The Bratva’s Pregnant Matchmaker

Chapter 1

Tikhon

The woman I'm supposed to marry is waiting by the window, but I can't stop looking at the woman holding the door.

“Mr. Grigoriev. I'm Holly Baker.”

On the telephone, the warmth in her voice made a discussion of my marital intentions almost pleasant. In person, she offers her hand with a smile that briefly interrupts my ability to remember why I've come here.

Her cream blouse has a soft sheen in the late-morning light, the silk falling over a full figure before disappearing into the waistband of a brown skirt. The skirt follows the generous curve of her hips to just below her knees. With her dark hair gathered at the nape, I can see a small gold hoop against her neck, a few escaped strands moving when she tips her head back to meet my eyes.

The silk is demure, but it doesn't disguise the weight of her breasts or the soft narrowing of her waist above those hips. I want both hands there, an indecent thought to have with another woman waiting six feet away.

I take her hand. Her fingers are warm, the handshake firm, and for a moment she studies me with her lips slightly parted.

“Tikhon,” I tell her.

“Of course. Please come in.”

She releases my hand before stepping aside. The loss of that small contact irritates me, which is a poor beginning for an appointment intended to make me appreciate somebody else.

Beyond her, June sunlight reaches across a pale rug to a walnut desk. Tall windows overlook the street. A bowl of apricots rests beside a water carafe on a side table, their skins almost the same color as the roses opening in a low vase. The air carries a faint rose scent, and beneath my jacket the warmth of the street begins to leave my skin.

Holly's desk stands between the windows. In front of it, two upholstered chairs face slightly toward each other, arranged to help strangers pretend that being assessed for marriage is relaxing. The chair behind the desk is hers. I dislike the distance already.

Aster Introductions has done well out of the human desire to avoid wasting time. I've spent more arranging this meeting than some men spend on a honeymoon, and the service has put the wrong woman beside the window.

“Teresa, this is Tikhon Grigoriev,” Holly says. “Tikhon, Teresa Henry.”

Teresa comes forward in a navy dress fitted beautifully through her slender waist. A diamond flashes at her ear as she turns, her blond hair cut in a clean line beneath it. She's tall, attractive and looking directly at me. By every visible indication, Holly has done her job.

“I'm glad you could get away,” Teresa says, offering her hand. “I understand your schedule can be difficult.”

“I decide what's in it.”

She smiles at that, her pale-blue eyes moving over my black suit. When I let go of her hand, she chooses the chair nearest mine, leaving Holly to go around the desk.

At the doorway, an assistant waits with a folder against her chest. Holly turns before sitting.

“Thank you, Sue.”

Sue nods, pulling the door almost closed behind her. Through the narrow opening I catch a glimpse of her returning to the reception desk, then Holly settles into her own chair. With her hands folded on the blotter, she gives each of us an attentive look.

She has green-hazel eyes. Close to the pupils, the color warms toward amber, and beneath her left eye is a small dark beauty mark. Her lower lip is fuller than the upper one. When she catches me looking at her mouth, she pauses before speaking.

I want to make her pause again.

With Teresa still waiting across the room, I shouldn't be considering Holly's mouth. I consider it anyway, along with how that full lower lip would look swollen from my kiss.

During our call last week, I asked for a woman who wanted a family and could be comfortable with the demands of my life. Holly asked sensible questions about how I spent my evenings. I answered most of them by talking about the clubs I own.

She's apparently found me somebody who likes clubs.

“Teresa spends much of the summer in Chicago,” Holly says. “You both mentioned that being able to travel matters to you, although neither of you wants to be away all the time.”

“I like having a home to come back to,” Teresa adds. “Ideally with the unpacking taken care of.”

Her delivery is light, inviting agreement. I give her a brief smile. At my casino, I hear versions of that expectation every evening, usually from people handing a coat to somebody whose face they haven't bothered to look at.

There are reasons to marry a woman who already understands wealth. I came prepared to consider them, but I'm watching Holly's thumb move along the edge of her pen as she waits for me to contribute.

“Have you ever used the service yourself?” I ask her.

The pen stops. “I'm here to help the two of you get acquainted.”

“You didn't answer.”

“That was intentional.” Her tone stays pleasant, although a little color appears above her blouse. “Teresa, what would you want to keep doing after marriage?”

With a quick turn toward Teresa, she gives the other woman the conversation back. I settle deeper into the chair, enjoying the correction. People usually try to soften a refusal before they offer it to me. Holly has delivered hers with a smile, then carried on working.

Teresa crosses her legs. “I wouldn't want marriage to mean disappearing from everything I enjoy. There are dinners I attend every year, people I want to keep seeing. I think it's important to have a husband who understands those obligations.”

“And if he wants an evening with you?”

“Then we'd arrange one.”

At home, there's a table that seats twelve. I eat at one end of it while men bring me problems they want settled before morning. The thought of submitting an appointment request to my wife does very little for my enthusiasm.

Holly must see some of that on my face, because she leans forward before the silence becomes rude.

“Neither of you is proposing a calendar negotiation,” she says. “We're trying to find out what you'd want to share. Tikhon, what would you look forward to coming home to?”

The question should have an easy answer, some pleasant description of a wife and the children we'd eventually have. For years, I've given little thought to who'd be in that house beyond wanting somebody whose presence had nothing to do with the men waiting for my decisions.

Across the desk, Holly listens without offering suggestions, letting me find the words myself. Under that attention, I become aware of how little patience I usually have for anybody who needs time to answer me.

“Someone who notices I've come home,” I say.

Her expression softens. For a few seconds, I can imagine arriving somewhere and having her look up like that.

Teresa touches her earring. “Well, you wouldn't be easy to miss. I was rather relieved to see the photograph didn't exaggerate.” Her eyes move up to my hair. “I like the silver.”

“There's plenty of it.”

“It suits you.”

While she smiles, I glance back at Holly. Her pen moves again, although I doubt she's recording the state of my hair. I've been turning black and gray since my thirties. By forty-six, I have more important concerns than trying to reverse the process.

One of them is sitting behind a walnut desk, determined to introduce me to another woman.

A knock interrupts us before I can ask Holly another question. Sue opens the door with a sheet of paper in one hand.

“Holly, this says half past, but I've got noon on the calendar. Which do I confirm?”

Teresa straightens. “Half past eleven?”

Sue looks down at the page. “That's what's on this copy.”

“I was told an hour. I moved another appointment to be here, so I'd appreciate knowing whether we're being hurried out.”

The color rises sharply in Sue's face. Teresa turns toward Holly before Sue can answer.

“Surely you check these before bringing people in.”

Teresa's fingers close around the upright handle of her bag. She hasn't lost a minute of her appointment, but Sue is still waiting to learn what else she's done wrong. My hands flatten against the chair arms. Before this morning, I'd have said patience wasn't a quality I required in a wife.

Before I speak, Holly reaches for the sheet.

“Your appointment is until noon,” she tells Teresa. “Let me see that, Sue.”

She reads the top of the page, then compares it with the calendar on her screen. Her chair moves back as she stands, the wheels making a soft sound against the rug.

“This is yesterday's printout. I changed the appointment length afterward.” She comes around the desk and gives the paper back to Sue. “You were right to ask. I'll send the current copy before you confirm anything.”

“I should've checked the date.”

“You caught the difference before booking over anybody. We're all right.”

Near the door, Holly rests a hand briefly on Sue's arm. The touch lasts only a moment, but Sue's shoulders lower. With a small nod, the assistant folds the old sheet and slips it into her folder.

Sue returns to reception, and Holly closes the door behind her.

I know what my men look like when they're waiting to discover how much a mistake will hurt. At home, I can end a conversation just by entering the room. Holly has made it possible for Sue to go back to work.

Now I can hear the reception telephone being answered through the door.

At the side table, Holly fills two glasses, then pours a third for herself. A drop slips over the rim onto the short pink nail of her thumb as she lifts it.

I want the woman who took the paper from Sue, her hand on my arm and her voice in the house when I get home.

After she hands Teresa a glass, I rise to take mine. The water sloshes against the rim as our fingers meet around it, cooling my skin. For a moment she's beside me, the silk at her shoulder catching the light, her chin lifting as she looks up again.

She glances at the wet glass between our hands, and a laugh almost escapes her. I find myself wanting to hear it, even with Teresa watching. Holly's fingers withdraw first.

“Thank you, Holly.”

She holds my gaze before stepping back, a small smile returning to her mouth. “You're welcome.”

Holly returns to her chair and turns to the next question on her page. I sit with my glass resting against my knee. A shirt cuff has slipped back from the dark ink covering my forearm, and Teresa's eyes pause there before moving to the tattoos visible above my open collar.

“I'd want to understand how separate you keep your business from your home,” she says. “There are occasions when a wife needs to know what people might ask.”

It's a reasonable question. I could answer in language suitable for this office, describe hospitality interests and private investments until she feels reassured. Holly heard those answers during the intake call. My name was apparently sufficient for the agency to accept the rest.

But I run a Bratva organization in Chicago. The people who obey me know what happens when they refuse, and the private games at my casino are attended by men who'd laugh at the idea of leaving their business at the front door.

Any woman I marry will live beside all of it.

“You'd be able to ask me what you wanted to know,” I tell Teresa. “Some answers would be unpleasant.”

Her smile narrows. “I wouldn't expect details.”

Behind the desk, Holly looks from Teresa to me. Her glass stops on its way to the coaster.

An incurious wife would spare me a great many difficult conversations. I'd be free to return late, close my study door, carry on exactly as I do now. The prospect bores me. Across from me sits a woman who's spent this appointment asking questions I hadn't thought to answer.

I finish my water, tasting the faint mineral edge as I set the glass on the desk. Even that brief delay feels discourteous now that I've made up my mind.

“Teresa, I don't think we should take this further.”

Holly goes still. Beside me, Teresa lowers her gaze to her bag, then lifts it with the handle looped over her wrist.

“That seems a little abrupt.”

“Continuing would waste your time.”

For a moment I expect an argument, but Teresa stands, smoothing her skirt beneath the bag. I rise with her while Holly comes around the desk.

“Perhaps you're right,” Teresa says. “We seem to want rather different arrangements.”

Her composure survives the rejection. I respect that, even as my attention follows Holly to the door.

Holly opens the door, letting the sound of reception into the room. “I’m sorry this hasn’t worked out, Teresa. I’ll call you later about another introduction.”

Sue finishes a call and looks up as they approach. “Your car’s outside.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Holly tells Teresa.

They leave the suite together. From the window, I watch them emerge onto the pavement below, where Teresa's driver opens the rear door of a dark car. Holly waits while Teresa gets in, one hand lifting to keep her hair off her face as the car pulls away.

Then she turns toward the building.

I remain by her desk. On the blotter, her pen lies beside the notes she's taken about a meeting that's gone badly wrong. I have no desire to read them, since I'd rather hear what she says when she stops trying to make this morning successful for somebody else.

Through the open office door, Sue glances at me before returning to her screen.

When Holly comes back, Sue looks up at her and smiles. Holly returns the smile before entering the office with an expression that promises a discussion of my manners.

Good. I want her attention to myself.

Alone with her at last, I wonder how long that professional composure would survive with my hands on her hips.

“I'd like a word with you privately,” I say.

“I think that would be useful.” She closes the door and faces me. “Was there something you felt you couldn't say with Teresa here? If you can tell me what was missing, I can reconsider the introductions.”

I turn from the desk to face her, leaving the width of the rug between us.

“I want you, Holly.”