The Russian Rivals: The Most Coveted Prize / The Power of Vasilii

‘My own,’ she answered him. ‘Vasilii does not make my decisions or choices for me—nor would he want to do so.’

‘So why not allow me to convince you that this wine will greatly enhance your enjoyment of our time together today?’

Her heart was skittering around inside her chest. Another, more experienced woman would know whether or not Kiryl was indulging in flirtatious banter with her with words that were mundane on the surface and yet somehow held a teasing note of a deeper sensuality, but she did not. So surely it would be better to play it safe and assume that it was merely her own over-active imagination that was deepening them with a sensual promise that did not exist?

No sooner had she made that decision than the calming effect it had had on her was ripped away, when Kiryl stood up and came to her side, gently lifting her hand away from her wine glass and continuing to hold it whilst he poured her the merest half a glass of pale straw-coloured wine, before filling his own glass and then returning the bottle to the ice bucket. All the while he continued to hold her hand. And not just hold it. He was touching her fingers, stroking them lightly and almost absently.

‘You’re trembling,’ he told her.

Of course she was. He was touching her. No, not just touching her, caressing her, and because of that she was trembling—from head to toe—her heart thudding frantically.

‘Your brother must be a very stern protector if the thought of having half a glass of wine without his approval can have this effect on you.’

He thought she was trembling because she was afraid of Vasilii? By rights she ought to defend her loving halfbrother and tell him truthfully that never once in their lives together had she ever, ever had any need to fear him, that it had always been Vasilii to whom she had run with all her troubles, to be comforted by his big-brotherly love for her. But if she did tell him that then he might ask her exactly why she was trembling—and she couldn’t possibly tell him that. All she could do was make a mental apology to her brother and try to control the jagged exhaled breath of relief that shuddered through her body when Kiryl let go of her hand and returned to his own chair, lifting his own wine glass to his lips.

‘So, tell me more about your mother’s charity,’ he said.

‘You were going to tell me about your mother,’ Alena reminded him.

For a moment Alena thought he hadn’t heard her. He seemed to be looking past her into some dark place that only he could see, a fixed expression on his face.

Was that merely a shadow darkening his eyes, or was it really the ice cold look of anger it seemed?

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised uncomfortably.

‘For what? Asking about my mother?’ Kiryl gave a small shrug, his gaze hardening still further. ‘There is no need to be. It is no secret, after all. The reality of my mother’s life has been well documented by those who do not thinking it fitting that the son of a homeless Romany should become successful, because that challenges their prejudiced belief in their own superiority and the inferiority of those they choose to label in such a way.’

And that labelling, that rejection and cruelty, had hurt him badly. Alena could tell. Her tender heart immediately ached for him, and for his mother.

‘It is true that as a child she did not receive the education afforded to the more privileged in society, but that was not her fault. My father was happy to sleep with her—the beautiful gypsy girl he had seen dancing in a café in Moscow frequented by the wealthy—but the minute she told him that she was pregnant, carrying me, he deserted and denigrated her, saying that she was lying about their relationship and that he had not fathered me. He told her he would rather smother me at birth than acknowledge that he had fathered a child with Romany blood.’

Alena couldn’t hold back her gasp of emotion.

‘Your mother told you about your father’s cruelty to you both?’ she asked.

A shuttered darkness claimed the light from Kiryl’s eyes.

‘No. She died when I was eight years old. But prior to that she told me that she wanted me to know how important love was and how much she loved me. How love could bring the greatest happiness life could hold and the sharpest pain. She wanted me to be proud of what and who I was, even though we were living in the meanest kind of poverty.’

His mother had been a fool—too weak to stand up to his father and demand that he did the right thing by them both. All her talk of love and being proud of himself had meant nothing in the real world—the world that was ruled by men like his father, successful, wealthy men who controlled their own destiny and made the rules by which others had to live. As far as Kiryl was concerned it was far better to focus on that reality than to follow his mother’s advice about the importance of love. Look what it had done to her, and through her to him. No, there was no place for love in his life. Love only weakened those who were foolish enough to allow it into their lives.

‘So how do you know—I mean about how your father felt about your mother?’ Alena asked, wondering if perhaps he had misunderstood the situation. After all, surely no father could ever be so cruel to his child?

‘How do I know? I know because my father told me himself, when I finally tracked him down after the woman who fostered me told me the story my mother had told her before she died. My father was a rich man—a powerful and respected man. He told me the truth and then he threw me out on the street outside his grand mansion—like unwanted rubbish, to be swept away out of his sight. I swore then that one day—’

Kiryl stopped speaking, frowning as he recognised how much he had said to Alena. He had never intended to say it, and certainly had never said to anyone else. It was because he wanted to draw her into his plan by eliciting her sympathy towards his mother and making her believe that he had a genuine reason for choosing her charity for his donation, that was why. It certainly wasn’t because something in her expression and that shocked gasp she had given had somehow unlocked a door within him he had thought safely barred against the burned-out ashes of the pain he kept caged behind that door. It was impossible for any living human being to re-ignite those ashes. They belonged to the promise he had made himself when he had lain in the gutter outside his father’s house—that he would prove his superiority by becoming more successful and more powerful than his father had ever been.

His father was dead now, his empire squandered by the second husband of the young wife he had married to provide him with the son she had never conceived for him—the son he had told Kiryl would be the only son he would ever acknowledge.

With the acquisition of this new contract Kiryl would finally succeed in reaching the goal he had set himself as the fifteen-year-old who had gone to Moscow to look for his father and been rejected. That goal had been to create a business empire that was both larger, more profitable and more securely stable than that of his father. Only Vasilii Demidov now stood in his way.

He looked across the table at Alena.

‘When I heard about your mother’s charity I knew immediately that it was something I wanted to be involved with as a donor.’

That was certainly true. He had known immediately he had read about the charity and Alena’s desire to become more involved in it just what a useful tool it would be in winning her trust.

‘I know how much work the charity does to help girls have the opportunity to gain an education. I admire you for wanting to take on that responsibility. Many young women in your situation would have handed that responsibility over to someone else.’ He flattered Alena warmly.

‘I could never do that. The charity was so close to my mother’s heart.’ She paused, and then said emotionally, ‘It must have been so hard for you, growing up without your mother and—’

‘According to my father I was lucky that she died, and that I was fostered by a family without the taint of Romany blood.’

Alena felt her throat clog with emotional tears. Within her head she could see that poor baby, and felt a female ache to have been able to hold and protect it. Poor, poor baby to be so cruelly treated by life.

‘I was very lucky in having the parents I did,’ was all she could manage to say.

‘But unlucky, perhaps, in having a brother who is so determined to control your life?’

‘Vasilii only wants what’s best for me.’ She defended her half-sibling quickly.

‘For you and for himself, I dare say,’ Kiryl responded, adding before Alena could question his words, ‘We’d better have our main course before it gets cold. I hope you like Dover sole.’

‘Yes, it’s another of my favourites,’ Alena began as Kiryl reached over to remove her starter, and then guessed, ‘You knew that, didn’t you? And that’s why you’ve chosen the meal you have?’

So she wasn’t entirely without either intelligence or the ability to reason analytically, Kiryl acknowledged. He gave her a small smile and told her, ‘Very well—I confess that I did ask the restaurant what your favourite dishes are. I wanted to make a good impression on you.’

Alena couldn’t look directly at him. Her heart was singing with delight and disbelief at the thought of Kiryl actually wanting to impress her, and yet at the same time his words had brought her a certain amount of self-consciousness that was making it impossible for her to look at him.

‘I’m the one who should be trying to impress you,’ she managed to tell him, albeit slightly breathlessly, her voice soft and husky with all that she was feeling. ‘After all, I’m the one who has the most to gain from our lunch.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Kiryl told her softly as he placed her main meal in front of her and removed the cover. ‘There is a great deal that I am hoping to gain from our relationship, Alena.’

As he spoke he was looking at her mouth, and as though his look was communicating an unspoken command Alena could feel her lips softening and parting as deliciously sensual ribbons of desire unrolled to flutter inside her with the movement of her breathing.

‘Tell me more about your mother,’ he invited her, abruptly bringing her back to reality, and the fact that this meeting was about her mother’s charity and not about the effect he was having on her.

‘She was a very special person,’ she answered, her voice soft with love for the mother she had loved so much. ‘Everyone thought so.’

‘Including your half-brother? After all, she was his stepmother.’

‘Vasilii loved her very much. He was fourteen when my parents met in St Petersburg, where my mother was working as an English Language teacher at a school there. Vasilii’s own mother died when he was seven. He wanted them to marry before they knew that they wanted to marry themselves, so he always says, although my mother used to say that she knew the first moment she met him that she loved my father.

‘My mother loved St Petersburg. She and my father used to take me there every winter. It’s such a romantic city. A fairytale city with the Neva frozen and the lights of the older quarters twinkling on the snow. It’s almost possible to think you’re back in the days of dashing young men in the uniform of the Imperial Guard driving their troikas, pulled by a team of three matching horses along Nevsky Prospect, ready to race one another in the morning after spending all night dancing. And then in the summer, when the sun never sets, people flock to party on the islands of the delta. I had dreamed …’

‘That you might find love there yourself?’ Kiryl suggested.

Alena shook her head.