Innocent in the Ivory Tower

by Lucy Ellis

  ‘No.’ He swung the sports car fluidly back onto the highway and accelerated ever so slightly, so that the breath leapt from her body. ‘That would be with me.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BY THE time they drew into the courtyard she was a mass of nerves, but Alexei, in contrast, seemed completely energised. He already had Kostya out of his child’s seat and was carrying him and the pushchair inside with the casual assurance that he would keep the boy with him for the rest of the afternoon—leaving Maisy to fumble with her shopping bag, feeling utterly swamped.

  So much for looking after him. She was left with the shopping.

  She could hardly credit what had happened. He had to be joking. He couldn’t possibly be suggesting what it sounded like he was suggesting. She chased his words around her head as she went through the motions of decanting her purchases onto her bed and taking a shower in the modest en suite bathroom to freshen up. She was so distracted she almost doused her brand-new hair, just dodging the water stream in time.

  This whole sexual attraction thing was inappropriate and dangerous. Alexei was like that car of his—high-powered. Things could veer out of control if she didn’t handle him properly. She needed to tone it down, deflect him in some way. The problem was deep down she liked his approval—she liked that spark he got in his eyes. The woman in her did a slow burn every time he so much as looked in her direction.

  Pulling on yoga pants and a long T-shirt, she told herself these clothes would firmly put the kybosh on any inclinations he had in her direction. Except, lingering in front of the mirror, she knew she was kidding herself. Deep down she wanted what she’d had in her room in London. She wanted him to look at her and lose control again. At the same time the idea terrified her, because it would involve tipping into a level of sexual intimacy she didn’t know if she was ready for. A solitary horrible experience had not encouraged her in any way to repeat it, even if she had the opportunity. But for a week now in her darkest thoughts he had been there, lifting her, his mouth on her, the heat of his body being accepted into hers.

  Her reflection in the mirror taunted her. Her skin felt tight, hot and her eyes as dark as she’d ever seen them, the pupils enlarged. Her body was giving her messages she was finding difficult to ignore.

  Frustrated with herself, Maisy stripped and pulled on a soft knit top and her favourite jeans instead. They weren’t obvious but they clung in all the right places. She told herself there was nothing wrong with enjoying a little male attention. She just needed to keep everything within bounds.

  She could hear Kostya before she reached him. Alexei was sprawled on the floor with him in the entertainment room. Maisy hesitated, watching them. They were building blocks, and every time Alexei got eight up Kostya would knock them down, shrieking with glee. Within bounds? a dry little voice murmured in her head. And whose bounds would they be, Maisy, his or yours?

  Alexei’s head came up and she knew who had won.

  ‘I can’t win,’ he said, his dark voice full of rich amusement. ‘He’s clearly experienced in demolition. I might employ him.’

  Maisy took one step and then another into the room. She had not seen him so relaxed before and it made a spectacular sight.

  Alexei made a round trip of Maisy whilst Kostya crawled about collecting his blocks. The scoop-necked knit top clung gently to the round shape of her full breasts and flared out over her hips. She was shaped like an hourglass—something he hadn’t fully appreciated until this moment. If his hands were around that little waist of hers he was sure his fingers would meet. The jeans were like a second skin, tapering over her slender calves to her small feet.

  Maisy exuded a soft femininity that had the testosterone pounding through him, obliterating any sensible thought he might have had about putting the lid on this attraction. Her curves, he recognised in a flash of clarity, made a nightmare of every sharp hipbone he had ever cut himself on.

  Only one thought was pumping through his brain: where had this woman been all his life? His mouth was dry by the time she crouched down and brushed the curls from Kostya’s eyes.

  ‘He needs a haircut.’ His voice was thick, darkened by the sexual impulses thrumming through his blood.

  Her mouth tensed. He loved that she didn’t wear lipstick. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I’ll get a barber in.’

  ‘No.’ A little frown line creased between her brows.

  ‘Are you going to fight me on everything, Maisy?’

  ‘If I have to.’

  A very blatant image of Maisy naked, on top of him, assaulted his senses, and all Alexei could do about it was smile at her, wondering what magic words were going to break down whatever defences she had in place.

  Maisy was making sure she looked him in the eye. He needed to understand when it came to Kostya she wouldn’t let him steamroll her. But then he smiled that lazy big cat smile that made her tingle down to her toes and suspect they weren’t talking about Kostya at all. She did her best to ignore the tingling.

  ‘I don’t think now is a good time for haircuts.’

  Alexei sat up, the movement so abrupt Maisy almost jumped. He was sitting so close to where she was hunkered down she could have reached out and brushed the back of her hand along his lightly bristled jaw. She blushed at the thought.

  ‘I spoke to a child psychologist on Monday,’ he responded.

  Right. Child psychologist. Good. Maisy moistened her lips. ‘Maybe we can talk about it later,’ she said jerkily, trying not to read too much into his close proximity. ‘Kostya might be little but he has big ears.’ She struggled to inject some normality into her voice, which seemed to have dropped an octave. ‘Besides, it’s the three Bs: bathtime, booktime, bedtime.’

  Alexei could have punched the air in a victory salute. She was feeling him: the pink in her cheeks, the glitter in those cinnamon eyes. She was just a little nervous. Or it could be anticipation. He had no idea. She wasn’t putting out obvious ‘come and get me’ signals, just little indicators she couldn’t control.

  ‘I can do that,’ he replied, surging to his feet. Time to get this train on the tracks. He scooped up Kostya, who shrieked with excitement.

  ‘No, no, you’ll overstimulate him.’ Maisy sighed as she clambered to her feet. She was feeling distinctly unlike herself. Her skin was prickling with awareness and she couldn’t seem to get in enough air. Instinctively she stumbled back to avoid brushing against Alexei as he moved with Kostya, shoving her hands in her jeans’ back pockets to disguise their trembling.

  Overstimulation was in the air, Alexei reflected ruefully, looking down at her. Damn, she was sexy. He tried not to let his gaze drift south of her pretty mouth. It was very uncool. But he was enjoying that too—the sheer craziness of what was going on.

  He followed her upstairs to the nursery, admiring the swing of her round, shapely bottom, knowing absolutely he was going to end tonight with his hands right there and Maisy’s glorious red-gold ringlets spread over his pillow. The certainty stayed with him as he went through the bedtime routine. Maisy kept taking peeks at him when she thought he wasn’t watching. He could read women’s sexual arousal and he could feel Maisy’s deep down to his bones. She just needed a little gentle handling and direction.

  ‘Will you have dinner with me?’ he said as Maisy grappled with Kostya’s nappy, and she gave him a wry look. Her nervousness had evaporated under the stress of managing a two-year-old and she was getting mouthy with him. He liked that too.

  ‘Is that an excuse to get out of here whilst the going’s good?’

  ‘I can handle a nappy, Maisy.’

  ‘The question is, will you in the future? Or are you going to hire a dozen people to do the job for you?’

  The criticism went home. Maisy observed his slight tensing and was glad. It showed he did have an understanding of what Kostya needed. The fact that he was here now, helping her, had gone a long way to calming her fears. She had also managed not to touch him, ogle him, or say anything that could
be misconstrued. In fact, she had behaved like a completely sexless plant.

  Perfect.

  ‘Dinner, Maisy?’ he repeated.

  ‘I usually eat in the dining room at seven,’ she said. ‘Will you join me then?’

  Alexei dealt her a look of combined disbelief and complete amusement.

  ‘I think, dushka, we can do better than that.’

  Dinner.

  Maisy covered her hot face with her hands. She was going to sleep with him. Maybe. It was good to be clear about these things. She wouldn’t think about next week or the month after or the year after that. She would just go for it and damn the consequences. Other women did it all the time.

  She was a modern girl. She knew what was on offer.

  She was kidding herself.

  Maisy groaned and flopped onto her bed. Beside her lay the two outfits she couldn’t decide between. Her one cocktail dress looked too formal and insubstantial, and clearly said, Take me now. I’m not even wearing a bra. Definitely not suitable.

  The strapless white silk frock was really for the daytime, but she could dress it up with a necklace, some make-up, and do something fancy with her hair. The bodice was boned and did the work of a bra. Just about.

  In the end she made up her eyes and mouth to stand in for the simplicity of her dress and clasped a gold filigree necklace around her neck. She used a clip to twist up her hair so that it toppled in disarray, the tips kissing the curve of her shoulder-blades. She slid her feet into a pair of very high silver heels and used the sliding doors to step out into the courtyard so as not to disturb Kostya.

  She climbed the back stairs to the kitchen, feeling a little like Cinderella gearing up for the ball and going in the back way.

  ‘Maisy, bella figura!’ Maria exclaimed in Italian when she came into the kitchen, dusting off her floury hands and leaving the bread she was kneading to come and encircle Maisy, smiling broadly.

  ‘Dinner with the boss, eh?’ Maria folded her arms, shaking her head.

  ‘To talk about Kostya,’ Maisy answered primly.

  The older woman gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘He’s a good boy,’ observed Maria. ‘But all these parties, these women.’ She threw her hands up expressively.

  Parties? Women? Maisy just knew she didn’t want to hear any of this. Yet when Maria sighed and went back to kneading the bread she wanted to scream, And?

  Maria’s raisin-brown eyes slanted sideways at Maisy. ‘What he needs is a good girl who can cook, raise the bambinos and keep him happy in the bed, yes?’

  Maisy didn’t know where to look. Cook, clean and heat up the sheets … Oh, and don’t forget the baby-making factory. No, thank you.

  ‘He might have learned the English, and he has the houses in Miami and New York, but he’s European.’ Maria leaned her floury forearms on the board and fixed Maisy with a steely determination at odds with her short, round little body. ‘The Russian men—they’re like the Italians. They are traditional. Oh, times have moved on, and Alexei is what they say—a modern guy—but when he settles down …’

  Maria straightened up with a sigh and wiped her hands.

  ‘He doesn’t particularly strike me as being ready to settle down just yet,’ Maisy muttered, wishing they weren’t having this conversation so close to her sitting down to dinner with him in a strapless dress.

  ‘If you leave it to the men they’ll never be ready,’ said Maria. ‘They always need the little nudge.’

  Alexei would need some heavy earth moving equipment and possibly a natural disaster to shift him out of bachelor status, Maisy thought ruefully. He didn’t strike her at all as the marrying type.

  ‘You must be careful, Maisy,’ said the older woman, her eyes settling on Maisy’s flushed décolletage. ‘He is the real man, and he will chase you, and you’re a nice girl.’

  The real man. That he was, thought Maisy, giving her bodice an upward tug in an effort to reinstate the ‘nice girl’. Preoccupied, she made her way into the dining room. Alexei wasn’t there, but one of his suits was waiting for her. Maisy recognised him as Andrei, the young man who had driven her here on the first day. He was friendly towards her in a way nobody except Maria had been since her arrival and, feeling nervous, she instantly engaged him in conversation about his day as she accompanied him upstairs and onto the roof terrace.

  Alexei heard her voice before he saw her, and when she emerged he made the immediate decision never to send another man to fetch Maisy. In future he would undertake that task himself.

  She was wearing some sort of frock, but it was difficult to register that when she moved, because the killer heels made her sway and he was pretty sure there was nothing between Maisy and that dress but air. The neckline was relatively modest—she wasn’t spilling out of it, but the shape of her gave the impression she was. It was a dress designed to make a man think about what was poured into it. He was already planning how to take her out of it.

  Maisy felt like a princess as he advanced towards her. Behind him there was a round table dressed in white and crystal, and there he was, in dark formal trousers and an expensive white shirt open at the neck to reveal the tanned strong column of his throat.

  This wasn’t a considered discussion about Kostya’s future. This was a date.

  ‘You always make me wait, Maisy.’

  She looked up at him without understanding.

  Up close, he saw she’d made a mystery of her cinnamon eyes and her lush mouth was a deep pink. There was a faint scent of exotic flowers clinging to her skin. She’d made an effort to be beautiful for him, he acknowledged. It meant he had to make an effort and not ravish her on the table before the first course.

  He seated her and sat down across from her.

  ‘You look beautiful, Maisy.’

  She gave him a wry look. It wasn’t the reaction he had been after.

  ‘Do you always dine here, up on the rooftop?’

  ‘Occasionally, when the mood strikes.’

  He lifted the champagne and decanted some into a flute glass for her and then poured his own. Maisy watched the pale bubbles surge.

  ‘It’s so lovely,’ she said, gazing around. ‘I would eat up here all the time if I could. Is Maria preparing the meal?’

  ‘I left that to the chef, dushka.’ He looked faintly curious, as if her questions were not quite what he was expecting.

  ‘She didn’t mention it, that’s all, and the kitchen was very quiet.’

  ‘What were you doing in the kitchen?’

  ‘Talking to Maria.’

  Alexei gave her an odd look. ‘Then you were talking to Andrei?’

  She nodded. ‘I didn’t know you had a chef. Maria’s been making all my meals. She’s a wonderful cook. I’m sure I’ll put on ten pounds whilst I’m here if I don’t start running again. Why are you staring at me? What I have said?’

  ‘I hadn’t realised you were so tight with the housekeeper,’ was all he observed, sipping from his glass.

  ‘She’s been incredible with Kostya, and he’s really taken to her.’

  Alexei merely inclined his head, and suddenly Maisy understood the man sitting across from her didn’t really care about any of this. He wasn’t listening to her. He was watching her. He never actually looked directly at her breasts, but Maisy knew that he was seeing them because they had tightened, and suddenly the boning in her dress didn’t feel anywhere near substantial enough.

  Men didn’t make a habit of looking at her like this. Especially men sitting across from her, pouring her champagne and looking as if they’d stepped out of a style magazine.

  ‘Let’s talk about Kostya,’ she said, her high voice betraying a sudden rush of nerves.

  ‘Drink your champagne, Maisy. You haven’t touched a drop.’

  Automatically she lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip. It tasted divine. She took another sip and sucked some of it off her lip. Premier champagne and pink shimmer lipstick—perhaps not the perfect combination.

  Alexei
watched her lip plump out, all wet and shiny from her tongue and the champagne. He would lick her there, later on, and then he would lick her further down, where she would also be plump and wet and wanting. He shifted in his chair as his body stirred to life.

  Maisy put her glass down with a bump and he noticed her hands were trembling a little. Which was good. Hell, his weren’t exactly steady. He lifted his eyes to hers, but instead of desire he saw a little worry line of concern drawing her lovely dark brows together.

  ‘We really need to talk about Kostya,’ she insisted a little more firmly.

  Alexei made a frustrated but resigned sound in the back of his throat. ‘Fine. We talk.’

  Maisy folded her hands in her lap. She looked prim and proper—and that, he discovered, revved him up too.

  ‘Do you intend for Kostya to live here in Ravello?’

  As enquiries went it was pretty innocuous and reasonable, yet it was one Alexei knew he wouldn’t answer in any other circumstances. He was so accustomed to guarding his privacy it had become habit never to respond to questions. Refusing to answer, however, wasn’t conducive to persuading Maisy out of that dress, so he settled for neutral. ‘Nyet. Villa Vista Mare is only one of my homes.’

  Maisy experienced a sinking feeling. ‘How many do you have?’

  ‘Seven,’ he said briefly, as if it were of no import.

  ‘Seven?’ she repeated. ‘What on earth do you need seven homes for?’

  ‘Convenience,’ he said after a pause.

  At that moment a waiter appeared with their entrée—crab bisque—and Maisy smiled at him and waited as she was served.

  Alexei wondered a little testily if she showered those smiles on every male she met except him.

  ‘Does that mean Kostya will be travelling the world with you, to these homes?’

  ‘Da.’

  Maisy sighed deeply, looking past him into the flickering darkness, saying almost to herself, ‘How is this going to work?’

  Alexei gestured to her plate. ‘Eat, Maisy. Worry later.’

  She nibbled on some crab meat and finally gave him the full impact of her smile. ‘It tastes of the sea,’ she imparted, as if this were a wonder.