So instead, she wanted this to be something in the nature of a first date. They’d never had one, had they? Why couldn’t they be just getting to know each other? Why couldn’t she forget that guys like Vlad did not, on any planet, want to be with girls like her? So what if theirs was a manufactured relationship?
Right now, she didn’t care.
“So, you were a sailor? Er, is that the correct term?” She mentally rolled her eyes at her prosaic query.
“I was a merchant marine, yes.” There was hesitancy to his response, overlaid with a hint of amusement. No doubt at her lack of conversational prowess. Nevertheless, she nodded encouragingly.
Strange that with all that had occurred between them, all of the sexual intimacy, Sabrina knew little more than the essentials of his background. Once again, she was left with the feeling that if she had something to hide, Vlad had his secrets as well.
“I spent some years on a tanker ship, much bigger than this one, learning and rising through the ranks to second officer. I’m very much at ease on board.”
That was the understatement of the year, she thought. He was totally in his element. He looked more energized than a major league shortstop. Sabrina on the other hand, felt as jumpy as a turkey on Thanksgiving eve.
“And at some point you squeezed in a university degree.” She knew none of this sailor stuff was in his
googled background. She felt like she might be getting to know him a little.
“Yes, the captain of the first tanker I worked on, when I was a kid encouraged me. The boxing paid for it.”
“Boxing?” She knew it! From that first moment in the breakroom.
I wasn’t born with all this…far from it.” He swept his hand in an all-encompassing arc. “I attended university on a boxing scholarship. Taught me to stay focused. Either that or get your nose broken.” His mouth quirked up at the corner, his forefinger pointed to the obvious bump on his nose.
“And now you spend a ton of time sitting behind a desk,” she stated, considering him, her eyes alight with mischief and interest. Which one is the real you, the sailor or the tycoon?”
****
Vlad had never really looked at it that way. He had of necessity always been a striver. His captain, the closest thing to a father he’d ever known, seeing the native intelligence and thirst for knowledge in him, had encouraged Vlad to apply for the university position that he had obtained at seventeen.
His innate drive meant he wasn’t satisfied until he came back and bought that first ship with the captain’s blessing and then acquired another, and another. He’d never looked back. No one had ever asked him about himself, who he was, what he wanted. And he found he didn’t have an answer to give her.
“I’m at home in both places,” he countered. Liar. He wasn’t truly comfortable in either role. Not truly. Not at ease. Had he ever felt at ease? No, he hadn’t, he knew, not since he was left alone on the streets where he had first learned to sleep with one eye open. He was who he had to be, did what he had to do, to survive. He had never asked himself the true question of who he was. That was almost trivial in the world he had inhabited. Still inhabited.
“But if you could,” she persisted, like a tormenting angel, “if you had to choose between executive or sailor, which would it be?”
“Well, you’re here, so I guess right now my answer has to be sailor.”
His voice dropped to a low drawl. “Oh.” Her gaze was fixed on him.
“Is that all you can say?” he teased. “You ask the questions, but you don’t have much to say in response. Here’s one for you. If you could change anything in your life, what would it be?”
Two could play this game.
Sabrina looked away from his intent gaze then responded in a rush, “I wish my mom were still alive. Other than that, no, I wouldn’t change anything.”
“When did you lose your mother?” “When Alex was nine months old.”
“That must have been, er, difficult,” he acknowledged.
He was surprised she hadn’t said something about wanting to be with the father of her child or some such BS. And yet, she was a tough one, he knew. Didn’t want the poor sucker who fathered the kid most likely. Whoever he was. And, she’d had a mother all of those years when she was a kid. While he’d been alone, always. Alone even with Pieter, who, as the years had passed, drifted in and out of his life and never stuck to any endeavor for very long. Vlad had to admit that he, too, had been emotionally adrift until he finally anchored himself in work and began the tough uphill climb to prosperity. And left emotion far behind. Now he had the false trappings of a family with this alliance to Sabrina and her child. That was more than most people had.
“You said your parents weren’t married.” She came back with a sucker punch.
“I said I was a bastard.” His mouth took on a cynical twist.
“Did you know them?”
“No. Not either of them. I have no memories of parents. I was,” he cleared his throat, “you know, found and then brought to an orphanage.”
There, it was out. And with it the shameful words seemed to be written in bold black letters on his person.
Bastard Unwanted Unloved
Her eyes softened from inquisitive green to mellow gray, but she said nothing for a minute. He hated the sympathy he saw there. And was floored by what she said next.
“She must have been going through some really rough times to have had to do that.”
“That’s not how I see it.” He bit out the words, and if possible, his voice became harder.
“If you know nothing about them or their struggles, why not think they had no choice but to do that? Why not choose to believe what they did was the only choice they had?” Her husky voice was soothing and washed over him like honey.
Why not indeed? He didn’t believe that for a second, did he? They were evil, weren’t they? Especially his mother, who had left two sons from two different fathers and taken off to who knows where, never to be heard from again. Neither of them ever intended to come back. Had they? Had she wanted to come back? Had she fallen ill? Had she looked for them? Had she come up against a brick wall because he had gone and changed their names? Had she died? No, no, no.
Sabrina was soft. Just because she clearly loved her son, just because she spent every afternoon with Alex even though she lived in his penthouse, and had every luxury she could possibly desire. They were always together. He knew because Mrs. Field confirmed it. Just because she hadn’t abandoned her child, he had no reason to think anything positive about his parents’ motivations.
She was just soft. And that was what he loved, no, not…loved. That was what attracted him to her still when most of the women in his life had bored him within days.
“You are a cream puff,” he declared with a wicked glint in his eye.
“No way. I’m a tough New York City girl.”
His gaze was riveted to the hectic rise and fall of her breasts. He knew after all of the travel and the hoopla of the past twenty-four hours that she had to be tired, exhausted even. He lifted his gaze up to the sexy feline slit of her eyes, and she didn’t look away from the explicit message in his.