You Don't Know Me: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance by Georgia le Carre Read Free Book Online Page A

at me with his cold eyes and asked me why I did not kiss him. ‘Never forget to kiss your Papa,’ he told me sternly.
    ‘Vasily is coming from Moscow this afternoon,’ Papa tells my grandma, ‘and he is bringing Ptichie Moloko from The Prague restaurant for you.’
    Ptichie Moloko or Birds’ Milk Cake is made from French marshmallows and chocolate and set on a cake base. It is the king of all Russian desserts and Baba’s favorite.
    Grandma keeps her eyes on me while she smiles, but her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
    ‘Oh good. No one makes it like they do at The Prague restaurant. All the rest are plastic imitations.’
    A dull heat spreads up my throat and into my face. My father looks at me. ‘You’re blushing. Why?’
    I swallow hard.
    ‘Leave the child alone, Nikita. She is excited about her appointment,’ Baba says reaching for her cup of tea. She sips the cold liquid calmly.
    Papa just grunts.
    It never fails to amaze me the tone my grandmother uses on her son. This is the man who makes grown men shiver. He has never raised a hand to me. He has never needed to. The only time I saw something cruel and frightening in his face was when I came home from school and called him Daddy. Like all the other children in my school did. His head swung around so fast it was like the strike of a snake.
    ‘What did you call me?’ he asked, so softly I felt goosebumps rise on my hands. Anyone would have thought I’d used the f or the c word.
    I thought he must have had misheard. ‘Daddy,’ I repeated.
    ‘I’m not your daddy. I’m your Papa. Don’t ever try to be like those miserable creatures you go to school with. You can mix with them and pretend to be one of them, but never forget you are Russian and only Russian. You have my blood in your veins. Never let me hear you exchange your culture and your Russian ways for theirs again.’
    He had totally discounted my English heritage. The blood of my mother. Of course I never said anything. My mother tells me. Let sleeping dogs lie. Wake them up and they will bite you.
    ‘Yes, Papa,’ I said immediately, and since then I have never done anything that has earned that soft, menacing tone from him again.
    The kitchen falls suddenly silent.
    ‘It’s been a long night. I’m going to bed,’ Papa says into the strained silence.
    ‘Sleep well, Papa,’ I say, and step forward to kiss his cheek again. My father reaches out a hand and plucks a one-inch-long twig from the elbow of my cardigan and drops it to the ground. I freeze with fear, but he doesn’t realize the significance, and turns towards the door. I watch him go out of the door with relief and hear the sound of his shoes on the marble floors echo through the empty house.
    ‘I suppose I better go to my room as well. Sergei will be waiting,’ I tell my grandmother.
    She nods.
    I bend to pick up the black bag and she grasps my hand suddenly in hers. The steely strength of her grip surprises me and my eyes fly to meet hers. Something strange and dark lurks in them.
    ‘ Solnyshko, if you ignore your dreams they will limp away from you to die a sad death,’ she warns urgently.

Twelve
    Tasha Evanoff
    M oving through the high-ceilinged, gilded, pillared excesses of my father’s home, my heels clicking on the marble, and the relief of not being discovered gone, I feel oddly hollow, as if I have left an important part of me back in Noah’s home. 
    I go up to my room, open the door, and immediately my beloved four-year-old blue Doberman, Sergei, rushes over to me and throws his sleek body at me. I crouch down to have my face and neck thoroughly washed, but he suddenly stops and sniffs me curiously.
    ‘I know,’ I whisper. ‘I’ve been with a man, a beautiful, strong, powerful man.’
    Sergei stops sniffing me and licks my face gently, as if he understands that I am sad and lost. I hug him tightly.
    ‘Oh, Sergei, Sergei, what am I going to do? I never thought it would be like that. I thought I had built it all