She was terribly flattered that he’d made the effort. He hadn’t shown up for the funeral, but she hadn’t expected him to. She knew how much he detested being out in the cold.

Indeed, his presence here was a sign of his affection for her. She was flattered, she really was.

But she really, really wanted to be alone.

Another forced smile. “Yes, I am, Vassily. I am feeling much, much better. I, um, I hadn’t thought to make tea for myself and it was very kind of you to come all the way over here for me. I promise I’ll drink it all, don’t worry. And I’ll eat what you brought me.”

Maybe. If her stomach behaved.

Charity made to rise, but his hand on her knee stopped her. Vassily’s grip was really strong. He was pressing down on her knee, in an unspoken command to be still.

He was still watching her intently, pale gaze fixed on her face. His eyes were ice blue but they looked almost hot. Vassily had a strong personality. It was a little unsettling to be studied so carefully.

“I have—a business meeting this evening. Some partners are coming to…seal a business deal a long time in the making. It’s something I’ve worked hard on for a long time and I want to celebrate the occasion. I would very much like it if you would have dinner with me tonight.”

Charity simply stared at him.

“I will have my driver pick you up here at about 6:00 p.m. It will give you a few hours to rest and freshen up.”

She could hardly believe her ears. He wanted her to celebrate something with him? How on earth could she go to his house when she didn’t feel up to walking out to her mailbox?

Celebration? Would they have to dine with his business partners?

Oh God, facing people, making conversation, choking down food. There was no way on earth she could do that. Her stomach clenched just at the thought.

He lifted his hand, fingered a lock of her hair, expression dreamy. “You really must dye your hair, my dear. You would look so beautiful with your hair blonder. White blond. And cut it.” He indicated her jawline with a gnarled finger. “To here. So beautiful…”

“What?” The word came out on an expulsion of breath. “My hair? You want me to bleach my hair and cut it?”

“Yes. Immediately.” There was something about his pale gaze, dreamy yet unwavering, as if he were seeing something that was not quite there. Seeing into her but also somehow past her. “Pale, pale blond. And the cut—a ‘bob,’ I think it is called. So lovely. You would be so lovely.” He overarticulated the word bob, lips pursing, making it sound at once ridiculous and impossibly exotic.

“Vassily, I’m—I’m flattered that you want my company tonight. Don’t think that I’m not, but…”

“But?” His eyes were glittering, thin nostrils tightly pinched.

She opened her hands. “I buried my husband yesterday, Vassily. I don’t feel up to dinner out.” Or dinner in, if it came to that. “I simply don’t. How on earth can you expect me to dine out so soon after Nick died?”

Vassily didn’t react, his pale gaze calm and direct.

“You must,” he said simply, as if it were self-evident. As if there was no questioning the fact that she would.

Vassily’s personality was so strong, it was as if he had a force field around him that created its own reality, a reality where she automatically did his bidding.

“You must dine with me tonight, there is no other way. It is time. I need you to be with me.” He touched her cheek with the back of his hand, his touch cold, the scars thick and ropy. “You will come with me, Ka—Charity. You must. I will not take no for an answer.”

Something had flared up within him, some primal force of nature that he must have kept banked and only unleashed when he needed it. Now he wasn’t just a strong-willed man. Now he was almost superhuman.

She knew his history, but for the first time, she felt it. Felt the inner force of a man the Soviet Gulag, the entire resources of a powerful country founded on immense cruelty, had been unable to break. A man who’d withstood torture, beatings, privations unimaginable to her soft Western imagination. Nothing had ever broken him. Not the worst life could throw at him. Starvation and hard labor in subzero temperatures that would have killed a lesser man. Broken bones and betrayal. They had left their scars but they hadn’t crushed him. He’d come out stronger than before.

In a very real sense, Charity knew, Vassily was almost like another race of man. Stronger, brighter, tougher. A literary genius, a man of great vision. The kind of man who came along once in a generation. Shakespeare. Dante. Tolstoy. Humanity existed in order to produce men like this. They were rare and they were precious.

He picked up her hand and rubbed her knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “Please,” he said softly, his voice shaking. “Please dine with me tonight. I need you. You cannot begin to imagine how much I need you.”

She’d never heard that tone of voice from him, ever. Vassily’s normal speaking voice was precise and cool, strong and deliberate. He had a natural arrogance that precluded pleading.

Her heart shied away at the thought, becoming a cold little fist in her chest. She’d give anything not to do this, but life sometimes simply tossed these challenges at you, like dice at your feet.

Either you picked them up or you didn’t. Either you dealt the hand life threw your way or you didn’t.

Charity liked to think that she’d met every challenge so far, no matter how difficult. She remembered that her father, who had volunteered for Vietnam right out of high school and who had never talked about his two tours of duty, always said do the hard thing.

She prepared herself to do the hard thing.

She tried another smile, had no idea how successful it was. Stomach churning, hoping she could keep the tea down, she gave the only possible answer to his plea.

“Yes, of course, Vassily. I would be honored to dine with you tonight.”

Nick snatched his cell phone out of his pocket the instant it vibrated and crouch-walked to the back of the garage, where no one in the house could possibly hear him. He didn’t check caller ID. He knew who was calling.

He pulled at his earbud, where he’d been following what Worontzoff and Charity were saying.

“You fucking well better not be where I think you are,” Di Stefano’s furious voice lashed out at him.

Nick clenched his jaw and hunkered down, his back to the garage wall. He waited a couple of beats so he could get his voice under control. “Bingo.”

“Listen, fuckhead. I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but you are compromising the mission. That’s nothing new. You’ve been compromising the mission for days, but this is beyond your normal craziness. Fall back. Now.”

“No can do. Listen to me,” he whispered urgently. “Worontzoff’s here.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Here at Charity’s house. Right now. He’s been here for over half an hour. I, um, bugged the house here and before you blow up, you better thank me for it, because something is happening late this afternoon and he wants to celebrate it with Charity over dinner at his place.”

The thought drove him insane. He could conjure up with preternatural clarity Worontzoff’s expression the other night in his mansion, touching Charity and getting a hard-on. He could also conjure up, no prob, Worontzoff’s reaction when Charity refused him.

Worontzoff was a king in his world. Kings were used to being obeyed. Kings punished people who didn’t obey them.

“I’m going to tell her,” Nick said suddenly. It was the only thing he could think of to rescue her. Let it all come out. Once she knew the truth, no way would she hare off to his mansion. “Tell her who he is and that she can’t go to his house. He’ll have her killed.” The blood in his veins ran cold as he conjured up possible Worontzoff reactions. If he could have a proxy hang a prostitute up on a meat hook, what he would do to Charity didn’t bear thinking of. In his crazy mind, she was his long-lost love. Once Charity rebuffed him, his revenge would be swift and insanely cruel.