The Russian Billionaire: A Romantic Suspense Novel Georgia Carre (ink ebook reader .txt) 📖

canvas. It’s a strange scene. An old, crumbling, ivy covered castle built into the side of a snow-capped mountain. A road, so narrow only a horse driven carriage could fit, leads up to the fortress. I’m tempted to add a carriage and snorting black horses onto the road, but I’m afraid I’ll spoil the painting.

It’s important I don’t ruin it since I’ve attempted to paint this scene countless times, but always had to give up after a few strokes. I knew instinctively I can’t capture the vivid image in my mind, and something deep inside me demanded I replicate it exactly as it lived in my mind. I can’t understand why I had to, I just knew I did.

I start moving forward to add more color to the castle, when I freeze. The skin at the back of my neck is prickling and goose pimples are rising up on my arms. The silence is undisturbed, but the air is different.

My heart slams into my rib cage as I swing my head around and look through the half-open door into the small showroom beyond. All the lamps are turned off, but from the light of the streetlamps I can see right through to the rusty little bells attached to the door. I’ve been so lost in my work I’ve not heard them ring, but I know.

Someone has entered the shop!

It can’t be a customer at this time of the night, and I know it is not Larry. He would have called out. It is either one of the wild kids in town up to no good, or a robber. Dad sent me for karate classes when I was in high school and I know some good moves. I can definitely handle any kid, and probably even a robber, if he isn’t carrying a gun.

But I have an even better idea.

I reach for a stained rag on the wooden trolley next to me and hurriedly wipe off as much paint from my hands so it won’t be slippery and tip toe over to the cupboard. I throw the cloth on the floor and pick up the baseball bat next to the cupboard. Gripping the smooth solid wood tightly with both hands, I start to move stealthily towards the door. I’ll be damned if I’m going to be cowed by any intruder.

My heart is beating so fast, my blood roars in my ears. I’m ready to swing the bat hard at the slightest provocation… until I trip on the temporary plastic covering Larry placed over some wires he ran across the room just until the electrician came on Monday.

I’ve bumped my foot against the plastic a few times, but always managed to regain my balance. Not this time. This time the damn thing finally gets me. I feel myself pitch forward. My hands instinctively let go of the bat and fling out to try and grab on to anything that would break my fall, but I only connect with the trolley full of paint tubes and a jar of turpentine filled brushes.

Grasping for the trolley is a big mistake. Not only does it not stop my fall, it accelerates it. The trolley shoots a few feet forward, until it collides with an immovable object, then both the trolley and I crash to the concrete floor in an almighty racket.

The breath is knocked out of me as my back slams onto the floor and paint tubes bounce off me and the jar hits my chest and spills out its contents. I can feel the pungent turpentine seeping into my clothes and reaching my skin.

“Shit,” I curse, as I lie there a winded, bruised, stained mess.

Then, I become aware there is someone else in the room with me. I turn my head and see a pair of highly polished black shoes a few feet away from me. My shocked eyes travel upwards and my brain notes how immaculate the creases in his black trousers are. The material is smooth, expensive. He is wearing a long black coat that looks luxuriously soft, the way good cashmere does.

A belt with a custom insignia on the buckle. A two-headed eagle or a phoenix perhaps.

My gaze travels further upwards. Flat stomach. Black turtleneck sweater. Pale skin, blond hair, sensual mouth, strong jaw, narrow nose and…

Suddenly, my eyes lock with the stranger’s, and something shifts inside of me.

I hold my breath without even realizing it. As I stare into those translucent icy blue irises full of mysteries. Time stops. It isn’t the way romance books describe it. The rest of the world doesn’t drop away. Instead those eyes reach into my soul and whirl me away into another world. It’s like a sense of déjà vu as if I’ve once danced in the snow with this man while a full orchestra played just for us.

I think of steel hardened by fire and feel strong sexual desire for him flower in my belly, but I just can’t explain why I would feel that. He is sooooo not my type. I’m contemptuous of arrogant rich men who believe they can buy anything with their money. And there is no doubt he is such a man. I can tell by the curve of his mouth. Nothing has been denied this man. Ever.

For he is like a marvelous piece of art. His pale beauty and gold hair have a strange… darkness to them that immediately makes you wary, but is at the same time so magnetic, so fascinating, you can’t look away, you want in. And all you can do is stand there, or in my case, lie there and stare stupidly.

“Are you alright?” he asks. His voice has a hypnotic quality, smooth as honey dripping from a spoon, but laced with a powerful note of authority.

I want to hear him speak again.

He takes another step towards me and bends slightly from his great height to hold a hand out to me. At the moment, I realize something else about him. He is clean.