“You.”
“Don’t you want to see it?”
“No.” Closing her eyes, she lifted her hair. “Just do it,” she choked out.
Bree heard the box snap open. She felt the warmth of his body as he moved to stand behind her. She felt a heavy weight against the bare skin beneath her collarbone. It was surprisingly heavy. Frowning, she opened her eyes.
A simple gold chain hung around her neck, with an enormous green pendant wrapped in gold wire. Shocked, she touched the olive-green jewel, the size of a robin’s egg. “What’s this?”
“It’s a peridot,” he said quietly. “Carved from a meteorite that fell to Siberia in 1749. It once belonged to my great-grandmother.”
Bree’s mouth fell open. “Your—”
“The pendant was a wedding gift from my great-grandfather, before he sent her and their baby son into exile. To Alaska.”
Bree felt the roughness of the peridot beneath her fingertips. The sharp crystalline edges had been worn smooth by time.
“We sold this necklace to a collector, to help pay for college.” He ran a finger along the chain. “It took me years, and a large fortune, to get it back.” He put his hand over the stone, near her heart, and lifted his gaze. “And now it is yours.”
Bree gasped. Feeling the weight of the necklace and the warmth of his hand, she looked down at the stone. In the shadowy bedroom, the facets flashed fire, green like the heart’s blood of a dragon. “I…I can’t possibly keep this.”
“Too late.” Vladimir’s handsome face was expressionless.
“But it’s too valuable.” She swallowed as her fingers stroked the gold chain against her skin. Their hands touched, and she breathed, “Not just the worth of the stone, but the value to your family…”
Drawing back, he said harshly, “It is yours.” He turned away. “Finish getting ready. I will wait for you downstairs.”
She suddenly felt like crying. “Wait!”
He stopped, his back stiff, his hands clenched into fists.
“This should belong to someone you care about,” she whispered. “Someone…someone special.”
He didn’t turn around.
“You are special to me, Breanna,” he said in a low voice. “You always have been.”
She couldn’t just let him leave. Not when he’d proven to her, once and for all, that she was more than a paid concubine. As he headed for the door, she rushed across the room, catching him from behind. Wrapping her arms around his body, she pressed her cheek against his back. “Thank you.”
Slowly he turned around in her arms.
“I need you to know. You are more than just my possession.” His darkly handsome face was stark. Vulnerable. “You are…”
“What?” Her throat ached.
“My lover.”
Unable to speak, she nodded.
Wiping her cheek with his thumb, he said in a low voice, “Come. Get dressed. We don’t want to be late.” He gave her a crooked smile. “I don’t want to miss kissing you at midnight.”
Seeing that boyish, vulnerable smile, her heart twisted. “No. We don’t want to miss that.”
He picked up her silk ball gown from the bed, and she stepped into it. As he pulled it up around her, she felt his fingers brush against her spine. She looked back at him with an intake of breath. His gaze was hungry, his eyes dark as the midnight sea. She should expect more than just a kiss to celebrate the New Year.
She wasn’t his girlfriend. She wasn’t his wife. But perhaps…
Her fingertips ran softly over the necklace that had once belonged to a Russian princess, and a green stone that two hundred and fifty years ago had landed in Siberia from the farthest reaches of space. Perhaps he did care for her, after all.