Page 61 of Royally Romanov
It was too much to think about right then. He wanted to know about the journal. When had he suspected the truth? How had he figured it out?
But those questions could wait, because Finley was expecting him to reach inside his pocket for his key so he could unlock the door to the foyer of his building. Beneath the soft halo of St. Germain’s lamplights, he could see her cheeks go pink. They were the exact color of the cherry blossom trees that decorated Paris in spring. She exhaled a shaky breath, and her gaze flitted to his mouth before dropping to her hand, still interwoven with his.
She thought he was going to kiss her.
She was right.
Only this time, it wouldn’t end with just a kiss.
He inserted the skeleton key into the lock. Was it his imagination, or did the key slide in too easily? He removed it, then pushed it in again, turning it to the right and left a few times, testing it before pushing the door open. The lock appeared to be in perfect working order. Clearly, the events of the past few weeks had made him paranoid.
When he placed his hand on the small of Finley’s back and guided her through the marble lobby, he could feel her supple spine moving beneath his fingertips. A wayward lock of her upswept hair tickled his nose. She smelled of flowers—lush peonies in the rain. His body went hard again.
He probably shouldn’t be thinking about sex right then. He should be thinking about what to do with the surreal fact that he was a royal heir, the grandson of the last Russian Tsar. How was that even possible? What was he supposed to do with this information? He had no intention of making a claim under the Century Rule, no matter what the DNA results indicated. He just wanted to know who he was and what had happened to him. That’s all he’d wanted all along.
But that wasn’t quite true, was it?
He’d also wanted to find the woman who’d haunted his dreams in the hospital. And now that he had, he wanted toknowher. He wanted to feel the flutter of her pulse against his mouth again, to taste her delicate sweetness. He wanted to lose himself.
In Finley.
If that made him a bad man, so be it. Things had spun so wildly out of his control, there was no going back. Maybe he’d never been in control to begin with. It sure as hell didn’t feel like he had been.
And it didn’t feel that way now, especially when he and Finley reached the front door of his flat.
“It’s open,” Finley said. The color was slowly draining from her beautiful face. “Did you forget to close your door?”
Merde.No, he hadn’t. “Don’t go inside. Someone’s been here.”
Or worse, someone was still there.
Gerard’s ears pricked forward. The little bulldog growled and scooted backward until he bumped into Maxim’s shin.
Finley scooped him into her arms. “We should call the police.”
“No.” Maxim shook his head.
The last person he wanted to see right now was Julian Durand. He couldn’t face another interrogation. If the detective started pressing him for information, Maxim would be forced to tell him about the meeting with Father Kozlov. He didn’t want to do that. Not yet. Not until he’d taken the DNA test. If Maxim told the French police he was a long lost heir to the Romanov dynasty and couldn’t back it up, they’d never take him seriously. He was having enough trouble getting them to do so already.
“Wait here.” He reached into his pocket for his cell phone and pressed it into Finley’s hand. “If I’m not back in a couple of minutes, call the police.”
She stared at the phone in her palm and then met his gaze. Her eyes were huge in her face. “You can’t go in there, Maxim.”
“I’ll be fine. Whoever did this is probably gone. The open door attracts attention, and I doubt that’s something they’d want.” He hoped so, anyway.
“Maxim, please.” She shook her head. Memories moved behind her eyes. Painful memories.
He cursed himself again for getting her involved in his mess of a life. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
He hoped with every fiber of his being it wasn’t a lie. Then he pushed through the door and stepped inside the flat.
The place was a mess. It had obviously been ransacked from top to bottom. The kitchen drawers had been pulled out and the contents dumped on the floor. All the paintings hung askew on the walls. The old trunk he used as a coffee table had been overturned, and the cushions on his grandmother’s sofa were slashed. Tiny white feathers had settled on every surface. A few still floated in the air. Maxim felt like he was trapped in a perversely horrific snow globe.
He stood there for a moment with his feet rooted to the spot, too stunned to move. The thought of Finley waiting for him in the hall finally propelled him into motion. He moved from room to room as fast as he could, navigating through a maze of upturned furniture and his possessions scattered underfoot.
He checked behind the shower curtains and searched the corners of every closet. Whoever had made the monumental mess was long gone. Maxim could sense it in his bones. The flat felt cold and empty. Barren. It sure as hell didn’t feel like home anymore.
Then again, he hadn’t really had much time to absorb the fact that he actually lived here. It still felt like a stranger’s apartment. Now more than ever.
