The Russian's Dangerous Game (14 page)

She shook her head. “It defies logic. We don’t know anything about each other.”

The microwave pinged, letting them both know that their food was now heated.

He took the food out and, carrying both plates in his hands, nudged her off of the counter and into the cozy sitting room. “Press the button over there,” he told her, indicating a black switch on the wall. When she pressed the button, the fire lit up, giving the room a warmth that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Why don’t you sit down and eat something while I open a bottle of wine. We’ll talk, you’ll tell me about your secrets and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“
What about the deal where you give me clues all weekend?”

He chuckled and pulled a bottle of red wine off of one of the shelves, checking the label before pulling out
a device that quickly dispensed with the cork. “I think we’re well beyond those games.” He poured two glasses, then handed one to her before sitting down next to her. “I’ll trust you, if you’ll promise to let me keep you safe.”

She sipped her wine as she contemplated that request. “Are you telling me that what you’re doing isn’t safe?”

“It’s safe enough for me. But not very safe for a sweet, gentle reporter who might break the story before all the pieces fall into place.”

She watched him closely and her curiosity got the better of her common
sense. She couldn’t believe she was going to do this, and it would probably come back to bite her in the end, but she was going to trust him. She had no other choice. She suspected that her feelings were much more involved than she’d like them to be. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

He pushed a lock of hair off of her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. “Why do you want this story so badly? Why are you hiding out in barns and following strangers into the mountains?”

She held her glass of wine in both hands, forgetting about the food sitting on the coffee table as she curled her legs up underneath her. She couldn’t look him in the eye as she explained. “I’m a fluff reporter. I do all the silly, girly stories that none of the other, real reporters, want to take on.”

“What do you mean?” he asked gently, trying to coax more out of her. “I’ve read your stories. They’re very good. You describe the people and the parties with amazing detail.”

She sighed, her shoulders drooping slightly. “I know. I can talk about a woman’s lace dress until people are basically throwing up with irritation. I can make people goo-goo about the tulips in the spring and the various flower shows and garden parties. But is that really what a good reporter wants to deal with?”

He looked at her carefully. “Do you like doing that kind of writing?” he asked.

Unable to hold his gaze, she shrugged and looked back at the flames dancing in the hearth. “I used to.”

“What changed your perception of the job?”

She remembered that horrible morning, thinking it had been the best and worst of her adult life
, which in itself was embarrassing. It’s not like she was diagnosed with cancer or had a death in the family. It had only been her pride that had endured the wound.

A part of her didn’t want to tell him, too ashamed of the truth. She liked the admiration she saw in his eyes when he looked at her. Telling him this next part would have him looking at her differently. But she’d made a commitment, so she forced her lips to explain the full story, hoping she wasn’t putting her trust in the wrong place. She was fairly certain he wouldn’t laugh at her or
agree with this other person, but….she took a sip of the rich, red wine and spilled the issue. “One of the reporters had just come back from a war zone and my editor had tasked her with writing up the opening of the botanical garden’s fall showing. It comes out every August and is a huge deal for a certain group of the newspaper’s readership.”

“And?” he prompted
gently when she fell silent.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “And,
I love that event. I was devastated when my editor gave it to Dora, the other reporter but I was covering another story that day.” She couldn’t look at him, too ashamed of how silly her aspirations were. “This was also compounded by the fact that Rachel, one of my best friends…”

“You’ve mentioned Rachel and Nikki before.”

Brianna smiled weakly. “Well, Rachel dared herself to go after her dreams. She went up to Maine and asserted herself into this man’s life, got the internship she’d been working towards for years and even ended up marrying the man of her dreams.”

Rocco’s mind made the leaps necessary to piece together her story. “
Your friend is married to Jack?” he asked.

Brianna’s eyes snapped up to his. “You know Jack?” The fact that Rocco knew Emerson Jackson’s nickname was startling. “How do you know Jack?”

Rocco smiled slightly. “He and I have done a lot of business together. He’s a good man. And Rachel is very sweet. I like her.”

This was startling news. “How in the world do you know Rachel?”

Rocco laughed. “I was up at their house about a week ago. I go up every so often to sail with Jack. He has a great ship. I’ve been trying to buy it from him for about ten years.”

The realization that he didn’t just know Jack, but was friends with one of her best friend’s husband went a long way towards reassuring her that he was a good man. “I don’t know about the boat. But I like Jack. He’s good for Rachel.”

Rocco rolled his eyes and chuckled slightly. “I don’t know about that, but Rachel is good for Jack. She’s gotten him out of his rut.”

Brianna didn’t realize it, bu
t her body language spoke volumes. Before, she’d been leaning back, wanting to trust him but holding something in reserve just in case her instincts were wrong. They’d obviously been incorrect in the past few days so she was struggling to figure out which was the right reaction to this man.

“Jack is very kind.”

Rocco threw back his head and laughed. He’d never heard his friend referred to as “kind” before. “I can guarantee that Jack is kind to very few people.”

Brianna smiled brightly. “Well, then I consider his
kindness towards me and Nikki an even bigger gift.”

“You should. He must consider you very special if he was nice to you.
And if you know him as Jack. Most people have only heard of him as Emerson.”

Brianna smiled, nodding her head. “That’s a whole other story.”

“But back to the original topic. Why were you so upset about your friend meeting Jack?”

“Because she stepped out of her comfort zone.
She wanted something and went after it, unconcerned with the obstacles.”

He was starting to understand. “And you are trying to step out of your comfort zone.” It wasn’t a question. He could see the anxiety in her eyes, knew that she wasn’t comfortable both with the conversation as well as
what she was going to tell him. “I thought you liked the stories on which you reported.”

She sighed. “I do. But I’m not stretching myself. I’m just doing what’s comfortable.”

He reached out and touched her cheek. “Perhaps there’s a difference in stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something you don’t like.”

She couldn’t believe how perceptive he was. She grimaced as she looked up at him. “I really don’t like investigative reporting,” she answered softly, shyly
, as if she were ashamed to admit it.

He chuckled. “I’d already figured that out.” He put the plate of food on her lap. “So what would be stretching yourself and not doing something you hate?”

She thought about telling him, but at the last moment, she shook her head. “I don’t know. Probably just something simple.”

Rocco saw that she’d been about to say something
different, but pulled back at the last moment. Baby steps, he told himself. “Well, this story might be your breakout article,” he said. “You might not like being an investigative reporter, but your instincts were right on.”

She perked up with that news. “What do you mean?”

“The memo you photographed?” he prompted. When she nodded, he went on. “It’s a plan developed between me and my friend, the Sheik of Yafar, Nazar Iha Zayid. He has a whole bunch of other names,” Rocco waved his hand in the air dismissively, “but you can call him Nazar. He’s the man I was meeting with that night at the dance club.”

Brianna couldn’t believe this. She wiggled on the sofa, completely forgetting the hunger that had driven her out of bed earlier.
“What’s the plan about?”

“I’m from Russia. I grew up
there, know lots of people from there, both good and bad. So when I discovered someone was fixing prices on oil revenues about two years ago, which affected not only my oil companies, but those of Nazar’s country’s as well as many others, we set up a plan. The issue is that the people who created the price fixing scheme are powerful and have no mercy. They will kill anyone who gets in their way or tries to stop them. They’re making a lot of money off of this plan and won’t permit anyone to get in the way.”

Her eyes were wide with fear. Not for herself, but for Rocco. “Who are they?” she asked, swallowing painfully at the idea of anyone hurting Rocco.

He hesitated again, not sure how much to reveal to her. Not because he didn’t trust her but more because he wanted to protect her. “I’ll give you names and details, along with copies of the evidence we’re handing over to the authorities. But there are several conditions,” he stated firmly.

“What?” she asked, ready to agree to just about anything to prove
Dora and all the others wrong.

“You might not like these conditions,” he cautioned.

She waved that aside, eagerly waiting for any information. “I’ll go with anything,” she agreed.

He smiled at her eagerness. Brianna’s enthusiasm had transformed her from a beautiful woman to an eager, excited woman. Both
personas were fascinating, he thought.

“First, you have to stay with me until this is all over.”

She thought about that for a moment, biting her lower lip as she considered all of the ramifications of this condition. “How long will it take to be over?”

“It could be finished tomorrow or next week. Either way, you don’t leave my side until everything is cleared up and the authorities have everyone under guard. Do you agree?”

She blushed at the idea of being with him for a week. “I think I could deal with that,” she said, a bit more softly because she was thinking about how nice it would be to stay with him for a week. Or even a month or maybe a year. Perhaps a lifetime. She shook her head to clear that thought. He wasn’t offering that. Just protection for a few days. “Agreed,” she said, remembering to keep in mind that this was only a temporary situation. “What else?”

Rocco leaned forward, a finger running down her cheek. “You have to protect my sources.”

“That’s a no-brainer. You don’t even have to tell me names or even identities. What I don’t know can’t hurt them.”

He smiled slightly, more turned on by her excitement than he ever thought possible. “And I get to see the final draft before you submit the story to your editor.”

She laughed and leaned slightly closer. “I have no issues with that.”

He smiled slightly, his eyes looking down at her lips. “You’re not eating your dinner.”

She smiled, a sexy I-want-you smile that made all the blood in his body shift downwards. “I forgot.”

With her words, and the heated look in her eyes, he couldn’t hold back any longer. With one swift move, she was once again in his lap, her legs straddling him as his hands moved up underneath the shirt she’d donned earlier. “You’re beautiful,” he groaned.

Brianna’s smile disappeared when he shifted ever so slightly, making their bodies line up more perfectly. “So are you,” she whispered, her hands moving along the broad, muscular expanse of his shoulders, then moving downwards.

A moment later, he entered her and she sighed with happiness as desire caused her to abandon her shyness. This was Rocco, she thought. This was the real man. This was the person she’d been trying to discover.

“I was right,” she sighed as he lifted her hips, causing the friction to send intense, mind-boggling shivers through her body.

Rocco pulled the shirt open and cupped her perfect breasts in each of his hands. “What were you right about?” he asked, thinking about all the things he thought were right about her.

“You aren’t the man you show to the rest of the world.” She looked up into his eyes, her own filled with desire and need. “You’re more special than anything I could have imagined.”

Rocco groaned with those words. He knew he wasn’t special but if she wanted him to be special, he was damn sure going to figure out how to be special. He’d never met anyone as sweet and kind and honest as this woman, not to mention how she made him crazy with the need to possess and, astonishingly, protect her. This sense of possessiveness was new and more than a little startling. But as his years in business had taught him, he accepted this new feeling, absorbed it. Brianna was his. As he lifted her higher, his mouth attaching to a perfect raspberry nipple and hearing her cries as her body strained even more against his, he knew he would protect her with his life.