Rose understood why Dante relented so easily within ten steps of the cabin. She’d expected nature to be quiet. It certainly looked peaceful when she sat on the couch in the early morning with her coffee and looked out over the view. Now that she was outside, all she could hear were strange sounds. The buzzing of insects. The trees shifting in the breeze. Something moving deeper in the woods just out of sight.
She inched closer to Dante. Not intentionally, of course, but this strange world was not her world. She didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t even know where they were. Did they have mountain lions in this area? When Sasha was younger, she’d gone through a big-cats phase, and as a result, Rose knew far more that was comfortable about one of the few big cats native to North America than she’d like. Sasha, sweet girl that she was, had several books about how to survive a cougar attack, and they were all filled with stories about hikers or joggers or campers being stalked and attacked by the cats.
“What are you doing?”
Rose stopped searching the branches above them, instantly feeling foolish. “Are there cougars around here?”
Dante gave her a long look. “Sometimes. They don’t usually come too close to the cabin, though.”
She expected him to laugh at her. In his place, she would have. Silly city girl, afraid of the woods. He just offered his hand. She shouldn’t take it. He’d look into the gesture and see it as a sign of her capitulating to his theoretical future.
Rose slipped her hand into his.
He led the way down a dirt path that was barely wide enough for him to walk, let alone both of them side by side. She told herself not to be foolish, but she couldn’t help continuing her search of the trees… At least until the space opened and she saw their destination. “I knew there was a car around here.”
“Si. Traveling by plane is quick but not convenient at times.”
“I suppose.” She followed him to the garage. It looked like a smaller version of the cabin, albeit with fewer windows. Rustic, but in the unique way only the ridiculously wealthy seemed to accomplish. She reluctantly turned away when Dante keyed in the code, straining her ears as he typed it in. Six digits instead of eight, but they weren’t tonal like so many devices, so she had no idea what the number combination was. Oh well. It wouldn’t matter soon enough.
She had absolutely no intention of letting him bring her back to the cabin.
Rose wished she could say the sex was all part of the plan, down to needing Plan B, but she’d be lying if she claimed that. She hadn’t been thinking about anything in that moment but getting as close to Dante as possible, with nothing between them, and how hot we shouldn’t was. The potential consequences only slapped her in the face after the high from her orgasm wore off.
There were times over the past three days when she forgot she was supposed to be looking for a way to escape.
He opened the door, stirring her from her thoughts, and stepped aside for her to precede him into the dark garage. Rose stepped in perhaps a little too willingly, but having all that nature at her back gave her the heebie-jeebies.
Inside, there was a spotless black SUV and nothing else. She eyed the empty walls. It made logical sense not to have a bunch of shit in here, especially when so many tools and outdoors type equipment could be used as weapons, but… “This really is a sex cabin, isn’t it?”
Dante pulled open the passenger door and looked at her expectantly. It wasn’t until she’d climbed in, and he went around to the driver’s seat that he answered. “How you feel about the trees? We’re of the same mind. I prefer the city to the country.”
She relaxed back into her seat and watched the garage door rise. “Then why have a cabin in the woods?”
“Sometimes the quiet is nice.”
She supposed she could see that, even if the tunnel of green they started down made her skin crawl. Getting to the cabin would be the stuff of nightmares, but she supposed the actual cabin itself was nice enough. “We don’t have anything like this back home. My grandparents on my mother’s side have a house out in Connecticut, but I’ve only been there a few times. My mother isn’t close to them, and my father hates them.” She frowned. “Though it’s definitely mutual.”
“Your grandparents are cut from the same cloth my uncle is.”
“Da.” No use denying it. There was a reason they weren’t overly close with any of her aunts and uncles, and it had to do with how her grandfather attempted to move them around like chess pieces on a board only he had control of. Once her uncle Aiden took over the family business, things shifted, but no one forgot the bad old days. They didn’t seem overly inclined to forgive, either. She couldn’t blame them for that. “Not my parents though.”
“Aren’t they?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, Dante, they’re not. And if you quote the marriage to Romeo at me, I might throw myself from the moving vehicle. All leaders make sacrifices. I’m not special in that regard. I went into the choice with eyes wide open.”
“Would you have had to make the same choice if you were a man?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s a valid fucking point, and you know it.” He picked up speed until they were bouncing along the dirt road leading from the cabin.
She’d planned on taking careful note of their surroundings in the event that the worst-case scenario played out and she ended up back here, but Rose quickly got bored of the unrelenting green. The dirt road turned to gravel and then pavement, and still the green persisted.
She hoped things were going okay back home. It had only been…four days? Less than a week for things to change so drastically. Except they hadn’t changed at all. Dante was still the enemy. She would still marry Romeo when she finally got back to New York. They would still have…
“Why would Jovan Romanov’s people be joining in the search for you? Is that something your father would have coordinated?”
Dante’s question jarred her out of her dark thoughts. “What?” She twisted to face him. “Why are you asking about Jovan Romanov?” He was another cousin of her father’s, though more distantly, and now the patriarch of the greater Romanov family. They all paid allegiance back to Russia, but those ties had spun out over the last generation. Something Jovan wasn’t too pleased about.
“Answer the question.”
A sliver of alarm went through her. She spent a moment debating continuing to push for answers but finally said, “No, Papa wouldn’t have called them in, even if it was an emergency. Especially not in this situation involving me. My father has done several things over the years that pisses them off, including naming me his heir instead of marrying me off to one of his men so they can lead the family. They would be only too happy to use this as proof I’m not suitable.” Her parents had always supported her as heir and trained her as such from the time she was a teenager. Jovan was like Dante’s uncle, like Rose’s grandparents, in how he viewed anyone who wasn’t a man. As in, they weren’t suitable to lead.
Dante drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “They are not allies, then.”
“They’re family.”
He shot her a look. “You’re not naive enough to think blood ties will protect you if they decide you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”