Shadow Alpha (19 page)

This woman was going to turn his hair grey in just a matter of days. “I’ll think about it,” he said grudgingly.

“You will?” She clapped her hands together in excitement.

Just
like a child who had been offered an unexpected treat. Or a woman who had lived in a totally enclosing—imprisoning—bubble all of her life.

And Dair was allowing his guilt, over his treatment of her earlier, to once again color his good judgment. Besides which, dressing up in a tux and being polite to a load of people he didn’t even know sounded like his idea of hell.

So much for not letting emotions get in the way.

If he was willing to get dressed up in a tux, as well as give himself a heart attack and grey hair by enduring that security nightmare just to see that happy smile on Kat’s face, then he was totally fucked.

Screwed.

And fucked again.

“Oh, Dair, this is—”

“Another crumbling building in Venice that is slowly sinking—”

“It’s a palace!”

“—into the damned mud, and I have no idea why I ever bought it!”

Kat couldn’t take her eyes off the scene before her as she hung over the ornate balustrade on one of the two balconies outside the just-as-ornate drawing room.

Another of Dair’s men had been waiting to fly the jet on to somewhere else when they came down the steps of the aircraft, a private motor launch waiting for them in one of the smaller canals a short distance away.

Kat was fascinated by the waterways instead of roads, with all types of boats navigating the Grand Canal, from the romantic gondolas to fancy speedboats. Dair had brought them here in one of the fancy speedboats, and parked it in a watery garage beneath the Palace Bellini, much to Kat’s delight.

The fact that Dair owned this palace seemed slightly out of character for the hard and practical man he wanted her to believe he was. Admittedly, Kat had glimpsed a deeply sensual man the previous night as the two of them made love for hours. Dair had proved to be just as wild and inventive a lover as she had suspected he might be, at the same time as he had shown a consideration for her pleasure that a lot of men simply didn’t have. Sergei certainly never had.

But she hadn’t expected Dair to bring them to the Palace Bellini, on the Grand Canal itself, with its ornate exterior architecture and luxurious furnishings inside.

“You own a palace in Venice, Dair,” she stated the irrefutable fact, glad to have something to tease him about after his hours of silent condemnation.

“It’s a business asset,” Dair claimed dismissively. “Owned by a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a company I also own.”

“You own a palace in Venice, Dair Grayson.” Kat was feeling much better after her boat ride in the fresh air, and this palace was beautiful beyond her imaginings. And it was owned by a man who liked to give the impression that he didn’t have a romantic bone in his taut and beautifully muscled body.

“And I said it’s a business asset.” He ran a hand through the darkness of his already ruffled hair.

A gesture Kat had come to realize meant he was either exasperated or uncomfortable. In this case she knew it was the latter.

Because there were plenty of other places Dair could have bought as a ‘business asset’. Ones that made a lot more sense than a ‘crumbling palace sinking into a Venetian canal’.

If Dair really had bought this beautiful building as a business asset then he would surely have turned it into a hotel by now, or possibly leased it out to a bank to use as its headquarters; he wouldn’t have bought it and just left it standing empty and yet beautifully furnished, only to be used on his own infrequent trips here.

“How long have you owned it?” she prompted curiously. “And how often do you manage to come here?”

“Kat—”

“Humor me, hmm, Dair.” She placed an encouraging hand on the warmth of his chest, instantly feeling the way his heart rate increased at her touch.

Telling her that Dair may still be furious with her, but that he still wanted her too.

As if aware of his body’s reaction, his eyes hardened to silver slits. “If you’re trying to distract me, Kat, don’t bother. I haven’t forgotten—even for one second—that I’m still waiting for answers from you.”

She drew in a deep and ragged breath, but determinedly kept her hand on his chest. She needed this connection with Dair. Needed to feel his warmth. Needed to know this palace, the palace that had captured her heart from her first sight of it, meant something to him too. “How long have you owned it, and how often do you manage to come here?”

He scowled his irritation. “You have to be one of the most annoyingly persistent women it has ever been my misfortune to meet!”

“Dair.”

“Ten years, and three, maybe four times a year,” he answered her impatiently. “And each time I intend to put it up for sale, but there is always another call and another job I need to go to before that happens.”

Kat didn’t believe him. Firstly, Dair could only have been in his early twenties when he bought this palace, and so still in the army, or only newly left, from what information he had let slip during their conversations. Secondly, ten years was an awfully long time to ‘intend to put it up for sale’.

Dair had chosen Venice, and the Palace Bellini, as his bolt-hole. The place he came to when those missions were over, so that he could let the tension and strain drain out of him.

And now he had chosen to bring Kat here.

Admittedly they’d had to leave the island in a hurry, but there were dozens of other places Dair could have taken her to where Sergei wouldn’t have found them.

He had
chosen
to bring her here.

Kat’s hand moved up from his chest to curve about the hardness of his cheek. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever lied to me.” She looked up searchingly into those light and glittering eyes. “This is your home, Dair. Your secret lair—”

“Let’s not get carried away here, Kat!” He gave a disgusted snort.

“Shame on you, Dair; you’re about to lie to me again.”

Dair looked at her in pure frustration, furious with her, but even more furious with himself.
Way to go, Dair
; not only had he slept with the woman he was supposed to be protecting, but now he had also brought her to the one place that had no connection to his other life.

No one had known about the palace he owned in Venice. Not his cousin Lucien, and none of his men either. Until today. Kat probably hadn’t been aware of it, but two of his men had followed them from the airport, and were even now standing guard outside, front and back.

Until today Dair had also been known in Venice as Signore Inglesi, the eccentric English businessman who lived alone in the Palace Bellini. A solitary man who occasionally visited the art galleries, walked to one of the small cafés in the square for coffee and a pastry every morning while he read the morning newspaper, and dined in one of the family-owned bistros in the back alleys of the city every night.

Alone.

Always alone.

But not this time. This time he had brought Kat with him. And she was every bit as
curious
as her name.

He only hoped that curiosity didn’t get the two of them killed.

Chapter 12

“Dair…?”

“We aren’t here to talk about me, Kat.” He gave a shake of his head as he stepped away from her, feeling a moment’s regret and tightening in his chest, at that loss as her hand dropped slowly back to her side. “And if anyone has done any lying, then it’s still you. If only by omission.”

Guilty as charged, Kat accepted heavily, even as she acknowledged the germ of an idea that had begun to build inside her.

Dair had owned this palace for years, and his defensive attitude when she questioned him about it seemed to imply that not too many people—if any—knew that he owned and lived in it when he wasn’t working.

In other words,
no one knew Dair owned this palace in Venice.

It would be the perfect place, absolutely perfect, for her to hide away from Sergei and his father—

Who was she kidding; there was nowhere on this planet that was safe for her to hide away from Sergei and Ivan.

“Kat, what the hell are you thinking now?” Dair had watched as the emotions came and went across Kat’s expressive face. Guilt, he had recognized easily. Then the studied concentration. Followed by the lighting up, as if by a light bulb, of those dark eyes.

Followed by a look of defeat. As if what she had been thinking, whatever it might have been, had just as quickly died.

Dair didn’t pretend to understand women—hell, he wasn’t usually around them long enough to do that.

Not true, Grayson
, he instantly rebuked himself. He had spent plenty of time around Nicky, in the weeks before she and Lucien were married. He had learned a healthy respect for her too; that was one determined and gutsy lady. On the run for her life, every minute of every day for years, and still she’d had the courage to stand up to Lucien, who freely admitted to being one arrogant son-of-a-bitch, in a way no other woman had ever done.

Kat reminded Dair of Nicky. A lot.

She gave a rueful shake of her head. “Nothing of any relevance. Would you happen to have any food in your palace?”

“I had food supplies delivered before we arrived.” As a ploy for another way of delaying their conversation it was pretty lame, Dair thought, but it had been hours since the two of them had eaten lunch on the island. It was probably time for them both to eat, get some sleep, and then Kat was going to start giving him those answers.

Whether she wanted to or not. And he knew she didn’t.

She was that tigress, protecting her secrets as if they were her cubs.

But Kat should be aware, that in any battle, whether between the tigress and the shark or between Kat and Dair, there could be only one winner.

And that winner would be Dair.

“What are you doing?” Kat eyed Dair warily as he followed her into the bedroom he had told her was hers while she stayed here, and began taking his wallet, cell phone, and small change out of his jeans pockets and placing them on the bedside table nearest to the door.

He gave her a brief glance before pulling his T-shirt up and over his head.

Rendering Kat momentarily speechless as she was once again faced with that gorgeously muscled chest that she had come to know so intimately the evening before.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” He unfastened the buttons to his jeans.

When Dair had said this was where she would be sleeping for the duration of her stay here, Kat had assumed… Well, she should know by now not to assume anything where Dair was concerned.

They hadn’t discussed the arrangements for their stay here as they’d prepared and then ate lunch together in the beautiful rustic kitchen on the ground floor. They hadn’t spoken much at all. Kat because she was dreading the conversation to come, and Dair—well, even superheroes got tired, and Dair must be exhausted, after so many hours, days, without sleep.

It hadn’t occurred to Kat, after so many hours of Dair’s brooding silence since they had been forced to leave the island so suddenly, that he would now expect them to sleep together. The strain that had existed between the two of them for so many hours wasn’t exactly conducive to the two of them snuggling up in bed together.

“This is your bedroom?” she prompted nervously, the huge, dark wood four-poster certainly looked as if it had been built with someone of Dair’s height and breadth in mind.

“Yeah.” Dair drawled as he sat down on the side of the bed to take off his boots and socks.

“I would be quite happy to sleep in another bedroom.”

“Not happening, Kat.” He stood up to step out of his jeans. “I’ve decided the best way—the only way—for me to protect you, is to never allow you out of my sight.”

“Is that to ensure I don’t fuck up again?”

He stilled, eyes narrowing. “That pretty mouth of yours can be put to a lot of uses, Kat, most of them pleasurable, but using foul language isn’t going to be one of them.”

“Oh please!” Kat eyed him scornfully. “You’re the last person who should lecture me about using foul language.”

He eyed her mildly. “Do you remember what happened the last time you disobeyed me?”

Of course she remembered, there was no possibility of Kat forgetting, when the tight material of her denims was a constant reminder as it rubbed and chafed against her sore bottom.

And how did a man, even one as fine as Dair, manage to look and sound so totally intimidating when he was only wearing a pair of soft black cotton boxers?

Her shoulders went back determinedly. “I’m not frightened of you, Dair Grayson.” She was absolutely confident that Dair would never truly physically hurt her. Besides, what could he possibly do to her that was worse than living with Sergei and Ivan for the past five years?

“No?”

“No.”

“Then maybe you should be.” He deliberately held her gaze with his as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers and slowly—oh-so-slowly—began to push them downwards.