Arriane Forbes eyed her reflection in the mirror with a disappointed frown. She looked…okay, but her conservative, black, boring dress didn’t achieve the effect she's been hoping for.
She still didn’t look older.
Maybe it had been too much to hope for.
Taking a deep nervous breath, Arriane ran a hand over her fair cheeks and survey her heart shaped face.
For God's sake, she was almost twenty-five, but it's embarrassing, that most people didn’t believe she was of drinking age and she had to have her ID on her at all times.
Arriane blamed her ridiculous mouth. Because of her full upper lip her face seemed set in a perpetual pout. It made her look very young, and while normally it wasn’t a problem, it was a pain in the ass to look like a sixteen-year-old when one had to attend an important business meeting. Not that she attended all that many important business meetings. But still...
Arriane had always hated it, she was downright sick of it after the last two months she had spent in Moscow, attending meaningless events in her father’s stead for the Russian branch of Forbes Corporations.
The email Arriane had received a few days ago was a welcome break from the mind-numbing routine she’d grown accustomed to. Well, technically, the message wasn’t for her.
If Arriane hadn’t been in Moscow, her father’s people would have simply forwarded it to the main office in London where his father currently was. Strictly speaking, Arriane should have done the same, instead of reading it, but she had been bored and restless and the message had intrigued her.
Gavin,
My secretary informed me that she’s been unable to reach you. I told her you are a busy man. But, I’m the same. And, I’m also not very patient. I have things to discuss with you. Meet me at, Saint Petersburg, January 21st, 9 p.m., at a restaurant named “Palkin.” I'm expecting you to be there at the exact time. You know how much I hate tardiness. And I don't want our friendship to be ruined over such small thing.
Looking forward to our meeting,
Roman Volkov
Arriane had read the message several times. Something about it was off. His friendly tone seemed fake. Or was she just imagining it? She didn’t think so.
Roman Volkov. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Arriane couldn’t remember where she’d heard it. But the man, whoever he was, must be important enough to be able to assume such a superior tone with Gavin Forbes. Hell, the guy was practically ordering her father around. Arriane had never met anyone who had enough power—and nerve—to do that. Everyone knew Gavin Forbes wasn’t someone to be trifled with.
Her father was known as ruthless, and powerful British billionaire—a billionaire who was rumored to have dealings with the Italian and Russian mafia. And Arriane is aware of the rumors circling around his father. They’d been around all her life, but no one could ever prove anything. Not even she, Gavin's only daughter, knew for sure.
However, the email's sender wasn't cared about the consequences of offending her father at all... which meant whoever the man was, he wasn’t someone to be trifled with, either.
She should have forwarded the message to her father when she had realized it. But Arriane had always been too curious for her own good.
It took only a few minutes on Google to find the information Arriane had needed.
Roman Lovich Volkov, thirty-two, was a Russian oil tycoon and multi-billionaire. Apparently, he owned dozens of companies all over the world and sat on the board of dozens more.
A multi-billionaire by the age of thirty-two. That kind of thing didn’t seem to be all that strange in Russia. Arriane had noticed that many Russian tycoons were rather young.
But it wasn’t Volkov’s age that attracted her attention.
Arriane was kind of embarrassed to admit it, but she couldn’t help to stare at the photographs of the guy. Roman Volkov was tall and dark-haired, with broad shoulders and the kind of muscle definition that most men could only dream of. He looked like a professional boxer rather than a successful businessman.
It was silly to form an opinion of a man she’d never met, but the more Arriane looked at his pictures, the more disconcerted she felt. Even when the guy smiled, it never seemed to reach his eyes. That ice-blue stare completely dominated every picture he was in, drawing attention every single time.
There was nothing attractive about those eyes. If anything, the cruelty lurking in them was downright ugly. The guy was handsome enough, Arriane supposed, he would be very popular among girls who obsessed with the cold and assertive type who could snap your neck and be bored while doing it. Arriane certainly didn’t. But, for some reason, she had trouble dragging her eyes away. It was silly. It was just a photo. And a photo shouldn’t make her feel so... unnerved.
She knows that Gavin Forbes, simply didn’t trust his only child. Normally back in Europe her father would always kept her on a short leash, watching her every move like a hawk.
It was high time to change that.
She graduated with honors from Oxford wasn't for spending her life being a pretty face for her father’s marketing campaigns. She was going to prove to her father that she's capable and could be trusted with the important stuff.
Sure, her father was going to flip when he found out her plan, but she wouldn’t be able to get a good chance like this again. Yeah, she was about to meet Roman Volkov, the man full of allure and danger, on her father's behalf... secretly.