Page 1 of Frozen Heart

1

BRONWYN

I still rememberthe exact moment Radimir Aristov marched into my bookstore. I had no idea who he was. What he was. Or that, eight weeks later, we’d be married.

I justsold him a book.And then everything just kind of...spun out of control.

It was past seven in the evening and outside the store’s big glass windows a blizzard was raging. A real Midwest special, the kind you only really get in Chicago, where the wind screeching between the buildings makes your ears ache, the cold slices straight through your clothes and the snow forms deep, crunchy drifts that soak the ankles of your jeans.

But insideAll You Need Is Booksit was warm and snug. Icannotlet it get cold because cold means damp, and damp turns books into swollen, misshapen monsters no one wants to buy. That’s my excuse for running the heating full blast, despite the bills...and okay, yes, also I hate being cold. And my customers appreciated it, as they quietly wandered the aisles, reading blurbs and piling up books to bring to the register.

It’s not a big store. And if you look too closely at where the vanilla-milkshake walls meet the sky-blue ceiling, you’ll see theedges are messy because I was balancing on a stepladder to paint it. But it’s mine.

I looked around and smiled to myself. I was beyond exhausted: the store was losing money, so I’d started opening for twelve hours a day, eight till eight. Sometimes, my best friend Jen works a shift to help out but today I’d been on my own the whole time. Between serving customers, I’d sorted and shelved new stock, swept and tidied and fixed a leaking pipe that could have turned the romance section into papier mâché. I still needed to make a costume for the kid’s story time session I’d organized and bundle up some books for a local reading charity. I’d been on my feet all day and my joints had thrown a hissy fit: it felt like someone had poured burning hot sand into my knees and ankles. But in calm, quiet moments like this, when I could look around at all the readers engrossed in their new read, or hunting for their next one, it was worth it.

Then the door opened, and my life changed forever.

The howl of the wind shattered the silence. Freezing air flooded the store, making people shiver and curse and sending snowflakes all the way to the Biographies section in the back. Everyone looked up.

A man was standing in the doorway, scowling. His eyes flicked over the wooden shelves, the books, the people, and his jaw tightened in suspicion. The wind was shrieking around him so fiercely it made me hunch my shoulders in sympathy, but the cold didn’t seem to bother him. It was our strange world of warmth and comfort that he didn’t trust.

He stepped into the light, and I got my first good look at him.Big,well over six feet, with shoulders that almost brushed the doorframe and a broad, hulking chest. He had the build of a firefighter, but he was wearing a three-piece suit and an overcoat, like he’d come from a board meeting. He was lookingdown, dusting snow from his waistcoat, so all I could see was soft curls of glossy black hair. Then he looked up and?—

Oh God,he was gorgeous. People talk aboutclassic looks, and suddenly I knew what they meant: he was like a statue of some ancient leader brought to life. He had high, sculpted cheekbones that made me think of somewhere distant and cold: I could imagine him standing on a frozen battlefield, commanding thousands of troops. That hard, dispassionate upper lip: that was made for snapping out orders. And that soft, sensuous lower one...that was made for kissing willful barbarian queens into submission.

He gave the bookstore another suspicious glare. Then he tugged the bottom of his waistcoat to straighten it and joined the line of people waiting to be served.

A guy in his twenties backed towards the door, staring fearfully at the man, and slipped out. Then an old guy did the same. It wasn’t just that the man looked so scowly and intimidating, it was like they recognized him.Who is this guy?

He definitely had money: his overcoat looked like cashmere. So why was he here, in a neighborhood realtors optimistically calledup-and-coming,instead of at one of the fancy bookstores downtown? He was still scowling and whenever the line stopped, he’d start tapping the toe of one polished leather shoe, like he had somewhere else to be. Busy. Powerful. Someone who never normally stood in line foranything.

I scanned and packed up a stack of romances for Melissa, one of my regulars, then stole another glance at the guy. There was something about the way he stood, the way he carried himself. Most people mess with their phones while they’re waiting, they sort of turn inward. But he had his head up and was glancing around, taking everything in. It was more than just confidence. It was deeper than that, stronger than that. The whole store seemed to echo with his presence: it felt like everyone was tooscared to make eye contact with him.Iwas scared. But I couldn’t stop myself from sneaking peeks at him.

The next customer in line had pre-ordered a new fantasy novel the month before. I ducked down and grabbed it from under the counter, rang it up and handed it to him with a big smile. Now the scary mystery guy was next-but-one in line. And as the line shuffled forward, he looked at me for the first time.

I went stock-still. His eyes were the pale gray of a winter sky, so breathtakingly cold that looking into them made my chest hurt. There was no kindness there, no trace of caring, and the way he scowled down at me made my stomach drop. I almost looked away. But there’s a part of me, way down deep, that’s always been stubborn, or stupid. My grandmother called itour Welsh ancestor’s fighting spirit.It made me keep looking.

And something happened.

For a second, his eyes narrowed. Then I saw the tiniest hint of warmth creep in, like faint sunshine breaking through frozen trees in a forest, and it was heart-stoppingly beautiful.

Then the warmth expanded, accelerating outward, and the cold gray turned scorching, blistering hot.His eyes flicked down my body, back up, and locked with mine again. They glittered, molten diamonds. He’d seen something he wanted. He was going to take it.

I swallowed, my face going hot. A deeper, darker heat raced down my body and detonated in my groin. I’d never felt so...wanted.Men don’t look at me that way, especially not men likehim.I’m not all tanned and toned and blonde haired. My skin’s the sort of milky white that makes me fry if I step outdoors after May, I’m all boobs and ass and my hair is red. And I don’t mean a delicate strawberry-blonde or a sophisticated auburn, I mean long waves of bright, coppery red: with my curves, I look like a farmer’s daughter, like I should be fetching water from the well or guiding a plow.

And yet he was looking at me, the heat so intense it was like a physical touch. His gaze traced along the line of my jaw, over my lips, down the soft, sensitive skin of my neck…

“Um…” said the woman standing in front of me.

I snapped out of it, red-faced, and quickly served her. I kept my eyes on the books she was buying, on the numbers on the register, on her credit card...anywhere but on his face.Did that just happen? Did he just look at me like he wanted to bend me over this counter and?—

I bagged the woman’s books, thanked her, and she left. Andhestepped forward.

I kept my eyes on the counter, but I could feel him looming over me. I was flustered and breathless, my skin was throbbing under my clothes and deep in my core there was a slow pulse of heat I couldn’t control. It wasn’t just the look he’d given me. It was the way I was reacting to it, the way I was reacting tohim.He was big and intimidating and scary asfuck,but he was also gorgeous and...different,in a way I couldn’t describe.Dangerous.It pulsed from him, a vibration I could feel. Like I and everyone else in the bookstore were deer and he was a wolf.

That should have made me run. But that vibration strummed through my body and some deep, dark place inside me sang like a tuning fork.

I lifted my eyes slowly. His waist came into view, his stomach flat and tight, hugged by an immaculate gray waistcoat. My eyes climbed higher, to where the twin slabs of his pecs pushed out his snow-white shirt. He seemed even bigger, up close, his chest wide enough to block my view of everything behind him. Andtall:I’m 5’6” but I had to tilt my head way back to see more of him. Up past the knot of his blue silk tie, up past his shoulders…