The Millionaire Affair

by Sophie Weston

  When she saw who it was, she almost shut the door in his face.

  ‘Not again,’ said Nikolai, with resolution. He inserted himself rapidly into the hallway.

  Lisa glared. ‘Again?’

  ‘You closed the door on me last night,’ he reminded her. ‘I don’t like that.’

  Lisa looked him up and down. Tonight he was in black jeans and soft leather jacket. It looked amazingly sexy. She stayed cool but it was an effort.

  ‘This morning,’ she corrected him. ‘And I haven’t changed my mind.’

  ‘But I have.’ He motioned her to precede him downstairs. ‘I shouldn’t have walked away last night.’

  Lisa stood her ground. ‘As I remember, I was the one who walked away.’

  She worked quite hard not to remember how nearly she had not done just that. He looked down into her eyes with an expression that said he could read exactly what she was trying not to remember.

  ‘Only because I let you.’

  There was a small silence. Lisa allowed herself to look him up and down a second time. Slowly and deliberately. And to give half a smile, as if she was not very impressed. Almost, she thought savagely, as if she too had had the benefit of centuries of aristocratic breeding and education.

  ‘Another unreconstructed male to add to my collection,’ she drawled at last.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  Goaded, she heard her voice go up. ‘You’re not a new experience, believe me.’

  Nikolai’s eyes gleamed. ‘No?’

  He swooped. She found her legs scooped from under her as he hoisted her up against his chest. Lisa lost her cool. To her everlasting shame she gave a screech of pure panic, and clutched at his jacket as he made for the stairs.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He narrowed his eyes as he looked down at her.

  ‘Unreconstructed male-type things.’

  He started down the stairs. The drop to the bottom looked like the north face of the Eiger. Lisa transferred her eyes rapidly to the shoulder of his jacket and hung on.

  ‘You’re mad,’ she said with conviction.

  But she didn’t move a muscle until he had successfully descended the entire flight. Then she made a leap for freedom.

  It was neither graceful nor easy, but it was effective. Lisa fell to one knee. Nikolai held out a hand. She ignored it, staggering to her feet.

  He cocked his head to the sound of the television.

  ‘You’re not alone?’

  Lisa nearly lied. But in an instant she realised that Nikolai would only march into the sitting room to check.

  She got to her feet and said bitterly, ‘From now on I’ll make sure I have a party every night.’

  Nikolai’s eyes flickered. ‘Then we’d better get our business finished now.’

  ‘What business?’

  Just as she had thought: without bothering to answer he walked past her into the sitting room. As if he owned it, she thought, fulminating.

  For a moment she hesitated. But, however dubious his morals, she didn’t think Nikolai Ivanov would offer her violence with his great-aunt pottering about above their heads. So she shrugged and followed.

  He turned off the television and looked at the coffee table, with its plate of half-eaten toast and warm mug of hot chocolate. There was a curious expression on his face.

  ‘Very innocent. I would never have had you down as a nursery food addict.’

  Lisa exploded. ‘Nursery food! There speaks a man who was brought up by nanny behind a green baize door.’

  Nikolai was taken aback. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, forget it.’

  She scooped up the plate and mug protectively and took them into the tiny kitchen. He didn’t let her go alone.

  ‘Explain,’ he ordered.

  ‘I said forget it.’ She turned and faced him. ‘Count Ivanov.’

  Nikolai went still. ‘Count—? You mean you’re an unreconstructed inverted snob!’ he taunted.

  Lisa turned away, annoyed with herself. ‘Tell me what this business of yours is,’ she said curtly. ‘Then get out.’

  Nikolai propped himself against the door lintel, blocking her exit. ‘Are you really not curious?’

  ‘Wild with it,’ Lisa said, deadpan. ‘So tell me. What do you want?’

  He smiled a slow, lazy tiger’s smile.

  ‘I mean curious about what would have happened last night. If we had stayed together.’

  The implications of it hung in the air between them. Not articulated, sure, but there, deliberate and unmistakable. If she closed her eyes she could feel it, almost as if it had happened: his breath on her skin, their bodies entwined, falling…

  As he no doubt intended. Lisa had a moment of near panic. What sort of idiot did he think she was?

  She pushed past him into the sitting room. She had to put more distance between them or he would see exactly how strongly he had got to her. She went to the window, ensuring that there was a substantial armchair between them.

  She was furious with herself, but she couldn’t help it. He was just too big, too powerful. Telling herself she could handle it, she folded her arms and gave him a wide, false smile.

  ‘That usually works, does it?’ she asked affably.

  He didn’t like that. He had swung round, following her until she retreated behind her chair. Now he stopped. The predatory smile died too.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘The whole box of tricks. Sexy eyes. Husky voice. General innuendo,’ she explained helpfully. ‘Do you find it delivers the goods?’

  Nikolai’s brows twitched together in a black frown. ‘What goods?’

  ‘Well, in this case, I suppose, me.’

  He didn’t deny it. He was silent for a moment. Then said in an annoyed voice, ‘You are very blunt.’

  ‘That’s me,’ Lisa agreed. ‘Call a spade a shovel, I do. Always have.’

  Nikolai stared at her as if she was a new sort of animal he had never seen before.

  ‘Not very romantic,’ he said at last.

  Lisa raised her eyebrows. ‘What’s romantic about telling me I passed up a good thing just because I didn’t want to sleep with you last night?’

  To her surprise he flushed slightly. ‘I never said that.’

  ‘No. But wasn’t that what I was supposed to think?’ Lisa demanded shrewdly.

  ‘Very blunt.’

  ‘My mother always told me to tell the truth and shame the devil.’

  He was torn between annoyance and reluctant amusement.

  ‘Which casts me as the devil, I suppose?’

  Lisa shrugged.

  Nikolai had had an instructive couple of days. He had not yet met Alec Palmer who, rumour said, was her discarded lover, but everyone else had told the same story about Lisa Romaine. She was sharp and ambitious and was not going to let anything get in the way of her ambition. Depending on whether they liked her, people either said she was impetuous and temperamental, or she was steady as a rock.

  Her boss, clearly not an admirer, had said she would pick a fight as soon as look at you. Nikolai was beginning to see what he meant.

  Irritated, he said now, ‘It would be more sensible to conciliate me, you know.’

  Lisa pursed her mouth. ‘Conciliate? Is that a fancy way of saying I ought to go to bed with you?’

  He was angry now. ‘Do you have to be so crass?’

  Lisa relaxed. Anger was easier to deal with than that prowling sexuality. She smiled.

  ‘Don’t like the truth, Count Ivanov?’

  He controlled himself. ‘I don’t like being accused of trying to blackmail a woman into bed.’

  Lisa nodded. ‘I can understand that,’ she said with spurious sympathy. ‘Just like I don’t care for it when people try to manipulate me.’

  Their eyes met with the clash of steel on steel. There was an electric silence. Nikolai drew a long breath.

  ‘What are we fighting for?’ he said at last. His voice was strained.

  ‘Yo
u’re the one who forced your way into my home. You tell me.’

  He sighed. ‘Come on, Lisa. It doesn’t have to be like this.’

  ‘You’ve made it very clear what you think it should be like,’ Lisa said grimly. ‘I’m not interested.’

  Nikolai’s eyes flashed suddenly. ‘You mean you’d be happier to pretend you’re not interested in what we could be like together.’

  Lisa’s head went back as if he had hit her.

  Nikolai took no notice. He swept on. ‘And you want me to pretend too.’

  Lisa found her voice. ‘That’s crazy.’

  ‘Is it?’

  He sat down on the arm of an elderly chintz-covered chair. It had been left in the flat by Tatiana, and he leaned against its frayed back with the familiarity of one who had done the same thing many times before. It gave Lisa an odd feeling that she was the invader, not him.

  He swung a foot and surveyed her calmly. ‘Do you know what I do?’ he asked idly.

  Lisa blinked. ‘I thought you were a modern-day Tarzan,’ she said nastily.

  ‘Animal behaviourist.’ He gave her a deeply untrustworthy smile. ‘I study body language.’

  Lisa leaped about a foot in the air and speedily unclasped her folded arms. Nikolai’s smile widened.

  ‘Too late.’

  Since that was exactly what she’d been thinking herself, Lisa was irritated.

  ‘I am not an animal,’ she said unwisely.

  He laughed aloud at that.

  ‘Shall I tell you what your body language tells me?’ he said conversationally.

  ‘No.’

  He ignored that. ‘Dominant female. Doesn’t confide. Doesn’t depend on other members of the pack. Quick to aggression. Sexually—’

  Lisa choked.

  He smiled and went on. ‘Sexually uninterested, on the whole.’

  She was surprised into an unwise exclamation. ‘But I thought you said—’

  ‘I said on the whole,’ Nikolai repeated gently. ‘For example: take the awards dinner. Better still, take that loud club you like so much. In both places there were plenty of men making courtship gestures to you. Some more subtle than others.’ He frowned momentarily. ‘In fact in the club there were a couple who were all over you. You didn’t seem to notice. Not a flicker of response.’

  Lisa was triumphant. ‘I told you—’

  ‘But you noticed me,’ he finished softly.

  Lisa felt as if she had walked into a wall. It was true! She stared at him, appalled. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  ‘Which is why I’m not going to help you tell lies about it. Especially to yourself. It is not,’ he added with odious kindness, ‘good for you.’

  ‘Why, thank you so much,’ said Lisa. Her scorn was slightly shaky, but at least it felt as if she was fighting back.

  ‘Honesty is always best. You probably don’t feel very pleased with me now—’

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Lisa, her scorn improving.

  ‘—but you’ll thank me in the end.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ she said drily. ‘If I ever get round to thinking about you again, that is.’

  He shook his head. ‘Quick to aggression,’ he reminded her wickedly.

  Lisa curbed herself. It was an effort.

  ‘An interesting diagnosis,’ she said without expression. ‘Based on so much evidence too.’

  He grinned. ‘I’m a trained observer.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want you observing me,’ Lisa retorted. ‘In fact, I don’t want you here at all. So will you go now, please?’

  Nikolai did not move. ‘We have a number of things to discuss first.’

  Lisa’s chin jutted dangerously. ‘Such as?’

  ‘The terms of your agreement with Tatiana.’

  She stared at him blankly.

  ‘You have got a formal agreement with Tatiana?’ he asked patiently.

  Lisa’s temper began to strain at the leash. ‘That’s her business,’ she said curtly. ‘If you want to discuss your aunt’s affairs, talk to her.’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then try again. Don’t think you can weasel details out of me.’

  She advanced on him, green eyes bright. Not with warmth. Nikolai stood up.

  ‘All I want—’

  ‘If Tatiana has told you to get lost, I’m with Tatiana,’ Lisa said with feeling. ‘Out. Now.’

  ‘I have a right to protect my family,’ said Nikolai, suddenly as angry as she.

  ‘Then go protect them. But don’t expect me to spy on Tatiana or anyone else. I’m not a sneak.’

  ‘No. You’re a clever piece with a good line in hard-luck stories,’ he told her.

  All the lazy amusement had fallen away, and he was suddenly icy with rage. It shocked Lisa, though she congratulated herself on how right she had been not to trust him when he was smiling.

  Just like Terry, she thought. And then shut the thought down at once. Nikolai Ivanov was arrogant and insulting and he would answer for it. He did not need to answer for Terry’s heartlessness as well.

  She snapped her fingers in mock forgetfulness. ‘Didn’t somebody say something about being conciliating?’

  Nikolai stampeded over that. ‘Don’t forget I’ve seen you on your own territory. You don’t look like a victim to me.’

  In pure instinct, he put his hands on her shoulders. He didn’t know himself what he intended to do. To hold her still while he made her listen to him, maybe.

  Certainly he didn’t mean to frighten her. He would not have believed that he could. Or that any man could. So he was utterly unprepared for what happened next.

  One moment he was glaring at her, holding her at arm’s length; there was a split second when something wild leaped in Lisa’s green eyes, and then she hauled away from him as if she had been scalded. Off balance and startled, Nikolai staggered. The rucked rug completed his downfall. Lisa did not break his fall.

  ‘No,’ said Lisa, breathing hard. ‘I’m not a victim.’

  Nikolai sat on the Kelim rug and shook his head carefully.

  ‘What was that for? Did you think I was going to hurt you?’

  He looked up at her, annoyed. That was when he saw the expression in her eyes. His annoyance died.

  ‘You did,’ he said, on a note of discovery.

  Lisa was more shaken than she was willing to admit. Her own violent reaction had shocked her. What was there about this man that his every touch seemed to set off all her warning signals? She retreated behind the sofa as he got to his feet. Not because she was afraid of him. But because her every instinct was to hold out a hand to help him, and she didn’t want to risk another surge of unwanted electricity at his touch.

  Panting a little, she said, ‘If I were the sort of woman you think I am, I’d go straight upstairs and tell Tatiana about this conversation.’

  His eyes hooded themselves. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, ‘And?’

  ‘I’m not going to. Not because I’m afraid of you.’ She let her eyes skim over him with disgust. ‘But because I like Tatiana and she’s obviously fond of you. I don’t want to be the one to shatter her illusions. So get out. And don’t come back.’

  There was a long, long silence. Lisa could hear her own breathing. It sounded as if she had run up a hill.

  Then, without a word, he turned and left.

  Nikolai met Alec Palmer in a City wine bar. It was in the basement of a concrete building but there was sawdust on the floor and men were drinking beer out of copper tankards.

  ‘Lisa won’t come here,’ Alec said. ‘These days she says it’s too phoney.’

  Privately Nikolai agreed. He didn’t say so.

  ‘So she won’t interrupt us by chance. Useful,’ he observed. He ordered a platter of sandwiches and took a bottle of champagne over to a secluded corner. ‘So what can you tell me about this woman?’ he said, pouring wine into Alec’s glass.

  Alec didn’t need to be asked a second time. He w
as still smarting from his last encounter with Lisa. In a ten-minute diatribe Nikolai heard that she was hard and shallow and used people ruthlessly.

  ‘She’s on the make,’ concluded Alec simply.

  It was only what Nikolai had thought himself. So what demon of perversity made him protest?

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with trying to improve your life,’ he said temperately.

  Alec’s mouth set in a bitter line. ‘Improve, huh! That wasn’t hard. She comes from the bottom of the pile, did you know that?’

  The man’s spite was blatant.

  Nikolai tried to sound neutral. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘When I first knew Lisa Romaine she was an East End kid who thought fish and chips was the treat of a lifetime. Now she lives on sushi and champagne. But is she satisfied? Is she hell!’

  ‘Maybe she just wants to experience new things.’

  ‘Sure. New man, new rung up the ladder. Every move she makes, she gets rid of the last lot of friends. They say that was how she got her start in the first place.’

  Nikolai sat very still. ‘Sleeping with the boss?’ he queried. Every bone in his body rejected it.

  Alec shrugged. ‘That’s the word. I wasn’t in the City at the time, so of course I don’t know. I do know that everyone in the house said it would be curtains for us when she was promoted. Acton wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t smart enough.’

  Nikolai winced. It all sounded horribly plausible. Indeed, it sounded exactly what his grandfather had already worked out, alerted to the situation by Tatiana’s conscientious accountant. And everything Lisa herself had said to him since they met tended to confirm it. Only…

  ‘She seems so honest,’ he said, almost to himself. Alec looked up sharply. He gave a harsh laugh.

  ‘You, too, huh?’

  Nikolai stared at him, disconcerted.

  ‘It gets us all that way, mate. You look at the big green eyes and the tatty clothes and you think—there’s something special here, and I’m the only one to see it.’

  His hurt was as blatant as the spite. Nikolai looked away. Anything that painful should have stayed private.

  ‘Only you’re not,’ Alec said, brooding. ‘We’ve all been there. See Lisa. Want Lisa. Take her another rung up the ladder. Say goodbye, Lisa.’ The look he gave the tall man in the exquisitely cut suit was malicious. ‘Welcome to the club.’