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Kallie and Sasha went back to the bakery. Most of the shift was already gone for the day. Any customers this late would be buying bags of coffee and half-priced pastries. She caught Sasha exchanging glances with the cook, who was doling out soup and sandwiches for to-go orders. Kallie wondered what such a glance meant, but the cook never had much to say to her.
Sasha kissed her on the forehead after pouring her a glass of iced tea from the dispenser and bringing it to her. He was fussing over her, a fact that left her feeling warm and loved.
Then he ruined it all by leaning in close to speak. “No more firing people unless we talk about it.”
It had been a message just for her ears. Her jaw dropped, but no sound came out.
“And I promise,” he said with his charming sincerity, looking her straight in the eyes, “I will discuss every business move I make from here on out.”
The last had been done for show, said loud enough that the staff could hear. This included Sasha’s delivery guy, who came huffing in through the door and had stopped abruptly at the sight of the big boss at the counter. He obviously hadn’t been expecting Sasha to be there, though he should have seen the car out front. Everything Sasha drove was distinctive.
Still, Kallie felt glad the guy had seen them together. That Sasha had seen the way the man’s eyes had been derisive when he’d focused on Kallie, that he’d almost sneered at her, despite the fact that Sasha was right there. Sasha spoke to him in Russian, the words coming out harsh, punishing. Whatever he said made the delivery guy’s eyes widen. It sounded like Sasha repeated himself. The guy only nodded, accepting the message.
Sasha turned to her and asked, “Are we good?”
“Yeah,” she said, uncertain. Not liking the way he’d warned her off. Not liking conversations in other languages that may or may not have had anything to do with her.
“Then see you later.” With that, he was gone.
The Gran Torino was so loud the whole place could hear the engine as Sasha drove away.
As the engine faded in the distance, the delivery guy snapped at her again, “Had to go run to daddy,” he taunted, sneering at her openly in front of staff and customers alike. A woman buying bread shot her a look and left, clearly not wanting part of this particular drama.
Kallie nearly exploded. “I own this place!” she shouted, knowing she sounded like a maniac. What the hell had Sasha even said to the guy?
At this point she couldn’t even speak. She flipped out, going behind the counter and slamming through the stacks of empty boxes as though looking for something. She was making a mess. She was having a tantrum. Why did this guy have to push her buttons like that?
Gradually realization dawned. She was acting like an idiot in front of the customers. She’d totally lost control, and was scaring away people who had come into this store in safety for years and years. Katia and Lev had probably never done a thing like that. She felt like crying. It was going to get back to them. That hurt worse anything.
“You can’t fire me,” the driver taunted, leaning over the counter to leer at her, to grab at her hair and tweak her ponytail.
“I ought to have your ass deported!” she shouted, batting his hand away, and backing out of his reach. Not even she expected herself to say such a thing. She now had the attention of everyone there. The cook looked at her in horror. The girl at the register had her eyes so wide it was a wonder they didn’t fall right out of her head. Biting back a scream of frustration, Kallie practically ripped her apron off. The day was totally ruined. She’d gotten too mad to calm down now. Between the staff still there, the bakery was in good hands for a while. They didn’t need her. Truth be told, they’d never needed her at all. She’d been gone most of the afternoon without affecting their workload one bit.
“I’m taking a walk,” Kallie announced, though she knew no one cared. She could drop off the face of the planet and it would take the people who worked at the bakery a month to even notice.
Still, she stormed out dramatically, the door slamming hard enough to rattle the windows. She was sick to her stomach. She felt humiliated. Tricked. Why had she believed that she and Sasha were going into business together? There wasn’t a soul in the world who believed that. Not even her.
It’s all in name only, she realized. He put my name on the documents so that it would be mine. At least that’s what he’d said. She found herself questioning the legality of it. What would happen to her if the business somehow...imploded?
I’m an idiot. The biggest idiot in the entire world.
With nowhere else to go, she started walking around the block to blow off some steam. If she found courage and calm between the front door all the way back around to the front door, she would go back to work. At her bakery. And everyone there could jolly well get on board with that idea. Otherwise, she and Sasha needed to have a real talk—one that didn’t involve steamy, orgasmic sex—because this business arrangement wasn’t working.
Kallie headed south on the block away from the bakery and down, so that she came around the corner to head back she would pass the bar where she met Sasha...Darkness. She’d been meaning to go into the bar since she started back to work. Maybe stopping in might be a good way to knock off some of the anger. A drink sounded good about now.
She hadn’t worked there for very long, but she felt a fondness for the place. She would forever be grateful that Sal the bartender who, like her, owned a business with Sasha, had hired her, a girl without much experience.
The entrance of the bar was below ground-level. Kallie had to walk down the steps in front of a large picture window. As she descended, she reflexively peered inside the bar just to see who was there. She wondered if Angela, the other waitress and Sal’s girlfriend, and Sal were there. What she saw broke her heart.
As she came down the steps, she saw Sasha picking up his things off the bar in a rush and moving into the kitchen. Like he’d seen her and was hiding from her.
You don’t know that. You don’t know that he’s hiding from you.
But it hurt anyway. Of course, she could go in and ask, but she wasn’t in the mood to. Her feelings were still hurt from the scene at the bakery.
She turned around and continued around the block. She would grab her purse. And since Sasha had brought her to work, she would just take the bus home. She knew the routes since she’d worked in the neighborhood before. It suddenly didn’t feel romantic at all to be so dependent on Sasha.
“If Sasha asks where I am,” she said to the girl at the counter as she appeared in the bakery, choking back tears, “tell him I’ve gone home.”
“Tell him yourself,” Sasha said from behind her. “What’s the matter?”
He had been following her the entire time and hadn’t announced himself until now.
“I’m too upset to talk about it,” she answered, and evaded his outstretched arm to snag her purse from under the counter.
He lunged for her, grabbing her arm in an iron grip, overpowering her resistance easily, as though she were nothing at all to him.
Maybe she wasn’t.
Or maybe he didn’t mean anything by it at all. They were so physical and familiar, he probably thought he had the liberty of pressing her body to his for a hug. But she was in no mood to be manhandled and, honestly, his constant dominance was starting to get on her nerves.
“I’m not kidding,” she said, struggling to get free. “Let me go.”
He gripped her by the shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. “And I’m not kidding,” he said, his tone flat and deadly. His eyes were dark and piercing, like a viper about to strike. “We need to talk about what’s going on. I just saw you at Sal’s. I was hurrying to catch up to you.”
Another lie. He could turn her around and make her question herself, but this time Kallie knew for sure he wasn’t being straight. She knew what she’d seen, and he hadn’t been heading for the front door at Sal’s. He’d been hauling ass out the back.
She gave him a scathing look that let him know there was no way in hell she was buying his story.
This seemed to shake him.
“I am taking the bus home,” she announced, pushing past him to the door. “I need to think.”
The lie he’d just told gave her an entirely different thing to think about. What did he do during the day, anyway?
“Take the L8 to the 48 and it will drop you off on the corner by the house.” He reached into his pocket and handed her some cash.
“Is this the cash from the drawer today?” she asked, giving the cash register a sidelong look. “Has it even been accounted for?”
He drew back as if she’d struck him, his entire expression one of wounded pride. “No,” he said stiffly, “it’s not the cash from today.”
Wounded arrogance more likely.
Still, she had to admit, at this point she probably reminded him of his mother. And she really wasn’t ready to hear that comparison.
Just...watch yourself, lady. This isn’t the time or place to jump all over him.
She stared at the cash in his hand and shook her head. Damn him for making her feel cheap and slutty. She had her own money, thank you very much. She stormed out, feeling numb. She only hoped that she had a set of keys to the house, because the last thing she wanted to do was call him from halfway home and ask for help.
As it turned out, Kallie needed those bus numbers after all. Not that he’d needed to give them to her. She would have figured it out eventually by asking questions or looking at the timetable. The last thing she wanted was to feel like he’d been helpful to her in any way at all. She tried to get lost in the scenes gliding by the bus. The last thing she’d wanted was to be such a wreck emotionally all the way home. Already, passengers were giving her sidelong glances as the occasional sniffle escaped her.
Not to mention Kallie was starving. Here she worked at a bakery that served soup, salads, and sandwiches, too, and somehow, she hadn’t eaten all day. The bus ride was forty minutes long, not counting the time in between the one change. She could have walked it in less time, the way the route roamed all over the place.
By the time she wearily trudged up the sidewalk from the bus stop, thankful that she’d had a key after all, she was ready for a bath and bed. Maybe some food somewhere in there. Maybe not. She nearly hit the ceiling when she walked in and Dmitry and Alex were there. She’d forgotten all about them.
What the hell were they even working on?
“You’re home early,” Alex said as she came in, never once looking up from the papers he was sorting through at the desk.
These were Sasha’s men. You weren’t rude to Sasha’s men. Or hostile. “How long are you going to be?” she asked tightly, trying to keep a lid on her emotions.
Alex’s head snapped her. He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time since she’d walked in. “We’ll pack up right now.”
“Let me ask you,” she began, still trying so hard not to be rude. “You’ve been working on my place for a while now. What are you doing?”
They looked at each other like they weren’t sure how to answer the question.
So obviously it wasn’t what Sasha said it was, and it probably wasn’t legit. Who even cared anymore? “If you aren’t done, go ahead and work. I’ll work around you. I can even go out for a while if you need me to,” she said, weary of the whole thing.
She turned away, sad and dejected, when suddenly it hit her—the perfect solution. Why not go to a hotel for the night? Sasha would have no idea where she was, and she could finally get a moment to think. “Yeah,” she said, her spirits lifting. “Yeah, please. You guys carry on.”
Baltimore had plenty of nice hotels. After all, wasn’t it time for a change? She had put herself at the mercy of her torrid Russian lover. Hadn’t it become abundantly clear that she herself had a big part in why she was feeling sorry for herself? Sasha was a gangster—this she had known when she’d signed those papers without reading them. Any mess she was in now was her own fault, plain and simple.
The question was, could she live with that? Or would she be better off without him? Definitely it was past time to go to a hotel. Hell, she’d send out a few résumés, make a few plans, and put some definite thought into her future.
Now that that was decided, she realized that it was about time for Sasha to call. And, of course, he did, just as she was packing to go. For the first time ever, he was angry with her and he didn’t bother to mask it.
For the first time ever, Kallie wasn’t particularly excited to hear from him. That made them even. Somewhat.
“Let’s have dinner and talk,” he said without asking her. “I’ll send a car.”
“I’m not hungry,” she replied stiffly, though she was positively famished.
He ignored her protest. There would be a car outside her door whether she wanted one or not.
“What happened back there?”
Which part? she wondered. The tantrum she’d indulged in or the way she’d defied him? It hadn’t been one of her better days.
“I think that was what we call losing it,” she said, seeing no reason not to be honest. “I think I got fed up.”
“Did we not make jokes about what a controlling fuck I am?” he snapped.
“That doesn’t make it all right,” she replied, her temper rising again.
“And did you tell Sergei you were going have his ass deported?”
Oh, so that was what this was all about. Of course, Sasha protected the nasty delivery guy over her. Kallie got defensive. “Yeah, I did.” Was there any point in saying it had just slipped out, that she hadn’t meant it?
Okay, maybe she meant it a little.
“What did he do? Scare you?” His tone was mocking.
“That’s not fair. You really just don’t believe I was justified in being afraid. I was shot at the first night I worked for you. And they weren’t kids in the wrong place at the wrong time, like you tried to paint it. And it was not just one of those things!”
It felt good to finally say it the way she saw it.
“What was it then?” he demanded. “You tell me.”
“It was two guys sending a message, probably due to whatever it is you do for a living,” she said, her voice escalating enough to be heard downstairs by his two henchmen, who were probably even now texting their boss with her every movement. She should have turned around and gone to a hotel when she’d had the chance. Whatever made her think she could leave now?
“A crime was committed. That’s not my fault. They did look like gang members. So do the IT guys who were on my front porch, and so do all the guys who work for YOU!”
She was screaming again, like she had at the delivery guy. Only, Sergei had no power over her.
Sasha did. She’d do well to remember that.
“I guess all the guys in certain neighborhoods look like gang members to a white chick from Georgetown.” She could just imagine the sneer on his face as he said this. “Or Connecticut, or wherever you’re from.”
“Oh, I thought you knew everything about me.” Anger ruptured in her, full blown. Who the hell cared about consequences anymore? Right now, all she wanted was to get the hell out of there and go somewhere she could think. “Maybe we should shelve this conversation until we calm down,” she said, looking for a way out, some way to buy her some time.
“I am calm,” he replied, in a tone that indeed was calm. Deadly calm. Shivers ran down her spine.
“Well, I’m not!”
“No shit,” he snapped.
“Sasha,” she warned. Her mind was still turning over his ‘white chick’ comment in her head. “Is that really what you think of me?”
“Why, are you insulted?”
“Yes!”
“Well, now, maybe the shoe is on the other foot. Maybe now you understand a thing or two.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded.
“From the get-go, you’ve made little slams about me and where I come from. About the people I come from,” he said. “Don’t think I don’t know. I’ve heard that shit every day of my life.”
Have I been doing that? Is that what I’ve truly thought of him?
But isn’t that what he is?
She didn’t know anymore. On one hand, Kallie was devastated. She didn’t think of him in a way except for him.
On the other hand, he scared the shit of out her sometimes.
She spoke as softly and calmly and sincerely as she could. “That’s not true,” she said, fighting tears, suddenly tired of this whole fight. “One of the things I like best about you is that you’re Russian. I thought that was wonderful right away.”
There was a long silence. “I know I fucked up,” he said finally, his voice weary. “But first Alex and Dmitry, and now the guys at the bakery. I give people a chance because people like you wouldn’t.”
She blinked. “Sasha, you’re the one who said Alex and Dmitry were scary. I know you were joking now, but I certainly didn’t at the time. And you have to admit we had kind of have a history before that.”
“I get that.” He took a deep breath, then another. If anything, he sounded...hurt? “It’s just that...” he paused.
“What?” she asked.
“If that wasn’t what you thought about us in the first place, you wouldn’t have fallen so hard for the joke.”
He might as well have slapped her. She felt herself go cold with rage. “You’re calling me a bigot.”
“No...”
“Yeah, you are,” she said, not wanting to hear his excuses or the way he backpedaled when cornered. “I think we need to stop talking to each other until we sleep on this. I’m going to hang up now.”
She wondered how much Alex and Dmitry had heard. How much they’d been told by Sasha. Unsure if they would even allow her to leave, Kallie threw some things into a bag and called an Uber. Then she checked her bank account balance while she waited for the car to arrive.
She’d learned to check her bank accounts before she made a move. It gave her a sense of security on so many levels. Back when her ex had run off with her money, she’d been left royally embarrassed by not having any cash to her name. That wasn’t going to happen again. She looked at the balance now with a certain contentment. She could make a change if she wanted. Get her own place, buy her own clothes. Find her own thing to do with her life. She didn’t need Sasha, and she certainly didn’t need that bakery.
A shiny black car picked her up at her front door before Sasha could make it there, if that was his intention. At least he wasn’t in sight as she got in. She’d left without saying a word to the IT guys. Not that they were IT guys. Or that she owed them any explanation.
They know. I’m sure they already know.
It felt awful to be this paranoid.
She traveled from Pikesville to Baltimore in record time. The MGM had opened a new casino on the National Harbor, and that was a good enough reason to make the hotel her choice. She turned her phone off and enjoyed the landscape as it changed from suburb to highway, to the gritty bright lights of Baltimore. She was still so angry she couldn’t have said what she felt anymore. Was she truly in love with Sasha? Did she believe that he loved her? There was no way to know.
The hotel was everything she had imagined it would be. After she checked into her room, she ducked into a shop off the lobby to do some impulsive shopping. She bought new underwear, and a dress that was absolutely impractical but would turn heads. Maybe it had taken all her fun money that she’d set aside for little indulgences, but tonight she was going to feel like the woman she’d been back before her entire life had imploded. Back before she’d met Sasha.
Back upstairs, Kallie grabbed her laptop and pulled up the best employment search engines, refreshed her profile on the business network site, and checked out rentals. Things were going to change, starting with her address.
It felt so good to have a plan, especially after the things he’d said to her. Kallie showered briefly and tried on her purchases. She stripped down to her new skivvies and plunked onto the bed to check her laptop for messages, even if it was far too soon to expect anything. The dress mocked her from its hanger on the door. In a minute she would put it on and go downstairs. In a minute...
The king-sized mattress was too comfortable. She was absolutely exhausted. Maybe if she just closed her eyes for a little bit. She could go downstairs later. The night was still young.
These thoughts comforting her, she crawled under the covers.
Only for a nap... no more than a few minutes...
Instead, she fell into a lovely deep sleep only to be roused hours later by intense knocking on her door. It was late, and when she sat up she was so groggy she had no idea where she was for several long minutes. Still half-asleep, she opened the door without looking.
It was Sasha. And he was mad as hell.
He pushed his way into the room. Kallie backed up against the bed, and sat down hard. “Hi...?”
It took her a minute. Initially she only saw him, towering over her, dark eyes intense and angry. The way he ran a hand through his hair impatiently. He was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen in her life, and for a moment she wanted to forget they were fighting. Instinctively she grabbed for the blanket, wrapping it around her, wanting to just snuggle in and go back to sleep. Couldn’t he just go away and come back later? They could fight in the morning, maybe over coffee...
“Is that how you answer the door?”
His question didn’t register for a long minute. She peeked down at her lingerie, seeing the scraps of black silk and lace as if noting them for the first time. She opened her mouth to answer, but could find nothing to say.
He sat heavily in the chair opposite her. His silence unnerved her, woke her up. She wondered how he’d found her all the way in Baltimore.
She sat up straighter. “Give me a second,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I really crashed. I have to wake up.”
Even in the shadowy room, Kallie thought Sasha looked sad. He was definitely pouting. She glanced at the clock. It was one a.m. No wonder she was so out of it.
“We never even talked about what set you off,” he said, as though hours hadn’t passed, as though he hadn’t invaded her hotel room like he had some kind of right to be there. “Not really.”
She took a deep breath and cleared her mind. “I think I was clear that I don’t feel included in the business,” she said, answering carefully, not wanting to set him off again. “Everyone had a job and I just kind of stood there. I couldn’t ever fire my own guy when he was an asshole to me.”
“But it’s a work in progress. We’re still sorting out the day to day operation of the place,” he explained, shrugging away her concerns. “And he’s my guy, too.”
“He came near to smacking my hand away if I touched an order,” she said finally. “He touched my hair!”
“You’re exaggerating,” he said with disbelief. “I know Sergei is a little bitchy, but he knows better.”
“Apparently, Sergei needs to be whacked on the nose with a newspaper, because he didn’t know,” she said.
“How long have you felt this way?”
Feel this way? As if none of this was happening and she was misunderstanding the actions of a man who had been acting disrespectfully towards her since he’d been hired? She took a breath, told herself to remain calm. “A little while. He’s been acting like that since you hired him,” she said, making a point of clarifying that it wasn’t all in her head like he’d implied. “Also, I don’t get to look at the books, or make the deposits, or touch the deliveries. I feel like I really don’t know what’s going on.”
“A little while you say he’s been all over you, and during that time how many times have we fucked?”
Wait, he was the one who was upset?
“Excuse me?” she asked, a little taken aback.
“You heard me,” he said. “You and I can share bodies, but you couldn’t come to me about these things? Not unless it was World War III.”
“Point taken, Sasha. I was wrong not to speak up until things had festered,” she muttered, not liking that somehow this had become her fault, that she had to be the one to apologize.
“So why does it take all this damage before you do?”
“I fired the guy, Sasha, and you didn’t back my play. You didn’t even speak in English when you saw him at the bakery.”
“You love when I speak in Russian,” he argued.
“Not when I need to be a part of the conversation and am purposely excluded. And what’s with all the weird little games? I mean, I stop at the bar and there you are. You say you were trying to catch up with me, but you were heading out the back door. I don’t know, maybe that’s the new quickest way out of the building.”
“You worked at that bar,” he pointed out.
“Yes,” she said, “I did. Which makes me intensely aware of where all the exits are.”
“Where was I when that happened?”
“At the bar,” she answered.
“So why would that change?” he asked. “Why were you shocked to see me there? Should I be hanging out at the bakery with you all day?”
She winced at the way he said that, like she had been a nuisance for him this entire time. “Why were you at the bar?” she asked, not wanting to back down.
“Ask exactly what you’re looking for.” He stood up, arms crossed. Challenging her.
“Fine.” She stood, too. “What do you do for a living, Sasha?”
“You really don’t know?”
“I don’t, or I wouldn’t be asking.”
“What do you think I do? Even remotely,” he asked, one eyebrow raised. “Take a wild guess.”
“Something illegal, I don’t know.”
“Something illegal,” he muttered.
Tension lay in the room so thick it was hard to breathe.
“For fuck’s sake,” she said in her defense. “You have said to me ‘we both know I work in a grey area’ or words to that effect. You have suggested as much.”
“I’m into real estate, Kallie,” he said finally. “I buy residential and commercial properties. Sometimes I sell them. Sometimes I help put buyers and sellers together. It’s a grey area because I don’t exactly have the licenses for it, but I get paid all the same.”
Kallie blinked. She flipped through her mental file, reviewing all the data and seeing it in a different light. It made sense of a sort, but why had he never just said something in the first place? Why all the subterfuge when she’d asked. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”
“I thought you knew,” he said. “Every place we go to, I own.”
“No,” she said. “You were evasive. And, given our history, you let me think you did things you couldn’t talk about.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, that’s a fair statement? Or okay, you now understand where I was coming from?” she asked in frustration. “I mean, you don’t do just real estate, Sasha. You orchestrated a prostitution ring out of my business. How do I know you don’t do that kind of thing still? What other ‘businesses’ do you run?”
He was quiet and then he spoke, “You don’t.”
So, he hadn’t stopped. And his ‘grey’ areas held a lot more than he pretended.
“Okay, I don’t like how this feels,” he said, shaking his head, as though he were the one who was hurting.
Maybe he was. She certainly was.
“I could make a really good excuse as to why I didn’t come out with what I was thinking or feeling. But that’s all it will sound like,” she said, after a minute. “I’m sorry I caused all this damage.”
“You didn’t do it alone,” he said, dropping his arms and pacing the room. “I should have included you more in the business. I feel like slapping Sergei.”
This shouldn’t have warmed her heart, but it did. She smiled. “Please don’t slap people to make up with me,” she said.
“Can I climb into bed with you instead?” he asked.
It was stupid. No matter what, he was still...well, certainly not a legitimate businessman. He blamed her for his shortcomings, made her absolutely crazy. And then looked at her like he was a little boy who’d just lost his only friend. Her heart melted.
She needed him. And she suspected that he needed her.
Kallie threw back the corner of the covers, inviting him in. “I wish you would,” she said, then because he seemed to be staring at her ass, she wiggled it a little as she knelt on the bed, rearranging the pillows. “Or perhaps I should show you my new underwear? And crack open the mini bar...?”
“I certainly could use that drink. And a good look at that new underwear,” he said, a slow smile breaking over his face.
Okay, so she’d suggested the drink because her own anger wasn’t going to melt on its own. A little alcohol would go a long way toward helping them get past this point in their relationship. Was it healthy, or the right thing to do? Hell no. But right now, not being his...just wasn’t an option.
Damn him.
