Because I’ve been targeted for takeovers many times. It never raises my blood pressure. Van Eych knew what was coming and may have grown hypertensive, but that’s because he didn’t take care of himself. He lived as if an overweight, sedentary lifestyle would never catch up to him.” His entire body ached with tension.

“I know. I told him—”

“I don’t want to hear what you told him,” he snapped with a slip of control that made her jump. “I know more about the man than I ever wanted to. Now I want to forget him. I want his entire existence obliterated.”

He was revealing more than he intended to, but it would put an end to any more infuriating remarks regarding Victor. He glared at the elegantly simple dress that showed her delicate curves to perfection, offended that Victor had paid for it, that anything about the man had ever come in contact with her.

She sat primly, cowed by his temper into holding her hands in her lap, her spine straight, her eyes downcast. He didn’t apologize; he wanted the message driven home that this topic would never be revisited again.

“Well,” she said with quiet impertinence. “That certainly answers the question I was really asking, which was whether you had a grudge against Victor.”

“A grudge?” Aleksy choked on the inadequacy of the word, but what did you call it when you knew a man was responsible for your father’s death? For your mother’s slow, painful decline? For your own self-destruction? He swept his clogged throat clean with a swallow of wine, suppressing anguished thoughts. “Yes, Clair, I had a grudge.”

Aleksy’s posture was casual, but his stillness spoke of extreme tension. There was nothing to be read in his expression beyond the startling prominence of his scar.

Clair realized she needed to tread softly, but she had to ask, “Why?”

“He knew. That’s all that’s important.”

“Not to me,” she protested.

The corner of his lip quirked. She realized he knew what was really bothering her. “You struck the deal you wanted. Do you hear me asking why it was important to you?”

He’d already made it pretty clear he didn’t care about her motivation. This was commerce, not romance, but the worry drilling a hole in the pit of her stomach was that he didn’t really want her. Obviously he was attracted to her to some degree, but she didn’t want to be a thing . She wanted her first sexual experience to at least be sensual, not a twelve-point inspection and a stamp on the windshield. What happened when she turned out to be less than the high-performance ride he was used to?

“I just want to understand. You didn’t want anything to do with me when you thought I’d been sleeping with Victor, but when you learned I hadn’t, you coerced me into this arrangement. If you’re on a mission to collect all of Victor’s possessions, why count me among them? And why sell them off as quickly as you acquired them?”

His jaw hardened at the word coerced , but he only said bluntly, “To dismantle what he built. To expunge his mark on the world.”

“Well, I won’t let you dismantle me.” She grew hot. “I wasn’t his. You don’t get to erase me .”

“He thought you were his,” he shot back. “You let the world think you were.”

“It doesn’t mean you can treat me like—”

“Property?” Bracing his elbows, he leaned forward so she had to jerk back. “Why do you care? You got what you wanted. I’ll get what I want. There’s no conflict.”

There was, but apparently only to her.

Drawing a deep breath, she picked up her fork and said stiffly, “Just so I’m clear…You don’t care whether the things you’ve acquired are to your taste. You only want to hold them long enough to devalue and unload them?” Looking him in the eye was an act of supreme courage, especially since it made him bare his teeth in an uncivilized grin.

“You get to keep the money, Clair. You’ll walk away satisfied that your bottom line has benefited, I promise. Now let’s change the subject.”

“I think you just did,” she muttered, staring at food she had no appetite for as she tried to sift through the mixed emotions of being physically infatuated with a man who promised to give her pleasure while only taking a cold helping of revenge for himself.

His attitude hurt her and she didn’t want him to have that power. She wanted to be unaffected and remote, the way he was.

“Did I?” he responded with throwaway sarcasm.

“Yes, you did.” She set down her fork with a clatter. Trying to eat was pointless when she was so consumed with nerves. She could sit here waiting out the minutes until his stupid money came through, trying to reimagine this into something more meaningful than it would ever be, or she could have sex with him and be done with it. It didn’t matter if he didn’t feel anything, she told herself. She had always preferred superficial connections over something deeper. Right?

Right?

“Let’s do it now,” she decided shakily.

Her statement arrested him. “Why the sudden change of heart?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

Her pulse raced, but she ignored it, determined to be as cool and impervious as the women he was no doubt used to. “Because unlike an island villa or a vintage car, which have no say in life, I am a human being capable of making a choice. I want to complete this transaction so I can move on.”

She rose and left the table, heading toward his room without looking back, unable to hear if he followed because her ears filled with a whooshing sound. Her whole body trembled. She halted when she saw the intimidating expanse of his bed.

What was she doing? A cold chill of doubt washed through her. She couldn’t be so casual about stripping naked and letting a man into her body.

Fingertips grazed her spine, making her flinch. He lowered the zip of her dress before she clutched at the drooping front, panic whirling her to face him.

He scooped her to his chest, trapping her arms between them as his mouth captured hers. One hand streaked from her waist to slide beneath her elbow, where he cupped and firmly massaged her breast.

The dual sensations of fierce kiss and possessive, intimate touch hammered her with a pulse of pleasure so strong it frightened her. The situation was not just flying but exploding out of her control. She jerked her head to the side, gasping for breath, and pressed with her forearms for distance.

“You’re going too fast!”

CHAPTER FIVE

HER WORDS RESULTED in a loaded silence.

She used it to gather her composure, shocked by how easily he’d stripped her of it with one soul-stealing kiss. Compartmentalize, she urged herself, but it was impossible when the heat of his body melted her bones and his hands flexed restlessly against her back. She had to slow him down or he’d own her completely.

Trying to hide how unnerved she was by her response, she forced herself to meet his gaze. His expression was flushed, his eyes glittering with suspicion.

“A minute ago, I wasn’t moving fast enough,” he growled.

Her chin automatically came forward, even though challenging him was probably the stupidest thing she could do. “A girl still wants to be seduced.” It was the only thing she could think to say.