The Marriage Ultimatum (City of Dreams Series) by Charlotte O'Shay

barking up the wrong tree with his suspicions, but she was confident she could make him understand it wasn’t she who released that insane story to the press. And she needed to make him understand to get her job back or to get any other job without his negative interference.
    She’d taken charge in the kitchen, fashioning a picnic dinner of nuts, olives, cheese, and salami which they’d devoured. Along with wine. After sunset, the outside world was swathed in varying hues from watery lilac to deep charcoal. The storm raged on with the wind providing a nonstop cacophony. Still the fire cast a soft glow around them creating an intimacy that Sabrina knew was dangerous to her peace of mind. Far from roughing it, she was enjoying this far too much.
    “Your house is amazing.” The home was huge on anyone’s terms but cozy for all that. Sabrina sat back against the foot of the sofa, crossed her bare feet at the ankle, and realized she’d never been anywhere so beautiful. It was unfinished and sparsely furnished; there were no personal touches anywhere that she could see, but the chairs were deep and comfortable, and the sunny tones in the velvety rugs blended with the creamy paint on the walls. The mahogany floors lent a faintly exotic air.
    Vlad nodded his thanks. “It’s taken longer than I thought it would to get it the way I want it. And I should’ve installed the backup generator sooner rather than later.” His mouth angled up at the corner.
    Sabrina nodded back, her attention dangerously focused on the details of him, all of the little things about him she’d begun to notice. Like the way the corner of his mouth quirked up in that self-deprecating way and how he ran his hand through his short hair when he was thinking. His gaze went from the fire to hers, the reflection of the flames in his eyes hiding his expression.
    The familiar excitement began to curl in her stomach. Her breathing sped up and she could feel her blood move through her limbs hot and swift. Her breasts tightened in anticipation.
    His next words, so casually spoken, were a shower of cold water to her overheated senses.
    “I mean to know who put you up to this. How did they get to you? Tell me. When you tell me, I will see you and the boy financially secure. Fail to tell me and you will never work in New York again.”
    His voice was precise and devoid of emotion as he issued the threat.
    “I had nothing to do with the media,” she answered, weariness and something like sadness in her voice. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I don’t have the slightest idea who you think would want to harm you or how they’d do it with such a fantastic lie. You dragged us both here for nothing. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. And besides, by next week, there’ll be a new Page Six story and nobody will care.”
    ****
    Vlad knew different. The forces that he had escaped, the people who he had no intention of ever seeing face to face again might not be able to harm him anymore but they held sway over opinion. Fragile lives would be damaged if this story was believed. He would never return to the place of his birth, but his heart bled for those so like him, the young ones, who hadn’t, as yet, been able to escape.
    Still. She tugged at him in a way he couldn’t understand. Just now, he’d pulled back from the message in her eyes; he’d known that with one small move, he would lose it; they’d be all over each other again and he would give anything for that physical oblivion. He found himself drawn to her in a way he never experienced with his other women; drawn to the way a self-conscious dimple appeared in the corner of her mouth when her stomach had grumbled. Amazed at the nonchalant way she took over his kitchen as no other woman ever had and within minutes organized a meal without fuss or complaint about the dark or the cold.
    Then there was the conversation he’d overheard between her and the boy. The way she’d listened,