Midnight Alpha (21 page)

And Gregori was sitting downstairs in the darkness listening to it.

He had hurt her earlier, humiliated her, but she didn’t have it in her to leave him alone with just that haunting music for company.

The music grew louder as she descended the stairs, that painful melody building to an almost unbearable pitch, so much so that it brought tears to Gaia’s eyes.

What was Gregori thinking of as he listened to such heartache? Did he feel it too? Did he—

Gaia drew her breath in sharply as she stood in the doorway of the drawing room and saw that Gregori wasn’t listening to music at all—he was playing it.

He had thrown off the jacket to his evening suit, removed his tie and unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt; he now sat on the stool in front of the piano Gaia had noticed the night before when she had wondered if anyone actually played it.

Gregori played it.

He more than played it. Those long and elegant fingers touched the ivory keys with the same delicacy and surety of touch with which he made love to her. He
was
making love, fingers caressing the keys, his face stripped of its mask, his emotions raw and visible for all to see.

For Gaia to see.

The loneliness she had already discerned. And the solitude. But there was also gentleness, heartache, love. It was as if he poured all of his emotions into the music he was playing—

“Don’t stop,” she encouraged gruffly as his fingers came to an abrupt halt.

He looked across to where she stood in the doorway and didn’t speak. Instead he resumed playing, though he turned away, as if he was uncomfortable at being observed.

The protective ice about Gaia’s heart began to melt away as she continued to watch him. A lock of hair fell over his forehead, making him look younger, the expression on his face one of raw and rapt concentration as he continued to play that hauntingly beautiful music.

He was a man of such strong contradictions.

“Come and join me,” he invited huskily as he moved slightly along the piano seat to make room for her to sit beside him.

She hesitated, not sure she wanted to open herself up for more pain when Gregori rejected or humiliated her again.

At the same time, she knew she couldn’t
not
join him.

She crossed the room on bare feet, but she had enough strength to choose to stand beside him rather than sit down next to him. “I saw that movie,” she murmured huskily as he looked up at her enquiringly. “And beautiful as this piano is, I have no intention of the two of us making love on top of it!”

Gregori looked at her blankly for several seconds before giving a rueful smile. “I saw that movie too; it brought a whole new meaning to the phrase making beautiful music together!”

“Ouch.” She pretended to wince. “That was really bad.”

He shrugged. “What did you expect at five o’clock in the morning?”

Well she certainly hadn’t expected to be woken by the sound of a piano playing, only to come down the stairs and discover Gregori was the one making the music. “Mozart?” she hazarded a guess.

“Markovic,” he corrected dryly. “But thank you for the compliment.”

Gaia’s eyes widened. “You wrote this?”

He smiled tightly. “I did, yes.”

To say Gaia was stunned would be putting it mildly. She already knew there were deep, raw emotions behind Gregori’s mask of cold indifference, but this was so much more than that. It was a soul crying out in the darkness.

It was Gregori.

The Gregori that no one saw.

Except Gaia.

“My father was ashamed of my ability,” he murmured as he seemed to guess some of her thoughts.

“Then your father was a fool! I’m sorry if that offends you,” she sighed as Gregori’s eyes widened. The fact that he kept on softly playing gave her the courage to go on. “You have a talent, a gift that should never have been allowed to go to waste.”

“And my father had a kingdom to run and only one son to take over when he died.” Gregori abruptly ceased playing, the room unnaturally quiet as the last chords faded away.

“I can understand and respect that.” Gaia nodded. “But your father is no longer here, and you are, and you should be allowed to do with your own life whatever you want to do with it.”

“And what makes you think that I’m not?” Gregori prompted guardedly.

“Because—” A blush colored her cheeks as she tossed her hair back over her shoulders.

“Because…”

“Because you touch and caress the piano keys as if you’re making love to them.” The blush deepened in her cheeks. “You’re still doing it, even though you aren’t playing anymore.” She looked down pointedly to where his fingers still rested on the keys.

He moved his hands onto his thighs as he realized she was right.

Buying and installing the piano here after his father died had been Gregori’s one act of rebellion to the onerous responsibilities he now had. A part of himself he hadn’t been able to indulge since he returned from university with his law degree and moved into an apartment on the third floor of this house.

He had discovered his musical ability while he was at school, but it hadn’t been anything his father was interested in. It didn’t come under the heading of ‘useful’ things for The Markovic to know, let alone nurture.

Even now, only Katya and Nikolai knew of his ability to play this beautiful instrument.

And now Gaia.

Another step through the barrier he had believed was impregnable.

He firmly closed the lid over the keys and stood up, his smile becoming mocking as he saw Gaia instinctively take a step back. “As we have just decided, this is not a movie, and I’m not about to sweep the heroine up in my arms and carry her off to my bed,” he taunted.

Gaia gave a rueful grimace. “Pleasant interlude over?”

“Was it pleasant?” he bit out hardly. “I only noticed that my privacy was invaded.”

Her grimace turned into a derisive smile. “I bet this shitty attitude usually works too,” she commented conversationally.

Gregori gave an irritated frown. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No?” Gaia challenged softly. “Then let me enlighten you. If anyone gets too close to seeing the real you, then you shut them down. By whatever means necessary. In your case, that’s usually with sarcasm or just plain old cold dismissal.”

“Perhaps that’s because the emotion I feel when people try to get ‘too close’ to me is ‘sarcasm or plain old cold dismissal’?” he bit out impatiently.

“Maybe,” she conceded. “And maybe you’re just running scared.”

“You’re obviously overtired and talking nonsense,” he snapped exasperatedly.

“I don’t think so,” she murmured huskily. “I do it too, you see, Gregori. If you don’t let people in, then they can’t hurt you or let you down. Only problem with that, I’ve discovered, is that you also invariably end up alone.”

He gave a disgusted snort. “I am never alone.”

Gaia looked him over with slow consideration. “You’re alone now.”

“I’m beginning to wish that I was!” he glowered. “Now if you will excuse me, I am going to bed. Turn off the lights in here when you go back upstairs.”

Gaia waited until he reached the open doorway before speaking again. “What’s it called?”

“What is what called?” He frowned impatiently as he turned to face her.

“The music you were playing, what’s it called?”

His eyes narrowed. “What makes you think it has a title?”

She laughed softly. “You’re a very precise and ordered man, of course it has a title!”

Gregori wasn’t feeling either of those things at this moment.

Gaia looked…disheveled, as if she had just gotten out of bed. Which she had, of course. Her hair was tousled, face bare of make-up, the short robe and nightshirt she wore revealing the length of her bare legs and clearly outlining the curvy body beneath. The naked body beneath.

And despite what he’d said—mocked—earlier, picking Gaia up in his arms and carrying her off to his bed before making love to her for hours was
precisely
what Gregori wanted to do right now.

Something Gaia was going to become aware of too if she happened to glance down at the front of his trousers.

He was sure this constant state of arousal couldn’t be normal. Maybe when he was a teenager, but not in a grown man of thirty-six. The solution was the same, of course, either a fifteen-minute cold shower or the use of his right hand. Neither of which held much appeal.

“‘Midnight’,” he bit out tersely. “The music is called ‘Midnight’.”

“Just ‘Midnight’?”

He sighed his impatience. “Just ‘Midnight’.”

“Okay.”

“Just okay?” he taunted.

“Yes.”

Gregori didn’t quite trust this uncharacteristic acceptance from Gaia. She questioned, pushed and poked at everything. She never just
accepted.

And he had spent quite long enough already tonight trying to understand or work out what Gaia was or wasn’t doing. “I’m going to bed,” he sighed wearily. “I advise that you do the same, because the motion sensors are going to come on in the rest of the house the moment I close my bedroom door.”

“Then don’t close your bedroom door.”

Gregori’s eyes narrowed on her searchingly, looking for some hidden meaning in her expression.

Was he mistaken, or had she just invited herself to his bedroom?

Mistaken or otherwise, it wasn’t an invitation he could accept.

It had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed not to follow his instincts and make love to her in the car earlier, and if he gave in to his desire for her now then he might as well not have put himself through that earlier agony.

And it had been agony, every nerve, muscle and sinew in his body wanting to possess, to take, only to be told no.

He had spent the next four hours at Utopia making everyone pay for that self-denial with the cold edge of his tongue.

He
couldn’t
give in to that desire now, needed to keep all of his senses alert for the danger that still threatened. If Nikolai didn’t track Ivan Orlov down soon then Gregori would fly to Las Vegas himself and rip the city apart until he found the other man. Usually a patient, controlled man, Gregori had reached his saturation point, and he knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—remain in control for too much longer.

“I don’t think so,” he dismissed hardly. “Goodnight, Miss Miller.” He left the room without giving her the chance to speak again.

“I said no,” Gregori repeated firmly as he sat behind his desk at Utopia three evenings later. “Absolutely not.” He directed his scowl of displeasure to the group before him. Gaia and Nikolai stood closest, their expressions frustrated in response to his words, and Lijah Smith sat a few feet away, slouched in a chair with his booted feet on Gregori’s desk.

There was no way he would allow the plan the three of them had just proposed to him.

Which meant that Gaia had been spending far too much time with the other two men.

Admittedly, it was under his instruction that Nikolai and Lijah had been taking turns personally guarding Gaia, but he hadn’t intended for the three of them to form some sort of alliance. He certainly hadn’t meant for them to team up with this unacceptable plan.

A plan in which Gaia would go down alone amongst the staff and members of Utopia, offering herself up as bait. The idea was for Nikolai and Lijah to follow her progress closely on the security monitors in Gregori’s office, and if there was a wrong move made by anyone, or she was approached by someone who looked suspicious, they would step in before any harm was done.

Gregori considered the idea to be reckless at best and dangerous at worst, when there was no guarantee that Nikolai or Lijah would reach Gaia’s side in time to prevent her from coming to harm.

It was also a plan Gregori was almost certain was Gaia’s: it bore all the hallmarks of her previous reckless behavior.

That she had somehow persuaded Nikolai and Lijah into backing this latest madness only made Gregori even angrier. “Your job is to protect Miss Miller,” he included both men in his censorious frown. “Not collaborate in something that would deliberately put her in danger.”

“I won’t be in any danger—”

“You have no way of knowing that,” Gregori silenced Gaia harshly. “I’ve allowed you to accompany me to Utopia the past two nights, against my better judgment I might add, and that is an end to your involvement in all of this.”

‘All of this’ still unfortunately consisted of the elusive Ivan Orlov, who had possibly gone completely rogue by invading Gregori’s territory seeking vengeance for the death of his son. Along with the continued steady influx of drugs into Utopia, despite Nikolai and Lijah’s joint effort to try and prevent it. Whoever was doing this was being very clever about it. So far the two security men had managed to ascertain that the drugs weren’t actually being sold inside the club, only contact being made with the supplier while the drugs were distributed elsewhere, which explained why Nikolai had been having such a problem for so long.