Pavel was an asshole.
She swore in a combination of English and Russian as she picked up the scattered roses and placed them in a vase. She closed her eyes, hesitating for a second, a brief moment where she would allow herself to believe this was not happening again. She let out the breath she was holding and then set the peach roses in her front window to let Pavel know she was in play.
If Georgina was being dragged away from her hot bath and into the Baltic night, she was at least going to try to enjoy it. Leave it to Pavel to try to destroy the one thing she loved the most about Russia.
No, she would not let him.
She loved the Hermitage. This was her place, where she went to escape it all. She was here now, and she would enjoy it before she found her target. As she moved past the crowds and down the massive hall that led to the Boudoir of Empres Mariya Aleksandrovna, Georgina avoided looking at the guards in case they recognized her from the ballet. The room glowed as the dim twinkling lights of the chandelier illuminated the massive space. The thirty-foot ceilings were vaulted and covered with intricate gold detail. The walls were painted a rich burnt orange with long vertical panels punctuated with yet more golden woodwork. Dozens of high-backed velvet chairs, in the exact shade of orange, were dotted around the room. No one was allowed to sit in them now, so they had remained untouched for over a hundred years. She loved looking at these rooms, the private ones, the ladies’ parlors and boudoirs. This was where secrets were told and life was lived. What had it been like to live here for the people that had called this place home when it was the Winter Palace before it was the Hermitage? Looking at it now, it seemed perfect, beautiful, and privileged. But Georgina knew better than to think it really had been perfect for anyone because her life looked like that from the outside too. She sighed. She did not have any more time to think about that now or to daydream about the past.
Georgina turned and went back down the hall toward the crowd. She had to face it. But first she would visit the ladies’ room and make sure she looked the part of a prima ballerina because she certainly did not feel it.
She stared at her reflection in the gilded mirror. She had considered wearing her hair up in a bun. That was what people expected of her, how they recognized her from the stage, but she kept it down, styling it in loose curls that fell past her waist. Tonight was about seduction. Men liked her hair. Her lovers always complimented her on her red hair. They especially liked the small triangle of tight red curls at the apex of her thighs. Ice ran down the length of her spine when she realized again that it would be Roman Zakharov she would be sharing a bed with tonight. Zakharov inside her, kissing her, touching her. She frowned but quickly stopped when a crease marred the space between her eyes. Her face was her fortune—actually her body was. Her body filled the seats and paid the bills, but it didn’t hurt that she was beautiful, especially for this secret part of her life.
Georgina looked around to make sure she was alone in the public bathroom before she reached into the deep plunge of her neckline and tweaked her nipples; they needed to be hard points straining against the crimson silk. Men loved that. Her breasts were not large, but they were high and firm.
She took a deep breath and held it. Her other targets had at least been attractive if not handsome. She closed her eyes. It didn’t matter; she would grin and bear it with Zakharov the way she did with everyone else. Her mind was drawn to the Hans, the Dutch diplomat. She had liked him. That had been a good job. He’d only occasionally wanted to fuck; he preferred rubbing lotion into her feet and telling her stories of his childhood in the Hague. In his mind they’d been more than lovers; they’d been soul mates, probably because she was the only one who would listen to him speak for hours about the smells that came from his beloved mama’s kitchen. Who knew Dutch food smelled so good? God, she’d liked him. He was so easy the way he fell into a deep sleep as soon as he came and then she was free to look through his things and take pictures. She missed him; she would gladly go back to screwing him once a week or the NATO inspector. He was a bit more difficult. He liked to fuck a lot, always in the missionary position, but it was over quickly and then he loved to talk. He would answer absolutely anything she asked. Sometimes she didn’t even need to ask; he would just start talking to impress her, and she was impressed—with how easy he made things for her.
She was stalling now. No point in postponing the inevitable. The sooner she started with Roman, the sooner she would finish. It was like everything else in her life; she would bear down and take the pain. She suddenly realized she had forgotten to check what tonight’s fundraiser was for, not that it mattered. She was supposed to be vacuous; that was part of her cover.
Georgina stepped out of the bathroom and followed the crowd through to the Gold Room. She took a moment to appreciate the surroundings. Nothing came close to the over-the-top opulence of the Hermitage. High above her, the curved ceilings were painted in gold leaf. Like the other room, the finish made the room glow. Light was provided by two massive chandeliers, each the size of a tank and with hundreds of tapered arms that held softly glowing bulbs. Even the floors were a work of art. Sixteen different species of wood were laid out in an intricate pattern, creating a masterpiece to rival anything on the walls. The whole scene was something out of a fairy tale, right down to the string quartet playing in the corner. It was just as glamorous as she expected life in the ballet to be when she was a little girl dreaming of a tiara and a pink tutu. Sadly most of her dreams did not live up to the reality of life as a dancer, but the splendor of the Hermitage never failed to impress.
Hundreds of men in tuxedos and women in long flowing cocktail dresses lined the floor. She could make out conversations in French and Russian and English. She took them all in, processing them, filtering out anything useful, quickly assessing each face she passed to register anyone familiar or seemingly out of place.
Several people tried to speak to her as she crossed the room, but she smiled and kept walking. She had spent far too long in the bathroom psyching herself up. Roman could leave soon. After all, he had a beautiful Spanish model on his arm. No doubt he would want to take her home and bed her, but Georgina would make sure she was the one Roman took home tonight.
Other women might see another woman as an obstacle, but Georgina saw her for what she was, a minor inconvenience. All but one of her targets had been married, and none of them had turned her down. In some ways it didn’t really matter what she looked like. Men were always eager to sleep with a prima ballerina—any ballerina actually. They never knew the difference between principal dancers and the chorus. Men were stupid.
Georgina took the glass of champagne the waiter offered. She paused to take a long, hard look at Roman Zakharov. His back was to her, so she could not see the scars she knew dominated the left side of his body. All she could see was his thick blond hair, massive shoulders, and his towering height. He stood a good head taller than the men around him. She’d had no idea he was that big. A bolt of terror shot through her. Her heart pounded painfully against her ribs. Silently she swore at Pavel and wished him dead, not for the first time.
“Fear and excitement are the same emotion
.” That was what her Grandma Margaret told Georgina the first time she was about to go onstage. She’d been terrified, almost frozen with stage fright; she loved dancing, not being watched by strangers. Her grandmother had taken her aside and said,
“Do you feel that sensation in your stomach? That is your body telling you that you are excited. Some people confuse that feeling with fear because it feels the same, but you are clever. You know it is excitement.”
From that moment on Georgina never felt nervous. She got butterflies when she was standing offstage waiting to come out, sometimes almost debilitating excitement, but she never called it fear.
Excitement.
She took in a sharp breath. That was what she felt. Her palms were slick and her heart nearing fibrillation because she was excited. Georgina threw back her head and downed half the champagne.
Fuck it
. This was straight-up fear. She could not sugarcoat it.
She forced one foot in front of the other. The first thing she needed to do was get the model out of the picture. She was hanging on Roman, her arms looped through his. Georgina rolled her eyes. The woman was stunning: jet-black hair, olive skin, high cheekbones, and breasts larger than her frame could naturally handle. What on earth could the beautiful woman see in the multibillionaire oligarch?
Gee, I wonder?
Georgina waited until Roman and his artificial-breasted appendage moved. The model was walking toward the waiter, presumably to get liquored up enough to let the ugly Russian giant pound away on top of her. This was her moment. In an instant Georgina crossed the polished floor to them. Georgina stared straight ahead as she slipped her foot in front of the Spanish woman. The model went flying. She reached out her hands, but there was nothing for her to hold on to except the silver tray laden with champagne flutes. Glass shattered. There were audible gasps followed by muffled laughter, but Georgina didn’t even look down. She kept her eyes focused on her target. She didn’t feel even the smallest sliver of regret. She was doing the woman a favor after all; tonight Roman would be grunting and sweating on top of Georgina. The woman could thank her for her night off later.
Slowly Roman turned to face her, and this time the rush of air came from her. His presence filled the room; it sucked out all available oxygen. Her peripheral vision went black; all she could see was the commanding man in front of her. There was so much of him to take in, a solid, masculine wall. She was frozen. She could not look away even if she’d wanted to. His face was far more scarred than the grainy pictures in the paper had captured. The skin on the entire left side of his face was raised and knotted, smooth and shiny like new skin, and discolored like a fresh burn. The edges around his mouth and eye seemed tight like there was not enough flesh left to cover his large features.
His stare pinned her in place. His eyes were the palest shade of blue, like artic ice, and they held nearly as much warmth. Georgina took in a ragged breath. The papers did not show the color of his eyes either. Behind the heavy material of his tuxedo jacket, clear lines of muscle defined his large body. The desire to run overpowered her. Fight or flight was real, and fleeing was her only option. She could never take him on. Pavel was insane. Roman Zakharov could snap her neck with a flick of his wrist. Absently she patted the small vial in her purse. It wouldn’t be enough. She would need a horse tranquilizer to topple this man.
Behind her, the model muttered something about going to the bathroom to clean up. Galvanized, Georgina made her move. Slowly she edged closer to Roman. She stood on her tiptoes so she could whisper in his ear. “Beauty without grace.”
“Is the hook without the bait.” Roman surprised her by finishing the quote.
Her eyes widened. She did not expect him to know the quote, and she didn’t expect the small tug of his mouth. There was a shadow of a smile on his full lips.
“Are you a fan of Emerson?” he asked. He was eyeing her intently like he really did want to know her opinion.
Georgina took a deep breath. She was beautiful and talented. That was what people expected of her, what they saw. Very rarely was she asked her opinion on anything of substance. She wasn’t expected to have one, though ironically she had an opinion on most things. “I have complicated feelings about him,” she began tentatively, testing to see if he really did want her opinion.
He continued to scrutinize her. Even without the scars he would have been frightening. His gaze was so cold it was hard to tell what he was thinking. That was not unique to him. Georgina found Russians in general to be masters of the “flat effect.” They gave nothing away with their expressions; everything was guarded, almost emotionless. Perhaps it was a relic of living under a police state. “I agree with his assessment of the necessity of self-reliance, and in theory I like the ideas of Transcendentalism because the rejection of the reliance on any deity is a step in the right direction, but I think he gives people far too much credit. There is no inherent goodness in people…or in nature for that matter,” she admitted.
Roman gave her a hard stare. “No faith in God or man,” he said simply. “Seems a rather bleak outlook.” His English was perfect but heavily accented.
Georgina shrugged. This was not part of the seduction, explaining her philosophical views, but he had asked and she could seduce him later. Once he was on top of her, he would lose all interest in anything she had to say. “I have faith in myself, which is essentially what Emerson argued, but I do not share his optimism. I don’t think everyone has a moral compass or a spark of the divine, but I think everyone has a need for self-preservation. That is the true driving force in life: to survive and reproduce.”
“A fan of social Darwinism?” he asked.
Georgina shrugged. “Not a fan any more than I am of rape or murder, but I acknowledge they exist. I would love to say people are lovely and altruistic at their core, but unfortunately I have met people.” She took another long sip of her champagne. She had not intended to drink so much, but he made her nervous. She was just talking now to fill air space or maybe because there was a receptive listener. But she needed to focus, get her head back in the game. She knew the drill. He would say something mildly amusing, and she would laugh and touch his arm, stroke his ego, then his body.
Roman looked off in the distance where his date had just disappeared. It gave her a chance to study his face without openly staring. It was as grotesque as she had imagined, but he wasn’t ugly—not that he was handsome. He was far too scarred for that, but his sheer presence made him captivating. His pale blue gaze returned to her. “Ironic to deny altruism at a charity event.”