So Over You (Chicago Rebels #2)(53)

Who’d blame him? His mother had left him as a child and only reached out when she needed his genetic material for the child she kept. That had to have hurt him deeply. Neither could this situation be easy on this poor girl torn between two people she loved.

“The Vadim I know is a pretty forgiving person.” After all, he hadn’t held on to a grudge about how Clifford had treated him in the wake of their doomed teenage hookup. Or, he hadn’t held on to it for long. She patted Mia on the shoulder. “Now let’s get going before he Hulks out on the discharge nurse.”



“Nyet.”

Isobel moved a foot over the threshold, though she didn’t hold out much hope of it making a difference. Alexei had braced his body so it filled the space between the doorjamb and the open door he refused to let her through.

“Listen, Alexei.” She considered smiling, then decided it would be wasted on this guy. He’d hated her eight years ago, his face always in a permanent scowl at her for leading Vadim astray. Nothing had changed. “I’m here to see the patient.”

“Flu,” Alexei grunted. “In bed.” He pushed the door toward her.

She splayed a hand against it. Try me, Igor. “I brought soup.”

“We have soup.” He looked like a bulldog who had eaten a lemon and enjoyed it. So maybe he was a borscht-producing master and soup was his stock in trade, but she had an ace in her back pocket.

“It’s in a bread bowl, Alexei. They put the soup”—she held up the bag containing the majestic offering—“in a bowl made of bread. Comprendez?”

He didn’t look like he comprendez’ed.

She tried again, slower this time. “The bowl is made of bread.”

From a distance, Vadim said something in Russian, and Alexei answered with a string of guttural hacks that put her in mind of cats being murdered.

“Vadim, I have soup!” Isobel called out, just in case it wasn’t clear who was at the door or that soup was in the mix.

A resigned Alexei held the door back. As she stepped inside, her eyes were immediately drawn up.

So much light, like it had somehow been bottled and was being pumped into the foyer. Set back off the main road in Winnetka, from the front, this rented lakeside mansion looked like a typical playground for the rich and famous, about as palatial as you could get in the Midwest. Moving farther in, she realized that the front was a model of deception, as the foyer led to a great room styled like a Mediterranean villa. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the wave-torn lake, which lashed against the ice-fringed edges of the property. In the summer, it would be epic. In March, it merely looked spectacular.

Adding to the spectacular, at the center of the tableau was the man himself, looking like a louche Regency duke. He lay sprawled on a massive L-shaped sofa, his legs covered by an afghan, his chest exposed and gleaming. Gordie Howe lay curled up beside him, auditioning for the part of “villain’s pet” in the latest James Bond.

“You brought me soup?” Vadim asked.

“Hell no. That was just my toll.” She turned to a looming Alexei and placed the package in his hands. “This is for Mia. I’m guessing it’s about time for her to eat.”

Isobel had offered to let Mia stay with her until she was healthy enough to travel back to New York. No way in hell did they want one or more of their players coming down with something that kept them from making money for the franchise. But Vadim wouldn’t hear of it. So here she was, ostensibly on Dante’s orders, ensuring that their star left-winger wouldn’t catch the flu.

“Where is she?”

“In one of the guest rooms,” Vadim said. “I will wake her.”

Isobel raised a hand. “Nope. You are not getting sick, Russian. I’ll do it, if necessary, but we have to keep you out of harm’s way.”

Alexei cast a glance at Vadim, who muttered something in Russian. It was enough to send him off to another part of the estate. She couldn’t imagine the impenetrable Alexei ever getting sick, so this worked out nicely.

Isobel slipped off her parka, sat down several feet from tattooed temptation, and crossed one booted foot over her thigh.

Vadim’s brow furrowed. “The soup is in a bread bowl?”

“Sure is. They scoop out the bread and fill it with soup.”

“What about the bread that’s scooped out?”

“They wrap it and put it on the side for dipping.”

Vadim didn’t want to look impressed, she could tell, but no one in his right mind could fail to acknowledge the genius of the bread bowl. His wistful look toward wherever Alexei had retreated was confirmation enough.

“Any sign of fever?” Moving closer—purely in the guise of visiting nurse, mind you—she placed a palm on his forehead. He felt fine, but looked H-O-T.

Taking her hand, he rubbed it along his chest, then his abs, heading south. “Just down here.”

“That’s not why I’m visiting. I’m on a mercy mission.”

He curled a hand around her neck and drew her close. “Then have mercy, Bella.” His kiss was as hot as he looked, and she was weak. So weak. Probably coming down with the flu.

Drawing back, she kept her eyes at chest level. “You really ought to cover up. This can’t be helping.”

“Can’t be helping whom?” He had her bang to rights there.