one!”
“You expect me to believe we met by coincidence?”
She bared her teeth. “More like bad luck!”
“Bad luck,” he muttered. He moved closer to her, and his grip tightened. She felt tingles down her body, felt his closeness as he pressed her against the carved wooden post of the bed. His gaze fell to her lips.
“No,” she whispered. “Please.” She swallowed, then lifted her gaze. “You said … I could just clean the house….”
He stared at her. His blue eyes were wide as the infinite blue sea. Then he abruptly let her go.
“As you wish,” he said coldly. “On your back in my bed, or breaking it scrubbing my floor—it makes little difference to me. Be downstairs in five minutes.”
Turning on his heel, he left the bedroom. Bree’s knees nearly collapsed, and she fell back against the bed.
Vladimir didn’t believe she’d ever loved him. When he’d abandoned her to the sheriff that cold December night in Alaska, he’d truly believed that her love for him had just been an act. And now he was determined to exact revenge.
His punishing, soul-destroying kiss had been just the start. An appetizer. He intended to enjoy her humiliation like a lengthy gourmet meal, taking each exquisite course at his own leisure. He would feast on her pride, her body, her soul, her memories, her youth, her heart—until nothing was left but an empty shell.
With a silent sob, Bree dropped her face in her hands.
She was in real trouble.
SEVEN hours later, Bree had never felt so sweaty and filthy in her life.
And she was glad.
With a sigh, she squeezed her sponge over the bucket of soapy water. There was still almost no dirt—she guessed Vladimir’s team of servants had cleaned the place top to bottom the day before. But he’d still made her scrub every inch of the enormous house’s marble floor. She narrowed her eyes. Tyrannical man. Her back ached, as did her arms and legs. But—and this was the part she was happy about—she’d done it all with her clothes on. He’d thought a little cleaning could humiliate her?
Leaning back on her haunches, Bree rubbed her cheek with her shoulder and smiled at the newly shining kitchen floor.
This house was a beautiful place, she’d give him that. Glancing through the windows as she’d worked all day, surreptitiously plotting her escape, she’d seen an Olympic-sized infinity pool clinging to the edge of the ocean cliff. On the other side of the house, across the tennis courts, she’d seen a cluster of small cottages on the edge of the compound, where she guessed Vladimir’s invisible army of servants lived. Yes. She’d never seen such an amazing villa estate before.
But for all its luxury, it was still a prison. Just as, for all of Vladimir’s dark, brooding good looks, he was her jailer.
She scowled, recalling how he’d enjoyed watching her on all fours, scrubbing his home office that morning. Her stomach had growled with hunger as Vladimir ate a lavish breakfast, served on a tray at his desk. The delicious smells of coffee and bacon had been torture to Bree, following a night where she’d had no food and barely two hours’ sleep. His housekeeper, after watching with dismay, had disappeared. But Bree was proud of herself that she hadn’t given Vladimir the satisfaction of seeing her whimper.
No more whimpering, she vowed.
Bree jumped as Vladimir suddenly stalked into the kitchen, his posture angry. He stomped into the room and opened one of the doors of the big refrigerator.
Biting her lip, she looked away, scrubbing the floor harder with her sponge. But he was making so much noise, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.
He grabbed homemade bread from the cupboard and ripped off a hunk. Tossing it onto a plate, he chopped through it with a big knife, like a grim executioner with an ax. She gulped, watching in bewilderment as he added cheese, chicken, even mustard and tomato. He opened the fridge and added a bottle of water and then a linen napkin to the tray. His Italian leather shoes were heavy against the marble floor as he came over to her, holding out the tray with a glower.
“Your lunch,” he said coldly.
Her belly rumbled in response. She’d had nothing to eat since a cheerless Christmas dinner yesterday, a bologna sandwich eaten alone at the end of her housekeeping shift. Sitting back on her haunches, Bree wiped her sweaty forehead and looked up at him.
Unlike her, Vladimir had taken a shower, and looked sleek, urbane and civilized in a freshly pressed black button-down shirt and black trousers. His tanned skin glowed with health, smelling faintly of soap and sandalwood.
While she …
She wasn’t feeling so pretty. She’d peeled off her boots to work barefoot on the wet floor. Her long blond hair was twisted into a messy knot at the back of her head, to lift it off her hot neck. Her T-shirt was sweaty all the way through, and in the humidity of Hawaii, even with air-conditioning she knew she looked like a swamp creature from a 1950s horror movie.
She narrowed her eyes. If he thought she was going to lick his boots with gratitude for the simple courtesy of lunch, he had another think coming. His serf!
She looked at the tray. He waited.
“I don’t like tomatoes,” she said pleasantly.
Vladimir dropped the tray with a noisy clatter on the floor beside her. “Tough. I have no desire to cater to you, and Mrs. Kalani decided to take the rest of the day off.”
Bree looked up at him, and a slow grin lifted her cheeks. “She gave you a hard time about me, didn’t she?”
“Enjoy your lunch.” He pointed to an immaculate section of the floor. “You missed a spot.”
Vladimir had thrown the tray down as if she were the family golden retriever. Rising to her feet after he left, she washed her hands, then took the tray to the dining table like a civilized person, ready for a fight if he came back to give her one. Somewhat to her disappointment, he didn’t.
Once she’d removed the tomatoes, the freshly baked bread made the rest of the sandwich delicious. Honey mustard was a nice touch, too. And the cold, sparkling water was just what she’d wanted. She wiped her mouth.
He was still a brute. Her eyes narrowed as she remembered his cold words.
For the rest of your life, you will work for me, Bree. For free. You will never be paid, or allowed to leave. Your only goal, until you die, is to serve me and give me pleasure.
He didn’t know who he was dealing with. She finished off the cold water and tidied up the tray. He thought a little housecleaning would kill her? She’d been training for this for the past ten years.
She was going to escape this captivity. As soon as she could formulate a plan.
As the afternoon wore on, Bree scrubbed her way fiercely up the stairs and then cleaned five guest bedrooms, which had already been as sparkling clean as the rest of the house. But as she reached the master bedroom, the sun was starting to lower in the western sky, and her whole body ached. She couldn’t stop yawning. Looking at the four-poster bed, she was tempted to take a short power nap. Vladimir would never know, she told herself. Climbing onto the large, soft bed, she closed her eyes—just for a few minutes.
With a gasp, Bree sat up suddenly in bed. The room was now dark. She looked over at the clock. It was almost seven o’clock. Dinnertime.
She’d slept for hours.
Feeling sweaty and gross, her body aching, Bree rose stiffly from the still-made bed, stretching her arms over her head. She rubbed her