Because he had a plan he was supposed to be carrying out, which did not involve falling in love with this girl and baring his soul to her.
So Nikolai could hardly speak to her at all, or even look her in the face, as they dressed and walked back out to the car. He was torn between what he was supposed to do, and what he desperately wanted.
Nadia seemed to be experiencing some of the same turmoil. He knew she was probably feeling guilty. Even though she’d broken things off with Maxim, she probably hadn’t planned to move on so quickly.
Only once they were back in his car did Nadia turn to him and say, “Well, that was...unexpected.”
“Yes, it was,” Nikolai agreed.
He had intended to seduce Nadia.
But the way it had felt, what it had done to him...That was unexpected indeed.
“Are you alright?” Nadia asked, searching his face with her vivid green eyes.
Nikolai looked at her. He wanted to admit everything to her. He wanted to tell her what his father had demanded of him. He wanted to explain that he had planned to make her fall in love with him, so he could use their families’ histories and her name.
But if he did that, he’d ruin the deal that was more important to his father than anything. And worse, he’d ruin his own chances with Nadia.
So he just forced himself to smile and said, “I’m better than alright. I’m on the fucking moon right now.”
Nadia laughed.
“Me too,” she said.
But he could see her watching him as he put the car in drive and pulled away from the spa.
He had the uncomfortable feeling that she could see right through him. That she could read him in a way that no one had before.
To distract her, he said, “Did you know our grandfathers almost killed each other in a bathhouse?”
“What?” she said. “Stanislav?”
“That’s right,” he said, “and my grandfather Dimitri. They met there so neither of them could bring in a weapon. But then they got so enraged with each other that they tried to strangle one another with their bare hands.”
“I never heard that,” Nadia said, shaking her head in amazement. Then, with a naughty smile breaking out on her face, she said, “I wonder what they’d think of what we got up to?”
“Well,” Nikolai said, “I think you might have been trying to kill me. Just in a different way.”
Nadia laughed.
“I like our way of doing business much better,” she said.
She lay back in her seat, letting her fingers lightly stroke over Nikolai’s tattooed knuckles, where he gripped the gearshift.
Nikolai had put on more classic doo-wop, “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is,” because he knew that Nadia liked it.
The breeze blew tendrils of dark hair around her face. She closed her eyes, looking peaceful and happy.
The whole drive to her grandfather’s house, Nikolai was dreading the moment when she’d get out of the car. He didn’t want their day together to be over. Even the sound of her soft breathing in the seat next to him was hypnotic.
As soon as he’d put the car in park, he reached across and seized her once more, kissing her like he might never see her again after this moment.
It was only supposed to be a kiss, but it instantly inflamed his desire for her to the point that he would have torn open her blouse and taken her right there in the front seat of the car if she hadn’t pulled away from him, gasping for breath, and saying, “God, I can’t, my aunt is probably watching out the window. I don’t even think they have a TV, so she’s always lurking around...”
“Tomorrow then,” Nikolai said. “I have to see you again.”
“Tomorrow,” Nadia agreed.
