by Lynne Graham
Abbey froze. ‘You’re already paying me handsomely for concierge services. Nothing else is required.’
‘I always reward excellence, lubimaya.’
Abbey flipped up the lid of the case to discover an exquisite gold watch studded with diamonds and marked with a famous designer name. She wondered if he was rewarding her excellence in bed or her excellence as a concierge. The reflection ate into her self-respect like acid and shamed her. ‘It’s beautiful. Thank you,’ she said stiffly, because she knew he wouldn’t take it back and was reluctant to offend him yet again.
To please him, she fastened the watch to her wrist, where it sparkled prettily in the sunlight coming through the window.
‘The limo will return to pick you up at seven. We’ll dine out,’ Nikolai announced when the car drew up outside her apartment building.
Hopefully, her new wardrobe would have been delivered while she was out. Sveta had dispatched one of Nikolai’s domestic staff to wait at her apartment and unpack the garments when they arrived. When Abbey walked into the hall, the first thing she noticed was the distinctive meow of a cat. She studied the pet carrier sitting by the wall. A gift card was attached to the carrier and it bore Nikolai’s bold signature.
Filled with curiosity, Abbey knelt down and un-latched the door. A seal point Siamese kitten strolled out and turned almond-shaped vivid blue eyes on her and Abbey’s heart just melted on the spot. An envelope full of information and a pedigree from the breeder was also attached to the carrier. Abbey petted the playful kitten, wondering how on earth Nikolai had guessed that she had always dreamt of owning a Siamese. It was a wonderful surprise at the end of a truly hideous and distressing day.
Later, when she had managed to set the kitten down for a few minutes, she phoned Nikolai direct to thank him. ‘She’s adorable…totally adorable,’ she chattered with warm enthusiasm. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’
Nikolai was interrupted in the middle of a board meeting, and his lean dark face was slashed by a slow smile of satisfaction. He liked to excel in every field and his competitive spirit had been challenged by her lukewarm response to his other gifts. ‘You like her? Her blue eyes are as bright as yours.’ Across the boardroom table Sveta was staring at him in surprise and he turned his handsome dark head away. ‘What will you call her?’
‘Lady…she’s incredibly elegant. You won’t object if I bring her over to your apartment tonight, will you? I couldn’t leave her home alone on her first night! Did you pick her personally?’
‘Yes, I did. When she hissed and tried to scratch me, I knew I’d found the right one!’ Nikolai smiled and hoped Abbey never found out just how much that little ball of fluff, purchased from a leading breeder, had cost him. He was well aware that she was choosing to approve this particular present because a kitten came without sinful gold-digging associations attached.
Abbey selected a green cocktail dress with a full skirt from the vast new wardrobe that had overflowed into her guest room and slid her feet into strappy sandals with high heels. She was wondering whether or not she ought to offer Drew the ten thousand pounds she had in her savings account. A greater emergency might yet lie ahead, not least the current cash-flow problem with the business, and she wanted to be sensible. She decided to hang on to her savings in the short term and tried not to think about the vast amount of money that her brother had wasted while he pursued his gambling addiction. That cash was gone now and not all the wishing in the world was going to bring it back.
CHAPTER NINE
‘W HAT are we going to do about Drew’s debts?’ Caroline whispered in a despairing tone, her voice still hoarse from the constant crying she had done in recent days.
‘I don’t know,’ Abbey replied honestly, drained by the stress of trying to calm and support her friend through the family crisis. ‘But I’ve done the sums. Right now-assuming there’s no new disaster waiting in the wings to jump out on us-the business is at least bringing in enough cash to pay your regular outgoings and your home is safe.’
‘We can’t even sell it to settle the debts. We owe more than the house is worth,’ Caroline lamented. ‘I can’t live like this.’
‘I know that you’re scared and that you feel that Drew has let you down-’
‘Drew’s had a lot to bear in other ways.’ Caroline cast a speaking glance down at her wheelchair. ‘But even though I’m not the woman he loved and married any more, he’s never once complained. Maybe the gambling was an escape from the pressure of living with me.’
Abbey made no comment. She had no idea what had got into her brother and did not feel qualified to hazard a guess. Drew had always been quiet and sensible, and dangerous, thrill-seeking behaviour like compulsive gambling seemed out of character for him. But Abbey had only to look at her own conduct in recent weeks to accept that people often acted in unpredictable ways and not always for any clearly defined or rational reason. How, after all, could she explain her own total obsession with Nikolai? Was it a physical infatuation that would fade?
‘You could ask Nikolai Arlov for a loan.’
Abbey’s bright auburn head jerked up in dismay at that unwelcome suggestion. Caroline’s oval face was pale and strained and her shadowed eyes were pleading.
‘I couldn’t,’ Abbey replied curtly. ‘That’s out of the question.’
‘Why not? I mean, the bank wouldn’t even consider us in the state we’re in, but Nikolai might as a favour to you.’
Abbey was furious with Caroline for even broaching the subject. ‘Fixed as we are for finance right now, it would take us a lifetime to pay Nikolai back. And if I asked him to give us money it would be like selling myself to him!’ Abbey proclaimed, compressing bloodless lips and almost shuddering at the idea. Of course she had thought about asking Nikolai for help, of course she had, but she didn’t see why he should be expected to settle her brother’s debts for him. And she cherished the truth that she had never looked on Nikolai or treated him like an open wallet. She was not greedy like his previous lovers and she knew he valued that difference.
‘Don’t be so fanciful,’ her sister-in-law argued. ‘Nikolai seems to delight in spending money on you. He never stops buying you expensive gifts and you’re already practically living with him! Everyone reckons that what he has with you is much more than a casual affair.’
Everyone? Not Abbey, however. She stared out into the back garden where Alice and Benjamin were playing on the swing set. Every so often one of the twins cast an anxious look back towards the house, revealing that both children were aware of the tension in their home. Abbey hurt for her nephew and niece, who’d had to contend with a lot of parental rows and grief over the past fortnight. She wished she had a magic wand to wave that would make all the trouble and strife go away, but she didn’t.
‘Nikolai and I…well, it’s not like you think,’ Abbey argued uncomfortably, wishing she could tell the other woman about Nikolai’s desire to fool the press into believing that he was involved in a serious relationship with her. Only then would Caroline understand how hollow Nikolai’s apparent attentiveness really was at heart.
Caroline gave the younger woman an unimpressed glance. ‘Isn’t it? You’ve been here thirty minutes and he hasn’t phoned yet to maintain contact and I’m surprised. Over the last two weeks I doubt if you and Nikolai have been apart for longer than a couple of hours.’
Abbey dropped her head, knowing that that was the truth. The even more disturbing truth was that she had revelled in every minute of that intense togetherness and had discovered a happiness she had not known she was capable of experiencing. Happiness for her was falling asleep in Nikolai’s arms at night and waking up still in them.
‘And that’s not the way he usually behaves with women according to the articles I’ve read,’ Drew’s wife contended. ‘He’s a cold customer as a rule and yet he’s bought you a fortune in diamonds, is having you driven around in your own personal limousine and he marches you out everywhere he goes.’
‘I returned the diamonds to him,’ Abbey reminded Caroline and, catching sight of the time, she frowned. ‘Look, I’ll have to go or I’ll get caught up in the traffic-’
‘And be late, which Nikolai detests. He’s got you dancing to his tune all right. It’s hard to credit that only a week or so ago you were heartbroken about Jeffrey and Jane Dalkeith.’
Abbey’s face shadowed, as she recognised the slight hint of scorn in that unnecessary reminder of her lowest hour. After the shock of Jeffrey’s betrayal had sunk in, she had adapted fairly quickly and she had no quarrel with that assessment. ‘Well, I had to get over that, didn’t I? I wasted too many years grieving for Jeffrey to waste any more time agonising over a past that I couldn’t change and a man who never loved me the way I loved him.’
‘Very sensible. I only wish you would practise some of that sense around Nikolai.’
‘Common sense died the day I met him,’ Abbey quipped on the way out and she wasn’t joking when she said it. Something stronger than she was had drawn her to Nikolai and forged links she couldn’t break or walk away from.
The limousine ferried her back to Nikolai’s penthouse apartment where she had spent a great deal of the last fortnight. Lady, more at home there than she was at Abbey’s apartment and thoroughly spoiled by the attentive domestic staff, danced up to Abbey playfully in the hall to greet her. Abbey smiled and scooped up the Siamese kitten to cuddle her. When she reached the bedroom with the overnight bag she had brought she undressed and went for a shower. It was her last night with Nikolai, at least the last night of the two weeks she had agreed to spend with him, and who could tell what would happen next? Would she even see him tomorrow? She had no idea.
Nikolai never mentioned the future and never referred to anything more than a week in advance. Bearing that nerve-racking truth in mind, Abbey did not understand how it had come about that she could not picture a future without him. She could scarcely accuse him of having encouraged such delusions. Yet, a thousand memories bound her to him now. He filled every corner of her existence and most of her thoughts. He phoned her all the time. He gave her flowers and gifts every day. He listened to her when she talked. He had escorted her to parties, clubs and dinners and in his company time flew. She was getting used to the designer clothes, the diamonds and the endless pursuit of the paparazzi. She was getting dangerously accustomed to having Nikolai in her life.
She lifted a fleecy towel to dry herself before massaging rose-scented oil into her skin. Workwise, the past weeks had been less successful. She had so far failed to fire Nikolai’s interest in any of the country properties she had researched and, even though Drew’s financial problems and the fallout from that revelation had proved a source of continual worry for her, she had found comfort and forgetfulness in being with Nikolai.
He was the tough guy who had never had an indoor pet until Lady came along as a regular house guest. Nikolai talked much more freely about his background now. For the first nine years of his life he had been cared for and indulged. He had attended a private school and had shared the many privileges that his grandfather had enjoyed as a leading diplomat. But the older man’s sudden death from a heart attack had ended that life for ever and had catapulted Nikolai into the custody of a bullying father, who had never wanted him, and a stepmother who despised him. As heir to his grandfather’s substantial estate, Nikolai had been violently resented by his birth father’s family. When Nikolai was finally hospitalised for the injuries inflicted on him by his relatives, his father had decided it would be safer to banish him from the household altogether and he had fostered out his illegitimate youngest son to a poor family in one of the toughest estates in St Petersburg.
‘That experience and those years made me what I am today,’ Nikolai had insisted fiercely. ‘I learned how to rely on myself and how to fight my own corner. After I completed my military service I educated myself for the business world.’
The very bareness of his later childhood had touched Abbey’s compassionate heart to the core. She knew exactly what had made him tough and unyielding. He had never known a woman’s love and tenderness as a boy and the experience of violence followed by hunger and poverty had brutalised him, before a soldier’s training and the horrors of war had made his reserve even more impenetrable. Yet she had watched him play with the tiny Siamese kitten with a gentleness that fascinated her. This was the same guy who held her close in the aftermath of passion and let her smother him in kisses. She adored him and it was precisely because she adored him that she would not ask him to bail her brother out of trouble, for that single act would throw up the barrier of his great wealth between them. She was convinced that it would also erase any suggestion that they might be equals and destroy his respect for her.
Nikolai respected her independence and her refusal to grab at all the material things he could offer her. She wore the clothes and the jewellery because he insisted, but when he ended their affair she would leave those expensive trappings behind her, for the last thing she would want would be the reminders of what had been. She climbed into a filmy bra and knicker set and smoothed pale lace-topped stockings up her very long legs. Mischief sparkled in her eyes. The two weeks might be over, but she wanted him to regret the fact, not celebrate the prospect of his renewed freedom.
On the drive back to his penthouse Nikolai studied the tabloid gossip page Olya had given him. It included one of the official photos he’d had taken of Abbey and himself at the party he had thrown days earlier.
Abbey looked spectacular in a green satin dress that showed off her glorious hourglass shape as well, its décolleté neckline displaying the diamonds he had draped her in. Speculation about their relationship was now rife in the British media. The paparazzi were following their every move. There were already rumours about the house purchase and her involvement in its selection. The word inseparable was being thrown about with great abandon. And, in truth, during the past fortnight, Nikolai had managed to spend a good part of every day and all of every night with Abbey. And with Lady.
His sardonic mouth quirked with amusement. Abbey and her kitten, Lady, were truly inseparable because Abbey, for all her steely efficiency, was a total pushover for her tiny pet. He had watched her get out of bed during the night without complaint to comfort the lonely animal when she’d cried, and strive to meet her constant demands for attention. It had struck him that Abbey would make a terrific mother. It was easy to imagine her with a baby in her arms and the very fact he had imagined such a thing for the first time in his life with a woman had seriously spooked Nikolai. He had got in too deep. It was time to back off.
He was happy to admit that the nights had been amazing and that his hunger for her voluptuous body had yet to abate. Between the sheets, for all her innocence at the outset, she had proved to be a fast learner, who was surprisingly willing to fulfil his every fantasy. Indeed, sexually she was gradually surrendering her inhibitions to become his perfect match. He enjoyed showing her off as well. Abbey was his in a way no other woman had ever contrived to be-an intelligent partner, who could talk on a business level, and a stimulating companion who never bored him. He thought he would miss her when there was no longer any need for their pretence. He had yet to muster the interest to look out for her replacement in his bed, a lack of forward planning which was most unlike him.
The one aspect of Abbey’s nature that he knew he would not miss, however, was her reserve. Throughout their time together he had been aware that something was amiss and that she was seriously worried about that something, but despite the many opportunities he had given her she had steadfastly refused to confide in him and, indeed, had continued to infuriate him by insisting that nothing was wrong. Nikolai did not appreciate being treated as though he were stupid. He had always believed that it was a man’s fundamental right and responsibility to look after his woman, but it was not a role that Abbey seemed willing to extend to him. He had no doubt that her late husband, Jeffrey, had enjoyed more preferential treatment.
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And he knew that Abbey’s attitude was influencing his own, because although he had that morning received an extraordinary visit from the Greek tycoon, Lysander Metaxis, Nikolai had no plans as yet to share the amazing content of what had been discussed with Abbey. Was it even remotely possible that he could be related to an Englishwoman? For about the tenth time Nikolai brought up a photo of Lysander’s wife, Ophelia, on his laptop and studied her with a frown. She was very small and blond and pretty. Physically there was no resemblance whatsoever. It was most probably a wind-up, not a deliberate one, of course, for Metaxis was not the joking type, Nikolai acknowledged wryly. But someone somewhere might well have got their wires crossed and screwed up the investigation into the history of Ophelia’s troubled mother. Even so, Nikolai was still keen to go to the party Lysander had invited him to this evening and interested in meeting Lysander’s wife and looking over the documentation that had been mentioned.
A gift bag in one hand, Nikolai strode down the corridor to the bedroom where he knew Abbey would be waiting for him. After a day apart from her he could never resist the need to immediately reacquaint himself with the allure of her warm, willing body and, after being carried off to the bedroom or ambushed on the sofa day after day, she had given up trying to interest him in food and good conversation when he first came through the door. When he saw her standing across the room, her glorious body fetchingly attired in sexy green lingerie, he was entranced. Setting the gift bag down by the bed, he moved towards her.
‘Nikolai.’ Abbey turned round the minute she heard the door open. Her violet eyes were luminous, her soft full mouth settling into a radiant smile. He still stole the breath from her body every time she saw him. It wasn’t humanly possible for him to get more gorgeous but her response to him never lessened. In a spectacularly elegant Italian designer suit, his lean, darkly handsome visage roughened by a faint masculine shadow of blue-black stubble, he looked stunning from the brilliance of his dark golden eyes to the sensual slant of his beautiful mouth.