Page 6 of Pregnant By the Russian Pakhan

She didn’t know what they were going to do to him, but since this club was run by her father’s greatest rival and archenemy, a vicious mafia lord, she had a fair idea that he wasn’t in for a picnic.

Everyone gave her a wide berth, she noticed, and she was grateful. She felt sick to her stomach and she was afraid she might be coming down with something.

Oh—had she tasted some of the drug perhaps? Was that why she was shivering so much she could barely talk?

As though on cue, a warm coat descended onto her shoulders, enveloping her in instant heat and male scent. She gratefully grabbed at the coat and tugged it more snugly around herself as the bone-deep cold began to recede.

Whoever had flung the coat around her shoulders was still standing a few feet away.

Mira looked up with a grateful smile, preparing to thank him, when her eyes clashed with the familiar black eyes of the man who had saved her and gotten a slap for his efforts. Now here he was, saving her again.

It was too much. A tear slid down one cheek as she said with feeling, “I’m really sorry. I acted without thinking. Please forgive me.”

A muscle worked in his jaw, his dark features inscrutable as he looked down at her.

Two things struck Mira at once: First, the understated elegance of the cologne clinging to the jacket he’d flung onto her shoulders screamed wealth and class. So unless he had filched it from some wealthy patron—which was highly unlikely—it was a safe bet that he was seriously rich. Secondly, he had the straight, erect bearing of her father, which she’d always associated with leadership and male pride.

Whoever this man was, he had to be someone important, and no doubt she had just embarrassed him in front of everyone.

A muscle worked in his jaw as he looked down at her and she half expected him to reject her apology.

To her shock, a blinding grin dawned across his handsome features and he murmured in that low, husky voice of his, “Well, at least you put as much heart into your apology as you do into your slap.”

It took her a minute to catch the humor in what he’d said. And just like that, her tears vanished to be replaced by tinkling laughter that spread all across the room. She noticed it drew many appreciative male glances her way once more.

Chapter 5 - Mikhail

Mikhail was questioning his sanity as he slid into the chair across from the beautiful, laughing woman. If he had a grain of sense, he would give her a wide berth just as every other man in the club had been doing since their little scene.

But something about her drew him like a moth to a flame. She had slapped him—him—right in front of his men, and questioned his integrity. And yet, just one tear from her and a small laugh and he was back for more.

Well, who could blame him? He had never known a woman with enough humility to apologize as genuinely as she just had.

Alena had done far worse to him, and instead of contrition, she’d assured him that she hated his guts and she would get back at him for killing Dmitri if it was the last thing she did.

Thinking of Alena never failed to put him in a bad mood. But something about being around this woman…he couldn’t get angry with her—or around her, he realized in a flash.

That had to be why he’d been so deathly calm after she had slapped him, and why even now the thought of Alena couldn’t get a rise out of him.

The woman quieted a bit now as she looked at him. She was fresh-faced and seemed as innocent as a Catholic schoolgirl. Maybe that was why he felt protective of her. She didn’t give off the wiles and coyness of the women in his circles. She was sweet, fresh and guileless. What was she, twenty? Twenty-one?

He frowned worriedly at her. “Are you old enough to be in a bar? How old are you?”

Immediate fire sparked in her eyes as she thrust out her chin. “I’m a twenty-eight-year-old woman, I’ll have you know.”

He looked steadily at her, employing the stare-them-out-of-countenance tactics he used whenever he thought one of his men was trying to get something past him.

It worked. She sighed as a tremulous smile played about her lush, soft-looking lips and she confessed, “Okay, fine. I’m twenty-five. That’s an adult in every country on earth!”

He chuckled. “Are you sure? In some countries, you have to be thirty first.”

She rolled her eyes. Then she grinned at him, leaning forward with an open, trusting expression as though she were confiding in her best friend. “You know, you’re not completely terrible.”

He quirked an eyebrow, a self-deprecating smile playing about his lips at her choice of words. “You don’t say.”

She chuckled. “What I mean is, when I saw you at first, I was afraid when I looked into your eyes.”

So that was why she’d seemed to recoil when he saw her at the bar. Smart girl.

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