Free Dangerous Secrets by Lisa Marie Rice

of himself.
    Unlike her. Charity felt as if she were melting. Inside she was buzzing, dizzy with desire, hardly able to catch her breath against the tight band around her chest. The only thing holding her upright was her hands around his wrists. Otherwise she’d collapse in a puddle at his feet.
    Somewhere far away something was ringing, some kind of bell. Well, that fit. A celebratory bell was a perfect soundtrack for what was going on inside her. It took her bedazzled brain almost a minute to realize that it was the telephone ringing. Her answering machine in the living room picked it up and she could hear her own voice asking whoever calledto leave a message. Whoever it was, it couldn’t have been anything important, because there was a click as they hung up.
    Thank God it wasn’t Uncle Franklin calling about yet another problem with Aunt Vera. Charity liked to think that she would, could break the spell of this moment if her aunt and uncle needed her, but she was glad she wasn’t being put to this test.
    Nick behaved as if the phone hadn’t rung at all. He was watching her intently, gaze focused on her face, searching for something. Whatever it was he wanted, it was his.
    “Charity,” he said, his deep voice low, then stopped. There really wasn’t anything else he had to say. What he wanted was clear. Every line of his big body was drawn in desire.
    There was only one possible answer.
    “Yes,” she whispered.
    Vassily Worontzoff’s mansion
    Vassily used his stylus to punch in Charity’s number and listened, with growing apprehension, to the empty line and the far-off ringing, then her lovely voice asking him to leave a message. He didn’t want to leave a message, he wanted to talk to her.
    She wasn’t home. Why wasn’t she home? Where was she?
    Charity seldom went out. She might be with her aunt and uncle, but she’d spent the evening before with them. And they were so elderly they ate at six and were in bed by nine. It was now almost ten.
    Vassily put down the phone with a frown, clawed hand hovering over the receiver. He daren’t call again. He had to ration his calls to Katya— Charity!
    He limited himself to no more than two calls a week and rationed their occasions out together. Two, three times a month. He didn’t dare go beyond that. Not yet.
    But soon.
    They’d already met for tea this month and he’d casually dropped by the library to bring her a package of piroshki he’d had specially ordered and airlifted from Moscow, just for her. She wouldn’t know that, of course. He’d said a friend had brought by several boxes and too many sweets weren’t good for his health.
    And then of course there was the soirée he was organizing on Thursday. His soirées were for her, only her. He loved music, but he had a very extensive CD collection and he could have himself driven down to New York or to Boston any time he wanted when he desired live music. New York in particular had proved very satisfactory that way. He kept an apartment on Park Avenue, owned by a corporation with ten shells around it. No one would ever know it belonged to him.
    The apartment had been decorated in the pastel colors Charity loved, filled with her favorite music CDs, stocked with her favorite teas. He’d bought an entire wardrobe of designer clothes in her size, just waiting for her to step into them. Everything was ready. His new life was there, shimmering just beyond his reach. With each passing day, its outlines grew more and more solid, more substantial.
    Soon now. Soon .
    Soon, she’d see, and understand. Soon, she would be his.
    He’d been waiting for this, working for this, since he’dmoved here five months ago. Charity was meant to be his, his Katya come back to life. This is what he’d been working for, without realizing it, since December 12, 1989, when the KGB had come for them. It was a date carved into his heart with acid, never to be forgotten. The day he’d ceased being human.
    They’d just finished