The Petrov Proposal Read online

  “Nothing. But did you want to be someone’s employee for the rest of your life?”

  “That’s different.”

  “It’s not,” she insisted.

  “I thought you were the best in the business,” he said. “So either you’re willing to hand Petrova Gems over to someone who does subpar work, or you lied about your skills.”

  She narrowed her eyes and pushed off from the wall, not caring, for the moment, that it brought them closer together.

  “I am the best. Maybe you can contract my company to do your events and exhibits.”

  “Your plan is to create your own business co-ordinating events?”

  “Yes.”

  Aleksei felt a surge of annoyance rush through his veins. He had hired Madeline when she’d had very little experience in the way of event planning, and she was intent upon taking that knowledge and applying it somewhere else.

  He looked at her, so petite and pretty in her dress. Her eyes full of fear and determination.

  “And you feel you could handle the responsibility of running your own company?” he asked.

  “I majored in Business.”

  “A worthless degree in my opinion. You either have what it takes to make it, or you don’t.”

  “Inspirational. You should speak at high school graduations.”

  A rusty chuckle climbed his throat. Her wit and boldness always impressed him. The fact that she had a viewpoint and her own opinions was one of the reasons he’d hired her.

  He’d always enjoyed that in their phone conversations. It was nice having someone ready to engage in a verbal battle when he was in a bad mood, or when he simply needed the challenge. Very few people would dare talk to him like Madeline did. All of that deference got old after a while. Especially when he’d realized what an illusion it was. After he’d realized that none of it meant anything.

  “Do you know, I had considered that? But they don’t like it when you tell them skip college and get a job.”

  “Did you?”

  College had been nothing more than a fantasy. Finishing high school had been beyond his reach. He’d always had to work. But he didn’t resent it. It had made him hard enough to withstand the struggle required to succeed. There had been one bright spot in his life. And then tragedy had extinguished the only light he’d ever known, leaving wounds that had scarred over into granite.

  “I had no other option. But I didn’t need another option.”

  She bit into her lush bottom lip, leaving a row of even marks. He fought the urge to extend his hand, to soothe away the impressions with his thumb. “My brother made me go to college.”

  “Your brother?”

  She lowered her eyes, an annoying habit she seemed to be developing. “He’s…he’s very successful and he wanted to make sure that I was successful too.”

  She was holding back. He shouldn’t care. And yet he found he wanted to know the secret she had nearly let slip. The one she didn’t want to tell him.

  He did not know why he felt compelled to learn her secrets, only that he did. He shouldn’t have even felt the need to follow her out into the hall. And yet when he’d seen her petite figure weaving through the crowd, he had started following.

  “So your brother is the one who ensured you got your degree?”

  She nodded. “Yes. He has one too, and he owns a massive chain of very successful resorts. So…not so worthless.”

  He chuckled, surprising himself as much as he surprised her. “I do know who your brother is.”

  He noticed a flood of red creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. “Of course you do. He’s been extremely successful. All my family has been.”

  “And you needed to keep up?”

  “Maybe I just needed to be more famous than the rest of them,” she said, a slow smile spreading over her face, while her blush still lingered.

  “Somehow, you don’t strike me as that type.”

  She raised perfectly groomed brows. “I don’t?”

  “No. You practically ran out of the ballroom earlier, so you don’t seem as though you’re courting fame to me.”

  “Okay, maybe it’s not about fame. I just want to have success on my own.”

  Her tongue darted out and she slicked it over her bottom lip. He couldn’t stop himself from watching the movement, couldn’t stop himself from imagining touching his own tongue to that luscious mouth.

  She was a very desirable woman. And he hadn’t had sex in a long time. He had left Olivia neglected in Milan for a good five months before he had ended the relationship.

  “Ambitious,” he said.

  She looked up at him, blue eyes wide. “What’s life without a goal?”

  “Boring,” he responded.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  He moved nearer to her, so close he could smell the woman beneath the floral perfume. “We are like-minded in some ways then.”

  She swayed slightly, as though she might be tempted to close the distance between them.

  “Strange.” She swallowed, and instead of moving closer, he felt her retreat slightly. “Ah…maybe you should circulate some more. And I have to…uh… The shrimp.”

  “Shrimp?’

  “The buffet. It’s low on shrimp.”

  He inclined his head. “Then I’ll let you get to that, and I’ll circulate.”

  She walked past him, soft curves brushing against him. His body reacted. Viscerally. Hungrily.

  A shame he had chosen to cut ties with his mistress. A shame he hadn’t called one of the models, or chatted up one of the women in the ballroom. Now there would be no taking the edge off his need anytime in the near future. His body rebelled at the thought anyway. Olivia wasn’t the woman he wanted. Neither were any of women in the ballroom. Not tonight.

  “Don’t you…? I mean…you were going to go and…” She made a sweeping gesture with her hand.

  “Yes, circulate. I’m clear on that. Are you dismissing me?”

  She shook her head and her glossy ponytail swung in time with the motion. “No, not at all.”

  “Because it’s bad business to dismiss your boss,” he said.

  He moved toward her, so close that all he would have to do was wrap an arm around her waist and pull her in to join his lips to hers.

  “I’m sure it’s bad business to linger alone in empty hallways with your boss too,” she said, her eyes fixed on his lips, her expression mesmerized.

  “Likely,” he said.

  Their eyes clashed and held.

  “Very bad business,” she said softly, before turning away from him.

  “I’ll talk to you soon, Madeline,” he said.

  Maddy turned and headed toward the kitchen, her heart hammering in her ears. It was disconcerting to realize that she had so much weakness in her. To realize that men were her weakness. She wasn’t tempted as long as she was avoiding them. But it seemed like whenever she was put into close proximity with one…

  She braced her hand on the wall and slowed her breathing, trying to clear her head. No, men weren’t her weakness. She had just been faced head on with the fact that she was suffering severe sexual deprivation—something she hadn’t been conscious of when there wasn’t an attractive man around.

  Soon things would go back to the way they’d been. They would go back to communicating over the phone and the computer and she would be free of the disturbing effect her boss had on her when they were in the same room together.

  She wouldn’t have to face the weakness that still lived inside of her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EVERY time Maddy saw a positive headline with her name attached to it, it helped to erase some of the lingering sting left by her experience with the media five years earlier. And this morning, she had a fantastic headline to look at.

  The party had been a complete success and the pieces in Aleksei’s collection were set to be the must-have items of the year. Of course, most people would only be able to afford the mass-produced pieces, and not the
handmade originals. The originals would sell for upwards of a million dollars at auction at the end of the exhibition tour.

  Her cellphone rang and she snatched it up from the vanity top. “Madeline Forrester.”

  “Good work last night, Madeline.”

  Her stomach dropped to her toes. “Thank you, Mr. Petrov.” She sneaked a glance at her own reflection in the mirror and saw that her cheeks were glowing pink.

  She tried, valiantly, not to picture what Aleksei might be doing.

  “Preparing to head to Switzerland yet?”

  “I got a late checkout. My train doesn’t leave until two. The ballroom at the Appenzell is easily twice as big as the one here, so I need to start prep work early.”

  “Why don’t you ride with me, rather than taking the two o’clock?”

  “With you?” she asked, parroting.

  “I leave at noon and I have a private car reserved. Better than riding in one of the public cars, I would think.”

  She looked at her reflection head on this time, disgusted by the color in her face and the glitter in her eyes. She was excited. Excited to see him again.

  No way was she riding with him. She wasn’t spending anymore time with him than was necessary, not until she got a grip on herself again.

  “We can talk more about where you plan on being in ten years, professionally, and how we might be able to work your long-term goals into a position at Petrova.”

  Suddenly, riding with him seemed like a pretty big necessity. Because if she didn’t, if she let the attraction she felt for him do potential damage to her career, then she might as well just jump him and ruin her career that way.

  She wasn’t about to do either. She certainly wasn’t going to let fear and insecurity hold her back in her professional life.

  “Excellent, what time do you want me to meet you?”

  “Meet me in the lobby at eleven and we can share a car to the train station.”

  “Great, see you then.”

  When she hung up the phone and set it back down on the vanity top, she realized how tightly she’d been gripping it, how hard she’d had it pressed to her ear. She rubbed at the sore spot near her temple.

  A trickle of excitement moved through her, picking up steam as it went. It was because of the possibility of promotion, or eventual promotion. Nothing to do with seeing Aleksei again.

  She ground her teeth together as she crossed the room and started flinging her belongings into her suitcase.

  Yes, it did have to do with seeing Aleksei again. There. Honesty.

  But she didn’t want it to have anything to do with him. Didn’t want to be curious about what kind of man he was, or what he might look like out of his perfectly tailored suits. The fact that she’d entertained the thought of him undressed at all made her feel…it made her feel dirty.

  The fact that she wanted him, that she was attracted to him, made her feel unclean in some way. If she could just ignore her sex drive, she would. And in all honesty, and for the most part, she did ignore it.

  And she would just keep ignoring it. Problem solved.

  She closed the suitcase lid and pressed hard on it, clicking the locks into place. She didn’t have the luxury of hanging around angsting about her own issues. She was moving on, moving forward. That was how she’d been living every day since she was twenty-two and it was how she would keep living.

  She wasn’t going to allow her mistakes to keep her stuck somewhere. She’d worked hard to get where she was. After her very public fall from grace she’d had to work at horrible catering jobs, awful party-planning companies, doing the worst grunt work, so that she could build up a résumé impressive enough to get hired at the North American branch of Petrova. And she’d worked hard to get promoted and moved to the Milan office a couple of months ago. She wasn’t stopping now.

  She wasn’t going to allow anything, least of all an attraction for her boss, to keep her from reaching her full potential at Petrova Gems.

  And if that meant she had to sit across from Aleksei Petrov and talk to him while she tried desperately not to imagine what it would be like to reach out and touch the rough, black stubble of his five o’clock shadow then she would do just that.

  Aleksei hadn’t been in the lobby to meet her. Which was actually a huge relief. Instead, his driver had been there, sending Aleksei’s regrets that he’d had a matter to see to in one of the Milan showrooms.

  Her reprieve was temporary, since he was meeting her at the train station, but still, she’d take what she could get.

  When they arrived at the train station, Aleksei’s driver ushered her from the car and escorted her to Aleksei’s private railcar.

  Well, without Aleksei, it was a no-brainer how she’d rather travel. The space was large and luxurious, with plush couches and a dining set. The domed ceilings were painted a rich blue and gold trim framed the large windows, designed to give the passengers an unsurpassed view of whatever landscape they were passing through.

  It didn’t even compare to the cramped seating in a public car. Now, if only she didn’t have to share it with Aleksei…

  “Good, you made it.”

  Think of the devil.

  She turned and her heart lurched. “Uh…yes, your driver was very accommodating.”

  Aleksei raised a dark eyebrow. “Good. I apologize that I couldn’t meet you.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I did.”

  “Impeccable manners.”

  “Sometimes.”

  A small laugh bubbled in her throat and escaped her lips. He made her laugh. He really needed to stop doing that.

  “Would you like to have a seat?” He gestured to the long cream couch that stretched across most of the room.

  She set her bright pink purse on the floor and sat down on the thick-cushioned couch. Oh, yes, she could get used to this.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Oh, always,” she said.

  He pushed an intercom button by the door and spoke quickly in Italian. She lived in Milan now, had for two months, but she was a long way from mastering the language. Aleksei spoke at least three languages. That sort of proficiency was intimidating to be around.

  He took a seat across from her in one of the big, dark leather chairs.

  “So, what’s this about job opportunities?” she asked, trying to disguise the eager note in her voice.

  “What are you interested in?”

  “What am I…? What do I want to do?”

  “Yes. We’re just having a discussion, Madeline. You’re the one with the ten-year plan. What do you need to feel satisfied with Petrova Gems in ten years?”

  He leaned back in the chair, long legs stretched in front of him. She noticed the way his pants pulled tight, revealing muscular thighs. His build was total perfection. He was, hands down, the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Black hair, olive skin, sensual lips that she knew could soften for a real smile, even if she’d never seen it.

  There was something wrong with her head.

  The door to the private compartment opened and a man in a suit wheeled a trolley in with coffee, cream and an assortment of things to sweeten the drink. She thanked him—that much Italian she could manage—and started fixing her coffee, keeping her focus on her cup, and off the man currently melting her brain.

  “So this is…anything I want?” she asked when she settled back onto the couch.

  “This is hypothetical, but it has the possibility of becoming more.”

  She felt her face get hot as his words took on an unintended meaning. She took a sip of coffee. “Well, I like the artistic aspect of the event-planning. I like the smaller shows too, dealing with the art galleries and the museums. But, I really like the marketing aspects. I majored in Business—” she ignored the look that he gave her and pressed on “—but I did a minor in Market Research and Advertising. I find that part of the business interesting.”

  “And if I moved you
into Marketing you would stay?”

  “Hypothetically,” she said, taking another sip of coffee, “I could do that on my own too.”

  “But not for me. I don’t hire out for as many things as possible. I like to work with the same people, within my company, and have as much control of it as possible.”

  Which she could understand. And it sounded worse when he said it than it actually was. He was a good boss. A great one. Especially when he wasn’t three feet away. Yes, most especially then.

  “And on your own…you lack job security. Security of any kind, really. It’s a competitive field. At least, it is if you’re attempting success rather than mediocrity, which I assume you are.”

  She swallowed a scalding mouthful of coffee. “Naturally.”

  “In which case staying with Petrova is a better option.”

  She set her mug down on the trolley and leaned forward. “So…you actually want to keep me on?”

  “You’re a valuable employee, Madeline.”

  A rush of pleasure moved through her veins. Being appreciated was foreign in so many ways. For a moment, she simply enjoyed it. She didn’t put a wall up, didn’t try to shield herself from her feelings. She’d learned to filter things, good and bad, to protect herself. But she could enjoy this, enjoy that Aleksei Petrov was fighting to keep her on staff.

  Could enjoy being wanted. Needed.

  “Thank you.”

  She was actually choked up. Why did affirmation from him mean anything? She should be fine on her own. She shouldn’t need a pat on the back from him, or anyone.

  But it felt really, really good. And it was tempting to just feel good for a while.

  “I have owned my own company long enough to know that, no matter how good I am at what I do, if I’m not surrounded by employees that are as committed and as skilled, true success is not possible,” he said.

  It was a rare thing, she knew, to have a boss that actually appreciated the work that was done in the trenches and not only that, a boss who didn’t see employees as expendable.

  At her very first office job, an internship, she’d been so cloistered in her boss’s domain she’d got a very good idea that he didn’t respect anyone who worked for him. Of course, she hadn’t seen it that way; she’d eaten up his explanations of why everyone was incompetent. He’d appreciated her, so he’d said. And she had been…so needy. And so very, very stupid.