A Virgin for His Prize, page 14
part #2 of Ruthless Russians Series
“I will dedicate fifty percent of BIT’s corporate giving to the school on a yearly basis.” He didn’t need to take time to think about it.
He believed in giving back and not because he was a bleeding heart like Romi, but there were very few charitable options Maxwell felt a personal connection to. Anything related to Romi would be one of them.
Romi gasped. “That’s…” She trailed off, clearly speechless.
“About three million a year.” And better than a building, even if the building cost more up front.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.”
“It’s reliant on me marrying you?” she asked.
He couldn’t tell if the idea disappointed or upset her. Maxwell didn’t know what to think of this new ability to hide her emotions from him. He didn’t like it, though.
He shook his head, making an instant decision and taking a gamble. “No, Romi. I believe in the next generation, too.”
Which was nothing but the truth.
She stared at him, like she was trying to read his sincerity.
He lifted his brow in query. “Do you want it in writing before you give me your decision?”
“No.” She ducked her head as Mrs. K brought in their dinner plates.
When the housekeeper was gone, Romi looked up at him. “I believe you.”
She might think she didn’t trust him, but she did. And his risk had paid off because he’d made her realize it, even if only a little.
“Thank you.” Her words were soft, but the look in her eyes?
Pure hero worship.
And he loved it.
“You are welcome,” he replied. “I will have my corporate-giving coordinator contact you next week.”
“Actually, we’ve got a lot of paperwork to fill out, permits to file, et cetera, before we’re a fully functioning nonprofit.”
No doubt. “I have someone who can help you with that.”
“Maddie was going to use her trust’s lawyers.”
“The school’s financial picture will look better with a lawyer that doesn’t charge fifteen hundred an hour.” The old-money lawyers in San Francisco didn’t do pro bono and they charged three times as much as decent corporate lawyers with less prestigious clientele and addresses.
“True.”
“I’ll text you the firm’s name and contact information. I’ll let them know to expect your call.”
“I’ll talk to Maddie about it when she gets back from her honeymoon.”
“Palm Springs? What kind of honeymoon is that?” He liked the city himself, but it was hardly the exotic locale most would consider for a wealthy businessman and his heiress wife’s honeymoon.
“One tailored to the woman who loves that city above all others.”
“Really?”
“It holds good memories for her.”
“What about you?”
Romi shrugged. “I like it. She and I have been there together many times.”
Was his soon-to-be fiancée being deliberately obtuse? “Is it your ideal honeymoon spot?”
“Not really.” One of Romi’s charming blushes pinkened her cheeks.
Intriguing. “Where would you want to go?”
“Europe would be nice.”
“But not where you were thinking of. Come on, milaya, spill.”
She bit her lip and then sighed. “Building a house with one of the organizations that provide homes for people and families in need. You know, something like that. Something we could look back on and say we started our lives together giving a family a home.”
Okay. That was unexpected.
“We could not simply buy a house for some deserving family?” he asked faintly, excitement not his first reaction to the idea.
“It’s not the same, is it?” Romi asked. She shrugged dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. Just a dream. We wouldn’t have a honeymoon anyway.
“Why not?” He really didn’t understand the way her mind worked.
Didn’t Romi want a honeymoon?
She shrugged again and then looked down at her dinner, cutting a precise bite of the lasagna. “I mean, it’s not like we’re a romantic couple.”
They were something and it wasn’t a couple who was going to skip their honeymoon.
“Madison and Viktor are?” he asked with sarcasm.
Romi’s head snapped up and her eyes were filled with fervor. “They are. I mean, they both act like it’s all about the deal and protecting Maddie’s reputation and our dream for the charter school while Viktor gets to take over AIH, but they’re so in love it’s sickening.”
“Are you sure you aren’t seeing things that aren’t there?” Maxwell’s old friend had looked besotted at the wedding and reception, though.
“No. They’ll both figure it out eventually. Until then, things are going to be a little tense. You know with the whole, ‘you married me to get my dad’s company’ thing between them.”
“Maybe Archer was just playing matchmaker.”
“I don’t think so.” Romi grimaced. “He offered the contract to you, too.”
Romi really didn’t like Jeremy Archer.
“Madison was never going to consider anyone but Viktor.”
“Her dad didn’t know that.”
“Maybe he did.” Archer wasn’t an idiot after all.
“Yeah, you go on believing that.”
“You hold a grudge, don’t you?”
Romi looked surprised. “Actually, it takes a lot to make me mad, but then…yes, I suppose it takes a lot more to change that. And I’m really protective of the people I love.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Yes, well…”
“It’s an admirable trait. I, too, am protective of the people important to me.” His list was just much, much shorter.
Up to the point he’d met Romi, it had had one name on it. Natalya Black.
He thought Romi probably had quite a few friends that had tasted her fierce loyalty, even if they weren’t as close to her as Harry Grayson or Madison Beck.
Romi dropped all pretense of eating and met his gaze, her own beautiful blue eyes filled with serious lights. “Would your wife be important to you?”
Relieved that he could admit to the uncommon protectiveness without acknowledging whatever nebulous feelings might drive it, he nodded. “Naturally.”
“At least as long as we’re married.”
He considered her words and how wrong they felt. “I think that once we have been married, you will always be on my short list of those who can claim my protection.”
Provided the divorce was amicable, but he’d never had a bad breakup. Of course just the thought of Romi walking away from him annoyed Maxwell.
Not something they had to discuss right now however. “Tell me about building houses in Haiti.”
“It could be anywhere in the world really, but Maddie and I did it three summers in a row in Mexico. We always said we wanted to participate in a Haiti build, though.”
“I’m having a hard time picturing Madcap Madison and Romi Grayson, well-known activist heiress, building houses in the Mexican heat.”
“It was the most amazing experience. Everyone works like dogs to get these really simple dwellings built in a week, but the families are so grateful. The children…they’re incredible. I loved working with them even more than working on the house team.”
He could well imagine and said so.
She smiled, mischief glinting in her gaze. “You know what I can’t imagine?”
“What?”
“You pouring concrete in the Haitian sun wearing scrubs and a sun hat.”
Neither could he. Surely he could wear something else.
She must have read his look because she laughed. “Some people wear jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts, but scrubs are the most comfortable. They let air circulate and are easy to get clean. Both are important.”
He wondered if his tailor did scrubs. “I see.”
“So, what about you?”
“What about me?” He’d never had dreams of building a house in Haiti, that was for sure.
“What would your ideal honeymoon be?”
He liked that she asked, so he told her the truth. “I would like to visit Russia, meet the family that turned their backs on my mother and show them the success she raised without their help.”
“I bet they regret pushing her away and miss her.”
“If they do, they’ve never contacted her to say so.”
Romi frowned. “Maybe they don’t know how. Did she tell them she was emigrating to the United States?”
“I do not know.”
“She changed her name, right?”
“Yes.”
“So, neither of you would have been easy to find.”
He refused to let them off the hook of responsibility so easily. “Where there is a will, there is a way.”
“For men like you? Absolutely. For lesser mortals, not so much.”
He didn’t want to discuss his mother’s estranged family any longer. He didn’t even consider them his relatives. “Tell me you made your decision.”
“I won’t say I don’t care about Maddie’s shares.”
“But…” he offered, because her tone implied it.
Damn. Was she going to say no? He did not believe it.
She fiddled with her silverware, looking down at the table before meeting his gaze, her own filled with certainty. “And you know how important my dad’s health is to me.”
“Yes.”
“But I won’t let you use either to blackmail me into marriage.”
“You won’t.” A flurry of curse words fought to come out of his mouth. Maxwell bit them back.
Romi reached out and picked up the ring box. “So, you’re going to have to deal with the fact that I’m agreeing because I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without you in it.”
Everything inside of Maxwell went still. “What?”
Romi’s gaze warmed with emotion he refused to name. “I will marry you.”
Totally unexpected and extremely unfamiliar panic filled him. “I don’t love you. I won’t love you.” Double damn. Why did his code of honor insist on rearing its head right now?
“So you’ve said.”
“And you are okay with that?” he asked, his mouth spilling words his brain had not authorized.
“Does it matter?”
She should ask. He’d been willing to give her compelling motivation to do what he wanted.
But this…this offer of herself because she wanted to do it? He had no frame of reference for it, zero sense of control with it.
“It does,” he admitted shortly.
“You don’t sound happy about that.”
“I don’t like the rules of the game to change.”
“Unless you’re the one doing the changing?”
“That goes without saying.”
“I’ll sign the prenup,” she offered, like a lollipop to a crying child.
He frowned. “Yes, you will.”
She grinned. “Feel better?”
“I did not feel badly to begin with. You are accepting my deal, whatever your reasons.” That was exactly what he wanted.
“Yes, I am.”
Why did he feel like that was entirely on her terms and because it was what she wanted? She’d agreed to sign the prenup. She’d agreed to the marriage. His plan had led to exactly the outcome he wanted, but somehow it had become her plan, too.
Was that what it meant to marry rather than take a lover? No other woman had ever influenced Maxwell’s plans.
He sipped his wine, almost enjoying the sense of being off-kilter. It was so foreign to him. Maybe when the source was the woman who had blown his mind in bed the night before, it wasn’t such a bad thing.
“I told your father I was going to marry you,” Maxwell informed her.
Romi cast Maxwell a wary glance. “You were right.”
“He seemed to think it would only happen if you wanted it to.”
Romi grinned. “He was right, too.”
For the first time in adult memory, Maxwell did not know what to say. She had chosen him even though he didn’t love her like her father had loved her mother. What did that mean? Did she see an expiration date on their relationship?
Was the sex that good?
Did she plan to find the love of her life after Maxwell?
Anger washed over him at the idea.
Romi handed him the Tiffany box.
He took it with a silent question.
“I’d like to tell our children about the moment their father proposed.”
That did not sound like a woman planning to move on to someone else later. Still, he couldn’t let her think this was a romantic moment between two people who believed in forever. “I am not going on one knee.”
“Fine.” She stared at him expectantly, the vibrant blue of her eyes glowing with it.
“You already agreed to marry me.”
“Yes.” She sighed, some of the expectation dimming and along with it the glow. “Do you really want me to put the ring on myself?”
“No!” Damn. Where had that come from?
Her expression lightened and only then did he realize hurt had begun to shadow her blue gaze. That’s where the glow had gone.
The Russian curse words that flowed through his mind in that moment put the others to shame.
He stood and moved around the table until he stood beside her chair. Leaning down, he gripped the back of the chair and turned it so she faced him.
Her eyes had gone round, her mouth dropping open in surprise. “Max?”
“There should be a story for our children.” Russians understood family stories, the history that really mattered.
It wasn’t about promising love for a lifetime.
He dropped to one knee, flipped the ring box open and offered it to Romi. “Will you marry me, Ramona Grayson?”
Beautiful blue eyes glistening suspiciously, she nodded her head really fast.
“Words, dorogaya. Give me the words. For your children.” And for him, though he would never say so.
“Yes, Maxwell Black, I will marry you and I don’t care how airtight that book you call a prenuptial agreement is, you’ll have a heck of a time getting rid of me.”
He didn’t argue with her. Maxwell didn’t want to dwell on invoking the clauses in the contract.
He took the ring from the box and put his hand out imperiously for hers. She gave it to him without hesitation, placing her left hand into his.
He slid the custom-designed engagement ring onto her finger and only then did she look down at it.
The ten-karat blue sapphire was the same shade as her eyes, the large diamonds on either side sparkling with Romi’s effervescence. Set in a vintage-style Russian gold filigree band, he was very pleased with the Tiffany master jeweler’s design.
“It’s beautiful,” she said in an emotion-laden voice.
“I had it designed for you.”
“You’re a planner.”
“I am.” No need to tell her the designers had been working on the ring since well before Jeremy Archer’s marriage contract offer for his daughter.
“It’s really big.”
“But it fits you.” And he didn’t mean the size. Naturally, he’d gotten that right.
She choked out a laugh. “It does. I should be all about how ostentatious it is, but I love it.”
“It sparkles like you do.”
“Ooh, you really do say some of the cheesiest things and make them sound way too romantic.”
He shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
That had only manifested for this woman, but who was keeping track?
“Are you ready to go home?” he asked.
Romi’s face contorted with emotion. “Other than college dorms, I’ve never lived anywhere but here.”
“You like the penthouse.”
“I do.”
“But this is home.”
“Dad needed me for so long, I couldn’t think of living anywhere else.”
“Even so, you love this house, don’t you?”
Romi nodded but smiled as she stood, no reluctance evident in her manner. “I’m ready to go.”
They hadn’t finished dinner, but he didn’t think either of them was worried about that right now.
He wanted to go back to the penthouse and consummate Romi’s promise to be his and he was certain she wanted the same.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KNOWING MAX WOULD want it as much as she did, Romi had packed for a much longer stay than overnight.
Triumph had flashed in his gaze when he’d seen her suitcases and matching carryall. He’d smiled, too. “Lime green with white polka dots?”
“I suppose your luggage is black.”
“No.” He winked. “It’s brown leather.”
She melted at the wink and poured herself into the passenger seat of his growling predator of a car.
He shocked her by insisting she unpack before doing anything else, but when her last pair of bright purple jeans was hanging in his walk-in closet, which was the size of a small bedroom—and empty on one side for her—he carried her off to bed and they made love.
She’d thought maybe the night before had been so beyond the known universe because it was her first time, but she’d soon discovered it was just being with this man.
He rocked her world and by every indication she did the same for him.
* * *
Maddie returned from her honeymoon in high spirits and ready to find a building for the charter school. She and Romi spent hours trailing after Viktor’s incredibly competent Realtor.
Not really sure why she did it, Romi hid her engagement ring in her purse whenever they were together. She didn’t tell her SBC that Romi’s father was in rehab and Romi herself was living with the man she intended to marry.
