‘You can’t do that.’ But she knew that he could—and probably would—so she loosened the chain and opened the door, to see him standing like some unmoveable force on her door step. ‘That’s blackmail,’ she accused.
‘Net,’ he negated grimly as he saw her tug the lapels of her cheap cotton dressing gown closer together. ‘It is known as getting what you want.’
‘Which we both know you always do.’
If only she knew, he thought grimly. If only she knew. ‘Oh, always,’ he agreed mockingly as he stepped inside and looked around the cramped hallway. ‘You look as if you’ve fallen on hard times,’ he observed slowly. ‘Or does it always look like this?’
Zara flushed. ‘I’ve lived here since I was a little girl,’ she defended. ‘And it may not be looking at its best at the moment, but I haven’t really had the chance to do much decorating lately.’
‘But this street …’ His words tailed off and he looked into the defiant green gaze of her eyes.
A fierce sense of pride made her want to explain—though part of her wondered whether someone like Nikolai would have any comprehension of what she was talking about. ‘When I was growing up—it was different. Families lived in this area and people took pride in their houses then. Now most of them are rented out. I’m hoping to put it on the market soon—and, while it may not be a multimillion dollar villa in the south of France, it’s clean,’ she added proudly. ‘And it’s home.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘And presumably you survive on just your waitressing salary—which is not a particularly high salary?’
‘That’s right.’
He stared at her. ‘So how come you dramatically ripped up the cheque I left you?’
Incredulously, she stared back. ‘You know exactly why.’
‘If I knew, then I wouldn’t be asking.’
‘Think about it!’ she bit out as she turned on her heel and walked into the sitting room, hearing his footsteps following behind her. And suddenly, she was terribly afraid that she would go to pieces. Say or do something she might later regret—because the truth was that she hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind, or her heart. She’d barely had a single thought that didn’t involve her Russian lover. Sx-lover, she reminded herself fiercely.
Reaching down into a cupboard, she found a dusty bottle of livid-coloured orange liqueur, which had been there for as long as she could remember, and poured a measure into a little glass. ‘Do you want any?’ she asked ungraciously.
‘Tempting. But I think I’ll pass.’
Zara sipped at the fiery spirit, grateful for the instant little boost of energy it gave her. Drinking at midnight wasn’t a pastime she indulged in regularly, but it had been a long day. There had been a big directors’ lunch, followed by afternoon tea, and then she’d grabbed at an extra job which had come in, only to discover that it had been a windswept party on a river-boat which had been full of drunken stockbrokers who kept being sick over the side.
‘So, why?’ he persisted.
She turned round, trying to buffer herself against the impact he made on her, but it wasn’t easy—especially since all his undeniable attributes seemed amplified when measured against the humble background of her tiny sitting room. He was wearing a dark suit and crisp white shirt, and his only concession to relaxation had been to loosen his tie.
‘You paid me over double what I was owed!’ she accused.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s the first time someone’s ever complained that I’ve overpaid them,’ he drawled.
‘Don’t be obtuse, Nikolai—you know exactly what I mean.’
‘No, I don’t. I thought you were good at your job and deserved the extra payment.’
‘What, for the extra services provided?’
He froze. ‘You think I was paying you for sex?’
‘What else was I supposed to think? ‘
‘You think that I’m the kind of man who pays for sex?’
‘Can we keep your ego out of it for a moment? This isn’t about you, it’s about me,’ she shot back, swallowing down the intense hurt she still felt at the memory of him waving that wretched envelope at her as if she were some kind of hooker. ‘So why the over-generous gesture, if not for that?’
For a moment he was silent as he battled with his feelings, angry that she was forcing him to offer some kind of explanation—he who never had to explain himself to anyone. But the confusion and the undoubted hurt in her brilliant green eyes made him change the habit of a lifetime. ‘I realised that I’d misjudged you,’ he said heavily. ‘That you were not the woman I thought you to be.’
Zara stared at him warily. ‘And what kind of woman was that?’
‘They’re known in the business as gold-diggers,’ he said acerbically, and saw her wince.
‘How very flattering,’ she said quietly.
‘Oh, you may think it’s nothing but a misogynistic tag but believe me, I’ve met plenty of them in my time.’ His mouth hardened. ‘Which might explain why I’m more than a little suspicious of the opposite sex—most of whom seem to want something from me. Perhaps the money was a compensation for my own sense of guilt when I realised you were nothing like that. And I often tip my staff,’ he added. ‘The sex had absolutely nothing to do with your pay-cheque.’
Zara put down the sticky little glass of liqueur and shrugged. ‘I guess I’m partly to blame. It’s my own fault. I should have just done the job I was supposed to be there for and then I could have walked away with a clear conscience and none of this misunderstanding would have ever happened. I shouldn’t have …’
‘Shouldn’t have, what?’ he prompted softly.
‘Shouldn’t have let you.’ She swallowed down the poignant and bittersweet memories of their love-making.
‘I shouldn’t have let myself. It was a stupid, stupid thing to do.’
Something in her soft contrition hit him like a slow-motion fist to the solar plexus and Nikolai felt a sharp pang of remorse. ‘But you couldn’t help yourself,’ he said simply. ‘And neither could I. The chemistry between us was so powerful—too powerful to stop. Maybe impossible. Or do you think that kind of reaction between two people happens all the time?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You haven’t had many lovers?’
She stared down at a bare patch in the faded carpet. Why pretend to be something she wasn’t? He knew she’d never swum nude until she’d done it with him and he knew several other things she hadn’t tried before he had taught her how to do them in graphic and glorious detail …
‘No. Actually, I’ve had precisely one before you.’
Dark brows knitted together. ‘One?’
‘Is that so bizarre?’
‘It’s unusual for a woman of your age. At least, it is among the kind of women I usually associate with.’ It seemed to indicate that sex was a big deal for her—something which should have made him turn his back on her and run as fast as his legs could take him. And yet he could feel a sudden warm satisfaction suffusing his veins, the slow smile which curved his lips with pleasure. ‘And was he a good lover?’ he questioned. ‘The man you thought you might marry, perhaps?’
‘Actually, he was neither. Just somebody I was at college with who was more into rugby and beer than giving a woman pleasure.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Until he found a farmer’s daughter with several thousand acres to her name. It just took him a while to get around to telling me—and it seemed that everyone else at college knew before I did.’
He mulled over what she had just told him. A man who was not committed to giving a woman pleasure implied that she had not known real pleasure before. Could that explain those little choking tears he’d seen her try to bite back when he had made her come, over and over again?
For the first time since he had stormed in there, he looked at her properly, and that in itself was odd, because a woman’s body was usually the first thing he looked at.
She must have just got ready for bed because her face w
as scrubbed and a single plait hung down over her cotton dressing gown. It was a commonplace piece of attire—the light material was sprigged with flowers and her legs and feet were bare. She was pretty, yes—and her body was quite delicious. But there were a million women more stunning than Zara Evans. So how come he wanted to bend her into his arms every time he saw her?
‘Zara,’ he said softly.
The note in his voice made her flesh turn to goose-bumps but she continued to stare at the bare patch on the carpet as if her life depended on it. ‘Don’t,’ she whispered.
‘Don’t what?’
‘You know very well what,’ she said, a note of desperation touching her voice.
‘Look at me.’
Zara shook her head. If she looked at him she would be lost—she would drown in the depths of his pale blue eyes and start longing for things which could never be hers.
‘Zara?’
And then she found she couldn’t resist—not a moment longer. Her gaze was drawn upwards to his face, where hunger curved his sensual lips and ice-fire blazed sexual promise from his eyes.
‘Don’t do this,’ she whispered.
‘I can’t help myself—and neither can you.’
He reached out then and pulled her into his arms and she went, unresisting—eager for passion and comfort. And hadn’t it felt like a lifetime since she had run her fingers through the tumble of his hair? Or pressed herself into the hard sinews of his body and raised her face eagerly to his? She could hear the deepening unsteadiness of his breath as he kissed her and the tension in his powerful body which communicated itself to her. His hands were on her breasts now, splaying possessively over their aching weight, and he made a tiny groan as his fingers encountered the rock-hard tips.
‘I’ve been thinking about you every damned night,’ he ground out as he tore his mouth away from hers. ‘About doing this. Touching this.’ He felt her wild tremble. ‘Have you thought about me, too, Zara?’
‘Yes! Yes!‘
‘Then come home with me,’ he demanded hotly. ‘Come home with me now.’
The urgency in his voice took her by surprise and the practised caress of his fingers was setting her blood on fire. But even though it nearly broke her to do so, Zara shook her head, because she could see the danger in what he was suggesting. If she wasn’t careful, he would swallow her up and spit her out—leaving her with nothing but a broken heart. She had to hang onto her independence if she was going to survive. She had to. ‘I c-can’t,’ she said breathlessly as she felt him begin to ruck the nightdress up over her thighs. ‘At least, not tonight. It’s too late. I…have to get up very early in the morning and all my stuff is here.’
‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’
‘Yes, I do, Nikolai. I work for a living, remember? And I need to work.’
He heard the note of determination in her voice and a wave of incredulity washed over him as he realised that she actually meant it. He wanted to tell her not to be so ridiculous and that he would recompense her for any lost wages. Yet he suddenly realised that he couldn’t have it both ways. He could hardly complain about women bleeding men dry of money if he wasn’t prepared to applaud someone who did the exact opposite.
‘Well, if you need to work, then you can’t allow sentiment to cloud your judgement,’ he said, his voice heavy with frustration. ‘You will accept the money that I owe you for the south of France job—and then we won’t speak of it again. Is that understood?’
She nodded, lifting her throat so that he could run his mouth over it—revelling in the warm brush of his breath and the fact that now she didn’t have to bear the consequences of her rash action. ‘Yes.’
‘And tomorrow, you will pack a bag—with everything you need—and you will spend the night at my house. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ His fingers were brushing negligently over the warm fuzz at the juncture of her thighs and she squirmed impatiently beneath them. ‘And n-now …?’
‘Now?’ He dipped his hand, pleased that she was naked beneath the little nightdress, his fingers delving into her moist heat as she bucked with pleasure. One more night, he told himself—a week at most—and then he would be free of her. He could feel her hunger, could detect the evocative scent of sexual desire which throbbed in the air around them, and felt himself harden even more. Nikolai swallowed. He could take her here. It would be so easy. On that rather beaten-up old sofa over there—or even up against the wall. With aching clarity, he could imagine her thighs wrapped fervently around his back as he drove into her long and deep and brought them both to orgasm. He could carry her upstairs and share what would doubtless be a cramped bed—but who cared about that when two people felt like this?
Or he could make her wait—as she had made him wait! The tip of his tongue edged over his dry lips. It would be a lesson to her—and to him. Show her that she wasn’t the only one who could hold out. Remind him that, yes, he was hot for her—very hot—but he didn’t let women walk all over him. Certainly not more than once. He was the boss and she had better accept that fact and start fitting in with his plans.
His fingers stilled and he moved his hand away from her slick heat to the accompaniment of the slump of her body against him and a whispered little moan of disappointment.
‘Now you need your sleep, I think,’ he said pleasantly. He tugged her nightdress back down and saw her lips shiver with disappointment—but he steeled his heart against their appeal. ‘And so do I.’ His kiss was perfunctory because he didn’t trust himself to stay there a moment longer and his voice was cool and matter-of-fact. ‘Phone my secretary tomorrow and she will arrange for a car to collect you.’
CHAPTER TEN
IT WAS only supposed to be one night.
One night to rid himself of her hypnotic spell—that was all. But one night somehow became two and two became three. Before Nikolai fully appreciated what was happening, Zara seemed to be firmly ensconced in his Kensington home. She was the face he awoke to each morning. The person he found himself eager to see at the end of a working day. The reason he refused every one of the swathe of invitations which regularly dropped through his letter box—for why would he want to make small talk with high-flyers when he could be at home in bed with his green-eyed beauty? One who had stubbornly insisted on continuing with her waitressing, despite all his enticements for her to be at his beck and call whenever he wanted her. And he hadn’t been able to change her mind, no matter what tactics he employed. Why, he didn’t think he’d ever met a woman as stubborn or as independent as Zara Evans!
Was that all part of her appeal, he mused, that determination not to let him call all the shots? The recognition that here was a woman who worked just as hard as he did—albeit in a much more modest field. And once the novelty value of all that had faded, then surely this hunger for her would have burnt itself out—and he could get back to living normally. Alone.
It was just that he seemed to have forgotten how to do normal. Here he was, standing shaving, his mind completely preoccupied—while through the open door leading to his bedroom lay the source of his preoccupation, her hair all tousled and a lazy smile of satisfaction curving her lips into an upward tilt.
Was she aware that she was weaving some strange kind of spell over him? he wondered savagely. And wasn’t it time he tried to break free from it?
‘You look miles away,’ he commented as he walked back into the bedroom.
His deeply accented voice cut into her thoughts and Zara looked up, her stomach dissolving with familiar lust as she watched him. He was wearing nothing but a white towel knotted at the hips, while he rubbed a smaller version through the damp tumble of his dark gold hair. Droplets of water gleamed like precious metal on his bare torso and she swallowed down a feeling of disbelief. That she should be here, in Nikolai’s bed. And that he should be looking back at her with that familiar spark of hunger in his ice-blue eyes.
She sighed. The bed was nearly as big as her entire bedroom back home a
nd her body felt all warm. She ached, yes—but it was a luscious kind of ache, which reminded her of all the things her Russian lover had done to her in the long night which had passed. And all the nights before that …
‘How can I be miles away when I’m right here?’ she questioned, with a shy smile.
With a ragged sigh, Nikolai dropped the towel, hearing her stifled little gasp as he treated her to a back view of his naked body. He felt the answering pull of arousal and knew that if he turned around and walked over to the bed he could be inside her eager body within seconds. And that he wanted to be. He wanted to get on the phone to his secretary and tell her to cancel all his meetings for the rest of the day just so he could stay home with Zara. Savagely, he pulled a silk shirt from his wardrobe.
Because hadn’t he expected her allure to have faded a little by now? It had been over a month since they had returned from France—and three weeks since she had first shared his bed in England. Usually, he rationed out his time and women were grateful for whatever they got. A couple of nights here and there, depending on how the mood took him. Some nights he preferred to work late and to sleep alone. Or he liked the freedom to go and play cards until dawn. Or to fly to the other side of the world with only his closest staff knowing his exact whereabouts.
But with Zara it was as if he had thrown the rule-book out of the window. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of her and he couldn’t for the life of him work out why. As if her tender kisses and amazing body had sparked off some kind of powerful addiction, which kept needing to be fed.
Why, just the other night he’d woken up and lain staring at the ceiling, with her all snuggled up beside him, her silken hair spread over his chest. He’d tried to move and she had made a gurgling little murmur of protest in his ear—and he hadn’t wanted to wake her because he’d known she had an early shift in the morning. He hadn’t wanted to wake her because she had a shift in the morning! So he’d stayed in an uncomfortable position until she’d rolled away of her own accord. Leaving him wondering whether he was losing his mind as well as his independence.
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