One Kiss in... Moscow: Kholodov's Last Mistress / The Man She Shouldn't Crave / Strangers When We Meet. Кейт Хьюит
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him. ‘You called yourself my mistress.’
She blinked, baffled by his remark. ‘That’s what I am.’
‘No, it is not.’ He folded his arms, still furious and maybe even—hurt? Was it possible?
‘What do you intend to call me, then?’ she demanded. ‘You whisk me away to Paris, you buy me clothes, you have sex with me every night—’ Her voice rose, all the hurt she’d been holding in tumbling from her lips. ‘You buy me this—this dog collar!’ With one jerk she pulled the choker from her neck, the stones cutting her skin deep enough to draw tiny droplets of blood. Hannah flung the necklace onto the floor; it landed with an expensive-sounding clatter.
‘Hannah—’ Her name was an inadvertent cry as Sergei stretched a hand out to her, his horrified gaze on the bloody marks on her neck.
‘Isn’t it all true? Isn’t this what we agreed on?’ Hannah demanded. She felt tears sting her eyes and she blinked them away furiously. ‘Isn’t this what you want?’
Sergei crossed to stand in front of her. He withdrew a perfectly starched handkerchief from his breast pocket and gently dabbed at the scratches on her throat. ‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘it isn’t what I want.’
Hannah closed her eyes. Tears leaked out from under her lids, and she brushed them away, impatient, embarrassed.
‘I didn’t mean to make you cry.’ Sergei touched his thumb to her eye, her cheek, wiping away the traces of her tears. ‘Please don’t cry, Hannah.’ His voice sounded choked. ‘I cannot bear it.’
She opened her eyes, surprised and moved to see his harshly handsome face contorted in anguish. ‘I’m sorry.’ She drew in a ragged breath and blinked hard, forcing the lump that had risen into her throat back down. She could still feel it, hot and heavy in her chest. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, more composed now. She took a step away from him. ‘I don’t understand you, Sergei. You made it quite clear what you wanted back in New York. This was meant to be fun, a fling, and I accepted that. I’m trying to accept it, anyway. But even when I do you still get angry. Back at the hotel—you treated me like a—a possession! Something you can just drag around.’
The anguish had left Sergei’s face, his expression wiped as clean as a slate. ‘I’m sorry,’ he finally said, his voice neutral. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
‘Why were you so angry?’ Hannah demanded rawly. ‘When I was just stating facts? Because I am your mistress, aren’t I? That’s how all those people at the charity event tonight think of me. The ornament on your arm.’ It hurt to say it, but she wanted to be clear. She wanted Sergei to know she wasn’t fooled.
Sergei pressed his lips together. So much for anguish; now he just looked annoyed. ‘I don’t know how they think of you—’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Fine.’ He rubbed a hand over his face, then dropped it abruptly. ‘Fine. Yes. They think of you as my mistress. I’ve never—I’ve never been with the same woman for very long. No one would think now that I was in a—a proper relationship.’
‘And we’re not in a proper relationship,’ Hannah pointed out. ‘We’re not equals in this. You dress me up like a doll and parade me around and sleep with me and when you’ve had enough you’ll send me back where I came from.’ It hurt so much to say it, but she knew she had to. For her own sake as much as Sergei’s. She needed the reminder of just what it was they were doing here.
‘Don’t,’ Sergei said sharply. ‘Don’t make what is between us sound so—so sordid.’
‘But it is sordid, Sergei.’ It was to her, anyway. ‘Like I said before, I’m just stating facts.’
His jaw tightened and he folded his arms. ‘I don’t like those facts.’
‘Don’t you?’ She let out a short, disbelieving laugh. ‘Because those are your facts. The rules you set down—’
‘I don’t remember making any rules.’
Hannah stared at him, genuinely confused. What was Sergei trying to tell her? That he didn’t want this? The thought was surely laughable. ‘Why are you arguing the point?’ she asked quietly. ‘Do you just not like someone spelling it out to you? Because if you’ve never even been in a proper relationship before, somehow I don’t think you’re looking to start.’
Sergei stared at her, his gaze level and yet fathomless, his mouth a hard line. ‘Maybe I am,’ he said at last, and despite the fierce thrill of hope that rippled through her Hannah shook her head.
‘No, you’re not.’
Sergei’s lips curved in a grim smile. ‘You’re so sure about that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And here I thought you believed the best in everyone,’ he drawled softly.
She swallowed and then hardened her resolve. ‘Not any more.’
He shook his head. ‘What happened to your optimism, Hannah? Because a year ago—’
‘I’m not the same person I was a year ago, Sergei. And you probably aren’t either.’
‘No,’ he agreed quietly, ‘I’m not.’
She nodded, even though her insides felt leaden, weighed down with sorrow. ‘People change.’
‘Why did you change? What happened?’ He paused, his mouth twisting before resuming its familiar flat line. ‘Was it my fault?’
‘Your fault?’ She shook her head slowly. ‘No … although our—our evening together probably started it. I was so naive, I realise that now, and when I saw you with—with Varya—’
‘It wasn’t what it looked like.’
‘Really?’ Hannah raised her eyebrows, not understanding why Sergei felt the need to rewrite their history now. ‘You certainly went to some lengths to convince me it was just what it looked like then. I remember how insistent I was that you weren’t being truthful, that you—you—’
‘Were a better man than I thought?’ Sergei finished softly, and Hannah blinked.
‘Why are you bringing this all up now?’
‘Because you changed me, Hannah. In a different way than I changed you.’
‘It wasn’t all about you,’ Hannah said quickly. ‘All right, your—your rejection hurt. Obviously. But other things happened.’
‘Like what?’
She shrugged. ‘I came back to New York and I felt pretty low. I rushed into a relationship—and it wasn’t so great.’ She shrugged again, not wanting to tell him about Matthew, about the humiliation and heartache. How dirty and used it had all made her feel. By the darkening of his features she didn’t think Sergei wanted to hear. ‘And—and the shop had been struggling for so long,’ she continued, ‘and I really wanted to try to make a success of it, for my parents’ sake. But …’ She pressed her lips together, reluctant to reveal any more.
‘But?’ Sergei prompted softly.
‘I started going through their things—I’d been putting it off since my mom died, but I figured it was time—anyway,’ she continued hurriedly, wanting to get through it all, ‘I found out some things. They weren’t really honest with me.’ She folded her arms, stared at the floor. ‘I thought my mother was giving me a choice, to come back from college and help out, but I found some paperwork and I saw that she’d had me withdrawn even before she telephoned me. She’d already decided I wasn’t coming back for the second semester, but she pretended it was my decision.’ The realisation had felt like a betrayal, and it had made her angry. Uselessly so, for how could you stay angry with someone who was dead?
‘Maybe,’