His tone mocking, Nic responded, "On my mother's side the non-vampire side of the family. I was named after Prince Petroff here. He is my great-great-great, etcetera, uncle." He motioned with a tilt of his head to his cousin.
Prince Varinski laughed, the sound like a shard of crystal, beautiful yet cutting. "Nic, my boy, no need to make me that old. I may be a dinosaur, but I'm not yet a fossil."
Nic laughed, too, but Sam remained frozen in utter mortification. Anger began to tinge her cheeks, and she glanced from one man to the other. They were both devastatingly handsome, with thick dark hair and beautiful gray eyes. But Prince Varinski was much paler than Nic.
She wanted to kick herself. She should have realized that a true vampire would not have had the tan Nic sported, or have resisted biting her at least once in the height of passion. Her expression full of pain, she glared at both of them.
Trying to play it tough, she remarked to Nic, "Good party. Are they here for your eulogy?"
"I'm not dead," Nic remarked.
"Yet," Sam said furiously. "The night's still young. So don't count your chickens!" Her eyes were grim, the threat of dire consequences flashing in their depths.
"Chickens? Why would I count them? Besides, I don't have any," he stated coldly.
She glared at him. "Forget it. You're too un-American to understand."
"Ah, another one of your quaint sayings. We have one in Russia: When winter freezes the flower, it's time to quit planting seeds."
Sam looked confused, which pleased Nic mightily.
"Yes, my Russian saying makes as much sense as your does. So accept defeat gracefully. You've been bested, and I've won."
"Over my dead body," Sam argued valiantly, ignoring the fact that she faced a wall of enemies. "But then, it wasn't my body that's supposed to be dead! Silly me, you were supposed to be dead—or rather I thought you were one of the undead. Just call me a sucker. But at least I'm not a bloodsucker like I thought you were. Dumb of me, really. You certainly don't have the charm or the supposed Nosferatu prowess in bed." She added, spitting the words out as if they were hard stones, hoping to wound him, "I had heard rumors of course about vampire sexual ecstasy, but after we went to bed together I figured they were only tall tales. You know, vampire myth and all. I mean, you were good, but not great."
She saw his eyes darken, so before he could refute her, she added acidly, "Which really isn't the point, is it? You led me to believe that you were a vampire. But you really aren't one. You were pretending to be your cousin. You led me on!" Sam was out of breath by the time she finished her list of heated grievances.
Nicolas Petroff Strakhov controlled his anger. He knew Sam had been over the moon with his lovemaking, so the saucy little Tartar had no complaints on that score; he could still hear her screams when she climaxed. He should show her scorn, but her fieriness had turned him on, reminding him of what had attracted him at Mandelay.
"Assumptions can be such a bore," he remarked, though his mind whirled. Sam was so adorable when roused in anger. Magnificent really, with her flashing blue eyes and pert breasts thrust out combatively. He wanted to have sex with her right now, though that was nothing new; he had been fighting his feelings for her all week, his hormones haunting him. With Sam, a kiss hadn't just been a kiss, and a sigh wasn't just a sigh. He had gone so far as to pick up the phone two nights ago to give her a call, but a gremlin emergency had luckily occurred. After chasing the vicious little vermin all night, he had been too tired to even think of sex—and almost too tired to think of her sweet face.
"You went to your cousin's to clear the house of ghosts, and when you found me there you ran roughshod over me," Sam accused, her heart breaking into a million tiny pieces.
"Funny the way things happen, isn't it? It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world out there," Nic replied mockingly.
His two brothers walked up on either side of him. Both were curious, and both were well aware of the tension between their vampire cousin, their older brother and this short, blond female. They had also been briefed about what had occurred at their cousin's castle with Nic and Triple-P Inc.'s owner.
"Funny, what some people will believe," Nic went on, rubbing more salt into Sam Hammett's bleeding wound.
"You let me believe it," she accused, wishing the ground would swallow her whole. Unfortunately, there were never earthquakes in Vermont. "Lying, cheating, ensnaring imposter! Of course, I should know better than to expect anything different from a double-dealing Strakhov!"
Alex and Gregor gasped with outrage, but the real Prince Varinski only smiled with tolerant derision.
Nic suddenly felt that maybe Sam wasn't as cute anymore, not standing there insulting his proud family name. Speaking slowly, he made his voice soft; some might have thought it tender, but it wasn't. "Perhaps I should have told you the truth when I first met you, when you were pretending to be my cousin's girlfriend. Or perhaps I should have told you while you made the offer to service the castle free of charge, trying to steal our client. Which would you have preferred? Just when should we have gotten into our discussion on ethics?"
Sam snorted, and anger made her see red. "You wouldn't know the word ethic if it bit you on the neck. You and your sabotaging siblings are a public nuisance. John Q. should beware!" Switching her hostility from Nic to Prince Varinski, she snapped, "Oops, that's your thing—biting people on the neck. Strakhov here just sucks them dry." She felt very cold and very alone, standing solo against this iron curtain of Russian tyranny. Alas, it seemed that the Cold War had never really ended.
Her back so rigid she felt like it was made of steel, her eyes bright with tears and anger, Sam continued: "The history of the world is the struggle between the selfish and the unselfish, and you four take the whole rotten cake."
The Strakhov brothers looked at each other in confusion, wondering why she was suddenly spouting off about dessert.
"Yes, you and your sleazoid brothers come into my town and try strong-arm tactics to take my clients! I guess phrases like fair play and common decency don't apply to you. You try to ruin my business!" She almost shouted the last, standing face to face with Nic Strakhov, on her tiptoes in her high-heeled shoes and sticking her finger in his face. "Peter the Great? Ha! You're nothing but an impersonating prick!"
"And you're nothing but a lying, scheming seductress! I would call you a whore, but honesty forbids me. You offered your company and your body free of charge!" Nic spat the words like they were poison. "You thought to charm, seduce and entrap me with that lovely little body of yours, just like you entrapped those two ghosts. But nobody tricks a Strakhov, even if they think they're tricking someone else!"
Always being one to step up and admit her mistakes, Sam winced, but there would be no difference after doing so; her world was already spiraling out of control. "I might have been stupid and gone to bed with you, but you seduced me with a capital S! Besides, I was still tipsy with wine. There'd be no other way I'd rush into bed with your Russian-into-bed self."
It worked. His mask of indifference was replaced with rage, grabbing her by her shoulders, he snarled, "You wanted me as much as I wanted you. Want me to repeat the invitation?" Letting go of her, he motioned at the crowd around them. "I'm sure everyone would like to hear how easily you fell into my arms like a ripe tomato."