Because if they did … if they ever knew …
Sergei pushed the needling sense of guilt away, hardened his heart. And pictured himself slipping that dress from her shoulders, pressing his lips to the pulse fluttering quite wildly at her throat. She wanted him. He wanted her.
Simple.
It was foolish to feel so … aware, Hannah told herself. So alive. They were just talking. Yet still she was acutely, achingly conscious of Sergei’s thigh just inches from hers, the strength and heat of him right across the table, the candlelight throwing the harsh planes of his face into half-shadow.
‘A shop,’ she repeated, knowing she must sound as brainless as he’d thought her this morning. ‘My parents started it before I was born, and I took it over when they died.’
‘What kind of shop?’
‘Crafts. Mainly knitting supplies, yarn and so forth, but also embroidery and sewing things. Whatever we—I—think will sell.’ Even six months after her mother’s death, it was still strange—and sad—to think the shop was hers. Only hers.
‘And you had to close the shop? You couldn’t have anyone running it while you were away?’
‘I can’t really afford it,’ she said. ‘It’s a small town and we don’t get a lot of business except during tourist season.’ And even then just drive-throughs.
‘Where is this small town of yours?’
‘Hadley Springs, about four hours north of New York City.’
‘It must be beautiful.’
‘It is.’ She loved the rugged beauty of the Adirondacks, the impenetrable pine forests, yet living in a small town as a twenty-something could get a bit lonely, something she thought Sergei surmised from the shrewd compassion in his narrowed eyes.
‘You have not wanted to move?’
‘No, nev—’ Hannah stopped suddenly, for she couldn’t actually say she hadn’t wanted it; it had simply never been an option. Her parents had needed her too much, the shop needed to be run, and she couldn’t imagine abandoning it all now. The shop had been everything to them, and she needed to make a go of it, for the sake of their memory at least. She knew it was what her parents would have wanted, even expected. And yet …
‘I don’t even know where I would go,’ she said after a moment, trying to shrug the question—and the sudden doubts it had made her have—away.
Sergei’s smile glinted in the candlelight. ‘Possibility can be a frightening thing.’
‘I suppose,’ she said slowly, thinking that it never had been before. She hadn’t let herself think about possibilities, yet somehow sitting in this candlelit room with this breathtakingly attractive man gazing at her so steadily made everything—and anything—seem more possible.
Sergei cocked his head. ‘You are thinking about selling this shop,’ he said softly.
‘No—’ She’d been thinking about him, but she couldn’t deny that his pointed little questions had opened up something inside her, something she wasn’t quite ready to consider. ‘It was my parents’ dream,’ she told him. ‘Their baby.’
‘Weren’t you their baby?’
She shook her head, wondering why he insisted on seeing everything in such a cynical light. ‘You know what I mean. They poured their life savings into the shop, all their energy. My father had a stroke while stacking boxes in the stock room.’ She swallowed. ‘It was everything to them.’
‘So it was their dream,’ Sergei said quietly. ‘But was it yours? You can’t make someone want the same things you do.’ He sounded as if he spoke from experience. ‘You need to have your own dream.’
‘What’s your dream, then?’
‘Success,’ he answered shortly. ‘What’s yours?’
The question felt like a challenge, one Hannah didn’t want to answer. Sergei gazed at her, his eyes glinting in the candlelight, the sharp angular planes of his face bathed in warm light. His was a harsh, stark beauty, yet she could not deny the whole of his features, cold and assessing as they were, worked together to make him a truly striking man. Hannah swallowed, wanting to say something light, something that would smooth over the sudden jagged sense of uncertainty Sergei had ripped open inside her. Perhaps he understood this, for he gave her a small smile and said, ‘Perhaps this trip has been your dream.’
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘It was.’ And it was over now. Tomorrow reality would return. In a day or two she would open the door to the shop, dusty and unused, and deal with the bills and the piles of uncatalogued merchandise and the creeping realisation that her parents’ baby made very little money indeed. She had ideas, she had plans to make the shop work, and they were her plans. The shop was hers. She just didn’t know if the dream was. Hannah pushed the thought away, and the resentment she couldn’t help but feel that Sergei had opened up these uncertainties inside her. ‘So your dream is success,’ she said brightly, determined to move the focus of the conversation away from herself. ‘Success in what?’
‘Everything.’
‘That’s quite a dream.’ She felt a bit shaken by his blatant arrogance, as well as the bone-deep certainty she felt in herself that such a dream was most assuredly in the reach of a man like Sergei Kholodov. ‘Well, judging by this hotel you’re on your way to achieving it,’ she said as a waiter stepped silently into the alcove and began to serve them their starters. Sergei glanced at the young man who laid their plates on the table with a solemn concentration.
‘Spasiba, Andrei.’
The waiter gave his boss a quick, grateful smile and then withdrew with a little bow. Hannah felt a flicker of curiosity. Did Sergei know all his staff by name? The brochure in her room had said he employed a thousand people here. ‘So how did you build this empire of yours?’ she asked. ‘Is it a family business?’
He stilled, staring at her for a moment, the only movement the slow rotation of his wine glass between his fingers. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘Not family.’
‘You made it on your own?’ She reached for her fork and took a bite of wafer-thin beef carpaccio.
‘Yes,’ Sergei said flatly. ‘I learned early that is the only way you’ll ever succeed. Don’t depend on anyone. Don’t trust anyone, either.’ His voice had hardened, and his already harsh face suddenly seemed very cold.
‘You must have someone you can trust,’ she said after a moment. Her own life was a little lonely, but not as bad as that.
‘No,’ Sergei said flatly. ‘No one.’
‘No one who works for you?’ She thought of Grigori, or even of the waiter Andrei. Both men had seemed to respect Sergei.
He lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. ‘I am their employer. It is a different kind of relationship.’
‘A friend, then?’ He didn’t answer. Hannah shook her head slowly. ‘I find that very sad.’
‘Do you?’ He sounded amused. ‘I find it convenient.’
‘Then that’s even sadder.’
Sergei leaned forward, his eyes glittering like shards of ice or diamonds. Both cold and hard. ‘At some point in your life, Hannah, you’ll find out that people disappoint you. Deceive you. I find it’s better to accept it and move on than let yourself continually be let down.’
‘And I,’ Hannah returned robustly, ‘find it better to believe in people and live in hope than become as jaded and cynical as you obviously are.’
He laughed, the sound rich and deep, and leaned back in his chair. ‘Well, there we are,’ he said. His gaze roved over her in obvious masculine