Moving Target (Target #3)(34)

“With all due respect, she is not her mother and I am not—” I swallow because I am him. Before I helped my cousin, I was supposed to take Konstantin’s place as the head of Wraith. “I’ve changed.”

He smiles. “Do you have your gun?”

I give him a look. “Never without it.”

“You were saying?”

He was you at one time. In thirty years, if I live that long, I will be him. Very few men live to Konstantin’s age, fewer still my Uncle Dmitri’s age. Even in my seaside home, I kept watch. Stayed vigilant.

Yet, they still found me.

Still engaged me.

And, like a fool, I accepted the job.

Chloe deserves better than a fool constantly looking over his shoulder. Better than living a life of darkness, without joy. Better than a life of violence.

I’ve seen too much death.

“I’ll leave first thing.”

“Thank you, son. I won’t bother you again and your Uncle Dmitri will make sure his successors leave you alone as well.”

“That is more than I could hope for.” But is it worth anything without the woman I love?

Chloe stick her head in the door. “I’m freezing and nosy. May I come in?”

Konstantin is all smiles. “Come in. Come in. Sit.”

It has to be. I love her enough to let her go live her life. I love her enough to let her go find happiness again. Actually, I love her more than myself, which is why I’ll make her hate me first.

Quietly, I leave the room and go in search of a bottle of vodka.

Chloe is waiting in bed for me, gloriously nude but for a pair of sheer panties. “Do you always take that long to shower alone?” she asks playfully as she crawls across the bed to me. Her breasts sway with her movements, and I cannot stop staring at them.

When she gets to the edge of the bed, she rises up on her knees and gives me a seductive smile. “Come to bed, Dmitry Romanov, and I’ll show you a good time.”

I shouldn’t do this. I can’t do this. I’m supposed to make her hate me. “Chloe, I—”

She loosely wraps her arms around me, her breasts pressing against my chest, and I groan. My hands automatically go to her gorgeous breasts, cupping them and earning a small moan from her.

“You were saying?” she asks throatily.

Fuck keeping away from her. I’ll have years of keeping away from her. Decades. Forever. And I’ll have tomorrow to break her heart again.

“Not a damn thing.”

Then I push her down into the mattress, ripping the towel away and covering her body with mine.





18





Chloe



Dima stands at the foot of the bed, dressed in his usual dark suit. “I have to go, but I wanted to say good-bye first.”

I sit up, uncaring of the sheet falling to my waist.

His gaze doesn’t leave my face, which is something a gentleman would do, but what we did last night had nothing to do with good manners, unless you take into consideration that he always allows me to orgasm first. Which I do.

“But you promised to stay with me.”

“Your father would like time to get to know you without the distraction of a… lover.”

A lover? That’s all he thinks is he to me, or is that all I am to him? I guess it sounds better and less juvenile than boyfriend. “Contrary to popular belief, only I have the power to say yes or no to you, or to decide if you’re too much of a distraction. I want you here. I don’t know anyone.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

My heart starts to break all over again, but I grasp at straws. “Is it because of him or because you think I still love Mario?”

His jaw works. “Perhaps both.”

“I never loved Mario like that.” I glance up at the ceiling and then back at him. “Mario and I never had sex. Ever. He was too sick, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to get my rocks off while he was suffering. You’re the first man I’ve been with in years… years. Heck, I practically gave you my virginity.”

“I have to go,” he repeats. “I made a promise.”

“You made a promise to me!” I cry.

“I promised to stay as long as I could.”

“You said that no other woman could claim you.”

His nostrils flare. He opens his mouth to speak, and then shuts it. Jaw working, he finally says, “No other woman will ever claim me. That is not the issue. Your father has ordered me to leave, and I have no choice but to obey. I owe it to him.”

“What about what you owe to me? Which is nothing except what you promised and now you want to break that.”

“Sometimes, life is not what we want but what we need. You need to be free of men like me. Free from even your father.”

“I can’t believe you or him.”

“I’m… I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

“Just go. It’s what you want to do anyway.” I bite my lip to keep from crying. “Apparently, my feelings don’t count for anything. What we have between us? You’ll regret giving it up, leaving me. We got a second chance, Dima, maybe even a fourth, fifth, and sixth based on how many people tried to kill us, yet here we are, still together. We defied the odds! We made it, and you just want to throw all that away over what some old guy in Russia thinks? He’s not even my real father—well, not in the sense of raising me. He chose to leave my mother, and that’s no one’s fault but his.