Of course he wouldn’t. Vladimir had no intention of sharing his hard-won prize—or even the image of her—with anyone. He wasn’t much of a sharer, in any case. A man was stronger alone. With no gaps in his armor. With no one close enough to slow him down, or stab him in the back.
Looking away from Bree’s pale, panicked face—somehow he didn’t enjoy seeing that expression there as much as he’d thought he would—he turned the Lamborghini into the road to his ultraprivate, palatial Hawaii mansion. The guard nodded at him from the guardhouse and opened the ten-foot-tall electric gate.
“Relax, Bree.” Vladimir ground out the words, keeping his eyes on the road. “I don’t intend to share you. You’re my prize and mine alone.”
In the corner of his eye, he saw her tight shoulders relax infinitesimally. This is supposed to be her punishment, he mocked himself. Why reassure her?
But frightening her wasn’t what he wanted, he decided. He had no interest in seeing her pitiful and terrified. He wanted to conquer the real Bree—proud and sly and gloriously beautiful. He didn’t want to be tempted, even once, to feel sympathy for her.
Vladimir stopped the red car in the paved courtyard in front of his enormous beachside mansion, built on the edge of a cliff, with one story on the courtyard side, and three stories facing the ocean.
“This is yours?” she breathed.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know you had a place on Oahu.” She bit her lip, looking up at the house. “If I’d known you were here…”
“You wouldn’t have come to Honolulu to try your con?”
“Con?” She looked genuinely shocked. “What are you talking about?”
“What do you call that poker game?”
Her big hazel eyes were wide and luminous in the moonlight.
“The worst mistake of my life,” she whispered.
Her heart-shaped face was pale, her pink lips full, her expression agonized. In spite of her tough-girl clothes, the black leather jacket and stiletto boots, she looked like a young, lost princess, trapped by an ogre with no hope of escape.
A trick, he told himself angrily. Don’t fall for it. He turned off the ignition. Grabbing her duffel bag, he got out of the car. “Come on.”
Closing the door behind him, he stalked toward the front door without looking back. He’d bought this twenty-million-dollar house three months ago, sight unseen, an hour before he was released from the hospital in Honolulu. The lavish estate on the windward side of the Oahu shore was set on the best private beach near Kailua.
He went into the sprawling beach house, and heard the sound of her stiletto boots on the patterned ohia wood floor. They passed through the large, expansive rooms. Floor-to-ceiling windows on both sides of the house revealed the Ka’iwa Mountain Ridge in one direction, and in the other, the distant pink-and-lavender dawn breaking over the Pacific and the distant Mokulua Islands.
But Vladimir was used to the view. Sick of it, in fact. He’d spent weeks cooped up like a prisoner here, as he recuperated from the car race that had nearly killed him, gritting his teeth through physical therapy. No wonder, within a month of being here, he’d started seeking amusement in Honolulu, half an hour away, at a private poker game. The fact that it was illegal to gamble at any resort in Hawaii just added to the spice.
At the end of the hall, Vladimir opened double doors into the enormous master bedroom, revealing high ceilings, an elegant marble fireplace and a huge four-poster bed. Veranda doors opened to a balcony that overlooked the infinity pool and the ocean beyond it. He dropped Bree’s duffel bag on the bed and abruptly turned to face her.
She ran straight into him.
Vladimir heard her intake of breath as, for one instant, he felt the softness of her body against his own. Electricity coursed through his veins and his heart twisted as all his blood coursed toward his groin. He looked down at her beautiful, shocked face, at her wide hazel eyes, at the way her pink lips parted, full and ripe for plunder.
Mouth parted, she jumped back as if he’d burned her.
“Give a girl some notice, will you,” she snapped, “if you’re just going to whip around like that!”
Her tone was scornful. But it was too late.
He knew.
For years, Vladimir had told himself that their passionate, innocent affair had all been one-sided—that she’d tricked him, creating a hunger and longing in him while she herself remained stone cold, focused only on the money she intended to steal from him. But just now, when he’d felt her body against his, he’d seen her face. Felt the way her body reacted. And he’d suddenly known the truth.
She felt it, too.
“You…you should…” Her voice faltered as their eyes locked. As they stood beside the four-poster bed, the brilliant sun burst over the horizon, coming through the tall east-facing windows, bathing them both in warm golden light. Everything he’d ever hungered for, everything he feared and despised, was personified in this one woman. Breanna.
Her long blond hair shimmered like diamonds and gold. Her eyes shone a vivid green, like emeralds. Her skin was pale and untouched, like plains of virgin white snow. Hardly aware of what he was doing, Vladimir reached out and stroked a gleaming tendril of her hair. It was impossibly soft.