The Master (12 page)

If she hadn’t been able to extinguish it, a year of Edward’s inexplicable disdain couldn’t have. My pride had merely lain dormant for a short while, bouncing back with a
vengeance, roaring to life.

And yet I’d chosen to disappear—instead of fighting back, a decision I still struggled with. Was I being shrewd?

Or cowardly?

Máxim asked, “Are you close to your mother and father?”

“My father died a while ago.” He’d been in a car accident in the Cuban countryside, far from any hospitals. “I wish my mother and I could have been closer before she
passed away.”

She didn’t “pass away,” Cat.

I’d never forget the way my stomach had plummeted when I’d learned for certain that she’d been murdered. The rage I’d felt. . . .

“You’re so sure that Ana-Lucía will keep quiet?” Julia asked Edward. “She’s an impulsive troublemaker.”

“What could she say to the police?” he asked. “That she suspected I had something to do with the old bat’s death? I’ve been a model husband for over a year, and
I’ve snowed everyone she’s ever come into contact with. I play tennis with her lawyer. Who would believe her? And even if her mother was exhumed, the case is in Ana-Lucía’s
safety-deposit box, the one she obtained by herself, in her name.”

He’d asked me to secure it for a coin collection, giving me a locked case to store.
Mierda,
he had the key! What was actually in it? What was his ace?

Edward continued, “No one but her has ever accessed it, and her fingerprints are the only ones on the case. She fought constantly with her mother and was the sole heir to a fortune.
Means, motive, opportunity, and a murder weapon. One word to the police, and Ana-Lucía’s done.”

They’d killed my mother; they’d framed me for it.

When they’d stopped talking and started kissing, I’d decided to get answers, one way or another—

“Katya?” Máxim was studying my face, as if trying to read my thoughts.

I forced a smile. “Just thinking.”
It happened, it hurt. . . .
I shook away my memories and said, “My mother was very strict.”

“So you rebelled? Is that how you got into escorting?”

No, that was how I’d let a monster into our lives. I cleared my throat. “A story for another time. Are you close to your parents?”

His gaze slid away. “Both died when I was a boy.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What’s
your
earliest memory?”

“My mother singing. She rarely did, but she had a lovely voice.” Changing the subject, he said, “Did you do well in school?”

“Straight A’s. I couldn’t get enough math, used to do puzzles for fun. What about you? What was your favorite subject?”

“Debate.”

“Already a politician?” I turned on my side, facing him. Now our conversation seemed even more intimate.

“But no longer. Maybe I’ll go into business with my older brother, if he’ll have me.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“We were estranged. He left home when I was young, and I resented him. For years, he’s suspected that I had malicious intentions against him. I can’t say that I didn’t at
the time.”

“That’s sad. But no longer?”

“We’re speaking, which is an improvement. I’m close to my younger brother,” he said. “Do you have any siblings?”

I hesitated. Sometimes I imagined tidbits of my information being fed into a search engine. It would spit out my name if given enough variables.

Sevastyan already had several: Spanish-speaking female, approximately twenty-six, no college degree, deceased parents.

Would I now add
only child
? “I’m sure my family is boring compared to yours. Let’s talk about something more exciting.” I raised my flute again. Downed so
soon?

He readily poured. “Like what?”

“Sex?”

“I’m going to make a blanket statement: I like ours. I’m fairly certain you do too. Tonight, you’ve repeatedly touched my back. You even scratched it earlier.”

“
Perdón!
” I’m sorry! “Did I hurt you? I forget myself with you.”
Factory shutdown.
“What if I do it again, Máxim?”

The left corner of his lips curved up. “I didn’t say I wanted you to stop. I thought it would bother me, but it doesn’t. I knew you’d forgotten yourself, and I relished
every fucking second of it.”

I exhaled. “You scared me. I thought you were going to have to put mittens on me.”

“That’s your worry?” He reached for me under the blanket, laying a casual palm over my hip, his thumb lazily stroking. “I expected the scars to bother you.”

“They don’t. I’ll grow accustomed to your back—but I will
never
get over your ass.”

He gave me that glorious full smile of his. I reached over and placed my hand on his face. “I love your smile.”

“Everyone says I’m charming, but I don’t smile or laugh naturally. I think to myself,
Would now be a normal time for someone like me to show amusement?
Then I force
myself to react, as people do when a camera turns to them. But with you, it’s unconscious. I just respond.”

“Truly?” His smile in person
did
look different from the one I’d seen in pictures. Those never engaged his eyes. I leaned forward to kiss him, but when my lids slid
shut, the world went off-kilter. I drew back. “Whoa. I think I need to cool off.” I rose, swerving on unsteady feet, then dropped into the pool.

He followed shortly after, caging me in, with my back against the infinity edge. Steam rose from the water, flickering the lights, making the ocean blue of his eyes glow. “The way your
hips and ass move when you walk . . . it’s like a revelation.”

I swallowed, my hands landing on his shoulders, my legs wrapping around his waist.

He slowly rocked into me. “Why can’t I stop touching you?”

Wordlessly, we stared at each other as he took me. Something was occurring between us. More than sex. Something I’d never experienced. I wanted to come; I wanted to cry; I needed to smooth
his brow and ease his own thunderstruck look. “Máxim?”

He could only nod slowly, acknowledging . . .
something
. Never speeding up his pace, he told me, “Say my name in your accent.”

I rubbed the side of my face against his, murmuring, “Máxim.”

“Say you need me to fuck you like this.”

Between panting breaths, I whispered, “I need you . . . to fuck me . . . like this, Máxim.”

“Tell me I fuck you better than any man before.”

“Máxim, you fuck me . . . better than any man before.” And then he proved it. Even as I buried my mouth against his neck to muffle my screams, I wondered if I could fall in
love with someone in one night.

T
he sun was coming up when I woke against a man’s chest.

I blinked, disoriented. What the hell—

My eyes went wide. I was in the Russian’s bed! And everything from the night before was a fog. I stifled a groan, swearing I would never drink again.

I rose up on an elbow to look at him. He slept on his back, one brawny arm around me, the other over his head. I nearly whimpered.
Un hombre magnífico.

How would Máxim be with me this morning? Would he act like nothing unusual had happened? Be embarrassed that we’d been drinking and oversharing? That I’d seen his scars?

What if he looked at me the way he had our first night, waking up to sneer, “You’re still here?”

I cautiously rose, finding a robe in the bathroom, then crept out of the bedroom suite. The housecleaner in me cringed at the mess in the sitting area. We’d hit this place like a
hurricane.

I scuffed to the kitchen and found orange juice. Guzzled. Then I took another full glass out by the pool.

I drank it down too, then frowned at my empty glass. I’d thought I’d be a hundred times more hungover than this. Wasn’t too much champagne supposed to mess a person up? I felt
great
. Maybe because we’d eaten?

Or maybe I was still drunk?

I shrugged, concerned with more pressing matters. Though my memories were foggy, my emotions were pinging clear. I was infatuated with Maksimilian Sevastyan.

No, I hadn’t wanted a relationship. But being with this sensual man in this romantic setting made me wonder what it’d be like to live with and love someone like the Russian.

Seemed my heart wasn’t bulletproof.

Yet I’d also thought I’d loved Edward. Obviously, I was
not
to be trusted.

I stared out over the ocean. A storm was rolling in, backlit by the rising sun. I hated storms.

Was Edward even now in the city, watching this very sunrise? I exhaled a gust of breath, memories of that last night with him overrunning my thoughts.

Gun in hand and rosary around my neck, I’d reached for our bedroom door, prepared to brazen my way into some answers—I had to know what was in the case. When I entered, my husband
was screwing Julia, more impassioned than he’d ever been with me. . . .

“
So I’ll be dead by the holidays,
cabrón
?”

He jerked out of her, scrambling from the bed to his feet, his dick bouncing. “Ana-Lucía! I can explain everything!” His accent shifted from British to Southern
mid-sentence. He pulled on his pants, and I let him. “Please, calm down! And for goodness’ sake, put the pistol away.”

Lightning flared, matching my mood. I finally understood the phrase “seeing red.” I pointed my gun at the woman frozen on the bed. “Who the hell is she?”

Edward raised his palms. “Talk to
me
.” He didn’t like my attention on Julia? “She’s an old friend who was passing through town.” His blond brows
drew together as he gazed longingly at me. “This didn’t mean anything. I just missed you so much, darling—I was momentarily weak. I was so stupid. But we can work this out.
You
are the one that I love.”

He was good.

Julia stood, wrapping a sheet around herself. She was tall and slender, with long sandy brown hair and porcelain skin. “May I get my clothes?”

Lightning flashed again. “No. You move closer to him. NOW, bitch.” I waved the gun, and she hurried to his side. Even in this situation, they somehow looked dignified together, a
sterling couple.

I turned to Edward. “If you lie to me again, I will shoot you in your scrawny dick. How did you kill my mother?”

“
What are you talking about! Have you lost your mind?” His green eyes appeared stunned, as if I’d sprung this information on him—out of nowhere. “Your mother
died of natural causes. You
know
that.”

How could he be so believable? For the tiniest instant, I thought to myself, Well, I
did
know that. I shook my head. “Natural causes? Weren’t you going to make
my
death look natural?”

Edward was aghast. “You’re accusing me of murder? When I’ve never raised a hand to you? I’ve never even raised my voice. Everyone knows how much I adore you. All our
friends talk about my devotion.”

In other words, if I cried, “Murder plot!” no one would believe me. “What’s in the case in that safety-deposit box?”

“Case? Now what are you going on about, darling? How did we go from my—admittedly stupid—screwup to murder?” There was that reasonable voice again.

How much had he been gaslighting me in the past? “I heard you two,
cabrón.
No one’s celebrating my murder in Aspen this year.”

Julia was unraveling. “I told you this one was trouble!”

I sneered to her, “With a capital fucking T, Julia.” Back to Edward. “How did you kill my mother? And what’s in the case?” I cocked the pistol, movie-style, and
aimed it at his groin. “Try lying to me again.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You won’t shoot me. If you do, all your money—now my money—will go to my heir. You signed over everything to me a year ago.”

“Then you’re right. It doesn’t make sense to shoot you.” I turned the gun to Julia. “I should shoot her. She’d be your heir, no?”

“
Ana-Lucía!” His breath left him, his voice scaling higher as he said, “Don’t hurt her.
Please
.”

The most shocking revelation of the night? This monster truly loved her.

“
Don’t make me hurt her! Answer my questions.”

Staring down a gun barrel, Julia said, “I will answer them for you. We can talk about this. In the case, there’s a syringe. It was the last injection given to your mother. She was
dying anyway, but we hastened it.”

My lips parted. Julia had confirmed
murder.

She continued, “We targeted you for the land. Charles—Edward—knows how to break the trust.”

Shock muffled my thoughts, but I needed to stay sharp. What incentive did Julia have to admit these things? I gazed at them through watering eyes. The two were farther apart from each other.
While she stalled, he’d been sneaking closer to his dresser!

He must have a gun in there. “Stop where you are, Edward.” Keeping the pistol trained on them, I sidled toward the dresser. “You got a gun? I’ll be taking it, as well
as the key to that safety-deposit box.”