Behind the Palace Walls Read online

  She felt foolish for thinking so, when clearly he did not feel compelled to return to her side. For all she knew, he was living the single life in Moscow, sleeping with a different woman every night and never planning to return to his plain, pregnant wife.

  “Ochen’ priyatno,” Paige said.

  The countess’s exotic eyes narrowed. “Mnye tozhye.”

  Paige knew it was the proper reply, yet she doubted very much the countess was actually pleased to meet her. The problem with learning Russian was that she couldn’t understand inflections the way she would if the woman had replied in sarcastic English.

  “You must come to my salon,” the countess said. “There are many people who would like to meet you.”

  Paige didn’t know what to say. She glanced at Mariya, but the woman was busy staring at her feet. Instinctively she was certain the Countess Kozlova did not like her. But she wasn’t certain she could refuse an invitation. Would it reflect badly on Alexei? Did she care if it did?

  Paige felt a slow flush creeping up her neck. For God’s sake, the man had left her alone since they’d returned from Texas. He’d told her to learn how to be a princess, and then he’d abandoned her instead of helping her to learn the role himself. She was out of her element, out of her depth and growing more furious by the minute.

  How dare he throw her into shark-infested waters to sink or swim on her own! How dare he drag her from her life and those she loved when he didn’t want or need her!

  Was this how she was going to live? Was this how she was going to be the best mother for her baby? By cowering and moping and waiting for instruction?

  Something inside her snapped as she faced the woman watching her so confidently, one immaculately groomed eyebrow lifted in question. She felt as if the countess was mocking her, as if the world was mocking her.

  And she was sick of her lack of control over her own life.

  By God, from now on she would stop living like a hermit in a grand palace and immerse herself in the life and culture. Alexei wanted a princess? Then he would get one, though it might not be the one he wanted.

  “Speciba,” she replied, lifting her chin. “I would be pleased to attend.”

  The countess bared her teeth in a smile. “Very well. I will send the details to your social secretary, da? I so look forward to it, Princess.”

  Countess Kozlova lived in a grand town house located on one of the canals that crisscrossed St. Petersburg and gave it the nickname “Venice of the North.” On the drive into town, Paige had begun to believe she’d made a mistake in agreeing to come to the countess’s party. Mariya hadn’t said a word, but Paige could feel her assistant’s disapproval.

  She’d steadfastly ignored it, just as Alexei had ignored her. Three days had passed since she’d gone shopping and met the countess, and Alexei had not called once. Though Paige had wanted to pull the covers over her head and pretend she’d not accepted the invitation, she’d known she could not do so. Instead, after consulting Mariya as to the type of party this was and what she was expected to wear, she’d chosen a white silk gown and tall, crystal-studded sandals that peeked from beneath the hem whenever she walked.

  A maid twisted her hair up into an elegant French knot, and then Mariya had shown up with a selection of jewels that made Paige’s breath catch in her chest. The diamonds, Mariya had informed her, had once belonged to a Romanov queen. As if the glittering jewels weren’t enough, Mariya had also produced a tiara.

  Paige had stared at herself in the mirror for several minutes, her eyes glassing over with tears. She looked elegant, like a princess should look. For the first time since she’d come to Russia, she felt as if she might actually learn to belong here.

  Appropriately gowned and coiffed, Paige had set out on the journey into town, her heart thrumming like a bird in a cage. Now, as she stood in the glittering ballroom surrounded by men and women speaking Russian, she once more felt alone and isolated and completely out of her depth.

  She should not have come. She should have contented herself with a book like she had so many other nights. Mariya was by her side to translate, but unless the woman sat behind her at dinner and told her which fork to use when, Paige would be lost. There hadn’t been much use for this kind of complicated etiquette where she’d grown up.

  “Ah, Princess Voronova,” the countess said as she sauntered up with her hand wrapped around a man’s arm, “it is so nice to see you. I wish you to meet my brother, Yevgeny. He has admired you from afar and I have said I would introduce you.”

  Paige hoped her palms weren’t sweating too badly as she held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Yevgeny bowed over her hand as he placed a kiss on the back of it. “Very beautiful,” he murmured. “Perhaps you will honor me with a dance?”

  “I’m not much good at dancing, I’m afraid,” Paige said.

  “Nonsense.”

  “No, it’s true. There wasn’t much time for dancing back home.”

  “Home is Texas, no?” the countess said. She turned to her brother. “Alexei is so amusing. When I saw him in Moscow a few days ago, he told me he’d married an American girl with no money or connections. Were you a cowgirl, Princess Voronova?”

  The blood pounded in Paige’s temples. This woman had seen Alexei recently? Had talked with him? He had spoken to her of their relationship?

  “You have me at a disadvantage, Countess,” Paige said as coolly as she could. “I’ve heard nothing at all about you from my husband.”

  The countess laughed, her golden eyes sparkling with a hint of malice. “No, I rather doubt you have. It might not be good for marital felicity, no?”

  Before Paige could manage a reply, the countess turned to her brother and gave him a playful little slap on the arm. “Yevgeny, do be good to the princess, will you? I have to speak with Mr. Kaminski.”

  “My sister is angry with you,” Yevgeny said once the countess was gone.

  Paige watched the woman move across the room, her hips rolling sensually as she walked, the curve of her buttocks swaying with the kind of practiced grace that Paige knew she did not have. Men’s heads turned to watch her progress.

  “I don’t know why. I’ve done nothing to her.”

  He took her arm and began to lead her around the crowd toward a door on the other side of the room. Paige didn’t want to be rude, so she didn’t protest. But when she glanced behind her for Mariya, the woman had disappeared.

  “Ah, but you have done something,” he said smoothly. “You have married Prince Voronov, which is a task she had set for herself after the count died.”

  “I imagine if Alexei had wanted to marry her, he would have done so. It’s hardly my fault.”

  Yevgeny laughed. He was tall, blond and rather handsome. He was the kind of man she used to be attracted to, she thought wistfully. But since Alexei had come into her life, she seemed to only want dark, brooding men who ignored her.

  Yevgeny appeared to be nice enough, in spite of his sister, and his English was good. For the first time in weeks, someone was talking to her as an equal. It’d been too long since she’d had a normal conversation with anyone—though this was hardly a normal conversation.

  “Yes,” Yevgeny said, “she had her chance to reel him in when they were lovers.”

  Paige stumbled, but Yevgeny righted her. “Sorry,” she said. Alexei and the countess had been lovers? Were they lovers when he’d taken her to the Voronov Palace that night so many weeks ago? Her temples throbbed with the notion. She’d known Alexei wasn’t celibate when they’d met, but she’d never considered he was involved with someone else at the time.

  Yevgeny had guided her onto a terrace that overlooked a canal. The sky was pink with the setting sun that would never entirely disappear for the night. A boat glided along the canal while people stood at the railings, watching the city slide by.

  Yevgeny’s hand skimmed her arm. “No, it is I who am sorry. You did not know my sister and your husband were lovers, and I
have blurted it out.”

  Paige subtly pulled away from him. She was beginning to doubt that he was nice after all. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Yet I feel responsible.”

  Paige wrapped her arms around her torso and shook her head. “No, really, you shouldn’t. I’m sure there are many women in Alexei’s past.”

  “Are you cold?”

  “A little,” Paige admitted. “I’m not used to this climate.”

  Yevgeny shrugged out of his jacket. “Here, let me help you,” he said as he stepped behind her to settle the coat on her shoulders. She felt she should refuse, and yet she didn’t want to be rude when he was simply being solicitous.

  But when his hands lingered on her shoulders before sliding down her arms, a thread of panic unwound in her belly. She started to turn and tell him she wanted to go back inside.

  “Isn’t this cozy?” a voice growled. Paige’s head whipped around as the dark shape in the door coalesced into a tall man in a tuxedo.

  Relief flooded her. “Alexei? What are you doing here?”

  His gray eyes gleamed with suppressed fury as he stepped closer. “You were not expecting me, I take it?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ALEXEI WANTED TO KILL the man standing so close to his wife. Yevgeny Petrov shot him a malevolent grin over the top of Paige’s head, but it was Paige who held Alexei’s attention. She was radiant, more beautiful than he remembered, and he wanted her with a fierceness that clawed his insides into ribbons.

  Not a day had gone by that he hadn’t thought about her, but he’d stayed away because he’d believed it was best for them both. Now that he was here, however, he realized it had been a mistake. She was too lovely and too vulnerable to leave her alone with predators like Petrov circling around.

  He closed the distance between them and yanked her from Yevgeny’s grip. She stumbled against him and he caught her close, trapping her in the curve of his arm.

  “Stay away from my wife,” he growled.

  “Then perhaps you should keep her close,” Yevgeny said in Russian.

  Alexei pulled the jacket from Paige’s shoulders and threw it at the other man. “Get out of my sight, Petrov.”

  Yevgeny took his time shrugging into his jacket. Then he bowed to Paige. “It was lovely to meet you, Princess Voronova,” he said in English.

  “I enjoyed talking with you, too,” she said in that slight Texas drawl, all Southern politeness and grace. “Thank you for your kindness.”

  Alexei waited until Yevgeny had passed into the house before he turned Paige in his arms.

  “You are never to be alone with that man again, do you understand?”

  “I’m surprised you care,” she flung at him, her brows two sharp slashes in her face as anger replaced the politeness.

  “You are my wife,” he ground out. “Of course I care.”

  She snorted. “Really? And here I’d thought I was simply your prisoner. Or is this how wives are treated in Russia?”

  He hadn’t expected her anger, hadn’t expected her to challenge him. It surprised him, fueled the fire in his veins. He hauled her closer, his temper on a gossamer string. “We are leaving now,” he growled. “And you will never set foot in this house again.”

  A flash of discomfort crossed her features. “You’re holding me too tight. You’ll leave bruises.”

  He immediately released her. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. He took a step back, raked a hand through his hair. He’d barely spent three minutes in her company and already she made him lose control.

  But seeing her with Petrov had made him crazy. She was too good for a snake like Yevgeny Petrov.

  Not only that, but she was also his wife. Pregnant with his child. His gaze slipped to her belly, but she looked the same as she had nearly three weeks ago.

  But when he met her eyes again, he amended the thought. She did not look the same. She looked…elegant. Beautiful and ethereal—and brimming with temper.

  He didn’t like her this way.

  Or, he did like it, but he didn’t like everyone else seeing what he saw. His Paige wore dull suits and glasses. This Paige was gowned in pure white, like a virgin or an angel. The silk skimmed her curves like water flowing over a creek bed. Her dark hair was pinned up, showing the graceful curvature of her neck. He recognized, with a flash of surprise, the Voronov diamonds at her throat. The tiara she wore had once been his great-great-grandmother’s.

  His body throbbed with heat and desire. He wanted to sweep her up and take her from this place right now.

  “Where are your glasses?” he demanded.

  She looked at him like he’d lost his mind. Which, he feared, he had.

  “I’m wearing contacts. Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here, Alexei, and why you’re acting so bossy?”

  He took his jacket off and wrapped it around her, belatedly remembering that she’d been cold. He’d stood in the entry and watched her with Yevgeny for several minutes before he’d interrupted. He didn’t know why, except that maybe he’d wanted to see how she would react. Now, he felt small and petty for having done so. Paige had been innocent when he’d made love to her, and though she’d harbored a crush on Chad Russell, she’d never acted upon it.

  But he’d stood there, watching Petrov, who was more like Chad in type than he was, and wondering what she would do if the man tried to kiss her. Except that he’d been unable to let it go that far.

  “I could ask the same of you.”

  She blinked. “Without the bossy part, I assume. And I was invited.”

  “So was I.”

  “Do you mean you didn’t know I would be here tonight?”

  “I knew,” he clipped out. Because Mariya had called to inform him of the fact. And he’d raced from Moscow because he could not stay away. “But I want to know why you came.”

  She pulled his jacket around her body, covering the dress. “Because I’m bored, Alexei, and tired of being alone. Because someone invited me to a party, and I wanted to be out among people, where there was laughter and music and conversation. I married you for our baby and for my sister’s future, but I didn’t agree to be your prisoner.”

  An erotic image of her bound to his bed with silken ropes flashed into his mind.

  “You are not a prisoner,” he said.

  She snorted. “No, but I might as well be. If I’d known we weren’t going to make a life together for the sake of our baby, I could have stayed in Texas and you could just visit whenever you found yourself passing through.”

  “Your life is here now. With me.”

  She stomped her foot. He’d noticed she often did so when aggravated. For some reason, he found it amusing. But he did not dare to smile now that she was bristling like a cat.

  “But my life isn’t with you! It’s in your palace, where everyone is so cold and formal and no one talks to me like I’m a normal person!” She slapped a hand against her chest. “But I am a normal person, Alexei. I’m not a princess, not an exalted being—I’m just Paige Barnes from Atkinsville, Texas, and I don’t know how to be anyone else!”

  He reached for her hand. He’d been handling this badly, and it was time to regroup.

  She snatched it away and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. The movement lifted the creamy swells, drew his gaze. He wanted to touch her, wanted to strip her and explore every last inch of her glorious skin.

  “You are Princess Paige Voronova, and I don’t want you to be anyone else,” he said.

  Her eyes glittered. “That’s not how it looks from where I’m standing,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

  Alexei sensed a softening in her and reached for her again. This time she did not resist as he pulled her gently closer. He tipped her chin up. He had to kiss her. It had been too long, and he was suddenly dying to do so. Dying to see if the flame inside him whipped higher, or if it was all his imagination.

  He lowered his head slowly, waiting to see what she would do. For a moment, h
e thought she would reject him, but then her eyes closed and her mouth parted.

  A fierce surge of possession went through him. He hadn’t expected her to surrender. The gesture stunned him, humbled him. He did not deserve her surrender, but he would not reject it. Not this time.

  He hovered above her mouth, not kissing her just yet, but letting his gaze brush over the cream of her skin, the long sweep of her lashes where they fanned against her cheeks, before finally settling on the lush pink of her lips.

  She was in that moment the most desirable woman he’d ever known.

  Her eyes fluttered open in question, but before she could speak and puncture the wonder of it, he crushed his mouth down on hers. He had not kissed her since the night he’d made love to her, and the moment their tongues met, he wondered why in God’s name not.

  She clutched the lapels of his tuxedo, opened herself to him while he plundered the depths of her lush mouth. Alexei surrendered to the feeling. He was through fighting her pull on him. It was ridiculous to do so when he couldn’t even imagine touching another woman. She was a fever in his blood that would not be abated through deprivation.

  Tonight, he was taking her to his bed and to hell with anything else.

  Paige hardly recognized the man who hurried her to the waiting limo and climbed in beside her. With a sharp command to the driver, he hit the button for the privacy glass before turning to her.

  Her heart raced, but whether it was from the look in his eyes or the way he’d kissed her, she wasn’t certain.

  “I want you,” he said as he pushed her back on the long, plush seat and spread his body over hers. “It has been too long.”

  Paige swallowed as the hard lines of his body pressed into her soft curves. She ached with heat and need, and though part of her gibbered that she shouldn’t fall into his arms so easily, she knew she was ultimately going to do so.

  His lips found the tender skin of her neck, and she sighed helplessly. How could she reject this pleasure?