My stomach dropped as realization hit. “No!”
“—I thought you were…disgusted with me.”
I threw my arms around him and hugged him tight. “No! Brother, no! I just felt so guilty that it happened! I never felt that about you,ever!You’re my brother, I could never…” I squeezed him even harder.All these years!
We stood like that for a long time, until the sun had sunk below the horizon and the sky had turned from copper and scarlet to deep blue. Then we trudged back to the stables, our arms around each other’s shoulders. Something had lifted from both of us, but more than that…we’d opened a door that should never have been slammed shut. We knew we could do this again if we needed to.
I could feel a space in my center, where the guilt had been, and it felt new and jarring and tender, after living with the guilt for so long. It slowly dawned on me that I could fill it with something else, now. Something good.
As we neared the stables, I saw Alison emerge from them. She was walking with that graceful prowl, her jodhpur-clad legs pale in the light of the rising moon. Valentin patted my back affectionately and gave me a tiny push, and I was off and running, covering the field in big, eager strides. I grabbed Alison’s waist, and she whooped as I picked her up and whirled her around.
I knew what I wanted my future to be.
One Week Later
Alison
I groaned in ecstasy. I had a waterproof pillow positionedjust-soto cushion my head on the edge of the tub, the water was hot enough to soak all the tension out of my muscles, and the bath bomb Bronwyn had given me made it smell like I was drifting through a tropical paradise full of fruit and flowers.
I’d never had a big bathtub before, and I’d never had the time to indulge in a proper bubble bath. But one thing I had plenty of right now was time: five weeks on from leaving the FBI, I still had no idea what I was going to do with my life. And seeing Bronwyn’s minor obsession with baths had made me curious. Now I understood.
“This is your fifteen-minute call,” murmured Gennadiy as he walked past. He looked down at my bare, gleaming shoulders and the tops of my breasts, just visible above the bubbles, and his eyes gleamed.
“I don’t have to get out yet,” I mumbled dreamily. “I can be ready in ten minutes.” I let myself sink a little lower in the tub until my lips were brushing the surface. “Maybe fivebububub.”
Gennadiy smiled indulgently—he was smiling more, these days—and perched on the edge of the tub. “Five minutes might be pushing it. Not even you could get ready in five.”
That sounded like a challenge. “Wanna bet?”
He cocked his head.Are you kidding?
“Five minutes,” I insisted.
“And if you lose the bet?” he asked. He was trying to sound casual, but I could hear the lust in his voice.
“You get to tie me up,” I said immediately. And flushed.
“And if I lose the bet?”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I get to tieyouup. And ride your face like a horse.”
Gennadiy threw back his head and laughed, then nodded. We grinned at each other. The rivalry was still there, and it bound us together even tighter.
Ten minutes later, I erupted out of the tub, sending Gennadiy ducking for cover. I whipped a towel over my body, pulled on a bra, and then rolled on my back on the bed, pulling hold-ups up my legs. I jumped up, grabbed a dress, and pulled it over my head while my feet felt their way into my heels. I leaned forward over the mirror, grabbed some lipstick, and carefully applied it, then brushed a touch of blusher on my cheeks. “Done,” I said breathlessly.
“Four minutes and fifty-eight seconds,” Gennadiy said doubtfully. “But it doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“You’re not wearing panties.”
“A choice,” I said breezily. “Not an oversight.”
His eyes locked on my groin, and he cursed under his breath. “You do this deliberately,” he growled. “You know I want you so much, I’ll let you get away with anything.”
I smirked and offered him my arm. He sighed good-naturedly, and we walked arm in arm to the door.
Every time I stepped out into the hallway and saw the line of polished wood doors and the long, scarlet carpet stretching the length of the east wing, I still had a wobbly second where I felt like I was in a movie. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to living like this. I still got flummoxed every time Melina, the maid, curtsied to me, and I still kept asking, unsuccessfully, if she wanted help making the beds. But…honestly? Throwing my clothes in a laundry basket and then finding them back in my closet, washed and pressed, and hanging on hangers? Kind of magical.
