I snorted a wry laugh. Carried away? I shook my head and resumed setting glasses away in the rare moment of downtime. “Don’t worry, Rosa. I won’t have any problem keeping myself in check.”
She checked her hip with mine as she passed. Pausing to lean close and whisper so Sergei wouldn’t overhear, sitting so close as he drank his beer and glanced at the TV, she said, “I’m not so sure any woman’s strong enough to resisthim.”
I rolled my eyes at her as she continued to the other end of the bar. “Ha, ha,” I muttered dryly.
She had a point. Sergei was a fine-looking specimen of man. And that kiss he’d given me sparked more than a little excitement and desire in me.
But those facts didn’t matter. I could—and would—dismiss them both.
It was simply way too soon to even consider letting a man in my life. To really look at anyone with the interest of dating or anything like that. Maisie was so young, and she was still grieving. I couldn’t burden her with more changes to her life by incorporating a real boyfriend into the mix. She needed me—all of me—as her only family.
Deep down, I knew I was still grieving too, still weighed down with the cumbersome realization that I needed to be more independent and not rely on anyone again.
“I’m nowhere close to being ready for a man again,” I whispered to myself.
Because the more that I locked my gaze on Sergei’s intense blue stare and felt those now-familiar butterflies in my stomach, I suffered the guilt of forgetting my husband, somehow dishonoring the love we once had.
A real love. The kind I’d always dreamed of. One that would last forever.
7
SERGEI
Andre furrowed his brow as I checked my watch. Again.
I didn’t mean to be that obvious, but I was eager to leave.
“You got plans?” my cousin asked sarcastically.
My younger brother, Roman, had already taken off from this family gathering. Birthdays were never celebrated with official parties before. Before my seventeen-year-old cousin Anya, Andre’s sister, had come to live here, we welcomed birthdays with lots of drinks or exotic vacations. Wealthy and without women in our lives, we were free to spend and party as we saw fit. Now that Anya was here, Mikhail was more of a “traditional” fatherly figure. And now that he was engaged to Claire and she was pregnant, things were tamer yet.
Not for Roman. He’d left to go find some women to end the night with. If I had to guess, he was at one of his favorite clubs with at least two or three dancers vying for his attention.
“Just tired,” I lied.
I was eager to go see Natalie. Returning to the Diamond Mirage had become a habit, a routine I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t stop seeing her if I tried, and I had no interest in shutting off this intrigue with her. Especially after she tossed out that line about my being her boyfriend when she was cornered again.
“Yeah?” Andre asked, arching one brow, clearly skeptical and not believing me.
I nodded.
“Anything going on?” he asked.
I shook my head.
Nope. Nothing to see here. Just my fascination with a woman I knew nothing about. A scared bartender I gravitated toward.
At first, I dismissed my obsession with needing to see her as a convenience. She helped me dispel this listlessness. Going to check on her at work wasn’t a duty or chore, but a pull out of my boredom.
Ah, fuck it. It’s more than that.The second after I had that mild taste of her lips, I was ravenous for anything else she’d give me. I remained patient, though, just exiting on the periphery of her orbit, present in case she’d decide that she wanted something more. I didn’t need to be a genius to pick up on how skittish and nervous she was. If I pursued her like I really wanted to, I would guarantee that she’d run off terrified.
Sometimes, the chase and the hunt were the best parts of a conquest. Natalie was something else, though. Someone to cherish and respect. Without needing to know anything else about her, I could intuit that.
Andre was my cousin, though, the guy I’d grown up with. It wasn’t right to lie to him like this. “I might check out this bar.”
He nodded slowly, all ears. He knew better than to ask me for details. His presence demanded that I tell him.
“It’s some shitty little place I stumbled across one night. I went back again, just because I had a feeling about it.” I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. It wasn’t a fucking “feeling” that drew me back. It was a gorgeous woman I couldn’t get out of my mind.
