Too Proud to be Bought (11 page)

‘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.’

I
T 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 and 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.

Was she aware that somehow she’d lured him into her little honey trap and was she building up little fantasies about the future even now, while fixing him with that dreamy smile? Was she perhaps thinking that the sexual compatibility they shared might overlap in a more general way? Nikolai’s face hardened. Some women didn’t need very much to let their minds wander down the white lace and diamond route—especially when a man had never been married before and had been tagged with that tiresome ‘eligible’ label. And if Zara was doing that—could he really blame her? Wasn’t it time that she got some sense of what he was really like—the kind of man he really was? To warn her that any kind of long-term wish fulfilment was a waste of her time?

‘You’re not working tonight, are you?’ he questioned idly.

Zara swallowed as he began to pull on a pair of silk boxers. Sometimes when she watched him getting dressed it seemed even more intimate than when they’d actually been having sex. It
was
intimate, she realised. Why, when she’d seen Emma at the book-launch party yesterday lunchtime, her friend had exclaimed that she and Nikolai were practically
living
together. And when Zara had protested—rather feebly, it was true—Emma had said something on the lines of did-she-realise-what-kind-of-man-she-was-dealing-with? That a man who was known as a commitment-phobe was not the kind of person you should lose your heart to.

And Zara had shrugged and said that there was no way she was losing her heart to him—and she certainly wasn’t stupid enough to imagine that she and Nikolai might have some kind of long-term future together.

Except that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Even when common sense told you one thing, that didn’t seem to
stop your heart from longing for the complete opposite…Hadn’t she seen him lying asleep beside her one morning, his dark lashes feathering into two arcs above his high, carved cheekbones—and hadn’t she started to wonder what his son or his daughter might look like? His daughter would be very beautiful, she mused—if she inherited those ice-blue eyes and dark gold hair.

Coming out of an engrossing daydream about little Svetlana Komarov’s first birthday party, she realised that Nikolai was standing there, half naked and waiting for an answer to his question, and for a minute she blushed. Imagine if he’d been able to read her mind!

‘No, I’m not working tonight. I…well, you know I requested daytime shifts wherever possible? And Emma’s mum is still absolutely fine about it, so I’ve got most evenings off.’

‘Good.’ He glimmered her a cool smile as he began to button up his shirt. Of course he was
pleased
that he could have the evenings with her. He hated seeing her going off each day to wait on men who were doubtless eyeing the luscious swell of her breasts instead of what was on the tray she was offering them. But maybe it was time they started venturing out beyond the bedroom. Stop letting sex blind him to all the differences between them and shine some real life on the relationship. Let him see for himself that there
was
no real relationship. ‘I thought we’d go out for dinner.’

‘Lovely.’ Rather nervously, she looked at him. Apart from that last night in France, it was the first time he’d taken her out and she didn’t want to let him down. ‘Um, is it somewhere very grand?’

‘Actually, it’s somewhere very un-grand,’ he said softly.

But surely his idea of ‘un-grand’ would still be fairly
posh? Zara’s only job that day was a lunchtime business meeting in a vast loft in Soho—which gave her time to go shopping afterwards. She bought a silky green dress from one of the cut-price stores and a string of giant fake pearls and went back to Nikolai’s house to get ready.

Going into the house was always a slightly daunting experience. She didn’t have a key and she knew that his housekeeper disapproved of her—probably remembering her from the night she’d worked there, serving canapés. But she forced a bright smile as the older woman opened the door.

‘Is Nikolai home yet?’ asked Zara.

‘Not yes, miss. Mr Komarov is expected shortly.’

Murmuring her thanks, Zara went upstairs, showered and made her face up and by the time Nikolai came home she was ready and dressed. He paused for a moment in the doorway of the bedroom, his eyes raking over her.

Green suited her, he thought—especially when it skimmed over her bottom like that and allowed him to see a great deal of her spectacular thighs.

‘Why, you look magnificent,
angel moy,’
he said softly as he pulled off his tie.

‘Do I?’ She was about to tell him that it was only a cheap dress but then stopped herself. A woman should always keep
something
back—and mightn’t he think that she was hinting he buy her something more expensive?

‘Mmm. Completely delectable. In fact, I don’t think I’d better risk kissing you in case I change my mind about going out—so give me ten minutes to get changed.’

His car took them to a restaurant in Shoreditch which overlooked the Regent’s Park canal—but the air was sultry and heavy as they stepped onto the baking pavement and Zara wondered if they were due a storm. It
was a very simple venue—a large room with scrubbed wooden floors and tables and bare walls—so that all the attention was focused on the green-grey water of the canal which slid past the giant windows. The menu was simple, too—much of the food grown on nearby allotments, according to the enthusiastic young waitress who served them. They ordered risotto cooked with courgette flowers and a big, herby green salad.

‘This wasn’t the kind of place I was expecting,’ said Zara as she took a sip of red wine which tasted of raspberries.

‘And what kind of place were you expecting?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She looked around at the blackboard and the wire basket of lemons on the bar. ‘Somewhere more in the centre of town, I suppose—with crisp white tablecloths and candles and gleaming crystal.’

‘Is that what you would have preferred? ‘

Something dark in his tone unsettled her and she put down her fork and stared at him, her heart beating very fast. ‘We’re not back onto the gold-digger theme, are we, Nikolai?

‘Of course not. I was simply asking a question.’

Was he? She never really knew what he was thinking—just as she sometimes felt she didn’t know him at all. All she ever saw of him were the bits he wanted her to see—the veneer he presented to the world. He was like one of those painting-by-numbers kits she used to have as a child, the picture all grey and indistinct—until portions of it gradually came to life with the addition of various bits of colour. But he gave her no colour to play with, she realised—and maybe she was going to have to dig deeper and find some for herself.

‘No, I would not have preferred somewhere like
that—I work in places like that. I like it here. It’s different—and I like the simplicity.’ She ran her fingertip around the edge of her wine glass. ‘Do you have restaurants like this in Russia?’

‘Of course we do. There are restaurants like this all over the world. But only in affluent areas will you find peasant food which comes with a mighty price-tag,’ he commented wryly. ‘That’s one of the many ironies of life, Zara. Those who have known hardship try to recreate it once they have escaped from its clutches.’

‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’ Her fingertip halted and she looked up into his eyes. ‘Have you known hardship, then?’ she questioned softly.

His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s this, the beginning of an interrogation?’

‘Interrogation?’ She put her glass down. ‘That’s a slightly heavy way to put it! I can’t deny being interested in your life—why wouldn’t I be when we’ve been spending so much time together—and, besides, you wanted to know about mine, didn’t you?’

Idly, he swirled the red wine in his glass. Maybe her question was another subconscious warning that, essentially, women were all the same. That deep down they wanted to bleed you dry—and if it wasn’t materially, then it was emotionally.

He took a sip of wine, aware that he hadn’t yet changed the subject with the seamless skill for which he was known when anyone tried to stray too close. Was that because there was something about Zara which made him less inclined to be dismissive about his past? She was not the usual type of woman he had an affair with. She was poor, for a start, yet she was fiercely independent in spite of that. He suspected that she was honourable, too, and much too decent a person to use any private
information against him when their affair eventually ended.

Besides, some of his background was already on the record—he supposed that he should be grateful she hadn’t already hit the search engine of her computer to try to find out about him. But nobody had ever managed to put flesh on the bones of his past…and wasn’t talking about a subject he kept so firmly off-limits more than a little tempting?

‘Yes, I’ve known hardship,’ he said slowly. ‘I grew up in a time and a place where hunger and poverty were commonplace.’

A fragment of something he’d once said floated back to her. ‘Did you lose your parents when you were very young…in some kind of accident?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Why do you ask that?’

‘I just thought …’ She remembered the sudden flash of understanding in his eyes when she’d told him about her parents being killed. Hadn’t part of her thought that it might have been some sort a shared bond between them? Two people who’d been formed by tragedy. She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

Nikolai took a bigger mouthful of wine, wondering why he had ever agreed to go down this road. The wine was rich, and strong—it should have been relaxing were it not for the subject which now reared up from the past, like an ugly spectre. For wasn’t there part of him which wished his parents
had
been killed in some tragic accident—which would have allowed him to remember them with fondness and love, instead of anger?