“I’ll go. But only because I need to speak with Vasili.”

Once he left, I rang my instructor. “Hi, Ms. Gillespie, I’m so sorry to bother you, but is there any way I could reschedule Monday?”

“I suppose you won’t be there for the review period either?” In a stern tone, she said, “I will make a single exception for you, Cat.” The only time she had available was the afternoon of the thirty-first at two.

I’d be in Miami much longer than I’d anticipated. Máxim would be gone. Still, I agreed. On New Year’s Eve, I’d leave town to the sound of fireworks.

As I disconnected the call, I disbelieved I was postponing the holy grail. I’d have to hit the Russian up for so much dinero, it’d be worth it.

I walked out of the bedroom, saying, “Okay, we’re all settled. Heated negotiation to commence . . .”

He was in the middle of an angry exchange with Vasili. They both turned to me, accusation in their eyes.

“What?” Alarm trickled through me, and I had the impulse to bolt.

Máxim strode toward me. “Are you on birth control?”

I bit my lip. “Why would you ask that?” Was that information in the records they’d e-mailed?

“You have to be on something.”

“I’m going to be.” The doc had told me to wait until after my next period to start, and that wasn’t for a couple of weeks. How long would the pill take to work? “I have a prescription. It’s not a problem.”

He stabbed his fingers through his hair. “Are you telling me you only work three weeks a month?”

What did that have to do with birth control? “Again, it’s not a problem.” Though this should have been a private conversation, Vasili looked on stonily.

“You think to entrap me?”

“Entrap? What are you talking about?”

“You told me to come in you!” He was all but yelling.

I had? My gaze darted. “And you . . . did?”

The arctic blast was back. “Half a dozen times. As if you don’t remember!”

My lungs contracted. He might have knocked me up! Preñada? Pregnant? “I-I don’t remember that!” I remembered pleasure and closeness. But we’d been in the pool so long, and then things had really gotten foggy. “I wouldn’t have told you that!”

“If you think to trap me with a child, you could not be more mistaken.”

The fucking nerve! “Now it’s a problem. I don’t want a kid, much less your kid.”

“Then tell me this isn’t a good time for you to conceive. When was your last period?”

I swallowed, my mouth gone dry. Por Dios, I was about to ovulate. Or I already was.

Sevastyan read my expression. “Blyad´!”

Vasili said something in Russian, but I repeatedly heard a word that sounded like prostitutka.

I considered this situation from their point of view. A hooker, who was ovulating and not on birth control, had gotten Europe’s most eligible bachelor billionaire to come in her.

Six times.

Sevastyan grated a reply to the man in Russian, and Vasili hastened out of the room.

To me he said, “Other women have plotted the same scheme! Congratulations, you’ve come the closest to success.” Despite the early hour, he strode to the bar and poured a vodka.

“I understand how bad this looks, but we can fix this.” My eyes widened. “A morning-after pill! I can take one!”

He wasn’t listening to me, beginning to pace. “The first time in my life I relax my guard enough to fuck without a condom, and you pull this move.”

I was being accused of trying to cheat someone out of money. Me! I covered my mouth with the back of my hand to contain hysterical laughter.

He kept pacing. “A play on a Russian mobster? What were you thinking?”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from yelling, “I don’t do the swindling—I get swindled!” How much longer could I muzzle my runaway mouth? One day, I was going to blow, like a seething boiler.

The thought horrified me; I mentally renewed my allegiance to rule number one.

“I thought you were smarter than this,” he said. “But then, you are greedy.”

A greedy prostitute. That’s how he saw me. I was so out of here. I’d go get my own pill, putting this all behind me.

When I strode toward the door, he blocked me. “You think I’m letting you leave? When you could even now be pregnant with my child?”

“I’m going to get a morning-after pill.”

“And I’ll just take your word for that?” Clamping my arm, he forced me back into the bedroom. “We’re going to fix this, then see about teaching you a lesson.” He snatched my phone from me.

“Give that back! What the hell are you doing?”

“A doctor is coming this morning.”

“To do what?”

Sevastyan just gave me a menacing smile, then locked the door.

CHAPTER 14

For the next two hours, I sat stewing, getting more and more nauseated. I had still been buzzed all morning, and now my hangover hit me with the force of a freight train.

I’d banged on the door, calling out, “I’m sick, Sevastyan! I need to take something.” He hadn’t come. So I could do nothing more than curl up on the bed, stomach roiling. I was mustering the energy to go hold vigil at the toilet when the door opened.

Sevastyan said, “He’s here.”