Kallie Margolis opened her eyes. She felt like she’d been run over by a steamroller. As her vision focused on the dingy walls, the faded drapery, and the dust motes dancing in the light streaming in, she remembered where she was. This was her new home. From somewhere she heard seagulls calling, a raucous noise in the early morning, competing with the sound of waves hitting the shore.

The apartment.

Funny how she had forgotten it until now—the strange dingy building, near enough to the ocean that she thought she could smell it, competing with the scents of dirt and mildew, of unwashed sheets and her own sweat, dried now on her body.

I’m alone.

She stared up at the stippled ceiling, seeing only his face. Sasha. Of course. Even though he was far away, her imagination would carry him to her. He would haunt her for the rest of her life.

You’re an idiot.

She’d run away from the man she’d fallen in love with. Never had she seen such perfection. So gorgeous... beautiful in mind, body, spirit... everything a girl would want.

A man she’d come to fear.

Physical perfection, maybe... the rest a lie. You need to remember that.

Yet remembering did strange things to her body. She came alive, nipples becoming hard peaks, moisture blooming between her thighs as if by magic. She squirmed a little, needing to shift, to touch... no... not to touch.

He’d wronged her. She would do well to remember that.

Her mind refused to be stilled. It unrolled for her a tapestry of moments, each caught like a snapshot. The giant Russian touching her. Moving over her. In her. The way he’d said her name. He knew her better than she knew herself. His very touch left her hot and trembling, aching with a need that could never be satiated any other way.

She closed her eyes, fighting the urge to cry.

The room seemed darker suddenly, the way it does when the sun goes behind a cloud. It figured. Her first day at the beach and it was going to rain. She held her breath, waiting for the thunder, wondering if maybe being on the coast meant she’d experience more rain, more violent weather.

To go from a violent man to a violent climate seemed fitting somehow.

Only, the rain never came. For that matter, she could have sworn she’d heard someone breathing.

With a scream, her eyes flew open and she tried to sit up. Only he was there, over her. One arm coming across her throat to pin her to the bed, leaning in until she could feel his warm breath against her cheek. His eyes were as dark as the storm clouds she’d imagined. He was absolutely furious.

“Wake up!” The order was barked at her, nonsensical with her eyes already open. He knew she was awake, she couldn’t look away. Dammit, what had she done? She’d stolen his money, his car... she’d walked out on him without so much as a single word.

She struggled to sit up. He kept her pinned for an extra eternity before stepping back abruptly. She raised herself on her elbows, shaking, thinking that he’d never threatened her like this before. The sheet fell away from her as she rose, her soft breasts bared to his view, traitorous nipples still hard, harder even, to where they ached unbearably. She needed him still, though who knew why.

Then it came back to her. The last night, Sasha had been here then, too... he’d stayed all night? Confused, she tried to remember going to bed, especially since she never slept naked. Without a doubt, she hadn’t a stitch on now.

She’d been crying, she remembered. She’d cried herself to sleep because... the phone call. His violence.

What had he done to her?

Kallie grabbed at the sheet. Regardless of what had happened last night, she wasn’t giving him a chance to repeat the performance today. No, she was off limits. Let him chew on that.

Damn it all if she wasn’t crying despite her anger. The tears slid down her cheeks before she could stop them. Arousal be damned he was scaring her, and she wanted him to go.

“Why are you the one who’s crying?” he said, drawing himself upright. His broad shoulders seemed to fill the entire room. “The love of your life didn’t walk out on you, did he?”

“Wait... you think I hurt you?”

He’d been lying to her. Using her. Been using their own business together to traffic drugs, and here he thought he was the hero of some bad boy romance where he could just walk in and start right back turning things around to where she fucking knew she was being gaslighted and she’d just open her legs to him and take him back?

“I’m not interested. And you can leave anytime.” The tears had dried up on their own. She struggled to her feet, taking the sheet with her, wrapping it around herself like a toga. Let that last look at her breasts be just that. A LAST look.

“Oh no, we’re done,” he agreed, his eyebrow arching like he was all that and he expected her to beg or something.

“Good.” And just like that they were on the same page. That didn’t mean it still didn’t hurt like hell. She’d loved him, for shit’s sake.

“So, then, what are you doing here?” She had to tilt her chin up to look at him. On her feet and in front of him, and still she had to crane her neck if she wanted to look him in the eyes. The man was a mountain. A god of a man, straight out of Greek mythology.

With all the attitude to boot.

“We still have a business to run, and you are not quitting that for now. Your name is on things and your signature is required. We have to be civil until that can be changed. Get dressed.”

Kallie glanced back at the bed with a sigh. It would serve him right if she just went back to sleep. The mattress had been surprisingly comfortable, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to give that up just yet. Especially for some jerk who’d likely been watching her sleep half the night. The creep.

For that matter, even if she were inclined to get up, who said anything about being bossed around by some mafia kingpin who thought he was all that? “Send me the papers to sign,” she said, sitting back down on the bed, and leaning over to fluff the pillows. “You can have it all. We can do this by email, you know that.”

Why he couldn’t have just signed her name for her like he probably had a dozen times already, she didn’t know. Which meant he needed something else from her. Something he wasn’t disclosing. After all, he’d brought her into the business as a cover for whatever it was he was actually doing, just like he’d done before. Why she’d ever thought he would change was completely beyond her.

He ripped the pillow out of her grasp. “Let’s not do this.”

She grabbed at the pillow, but he held it out of reach. Suddenly she was back in grade school, playing keep-away. What was he, twelve? She launched herself after it, snagging it away from him triumphantly, standing in front of him, the sheet draped loosely around her, the pillow held like a shield between them. “You need me as a cover for you, I get that. Why don’t you ask sweetheart to be your pretend business owner?” she asked with a sneer, remembering his phone call that had so broken her up last night.

That still poked at the shards of her heart today. It hurt, though there was no way she was going to let him know that. She wasn’t going to give him that power over her ever again. What kind of fool had she been to cry over him last night? To cry until she’d fallen asleep from it? Even now she felt the burning itchiness in her eyes, that heavy, headachy feeling of a breakup hangover.

Sasha was scowling. She’d never seen him so dark and foreboding. He towered over her, face flushed. Kallie swallowed hard and told herself not to be intimidated.

“Do not do this.”

“What will you do if I do? I want a clean break. Cut. I’m not asking for anything but to start over here,” she said, gesturing around the apartment, dingy as it was. “You give me lots of stuff. Why is the one thing that doesn’t cost you anything, the one thing you can’t give me?”

He was silent a long time. “Fine,” he said finally. “Just not right now. Let’s wrap up things back home and I’ll set you up. We can part ways after that.”

“I don’t need you to set me up. I’m done with your setting me up,” she said, throwing the pillow on the bed and stepping deliberately into his space.

It was a desperate move, one that she hadn’t counted on leavingv her unnerved. His sexual charisma was a force to be reckoned with. He was like a superhero or something, with this crazy scary ability to intoxicate her with a need for him, simply by being near. She couldn’t breathe. If she did, she’d smell his scent. A foot closer and she could taste the sweat on his skin. Could become lost in that incredible, stupid chemistry that led her down this path in the first place.

“Kallie,” he said, his tone wheedling, stepping in closer. In her space.

“No, Sasha, I’m not going,” she said, refusing to be moved.

He cupped the back of her head and swept in for a kiss. It hadn’t even been a single rotation of the moon since she kissed him last, and she felt like he was feeding her after she’d been left to die of starvation. She responded, damn her, damn him, and nipped his lips hungrily. Was it she who made the first move, to plunge her tongue into his mouth, ravaging, plundering, taking everything she could from him, though she knew it was a mistake and that she would pay dearly? Her hands clutched at his shirt, the sheet falling forgotten to the floor.

He was the one to pull away. To step back and look at her, her body flushed and aroused. He had to smell it on her, her entire body singing out just how much she still wanted him.

The bastard.

“I hate you, you know.”

“Yeah,” he said, and to her surprise he was the one to look away. “I know. I was waiting for that to happen.”