Lucy Ellis - One Kiss in... Moscow - Kholodov's Last Mistress / The Man She Shouldn't Crave / Strangers When We Meet

Hannah just nodded, her gaze sliding away from Lisa because she knew her friend saw too much. She didn’t want to make promises she couldn’t keep, wasn’t ready even to think about. She couldn’t sell the shop. Even the thought still felt like a betrayal.

You are thinking about selling this shop. You need to have your own dream.

Hannah let out a groan of frustration, annoyed at herself for still thinking about Sergei Kholodov. Still remembering just about every word he’d said. It had been over a year since the night they’d had dinner, since they’d kissed. A kiss she couldn’t forget, a kiss that lived on in her dreams and left her restless, awakened by aching and unfulfilled desire.

She shoved the account books into a drawer, determined to think about it later. But when? The question was a near-constant refrain. For the last year she’d been focused on keeping the shop afloat, trying what new initiatives and merchandise she could afford, but nothing was enough. The mortgage on the shop and house were paid, and she made enough to live a frugal, meagre existence, but that was all the income from the shop provided. One bad season, an unforeseen repair or accident … bankruptcy and destitution hovered just a breath away.

The string of bells on the door jingled again, and Hannah turned with a ready if rather weary smile for a customer. She felt the smile freeze on her face as she took in the dark-suited figure standing so incongruously in the doorway of the cosy craft shop. It was Sergei.

She was the same. Exactly the same. Sergei felt a fierce rush of something close to joy—mingled with relief—at the sight of Hannah standing there, her hair tousled about her face, the sunlight catching its glinting strands, her eyes as wide and violet as he remembered. Smiling. Always smiling. Perhaps she was actually glad to see him.

After Grigori had done some digging and confirmed that Hannah still lived in Hadley Springs, still had her little shop, Sergei had hired a car and driven all afternoon to get here. He’d cruised down the one main street, noticing the dilapidated diner, the for-rent signs in blank-faced shop windows. The only stores doing a decent business were a discount warehouse and a garage that sold tractor parts. And Hannah’s shop. No wonder it was struggling. Housed in an old weathered barn on the edge of the tiny town, the paint was flaking, the sign barely discernible. Inside it was a little better, with cubbyholes filled with bright wool and stacks of sweaters, but Hadley Springs was hardly a tourist spot. It was small and shabby and depressing and even though he was glad—too glad—to see her, Sergei was half amazed that Hannah was still here.

‘Hello, Hannah.’

Sergei watched the smile slide off her face and he felt a jolt because he recognised the blankness that replaced it, that careful ironing out of expression. He did it himself all the time, had ever since he’d been a child and realised that tears and laughter both earned punishment. Better to be silent. Better not to reveal a single thing.

Yet he hadn’t expected it from Hannah.

‘What are you—?’ She paused, moistened her lips—just as rose-pink as he remembered—and started again. ‘What are you doing here?’

He smiled faintly. ‘Well, I didn’t come to see the sights, I can assure you.’ She still looked blank so he clarified, ‘I came to see you.’

‘To see me,’ Hannah repeated. At first Sergei thought Hannah sounded incredulous, which he could understand, but then she let out a hollow laugh and with another jolt of shock he realised she sounded like him. She sounded cynical.

Perhaps she had changed after all.

Hannah stared at Sergei in disbelief, half expecting him to disappear, like a mirage or an impostor. Maybe a ghost. He couldn’t be real. He couldn’t be here, having come all the way from Russia just to see her?

It was impossible. Ridiculous. Real. He was here, and he was still staring at her, smiling faintly, waiting.

For what?

Her mind spun, unable to fathom why. The memory of the derisive, dismissive smile he’d given her as he’d put his arm around that woman—Varya—was still frozen in her brain. In her heart. He’d tired of her, just as he’d said. He’d wanted her gone. So why on earth had he come and found her?

She lifted her chin, regarding him coolly. ‘What do you want?’

‘I told you, to see you.’

‘Why?’

He paused, his head cocked, his gaze sweeping slowly over her. Something flickered across his face, a dark emotion Hannah couldn’t identify, and then his face cleared. Blanked. ‘I wanted to see if you were the same.’

‘The same?’ Hannah repeated sharply. ‘What do you mean? I’m a year older, in any case.’ She turned away from him to fold yet again the sweaters Lisa had dropped off. Her hands trembled.

‘And a year wiser, perhaps.’

She let out a sharp bark of a laugh. ‘If you mean am I still annoyingly optimistic, then no, I’m not.’

His breath came out in a soft sigh. Hannah didn’t turn around. ‘Refreshingly optimistic, I also said.’

‘It hardly matters.’ She pressed her hands down hard on the soft pile of sweaters in a desperate bid to stop their trembling. Why did he affect her so much? Still? They’d had one evening together. One kiss. She should barely remember his name.

Sergei who?

The thought was laughable. When he’d come into the shop, despite the shock that had raced through her, another part of her had felt as if she’d been waiting for him to come. Had remembered exactly the piercing blue of his eyes, the hard line of his jaw. The feel of his lips.

‘So.’ She turned around, her hands laced together, fingers wrapped around knuckles as hard as she could. ‘Satisfied?’

‘Not in the least.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘I have no idea why you’re here, Sergei.’

He gave her a rueful smile, a smile that was soft and strangely gentle, and so at odds with the man she remembered, the man she had convinced herself in the last year was only cold. Calculating. Cruel. ‘I don’t know, either.’

‘Well, then.’ She drew in a ragged breath. ‘Maybe you should just go.’

‘Go? I just drove four hours to get here, Hannah. I’m not leaving quite that quickly. And,’ he added, his voice dropping to a husky murmur she remembered far too well, ‘I don’t think you want me to.’

‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ The words were a lazy challenge.

‘I’m quite sure. A lot has happened to me in the last year, Sergei. I might have seemed rather simple and naive when we had dinner in Moscow, but I’m very different now, and I really can’t imagine why you’re here or what you want.’

‘Why are you so angry?’

‘Why?’ She stared at him. ‘You really need to ask? After—after the way you treated me? Made me feel?’

‘It was a year ago, Hannah.’

‘And when you waltz back into my life it brings it all back.’

‘You see,’ Sergei said, stepping closer, close enough for her to breathe in the tangy scent of his aftershave, ‘I have this theory.’

She planted her fists on her hips and gave him as scathing a look as she could muster. ‘Oh, really?’

‘Really. And it goes like this.’

‘I don’t recall asking to hear your theory.’

He smiled faintly, and she felt that singeing bolt of awareness. Still. Her response to him had been—and clearly still was—impossible to ignore or deny. ‘Humour me,’ he said softly, and too weary—as well as a tiny bit curious—to argue, Hannah just shrugged. ‘It goes like this,’ he repeated, taking a step closer to her. Hannah forced herself not to move. ‘You’re angry because you’re still affected. If you’d forgotten me, as you surely should have done, you wouldn’t be looking at me now as if you’d like to carve my heart out with a teaspoon.’