Sofia

  SEPTEMBER

  Having spent my entire summer in running shoes, wearing heels again felt almost alien. The dress I’d gone shopping for with my mother earlier in the week was also a nearly foreign sensation since I’d only worn jeans and T-shirts for months. But my legs were more toned from waiting tables at Aggie’s and serving drinks at Hannigans’.

  The short skirt of my black dress and my red heels showcased just how amazing my calf muscles looked. I stepped out of the limo after my parents exited the vehicle then slid my hand through my father’s free arm as he escorted my mother and me inside the charity gala my mom had spent the summer planning.

  Around us, cameras were flashing from every direction, making it feel like we were on the red carpet at some celebrity award show. No awards would be handed out this particular evening. Every person in attendance was there to write big fat checks for the women’s shelters throughout the city. Not necessarily out of the goodness of their hearts, but because it made them look good in the press—and they got to write off the generous donation on their taxes.

  I’d rarely made an appearance at these events in the past. They had always seemed boring and unworthy of my time, something I now suspected had hurt my mother’s feelings. What did I care about strangers in need when my head had been high in the clouds, everything I could possibly want at my fingertips?

  Thankfully, Raven Reid and her family had pulled me back down to earth—and forcefully extracted my head from my ass. After working several shifts at Sanctuary, the women’s shelter run by Gracie Hannigan and her son, Jack, I’d gotten firsthand experience of what went on inside those safe havens for desperate women in need. Now I would do anything to assist those who sought nothing more than a warm bed and a secure place to sleep through the night. Not just for themselves, but many times for their children as well.

  “I’m so thrilled you came with us tonight, la mia dolce bambina,” Mom murmured with a huge smile as she and I posed for a picture for one of the biggest society papers in the city. “I want you to know how proud I am of you. After everything that happened at Theo’s wedding, I was worried. But when you got home last week, I swear, it was like you were a new person.”

  I slipped my arm around her waist and smiled down at her. “I am a new person, Mom,” I assured her. “Raven and her family taught me many lessons, but mostly, they made me look inside myself. And I didn’t like what I saw.”

  Tears filled her brown eyes. “That’s my fault, Sofia. I did a poor job of raising you the way I should have. Maybe—”

  “Hush,” I instructed, shaking my head at her. “You did an amazing job. You and Dad are great parents. It was me, not you.”

  Dad came up behind us after one more picture was snapped. “I think we should finally go in, kotyonok,” he said, kissing the top of my mother’s head.

  Inside, the place was bustling with people who had more money than they knew what to do with. My mother was all too willing to take every cent they had for her charities, and with tickets at five thousand per person, they all knew it too. Room after room was set up with silent auctions of items Mom had twisted arms and conned out of companies to “donate” to the event. But the auctioned items weren’t the only attractions.

  Open bars were set up in each room. The grander the prizes, the better the alcohol in that particular room. Multiple live bands were playing, ranging from pop to rock to classic orchestra. Canapés on platters served by women in skintight black pants and matching tops were circulated throughout the entire event, while the sound of champagne waterfalls offered an oddly soothing ambiance in the rooms where the live bands weren’t performing.

  Many would look at the event and think very little of the money raised would go to the charity it was supposedly for. But my mother had a gift, which she exploited unashamedly. Everything had been donated, so the fees for the event itself were minuscule, and she always paid those out of the trust fund her father had left her. Meaning that the women’s shelters throughout New York were all about to have an influx of funds they could put to good use.

  Taking a glass of champagne from a server, I sipped at it as I wandered from room to room. I’d lost both of my parents to a small crowd not long after we’d walked through the door, and with security so tight, I was given the freedom of enjoying the event without a half dozen men in suits following me, drawing too many curious eyes.

  Walking into one of the auction rooms, I saw the armed guards first, then the pieces of jewelry they were guarding. Table after table, I passed pieces that were pretty, but I either already had something similar at home or they just weren’t my style.

  But then I got to the back of the room and stopped with my flute of expensive bubbly halfway to my mouth when I saw the emerald necklace. Diamonds were interspersed along the chain, but the centerpiece was the most exquisite emerald I’d ever laid eyes on. Slowly, I lowered the glass of champagne without taking a drink, placed it on a table, and stepped closer.

  I could feel the two guards on either side of the display sizing me up, but I paid them no mind as I bent my head to read the information card. The diamonds had been mined in Siberia, but the emerald was from the Ural Mountains. Other than my parents and brother, few people knew that my favorite gem was emerald. Typically, the ones I wore were from Colombia, but the one before me right then was more beautiful than any I’d ever seen before.

  The company that had donated the necklace was listed as anonymous, but others had bid on it, and the price was already seven figures. I skimmed my finger wistfully over the glass case it was inside and quickly reminded myself I wasn’t the same girl who would have run to my father to beg him to buy it for me. I had plenty of jewelry at home. I didn’t have the personal funds to purchase it myself, given how high the bid already was, and I wouldn’t until my trust fund was released to me on my twenty-fifth birthday. Until then, I’d promised myself I would only buy what I needed with money I earned myself.

  Glancing longingly one last time over my shoulder, I turned away—

  “Easy, dragotsennyy.” Strong arms locked around my waist before I collided with a hard, rock wall of muscle, locking me against a body that was so warm I was helpless not to melt against him.

  In a daze, I lifted my lashes to look into a pair of golden eyes that were so clear my breath felt trapped in my lungs for several seconds before I was able to expel it. It was like falling into a vat of the clearest, warmest honey. I loved honey. That slightly spicy, fruity mixed with nutty taste that hit the taste buds in a way that sent a shiver down my spine at how delicious it was.

  Then his subtle accent hit me, along with the Russian endearment for precious, and my entire body seemed to go up in white-hot flames. That was before I fully took in how masculinely beautiful he was. Chiseled jaw and sculpted cheekbones. A chin with just a hint of a cleft. His short hair had several shades of brown and mahogany scattered within it, enthralling me as the overhead lighting caught each one.

  The scent of his cologne filled my nose, and my knees literally went weak for a moment. Sucking in a breath I prayed would calm my overactive body, I pasted on a smile, but it felt weak to me. “Sorry. I was so enchanted by the Ural emerald necklace that I wasn’t watching where I was going. Thank you for stopping me from ending up on my ass, with all of New York seeing what color panties I may or may not be wearing.”

  Those gold eyes glittered down at me, but he clenched his jaw so hard a muscle began to tick in his cheek. “Are you telling me you are not wearing panties, dragotsennyy?”

  “Sir,” I gasped, feigning outrage, but gave him a flirty wink. “I don’t even know your name. My mother would shoot us both if I told a complete stranger that I wasn’t currently wearing underwear.”

  His eyes closed as he whispered something under his breath I didn’t hear, but from the sound of it, it was savage. I liked his reaction, maybe a little too much, which was why I leaned into him a little more and lowered my voice. “More often than not, I don’t wear panties,” I confided and felt something hard as steel flex against my abdomen. Sweet Jesus. From the feel of it, he was in the XXL cock category. “They’re just too much of a nuisance if you ask me.”

  I watched his Adam’s apple bob, and I fought a grin, even as my thighs became saturated from the effect he was having on my body. Placing my hands on his biceps, I told myself not to squeeze to see how hard they were before pushing back against his hold on my waist. “Thanks again for saving me from embarrassing myself.”

  Instead of releasing me, he tightened his hold. “Maybe I should keep you close. Just in case you have another near incident. I’m sure neither of us wants all of New York to see your bare pussy.”

  I tilted my head to the side and gave him a mischievous smirk. “How do you know half of them haven’t already seen it?”

  “Fuck,” he groaned as he looked away, that muscle tick-tick-ticking away. Something feral flashed in those honey depths, making me feel trapped in them as they hardened, fossilizing me in amber. “Have they?”

  “I don’t think I should divulge such personal information to a man whose name is still a mystery to me.”

  “Zak,” he gritted out. “Zakhar Morozov.”

  “Nice to meet you, Zak,” I murmured, keeping my voice soft and slightly husky to tease his cock into flexing against me again. The way his hand slid down to my ass, cupping one hip and then squeezing—as if it belonged to him—should not have been nearly as sexy as it was to me. Yet I found myself squeezing my thighs together in an attempt to alleviate the heartbeat that was suddenly thumping in my clit. “I’m Sofia.”

  “Morozov.”

  Growing up, I’d learned something quickly when it came to my father. The way a person—particularly a man—reacted to Adrian Volkov saying their name spoke volumes to me. If they flinched, I knew they were weak. If they had to visibly steel their spine, I knew they were scared but wanted to give the impression they actually had a set of working balls.

  But if they showed no reaction, not even a flicker of their lashes or a subtle shift in their breathing, I knew that person was serious trouble. Those people were usually even more powerful than my father, and that made me nervous. Few people were in the same category as the Volkovs, and those who were typically happened to be family.

  Zak didn’t move a muscle at the sound of my dad’s slightly accented voice speaking his name. His hand remained on my ass, his thumb even stroking over my crack in a way that heated me all over again after the icy shower my parent’s voice had caused. My breath escaped me in a soft gasp as Zak gave my ass a final squeeze before lifting his hand respectfully higher.

  Turning, one hand still at the small of my back, he held out the other to my father. “Volkov, good to see you.”

  I locked my jaw to keep my mouth from falling open as the two men shook hands without so much as sizing each other up. Dad didn’t even seem to care that Zak—a complete stranger to me—was standing so close and touching me.

  “I see you finally met my Sofia,” Dad said as he gave me a loving smile.

  “How do you two know each other?” I asked, narrowing my eyes on the older of the two men. I didn’t know if I should be suspicious or concerned, but the two of them being so friendly felt incredibly weird to me.

  Maybe because Zak was the first guy I’d ever been attracted to that my dad actually liked…

  “Zak is a friend of a friend from Saint Petersburg. In fact, he was gracious enough to donate the Ural emerald necklace for tonight’s charity.” He tipped his head toward the display over my shoulder, a knowing glint in his eyes. “When your mother worried about where you had wandered off to, I figured I would find you here. Shall I bid on it for you, sweetheart?”

  That he was offering meant I hadn’t broken any promises to myself to ask for it. But for some reason, a lump filled my throat, and I found myself shaking my head. “No. Thank you, Daddy. But I think I’ll pass on the Ural.”

  Surprise flickered through his eyes but quickly disappeared. “If you see anything you want, just make a bid, myshka. I’ll cover anything you want.”

  I gave him a tight smile and stepped away from Zak. His golden gaze was warm on the side of my face, but I didn’t give him a second glance as I stepped away from him. Why I was suddenly so upset with him left me clueless, but I felt hurt all the way to my soul for some crazy reason.

  All because he’d donated the Ural necklace? I’d felt like it had belonged to me the moment I set eyes on it, and his donating it to charity—a very deserving cause, at that—felt like a betrayal.

  Ugh, maybe Raven hadn’t gotten all of my childishness out of me over the summer after all.

  Sofia

  Sensing the shift in my emotions, Dad asked me to find my mother while he talked business with Zak. Thankful for a chance to have a moment to figure out what I was feeling, I excused myself and walked away.

  The feel of Zak’s gaze on my ass was not responsible for the sassy sway of my hips as I left the room. But of course, that was a lie I told myself so I didn’t have one more thing to overanalyze once I was alone.

  The moment I spotted a powder room, I went inside. As expected, it was crowded, and several curious heads turned at my entrance. I gave them each a small smile as I found an empty stall and stepped inside, locking the door before leaning back against it and closing my eyes.

  What the actual fuck?

  My hormones were all over the place, and my mind was racing a hundred miles a second. Zak was… Whoa. The way he’d made my body react so easily was… Holy shit. His friendship with my father… Well, that was definitely suspect. And did I really want to revisit how hurt—how my heart felt like it was actually breaking—when Dad said Zak had donated the Ural necklace?

  That was the most confusing of all, and I didn’t want to touch it, but the lump still filling my throat wouldn’t let me ignore it.

  When I first saw the necklace, something about it called to me. As if, in some strange way, I’d felt like it was made for me and only me. Which was ridiculous. And even more so was how I was reacting to Zak just giving it to the charity.

  A huge part of me hoped it raised so much money for the women’s shelters that they were funded for decades. But that left a small part of me that wanted to snatch the necklace from the case and scream at Zak and everyone who had already bid on it to back the fuck up. It was mine, damn it.

  But the reality was, I had no connection to that piece of jewelry. It didn’t belong to me, and it never would. I just hoped whoever won the auction for it loved it half as much as I already did.

  The sound of sniffling coming from the stalls on either side of me caught my attention, and I grimaced. It wasn’t the kind of sniffles that came from someone crying or seasonal allergies and had everything to do with white powder. Blowing out a sigh, I used my heeled foot to flush the toilet that I hadn’t even used and opened the stall.

  Quickly washing my hands, I didn’t make eye contact with anyone as I made my exit. Drugs were not my scene—never were and never would be. And I didn’t want anyone ever to think they were. Especially not when my family was one of the leading coke suppliers on the East Coast and expanding west.

  I found my mother several minutes later. Dressed in a black dress much like my own, with her long red hair hanging down her back, she looked like an ageless goddess in the middle of a crowd, all eyes on her. She had a glass of wine in one hand that was still completely full. It was more for show than for her to consume.

  When I was a little girl, Mom’s twin sister, Scarlett, donated her kidney to her. Mom had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of three, and her kidneys began to fail her in her early twenties. Years of dialysis were followed by the urgent need for a new organ. From what I could remember of that time, as soon as Mom got the kidney from her twin, she’d been full of an energy I hadn’t ever seen from her until then.

  For Scarlett, however, things had been a little different. Where my mother was given something she was in desperate need of, my aunt had something vital taken from her. It took her a while before her body recovered and learned to function on just one kidney.

  Even as a child, I’d been scared for both women. But thankfully, they had each come through it eventually, and life had gotten back to normal for us all. As normal as our lives could be.

  On the back of Mom’s arm was a small white disk that helped monitor her glucose levels, while an insulin pump attached somewhere on her abdomen. The little machine was tiny, easy to strap to her waist beneath her dress, and with the puffiness of her skirt, discreet enough to hide. Other than that disk on the back of her arm, no one would even know she had such a potentially dangerous medical condition.

  Crossing the room, I linked my arm through hers. She leaned into me, acknowledging my presence without pausing as she explained a few of the things she hoped to accomplish with just one of the many women’s shelters. I doubted few of the people listening, most of them men, even cared what would be done with the money they were going to be donating.

  No, they were simply enthralled with the animated way Victoria Volkov spoke. The passion in her voice, the conviction that she not only could, but absolutely would, do her best to protect the women in need who sought help at the shelters. Several of the men turned their attention to me, but my gaze remained on my mom’s face. Every time her gaze met mine, her expression softened subtly, but I saw the difference and felt her love like a gentle caress.

  As soon as she paused, I cut in, excusing us from the group with the excuse that my father was in need of her. Keeping my arm linked through hers, I turned her toward the door. “Tell me about Zak Morozov,” I murmured so quietly that only she could hear.

  A soft laugh escaped her. “I take it you’ve been introduced to him?”