by Lynne Graham
Sergei, who had little experience of women who fought back on his own level, was astounded to be forced to witness the reality that his future wife could dance in a very suggestive manner with another man. Dark eyes colder than a Siberian winter, he watched Alissa wriggle her curvaceous hips and turn, short skirt flying up to reveal the pink lace-edged net and a pair of very shapely, slender legs. He strode across the floor and, with an aggressive jerk of his head at her partner, he cut in, lifting his hands to rest them on her slight shoulders.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ he demanded rawly in the interval when the music paused before coming back again on an even more deafening beat.
Alissa was stunned by the level of aggression in his behaviour and was not at all surprised that the man she had been dancing with beat a safe sensible retreat, for she suspected that Sergei was quite capable of getting physical. In an abrupt movement that took him by surprise she shrugged off his hands and stalked off the floor. She was going home and she didn’t care how he felt about it. She wasn’t prepared to spend one more minute in a domineering brute’s company!
Sergei’s anger was laced with outrage and a profound and lingering sense of disbelief because her defiant refusal to conform to his expectations was the direct opposite of the treatment he was used to receiving from a woman. He strode off in her wake, snatching out his cell phone to answer it when it buzzed. It was the owner of the firm he used to do background screening calling to tell him that it would take much more time than was available before the wedding to do the usual full in-depth check on Alissa. Sergei studied the tiny stalking figure ahead of him, the swirl of her short skirt, the defiant angle of her little shoulders, and told his caller to forget about the check altogether. Just then he knew that, whatever happened, he intended to have her in his bed and to hell with the risk!
Alissa stopped at the coat-check facility, for she had no intention of drawing down Alexa’s ire by abandoning her sister’s much-prized coat.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Sergei growled from several feet away.
‘I’m going home. I don’t date Neanderthal men and the only place you belong is a cave!’ Alissa sizzled back at him without hesitation.
‘You’re not on a date,’ Sergei reminded her with biting cool, reluctantly amused by the ‘Neanderthal man’ crack, but also offended even though nothing would have made him betray that crucial fact.
In an impatient movement he stepped forward and addressed the coat check attendant. ‘Get a move on,’ he urged. ‘We are in a hurry.’
‘Don’t be so rude!’ Alissa launched at him. ‘She’s not feeling well. She doesn’t need you barking orders at her like she’s in the army.’
All amusement evaporating, Sergei drew in a long slow breath and suppressed his volcanic temper with some difficulty. Borya and his men were already stationed by the exit, transfixed by the scene being enacted fifteen feet from them. What sort of a woman dared to tell him how to behave? Criticised him? Threatened to walk out on him? He flicked a glance at the shocked coat-check girl, who was coughing noisily into a hanky and simultaneously trying to shrink into the back of her cubbyhole. What sort of a woman cared about the health or the feelings of a menial employee? A kinder woman than the more selfish type he usually spent his time with, he conceded grudgingly. Her altruistic concern reminded him of Yelena, who had long been the first port of call when neighbours fell sick or needed someone to mind their children. Here was a woman who might, with his guidance, turn into exactly the kind of wife he wanted to produce for his grandmother’s inspection.
Alissa watched Sergei settle a high denomination banknote down on the counter in a silent apology. Oh, how she wished the girl would fling it back in his handsome teeth and demand the words instead, but of course she didn’t. In obvious awe of him, she stammered heartfelt thanks and pocketed the money at a speed that shook Alissa. He took the coat and extended it with a flourish for Alissa.
She dug her arms into it and froze as his lean warm hands lifted her hair from her nape where it had caught beneath the collar. The gentle brush of his fingertips against her skin burned through her sensitised body like a match flame lighting dry crackling straw. That fast she remembered the raw, demanding sensuality and pressure of his mouth and her body reacted to the memory with an instantaneous rush of heat and moisture between her thighs. Unbearably aware of her body’s wanton vulnerability, she froze.
Sergei eased her back against his big powerful frame and ran lean, sure hands down her sleeves to lift and enclose her hands in the warm, firm grip of his. Unable to maintain her rigid stance and wildly aware of his proximity, she trembled.
‘The press are waiting outside and you are about to enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame,’ he murmured lazily, the rich dark tone of his deep voice feathering like a caress along her spine. ‘It’s time to start acting and look happy to be with me.’
Alissa was bemused by that information. The press? She felt out of her depth and knew that, most ironically, her sister would have loved such a moment in the public eye. ‘So I can’t slap you, then?’
Sergei vented a roughened masculine laugh that made her more than ever conscious of his sexual pulling power. ‘No.’
‘Or sulk?’
‘I wouldn’t put up with it, milaya moya. Just like I won’t stand another man laying a single finger on any part of you while you’re supposed to be mine,’ he added with a studious casualness that somehow made what he was saying all the more riveting. ‘With me there are boundaries and you must respect them. Do I need to say any more?’
Picking up on the intimidating chill in his intonation, Alissa almost shivered, but she was bone-deep resistant to domination of any kind. ‘Were you born a bully? Or do you find you have to work at it?’
Sergei was utterly poleaxed by that impudent comeback. Black brows descending over grim dark eyes, he stared down at the shining blonde head that barely reached the centre of his chest, his long brown fingers still instinctively engaged in stroking the fine-boned fragility of her wrists. She was the size of a doll and she was fighting him every step of the way. He could not even begin to credit her bravado.
‘Your silence tells me that it comes naturally to you,’ Alissa answered for herself and even she was wondering why she was going out on a limb to hit back at him. Was it the effect of the vodka? Or his behaviour with female admirers, which had paraded his total lack of interest in her feelings? Or the ghastly embarrassing truth that she found him stupendously attractive in spite of his overpoweringly masculine ways?
Sergei bent to clamp his hands to her waist and then he lifted her bodily around to face him. ‘By the time I’m finished with you, you will love football—’
Seriously vexed at being lifted off her feet and treated like a child, Alissa focused on him with blazing aquamarine eyes. ‘Dream on!’
‘And once you get used to me you’ll be jealous and clingy and adoring just like all the other women I’ve ever known,’ Sergei completed with raw conviction.
In the hold of his hands, her fingers balled into furious fists. ‘I don’t think you can ever have met a woman like me before.’
His brilliant dark eyes flamed golden as the heart of a fire and he looked dangerous, his lean, dark, handsome face taut. ‘Stoy…stop!’ he spelt out with critical cool. ‘Have you forgotten why you are here with me?’
Her lashes lowered and she was suddenly still and fighting to get a grip on her angry discomfiture. His reminder had been timely: she had forgotten. He had hired Alexa to carry out a role and so far Alissa had annoyed him, disagreed with him and argued with him. She breathed in slow and deep to calm herself.
‘That is better,’ Sergei pronounced and he lowered his arrogant dark head and pressed his lips gently to her lush pink mouth.
And for the merest fraction of a second she resisted the urge to part her lips before the throb of the blood in her veins and the acceleration of her heartbeat combined to vanquish her defenc
es. Suddenly, without even being aware of the prompting, she tipped her head back and let him taste her again, glorying in the shimmering, prickling mist of coming-alive sensation surging through her again. The flick of his tongue against the tender roof of her mouth made her shiver and press forward, instinctively wanting more.
‘Now we will go outside,’ Sergei breathed, lifting his handsome dark head and tugging her beneath one arm.
The bank of cameras and shouted questions that greeted their appearance made her shrink back against the arm locked to her slender spine. Aquamarine eyes huge, she contrived an uncertain smile while his bodyguards fanned out around them to prevent anyone from getting too close. She didn’t breathe again until she was safe inside the limousine and invisible behind the tinted windows. She was in a daze, unable to credit that she had let him kiss her again and that, in truth, she could hardly wait for a repetition. It was as if one little taste of him had created a terrifying craving she could not suppress.
‘You didn’t enjoy the attention,’ Sergei remarked, his questioning gaze locked to her pale face. ‘It frightened you—why?’
‘I suppose I’m rather a private sort of person.’
‘That is not the impression you gave in your interviews.’
Alissa had felt safe from detection in his presence because he had never met her sister. But evidently her sister’s interviews had been recorded in some way and he was aware of the content and had formed advance opinions about her personality on that basis. Suddenly she was very tense. ‘Everyone puts their best foot forward in an interview situation.’
Sergei made no comment but he noticed her evasiveness and wondered what lay behind it. ‘You have to learn to relax with me. In less than a week we’re flying to Russia for our wedding.’
‘Russia,’ Alissa echoed weakly, plunging into even deeper consternation at the concept while she asked herself if she could possibly go through with the role her twin had agreed to play.
‘This is for you.’ Sergei handed her a parcel. ‘We’ll be able to keep in touch now. I’ve been too distant from this process, milaya moya.’
It was Alexa who took the trouble to rip the wrapping off the parcel twenty minutes later. Goggle-eyed, she studied the mobile phone she had extracted and she let out a sudden whoop. ‘Oh, wow, I can’t believe it. He’s given you only one of the most expensive phones in the world! See those…’ She extended the phone to her sister. ‘Those are real diamonds.’
‘Are they?’ Alissa was unable to share her excitement for, while she could admire the glitter of the diamonds, she could not see the point of such decoration on a mobile phone. Indeed that level of adornment struck her as an embarrassingly pretentious display of wealth.
‘This is worth thousands and thousands of pounds and I’m more entitled to it than you are!’ Alexa suddenly concluded, shooting Alissa a resentful glance. ‘I’m the one who won this job and now you’re getting all the stuff that should have been mine—’
Alissa was less interested in the phone than in the wedding on the horizon. ‘Why do you think Sergei Antonovich wants a wife in the first place? Aren’t you curious?’
Alexa’s face shuttered and she pursed her lips. ‘Not really. As long as it’s nothing illegal, I couldn’t care less why. Maybe it’ll give him some sort of tax or business or inheritance advantage, or perhaps he wants a wife to give him a breathing space from all the pushy women who target him.’
‘Sergei certainly didn’t strike me as the marrying type,’ Alissa confided. ‘He also asked me to spend the night with him—’
Eyes rounding in shock, Alexa studied her twin with a dropped jaw. ‘He did? He found you that attractive? I bet you thought all your Christmases had come at once. Why did you leave him to come back here, for goodness’ sake?’
Her face hot in receipt of that revealing response, Alissa murmured, ‘The point is…why did he ask? Since when was sex part of the arrangement?’
Alexa was still engaged in playing with the phone and, although she tensed at her sister’s question, she did not lift her head for several seconds. Blue-green eyes scornful, she looked over at Alissa. ‘Think about what you’re saying. How are you planning to pretend to be his wife without ever sharing a bedroom with him?’
That angle hadn’t occurred to Alissa and she compressed her lips in dismay. ‘I didn’t realise that the job entailed carrying on the pretence that we were a couple behind closed doors.’
‘You can’t be that naïve. He must have a lot of staff and he wants everyone to think it’s the real deal, not just a select few. Of course what happens behind those closed doors would be your choice entirely.’
Alissa’s rigid expression of disapproval had eased a little. ‘So there was no prior assumption that there would be…er…intimacy of that nature?’
‘Of course not. What do you think I am?’ Alexa demanded sharply. ‘But put a young and attractive man and woman in the same room and nature tends to take its course, if you know what I mean.’
The trouble was that Alissa genuinely didn’t know, for she had as yet no experience to equal her twin’s.
‘You can’t still be a virgin!’ Alexa exclaimed, interpreting her sister’s embarrassment with a look of disbelief.
In a defensive movement, Alissa threw back her slim shoulders. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ she asked with quiet conviction. ‘I just haven’t met the right person yet and I’m not ashamed of that.’
‘Sometimes I just can’t believe we’re twins. We are so different!’ Alexa carolled in frustration. ‘Why do you make sex such a big deal? Is it any wonder you’re still on your own? A guy has to tick every box on your checklist to get anywhere near you. This exchange is just not going to work.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m the one who was picked to be Sergei’s wife and it looks like I’m the only one of us capable of carrying it off,’ Alexa breathed flatly. ‘Since we can’t repay the money, I’ll have to get an abortion.’
In horror, Alissa leapt to her feet. ‘I won’t let you do that!’
‘We only have two options,’ her twin reminded her doggedly. ‘You marry him in my place so that we can keep the money, or I terminate this pregnancy and stick to the contract—’
‘I said I would do it,’ Alissa retorted, unnerved by her twin’s mood, for she knew how impulsive her sister could be and she was very much afraid that Alexa might still press on with her idea of a termination.
‘But you’re baulking at every little thing!’ Alexa flung angrily at her.
‘I don’t call sharing a bedroom with a guy I hardly know a “little” thing…’
‘That’s right, go ahead and make me feel like a total slut just because I wouldn’t have made a big fuss about it when he’s so gorgeous! All right, I’ve had a lot of men in my life and you haven’t, but do you have to be so superior and smug about it?’
‘I’m not superior or smug,’ Alissa protested in dismay. ‘Anything but!’
‘Well, you’d better make your mind up fast. Do you want to help Mum or not?’ Alexa demanded coldly.
And did she also want to be an aunt to the baby that her sister was carrying? Alissa added inwardly. She had met the baby’s father, Harry, only that day when he’d arrived to take both young women out for lunch. Alissa had liked him very much and was satisfied that he genuinely loved her wilful twin. Right now, Alexa, however, was less easy to read or predict. Her sister was all over the place emotionally, one moment sentimental about her approaching motherhood and marriage, the next feeling threatened by the awareness that her freedom would be curtailed. Alissa could see the manner in which her twin was still retaining a possessive grip on the ridiculously expensive phone. She also knew how easily tempted her sister was by luxury goods. More than once Alexa’s love of designer labels had got her into serious debt. Alissa also fully understood that, confronted by that outrageous diamond-studded phone, Alexa was wondering if she had made a serious mistake when she had surrendered the chance to marr
y a billionaire, regardless of how brief and fake the alliance was to be.
Alissa was determined to stay with the solution that promised her sister the best chance of happiness and she rammed down a lid on all her own reservations and breathed in deep. ‘I want to help Mum more than anything. I’ll go ahead with it, whatever it costs.’
Chapter Three
ONLY a few hours after that conversation, Sergei snatched up a towel and strode out of the wet room where he had cooled his hot blood under a long cold shower. He snatched up a towel. It was four in the morning and he had barely slept. He had tossed and turned, as overheated and hungry for a woman as a sexstarved teenage boy. He was not amused by that reality and he was bewildered and frustrated by the sexual intensity Alissa Bartlett had fired in him.
A brooding frown stamped on his lean strong features, he logged onto his notebook PC and brought up the photo of his bride-to-be. It was a source of irritation that the woman in the picture somehow contrived both to look like Alissa and yet not like her. In the flesh, her face was softer, rounder, her eyes brighter, her smile full of appeal. How were those differences possible? Obviously it was an old photo, taken when she was thinner, and it wasn’t a flattering representation.
Desire, however, did not blind Sergei to more obvious facts. In every way, he reflected grimly, Alissa Bartlett had proved to be much more of an unknown quantity than he’d expected. She had demonstrated quirky autonomous traits that made him distinctly uneasy. He had thought the marriage plan was pure perfection with every detail settled in advance of the ceremony and the margin for error reduced to almost nothing. He had believed she was a safe choice. But when he endeavoured to slot that defiant little blonde, who had danced with another man, into his game plan he saw dangerous ripples spreading as though a large boulder had suddenly been pitched into still water. Gut instinct now warned him that Alissa was a bad bet, more likely to give him trouble than a smooth and successful conclusion.