‘An ice hotel,’ he murmured, his gaze lingering on her mouth as if he knew she had been wondering what it would be like to breach the insignificant gap between them and kiss him.
Flustered, annoyed and tired, Eleanore glared at the man. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m building an ice hotel and my architect just quit. I want you to complete the design and project-manage the build.’
An ice hotel? A whole ice hotel? For a moment all Eleanore’s other senses came to full attention. She’d tried to convince Isabelle to do an ice hotel in Canada the year before but she had thought it a waste of time and money. ‘Why did your architect quit?’
‘Because his ego was larger than his talent.’
Eleanore’s lips quirked at his incongruous statement. ‘I’m sure he didn’t phrase it like that.’
‘Perhaps not.’ He gave her a slow smile. ‘But I can see I have your attention now.’
Annoyed at the victorious gleam in his eyes she shook her head. ‘Which part of no didn’t you get, Mr Kuznetskov? The n or the o?’
‘I don’t tend to respond that well to the word no,’ he drawled.
‘Then you haven’t wasted your time coming here after all because you’re about to be taught an important life lesson. And anyway, my sister would never agree to it.’
Isabelle had been even angrier about Lukas’s disparaging comments two years ago than Eleanore had been.
‘Well, that’s too bad.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’ll approach Spencer Chatsfield and see what he can do for me.’
Spencer Chatsfield? He was probably the only other man Isabelle disliked more. And what did Lukas know about their current feud? ‘Is that some sort of threat?’ she asked incredulously.
‘I never make threats.’ His smoking-hot grin told her he knew he had her. ‘I’m in room 1006 if you change your mind.’
‘We don’t have a room 1006.’
His grin faded into a cocky smile as if he knew his next words would choke her. ‘Room 1006 at The Chatsfield.’
And he was right.
Eleanore blinked as he strode unhurriedly from the bar, his loose-limbed grace drawing both male and female glances his way.
Arrogant, horrible...
‘That got a little heated,’ Lulu said, materialising at her side.
She wasn’t kidding.
Eleanore frowned. ‘Have you seen my phone?’
‘Yeah.’ She reached behind an ice shelf on the bar. ‘I put it here when we got busy before and forgot to tell you.’
Picking it up Eleanore tried to get her cold fingers to work long enough to call Isabelle. It was still early in New York—if in fact her sister was even in New York—but she still couldn’t get through to her.
About to leave a message, she hung up. Would Lukas Kuznetskov really approach the Chatsfields for help with his ice hotel? And if he did what would Isabelle say if she knew Eleanore had passed up the opportunity to get in first?
‘I’m in room 1006 if you change your mind.’
Arrogant, horrible...
Annoyed Eleanore downed a glass of water on the bar and only realised halfway through that it wasn’t water.
Lulu smacked her on the back repeatedly as she went into a coughing fit. ‘Honey, that was straight tequila,’ she advised.
Eleanore dabbed at her watering eyes. ‘It’s in a water glass,’ she wheezed.
‘We ran out of shot glasses.’
Great. A burnt oesophagus on top of everything else. What more could go wrong tonight?
Copyright © 2015 by Harlequin Books S.A.
From Enemy’s Daughter to Expectant Bride
Olivia Gates
To Pat Cooper. I’m so honored and grateful my writing has struck such a chord within you.
Your reviews have literally changed my life.
He woke up in darkness again.
His cheeks were wet, his heart battering his chest, and his screams for his mother and father still shredding his throat.
“Get up, Numbers.”
The vicious voice had terror expanding in his chest. The first time he’d heard it, he’d been terrified, thinking it was a stranger in his bedroom. But he’d soon realized it had been even worse. He’d no longer been at home, but somewhere narrow and long with no windows and no furniture. He’d been on the freezing ground, hands tied behind his back. That voice speaking heavily accented English, the language he knew so well, had said the same thing then.
And that had been how this nightmare had started.
“Seems Numbers wants another beating.”
That was the other man. He believed he’d never see anyone but these scary men ever again. And they called him Numbers. It was why they’d taken him. Because he was good with numbers.
He’d been offended when they’d first said that about him. He wasn’t “good with numbers.” He was a mathematical prodigy. That was what his parents and teachers and all the experts who’d sought him had said he was.
He’d corrected them, and he’d gotten his first ever slap for it. It had almost snapped his neck, sending him crashing into the wall. As the shock and pain had registered, he’d realized that this was real. He was no longer safe and protected. Anything could and would be done to him.
At first, that had made him angry. He’d said if they returned him to his parents, he wouldn’t tell them they’d dared lay a hand on him. The two men had laughed, just like he’d always imagined devils would. One had told the other that this Numbers kid might take longer to break than they’d thought.
He’d still insisted his name wasn’t Numbers, and the other man had backhanded him on his other cheek, even more viciously.
As he’d lain on the ground, shaking with fear and helplessness, the men had told him what to expect from now on.
“You’ll never see your parents or leave this place again. You now belong to us. If you do everything we tell you, the moment we tell you, then you won’t be punished. Not too bad.”
But he’d disobeyed their every order ever since, no matter how severely they’d punished him for it. He’d hoped they’d give up on him and send him home. But they’d only grown more brutal, seemed to be enjoying hurting and humiliating him more, and the hope that this nightmare might end had kept dwindling.
“Shall we give Numbers a choice of punishments today?”
He heard his tormentors snickering, could barely see their silhouettes towering over him out of the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. And in that moment, he gave up.
It