Untouched by His Diamonds

by Lucy Ellis

  People had them. She had girlfriends who slept with men for no other purpose than sexual enjoyment. It was a natural part of life. Apparently.

  But she didn’t. She had relationship sex—the sort that had a framework of mutual caring and a view to a future together. That both of her relationships had been ended by her, neither truly touching her heart, did not make it any less true. She had gone into them with an innocence, a belief in love, until Joe Carnegie showed her exactly how base the relations between men and women could be.

  And that experience haunted her. She hadn’t realised how much until she’d met Serge. It hung over her like Damocles’ sword. She was frightened of giving too much of herself to him, of opening herself up and having Serge reduce it to something sordid.

  She thought she knew him—he was sweet and generous and attentive—but waking up alone now, as she had on that first morning, brought it back to her. How they had met, where they were now—in a swish hotel, with him continuing on with his working life, her life on hiatus.

  Sitting up, she looked dismally around the room.

  She never got over the luxury. But it felt empty without him, and worse, it made her feel uneasy. After all, it wasn’t as if they actually had a proper relationship.

  The half-open door came wide and Serge wandered in with two coffee mugs, his eyes settling on her. ‘You’re awake, dushka.’

  ‘Serge.’ She couldn’t hide her pleasure at seeing him.

  ‘Cover yourself up, or I won’t be responsible for my actions. And we have to move. I’m taking you to the Hamptons for the weekend.’

  ‘Now?’

  His gaze settled on her naked body. ‘You’re purposefully making this difficult. Da—now.’

  Clementine leapt out of bed and ran for the door.

  Serge watched her bottom wobble tantalisingly out of view. He liked waking up in the morning with Clementine warm and sweet, draped across him, and he wasn’t about to pretend even to himself that he didn’t; he even got a kick out of phoning her during the day and hearing that breathless ‘Serge’, as if she couldn’t believe he had called her and would drop everything to fly to his side. Which she never did. Not Miss Independent. For all her demonstrative shows of affection he had a sense of her hovering like a butterfly, not quite sure of her perch. The analogy was apt—delicate, whimsical, difficult to hold. Her elusiveness remained, despite the week they had spent together.

  It probably explained her hold over him.

  It was clearer to him than ever that being a girl on call to a rich man was not a scenario Clementine truly understood. He was beginning to suspect he was her first foray into this world. If her wide-eyed reaction to the penthouse suite hadn’t told him that, her refusal to wear the diamond necklace confirmed it.

  He was beginning to suspect she had no idea what any of this was about—and that made two of them.

  The helicopter ride out was thrilling. The view of the city below was like a movie. As they came in over the Atlantic coast Clementine leaned down to take in the curling breakers on the beach below.

  ‘You have no fear, kisa,’ Serge shouted above the roar of the rotorblade.

  ‘I have a few, Slugger—just not of heights,’ she sang back. ‘Tell me that is not where we’re staying?’

  A beautiful large white house, set down beside dunes falling away to the beach.

  On the helipad he took her hand in a casual gesture and led her towards the house. ‘Welcome home, Clementine.’

  ‘You live here?’

  ‘I’m thinking about buying it. I’m leasing at the moment.’

  ‘What about St Petersburg?’

  ‘Winter. When I can.’

  For the first time she realised it made sense for him to have a base in the US. It hadn’t occurred to her before. His business interests in the main were here. He wouldn’t be living out of hotels.

  He was just living in a hotel with her.

  Unease slid through her but she pushed it aside. She was here now. He’d brought her here now.

  ‘Can you take me on a tour of the house?’

  He gave her that flashing grin that told her he enjoyed surprising her.

  ‘It will be my pleasure,’ he said, with a note of formality that shouldn’t have surprised her. He’d pulled out this traditional Russian male several times since she’d been with him and it always got to her.

  It made her trust him a little more—made her want things from him she couldn’t have.

  Which was dangerous thinking. Just looking around this huge, airy house she couldn’t help but be conscious of the gulf between them. He took this level of luxury for granted. She wondered what he would say if he saw her shared flat, with its two bedrooms and a showerhead over the bathtub? Picturing Serge in her tiny bolthole brought a wry smile to her lips. Picturing him in her bath made her laugh out loud, and he angled her a curious but amused look.

  ‘What is funny, kisa?’

  ‘I was thinking—what’s a middle-class girl from Melbourne doing in a Russian billionaire’s summer house in East Hampton?’ she replied cheekily.

  ‘Enjoying the amenities,’ he shot back. ‘It’s all at your disposal, Clementine. The tennis court, pool, games room, theatre, and of course the Atlantic Ocean.’

  They had reached the other end of the house and stepped out onto the deck, extending like the prow of a ship out towards the grassy dunes and the Atlantic beyond. The sea breeze lifted Clementine’s hair and wrapped it around her neck.

  ‘It’s huge. You cannot live here all by yourself.’

  ‘I’ll use it for entertaining this summer.’ He shrugged. ‘And I’m not living here alone at the moment. I’ve got you.’

  Clementine tried not to enjoy that comment too much, but she had to drop her chin to hide her smile at his words. He really was being very sweet. Ever since that conversation in the car, coming back from Mick Forster’s gym, he’d been everything she needed him to be—attentive, considerate, looking after her needs. It was very easy to forget she was only here on a break.

  Although he’d said he wanted more. And after a week so did she. She looked up at him, wondering how to broach the subject. It was hard for her. She’d been let down so often in the past. People wanted you around as long as you were entertaining or useful or fulfilled a function. Her own parents had taught her well. She came second, never first. Serge was making an effort right now, but she knew it couldn’t last. She was already foreseeing the end of all of this, when one day she woke up and discovered she’d overstayed her welcome.

  She was still thinking about it when Serge left her to go and make some calls. Even on a weekend break his work didn’t stop. As she wandered around the state-of-the-art kitchen, opening cupboards, checking the cooking utensils, imagining the meals she could prepare in here, she mused ruefully that it wasn’t other women she needed to worry about with Serge. It was the business that was her rival. If she was going to stay with him she needed to get a job, and it occurred to her that with the Marinov Corporation facing a huge public relations exercise in the media at the moment her skills might be put to some use.

  She was tired of spruiking fashion. She wanted something to get her teeth into.

  But mostly it would be nice to show Serge the smart girl wrapped in the sexy girl package.

  Serge reappeared in quarter of an hour, stripped down to a pair of boardshorts and nothing else. Clementine went a bit weak at the knees, but told herself there was no way she was going to strip him naked and do anything remotely sexy with him in the kitchen, because it was broad daylight and anyone could walk in.

  ‘How about we go for a swim, kisa?’

  Her lustful thoughts dissolved as her face fell. ‘I don’t have a bathing suit.’

  He winked at her. ‘All taken care of.’

  ‘I’m not wearing something that belonged to some random woman you brought here.’

  For a moment Clementine fancied he was going to say something about those random women. Then he shrugge
d. ‘I had a buyer bring in a summer wardrobe for you, Clementine. I checked your size from your existing clothes.’

  ‘You bought me clothes?’ She struggled to keep control of her voice.

  ‘Da—I’m a prince.’

  She searched his eyes for a hint of ownership, but he looked relaxed.

  Okay, he was turning it all into a bit of a joke. She could relax into that. This wasn’t about her in a designer dress on his arm. This was casual. This was just between them. This was his summer home.

  He’d brought her to his home.

  She needed to relax.

  Then she flushed, a little disconcerted by the notion of Serge knowing her measurements.

  ‘I’m waiting to be chastised for buying you clothes, kisa,’ he drawled.

  ‘You’ll be waiting a long time,’ she replied loftily, tossing her hair. ‘But those bathers better be more than postage stamps.’

  It was bliss to frolic in the cold Atlantic surf. Clementine had grown up beside the beach, and it was what she missed most living in England. There were beaches, but nothing like what she was used to at home.

  Serge swam with her. He was a different man here. She’d noticed it even as the spit of land had come into view from the helicopter. He laughed with her and teased her, and seemed to have left the city and all his tensions behind.

  As they strode out of the surf she felt confident enough to bring up the subject she’d been rehearsing in her mind all day.

  ‘Serge,’ she ventured, ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said—about my staying on here.’

  He tugged her closer, his gaze appreciative of the virtually transparent red bikini clinging to her wet skin.

  ‘That sounds promising.’

  ‘I was thinking maybe I could work for you. You must have a huge PR department?’

  The sexual heat was doused with a bucket of reality. ‘Nyet—no, definitely not. It’s not a place for you, kisa.’

  ‘What do you mean? I’m fabulous at my job.’

  ‘I have no doubt. But you won’t be working in the fight game, Clementine. Not while you’re with me.’

  She looked at him sadly. Why did he have to bring that up? The sense there was a time limit on everything? She wanted to forget that, to be in the moment with him if the moment was all he could give her.

  ‘Listen.’ He took her chin between his thumb and index finger. ‘I can send you in the direction of any number of high-profile fashion firms in this city. Getting you a job, beautiful girl, is not a problem.’

  She hadn’t thought of that. His contacts. The water foamed around their feet. ‘I’d prefer to get my own job, Serge.’

  ‘Does that mean you’ll stay, kisa?’ He slid his hands behind her shoulders.

  She tossed her ponytail. ‘I could be persuaded.’

  He had her. Serge tried to ignore the rush of hot excitement that thought brought with it. Any other woman arranging her life to suit his would have rung serious warning bells, but he wanted this. He didn’t want Clementine going back to London. He needed her a little longer—just until this craving for her was worked out of his system in increasingly inventive sex.

  Except it hadn’t been particularly inventive. His imagination came up with the scenarios, but the reality was that when she was in his arms he found it became much more about losing themselves in one another, in the kissing, the touching, but especially her soft touch. She didn’t display any skills, or even really initiate anything between them. Not that he gave her much time to. He couldn’t get enough of her, and the only thing that slowed him down was the impression Clementine was still adapting to him and the realities of their sexual relationship. Sometimes she would have a vulnerable look on her face, and instead of stripping her naked he would just cuddle with her—which, he told himself, proved nothing except that he was sensitive to her needs, and that made her more susceptible to future approaches.

  That night the sex was fast and furious and then finished. Clementine fell into a deep sleep almost immediately it was over.

  He’d worn her out. The thought stroked a male ego he hadn’t known needed stroking. Yet he lay awake long afterwards, with the moonlight spilling over the bed and Clementine’s face illuminated in the pale light on the pillow beside him. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But her features were slightly irregular, there were freckles all over her body, and she had the most endearing snore. Why all of this should enhance her beauty he didn’t know. Only it did.

  He must have dozed, because he awoke to hear her voice soft in his ear. She was telling him things, and at first all he did was listen. How overwhelming it had been for her, arriving in London three years ago, not knowing anyone, all the trouble she’d got into, the jobs she’d endured. But always she’d kept thinking: I can’t go back. I can’t put my tail between my legs and go home. There’s a bigger life out in the world for me.

  He figured he was only hearing all of this because his eyes were closed. His mysterious little Clem was opening up, and he wasn’t about to let the cat out of the bag by shifting an inch. He could feel her hair sliding over his arm and chest, the warm press of her breast and belly and leg. He was thinking how sweet she was, confiding in him like this.

  She had run into her old schoolmate and neighbour Luke in a pub—’You remember Luke? He was going to punch you on the nose.’ And suddenly her life had started to open up. On Luke’s advice she’d switched to her first good job with the Ward Agency, spruiking for up-and-coming fashion designers. Her name had got passed on until she’d landed the job with Verado.

  She told him how Luke had always told her it was who you knew before it was what was you did, and how she tried to make every contact count. She had learned to work a room, learned to make the most of what she had and flirt up a storm, and as a result she’d got jobs.

  Da, he got that. He’d worked out for himself the sexy-girl persona was just that—something designed to get attention. He just hadn’t connected that to her working life. But it made complete sense. It was why he never got that sexy girl in his bed. He got someone better, a lot less knowing, a lot more real, sensual, genuine.

  As he lay there, debating whether to roll over and get up, pull the cord on this little confessional skydive, she nuzzled his neck and he opened his eyes to look down at her.

  ‘When I first left the army I floundered around trying out a mess of jobs.’

  She gave a little gasp. ‘You’re awake?’ She sounded dismayed.

  He took in her wide, worried eyes, the heat mounting her cheeks. What had amused him, and then felt a little too much like real intimacy, now changed colour again. The urge not to embarrass her made him keep talking. About selling mechanical parts on the black market, about a failed attempt to set up a trading company, about the gym training prize fighters he’d owned, which he’d almost lost when the trading company went bust but had ended up becoming his way out and up.

  ‘Why did you get interested in the fight game?’ she asked.

  ‘Started in the army—fighting for money. I graduated to organising matches. It’s not a lenient sport, kisa. It’s better to be behind the scenes.’

  Instinctively Clementine reached up and gently touched the bridge of his nose. ‘Is that how you broke it?’

  ‘Twice. It happened a long time ago. I don’t even remember the pain.’

  She stroked his chest. ‘I don’t like the idea of you being hit.’

  ‘I’m a tough guy, kisa.’

  ‘What about your family? What did they think about you being involved in the sport? What about your mother?’

  ‘My mother died when I was nineteen.’ He spoke quietly, calmly, as if reciting facts. ‘She took pills.’

  Clementine lifted her head, her forehead pleated with concern.

  ‘We’ll never know if it was suicide. Possibly. Probably. Don’t look so dire, Clementine, it was a long time ago.’

  ‘Your mother?’ she said softly, stroking him.

  ‘Let me tell y
ou something about mothers, kisa. Mine married young. My father was an engineer—idealistic, probably bi-polar.’ He slanted her a curious look, unable to believe he was telling her all this. She had stopped stroking him and her eyes were pinned to his. ‘My parents loved one another with an intensity that didn’t allow any air into the relationship or any light into our family life. It was two performances of Turandot daily.’

  Clementine stayed silent, trying to form a picture of what his childhood must have been like. He stretched, as if the telling of the tale was cramping his muscles.

  ‘Papa stepped in front of a car one afternoon when I was ten, and everything changed. Mama remarried a couple of years later. My stepfather and I didn’t see eye-to-eye and I was shipped off to military school. Before you feel sorry for me, kisa, it was the best place for me. I rarely saw my mother and sister after that. My stepfather made a fortune out of the fall of communism and promptly lost it—put a bullet in his head. Mama wasn’t far behind him. So you see—an opera in four acts.’

  Clementine was silent for a moment, and then laid her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ she said softly.

  ‘I’m what?’ he enquired in a rough voice.

  ‘A tough guy.’ They were quiet together for a long time, and then she confessed, ‘I don’t want to go back to the city.’

  It was the closest she had come to voicing how uncomfortable she was feeling, living in a hotel suite with him.

  ‘Room Service beginning to pall, Clementine?’

  He was teasing her, but there was something else in his voice. A sadness. Perhaps a leftover from his revelations, or maybe he was just over the whole impress-the-girl routine.

  ‘It’s a bit impersonal, isn’t it? I hadn’t realised until we came here. Being in this house is more like real life.’

  Serge suddenly felt uncomfortable, and it wasn’t a familiar sensation for him. Impersonal wasn’t working here for him either, in this house with the ocean pounding at their doorstep. He’d brought her here to talk terms, make definite the parameters of their future relationship, but the girl lying in his arms didn’t fit those terms. He’d just shared more with her than he’d shared with all the other women he’d ever known combined.