Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Rockton, California
The buzz inside Café Illy, a cozy nook built a few steps outside a five-star hotel, was low but steady, occasionally sprinkled with soft laughter from its patrons. The café deliberately favored small groups of diners, with tables only either for twos or fours, while the combination of warm lights, velvet walls, glossy red chairs, and bossa nova music painted the air with intimacy.
29-year-old Fredericka Spears nervously hummed along to Susan Wong’s Saving All My Love for you, the lines of which were all too apt. It was almost like Cupid was mocking her, taunting her with the possibilities.
“Sorry, Freddie, did I make you wait?”
Oh.
She looked up just as Julian Alexeyev slid into the stool next to her. Even with his longish dark hair wet from the rain, dressed simply in a loose, long-sleeved shirt and black pants, the professor was still the epitome of careless elegance, a modern-day Byron, if one ignored the fact that he was Russian and an infamous womanizer.
But he’s different with me, Fredericka quickly reminded herself, not wanting to lose her courage when it had taken her forever to find the guts to ask Julian out.
Clearing her throat, Fredericka managed a cheerful smile, saying, “Not at all.” Actually, she had been in the café for half an hour already. She couldn’t help it. She had always been fastidiously prompt.
A smile curved on Julian’s lips. “So...what did you want to talk to me about?”
Can you be my first boyfriend?
Fredericka took a deep breath.
And another.
And another.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiit.
Why did passing the bar exam seem so damn easy compared to the prospect of flirting?
SEATED SEVERAL FEET away, a couple faced each other across a round table, both of them easily recognizable to the other patrons inside the café. The woman was 29-year-old Madeline Carter, a vibrantly attractive brunette who, in the span of her fifteen-year-career, had succeeded in slaying the catwalks of Milan, Paris, Tokyo, and New York.
At that moment, she was also displaying her trademark pout as she asked her date, “Are you bored with me?” But while the tone was sweet and coy, inside the supermodel was seething.
It wasn’t like herself at all to ask something so insecure, but Madeline couldn’t help it.
Her date finally glanced up from his phone, and the dazzlingly sexy smile that curved on the younger man’s lips made Madeline’s body stir in a way that no other man had been able to. Even though Madeline wanted to hang on to her anger, she couldn’t, and she hated herself for it.
How could a mere 23-year-old make her feel so horny with just one damn smile?
Sergei Grachyov leaned forward, the small act more than enough for the supermodel to catch her breath even as a part of her was incredulous at the way she was so affected by every little thing the younger man did.
Madeline knew she only had a few years left if she wanted to retire from modeling with her head still held high. Before that happened, Madeline would need to secure for herself a permanent meal ticket, and that was where Sergei Grachyov came in.
As one of Fyodor Grachyov’s sons, Sergei had at least a billion dollars to his name. Even better, he was absolutely gorgeous, with ebony hair, magnetic dark eyes, and a classically handsome face. His bronze body was also to-die-for, with every inch rippling with muscles.
That he was younger than her didn’t matter to Madeline one bit. If anything, it would mean that she’d have an easier time manipulating him.
Or at least that was the plan...until that one night Sergei came to her place and fucked her until morning.
The seducer became the seduced, the manipulator the manipulated.
Sergei leaned forward then, and Madeline reluctantly pushed her lustful memories aside.
“Yes,” her younger date murmured.
She blinked in confusion. “Yes...what?”
“Yes. I’m bored with you.” Sergei Grachyov’s tone was polite and detached.
Madeline whitened. “Excuse me?”
A brief smile still on his lips, Sergei murmured, “But it’s not your fault, Madeline.”
Madeline’s face tightened in rage. How dare he? Just as she opened her mouth to curse him, Sergei suddenly reached for her hand across the table—-
Heat, manifested in a single touch.
His fingers tightened around her, and Madeline swallowed, her rage turning into yearning in an instant.
So much strength and power in that grip, she thought hungrily. It reminded her of the way he had held on to her that night, not letting Madeline go even when she was begging him to stop because she couldn’t take any more of his wild, addictive lovemaking.
“Even if I’m bored with you, it’s nothing that you have to worry your pretty little head over.” As he spoke, Sergei’s thumb started moving over her knuckles, a feather-soft caress that had Madeline shuddering.
Oh, oh, oh.
God, he was so damn good at this, he made Madeline forget she had any kind of pride.