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She raised her chin, flicked her hair back, then picked up her jacket and her handbag.
Giving up trying to keep the dress from sliding up her thighs while she drove, she completely ignored it and instead, set her mind to whirring mode. She had her work cut out for her and then some. But she was up for the challenge. And already she had a myriad of ideas sparkling in her head. She wasn’t going to—
Her ringing phone interrupted her thoughts, and she was surprised to see her caller ID showed Josh's name on the screen.
“Josh, what’s wrong?” She glanced at her watch and knew that he should have been up in the air in a private aircraft that would drop him off in some remote place, where he would catch another aircraft, and so on and so on.
“Ansley, where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. What’s going on?” She could barely hear him, the connection was that bad. “Did something happen?”
“Listen, I’m about to take off, and the reception is shitty right now, and I can’t get off the fucking plane. But listen to me. Something about that Shlykov name sounded familiar to me, so I asked some questions and only got the answer now. Ansley, I think they’re Mafia. Did you hear what I just said? Bratva. Dangerous men. Message. Your father. Don’t mess with them. Did you hear me?”
What? She was momentarily stunned, then remembered if there was one thing she shared with Josh, it was an overactive imagination. Given half the chance, she would think they were some crime lords, too, but she had to stay grounded, so she understood the ridiculousness of her notions.
“Josh, you’re breaking up. But they’re not the Russian Mafia. Just because they’re Russian doesn’t mean they are Bratva. And you said youthinkthey are, which means you could be wrong. Look, they might appear very scary and gruff and all that, but I don’t think they’re the Mafia. Besides, that type of thing only happens in movies and in Russia. I’m fine. And they’re not the Mafia.”
“Ansley, just back down. Let your father handle it. Let your—”
“Josh? Josh?” But the line was dead.
"Russian Mafia," she mumbled, annoyed. Well, that wasn’t going to stop her even so. That just made her more determined not to back down. She wasn’t afraid of them. But they should be afraid of her.
They might be Bratva, but she was a pampered heiress with nothing but time on her hands and an imagination that held no bounds. Do they really not want to do her bidding? She could make their lives a real mess if they refused to play nice.
And the headline would read "Hotel Heiress Brings Big, Grumpy Bratva to Their Knees in the Fight for a Sex Shop."
Oh, she saw what she did there. She turned the tables on them, in her head. She was the scary one now, and they would soon know it.
They weren’t really the Russian Mafia, were they, a particularly sensible part of her brain asked. Were they?
Chapter Six
“I don’t want you to worry about a thing,” Ansley said into the phone.
Once she had driven back from the sex shop to her apartment in the city, she had gotten down to work immediately. After making numerous other calls, and being happy with the way things were progressing, she called Marjorie.
She had put off calling her friend until she had a better grasp of the situation and the semblance of some sort of plan, or she would come off as defeated, and that was the last thing she wanted to do, adding to Marjorie’s worry about her shop.
“My dear, you are too sweet to me, but maybe I was wrong to drag you into this. I guess I just panicked and… and I just want to save my little shop, you know? Just to have one last anniversary with my Danny. I know he visits me every year during the Valentine’s Day sale. I can feel him.”
“You were absolutely right to involve me, Marjorie. No one should be bullied by big scary Russian guys and most certainly not you. I got this. They are not going to take down your shop and destroy your memories.”
She may have slightly sugarcoated the exact outcome of her first meeting with them, but that wasn’t something she was going to have Marjorie worry about. She had new plans in place, a string of them actually, and she planned to go through them all if that was what was required of her.
“Now, I want you to promise me you won’t worry about this anymore. It’s my problem now, and if there’s one thing I’m good at it's solving my own problems.” It was nice to hear Marjorie giggle again, and by the time they said their goodbyes, Ansley felt infinitely better and more assured.
She hadn’t taken a break since she walked into her apartment, not once, and when she realized it was after ten in the evening, and she hadn’t eaten yet, she ventured into her kitchen, opened her fridge, and took out some cheese and fruit, which she ate mindlessly.
The stark realization that all her thoughts were ravaged by the three men she had met that morning under the most unusual circumstances, hit her hard.
They seemed to puncture every breath she took whether she liked it or not, and it made her feel funny. They created an unfamiliar edge inside her, and she didn’t know what to do with it, or them. Or what to do about the fact her breasts felt uncommonly heavy and her nipples ached somewhat.
By the time she got to analyzing why her panties seemed to be wet, she violently shoved the thought aside. She wasn’t attracted to them. How could she possibly be attracted to her enemies? She wasn’t that weak. Absolutely not. Also, they could be the Russian Mafia, a voice squeaked in her head.
She would never in her whole life find them alluring enough that she wanted to touch them, all three of them. Not while they were being so mean to Marjorie. She was loyal to a fault, and it would be a gross betrayal on her part to Marjorie if she entertained even the most minuscule of thoughts about them, like what their hands would feel like on her body. Their lips on hers.
And then she remembered in all its glorious detail how they point-blank refused her.
