SEVENTEEN
“I’m fine,” Mia said around a phlegmy cough. “It’s just a cold.”
Vadim stood at the end of the bed in the ER, glaring alternately at his sister and the doctor, who looked no older than twelve. Isobel felt a little intrusive staying in the room, but Dante had insisted she mark their left-winger the moment he heard Vadim’s sister was sick.
If he catches anything and can’t play, I’m holding you personally responsible, Chase.
As separating Vadim from his sister was impossible, her only choice was to hover close and ensure that he didn’t get within contamination distance.
“She should see an oncologist,” Vadim said to the ER doc. “She had a bone marrow transplant fifteen months ago. Perhaps she is having a relapse.”
“The blood work came back fine, Mr. Petrov, and I’ve spoken to her doctor at NYU.” Doogie Howser pushed his glasses back up his nose. “This is a virulent case of the flu. We’re seeing a lot of it.”
“See, bro?” Mia sat up, though she swayed like a windblown reed. “I just need to lie down for a bit.” She shivered, looking around with something like dread in her eyes. “But not here, Vad. I can’t stay here.”
Never taking his eyes off her, Vadim spoke words clearly intended for the doctor. “She can leave?”
“Sure. Bed rest for a few days. Plenty of fluids. Tender loving care.” He looked at his buzzing phone. “Our usual prescription for the flu.” He left to attend to the truly sick.
“Vad, I’ll see you outside in a minute.” Mia steadied herself with a splayed palm on the bed. “I just need to get my stuff together.”
Vadim didn’t move an eyelash.
“Bro! Leave!”
“I will turn my back while you dress. Isobel will tell me if you have fainted again.”
“Vadim Petrov, stop being a dill-hole! I should have drained all your freakin’ marrow when I had the chance.” Mia looked to Isobel for help.
Isobel pushed at Vadim, which was roughly equivalent to negotiating with a giant statue. “I’ll stay to make sure she doesn’t fall over. Go take care of her paperwork.”
With one last mutinous look at his sister, Vadim stalked out. Isobel picked up Mia’s clothes and handed them to her.
“Where’s Gordie Howe?” the girl asked.
“Igor—I mean, Alexei has him.”
She looked relieved. “Good. Alexei loves Gordie Howe. That man is such a softie. Could you—?” She turned her back and gestured at the bow of her johnny. Isobel stepped in and undid it, then helped her with her underwear and clothes.
Something Mia had said thrummed through her. “Vadim was your bone marrow donor?”
“Uh, yeah.” A furtive glance to the door, and she went on. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone. We’re trying to keep our connection on the down low so I won’t feel the pressure of being Vadim’s sister. People will have a lot of questions, especially . . .” Her voice petered out.
“Especially as that’s how you and Vadim first connected? Because you needed the transplant?”
She nodded, tears welling. “Mom was worried my father would try to get custody of me, so she kept me a secret from him. About a month after he died, we found out about the leukemia, so she had to fess up. I mean, she would have gotten in touch with Vadim anyway, but it moved up the timetable.” A tear finally fell, and she wiped it away with a watery smile. “Vadim was amazing. He didn’t even hesitate, but he won’t talk to her. He can’t forgive her.”
Who’d blame him? His mother had left him as a child and only reached out when she needed his genetic material for the child she kept. That had to have hurt him deeply. Neither could this situation be easy on this poor girl torn between two people she loved.
“The Vadim I know is a pretty forgiving person.” After all, he hadn’t held on to a grudge about how Clifford had treated him in the wake of their doomed teenage hookup. Or, he hadn’t held on to it for long. She patted Mia on the shoulder. “Now let’s get going before he Hulks out on the discharge nurse.”
“Nyet.”
Isobel moved a foot over the threshold, though she didn’t hold out much hope of it making a difference. Alexei had braced his body so it filled the space between the doorjamb and the open door he refused to let her through.
“Listen, Alexei.” She considered smiling, then decided it would be wasted on this guy. He’d hated her eight years ago, his face always in a permanent scowl at her for leading Vadim astray. Nothing had changed. “I’m here to see the patient.”
“Flu,” Alexei grunted. “In bed.” He pushed the door toward her.
She splayed a hand against it. Try me, Igor. “I brought soup.”
“We have soup.” He looked like a bulldog who had eaten a lemon and enjoyed it. So maybe he was a borscht-producing master and soup was his stock in trade, but she had an ace in her back pocket.
“It’s in a bread bowl, Alexei. They put the soup”—she held up the bag containing the majestic offering—“in a bowl made of bread. Comprendez?”
He didn’t look like he comprendez’ed.
She tried again, slower this time. “The bowl is made of bread.”
From a distance, Vadim said something in Russian, and Alexei answered with a string of guttural hacks that put her in mind of cats being murdered.
“Vadim, I have soup!” Isobel called out, just in case it wasn’t clear who was at the door or that soup was in the mix.
A resigned Alexei held the door back. As she stepped inside, her eyes were immediately drawn up.
So much light, like it had somehow been bottled and was being pumped into the foyer. Set back off the main road in Winnetka, from the front, this rented lakeside mansion looked like a typical playground for the rich and famous, about as palatial as you could get in the Midwest. Moving farther in, she realized that the front was a model of deception, as the foyer led to a great room styled like a Mediterranean villa. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the wave-torn lake, which lashed against the ice-fringed edges of the property. In the summer, it would be epic. In March, it merely looked spectacular.
Adding to the spectacular, at the center of the tableau was the man himself, looking like a louche Regency duke. He lay sprawled on a massive L-shaped sofa, his legs covered by an afghan, his chest exposed and gleaming. Gordie Howe lay curled up beside him, auditioning for the part of “villain’s pet” in the latest James Bond.
“You brought me soup?” Vadim asked.
“Hell no. That was just my toll.” She turned to a looming Alexei and placed the package in his hands. “This is for Mia. I’m guessing it’s about time for her to eat.”
Isobel had offered to let Mia stay with her until she was healthy enough to travel back to New York. No way in hell did they want one or more of their players coming down with something that kept them from making money for the franchise. But Vadim wouldn’t hear of it. So here she was, ostensibly on Dante’s orders, ensuring that their star left-winger wouldn’t catch the flu.
“Where is she?”
“In one of the guest rooms,” Vadim said. “I will wake her.”
Isobel raised a hand. “Nope. You are not getting sick, Russian. I’ll do it, if necessary, but we have to keep you out of harm’s way.”
Alexei cast a glance at Vadim, who muttered something in Russian. It was enough to send him off to another part of the estate. She couldn’t imagine the impenetrable Alexei ever getting sick, so this worked out nicely.
Isobel slipped off her parka, sat down several feet from tattooed temptation, and crossed one booted foot over her thigh.
Vadim’s brow furrowed. “The soup is in a bread bowl?”
“Sure is. They scoop out the bread and fill it with soup.”
“What about the bread that’s scooped out?”
“They wrap it and put it on the side for dipping.”
Vadim didn’t want to look impressed, she could tell, but no one in his right mind could fail to acknowledge the genius of the bread bowl. His wistful look toward wherever Alexei had retreated was confirmation enough.
“Any sign of fever?” Moving closer—purely in the guise of visiting nurse, mind you—she placed a palm on his forehead. He felt fine, but looked H-O-T.
Taking her hand, he rubbed it along his chest, then his abs, heading south. “Just down here.”
“That’s not why I’m visiting. I’m on a mercy mission.”
He curled a hand around her neck and drew her close. “Then have mercy, Bella.” His kiss was as hot as he looked, and she was weak. So weak. Probably coming down with the flu.
Drawing back, she kept her eyes at chest level. “You really ought to cover up. This can’t be helping.”
“Can’t be helping whom?” He had her bang to rights there.
“You’re pretty funny for a Russian, Vad. You weren’t like this before.”
“I am half American. It took a while for my sense of humor to develop.” Seeming to realize what he’d said, he frowned and tugged on the edge of the afghan. He looked a little lost, and Isobel’s heart softened.
Sensing an opening, she took her shot. “Does your mother know about Mia?”
His expression hardened. “Alexei called her, so I expect she will show up soon. She may have even planned it. Sent her sick daughter here.”
“Paging paranoia.”
He regarded her with half-lidded eyes. “It is a Trojan horse gambit.”
“I’m sure your sister would love to be compared to a Greek classic. Or a wooden horse.” Or a battle in the war between her brother and mother.
“This is how she plays the game. My father is dead, I am rich, she is back. And look, I have a sister!”
Waiting until Vadim’s father died definitely put an odd spin on it, but Isobel refused to judge. Her own mother had left her father for good reasons: lesbianism and adultery were pretty much top two, she’d say. Walk a mile and all that.
“Mia told me you were her bone marrow donor. I don’t remember you being off the ice for long over a year ago.”
He smirked. “Keeping tabs on my career, Bella?”
“Keeping tabs on my team’s assets, Russian. It wasn’t in your file.”
“I only needed a week to recover and I convinced the Quebec team doctors to keep it secret. My life is very public, and she has enough pressure as it is, being the next great thing in female hockey.”
Isobel could relate. “So if you didn’t meet your sister until recently, how come she plays hockey?” Not many girls “fell” into hockey by accident.
“Mia says she was encouraged to play all sports: soccer, tennis, swimming, lacrosse, hockey. But the ice is in her blood.”
“The genes are strong with this one, huh?”
Vadim allowed himself a moment to look proud. “Have you seen her play?”
“Only online. It’s amazing how strong she is, considering she’s not fully grown. But she’s not a muscle factory, either. Her speed reminds me of yours.”
“She will be an all-time great. I have no doubt.”
Isobel blinked away threatening tears. How petty of her to think of her own ruined potential while admiring another player. Even Isobel could see that Mia was more talented than she’d been at that age.
“Well, my work here is done, so I should go.”
He grasped her wrist. “Have you had a flu shot?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then you will stay.”
“Shouldn’t you be napping?” Hockey players were big on naps, and this would be about the right time for one.
His lips curved. “Get under the blanket.”
“Vad . . .”
He pulled back the blanket to reveal wafer-thin sweatpants, ridiculously low on his hips. Her Kryptonite! Those V indents were something else, absolutely lickable. His arm stretched along the back of the sofa, inviting her into paradise.
“There are people here.” She looked around as if the people were actually present in this room. Gordie Howe, proxy for society’s judgment, eyed her with ambivalence. “This is crazy.”
Sex she could handle. Insane, lights-out monkey sex, maybe against that floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the lake. But the comfort of his body was another thing entirely. Becoming accustomed to it would not be good for her mental well-being.
“Mia will sleep after her soup. Alexei has an errand to run that will take all afternoon. Lay your head on my chest and take a nap with me, Bella.”
She was pretty wrecked, and a few minutes wouldn’t hurt, she supposed. Feeling completely overwhelmed by his sheer Russian-ness, she threw an arm around his hard body, snuggled in the crook of his arm, and closed her eyes.