Kholodov's Last Mistress by Kate Hewitt Read Free Book Online Page B

happiness?’
    ‘Still, some things must have gone right in your life,’ she insisted. ‘Can’t you think of one thing that’s good?’
    He let out a short laugh. ‘You’re quite the Pollyanna.’
    Hannah made a face. ‘That sounds kind of sappy. But if you mean am I an optimist as you said before, then yes, I’dsay I am. I don’t intend on going through life with a doom and gloom attitude. What good does that do you?’
    Sergei stared at her for a moment. ‘Well,’ he finally said, ‘at least it keeps you from disappointment.’
    ‘And it keeps you from properly living as well,’ Hannah returned. That was what this trip had been about: jumping in and just doing it, living life to the full. After six years of staying home, caring first for her father and then for her mother in the onset of dementia, she had been ready. She propped her elbows on the table and gave him a challenging look, eyebrows arched, lips parted. ‘Tell me one really good thing that’s happened to you. Or, better yet, one really good person you’ve known. A friend or family member. Someone who made a difference. Someone you could never be cynical about.’
    ‘Why?’ he asked and she rolled her eyes.
    ‘Because I said so. Because I want to show you that some things—some people—are actually through-and-through good.’
    He leaned forward, and Hannah saw a steely glitter in those light blue eyes that sent a shiver stealing straight down her spine. ‘I could just lie.’
    ‘Where’s the fun in that?’
    ‘Are we having fun?’ he drawled softly, and Hannah gave him a playfully flirtatious look.
    ‘Aren’t we?’ she said, and saw gold flare in his irises.
    He held her gaze, trapped her with it, and Hannah felt her body hum with awareness, an excitement uncoiling in her middle and sending its sensual tendrils throughout her body, taking it over. It was heady, thrilling, addictive.
This
was really living … and it was something she’d never really done before. She wanted more.
    ‘I suppose we are,’ Sergei said slowly and Hannah did not look away. ‘Alyona,’ he finally said, abruptly, and Hannahblinked, struggling to catch up. Just gazing at him had sent her mind—and body—into a kind of hyper-aware overdrive.
    ‘Alyona?’
    ‘Alyona.’ His neutral tone gave nothing away. ‘She was one good person I knew.’ And by the way he said it Hannah didn’t think Alyona—whoever she was—was in his life any more.
    ‘Well,’ she said, sitting back, the heady excitement leaking out from her like air from a balloon a week after the party, ‘there you go. There
is
someone good in your life. Someone you don’t need to be cynical about. Tell me about her.’
    ‘No,’ he said, flatly, and Hannah stiffened a little at the rebuke, strangely hurt. She had no right to demand his secrets, even if she’d been halfway to giving him hers … the ones she hadn’t even realised she had.
    ‘Well,’ she said, ‘at least you have one.’
    ‘Had.’ His forbidding expression kept her from asking any more questions. She was intensely curious about this Alyona, even though Hannah knew she had no right to know. Had she been a girlfriend, a
wife
? Had Sergei loved her? Was that why he seemed so closed, so cynical now? Maybe he was hiding a broken heart. Or maybe she’d just watched too many soap operas.
    ‘So why
are
you so suspicious of people?’ she asked, trying to sound light even though she really wanted to know. ‘Trusting no one?’
    ‘I told you, experience. Most people have a reason for what they do, and it usually isn’t a very nice one.’ His mouth curved once more in a sensual smile. ‘Except maybe you.’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘Yes, you. You have to be the most refreshingly—and annoyingly—optimistic person I’ve ever met.’
    Hannah nearly sputtered in outrage.
‘Annoyingly?’
    ‘Optimism tends to irritate us cynics.’
    ‘Maybe you need a little more optimism in your life, then.’ Sergei considered her from