The Player (The Game Maker #3) - Kresley Cole Page 0,40
you. Then I want to keep control—right up until the time you steal it from me.”
I almost fanned myself at his hungry look, a sight I’d never forget. In the candlelight, he was spellbinding.
I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Two babes sashayed past our cabana—for the third time—audibly sighing over him.
“You get that everywhere, huh?”
“Get what?” He was oblivious.
“Attention from women.” I swirled my finger around the rim of my glass. “What was your last relationship?”
“I’ve never had one.”
I waited for that nails-over-chalkboard sensation, but he was telling the truth. “So you are a player.”
“No. I am not.”
“You can’t have it both ways.” I could do the math. If he took a new lover anytime he wanted sex, the notches on his belt would start adding up.
“What was your last relationship?” he asked.
I let him get away with not answering me. “About a year ago, I broke up with a guy I’d been with for nearly two years. We were engaged.” Brett had been so normal, his life an open book. Back then, I’d equated normal and open with honest. “The wedding was weeks away.” I’d just gotten a passport for our honeymoon to the Caribbean, and I’d been finishing up a wedding gown that had given me fits for months. Creating it had felt like drudgery, which should’ve been a clue.
“He allowed you to break up with him?”
Allowed? “What should he have done?”
Dmitri held my gaze. “If I’d been him, I would have fought for you.”
His words sent a tingle through me. “Who said Brett hasn’t been doing just that?” Each Sunday, I pictured him struggling to come up with another e-mail, to tap into my memories of better times and reach some part of me not hardened by his infidelity.
“Yet you haven’t taken him back.”
I raised my chin. “He cheated on me.”
“I am very sorry, Vika,” he said in a sincere tone. “That must have been painful.”
“It was.” I’d considered my wedding gown so tainted with bad luck I’d scissored it to shreds instead of selling it. “You know, everyone had bet against us, but I was determined.” Being with Brett had made me ask questions I’d never asked before.
What if I didn’t have to grift? What if I gave people my real name—all the time? What if I made clothes for a living? “I really thought we had a shot.”
“Are you tempted to return to him?”
Life had been pretty good. I’d moved in with him, and he’d paid for my car. I’d limited my grift work, and enrolled in fashion design classes. He’d cooked, and I’d cleaned. We’d lived modestly.
Yes, hiding my cons had been stressful, but nothing like I struggled with now. Even if my family settled our debt, I was still getting evicted and driving an unreliable truck. Of course, now I owned a Porsche. But not for long. God, this was all so confusing. I absently murmured, “I don’t know.”
A muscle in Sevastyan’s jaw pulsed. “And this is why you’re so cautious.”
Partly. “Let’s not talk about him anymore.”
After a hesitation, he said, “Agreed. Tell me more about you.”
“Where should I begin?” I’d been intimate with Dmitri—twice—yet we knew so little about each other.
“What makes Victoria Valentine tick?” A wayward breeze tousled his black hair.
Right now golden-eyed Russians make my pulse race. “Compared to the women you usually meet, I’m sure I live a boring life.”
He didn’t address that. “Where did you go to school?”
“I was homeschooled. My parents wanted me to go into the family business. They could teach me better than anyone.”
“Tell me about your family.”
“My folks are still mad for each other after thirty years of marriage. My big sister, Karin, is my best friend. My brother is my hero. I have an extended family I love. In their own way, they’re all overprotective of me. But I think . . .” I trailed off.
“You think what?”
They underestimate me. “Nothing. What about your family? You said Maksim basically raised you.” Some of Maksim’s charm must’ve rubbed off on his little brother. Maybe that was why I detected such a mix of polish and uncertainty in Dmitri.
“My mother died when I was five, my father when I was seven.”
“I’m sorry.” I was about to ask him how, but his changeable expression gave me pause. Instead of sadness, I perceived . . . anger.
Dmitri’s busted knuckles whitened on his glass. Then he inhaled, as if for calm.
I grasped for a change of subject. “You seem to get along really well with Lucía.”