It felt right. It felt true. And perhaps he'd always known it. But this was the first time he'd actually felt it.

A soft sound came from outside the door, and despite himself, his heart clenched tight. Was it Katya? Jesus, it had better not be. He didn't think he could pretend not to give a shit while she walked away again. In fact, it would be better to ignore her completely until she was gone. He didn't want to have to tell her to go, that it was club business, not hers, again. A deliberate move and a necessary one. To protect himself ...

"Katya?" He didn't turn. "I thought I told you-"

"I'm not Katya." A familiar voice. A hated one.

A cold bolt of shock went through Alex. He rose sharply to his feet and whirled around.

And saw Conrad closing the door with a quiet click and locking it.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Alex demanded hoarsely. "How the hell did you get in?"

"Your security is a trifle lax, son." The other man came slowly toward him, the couch standing between them. "And as for why I'm here, well..." His hazel eyes glittered in the dying firelight. "I've come to claim my fucking winnings."

Christ, the man must have left Monaco right after Alex had. And as for the club ... He was going to have to have words with the Second Circle security team if this prick could walk right into the Nine's clubroom.

Alex took a silent breath, relaxing his muscles. However Conrad had gotten in was irrelevant at the moment anyway. What mattered was that he was here.

As the shock ebbed, it wasn't anger Alex felt. Or even fear. It was ... pity. That this was all the guy had. Chasing after the boy he'd raped all those years ago.

Alex allowed himself a smile. "Why, Conrad, you came all this way. I'm flattered; honestly, you've got no idea."

The older man's expression was cold, and with a start Alex realized Conrad was furious. "I thought better of you, son; I really did. What kind of gambler are you who leaves without paying his debts?"

"Perhaps your pit bull frightened me away?"

Conrad gave a short laugh. "My pit bull? Oh, Elijah? He's not mine. He's nothing. An irritation. I've dealt with him."

"Really? Just like that? He looked like he meant business to me."

"He's got nothing to do with this. With us. He interfered in a personal matter and that's not acceptable." Conrad reached into his jacket, pulled out something. A memory stick. "Look. I even bought an incentive for you."

Alex tensed. "And that is?"

"A certain video. Elijah made me destroy the hard copy of course, but I confess I lied a little when I told him I didn't have any digital copies." His mouth curved. "I never go anywhere without an insurance policy."

Shit. There it was. Exactly what they needed. "I take it Elijah knows nothing about that?"

"Of course not."

"What's on it that he took offense to anyway? Apart from the rape of a sixteen-year-old boy?"

Conrad laughed again. "Very clever. But what Elijah is after is none of your business. The only thing you need to concern yourself with is paying me what you owe me."

"Give me one reason why I should give you anything."

Conrad moved, coming around the side of the couch, slow and predatory, the firelight casting shadows over his face.

And Alex felt ... only surprise. Because Conrad didn't seem so sinister now. He obviously looked after himself, but there were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, sagging along his jaw and his neck, his waist thickening.

Conrad wasn't a young man anymore.

"You came all this way just for me?" Alex asked, vaguely curious. "Why?"

The other man stopped and was silent a long time. Then he said, "Because you were so fucking afraid of me. And fear has always been the most potent aphrodisiac I know." He smiled and for the first time, Alex saw past that smile. Saw the desperation underneath it. And the fear. Jesus. This sad, desperate old man was afraid.

"Is it?" Alex said quietly. "So why are you scared then?"

Conrad moved suddenly, closing the gap between them, anger burning bright in his eyes. "You think you rule the world, don't you?" he hissed. "You think you know everything, you arrogant little shit. But you're young. You barely even know you're alive. Wait until your life is slipping away from you, the years getting shorter and shorter. You'll grab at anything you can to stop it. Anything." He reached into his jacket again and Alex knew this time what he was going to pull out. And that it was too late to do anything about it.

The gun was small, but size didn't matter when the barrel was pointed at your head.

"Can you feel it now, son?" Conrad murmured. "Can you feel your life slipping away from you? Can you feel the minutes growing shorter? The seconds ticking down? It'll come for you, like it's coming for me. But you know, perhaps you'll go first. After I relive a few old memories of course."

Perhaps he should have been afraid. Yet he wasn't. He felt calm. Sure of things. More certain than he'd ever felt in his life.

He didn't look at the gun; he looked at Conrad instead. Into the old man's cold eyes. "Pull that trigger then," he said. "Maybe I was once afraid of you. But I'm not anymore."

"You think I wouldn't do it? I could bend you over the arm of that chair, fuck you right now. Make you like it. Then I could put a bullet through your brain. Easily."

Alex only stared at him and all he could feel was pity. "You won't do that. You're too much of a fucking coward."

"That's what your father said." Conrad smiled. "Before I shot him."

It didn't penetrate for a second because the words, at first, didn't mean anything. How could Conrad have shot his father? Daniel St. James had killed himself. Everyone knew that.

"Bullshit," Alex said.

The old man laughed. "He was going to go public. He was going to take everything to the police. I told him it would be a mistake, but he wouldn't listen. He wanted justice for you, can you imagine that? He wasn't happy when I told him you'd agreed to it, that I'd had your consent. In fact, that only seemed to make him more determined."

Shock froze Alex to the spot.

"You see my dilemma," Conrad went on. "He was going to expose us all. So I had to do something. Making it look like suicide was easy. And in a way he did kill himself. If he hadn't been so fucking stubborn-"

There was a sound at the door and abruptly it opened.

Conrad turned sharply, the gun aiming at whoever was coming through the door.

Katya.

Everything slowed down, like a movie moving frame by frame. Conrad's hand lifting, his finger moving to the trigger, Katya going for her weapon. Too late. Too fucking late.

A knife edge of raw anguish tore through Alex's shock, shattering his paralysis. That bullet would hit her and there would be no way to avoid it. No way to stop Conrad from pulling that trigger. No way to stop the death that was coming for her.

Except there was one way.

She thought he was a man worth saving. But she was a woman worth dying for.

Alex reached out and grabbed Conrad's arm, pulling it down at the same time as he stepped in front of the gun. It fired. There was a concussion and he felt something explode through him, like being hit by a car at high speed. It took him a moment to realize he was on his back and he couldn't move, though oddly enough there was no pain.

Someone screamed his name.

Katya's face appeared in his slowly clouding vision, tears streaming down her face. "Alexei ... Oh, my Alexei ... You stupid, stupid man. Nyet ... nyet...."

He tried to smile. Tried to speak. But his voice wouldn't work. With supreme effort of will, he managed to get his hand over hers where it rested on his chest. It felt wet, but he didn't want to think about that. He only wanted her to stay. Only wanted her to stay and never leave him.

"Don't go," he whispered, or at least he hoped he managed to get it out. And he hoped she heard.

I think I love you. Please don't leave me.

But he had to say the last in his head. Before the blackness came.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Katya sat in the plain, white hospital waiting room, her hands clasped together in her lap. There were magazines on a table nearby, but she couldn't concentrate enough to read. Across from her, sitting on another chair, Eva King was biting her nails and jogging her foot as if she couldn't keep still. Beside Eva, his arms folded, his gaze on the door to the waiting room, was Zac Rutherford.

Gabriel Woolf sat on another chair, a slender, black-haired, beautiful woman at his side. Honor St. James. Alex's sister. Gabriel was holding her hand, but she was as white as a sheet all the same.

Katya knew how she felt. As if her insides had been ripped out.

They'd already had a doctor come in to say Alex had pulled through the operation to repair the mess of his shoulder that had taken the brunt of Conrad's bullet. Now they were waiting for him to wake up.

None of them had spoken to Katya since she'd given them the details of what had happened. Conrad's unexpected arrival. How she'd gone down to the Nine Circles room to give Alex the time her flight would be leaving, only to find him standing there with Conrad holding a gun to his head.

A gun that had soon been turned on her.

Except Alex had stepped in front of it.

The stupid man had taken a bullet for her. Which wasn't how it was supposed to go. No, she couldn't possibly have put herself between him and Conrad's gun. There had been a couple of meters to cross, plus a massive couch in the way. And his finger was already pulling the trigger as she'd reached for her own weapon.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that she'd failed her most important directive: to protect the life of her client. In the end her client had been the one protecting her.

She hadn't saved him. She hadn't been strong enough.

And now, you're the one breaking.

Her fingers gripped one another tighter, her vision full of the blood staining his white shirt. The deep blackness of his eyes as they'd looked up at her. His hand squeezing hers as she'd tried to stop the blood. "Don't go," he'd whispered. And she'd told him she wouldn't. She'd stay; she'd never leave. Over and over until the paramedics had arrived and he'd been taken away. Touch-and-go, they'd said. But not to her. The police had arrived by then to examine the crime scene. And the body of Conrad South Whom she'd shot the moment Alex had fallen.

She'd regretted every life she'd taken, but she didn't regret that one. Not one bit.

That's not enough to make up for your failure.

Katya swallowed, her throat dry and tight. She couldn't have reached him. She couldn't.

Why had he stepped in front of that gun? Why had he taken that bullet?

It was her mother all over again. It always ended in blood. Blood all over her hands ...

She shut her eyes suddenly as tears prickled. No, she wouldn't cry. She had to be strong. She had to be- "Miss Ivanova?" The voice was soft and female.

Katya opened her eyes to find that Honor St. James had left her seat beside Gabriel and had come to sit next to her instead.

"Hello," Honor said, and held out one slim hand. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Honor. Alex's sister."

With an effort, Katya unclasped her hands and took Honor's. The other woman's fingers were icy. Or maybe hers were; she couldn't tell. "Katya Ivanova. I'm Mr. St. James's bodyguard."

"Yes. I gathered that." Honor's blue gaze was very direct in the same way her brother's could be. "In which case I find it very interesting that he took a bullet in order to protect you."

There was no condemnation in her voice, but Katya felt it all the same. "He protected me because he would have done that for anyone, Miss St. James."

There was a small silence. Then Honor said softly, "No, Miss Ivanova, I don't believe he would have. My brother hasn't spoken to me for nineteen years. He refuses my calls. He ignores my texts and my e-mails. I know how he lives, I read the gossip columns. He lives the life of a selfish man. He's famous for not caring about anything or anyone." She paused. "And yet he takes a bullet for his bodyguard. Why would he do that? What makes you special?"

Katya's jaw tightened. She needed to admit the truth. She needed to take responsibility for her failure. "Your brother and I had an affair in Monte Carlo," she said thickly. "It wasn't planned and I'm not ... special. It wasn't serious on his part. But it happened. And maybe ... he felt a sense of obligation that caused him to take a risk for me."

Liar. You know why he took that bullet for you. For the same reason he asked you to stay ...

Honor's gaze was piercing. "Obligation? Alex risked death for you, Miss Ivanova. You don't step in front of a loaded gun because you feel obligation for someone. You do it because you love them."

She'd known and yet still she felt the words like an electric shock. "No, Miss St. James. Loving someone is not the only reason to take a bullet for them. Believe me, I know. I'm a bodyguard. I don't love my clients."

"Alex was the one paying you. And he's never done a selfless thing in his life."

"People are wrong about him. He's a good man."

"I never said he wasn't." She paused, her gaze searching. "You're in love with him, aren't you?"

Katya couldn't bear the look in the other woman's eyes and finally glanced down at her hands.

You are. You know you are.

No. She wasn't in love. She couldn't afford love. Love made you vulnerable. Love made you weak. And when love vanished, it nearly killed you.

Honor let out a soft breath. "He'll break your heart; you know that, don't you?"

It didn't matter. Her heart had broken long ago. "My heart is irrelevant," Katya said hoarsely. "I don't want anything from him."

Honor sat back. "Really? You'd be the first woman in the world who didn't."

"Nevertheless. I will be returning to Moscow as soon as I've finished speaking to the police concerning Mr. South."

There was another silence; then Honor said, "Mr. South ... he was threatening Alex, or so they tell me. Did he ... did he have anything to do with why Alex won't talk to me?"