Shadow Alpha (11 page)

Her mouth twisted derisively. “I’m betting you get lots of women with that silver tongue—oh my God…!” She had been so caught up in their conversation she hadn’t noticed they had left the flatness of the airstrip and road behind and were now climbing up into the forested hills.

Lush green foliage and trees lined either side of the track they were now driving along, with vivid colors of exotic blooms among them, and as Dair drove the SUV over the top of the hill she could see the beach, with white-gold sand drifting down to the turquoise sea.

It was amazingly, peacefully, beautiful.

Apart from their honeymoon, Sergei’s idea of a vacation had been a weekend in Las Vegas every month, and after the first couple of trips Kat hadn’t bothered to go again; Sergei liked to spend his time lounging by the pool all day and in one of the many casinos all night.

Which was where he had been nine weeks ago when Kat had telephoned him in excitement to tell him about the baby.

The last thing she had expected, when she was put through to Sergei’s hotel suite, was for another woman to answer the telephone. A woman who had informed her that she was about to join Sergei in the shower right now, but she would have him return the call later if Kat would like to leave her number.

Kat had been so shocked she had dropped the cell phone as if it had just burned her, disconnecting the call in the process.

She had known she and Sergei didn’t have the perfect marriage, that they weren’t wildly in love with each other, but she had never thought, not even for a moment, that he might be spending his time with other women when he went off to Las Vegas for those weekends on his own.

Except he obviously wasn’t alone.

For the five years they had been married Kat had at least thought Sergei gave her his fidelity.

She had been wrong.

And begun to wonder what else she had been wrong about where he was concerned.

For the first time in their marriage Kat had entered the bedroom adjoining her own. When they’d had sex it was always Sergei who came to her bedroom and then left again when it was over.

Kat hadn’t been sure what she was looking for that day, further evidence of Sergei’s infidelity perhaps, to confront him with when he came home. She’d had no doubts that by then he would know about her call, and have come up with a reasonable explanation for the woman in his hotel suite about to take a shower with him. And Kat had wanted to
know—

“Kat?”

—the truth—

“Kat!” Dair repeated sharply as she made no response; he had noticed that she had a habit of drifting off into her own thoughts like this.

A lingering effect of the medication?

Or something else?

After visiting Kat yesterday morning, he had accessed and read through her medical notes at the clinic. Depression. Hallucinations. Violent tendencies. The last he had dismissed; Sergei Orlov was enough to make anyone feel violent. The depression was also understandable when she had lost a baby just weeks ago. The hallucinations he was less sure of, but after witnessing Kat’s nightmare earlier, maybe that was easily explained too.

But still, something didn’t add up. Not the heavy medication Kat had been on, the clinic, the restraints, or the hatred she now bore towards Sergei.

And until it did, Dair intended on keeping Kat safe. From herself—and him—if necessary.

“My marriage to Sergei was a sham.”

Dair gave her a sharp glance; it was all he dared do when they were traveling along this narrow track. “I don’t think anyone ever thought that it was a love match between the two of you, but you seemed to have managed together for the past five years, until—until this setback.”

Setback?

Dair believed that this was a setback?

Discovering your husband, even one you weren’t in love with, was having an affair was surely bad enough, but finding out that it wasn’t an affair at all, that the woman on the other end of the phone was actually Sergei’s legal wife, was a lot more than a
setback
!

Chapter 7

Somehow Sergei had forgotten to mention his previous marriage eight years ago to a Las Vegas showgirl, to his father, Kat, or anyone else. A previous marriage that made his marriage to Kat completely illegal. Null and void. Non-existent.

And
still
Sergei had tried to talk himself out of it, promising to divorce the other woman, and then the two of them could go away somewhere and have another quiet marriage ceremony without anyone else ever being the wiser.

It had been when Kat refused that things had really gotten nasty.

The end result had been the loss of the baby she had waited five long years to conceive.

Followed by Sergei ‘confessing’ to his father—he’d really had little choice after Kat was admitted to the hospital and barely lived through the miscarriage. Ivan’s response had been anger towards his son, impatience with Kat for making such a fuss, and his insistence that the two of them would marry.

When Kat had again refused, Sergei and Ivan had come up with the idea of putting her in the clinic until she did agreed. Sergei’s only reason for coming to visit her at the clinic every morning had been to see if she had changed her mind yet. Her answer had always been no. Followed by Sergei’s assertion that she would be staying there until she did.

Kat would never have changed her mind, couldn’t bear to even be in the same room as Sergei anymore.

And she couldn’t tell anyone any of that. Not without causing an all-out war between the Markovic and Orlov families.

Her ‘marriage’ was over, she had lost the baby she loved; Kat couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for any more bloodshed.

She couldn’t tell Dair the truth either. If she did then he would have no choice but to tell Gregori. As it was, Dair knew far too much already about the way Sergei had behaved towards her, if not the reason for it.

“Sorry about that.” She turned to smile at Dair. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I think it must be that the meds are still in my system. I’m finding it a little difficult to concentrate.”

“It will take a couple of days, probably.” He nodded.

Her smile became wistful as she heard and saw Dair’s relief at the explanation; it seemed that even warriors—especially warriors?—felt uncomfortable when confronted by a woman’s emotions.

Kat had grown up with just her father and Gregori, and while she had been indulged personal emotions were a luxury Dimitri didn’t allow, even for family. Sergei and Ivan were made of the same stuff. It was unfair of her to expect that Dair, who was after all a member of the Montgomery family, would be any different from any of those four men.

She—

Kat completely lost that train of thought as Lucien Wynter’s island home came into view.
 

Built of rose-cream marble, it looked like a Greek temple as it glistened in the sun, with tall and smooth pillars surrounding a marble courtyard, a wide terrace surrounding the villa on the ground floor, with a balcony on the second trailing a plethora of exotic flowers down to the ground from above.

It was like something out of a fairytale, and Kat was utterly transfixed by its beauty.

“Thank you, Dair.” She turned a beaming smile on him as he brought the vehicle to a stop in front of the villa. “You couldn’t have brought me to anywhere more perfect. It’s an island paradise!”

He eyed her guardedly. “You aren’t going to kiss me again, are you?”

“Not this time,” Kat chuckled as she climbed out of the four-by-four. “Unless you want me to?” She eyed him mockingly.

“I’ll pass.”
For now
, Dair added internally. If Kat kissed him again, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking it further.

Especially when he could now
see
the Kat he had once known, her face alight with the excitement of her surroundings, the lines of strain and unhappiness smoothed away, the shadows gone from her dark and sparkling eyes.

The thought of the two of them being alone here on the island for several days, maybe even weeks, was going to play havoc with his self-control.

Damn, she was beautiful as she twirled slowly around, arms outspread, face aglow with pleasure as she took in the beauty of their surroundings.

And another man’s wife, Dair reminded himself derisively.

But a husband she didn’t love. And who didn’t love her either; otherwise Sergei would never have shut her away in that clinic—and Kat wouldn’t have tried to stab him for it.

The more Dair thought about that incident the more he found humor in it. He could just see Sergei now, running away from Kat as she wielded a dinner knife at him.

Sergei didn’t deserve to so much as kiss the soles of Kat’s feet.

And
he
needed a distraction before he said as much.

Which Dair found by abruptly excusing himself to go deal with and check the security systems he had tightened up and improved before Lucien and Nicky came here for their honeymoon the previous month.

None of the alarms had been triggered since the couple from the mainland, who acted as caretakers, had delivered the food and other supplies Dair had asked for two days ago before leaving again.

He shut off all but the necessary alarms for the duration of their stay before making his way to the kitchen.

As he had requested, the fridge had been well stocked. He just hoped that Kat could cook, because his own cooking skills only stretched as far as grilling a steak and zapping a baked potato in the microwave. Which would become pretty boring on a daily basis, if they were here for very long.

Only problem was, Dair couldn’t see any reason why Kat would ever have learned to cook, when she had been surrounded by—

Where the
hell
was Kat?

Damn it, they had only been on the island a few minutes and he had lost her already?

His expression was grim as he strode determinedly from the villa, only to heave a sigh of relief as he spotted Kat’s shoes and saw her footprints in the white-gold sand leading down to the water’s edge.

He came to an abrupt halt and stopped breathing when he saw those footsteps led to where Kat stood, jeans rolled up to just below her knees, the warmth of the water lapping at the bareness of her toes. Her arms were still outstretched, face raised to the sun, her red T-shirt clinging to the swell of her breasts, the flatness of her midriff visible where the T-shirt had ridden upwards.

She looked like a pagan priestess about to make an offering to the gods.

And Dair wanted nothing more at that moment than to take her down in the sand, strip her clothes from that delicious body, and carry on from where they had left off on the plane.

As if becoming aware of the heat of his gaze, Kat slowly lowered her arms and turned to look at him over her shoulder before turning fully to face him.

Dair’s heart started pounding and his mouth went dry as he saw she was making no effort to hide the fact that she returned the heat of that arousal; her eyes were dark and sultry, cheeks flushed, the fullness of her lips slightly moist and parted, her nipples becoming hard, engorged pebbles against the material of her T-shirt even as his gaze slid lower to look at them.

Fuck, he was in trouble.

Serious, deep,
dark
trouble.

What had happened on the plane had only wetted his appetite; the things he had thought of doing with and to Kat since were—

Shit!

His heart ceased beating at all for a second or two when Kat reached for the hem of her T-shirt, her gaze continuing to hold his, as she pulled it slowly upwards, first baring her flat and slender midriff, her ribcage, and then—

Dair stopped breathing again as the T-shirt rose even higher, exposing her lace-covered breasts. They didn’t stay covered for long, as she unfastened it and slid the straps down her arms, baring her breasts completely. They were neither too big nor too small, the nipples engorged and a deep rose in color. Dair already knew those breasts would fit perfectly in the palm of his hand.

In response, his hands began to twitch restlessly at his sides, wanting to cup and squeeze those breasts, to caress and pull on the fullness of the nipples, and hear Kat purr with the same pleasure she had experienced on the plane.

Dair gave a shake of his head to clear it, knowing he wasn’t thinking straight. How could he, when all the blood in his body seemed to now be centered, throbbing, thrumming, along the length of his engorged cock?

The breath he had been holding now left his lungs in an audible whoosh as Kat unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans before pushing them down as far as her thighs, revealing that she wore those brief cream lace panties beneath, panties that barely covered the darkness of her curls.

Dair’s cock gave a painful lurch as she wriggled her hips to shimmy out of her jeans, the fullness of her breasts jiggling enticingly.

Not that he wasn’t enjoying the strip show, far from it, but—“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he rasped harshly, his voice coming out as a growl.

Kat straightened, completely naked now except for those cream lace panties. “The water looks so inviting, I thought I might go in for a swim,” she answered softly, one brow arched questioningly.