To Tempt A Tiger (5 page)

She swallowed her shocked gasp and forced a polite, “May I help you?” This poor guy could just be a delivery man. No reason to panic or be rude. But her instincts told her otherwise.

In fact, as she stared at him, she realized he looked sort of familiar. He had dark brown hair, light eyes, and pale skin, but something in his features reminded her of…Vlad.

“Rose Callaghan?”

She edged Zoe behind her as she faced the stranger. His gaze dropped to her daughter and something Rose couldn’t decipher, but didn’t like, moved through his expression. She adjusted her stance, preparing to drop the gun case and fight if it became necessary.

Her every instinct screamed that this man was dangerous, a threat, and she was in serious trouble. “Do I know you?”

He took a single step closer and smiled—a forced expression that never reached his eyes.

“No,” he said, almost pleasantly. “My name is Anton Dubrovsky. I believe you know my brother.”

Chapter Four

Rose forced herself to think around the unease clawing at her. If Vlad was right, this man wanted to kill her daughter because of what he thought she was. At all cost, she had to make him believe Zoe was
not
Vlad’s child.

Rose cursed herself for not heeding her own instincts and having the gun out. It was useless to her in the case. Hitting a supernatural being who could turn into a tiger with it wasn’t likely to slow him down. She’d thrown Vlad, so she knew her martial arts would work, but without the gun, there was only so long she could hold Anton off.

She adjusted her stance as subtly as she could, preparing to fight if she had to. For Zoe, she’d do whatever it took. Memories of Vlad’s eyes in a tiger body moved through her mind and she forced back a rush of panic. Anton chose that moment to take another step closer and his smile flattened into a hard stare. At Zoe.

This was going to go bad fast if Rose didn’t do something to distract him and throw him off. She tried bluffing. Maybe she could just get him to go away.

She forced a slight frown. “What do you want? I haven’t seen Vlad in years.”

“No point in lying to me, Rose. I can smell deception. And I can smell Vlad on you.”

The way he said that made her stomach tighten. He glanced at her then turned his full attention back to her daughter. Rose moved to further block her. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“I know he’s been to see you. What did he tell you?”

“I told her I wanted her back and she kicked me out.”

The sound of Vlad’s voice sent such a wave of relief through Rose she’d be embarrassed by it later. Right then, she was beyond grateful he’d ignored her wishes and followed her.

She looked around Anton at Vlad. His scowl was so dark, she shivered. “What are you doing here?” she asked, playing into the story he’d started. “I told you I needed time.”

He looked at her long enough to say, “I was hoping to…talk more.”

“Not now.” She took Zoe’s hand. “Come on, baby.” To Vlad she said, “Later. Maybe. I’ll…I’ll let you know.”

Keeping Zoe on the far side of her, she passed Anton. He stepped off the walkway to give her room, but he was still too close and her stomach tightened as she waited for him to attack. When she reached Vlad and Anton hadn’t moved, she forced out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She glanced at Vlad, just a moment of eye contact, before moving quickly to her SUV. She tossed the gun case onto the front seat, strapped Zoe into her car seat, and climbed behind the wheel, all without looking directly at the brothers. But she kept her awareness focused on them and knew they were staring at her.

Her hands shook as she started the engine. She checked her rearview mirror as she headed out of the cul-de-sac. Anton was standing next to Vlad as they both watched her drive away.

Vlad waited until Rose had turned the corner before he faced his brother. “What in the ever loving hell are you doing here? Why were you talking with Rose?” He had to force down the panic that had shot through him when he’d sensed one of his brothers in the Callaghan’s neighborhood.

Despite her insistence, Vlad had followed Rose from her house to the Callaghan Adventure Travel offices, then on to her parents’ house. He’d kept a discreet distance, not wanting her to see him. Unfortunately, he’d gotten caught behind a fender bender and had to watch her drive off without him guarding her back.

He’d held his anxiety in check by reminding himself that his brothers couldn’t get to this part of Phoenix from the airport in the time since they’d been spotted. He knew where her parents’ house was. He could get there in time to ensure she got out of town safely.

He’d underestimated his brothers. The second time he’d made that mistake in the last month.

“Good to see you too, bro,” Anton said dryly.

“Answer the damned question.” His anger was strong enough to cover his other emotions, thankfully, because he was having a lot of trouble keeping his panic and fear buried. He was used to lying to his family, hiding his real feelings, but seeing Anton so close to Rose and Zoe…

He couldn’t even consider what might have happened. He had to throw Anton off, make him believe the story he’d started about being here to get Rose back. For Zoe’s sake, he had to make sure his younger brother didn’t realize she was his daughter.

Fortunately, Anton couldn’t have sensed Zoe the way their kind sensed each other. He should have been able to feel that she was a tiger shifter—a fact that would have made hiding her relationship to Vlad impossible. But Vlad’s senses couldn’t tell Zoe apart from a human, which meant Anton couldn’t either. It had to have something to do with her being a hybrid. Vlad didn’t understand it, and he had a lot of questions, but for the moment, he was just grateful Zoe’s nature wasn’t easy to discern.

Anton rocked from one foot to the other, not quite meeting Vlad’s gaze when he said, “Just worrying about you.”

“Worrying about
me
?” Vlad gave him a look.

Anton rolled his eyes and a hint of embarrassment, like the smell of overripe fruit, crept into his scent. “Yeah, well, a lot’s happened in the last five months.”

“So you thought you should come see my ex-girlfriend out of the blue?”

“You’re here. You want to explain that?”

“No.”

Anton was the younger of the twins, by about a minute, and the brother Vlad had managed to get along with, at least when they were younger. Andrey and Yuri were just too much like their father. But for some reason, Anton had been less inclined to hold Vlad’s resemblance to their mother against him.

All three of his younger brothers bore a strong resemblance to their father—as was typical for tigers. Yuri was actually the spitting image of their father with pale blond hair and electric blue eyes. Both twins had darker hair, almost as dark brown as Vlad’s, and Anton’s blue eyes had a lot of gray in them, but his features invoked memories of their father. Both the twins were tall, taller than Vlad by a couple of inches, but Vlad had the advantage of age.

An advantage he used now. “What’s going on?” He put his hands on his hips and glared at his brother, infusing as much annoyance into his tone as he could muster.

“What’s going on with you and Rose?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“Come on, man. You haven’t seen her in what…four years? Now I find you at her parents’ house.”

“That’s why you were talking to her? You were looking for me?” He waved his cell phone in Anton’s face. “Use the fucking phone next time.”

Anton’s eyes narrowed and Vlad saw suspicion even though his brother tried to hide it. None of his brothers could lie to him as well as he could lie to them.

“How
did
you find me here?” Vlad asked. “Where are Andrey and Yuri?”

Anton’s eyes shifted slightly as he said, “Yuri went to the Callaghan’s office and Andrey went to Rose’s house.”

“What the hell? Why?” Vlad let outrage and fury fill his voice and scent. They were strong emotions he had no trouble letting out. And they overrode the underlying terror he was desperately trying to suppress. What if he’d arrived a few minutes later? What if he’d never learned his brothers had booked flights to Phoenix? If one of his contacts hadn’t tipped Vlad off to their plans, he might have stalled longer, trying to figure out how best to approach Rose.

He might have been too late.

“You still haven’t explained why you’re here?” Anton said defensively.

“I already told you it’s none of your business. Besides, I have more right to be here than you. Rose is my ex. I’d like to know why the hell my brothers are hunting her down?”

“The little girl…she’s got Mother’s eyes. Your eyes.”

Vlad used every ounce of self-control he had not to react to the implied threat. “She’s got brown eyes,” he said, evenly, with as much irritation as he could infuse in his tone. “Lots of people have brown eyes. The bastard Rose cheated on me with when she got pregnant? He had brown eyes. What’s your point, Anton?”

“With what we know now, we thought, maybe…you were rethinking the ‘cheating’ part.”

“Oh. Is that what you thought? And what? I’m here to kill the kid?”

Anton shrugged. But a hint of something pungent and sour crept into his scent, a flavor that spoke of suspicion and distrust, like rotting plant life.

“You here to help?” Vlad asked.

“We just wanted to check on you. We were worried.”

Since his brothers had booked their flights before Vlad, he’d have known Anton was lying even if there wasn’t a faint tinge of it in his scent. But Vlad hid his knowledge behind a resigned sigh.

“I’m not here because I think the kid is mine. She’s not. Rose cheated on me. I almost killed the guy when I found him, except he’s human.”

“Then why
are
you here?”

Vlad ran a hand through his hair again and played up his part to the best of his acting ability—abilities he’d honed at the granite wheel of their father. “After all the shit with Mom’s suicide and Dad’s death, I guess I was feeling… I don’t know. I missed Rose.”

Anton’s eyebrows rose sharply. “You really are trying to get back with her? I thought that was just some shit you told her.”

The disbelief and surprise were the exact reactions Vlad had been hoping for. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t,” he snapped, putting on the defensiveness of a man caught doing something stupid.

“Vlad, man, she broke your heart. You haven’t been the same since. And now you want her back? When she’s got some other man’s kid? What the fuck?”

His brother sounded sincere in his concern, but Vlad caught the continued suspicion in his scent if not his tone. Anton was playing a part, too.

“It’s been four years,” Vlad said. “I’m not getting a tiger mate. I want kids.”

“Some other man’s kid?”

“Same as if we’d adopted. Or if I’d met her after she had a child.”

“No, it’s not. She cheated on you with some
human
.”

“She’s human.”

“Even worse.”

“You sound like Dad now.”

Anton sighed. “I just don’t know how you can come back to a woman—a human woman—who cheated on you. How you could possibly want to get back with her. Aren’t you disgusted by her?”

“Just because you don’t like human women doesn’t mean
I
want to be celibate for the rest of my life.”

“You want to get laid, pick someone new.”

“Why?”

“’Cause…this woman is no good.”

Vlad watched a muscle in Anton’s cheek twitch. A tell. Anton had managed to control his scent tells better over the course of their conversation, but the physical tell surprised Vlad. Anton only twitched when he was really angry.

“I disagree,” Vlad said, sticking to his story as he watched his brother closely. “One mistake doesn’t make her a bad person.” He shrugged and admitted a truth he’d hardly admitted to himself. “I still love her. I just thought… After we lost so much, it was stupid to ignore how I felt about Rose and waste more time.”

That glint of suspicion returned to Anton’s eyes. He could tell Vlad was being completely honest, and Vlad could tell that complicated his feelings about this conversation.

“What did she do when you told her you wanted back with her?” Anton asked.

Vlad snorted. “She slapped me.” A completely honest statement. “Then she broke down and cried.” He actually had to work not to laugh at that. Rose would
not
have cried in that circumstance. Kicked his ass, yes. Cried, never. But his brothers didn’t know her, so they wouldn’t realize crying was out of character for her.

“Guilt?” Anton asked.

“Some of it. Some of it was—” Vlad cut himself off and glared. “I’m not talking about this with you. It’s personal.”

“I’m your brother.”

“Since when have we discussed
feelings
?”

His brother actually chuckled. “Fine. Is she going to take you back?”

“You heard her. She says she’s too confused and can’t think with me around.”

“You gonna keep trying or take the hint?”

Vlad paused and looked into the distance, pretending to consider his options. “I still want her back.”

“You’re an idiot, you know.”

“Yeah, well.” Vlad gave his brother a look. “I don’t see you having any better luck with women.”

Anton snorted. Then his expression settled into serious lines and worry flavored his scent. “This is a bad idea, Vlad. You should stay away from Rose.”

“None of your business, little brother. You can tell the others the same. If I want Rose back, it’s my damned business. If she fucks me over again, it’s my business. You three need to keep your noses out of my love life.”

“Hey, I just don’t want to see you hurt again.” Anton shrugged.

“Still none of your business.”

“Fine. Just don’t come to me when she rips your beating heart out and smashes it into little pieces. Again.”

Despite the outwardly caring words, Vlad knew it was an act—Anton playing the part of concerned brother. Vlad caught the subtle flavor of it in his scent. But anyone overhearing this exchange would just see one brother worrying for the other.

Vlad played his part in the exchange, pretending to believe Anton’s concern was genuine. With a sigh, he said, “Go home. Take the other reprobates with you. All three of you have businesses to run. Or do you want to let all Dad built fall apart? Besides, with the elders keeping such a close eye on us, it’s better if we aren’t all in the same place.”