Page 128 of Beguiled

She shifted her body as well, clamping her hand around my shirt. “Hmmm… Let’s talk about conniving. Shall we? My mother called this morning.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Mmm… You knew she would.”

“How is she?”

“Perplexed. She mentioned the taxes were paid in full, the ranch paid off, the back account suddenly appearing with six figures and the owner of the land development company trying to fleece them was arrested on extortion charges. Imagine her surprise.”

“Wow. That is a surprise. Any idea what happened?”

Using the vantage point, she jerked me closer. “You did that. Didn’t you?”

“What?”

“You are so infuriating, the kind of man I just want to…”

“To what? Tell me,moya lichnaya tantsovshchitsa. I dare you,” I said in a low voice while drinking in her sultry perfume.

“You should know better than to dare a woman like me. To kiss.” She captured my mouth, holding our lips in place for several seconds.

I eased my hand around to the back of her neck, yanking her even closer. Right now, all I wanted to do was to spend the day in bed examining every inch of her luscious body. Sadly, we had business to handle. But tonight was a different story.

She slipped her tongue inside while rolling her hand down my chest. I’d be damned when she teased me, crawling her fingers between my legs. When she wrapped them around my cock, it was all I could do to keep from pinning her down on the seat.

Maybe on the way home.

When she pushed away, she purposely bit my lower lip. “You’re delicious.”

“And you’re a bad girl.”

“Mmm… Don’t forget it. I don’t know what to say. You didn’t need to do that. But you don’t know what it means to me.”

“Yes, I did need to assist. The company your parents were tangling with is corrupt. They needed to be stopped.”

“Why? You don’t know them.”

“But I know you and how important your parents are to you. Call it a wedding present.”

Her eyebrows furrowed and she burst into laughter. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Why not? We are good together.”

“Generally, the man has a ring, falls onto one knee, and just a little thing that really isn’t much but typically, it’s not done while sitting outside a funeral home.”

“Oh, that. Well, I guess I’ll need to ask you at a later time or until you say yes.”

She shook her head. “You are such an evil man. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

There were easily four dozen people inside when we walked in. While the viewing was for three hours, I’d ensured that Vardan wouldn’t be in attendance. What I suspected was that Mikhail had betrayed Tawny’s rich father, killing her to keep the Chertov family from discovering the truth behind the arranged marriage.

I’d learned enough about Anton Pushkin to know he was many things. Ruthless. Powerful. And hated in Moscow and beyond. He’d stolen from the poor to create his empire. While I couldn’t care less about Russian politics, I knew he’d prefer to stay in New York and in the good graces of the Russian people living in and near the city.

Through Kazimir’s stories, I’d also learned that he and our father had once been friends, each going in different directions. That’s what Mikhail had played on when convincing him that he should be the next great syndicate leader, which is what I expected Mikhail wanted.

Vardan had no idea how corrupt Mikhail had become. He’d thought he would be in control of both the Armenians and the Russians. Maybe in the beginning until our empire crumbled into the dust.