"The teacher," Royal answered. "She confessed."
"What?" Davyd's outburst showed his shock. He looked over at Royal with a furrowed brow. She had been drugged under his nose!
Dmitry smiled. "I wish that you had known when I asked you to put her out, Davyd. Your anger might have taught her a lesson more astringent than Royal's."
"Where is the woman?" Dr. Finlen asked.
"I don't know," Dmitry looked to Davyd for an answer.
"I had one of the security guards take her to Prague and drop her off in city. She was told to find her own way home and to be out of country by noon tomorrow."
"Well, it's a Friday night. I'm sure if she works hard enough by morning she'll have enough money for an airline ticket," Dmitry smirked.
Royal hit him and laughed. The infectious and untimely happiness of the couple made everyone snicker, including Stepan, who appeared from nowhere with two robes.
"Thank you," Dmitry reached out quickly for the robes. "Why don't you take our guests to the sitting room, and Royal and I will be down in just a minute, Stepan."
"Yes, sir," he said quickly.
Davyd shook his head and followed Stepan and the guests into the west wing of the house.
Alone again, Dmitry set Royal on the floor and dressed her in the pink fluffy robe. Pulling her curly hair from her face, he bit his lip.
"Well that was embarrassing," she said, closing his robe around his waist and tying it. "Now everyone has seen what all the fuss is about."
Dmitry laughed and put his hands on her arms. "Well, it is a pretty big fuss. You know… we should probably go upstairs and get into something more appropriate before we go in there and talk to them, eh?"
Royal bit her lip. "I know what you're trying to do, Dmitry." She grinned and looked down at the marble floor.
Dmitry raised his brows and smiled, revealing his dimples. "What? I just want to make sure we don't continue to make scene. Did you see that poor kid? He couldn't keep his eyes off you."
"Hush," Royal bit out, laughing. "They are going to hear you."
"They can't hear me." He pulled her to him. "Lets go upstairs for… twenty minutes."
"No, that's too long."
"Ten minutes?"
"No, Dr. Finlen got up and came out here in the middle of the night. He's exhausted and very old. We can't make him wait."
"He can spend the night. We have a thousand bedrooms."
"No."
"Five minutes?" he bargained, licking his lips. He growled and pulled her to him. "If you say no again, I'll take you right here in the middle of the floor."
Royal paused. "Fine. Five minutes is all you get and that includes the time it takes to get dressed." She giggled.
"Well, I better start on the way up there," he said, opening his robe jokingly.
* * *
The sun crept into Anatoly's suite and cast a glow over his naked body as he lay awake thinking. His father had left the night before suddenly an unexplained, which left him assuming it had something to do with Royal.
He was still perplexed by their ever-evolving relationship of trial after trial, and it plagued him why his father had left a lifestyle as opulent as theirs to be with one woman.
What could one woman provide? He had never known one worth the trouble. Each he had met had a sob story that reeked of neediness and fragility that he could neither identify with nor stomach.
But he did love Anya. The fruit of his father and step mother's toils was a blooming girl whom he loved past words. Yet, he was certain that one could have a child without marriage. It had been done in his family for many generations.
There had been no father there to guide him until he sought out Dmitry. And while he did not wish his life on his little sister, he also did not wish a life of constant bickering between parents who had everything and still chose to fight about the nothingness in a relationship.
His cell phone rang, pulling him from his thoughts of his checkered past into the present. He reached over past the young blonde beside him and grabbed his cell. The number was unknown. Odd. He answered hesitantly.
"Hello," he said, sitting up in the bed.
"Mr. Medlov," a woman with a Russian accent said coolly. "We are interested in your offer."
"Good," Anatoly held his sigh of relief. "I assume that there are terms." He recognized her voice as the liaison on the yacht the night before.
"Yes. We will be getting back with you on that in the next twenty-four hours. Until then, we ask that you keep your phone on."
"Of course," Anatoly answered, feeling the young woman stir beside him.
He hung up his phone and smiled. His father would be pleased that things had worked out. This would mean a new era for the Medlov family and new power for him that he had been hungry for now for over three years.
"Excuse me, miss," he nudged the woman.
"Yes," her eyes opened to full intense brown beams.
He was certain that she was probably awake the entire time, lingering beside him to the bitter end as women often did the morning after.
"It's time for you to go," he said gently. "Get your things, and I'll have a car take you to your place." Rubbing her arm, he watched her obediently pull her body from the bed and begin to get dressed.
* * *
Dorians assistant hung up the phone and looked over at him. He sat eagerly on the end of his desk pealing an apple and listening to the short conversation.
He nodded at her and looked at his laptop. From his assistants
