The Cost of the Forbidden (Irresistible Russian Tycoons)

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘I’m out of sugar.’

  ‘No, really.’

  ‘You’ve been crying.’

  ‘Do I need a permission note for that?’ Naomi asked, but instead of closing the door she stepped back and let him in.

  ‘How’s Daddy dearest?’

  ‘I don’t need another lecture from you, Sev.’

  ‘Maybe you do.’

  He looked at her swollen eyelids and red nose. And then he looked down at the wineglass she was holding. ‘Is that wise?’

  This from a man, Naomi thought, who had sneaked vodka at a dry dinner last night.

  ‘I think I’m entitled to a glass of wine, given the day that I’ve had,’ Naomi said. ‘Believe me, Sev, I’ve earned this.’ She went to take a sip but he took the glass.

  ‘I mean, should you be drinking if you’re pregnant?’

  Naomi was too taken aback to respond at first.

  ‘Look,’ Sev continued, ‘I admit that it’s taken me a while to get my head around it and I know that I’ve never had a pregnant PA before, but I’m sure we can work something out. I think there’s a baby-minding centre downstairs somewhere and maybe we can look at cutting back on your travel.’

  ‘Sev.’ She found her voice. ‘Why would you think I’m pregnant? Where on earth did that come from?’

  ‘Isn’t that why you’re leaving?’

  ‘I thought that I didn’t need a reason to leave?’

  ‘You don’t. I was just trying to work out why you were,’ Sev said, and then he frowned because it certainly wasn’t something he usually bothered trying to work out.

  People left.

  People came and went in his life and he had learnt long, long ago to accept that as fact.

  It just wasn’t proving so easy to do that with Naomi.

  ‘Why would you think I was pregnant?’ she asked.

  He chose not to mention the fertility statue in his office. ‘Well, you’re moody...’ he looked back at her eyes ‘...teary and temperamental, and it’s been going on for far too long for it to be PMS...’

  ‘Would you like me to redden the other cheek?’ Naomi offered.

  ‘You yourself said that you’ve lost weight when you thought you should be putting it on.’

  ‘I was referring to the amount I eat.’ Naomi started to laugh. ‘It’s stress.’

  ‘Do I stress you?’

  She dodged the answer. ‘Not everything is about you, Sev.’

  Not quite everything.

  ‘Phew,’ Sev said. ‘So you’re definitely not?’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘Then I think we should celebrate!’

  ‘Celebrate?’ Naomi checked. ‘Celebrate what? That I’m not pregnant?’

  ‘I can’t think of a better reason.’

  Clearly Sev was a lot more used to celebrating than she was because, having taken a sip of her wine and screwing up his nose, he promptly rang down to one of the restaurants on the lower level. Despite the hour, very soon there was champagne nestling in a bucket and a delicious platter of hors d’oeuvres that were far nicer than the nibbles that had been left in the fridge by her father and Judy.

  He even lit a fire, which Naomi had been too worried to do just in case the apartment filled with smoke.

  ‘I thought it was just for decoration,’ Naomi admitted.

  ‘I don’t believe in things being for decoration,’ Sev said. ‘Here’s to Naomi not being pregnant.’

  ‘Here’s to that,’ Naomi agreed.

  ‘How would he take it?’ Sev asked, sitting down on the floor by the fire. Not thinking, Naomi joined him.

  ‘Who?’ Naomi said, distracted now because he was so bloody smooth they were on the floor by the fire and if she wasn’t careful, they could well end up naked.

  ‘Your fiancé?’

  ‘Sev...’

  ‘I’m just asking.’

  ‘Well, I’m not discussing a hypothetical pregnancy that you conjured up.’ She shook her head.

  God, she was very glad she would never have to find out how Andrew might have taken that news.

  It was so nice, though, to sit talking in front of the fire. Sev showed her how he could balance a champagne glass on his stomach, and given hers wasn’t quite so firm and she was only wearing a robe Naomi declined when he suggested she try.

  Though now she lay on the floor beside him.

  It was silly, it was nice and then she remembered where and with whom he’d recently been.

  ‘How was the theatre?’

  ‘It was terrible,’ Sev admitted. ‘I hate the theatre.’

  ‘You said you loved it when you took me.’

  ‘Well, it was your birthday. If I’d said I hated it you wouldn’t have gone.’

  She thought back to that time. Not once had she guessed it had just been for her. Sev had said he’d had the tickets for ages. It was quite simply the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her on her birthday.

  ‘Anyway, this one was particularly bad,’ Sev said. ‘It was all songs.’

  ‘Well, it is a musical.’

  ‘I hate them. Why can’t they just talk? Imagine if I sang everything to you?’

  She couldn’t.

  But then she did.

  ‘You know how nice and sweet Jamal is?’ Sev asked, and their brains must be hot-wired tonight because he then sang the same line in a deep baritone. ‘You know how nice and sweet Jamal is...?’

  They started laughing but then Sev, bored with singing, told her what had happened. ‘When she realised that I hadn’t brought you, sweet Jamal turned into an utter bitch. Honestly, she ignored Felicity and she was downright rude to me. She was even more badly behaved than we were last night and that’s saying something.’

  Naomi laughed and then she asked something she wanted to know. ‘Are you and Allem friends?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Sev shrugged.

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘A chat room,’ Sev said, and he saw her cheeks go pink. ‘Not everything is about sex, Naomi. I had an idea for cell phones and, of course, I couldn’t afford to do anything with it. I didn’t tell him fully what it was but he was curious enough and rich enough to want to know more. He flew me to Dubai and we discussed it. It was odd. When you talk online you just talk business. Only when I got there did I realise he was a rich sheikh and he in turn found out that I was...’ Sev shrugged. ‘Well, put it this way, I hadn’t flown before, let alone first class. A couple of months later he flew me here to work on a prototype. I’ve never really gone back.’

  ‘At all?’

  ‘A couple of times,’ Sev said, but he was more interested in hearing about her.

  ‘So, what upset you tonight?’

  ‘My father and Judy were actually at the theatre.’

  ‘You wish he’d offered to take you?’

  Naomi nodded.

  ‘Were he and your mother together for long?’

  ‘They got married when my mum found out she was having me but they broke up when I was a few months old.’ Naomi stared at the ceiling and the shadows dancing there. ‘I think she got pregnant in the hope of forcing something between them,’ Naomi said. ‘And then spent the next twenty-five years regretting it.’

  ‘You’re not close to her, then?’

  ‘No.’ Naomi shook her head. ‘She was very career focused. My school holidays I was palmed off to aunts or my grandparents. All I’ve ever wanted is a family, can you get that?’

  He had wanted a family.

  Growing up, it had been a secret dream.

  A few years ago it had turned into reality but the plump, smiling woman he’d sort of envisaged his mother to be was, in fact, a skeletal alcoholic who wanted nothing to do with him.

  And as for his sister!

  Yet he had been about Naomi’s age when the dream had died and he had realised that a childhood dream was all it had ever been.

  ‘It’s a childish want, Naomi.’

  From anyone else it might have sounded mean, yet it did
n’t when it came from Sev.

  ‘You want the dream.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You have a family,’ Sev pointed out. He looked at Naomi. She was one of the home kids who had stuck rice on a card for their mother. One of the home kids he’d assumed had had everything.

  He knew better than that now.

  ‘Accept what is instead of trying to rearrange the formula.’

  ‘It’s not maths, Sev.’

  ‘No,’ he conceded, ‘but maybe if you think of it more logically...’

  ‘Aaaggh.’ She banged her feet on the floor.

  ‘Don’t let people upset you, don’t dwell on things so much.’

  ‘I just want to give me and my father a chance. If you think about it logically, he doesn’t know me. I’m giving us that chance. It’s his fiftieth on Friday.’ Naomi sighed. ‘They were horrified that I’d remembered and then he and Judy kept telling me not to make a fuss about it.’

  ‘Then don’t.’

  ‘I can’t just ignore his birthday.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ Sev said. ‘I do things like that all the time.’

  ‘You’re not normal, though.’ Naomi smiled.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Anderson.’

  ‘Anderson Johnson?’ Sev said, flicking through his mind like some search engine, trying to work out if he’d come across him before, but Naomi shook her head.

  ‘No, my mother gave me her surname.’

  ‘So what’s his?’

  ‘Anderson.’ Naomi said, and she watched as his lips twitched into a smile.

  ‘His name is Anderson Anderson?’ Sev checked, and Naomi nodded.

  ‘Thank God he’s only ever had daughters, then...’ Sev put on a formal voice. ‘Allem, I’d like you to meet Anderson Anderson and this is Anderson Anderson, Junior...’

  ‘Stop it,’ Naomi said, though she was smiling.

  Lying by a fire with Sev, her wretched night had been saved and she felt happy for once.

  ‘So what’s your father’s name?’

  ‘Pass,’ Sevastyan answered. ‘And, no, that’s not his surname. I mean pass as in can we change the subject?’

  She did, but only a little bit. ‘What’s your mother’s name?’ Naomi said. ‘Am I allowed to ask that?’

  ‘Breta,’ Sev answered. ‘Next question.’

  She guessed he didn’t want to dwell on them and so, given that he had invited her to, she asked instead about something else that had been bugging her. ‘Why white roses?’

  ‘You prove my point without me having to make it,’ Sev sighed. ‘Women read far too much into things that need no reading into at all. If I send red, they’d think love, if I send pink then its romance. Maybe I could try yellow, but I’m sure that they’d come up with something... White is just white.’

  ‘Weddings,’ Naomi said, and he shook his head.

  ‘Oh, no, not me.’

  ‘Virgins?’ Naomi smiled but again he shook his head.

  ‘Not by the time I send flowers.’ He turned and matched her smile. ‘Why can’t women just get that I’m not going to be around for long? I don’t want anyone for long.’

  She just lay there as he spelt out what she already knew.

  ‘Next question,’ Sev said.

  Oh, she had so very many questions but she settled for a rather tame one. ‘What is your favourite colour?’

  He was about to say that he didn’t have one but then Sev decided that maybe he did and even if not, his answer might earn him a favour and he stared deeply into her eyes as he answered. ‘Brown.’

  ‘Oh, please.’ She was so over his chat-up lines.

  ‘It really is.’

  ‘Faded, dried-up roses...’ Naomi sighed.

  ‘Lie between pages,’ Sev said, and she thought about his words for a moment as she stared into his eyes.

  They would lie between the pages, Naomi thought.

  If she were ever the recipient of a bunch of roses from him then that’s exactly where they’d end up.

  ‘What’s your favourite colour?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t have one,’ Naomi said. ‘I once dared to say green when I was sixteen and every year since then my mother buys me a green eyeshadow palette for Christmas.’

  ‘You have to answer the question.’

  ‘Black, I guess.’

  ‘Technically, black’s not a colour, it’s actually the absence of colour...’

  It was, Naomi thought. It was the delicious absence of colour that she would see any moment now, because his mouth was next to hers and when their lips met, black would be all she’d see.

  It would be like sinking under anaesthetic, Naomi thought, but then he’d tear out her heart and use it like a stress ball, for a few hours, days, maybe weeks.

  Right now she didn’t care.

  It was the lightest kiss, only their faces moved towards the other, and he tasted every bit as smooth and expensive as she had thought he might. They remained on their backs, eyes open. His mouth was very soft and his kiss tender for a whole six seconds.

  He rolled onto his side and took over the kiss, just in case she changed her mind.

  Naomi didn’t and she saw her favourite colour as she closed her eyes.

  Oh, she wished his kiss would disappoint her. How much easier would that make things if it did?

  Instead, though, he kissed her harder and his champagne tongue slid in as skilfully as the hand that moved into her robe and straight to her breast that had ached for him since last night when he had suddenly terminated contact and pulled up her zip.

  She struggled but only internally. Outside her head her body was utterly willing. Naomi could feel how hard he was against her thigh and from their deepening kiss her prediction was right—they’d very soon be naked on the floor.

  ‘Naomi,’ Sev said, as if he’d just struck gold.

  He felt as if he had.

  Yes, he’d imagined kissing her but they had been clumsy in his imaginings—a kiss to persuade, while this was so sensual and her mouth was just made for him. He moved on top of her, his elbows by the sides of her head. His erection pressed against her and he just looked down at her and pressed in again.

  She was on the edge of coming just at that.

  And he could feel it, the engine of her just revving, and his hand was down to his belt. Foreplay would have to be afterplay because Sev had to be inside her.

  There was a frantic tussle that was deeply sexy. Her hands were trying to get her out of her knickers as he freed himself, and there wasn’t even a thought as to protection. Sev even wondered if he’d get it in before he came as her hips pressed up into him.

  And then she remembered that had she not come home when she had, he’d be a few floors up with Felicity now.

  Sev was right, she would read more into things than she should if they made love.

  Made love.

  She’d just proved her own point without even having to make it.

  God, she knew better than that.

  It was like being stuck on the runway in Mali, Sev bored, with a few hours to kill and nowhere else to go.

  ‘Stop.’

  Oh, there was a word for girls like her, Naomi knew, but she didn’t care if she was a tease. She would hold on to her heart and, breathless, still wanting, she halted things.

  He looked right into her eyes as she denied him and then he rolled off and Naomi sat up.

  He said not a word.

  Sev stood and did up his belt and Naomi sat, unable to look up at him.

  ‘’Night, Naomi,’ Sev said, his voice black. He went to go but then changed his mind and turned around and strode back.

  ‘Is it because of him?’ He picked up her hand and examined the ring that she wore as a shield—how foolish to think a bit of gold could protect her from Sev. ‘I wouldn’t waste too many guilt trips on him. It’s a fake.’

  She thought he’d rumbled that the engagement was now a fake so it took a second to realise that Sev w
as talking about the stone in the ring.

  Oh, she had so many other things to cry over but right now this would do. Only Sev didn’t see the silent trickle of tears on her cheeks, he was too busy examining the ring, and though he didn’t usually deal in feelings, he’d just been teased to the brink and he could be as much of a bitch as she.

  ‘Did he get it out of one of those catalogues that you English have?’ Sev’s grin was malicious. ‘Is he paying it off at fifty pence a week for the next twenty-four months?’

  ‘Bastard!’

  He was appalled when he saw her tears.

  ‘Do you get a kick out of embarrassing me, Sev?’

  ‘He’s the one who should be embarrassed.’

  ‘Will you please just go?’

  ‘You know, I might be a bastard, Naomi, but at least I’m not a cheap one.’

  No, Sev was a very expensive bastard, Naomi thought as she took off the ring and tossed it into the fire.

  He could cost her her heart.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THANKFULLY, NAOMI DIDN’T have to see him the next day—whatever he was up to in Washington was classified and so she hadn’t been required to go along.

  Instead she woke at sunrise and lay in bed, embarrassed and cross with herself for what had happened last night.

  Sev had had every right to be annoyed. She had been utterly willing and completely wanting.

  She still was.

  How could she tell him that it wasn’t the sex part that worried her, it was afterwards?

  Naomi had come to New York with the knowledge she might have her heart broken by her father. She really didn’t need the added pain of Sevastyan Derzhavin and that, as he’d told her last night, was a guaranteed hurt.

  She knew the appalling mixed messages she had sent, though, and she owed him an apology at least.

  Naomi reached for her phone and then changed her mind.

  Not yet.

  For now she went into work and got on with the job of trying to find her replacement, as well as attempting to produce a file, as she had when she had left previous employers, outlining Sev’s routines and preferences.

  He was consistently inconsistent, though.

  Even his coffee preferences changed from one cup to the next.

  She scrolled through his diary, trying to establish some sort of pattern.

  He travelled the world but his journeys were scattered.