Innocent in the Ivory Tower

by Lucy Ellis

  It had been whilst she was filling in forms with a couple of the other mothers at the crèche around the corner that she had got talking to Alice. With her youngest now at school she had taken her millinery business off the internet and into a store, and hadn’t been looking forward to toiling through the pile of applications she’d received for an assistant’s job. Maisy had seen her chance and taken it.

  All the role required was sourcing materials, a little bookkeeping work and chasing up orders three times a week. It was perfect.

  It also kept her busy. Today was a record day for her. It was the first morning she’d woken up and her first thought hadn’t been of Alexei. No doubt she’d think about him some time today—slide into a little reverie, maybe even soak her pillow tonight in tears—but it had only been a month, and she didn’t expect to get over him any time soon.

  What mattered was that during the day she was her own woman. She had already established a small circle of friends through Kostya’s activities and her own work here in the shop. She went out to the cinema, she shopped, she met other people for coffee. It was simple and restrained, but it suited her. That lifestyle of limos and hotels and personal shoppers had never sat well with her. This was on her own terms, and if it didn’t include Alexei it wasn’t through any lack of trying. She’d told him what she wanted from him. It was becoming eminently clear he couldn’t give it to her.

  She turned to make room at the table for Alice, and almost tripped. Standing in the doorway was not slender, elfin-faced Alice but six and a half feet of Russian male—the same male she had been alternately longing for and cursing over for four long weeks. He was wearing simple and expensively tailored dark trousers and a white shirt open at the throat, and he looked every inch of what he was: a ruthless, sophisticated guy. So out of place amongst the lace and frou-frou of a ladies’ hat shop it was almost humorous.

  Almost.

  Alexei noted the wide eyes, the pink cheeks, the shock, and took immediate advantage.

  No sense in wasting time.

  He had known Maisy had garnered herself a job virtually the minute she’d walked back in the door of Lantern Square. He knew she was rarely home, that she took Kostya with her here to the shop when he wasn’t in the crèche, or on play dates to various addresses over London. She preferred the bus to expensive cabs, and she went to the cinema most Thursday nights.

  The millinery shop was within walking distance of the house and Alexei had come on foot, turning over the bare facts of Maisy’s existence since she’d vanished from his sight.

  It all sounded completely ordinary, and he knew Maisy must love it.

  But this he hadn’t expected. The small, elegant shopfront, the tinkle of bells as he entered, the subtle fragrance in the air that reminded him of daisies and blue skies. He was rendered overgrown and slightly clumsy in this rarefied atmosphere, and he wondered with a smile if any man had dared step inside.

  According to his report Maisy worked here on Thursday afternoons until four. He could hear somebody moving around at the rear of the shop and he strode across the shiny black and white parquet, sidling around the counter, noting the lack of security cameras or any security devices at all. He frowned.

  She was standing with her back to him, head slightly bent. From the top of her bright head down to the elegant pale blue sheath dress, cinched at her small waist and clutching her rounded hips, down the seams of her pale stockings to the pretty French heel of her shoes, she was all lovely lines and femininity.

  Then she turned, and those cinnamon eyes flared, and her face happened to him all over again.

  But she didn’t do any of the things he might have expected her to. A gasp, a frown, or more preferably throwing herself into his arms. She simply stood there, slender arms at her sides, bright titian ringlets framing a solemn expression tinged with a little wonder. She didn’t make a move towards him, but nor did she move away.

  It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. She’d been magnificent in those last couple of days they’d had together, lifting the bar on their relationship so high he’d been unable to cross it. Exerting her own will, matching it against his. Few men had the guts for it, but she hadn’t blinked. Then again, those men didn’t burrow up against him in bed and lift soft eyes that turned all his intentions her way.

  Yet, unlike every other woman he’d come across, she hadn’t used sex to manipulate him. She’d given him an ultimatum, and she’d stuck by it. He hadn’t known she’d had it in her. All he’d seen was the sweet, artless girl he had fallen in love with on sight. But, damn, he respected her for it. And she’d been right.

  ‘Alexei.’

  ‘Hello, Maisy.’

  Looking up into the familiar, beautiful lines of his face, she struggled to find the man whose wretched eyes had haunted her dreams for weeks now. He had returned to being the hard-edged, sophisticated guy who had come bursting into her kitchen and changed her life for ever. Except when his eyes rested on her a little smile she recognised tugged on the corner of his lips, and his blue eyes softened on hers with a question.

  Alexei Ranaevsky didn’t ask questions. He issued directives.

  Everybody knew that. But Maisy knew differently.

  It hadn’t been that way between them from the moment he’d seized hold of her arm in that park in Ravello. She remembered how his body had actually been vibrating, and in her ignorance she had thought him angry. It hadn’t been anger, and it had been more than desire for her. He had felt the connection and it had thrown him as much as it had thrown her, and they’d both been tumbling down the long hill of it ever since.

  Maisy knew where she wanted to land, but it had been almost a whole month and he hadn’t called her—he hadn’t let her know how he was doing.

  Every night he spoke to Kostya on the phone. It was a regular six o’clock routine. She would pick up, would hear his voice, deep and caressing, saying, ‘Maisy,’ and she would reply, ‘Kostya’s right here,’ not trusting herself to even say his name. She would sit beside the little boy as he chattered exuberantly, the faint sound of Alexei’s voice all she’d allow herself. There was always the temptation as Kostya said his goodbyes not to press ‘end’ and to speak to him herself—but what would she say? I love you. I want to come back to you. But it wasn’t her call. Alexei was a smart guy. If he had something to say to her he would have rung her and said it.

  Actually, knowing the man as she did, he would have hopped on a plane and said it to her face.

  And here he was.

  In those last days together she had taken command not only of herself but of whatever was between them. Having him suddenly here, filling up the tiny space with his presence, it felt as if Alexei had seized it back, and Maisy felt slightly on the back foot.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ She sounded breathless to her own ears.

  ‘I’ve been to Lantern Square to check the security.’

  It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say, and something small and bright that had lit in her mind at the sight of him went out.

  ‘I had it changed whilst you were with me in Ravello.’

  He made it sound as if those two months had been merely a holiday. Next he would make some comment about her tan fading—that was if she’d even had a tan. Maisy stopped gazing up adoringly and pulled herself together.

  ‘I really don’t think it’s necessary,’ she said, as coolly as she could manage. ‘I don’t think Kostya’s in any danger.’ But even as she spoke she could have kicked herself. She knew exactly why he was so security conscious. Every time he looked at Kostya he saw himself and what he had never had.

  ‘Not just Kostya. I want you to be safe, Maisy.’

  ‘Me? Why would anyone want to hurt me?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone wants to hurt you. I just—’ He broke off, running a hand through his hair as he smiled at her ruefully. ‘I’m doing that thing you say I do. I’m showing you how much I love you by protecting you.’

  Maisy was glad she
had a table behind her to steady herself against.

  ‘I’m on my knees, Maisy.’ His voice was a whole octave deeper. ‘I’m begging you to forgive me. I want to take you and Kostya home with me to Ravello, where you both belong. I want us to be a family.’

  Maisy’s mouth had run dry and she moistened her lips. ‘It took you almost four weeks to decide this?’

  He was suddenly filling the tiny private space, and Maisy had nowhere else to go.

  ‘Has it been so hard without me?’

  ‘No,’ she lied.

  ‘I haven’t been able to breathe,’ he confessed roughly. ‘It hurts every time I do.’

  Me too, her heart whispered.

  ‘Four weeks, Alexei.’ It came out jerkily.

  ‘And look what you’ve done with it.’

  He smiled at her then, that slow smile she loved so well. She wanted to smile back, but she felt if she did her entire life would go land-sliding towards him and she didn’t want that quite yet.

  ‘You were too scared to love me,’ she risked saying.

  ‘Precious little scares me, dushka, but you had me on the back foot from the moment we met,’ he confessed—so candidly she couldn’t help edging towards him. ‘That day on the yacht, Maisy, it all came apart. When we were travelling together it was easier to keep you tucked away, out of sight. I understand you felt marginalized, but that’s not what I was thinking. You belonged to me—a better me—not the man who keeps all the financial balls spinning. I didn’t want to let the air in on that rarefied atmosphere we had. It was so precious to me.’

  Maisy had gone very still. She hadn’t considered it from that angle before. It had never occurred to her that she was the good thing in his life. All she had imagined was her inability to fit in.

  ‘I wish you’d told me,’ she answered softly.

  ‘Hell, I hardly framed it as an idea to myself. I was running on instinct, Maisy. But I knew it wasn’t fair to you, so I decided to use Firebird as an introduction.’

  ‘Except it meant then that in everyone else’s eyes I was your mistress.’ It still stung, and she wasn’t going to hide that from him.

  Alexei’s blue eyes sought hers earnestly. ‘The people who mattered didn’t think that, Maisy. Anyone with eyes in their head could see how much I loved you.’

  He’d said he loved her. Twice. Maisy couldn’t help reaching up to lay her hand against his chest. The heat and solidity of him felt like utter security.

  ‘I realised I was pushing you away when all I wanted was intimacy. I just didn’t know how to protect myself and still have everything with you.’

  Maisy touched him with her other hand, just resting it on his chest, her fingers slightly curling around the fabric. He seemed to feel so guilty, and she didn’t want that.

  ‘I knew I’d made a colossal mistake,’ he said roughly. ‘But that meant re-evaluating everything I knew and I was struggling with it. When Leo died I was lost.’

  His heavy sigh had her hands tightening on his shirt.

  ‘Nothing felt right,’ he said simply. ‘And then I found you and it all fell into place.’

  His eyes hadn’t left hers once. His sincerity was making it difficult for her not to respond, yet she wanted to hear all of this. Desperately.

  ‘Watching you with Kostya, seeing how much of a mother you’ve clearly been to him from birth, and then having you open yourself up to me. We’re both very lucky males to have you in our lives.’

  Maisy bit her lip.

  ‘It just took me a little time to adjust, and you kept pushing,’ he confessed with a half-smile, then reached out and gently thumbed the line puckering between her brows. ‘I’m glad you did, dushka. You made me face a few home truths. It was only when you made it clear what you wanted that I realised I’d been kidding myself.’

  ‘I didn’t think I had much to lose,’ she confessed. ‘You would have pushed me away anyway. You didn’t want me to love you.’

  He framed her face with his big hands. ‘Maisy Edmonds, as fast as I was backing up, I had no intention of losing you.’

  ‘You sent me back here.’

  ‘You asked me to. I gave you what you wanted.’

  ‘If you’d argued with me I would only have resented you,’ she admitted honestly, more to herself than him. ‘I needed to find myself again, Alexei. I needed to see if I could do it on my own.’

  ‘Look at you.’ He gave her that slow smile that made her thighs turn to water and everything tingle. ‘The working girl.’

  ‘Damn right.’

  Alexei was tangling one hand through her curls. ‘Now I’ve come for what I want.’

  ‘You’re very sure of yourself,’ Maisy murmured, thrilled.

  ‘Da, but you like me that way, dushka.’

  ‘Bossy.’

  ‘Taking you over, not giving you a choice.’

  He leaned in and kissed her, and his tenderness was the undoing of her.

  He drew back enough to say, ‘But you’ve got all the choices now, Maisy. Come back with me, be a family with me; share your life with me. You can have it all, dushka.’

  Maisy gripped hold of his shirt front, making a mess of the sleek tailored lines.

  ‘I want to be with you, Alexei.’

  It was an echo from another time, another place, and he recognised it immediately. By a fountain in a garden, when they’d both been reeling from the impact of what being together might mean.

  He knew exactly what it meant. The rest of his life was standing in front of him.

  Gently disengaging her hands, he dropped down onto one knee and looked up at her. ‘I love you, Maisy Edmonds. Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

  Maisy stared at him for what felt like the longest time. He was in love with her and he wanted to marry her.

  ‘Oh, yes, I’m sure I can do that,’ she responded, a big smile breaking out across her face.

  Maisy’s eye caught the glitter of the ring he had produced and she swallowed hard.

  ‘Take a deep breath,’ he murmured. ‘I know you’re not that keen on diamonds.’

  She had a hard time not snatching it from him. Then she realised the ring was glittering because Alexei’s hands were shaking.

  Alexei slid the ring onto her finger. It fitted almost perfectly.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she whispered.

  ‘You’re so beautiful.’

  ‘That’s my line, dushka.’

  He was on his feet, gathering her into his arms. The relief on his face was almost as touching as his sweet, old-fashioned proposal. Maria had once told her that underneath all the surface swagger Alexei was as traditional as they came, but she hadn’t listened.

  She was listening now.

  ‘I love you, Maisy.’ His eyes deep in hers, his voice was heartbreakingly sincere. ‘Let’s go home.’

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are regis
tered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

  First published in Great Britain 2011

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  © Lucy Ellis 2011

  ISBN: 978-1-408-92618-5

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Excerpt

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Copyright