Chapter Eleven
Maddie had never seen anything more beautiful than the tiny coastal town with the name she could not begin to pronounce. The people seemed old fashioned. The streets were narrow. Buildings were made of natural stone. The color of the stone was almost sand colored, and each structure had a quaint, red tile roof. The buildings were jammed together, and yet there were still the most beautiful green trees sprouting between them. The colors were incredibly intense, and the sky that hung overhead was the deepest blue Maddie had ever seen.
Alex casually held her hand draped over his arm as the two of them meandered down a road lined with shops. Maddie tried to ignore the fact that there were two enormous, black clad guards prominently carrying handguns in holsters at their waist trailing behind. Unfortunately, it was a little difficult to forget.
“Do you see anything you like?” Alex gestured to a shop with windows that showcased rack after rack of jewelry.
Maddie bypassed the bling and headed for a boutique that carried airy sarongs, bathing suits, and other beachwear. “I think I need to focus on the practical and not the pretty, don’t you?” She cast a glance over her shoulder to find him looking rather perplexed.
Inside the boutique, she flipped through several racks of clothes. Pulling out a few possible choices, she draped them over her arm. A woman approached and took the dresses from Maddie. She gestured to a tiny cubicle with a curtain at the back of the shop. Maddie nodded. Apparently the world of retail did not need words in order to make a sale.
The woman glanced at Alex and gave a little start. Maddie frowned, wondering if men weren’t welcome in the store. Then the woman sketched a hasty bow, and Maddie realized the store clerk actually recognized Alex. Apparently here in Croatia, Alex was the equivalent of hanging out with a pop star back in New York.
Maddie continued browsing. She was so over any hint of the celebrity wow factor.
“I must admit,” Alex finally said in English. “I have never had a woman turn down the offer of jewelry before.”
“I bet.” Maddie left it at that and chose another long dress. The sundresses in this place were made of an incredibly beautiful, woven linen fabric and didn’t appear to be very expensive—that was providing Maddie remembered her exchange rate correctly.
“Maddie?” Alex actually sounded amused. “Are you ignoring me on purpose?”
“I’m shopping, sweetie,” she told him with a chuckle. “I’m busy. Give me a minute and I’ll pay attention to you, all right? I’ll even go back to the jewelry store if that will make you feel better.”
Maddie glanced at Alex from the corner of her eye. He looked miffed. Good. Maybe he deserved to remember that she wasn’t some call girl who was too enamored by his celebrity status to expect him to treat her right.
***
ALEX COULD NOT believe Maddie was essentially ignoring him. Vladimir’s suggestion to just have sex with her a few times to work her out of his system was looking better and better. He was Alexander Maximovich Stepanov, for goodness sake! He should not be trailing around behind a woman while she ignored him in favor of perusing a rack of clothing that obviously hadn’t been designed by any reputable fashion guru. How could she seem so pleased by such poor quality goods?
Less than ten minutes later, Maddie had made an efficient trip to the dressing room and chosen her items. The sales clerk rang up the paltry total, and Maddie reached for her wallet and credit card.
“I’ll take care of it,” Alex told the sales clerk in Croatian. “Just send the bill to my estate.”
“Yes sir.” The young woman bobbed another quick bow and then waved at Maddie to put her card away.
Maddie swung around. “Did you just pay for my stuff? I really don’t need you to do that.”
“The entire bill was less than half the cost of the last pair of shoes I purchased,” Alex told her. “I promise I won’t even notice. I would like to do this for you to make up for taking you on vacation to a place you had not anticipated. Yes?”
She shrugged. “I guess that’s fair.”
The sales clerk quickly wrapped Maddie’s parcels in tissue and then put them in a string handled shopping bag. Maddie gathered her things and walked out of the store. Alex fell into step beside her, and they walked for several minutes in companionable silence.
“There’s a really wonderful restaurant up here on the corner,” Alex said as they approached the end of the street. “Are you hungry?”
Maddie glanced behind them at Igor and Ivan. The brothers had been on Alex’s personal security detachment for nearly a decade.
She made a vague gesture to indicate the men. “What do you do with Moe and Curly when you stop like that? Do they just stand behind us inside the restaurant? Do they wait outside? Do they get another table?”
“This bothers you excessively?” Alex realized suddenly that it absolutely did bother her. He was used to such things. He supposed that to her it might seem unusual.
“I’m used to celebrities having bodyguards. There are bouncers and bodyguards all over New York. Sometimes I swear it’s one of the largest growing professions in the city.” She sighed. “But I’m not used to people following me or worrying that someone might actually want to kill me—or kill us.” Her hand drifted down to her belly, and Alex felt a faint stirring of protective instincts as well.
“Their names are Igor and Ivan,” Alex told her quietly. “They will simply make themselves part of the scenery in the restaurant. They are quite good at what they do. I know that this is odd for you, but honestly it is for our protection. I don’t want any harm to come to you—” He took a deep breath. “—or our child.”
***
THE WAY HE said “our child” did weird things to Maddie’s heart. And truthfully she was starving. She wanted nothing more than to sit down and chow her way through a plate of food that preferably included lots of bread.
“All right.” She nudged him gently with her shoulder. For once he did not rebuff her affection. So she smiled up at him. “I’m not going to tell you that I don’t want to eat. I’m pretty much starving every second of every day.”
His broad smile left her wondering which of her words he found most amusing, but soon they were entering the most adorable restaurant, and Maddie forgot everything but the scenery. It was cool and inviting inside. The walls were whitewashed and then painted with scenes of the town with the blue-green ocean behind and the brilliant sky overhead. Little hand crafted sconces held candles that gave off flickering light and provided just the right amount of atmosphere.
A man greeted them eagerly, jabbering away in a language Maddie couldn’t decipher at all. He gestured for them to follow, and Alex led the way through the low ceilinged, cozy dining room to a terrace.
Maddie gasped. “It’s so gorgeous!”
The view was spectacular. The restaurant sat midway on the town’s hilly terrain. The terrace managed to overlook the rest of the town as it spread out below them before meeting the beach and the sea far below. Maddie could see boats chugging into the harbor and hear the hustle and bustle of town life. The sun was just beginning to set, and the water was like a mirror image of the sky capped with white tipped waves.
They were seated, and Maddie couldn’t stop staring at the sight before her. “I can absolutely see why you vacation here.”
“It’s relaxing, no?” Alex murmured.
The man came back moments later and had a discussion with Alex, presumably about the food. In what seemed like moments the table was filled with hearty fish soup and thin sliced ham that reminded Maddie of her favorite prosciutto at the deli back in New York.
Alex had wine, but the waiter brought Maddie some sparkling water. Then the man brought a plate of what looked like whole shrimp tossed in a tomato-based sauce and something that resembled an octopus.
“Yeah, I’m usually pretty brave when it comes to food,” Maddie told Alex. “But there’s no way I’m doing squid with this baby in my belly.”
He laughed and tucked into the squid over risotto. Maddie ate her fish soup and about as much of the ham as she could get. They talked, they laughed, and finally—finally—Alex began to loosen up a bit. There were more courses. Wine flowed, and finally there were tiny, sugar-coated doughnuts called fritule, which Maddie could not get enough of.
“You’re not what I expected,” Maddie finally admitted when they had stopped eating simply because neither of them had any more room to take another bite.
***
ALEX WONDERED IF that was good or bad. He wasn’t what she expected, which begged a question. “What did you expect?”
“At dinner the other night, with your friends in New York,” she began. “You were very formal. I would have called you stiff.”
“Those were not friends.”
She frowned. “Then why go out with them?”
“I had to convince the senator and his State Department compatriot that I was not on a mission to overthrow the Russian government,” Alex said blandly.
“Oh my God!” Her eyebrows drew together in consternation. “You mean that all of your mother’s machinations and scheming has left you standing there holding the bag?”
“Holding the bag?” He was almost certain it was an idiom, but he had no clue what she meant.
“I was referring to the fact that your mother schemes and you pay the price for her attempts to—” Maddie looked at a loss. “—do whatever it is she does, I guess.”
“Is that not the way the world works?” he chided gently. “Don’t you sometimes have to mop up the mess when one of your clients does something stupid?”
She snorted and looked longingly at the remaining fritule. “Sorry, but that’s not my department. The record label has PR people for that. But I understand what you’re getting at.”
She was looking upon him with more kindness and perhaps empathy than she had up to this point.
“I just want a chance to know you,” Alex said, surprised at how true that statement really was. “I was drawn to you from the beginning because of your vivacity and that wild streak you aren’t afraid to display to whomever you meet.”
“I refuse to apologize for being me,” she told him firmly. “And if someone thinks I should, they can just go to hell.”
“I get the feeling someone in your past thought you should be apologetic.” He wondered where that insight had come from. Usually he was not so free with his opinions regarding other people’s motivations.
“My sister.” Maddie gave a hard nod. “Well, my older sister.”
“Ah.”
“You don’t have siblings, though.”
“No, but I have plenty of cousins.” He grimaced. “You met one of them in New York.”
Maddie sat back in her seat and rolled her eyes. “The little rat that called your mother? Yes. He would be a pain. My sister is a little bossier, I think. She gets an idea into her head of how something happened and nothing can sway her. Nothing.”
“So she accused you of wrongdoing,” Alex mused. “And she used that wild streak of yours as the reason for her accusation.”
“Correct.” There was a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “And you get extra points for all this paying attention you’ve been doing!”
“And what can I do with these extra points you speak of?” Alex realized that he was flirting. He was actually flirting. How extraordinary!
“Well.” She leaned forward in her seat, her tone growing sultry. “I suppose you’ll have to come up with a prize that interests you.”
Alex stood up. It was very much time to get back to the house.