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It all happened in a one, and she was leaning up against her bedroo into the eyes of a man who looked shell shocked

What in the hell was he doing here? He had twelve security personnel scoping the property, a car waiting and a jet on the tar the nanny in an upstairs bedroom

And doing a spectacularly lousy job of it

‘Maisy’ He spoke her name abruptly

‘You haven’t changed your thening her voice with the knowledge that Kostya ca? With Kostya?’

For a mo co that hed and ran a hand over his unshaven face

‘No, I haven’t changed ed my mind’

CHAPTER ONE

ALEXEI RANAEVSKY strode across the light-filled environs of his floating boardroom and picked up the newspaper one of his staff had been careless enough to leave behind

He had e of the Kulikov tragedy, but now the initial shock earing off he found himself drawn to what could only be described as the circus that was attaching itself to events How to dismantle that circus was his current concern

How to grieve for his closest friend would come after

Events had e A picture of Leo and Anais at a race , his arside was exactly what Alexei didn’t want to see: a photograph of themore than steel and destroyed electronics Leo and Anais’s very human bodies hadn’t stood a chance

The commentary below—because you couldn’t call it neas adjective-heavy, full of references to Anais’s beauty and Leo’s work for the UN Alexei scanned it for a few seconds, then sucked in a sharp breath

Konstantine Kulikov

Kostya

There was so that nahtmare fiercely, immediately real At least there was no picture of the boy Leo had been intensely guarded about their private life: he and Anais had been fair game for the media, but their family life had been off-limits to anyone outside their circle It was a sentiment Alexei admired him for It was a rule he laid down in his own life There was the public man, and the private familya, and the fact that Leo had been that fa