Alexei, Her Russian Billionaire

Chapter 9

Maya snapped the last shot and lowered her camera.

“Right, that’s a wrap. Great work, guys.”

She headed to Howie’s desk and gave him the memory card. Then she packed her camera away and picked up her laptop case. Immediately Rodrigo was at her side, taking the bag away from her.

“Here, let me take that, Maya.”

“Rodrigo, it isn’t heavy. I can manage.”

“I insist.”

Rodrigo gave a pointed look at her swollen belly. Maya didn’t have the heart to argue with him. It had been a long day and she was eager to back and see Alexei; he would be returning home soon and Maya was looking forward to spending the evening with him.

She rolled her eyes and passed her laptop case over.

“Fine. If it’ll make you feel better.”

Rodrigo grinned and hoisted the bag onto his shoulder. Since he and Jenny had made their relationship exclusive the month before he had been around them a lot more. Jenny was clearly smitten with him and Maya could see Rodrigo felt the same way. She thought they were a good pairing and hoped it would last the course; neither of them could afford to have their careers affected if their relationship ended badly. Maya had been on the receiving end of one bad relationship and she didn’t want her best friend to go through the same thing.

Rodrigo was a sweet man. He was a gentleman and offered to help Maya out with almost anything, citing that pregnant women shouldn’t need to raise a hand if she had help. After growing up in a family of mainly women he was very attentive and knew more things about pregnancy than Maya did.

He also got on well with Alexei and that was a big plus in Maya’s book.

They hung around Howie’s table as Howie finished off and packed up. Jenny was still cleaning up in her area and the models were disappearing off to their own lives. Rodrigo looked up and nodded at the door to the studio.

“Lover boy’s here.”

Maya looked around and her heart jumped when she saw Alexei and Ivan enter the studio. She had missed him. He had promised to be back and see the end of her shoot. And now she could enjoy her evening.

“Alexei, hey.”

Unable to stop smiling, Maya hurried across to him. Then she pulled up short when she saw the expression on Alexei’s face. It was like thunder. He glared at her, hurt and betrayal in his eyes. Ivan stood just off to the side, his expression grim. Maya looked between them.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“Were you just having s*x with someone?”

Maya started. That she hadn’t been expecting. She stared at Alexei.

“What?”

“You heard me.” Alexei’s jaw tightened. “Now answer the question.”

Maya was confused. Her head was spinning. She looked at Ivan pleadingly.

“Ivan, please tell me what’s going on? I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Alexei received a call from you while we were in the car coming back.” Ivan glanced at Alexei as if he expected Alexei to do something stupid. “It sounded like you were having s*x.”

“What?” Maya swayed. “No, I wasn’t. I’ve been working all day. We’ve just finished.”

“That’s true.” Rodrigo appeared at her side. He was glaring at Alexei. “The only time I’ve seen Maya touch her cell phone all day was when we were at lunch. She’s barely stopped for a bathroom break.”

If it had been any other day Alexei would have been berating her for standing up all day and doing too much when she was nearly seven months pregnant. But he clearly had other issues on his mind. Maya focused on Alexei, who was looking a little less uncertain.

“My cell phone has been in my bag all day and Jenny’s got it.”

“I heard my name.” Jenny appeared, slinging her makeup kit bag and Maya’s handbag over her shoulder. “Did somebody want me?”

Alexei was now looking thrown. He looked from Jenny to Rodrigo, who was glaring at him, to Maya. Relief started to etch in.

“So you weren’t cheating on me?”

“Of course not!” Maya was shocked he had even thought it. “I’d never do that.”

Jenny’s face went pale.

“Jonny.” She whispered.

Then Maya remembered what Jenny had told her about spoofing another girl’s number. He had done the same thing to her. Only, unlike Alexei, her boyfriend hadn’t fallen for it.

“Ivan said he’d done this before.” Alexei was looking at Jenny as if he was too embarrassed to look at Maya.

Jenny nodded.

“With our hair stylist. She joined us about six months ago. He stalked her during high school and did exactly the same to her boyfriend as he’s just done to you.” She grunted and scowled. “Luckily he wasn’t stupid enough to believe it.”

“Hey!”

“Well, you are stupid if you believed Maya would cheat on you.” Jenny glanced at her friend. “When she’s got something as good as you why would she?”

Maya was glad she had a friend like Jenny; she needed someone to say what she was thinking at times and the filter between Jenny’s brain and mouth didn’t often work as well as Maya’s so Jenny usually ended up being a lot blunter with her words.

Maya could see Alexei’s anger falling away and embarrassment taking its place. He had fallen for it. Maya felt that he would be taken in by something like that.

“Jenny, may I have my bag?”

Jenny passed it over. Maya fished out her cell phone and switched it on. Then she went to her phone log and showed him the date of their last call.

“See? I haven’t made a call to you since lunch. And I’m not savvy enough to delete call history. You didn’t need to call back so much.”

“What?” Alexei frowned. “But I didn’t call you back. I wanted to speak to you face to face.”

Now Maya was even more confused. She looked at Ivan for confirmation. He nodded.

“It’s true. We came straight here and Alexei never made any calls.”

“Then how come I’ve got five missed calls from him in the last hour?”

Maya didn’t like this. She had feeling what she was going to hear but she couldn’t bring herself to check. Ivan seemed to sense this and took her cell phone from her hand and pressing for the first voicemail, switching it to loudspeaker. Immediately the sounds of two people having s*x filled the air. Maya heard two people speaking intimately in Russian and realized how Alexei had been taken in; it was easy to believe it was her if their voices were also manipulated. Because if sounded as though Alexei was having s*x with a Russian woman, although the voices did sound a little distorted.