His fingers tighten on my shoulder. “You do not walk around in the city alone. Understand? From now on, I’ll send a car for you.”
I pull away, anger washing away the shock of the attack. “I don’t belong to you. You don’t tell me what to do.”
A dark look comes over his face. “Think again.”
When he grips my arm and continues to drag me behind him, I yank myself free. “Don’t manhandle me.”
“Don’t push me on this, Katerina,” he says in a low, rough voice. “Not now.” He takes my wrist and turns back toward the street, where a black car pulls up to the curb.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask, stumbling a step.
He steadies me with an arm around my waist. “Home.”
“My keys are in my bag. I won’t be able to get into my apartment. I need to call a locksmith.”
“My home.” His gaze pierces mine. “Do you think I’d let you sleep alone in your place while that ublyudok has your keys and phone?”
“What? No. I’m not going to your place.”
His body goes rigid. “He can easily figure out where you live and wait for you there.”
“He was after my valuables. He’s not coming after me.”
“You don’t know that,” he growls.
To be honest, the thought did cross my mind. “I’ll go to my mom’s.”
“No.” He starts walking again, pulling me along.
I have long legs, but I can barely keep up with his strides. Frantically, I consider my options. “Look, thanks for helping me. I owe you. I just—”
He stops dead. Something I can’t decipher flashes in his eyes. “You don’t owe me.”
“If you hadn’t shown up—”
“Don’t.” He lifts a finger, briefly pinching his eyes shut. “Don’t say it.”
“You have guests to get back to. I’d be grateful if you could just call me a cab.”
“Like hell,” he says, taking his phone from his pocket with one hand while keeping the other locked around my wrist, as if he’s scared I’ll run again.
He punches in a number and presses the phone to his ear while walking us closer to the car. When whoever it is answers, he barks out something in Russian. The conversation is short. He ends the call before we get to the car and holds the back door open for me, helping me inside.
I’m without money, bank cards, keys, or phone, and I do need a ride, so I shift all the way to the other side and make myself small against the door. Yuri turns in his seat, handing me a bottle of water and a box of pills.
“Painkillers,” he says. “Mr. Volkov said you may need some.”
So he’s the person Alex spoke to in Russian on the phone. I’m so grateful I don’t bother to ask where he got painkillers from so quickly. As I push two pills from the foil casing and swallow them with the water, Alex gets inside and tells Yuri to go.
When the car pulls away from the curb, Alex puts an arm around me and pulls me against him. He makes another call and fires off something in rapid Russian. His presence is warm and comforting. His smell wraps around me, making me want to burrow my nose in his neck and soak up the safety he offers, but then a vision of the dark beauty pressed up against him in the restaurant flashes through my mind, and I stiffen.
“Don’t you have guests to get back to?” I ask.
“They can wait,” he replies with that exotic foreign accent. “You’re more important.”
“Really?” I ask with sarcasm.
He looks down at me. “Yes. Really.”
“Is that why you never contacted me?”
He rubs a thumb over the padded shoulder of my jacket. “I had to take care of business in Moscow.”
I add a heavy note of sarcasm to my voice. “And I suppose you didn’t have roaming.”
His features soften. “Did you want me to call you?”
“No,” I say, crossing my arms.
A faint smile caresses his lips. “Right.” His tone matches the soft look in his eyes. “It’s not that I didn’t want to. I was busy.”
Right. I wriggle out from under his arm. “When did you get back?”
“Yesterday.”
“Ah.”
I turn my face to look through the window, but he grips my chin and forces me to face him. “It’s not what you think.”
“What am I supposedly thinking?”
He traces my bottom lip with his thumb. “It was business.”
I feign ignorance. “What was business?”
“Tonight.”
“You don’t owe me explanations.”
His steely blue eyes tighten. “I disagree.”
The car comes to a halt, preventing me from arguing more. Alex says something to Yuri in Russian before getting out and opening the door for me. When we’ve stepped onto the pavement, Yuri pulls away.
“Come,” Alex says, guiding me to the door with his hand on my back.
The broad expanse of his palm burns through my jacket, but I ignore the effect as I climb the steps to his front door.