Gold Digger Read Free

be a free nice meal.”
    “Just haven’t been sleeping very well. Didn’t get any sleep on the plane, either.”
    “I slept like a baby.”
    “I know. You snored.” Tamás smiled at him. “I’ll probably just call it an early night and order something to the room.”
    “I can make excuses for you. It’s probably just schmoozing—checking us out, I don’t know. If it were business, I’d think the old man would be there.”
    “I’ll owe you.”
    “That’s fine, Tamás. You worked hard for all this.”
    Tamás looked relieved and Nikolai had to admit that he looked stressed and exhausted now that the corporate façade was falling away. The guy urgently needed a shower and his bed, rather than to be dragged around town by some manager type who had a lot more energy after a long day than either of them.

Nikolai fastened a towel around his hips and settled on the bed before he dialed Ruslan’s number, but Ruslan didn’t pick up. So he pulled out his laptop, connected it to the Internet, and typed a quick email, telling him the meeting had gone well and that he’d be out talking to one of the LeBeaus some more.
    There was an email from his father, telling him he’d arrived back in New Zealand from a trip to the States and he was welcome to visit any time. Nikolai typed a quick response saying he’d love to once he got a few days off.
    Of course, Vadim wasn’t getting any younger, but New Zealand was a long way away and not really on the way to anywhere Nikolai would need to go. Okay, he’d fly over. It had taken so long to build a relationship with his father that he did his best to keep it. It hurt to think they might not have that many years left, or that his father’s health could deteriorate.
    Thinking of Vadim as a frail man didn’t work at all. He’d always looked enormous, indestructible, but maybe all fathers did when you were a kid. During his soldiering days, he’d been absent more than at home, and then he’d left permanently and divorced Nikolai’s mother before Nikolai had hit puberty. He’d reconnected with Nikolai only two years before marrying a Scotsman in 2006. They’d managed to stay in touch, but Nikolai always expected Vadim would simply walk away and reappear a totally changed man yet again. He was lucky that Szandor, a gay friend of his mother’s, had been there during the roughest years of growing up.
    Of course I’ll come. Currently in Toronto, any chance we can meet up in a week or so? I’ll get tickets booked ASAP.
    He was dry after he’d gone through his email, and he pulled his suitcase out from under his bed to dig for fresh clothes. Suit for dinner? Had Henri said restaurant or bar? What was the custom here? If it was business, suit, but this wasn’t purely business. Then again, why else would Henri want to chat? The dinner invite was about letting his hair down. Damn, an invitation to a bar or pub would have been easier to parse. Don’t be a tool, Nikolai. Go with your gut.
    His gut was firmly in the “could eat a horse—in bed” camp, though, so no big help.
    Jeans then. As much as Vadim liked to dress up, his father wore a mean pair of jeans himself, and these had gotten Vadim’s approval. Dark blue stonewashed, designer, but scuffed and softened from getting down and dirty all over the world. His favorite pair. He then selected one of the tailored shirts and snatched the suit jacket off the hook. It was the casual-but-expensive look that covered both bases. He wouldn’t look too out of place either in a bar or a restaurant, and he figured Henri would have warned him if it was supposed to be more official than that.
    He combed through his damp hair and let it dry like it wanted. It was too short to look like a total mess. He then settled in front of his laptop and answered the less urgent emails, a couple sent by Tamás, who was on the same floor but probably already conked out on the bed.
    And a reply from Vadim: I’ll be here. Want to meet in Wellington