Chapter 9

London, England

Sophia took a fortifying breath before settling her hands on her hips and glaring up at the painted ceiling. It was beautiful, resembling a cloudy sky viewed from inside a sunroom. The wood flooring and plush rugs under her feet added warmth and comfort she usually basked in. Even the massive fireplace in front of her seating area was a cozy space that held no appeal at the moment.

She was going to kill that Russian for ruining her London sanctuary.

She breathed in the clean scent of wood polish, trying to calm her agitation at having to rush through a shower and change in less than an hour so she could be ready for her blackmail rendezvous. She wasn’t even sure why’d she’d showered or been so picky about her dress. It wasn’t as if there was a dress code for extortion.

She stalked to the window, carefully sliding aside the heavy draperies to peer out the bank of windows to an already darkening sky. Were his men hiding in the shadows of the quiet, tree-lined street in one of London’s oldest and wealthiest neighborhoods? If the man hadn’t obviously had his hands on her itinerary, she would have had Mary reserve rooms at a hotel in the city. Doing that would have seemed suspicious to everyone, and hotel escapes took far more time to plan than she’d been given.

The week had been nerve-racking enough without this surprise.

She glanced over at the fireplace as she waited for Jen. There were no existing floor plans that included all the passages between this home and the one next door. Both were owned by Forde and rented by her anytime she stayed in London. The adjacent residence was where she generally spent her time while her guards assumed she was reading in this room. Being next door and away from her brother’s men gave her a sense of freedom with the added bonus of a secure set of computers she used to review her private accounts and the investments and accounting for the mercenary group.

She glanced out the window again.

She hadn’t heard the fireplace glide open. It was Jen’s drawl that alerted her to the guard’s arrival. “Are we still going, or have you decided to blow off the Russian?”

Had Jen actually sounded hopeful? If so, Sophia understood why. Viktor had had someone contact Jen through her private number two days ago, insisting it was in Sophia’s best interest to meet the Russian in London tonight.

“Is blowing him off an option?”

The woman grunted at that. “Yes.”

The last few days had been bad enough, with no new clues on the Jean Luc front, only more questions. The Belgian had apparently made the drop, yet no one had seen it. The sheet had been in his safe the day he’d arrived back in Belgium, but when their people had checked again yesterday, it had been gone.

With all the dinners in Porenza and time spent with her mother, Sophia had already been losing her mind by the time Jen had gotten Viktor’s threat.

There’d been tense moments at the palace when she was sure she’d snap after suffering hard looks the dowager queen had sent her way anytime she wasn’t speaking to a man on the eligible-bachelor list. She’d come dangerously close to telling her mother and brother what she thought of their archaic demand and exactly where they could put it.

She definitely hadn’t needed an extortion call to add to her already horrible week.

“Are the guards settled?”

“Most are happily eating takeout in the security room. They’re bummed that this isn’t one of your more boring trips.”

Her guards were used to giving her a lot of privacy when she was in London. They thought she curled up and read when not shopping or engaging in some event. They’d been given standing instructions never to disturb her while in residence unless it was urgent. If that were to happen, there was an intercom at the door. When she was actually at the house next door, she had audio access to the intercom via an app on the special phone Jen had given her. The guards could speak to her through it and never realize she wasn’t in the room. The walls were soundproofed, so there would be no echo of her words outside the door. It was the perfect hideaway. As perfect as she could truly get.

“Did you see anyone watching the house?”

“I didn’t see anyone out there, but I parked a car on the street. We’ll leave through the street passage instead of the garage at the other house.” Better to exit through shrubbery than going through a garage she shouldn’t be in.

“Cade and Sean are watching the address he gave?”

“They’re there.” The two men had flown to London at Forde’s insistence when Jen told them what was going on. They’d spent both days checking out the house, only a mile or so away from the one she was currently staying in.

“The storm in New York grounded Forde’s plane,” Jen told her.

Sophia shook her head. “I told him yesterday he didn’t need to come.”

Jen nodded. “Everyone’s worried.” Her friends all wanted to be there, but they couldn’t do anything to help the situation. This was not a physical threat. She could deal with blackmail. Though her stomach turned dwelling on what he was intending to use or ask for.

“We’re late.”

“I say make the asshole wait.”

Sophia snorted indelicately and tried to lighten the mood. “Regretting your advice to use him to blow off steam?”

“I liked him just fine as a potential bed buddy for you until all of this.”

“Okay. So I could blow him off and call his bluff. He doesn’t know where I went when we left the hotel.”

“You could,” Jen pointed out.

“And if he’s not bluffing?” Sophia asked. “Then what? The inquisition would start with my brother demanding to know where I’d gone, why I ditched my security, and likely move to his interrogating me about how the hell I got the equipment and skills to climb. William would then dissect my every move after firing you and the rest of the guards, and he’d give me a new team if I was allowed to leave Porenza at all.”

“You’d have to use that exit plan you don’t want to use. All in all, that might be a better alternative than meeting the Russian. If he can read you as well as you said, you have no business meeting him.”

“And if he has something else?” Sophia pointed out the part neither was saying.

“It’s a risk. There’s every possibility he has some footage of you in the hotel room with him. I trust your abilities to do a visual search, but there are a lot of new surveillance toys on the market, and you didn’t have a scanner.” At least Jen didn’t attempt to placate her.

Sophia sighed. She knew she could have missed something in the room. On a personal level, that was more concerning than her brother finding out she had escaped her security. The thought of anyone seeing her in such an intimate moment made her want to crawl in a hole and die. At least she’d only been topless. God, she couldn’t believe that was her silver lining. She was trying to stay calm, but not knowing was worse than confronting the man.

“I’ll find everything out soon enough.”

“Blackmailers never stop, Sophia. Do not give him anything.”

“I won’t.” But she had to know what he had.

“If he does have video of you with him in the hotel room, we’ll deal with it.” Jen’s tone had turned dark and bloodthirsty.

“I know.” Sophia nodded. It was a heartening sentiment, and she really needed it. “No more sex-tape talk. I’m already mortified enough, and Lauren’s idea about using it to create a new ‘bad girl’ persona is not my idea of a good time.” Her friends were all supportive as hell in their own ways, so she knew she’d have them at her side as she rode out whatever happened in the next hour.

Would he have really set her up for blackmail? That made her stomach twist in knots all over again. He couldn’t believe the information about her sneaking out would be effective leverage to get anything from her. And what would he want? He didn’t lack for women to warm his bed, so sexual extortion seemed far off.

Yet how much of her analysis was biased? Because if she were honest with herself, she hated the idea that her teenage crush, her fantasy man, could do something so unforgivable. Any man willing to tape a woman having an orgasm to use it against her was beyond redemption.

Though hadn’t she seen enough bad deeds to know men and women of power were capable of anything? The answer was a resounding and disheartening yes.

Sophia smoothed the front of the simple, knee-length black dress she’d chosen. The silky material clung to her all the way to her knees. Her thought had been that if anyone took her picture tonight, she’d look elegant enough to be going to a dinner party.

“Let’s get this over with.”