by Lynne Graham
‘If I see you holding hands with another man and weeping over him, shouting is the very least of what you can expect from me!’ he raked back at her without hesitation, clearing the foot of the bed in one long stride to close the distance between them again.
‘I will not be threatened.’ Breathing in short agitated bursts, Alissa reached for the crystal vase of flowers on the occasional table beside her. ‘If you come one step closer to me, I will thump you with this!’
His ebony brows snapped together in a smouldering frown of incredulity. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘I can look after myself,’ Alissa declared with bristling outrage.
‘Why the hell would you try to thump me?’ Sergei demanded. ‘I’m not threatening you with violence.’
Alissa made no attempt to loosen her white-knuckled hold on the vase. ‘No?’
Sobered and set back by that condemnation, Sergei looked grave. ‘Of course, I’m not. I would never hurt a woman.’ He reached down faster than she could react and deftly removed the vase from her hand to set it back on the table. ‘You scare really easily, don’t you?’
‘And you’re surprised?’ Alissa bawled back at him full volume, rage and embarrassment combining inside her. ‘You roar in here like a hurricane…’
With a ground-out curse in Russian beneath his breath, Sergei snatched up one of the photos. ‘Stop trying to avoid the issue. Who is this man?’
Alissa tightened the belt on her towelling wrap and folded her arms. ‘My father—’
‘Don’t tell me a stupid lie like that!’ Sergei snapped, out of all patience at that response as he stared down at the photo in his hand. ‘This man looks no older than I am—’
‘I’m sure Dad would be very flattered to hear that opinion, but I’m just bored with the whole subject. Why don’t you check your facts before you attack people?’
‘I don’t make a habit of attacking people,’ Sergei asserted grimly, well aware that for once in his life he had let his temper rip before he had investigated the cold hard facts. That was not how he usually operated and he could not explain the sudden absence of logic and cool that had afflicted him. He only knew that he felt out of kilter and that made him uneasy. ‘If that man is your father, why are you holding his hand and crying?’
‘It was an emotional moment and I hadn’t seen him or talked to him for weeks.’ Alissa was still angry with Sergei and she shot the crystal vase a look of regret, for thumping him with it might have released some of her pent-up fury. ‘Going by the way you’re behaving, you’re obviously used to women who play around behind your back—’
‘I am not,’ Sergei cut in to dismiss that insulting charge while wondering why the instant he saw those photos of her with another man a red mist of rage had enveloped him to the exclusion of every other thought and prompting.
‘You’re not even my boyfriend,’ Alissa pointed out.
‘But tomorrow I will be your husband—’
‘I hope you’ll forgive me for saying that right at this moment that doesn’t strike me as a very appealing prospect,’ Alissa retorted with a challenging lift of her chin.
‘I’m not trying to appeal to you.’ Aggressive to the last, Sergei flung his arrogant dark head high. ‘I am what I am and I’m unlikely to change.’
‘Well, that’s certainly telling me, isn’t it?’ Alissa quipped. ‘You’re not even bright enough to learn from your mistakes.’
The silence screamed. His lean, powerful length taut with shock at that comeback, Sergei viewed her with burning disbelief.
Conscience smote Alissa. Why was it that when she began fighting with him she could never resist the urge to top his last remark? It was a bad habit and a dismal way to embark on their relationship; he would keep on fighting because he didn’t know any other way. ‘That was rude, not a fair comment—’
‘When was a woman ever fair?’ Sergei drawled between clenched teeth of outrage.
‘Giving me another opening like that is just asking for trouble,’ Alissa warned him ruefully, gazing at him and silently marvelling at the lush black luxuriance of the lashes that accentuated his beautiful dark eyes. ‘Okay, I’m at fault for not just giving you a straight answer.’
Sergei had never met a woman capable of giving him a straight answer and he was grudgingly amused by that statement.
‘But obviously my dad is my dad and I couldn’t credit that anyone would think we might be a couple,’ she protested in her own defence. ‘And since my parents broke up, my relationship with him has really suffered, so it was a very emotional meeting.’ Her throat thickened and her voice wobbled a little on that admission.
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Alissa wailed, bewildered by the question. ‘You’re an adult. What your parents do is their business.’
‘Maybe you’re not from a close family but we were really close and loving,’ Alissa countered thickly, appalled to hear tears clogging her diction again and wondering when she had turned into such a watering pot. ‘And then it all just went within twenty-four hours. It was such a shock. Dad announced that he’d fallen in love with another woman and, a few hellish weeks later, he moved in with her…’
With a sense of wonderment, Sergei stared down at the twin tracks of tears glistening on her cheeks. She was so emotional and that contradicted her psychological profile. She also seemed to sympathise with everyone but him. She’d gone from shouting at him to threatening him with a vase. His hard mouth curved ever so lightly at that comical recollection and he bent down suddenly and scooped her up easily into his arms.
‘What are you doing?’ Alissa yelped, fingers clutching wildly at a broad shoulder for balance.
‘I think it’s called being supportive. I’m not sure. It’s not a field I’m experienced in,’ Sergei confided, settling down on the bed with her slight frame cradled on his lap and deciding that, after all, there was something to be said for this supportive stuff.
‘Mum’s so unhappy and I can’t fix it,’ Alissa mumbled tearfully, wiping angrily at her wet eyes, finally acknowledging that she was exhausted by the day she had endured.
‘She’ll meet someone else and be happy again,’ Sergei forecast, lowering his handsome dark head, nostrils flaring as he breathed in the soapy, peachy aroma of her hair and skin. The neckline of the robe had dropped lower and wider to reveal the smooth, tantalising upper slope of her firm breasts. That view stoked his hunger for her by a factor of ten.
‘She loves Dad. Life’s not that simple…’
‘Only because you want to make it complicated,’ Sergei cut in, tilting her head back and nuzzling his darkly shadowed jaw rhythmically against the tender skin of her throat. She quivered in his grasp, every sense leaping into sudden awareness. ‘Ti takaya nezhnaya… you are so soft, milaya moya.’
Alissa knew she had to pull away and respect the boundaries that she knew she needed to impose with him, but the physical ability to resist Sergei’s dark allure was terrifyingly absent. He was being so gentle and she sensed that that didn’t come naturally to him. Her nipples were tingling into straining prominence, sending an electrifying message to the swelling dampening tissue between her thighs. That sensual awakening was an exquisite pain.
His mouth closed over hers in a wildly intoxicating kiss. Fireworks of response blazed inside her, sending her temperature rocketing while her hunger climbed. She let her fingers sink into his cropped black hair with a muffled moan of satisfaction. She couldn’t get close enough to him. He felt as necessary to her as air to breathe. The fierce intensity of his hard mouth on hers was devastatingly erotic. He slid his hand through the gaping neckline of her robe and captured a pouting rose-tipped breast, skilled fingers stroking the velvety tip into throbbing rigidity. A gasp of response erupted from her as sensation piled on sensation. He kissed her breathless and her heart was hammering so hard she felt dizzy and clung to him.
The buzz of a mobile phone proved to be the wakeup call she needed. She pushed him away with both hands and
tugged the edges of the robe back together. Trembling, she slid back to the floor, shunning the bed and him and the deceptive intimacy that had almost betrayed her. He answered his phone, his dark drawl rough-edged with huskiness.
When the dialogue finished, she breathed, ‘What happened to the meeting you said you had this evening?’
‘A London tabloid newspaper editor sent me those photos, obviously in the hope that I would dump you and call off the wedding and so give them an even bigger scoop,’ he explained with rich cynicism. ‘I skipped the meeting.’
Her body was a riot of nerve-endings sizzling with a sense of loss and disappointment. He was making her want things she had never wanted before and he was teaching her to want him with a depth of longing that physically hurt. The atmosphere was explosive, undertones swirling beneath the uneasy silence that intimidated her.
Sergei always played it cool, but he was fighting a very powerful urge to just yank her back into his arms. He hated the idea that she had any kind of a hold on him, for that was not his style. ‘You want me to leave,’ he murmured.
Alissa stared back at him, knowing that that was not what she wanted at all, but also that it was what she should want. His lean, darkly beautiful features dazzled her, commanded her attention, and locked her gaze to him. His very interest thrilled her and made her feel special. He was the sort of guy she had never expected to meet and she knew she would never meet his like again. To be an object of desire to a male who had been with some of the world’s most beautiful women just blew her away.
‘Alissa..?’ he prompted.
‘Yes.’ The word of rejection was forced from her by fear, for she felt insanely out of her depth.
As self-assured as ever, Sergei strolled over to her and rested a lean bronzed forefinger against the pulse flickering below the pale purplish hollow of her collarbone, betraying her tension. ‘Tomorrow, you will be mine. Twenty—four-seven, milaya moya,’ he reminded her silkily. ‘I can hardly wait.’
Even after the door thudded shut on his departure, Alissa stayed where she was, frozen between consternation and anticipation. Some minutes later she got into bed in a daze and tried to find sleep rather than relive the forbidden delight of his hands on her body…
Chapter Five
ALISSA WAS WAKENED early the following morning and treated to breakfast in bed. Her mother phoned her to wish her well. In the background she could hear a hubbub of bridal activity and she was hurt when Alexa professed to be too busy to come to the phone and speak to her sister personally.
After she’d had a shower, Alissa found a beautician and a hairdresser awaiting her. Clearly, a strict schedule was being observed. The professionals took charge and her hair was styled, her nails painted and her face made up. She could not escape the surreal sense that none of what was happening really had anything to do with her. It was not until the wedding gown was reverently brought in by one of the designer’s assistants that she began to feel involved and intimidated at one and the same time.
The white dress was an elegant column design, lifted into the extraordinary by the shimmering crystals that glittered on the gorgeous fabric like thousands of stars below the lights. Alissa was hugely impressed and equally so with the cobweb-fine lingerie and the shoes ornamented with pearls. She suffered a moment’s fear that the dress would not fit, but it skimmed her curves to perfection and she dared to breathe again. The delicate tulle veil falling from the wreath of real flowers encircling her head was very pretty. When she finally saw herself in a mirror, she knew she had never looked better.
She was ushered downstairs and tucked into a limousine. When she was deposited in front of a public building, she had to fight the urge to shiver in the icy air. A young woman, who spoke fluent English, greeted her in the busy hallway and introduced herself as Lukina, one of Sergei’s aides.
‘Where are we?’ Alissa asked.
‘ZAGS-where the civil ceremony takes place.’ The question seemed to surprise the brunette. ‘Didn’t you receive the information I sent you a few weeks ago? It contained a complete breakdown of everything that would be happening today as well as some useful pointers.’
Alissa reddened and realised that once again her twin had neglected to keep her up to speed on things that she needed to know. ‘Sorry, I forgot.’
‘Mr Antonovich is keen for you to make a particular effort to be pleasant to his grandmother, Yelena,’ Lukina informed her anxiously. ‘He’s her only grandson and this is a very special day for her.’
Alissa’s flush deepened at the offensive suggestion that she might have to be told to be nice to Sergei’s grandmother. So it was that her eyes were sparkling when she entered the room where the ceremony was to take place. Bridal music was playing in the background as, heartbreakingly handsome in a superbly tailored dark suit, Sergei strode up to her and presented her with a dainty bouquet of rosebuds that was incongruous in his large hands and which he patently could not wait to relinquish.
Every choice concerning the wedding had been based on what Yelena might like or expect. Sergei had ordered an extremely feminine and romantic wedding dress, as he had guessed that Yelena, who had never enjoyed frills in her own life, would enjoy such a spectacle. What he had not foreseen was how well the shimmering dress and simple floral wreath would frame and enhance Alissa’s fair, delicate beauty. She looked like a fairy princess from an old storybook, and although he wanted to laugh at that comparison he was disturbed by the discovery that he could not take his eyes off her.
Meeting Sergei’s dark smouldering gaze, Alissa tensed. Sexual awareness and the first renewed flickers of desire stole back into her slender body. He reached for her hand and she saw a small elderly woman in a bright blue dress and jacket keenly observing them and smiled, immediately guessing who she was.
The brief ceremony was highlighted by an exchange of wedding rings and she learned that in Russia the wedding ring was worn on a woman’s right hand. Afterwards they signed the register, whereupon Sergei introduced her to the woman she had noticed earlier. Yelena, as cheerful as a spring flower in her suit, glowed with energy and good humour.
Yelena shared the limousine that ferried them to the church and Sergei translated his grandmother’s rapidfire questions.
Asked if she liked children, Alissa declared that she adored them and hoped to have two or three. Yelena followed up that response with others of a more housewifely note. Did she cook? Yes, but she didn’t bake very well. Did she sew? Not really, the ability to sew on a button was Alissa’s only talent in that field. Did she embroider or knit? No, she didn’t embroider, but she had loved knitting ever since she created tiny garments for a friend’s baby. Sergei was accustomed to women without domestic skills and he was quick to assume that Alissa had decided to lie to impress Yelena. But struggling to translate a more technical exchange on knitting for the women’s benefit, he began to doubt that conviction and he was pleased to see his grandmother beaming at his chosen bride.
‘She took the trouble to knit for her friend’s baby. That’s a good woman. You’ve done well,’ Yelena pronounced with approval, straightening her grandson’s tie for him before he could assist her from the car. ‘She’s very pretty as well. Give as much time to your marriage as you give to business and you will be together for a lifetime.’
Taken aback by that blunt advice on how to hold onto a woman when he had much more trouble getting rid of them, Sergei escorted his bride and his grandmother into the church, which was packed with guests. Awesomely aware of being the centre of attention and recognising the buzz of curiosity as she passed by, Alissa was tense and nervous and very much afraid of making a wrong move in public. She was also striving to understand why Alexa had begged her to marry Sergei in her place while withholding all useful information about the role. Had her sister secretly wanted her twin to fall flat on her face?
The priest blessed their rings and they were given candles to hold. They held hands as the slow ritual proceeded, reaching its climax when they
were crowned and followed by the sharing of a cup of wine and a final blessing.
‘I really, really feel married after all that palaver,’ Sergei growled like a bear on the way out again.
‘You’ve been through it all before,’ Alissa pointed out, less comfortable with the knowledge that she was faking a marriage in the aftermath of a solemn religious service.
‘I only went through a civil ceremony the last time. This day will last for ever,’ Sergei groaned. ‘We still have the reception to get through.’
‘Don’t you enjoy socialising?’ Alissa was wryly amused by his mood and grateful she was not a genuine bride, liable to feel hurt by his indifferent attitude.
‘That’s not the problem.’ In the rear seat of the limo, Sergei gripped her hand to turn her round to face him. Black-lashed, dark golden eyes raked hungrily over her in a look that was purebred primitive. ‘You make the most exquisite bride. I just want all the show and fuss to be over quickly so that I can be alone with you, milaya moya.’
Her face warmed, and habit almost made her voice a protest to remind him that she was only a fake bride and that his being alone with her wasn’t about to change anything. But when she looked at his devastatingly handsome features and felt the pull of his potent masculinity, her heartbeat hammered in her eardrums and the griping words shrivelled on her tongue and died in her throat. The truth was that Sergei Antonovich absolutely mesmerised her and, even though she knew that the relationship could go nowhere, temptation was biting deeply into her resolve to keep things platonic.
After all, no man had ever made her feel the way Sergei made her feel and it was perfectly possible, given the level of Sergei’s attraction, that no other man ever would. How was she supposed to live in close proximity to him and pretend to be his wife, while at the same time totally resisting his attraction? Piece by piece, hour by hour, he was contriving to weaken her will power and destroy her defences. Alexa’s scornful words about her twin’s lack of sexual experience had also left their mark on Alissa, making her feel foolish, outdated and ignorant. Perhaps it was true that she was guilty of making sex too much of a big deal, she reasoned uncertainly.