Shadow Alpha (25 page)

“I also think that a couple of days of amazing sex doesn’t give you the right to even
think
about telling me what to do,” she continued determinedly.

Dair arched one dark, speculative eyebrow. “Amazing sex, hmm?”

“Stop trying to distract me, Dair.” She gave an impatient shake of her head. “Because it isn’t working.”

That hadn’t exactly been Dair’s intention—if anyone was being distracted, then it was him. The sex between the two of them was amazing, unbelievably so.

But after last night, after that incredible sexual chemistry had sent them up in flames again with the slightest touch, and then the two of them lying in bed together afterwards, with Dair spilling his guts out about Karin McLeer, he was more convinced than ever that there was something more going on here. He felt a connection to Kat that he had never experienced with any other woman—

Oh stop prettying it up, Grayson, and admit the truth to yourself, at least!

He was in love with Katya Markovic.

There, he’d acknowledged his feelings, inwardly, at least.

Saying it to Kat wasn’t an option. Not yet. As far as Kat was concerned, she had
thought
she was married to Sergei until just two months ago, and five years of believing she was the other man’s wife couldn’t be forgotten just because she had discovered she had never been married to the bastard at all. She had also lost a baby those same two months ago.

She didn’t need Dair the Barbarian staking a claim.

What she did need was time to heal, to forget, before she could even think about another serious relationship. And Dair was serious. Very much so.

He was going to do everything he could to ensure that Kat was given all the time she needed in which to heal.

Which was why he had waited until Kat had fallen asleep the night before and then eased gently out of bed to go and telephone Gregori Markovic. In order for Kat to be free of the terrible burden she was carrying around with her, Gregori needed to know the truth about Kat’s non-existent marriage, then the two men needed to go and talk to Sergei and Ivan Orlov, after which Kat would be free to return to England with her brother.

It was here that Dair’s plan grew a bit hazy.

A bit? This was where Dair stumbled
a lot
.

What did he know about ‘wooing and winning’ a woman? Fuck all, was the answer.

Then he would have to damn well learn, and quickly, because once this was over he intended on being in Kat’s life. Not as an affair, but permanently.

His mouth tightened now. “You aren’t coming with us, Kat, and that’s final,” he added firmly as he could see she was about to argue the point again; just the thought of Kat anywhere near Sergei or Ivan Orlov sent shivers of alarm down Dair’s spine.

Those bastards had almost destroyed Kat once, they wouldn’t be given the opportunity to so much as try again. Gregori hadn’t said much during their telephone conversation last night, but Dair had been left in no doubts, from that icy silence, that the other man’s retribution would be short and not very sweet.

After this morning, Gregori probably had a damn good idea how Dair felt about all of it. Including Kat.

He wouldn’t be surprised if the bastard had planned for this to happen when he chose Dair to go and find Kat; Gregori may be more urbane than his father, but just as wily.
 

“You love it here, Kat,” he tried a different approach. “You like Lijah, too, from what I can remember.” His jaw tightened as he remembered those feelings of jealousy he had suffered when Kat and Lijah had stood talking together so comfortably yesterday while he checked out the jet.

Feelings that had no place here and now, not if he wanted Kat to be safe while he was gone. He knew Lijah would ensure that happened.

“I’ll ask him to look into taking you to one of those masked balls you asked me about,” he added cajolingly. “Lijah looks better in a tux than me, anyway.”

Kat doubted that very much. Dair was so tall and muscled, imposingly so, and she had no doubts he would look magnificent in a tux.

Besides which… “I’m not a child you can offer a treat in the hopes of distracting me. I’m coming with you and Gregori—”

“No-you’re-not!” Dair grated fiercely.

Kat remembered that same fierceness from the night before, when Dair had told her she wasn’t going anywhere without him. Well this was a two-way street, and if she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without Dair then he wasn’t going to New York without her either. Especially not to see Sergei and Ivan.

Her jaw tightened. “I’m grateful for all that you’ve done for me, Dair—”

“Define ‘grateful’?” he growled.

Kat eyed him warily, sensing a leashed fury inside Dair now that was likely to break free at the slightest provocation. The problem was Kat had no idea what that provocation might be.

“Did you have sex with me out of ‘gratitude’, Kat?” Dair’s voice was dangerously low.

“No!” Kat gasped. “Did you have sex with me out of pity?” she challenged in return.

“Fuck, no.” He looked taken aback at the suggestion.

They were both breathing hard, glaring, the tension between them tangible.

Kat was the one to finally break as she ran the moistness of her tongue over the dryness of her lips. “This is my problem, and I’m coming with you, Dair, and nothing you or Gregori have to say is going to shake my resolve.”

Dair continued to frown his frustration with her pigheadedness for several long seconds, and then he gave a defeated sigh. “If you go—if you go, Kat,” he repeated firmly as she began to smile, obviously sensing she had won this argument. As she seemed to win most of them. “Then you have to accept, as do I, that Gregori will be the one doing the talking.”

And Dair didn’t like it one little bit; he would much rather rip Sergei’s head from his shoulders, for what he had done to Kat, but he knew there was an etiquette to these things, a hierarchy he would have to accede to. For now. Gregori was Kat’s brother, and her closest male relative, as well as head of the Markovic family. Dair was hoping to change at least one of those things, but for the moment he had to just appreciate the fact that Gregori was even allowing him to be present at the meeting he had arranged to have with the Orlovs.

“Sergei was my husband— Well, not really,” Kat frowned, not quite sure what Sergei had been to her; given a choice, a real choice that didn’t involve the Markovic and Orlov families, she would never have chosen to live with him. “I think the past five years give me the right to say what the hell I like, to him and Ivan!”

Dair gave a grimace. “Try telling Gregori that.”

“Oh I intend to.” Kat nodded. “Besides, I think Sergei is in more danger from you than he is from me.” There was no missing the fact that Dair’s body was leashed and ready for battle, the defined muscles in his chest and arms clearly tensed, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

He shrugged. “As long as Sergei keeps his mouth shut, and lets Gregori and Ivan do the talking, there should be no problem.”

Kat eyed him skeptically, having already recognized that coiled anger for exactly what it was.

She had no idea what she would say to Sergei, given the opportunity, but these past few days with Dair had done so much to restore her self-confidence, in herself and as an attractive woman.

She would meet Sergei again for exactly what she now was, daughter and sister to the head of the Markovic family, and lover of Dair Grayson.

Chapter 16

Dair wasn’t so sure about his ability to remain silent, or keep his fists to himself, once the three of them had been shown into Ivan Orlov’s study later that day.

If Sergei gave Kat just one more sneering glance then Dair knew he was going to lose it, etiquette and hierarchy be damned.

How the hell Gregori had managed to remain calm through the farce of the meeting and greeting and being offered refreshment, which he had refused, without ripping Ivan or Sergei’s throat out, was beyond Dair’s comprehension.

Gregori’s expression was completely unreadable, and had been since the plane landed an hour ago at the private airfield, when he had asked to be driven to the clinic where Kat had been held prisoner for six weeks.

Gregori’s haughty demeanor alone would have been enough to gain them entrance, but the armed men surrounding him had ensured it. Dair had tried to dissuade Kat from going back into that hellhole, but again she had been adamant, meaning Dair had no choice but to go inside too.

He could feel his own anger rising as they’d approached the room where he had found Kat tied to her chair just days ago. Gregori’s face had been a cold, hard mask as he paced the room that had been Kat’s prison, before crossing back to the door where she stood and taking both her hands in his to look at the abrasions on her wrists from the restraints. He had then kissed each wrist in turn before placing his arm about Kat’s waist and returning outside to the cars, all without a word having been spoken.

But Dair had seen Gregori’s eyes as he straightened from kissing Kat’s wrists, had seen the merciless fury glowing deep in the depths of those cold obsidian irises. His own telephone call to the police three days ago may have put the clinic under investigation, but that fury in Gregori’s eyes had told him the older man would ensure that the place was taken apart, brick by brick.

Dair stood at the back of Ivan Orlov’s study now, Lijah next to him, the rest of Gregori’s men waiting outside but ready to enter at the first sign of trouble.

As for Kat…

If Dair hadn’t already known he was in love with her then he would have fallen, and fallen hard, just watching her as she sat so cool and regal at Gregori’s side, her face pale but stunningly beautiful.

Dair just wanted to pick her up and carry her out of here, take her somewhere no one could find them, and just make love to and with her for days and days without end.

Instead he was forced to stand and watch as Gregori and Ivan played some sort of mindfuck game with their eyes, neither man speaking as they each waited for one of them to break that silence.

As might have been expected, it was that arrogant bastard Sergei who eventually spoke first, marching over to stand just in front of Dair to look him up and down contemptuously. “Are you the stupid fucker that took Kat out of the clinic where she was being treated for depression—” He broke off with a startled gurgle as Dair moved quickly, pinning him up against one of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, hand about Sergei’s throat as his feet dangled three inches off the floor.

Dair shoved his face into the other’s man’s rapidly reddening one, totally ignoring Sergei’s efforts to pull Dair’s hand off his throat. “Don’t even speak her name again, you contemptuous little shit!”

“Call your man off, Gregori—”

“Dair is not ‘my man’,” Gregori answered Ivan evenly.

“He’s mine,” Kat spoke calmly.

Dair wanted to turn and look at her in the brief silence that followed her announcement, but he was otherwise engaged with Sergei Orlov.

Didn’t stop him from thinking, though. Did she mean it? Was he ‘her man’? If he wasn’t then he was very soon going to be!

“Are you saying that you and this man—”

“Have a care what you say now, Ivan,” Gregori warned softly. “As I said, Dair is his own man, but I am sure, if I were to ask nicely, that he would apply just the right amount of pressure to rid the world of the piece of slime you call your son.”

“In a heartbeat,” Dair confirmed without taking his eyes off the still-struggling Sergei as he squeezed the other man’s throat just a little tighter, not enough to kill him—yet—but enough that Sergei was really having trouble breathing now.

“There is really no need for any of these threats of violence,” Ivan sounded agitated.

“No?” Gregori came back with deceptive mildness; Dair didn’t need to see the other man’s eyes now to know they were still in the same killer mode his own had been in since Kat told him the truth last night.

“It is unfortunate that Kat and Sergei have been having some marital problems since losing the baby—”

“There was no legal marriage, so there can be no ‘marital problems’,” Gregori broke in icily. “And I believe what you meant to say was that
your son pushed my sister down the stairs, killing her baby and almost killing her too, after which the two of you had her imprisoned in a private clinic, watched over by the staff you employed to have her restrained in a chair whenever your bastard of a son went to visit her!
”

Until that moment Kat hadn’t known how much Gregori knew of the past five years; it seemed that Dair really had told her brother everything during their telephone conversation the previous night.

She and Gregori hadn’t really spoken much on the plane here, and Kat had assumed that was because her brother was tired; she now realized he had simply been too angry to speak before now.

He turned to look at Dair. “Might I suggest that you release him now?” he spoke pleasantly, as if he were discussing the weather.

“Then perhaps the two of us can talk of this matter like two civilized men,” Ivan sounded relieved at Gregori’s show of lenience.

“Civilized?” Gregori echoed mildly. “Your son is a product of your making, Ivan,” his voice hardened dangerously. “A weak, self-centered, arrogant bully,” he added so that there should be no doubts.