1. Bronwyn

1

brONWYN

I still remember the exact moment Radimir Aristov marched into my bookstore. I had no idea who he was. What he was. Or that, eight weeks later, we’d be married.

I just sold him a book. And then everything just kind of...spun out of control.

It was past seven in the evening and outside the store’s big glass windows a blizzard was raging. A real Midwest special, the kind you only really get in Chicago, where the wind screeching between the buildings makes your ears ache, the cold slices straight through your clothes and the snow forms deep, crunchy drifts that soak the ankles of your jeans.

But inside All You Need Is Books it was warm and snug. I cannot let it get cold because cold means damp, and damp turns books into swollen, misshapen monsters no one wants to buy. That’s my excuse for running the heating full blast, despite the bills...and okay, yes, also I hate being cold. And my customers appreciated it, as they quietly wandered the aisles, reading blurbs and piling up books to bring to the register.

It’s not a big store. And if you look too closely at where the vanilla-milkshake walls meet the sky-blue ceiling, you’ll see the edges are messy because I was balancing on a stepladder to paint it. But it’s mine.

I looked around and smiled to myself. I was beyond exhausted: the store was losing money, so I’d started opening for twelve hours a day, eight till eight. Sometimes, my best friend Jen works a shift to help out but today I’d been on my own the whole time. Between serving customers, I’d sorted and shelved new stock, swept and tidied and fixed a leaking pipe that could have turned the romance section into papier maché. I still needed to make a costume for the kid’s story time session I’d organized and bundle up some books for a local reading charity. I’d been on my feet all day and my joints had thrown a hissy fit: it felt like someone had poured burning hot sand into my knees and ankles. But in calm, quiet moments like this, when I could look around at all the readers engrossed in their new read, or hunting for their next one, it was worth it.

Then the door opened, and my life changed forever.

The howl of the wind shattered the silence. Freezing air flooded the store, making people shiver and curse and sending snowflakes all the way to the Biographies section in the back. Everyone looked up.

A man was standing in the doorway, scowling. His eyes flicked over the wooden shelves, the books, the people, and his jaw tightened in suspicion. The wind was shrieking around him so fiercely it made me hunch my shoulders in sympathy, but the cold didn’t seem to bother him. It was our strange world of warmth and comfort that he didn’t trust.

He stepped into the light, and I got my first good look at him. Big, well over six feet, with shoulders that almost brushed the doorframe and a broad, hulking chest. He had the build of a firefighter, but he was wearing a three-piece suit and an overcoat, like he’d come from a board meeting. He was looking down, dusting snow from his waistcoat, so all I could see was soft curls of glossy black hair. Then he looked up and?—

Oh God, he was gorgeous. People talk about classic looks , and suddenly I knew what they meant: he was like a statue of some ancient leader brought to life. He had high, sculpted cheekbones that made me think of somewhere distant and cold: I could imagine him standing on a frozen battlefield, commanding thousands of troops. That hard, dispassionate upper lip: that was made for snapping out orders. And that soft, sensuous lower one...that was made for kissing willful barbarian queens into submission.

He gave the bookstore another suspicious glare. Then he tugged the bottom of his waistcoat to straighten it and joined the line of people waiting to be served.

A guy in his twenties backed towards the door, staring fearfully at the man, and slipped out. Then an old guy did the same. It wasn’t just that the man looked so scowly and intimidating, it was like they recognized him. Who is this guy?

He definitely had money: his overcoat looked like cashmere. So why was he here, in a neighborhood realtors optimistically called up-and-coming, instead of at one of the fancy bookstores downtown? He was still scowling and whenever the line stopped, he’d start tapping the toe of one polished leather shoe, like he had somewhere else to be. Busy. Powerful. Someone who never normally stood in line for anything.

I scanned and packed up a stack of romances for Melissa, one of my regulars, then stole another glance at the guy. There was something about the way he stood, the way he carried himself. Most people mess with their phones while they’re waiting, they sort of turn inward. But he had his head up and was glancing around, taking everything in. It was more than just confidence. It was deeper than that, stronger than that. The whole store seemed to echo with his presence: it felt like everyone was too scared to make eye contact with him. I was scared. But I couldn’t stop myself from sneaking peeks at him.

The next customer in line had pre-ordered a new fantasy novel the month before. I ducked down and grabbed it from under the counter, rang it up and handed it to him with a big smile. Now the scary mystery guy was next-but-one in line. And as the line shuffled forward, he looked at me for the first time.

I went stock-still. His eyes were the pale gray of a winter sky, so breathtakingly cold that looking into them made my chest hurt. There was no kindness there, no trace of caring, and the way he scowled down at me made my stomach drop. I almost looked away. But there’s a part of me, way down deep, that’s always been stubborn, or stupid. My grandmother called it our Welsh ancestor’s fighting spirit. It made me keep looking.

And something happened.

For a second, his eyes narrowed. Then I saw the tiniest hint of warmth creep in, like faint sunshine breaking through frozen trees in a forest, and it was heart-stoppingly beautiful.

Then the warmth expanded, accelerating outward, and the cold gray turned scorching, blistering hot . His eyes flicked down my body, back up, and locked with mine again. They glittered, molten diamonds. He’d seen something he wanted. He was going to take it.

I swallowed, my face going hot. A deeper, darker heat raced down my body and detonated in my groin. I’d never felt so... wanted. Men don’t look at me that way, especially not men like him. I’m not all tanned and toned and blonde haired. My skin’s the sort of milky white that makes me fry if I step outdoors after May, I’m all boobs and ass and my hair is red. And I don’t mean a delicate strawberry-blonde or a sophisticated auburn, I mean long waves of bright, coppery red: with my curves, I look like a farmer’s daughter, like I should be fetching water from the well or guiding a plow.

And yet he was looking at me, the heat so intense it was like a physical touch. His gaze traced along the line of my jaw, over my lips, down the soft, sensitive skin of my neck…

“Um…” said the woman standing in front of me.

I snapped out of it, red-faced, and quickly served her. I kept my eyes on the books she was buying, on the numbers on the register, on her credit card...anywhere but on his face. Did that just happen? Did he just look at me like he wanted to bend me over this counter and ? —

I bagged the woman’s books, thanked her, and she left. And he stepped forward.

I kept my eyes on the counter, but I could feel him looming over me. I was flustered and breathless, my skin was throbbing under my clothes and deep in my core there was a slow pulse of heat I couldn’t control. It wasn’t just the look he’d given me. It was the way I was reacting to it, the way I was reacting to him. He was big and intimidating and scary as fuck, but he was also gorgeous and... different, in a way I couldn’t describe. Dangerous. It pulsed from him, a vibration I could feel. Like I and everyone else in the bookstore were deer and he was a wolf.

That should have made me run. But that vibration strummed through my body and some deep, dark place inside me sang like a tuning fork.

I lifted my eyes slowly. His waist came into view, his stomach flat and tight, hugged by an immaculate gray waistcoat. My eyes climbed higher, to where the twin slabs of his pecs pushed out his snow-white shirt. He seemed even bigger, up close, his chest wide enough to block my view of everything behind him. And tall: I’m 5’6” but I had to tilt my head way back to see more of him. Up past the knot of his blue silk tie, up past his shoulders…

Up into those amazing, pale gray eyes. The scalding lust was gone. Wait: no. Not gone. Controlled. Locked behind bars of ice. And he was frowning at me, demanding to know how I’d made his control slip.

I shifted from foot to foot, feeling small and vulnerable...but in a way I wanted more of. I wanted to drop my eyes to the floor but at the same time, I couldn’t look away. I pressed my fingertips against the wood of the counter to anchor myself. Then I took a breath and forced my voice almost level . “Welcome to All You Need is Books . How can I help you?”

He glowered down at me. God, glowering was invented for this guy. Scowling, too. With those dark brows and the gray eyes and the way those gorgeous lips tightened...it was pure sex. A memory scratched at the back of my mind. I’d seen him before, somewhere.

“I need a book,” he told me.

I blinked. Normally, I would have made some crack like well, you’re in the right place or unfortunately, we don’t sell those. But I was busy dealing with his voice. The words were heavy and cold as hunks of ice. And they’d been cut from a glacier by his accent, a silver axe that left the edges of the words wonderfully rough in places and silky smooth in others. I wanted to rub my mind against his voice. His accent fitted his cheekbones: somewhere cold and distant, but I couldn’t place it. “For yourself?” I managed.

“A gift for my cousin’s daughter. She’s fourteen.”

I nodded. “Well, okie dokie.” What? Since when do I say okie fucking dokie?! I flushed all over again, then rallied. “I’m sure I can suggest something. What does she read?”

This time he blinked. He glanced around the store, then back to me. “Books.”

I stared at him. He doesn’t read! For him, this must be like when I went to a sports store with my former boyfriend and they had two hundred badminton rackets that all looked identical. I tried to imagine what it would be like to not love books. To never have the glorious anticipation of taking a new book home, desperate to start it. To never open a book to chapter one and let your mind sink into the story.

He was scary, rich, and intimidating...but I felt sorry for him.

I forced myself to focus on the task. Luckily, recommending books is what I’m best at. There’s nothing I love more than pointing someone at a book and then a few weeks later having them come back into the store, grinning and floaty, having devoured it. I turned and marched over to a bookshelf, ignoring the pain in my legs. I plucked out a white-and-gold hardback and held it up. “ This is a great book. It’s about a girl who finds out she only has six months to live...”

His lips tightened. “I want to give her a birthday gift, not traumatize the child.”

“No, no, it’s okay! Because she finds a portal to the Fae world, and time passes more slowly there, so she can live out her whole life.” I walked back to him, running my fingers lovingly over the embossed title. “And then she meets the Fae king, and they fall in love, and she learns how to shoot a bow and fights in a war, and—” I’d started grinning and couldn’t stop: I always get this way when I talk about books I love. “It’s got everything, adventure and emotion and romance—I mean, teen appropriate but it’s so good . She’ll love it.”

I looked up. He wasn’t looking at the book, he was looking at me. Watching me get stupidly carried away. I felt the heat start to creep into my face…

But then I saw how his eyes had softened.

He tore his gaze away and nodded. “I’ll take it.”

I nodded and scanned the book’s barcode. He moved closer and I caught a hint of his cologne. It was like nothing I’d ever smelled, citrus and vanilla but with an undertone of something darkly intoxicating, and I couldn’t get enough of it. If there was a magical, dark amber fruit that put you under a spell with just one bite, it would smell exactly like him.

He held out a glossy black bank card and I grabbed the card reader and went to tap it against the card…

And that’s when I read the little silver letters that said Radimir Aristov.

My stomach plunged like an elevator with its cables cut. I suddenly knew where I’d seen him before. On the TV, tugging his waistcoat straight as he told a reporter that his property company was a legitimate business, and that he was a legitimate businessman. I knew why two of my customers had fled when he’d walked in: because they were fucking terrified of him.

Radimir Aristov. Some said he was the city’s most powerful criminal since Capone. That nothing happened in Chicago without his say-so. That the foundations of his buildings were dug extra deep, because that’s where he put the bodies.

His aura made sense to me now: dangerous and irresistible. Power.

I looked up at him. Now that I was looking for it, I could just make out the shadowy shapes of tattoos under his white shirt. A Russian mob boss. A Russian mob boss is in my store.

His eyes hardened again. He knew I’d recognized him; he could see it in my face.

There was a shrill electronic beep as the card reader accepted his card and I jerked and nearly dropped the thing. I kept my eyes on the counter as I put down the card reader, picked up the book and put it in a bag. Except my hands were shaking and the bag wouldn’t open and every time I tried to push the book inside, it caught on the edge and?—

His hands came into my view and closed around mine. I stared at the backs of his hands, my heart hammering. His hands dwarfed mine, his fingers strong and thick. He could kill me. Just wrap them around my neck and— But he was surprisingly gentle as he guided my hands and slid the book into place.

He released me and picked up the bag and I tentatively met his eyes again. He nodded to me, his expression unreadable. “Goodbye.” Then he hesitated. “Miss…?”

“Hanford,” I managed.

“Goodbye, Miss Hanford.”

It was strangely, wonderfully, old-fashioned: I felt like I should be in a corset. I was so off balance, I gave it a go. “Goodbye...Mr. Aristov.”

He headed towards the door. I closed my eyes and my whole body slumped in relief. It’s over. He’s going.

But as he walked away, I felt an... ache. That heat he’d lit in me, the memory of how his eyes had softened for a second. And the ache tugged at me.

I felt my mouth open.

Don’t be an idiot, Bronwyn. Just shut up. In a few seconds, he’ll be gone.

He put his hand on the door handle.

“Mr. Aristov!”

Everyone in the bookstore except Radimir turned to look at me, and it went utterly silent. Then Radimir turned, one eyebrow raised, as if no one had ever dared to shout after him like that before. He tilted his head a fraction of a degree: a warning.

What are you doing, Bronwyn? He’s a freakin’ mobster.

I swallowed. “It’s—It’s a trilogy. So if she likes the first book…”

For a moment, he just stared at me, as if willing me to weaken and drop my eyes. But when I choose to dig in, I can be stubborn. I lifted my chin and stared right back.

I thought I saw the faintest hint of a smile play across his lips, as if he was impressed with me. Then he nodded curtly, and he was gone.