“Why extend your takeover to include me?” Clair asked, in a voice more husky than full of the disparagement she was aiming for. “Didn’t you get enough out of scooping up the firm from a dead man?”

“He was still alive when I started proceedings and, no, I didn’t get anything near what I wanted. Don’t make out like you’re some kind of prey just because you’re used to being the predator. You get to keep the money,” Aleksy taunted softly.

“No matter what?”

The jerky toss of her head was supposed to convey brash confidence. The question was real, though. She couldn’t help being seduced by the prospect of running the foundation her way, without needing approval on every detail. Without having to reveal that each of those details touched her personally and that was why she was fighting so hard for them.

“I’m not into anything kinky,” she warned. “If you’re looking for someone to spank you, move along to the next girl in the secretarial pool.”

“I’m not the submissive in any relationship,” he assured her dryly. “I like straight sex and lots of it. I don’t hurt women—ever—if that’s what you’re dancing around asking. I might play with dominating her, controlling her …”

He flexed his hands on her elbows, making her breasts press into his chest. Excitement returned with a spear of pleasure straight into her loins. She gasped.

“If she likes it,” he murmured.

Dear Reader,

This story has a history as long and colourful as the country it’s set in.

Clair is a heroine I lived with for at least a decade before I properly wrote her story. I knew she was pretending to be mistress to an impotent man—one who was using her to hide his criminal activities—but I had her paired with one wrong hero after another. At one point he was a CIA agent, another time he was a New England playboy. For a while she was an accountant, and in one version she asked the hero for an affair, rather than being acquired as a mistress as she is by Aleksy.

Aleksy, with his scar and his very dark past, is the perfect contrast to the flawless and aloof appearance that disguises Clair’s surprisingly sensitive personality. What I love most about Clair is her ability to bring Aleksy back to the man he was meant to become. He, in turn, gives her the promise of the family that she truly deserves.

I hope you find their story as satisfying to read as it was for me to finally write it.

Dani

The Russian’s Acquisition
Dani Collins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DANI COLLINS discovered romance novels in high school and immediately wondered how a person trained and qualified for that amazing job. She married her high school sweetheart, which was a start, then spent two decades trying to find her fit in the wide world of romance writing, always coming back to Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance.

Two children later, and with the first entering high school, she placed in Harlequin’s Instant Seduction contest. It was the beginning of a fabulous journey towards finally getting that dream job.

When she’s not in her Fortress of Literature, as her family calls her writing office, she works, chauffeurs children to extra-curricular activities, and gardens with more optimism than skill. Dani can be reached through her website at www.danicollins.com

To the editorial team in London, especially Suzy Clarke and Laurie Johnson.

Suzy because she fell for Aleksy early and told me to keep him on the back burner (that’s why he smolders), and Laurie because she fell for him as soon as she met him (and then told me how to make him even more brooding and irresistible).

Thanks, ladies!

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

I miss waking up with you.

THE NOTE STRUCK a pang of wistfulness in Clair Daniels’s chest. She wondered if anyone would ever write something so romantic to her. Then she recalled the waves of emotional highs and lows Abby had been riding for months, all under the influence of that elusive emotion called “love.” Being independent was more secure and less hurtful, she reminded herself. And the roller coaster she’d been through in the last two weeks, after losing a man who was merely a friend and mentor, was brutal enough.

Still, she had to hide envy as she handed the note back to Abby and said with a composed smile, “That’s very sweet. The wedding is this weekend?”

Abby, the firm’s receptionist, nodded with excitement as she placed the card back in the extravagant bouquet Clair had admired. “I was just saying to everyone—” She waved at the ladies gathered with their morning coffee. “I texted him that after Saturday, we can wake up together forev…” She trailed off as it struck her who she was talking to.

The horseshoe of women dropped their gazes.

Clair’s throat closed over a helpless I wasn’t waking up with him. She’d never slept with anyone but couldn’t say so. Her confidentiality clause with Victor Van Eych had made such confessions impossible.

Still, she knew everyone had thought her relationship to the boss went deeper than merely being his PA. The gossip had eaten her up, but she’d let it happen out of kindness for a man whose self-assurance had been dented by age. Other people’s opinions of her shouldn’t matter, she’d told herself. Victor was nice to her. He had encouraged her to start the foundation she’d always dreamed of. Letting a white lie prevail in return had seemed harmless.

Then his family had refused to let her into his mansion to so much as share condolences, turning their backs and pushing her to the fringes like a pariah.

She wasn’t someone who wore her heart on her sleeve, but the one person she had begun to count on had died. Shock and sorrow had overwhelmed her. Thankfully she’d had a place to bolt to for a week and absorb her loss. Ironic that it had been the orphanage, but what a timely reminder how important the home and foundation were, not just to her, but to children as alone as she was.

Now she was feeling more alone than ever, trying not to squirm under the scrutiny of her colleagues, not wanting to reveal that her chest had gone tight and her throat felt swollen. It wasn’t just Victor’s unexpected death getting to her, but a kind of despair. Would anyone ever stick? Or was she meant to walk through life in isolation forever?

Into the suffocating moment, the elevator pinged and the doors whispered open. Clair glanced over her shoulder to escape her anxiety, and what she saw made her catch a startled breath.

A hunting party of suits invaded the top floor. It was the only way to describe the tribe of alert, stony-faced men. The last off the elevator, the tallest, was obviously their leader. He was a warrior whose swarthy face wore a blaze of genuine battle injury. At first that was all Clair saw: the slash of a pale scar that began where his dark hair was combed back from his hairline. It bisected his left eyebrow, angled from his cheekbone toward the corner of his mouth, then dropped off his clean-shaven jaw.

He seemed indifferent to it, his energy completely focused on the new territory he was conquering. His armor-gray suit clung with perfect tailoring to his powerful build. With one sweep of his golden-brown eyes, he dispersed the clique of women in a subtle hiss of indrawn breaths and muted clicks of retreating heels.

Clair couldn’t move. His marauding air incited panic, but her feet stayed glued to the floor. She lifted her chin, refusing to let him see he intimidated her.

Male interest sparked to life as he held her stare. His gaze drifted like a caress to her mouth, lowered to her open collar and mentally stripped her neatly belted raincoat and low-heeled ankle boots.

Clair set her teeth, hating these moments of objectification as much as any woman, but something strange happened. Her paralysis continued. She wasn’t able to turn away in rejection. Heat came to life in her abdomen like a cooling ember blown into a brighter glow. Warmth radiated into her chest and bathed her throat.

His attention came back to her face, decision stamped in his eyes. She was something he would want.

She blushed, still unable to look away. A writhing sensation knotted in her stomach, clenching like a fist when he spoke in a voice like dark chocolate, melting and rich, yet carrying a biting edge.

She didn’t understand him.

Clair blinked in surprise, but he didn’t switch to English. His command had been for one of his companions, yet she had the impression he’d been talking about her if not to her. He swung away, moving into the interior offices as if he owned the place. One of the men flanking him murmured in a similar language.

“Was that Russian?” Clair asked on a breathless gasp as the last pin-striped back disappeared. She felt as if a tank had just flattened her.

“They’ve been coming in all week. That tall one is new.” Abby dragged her gaze away from the hall and became conspiratorial as she leaned over her keyboard. “No one knows what’s going on. I was hoping you could enlighten us.”

“I wasn’t here,” Clair reminded her. She hadn’t even been in London. “But Mr. Turner told me before I left that everything would carry on as usual, that the family were keeping things status quo until they’d had time to settle his private affairs. Are they lawyers?” She glanced toward the hall but was certain that man wasn’t anything as straitlaced as a lawyer. He struck her as someone who made his own rules rather than living by any imposed on him. Her skin still tingled under the brand of ownership he’d imprinted on her.

“Some are, I think,” Abby answered. “Ours have been meeting them every day.”

“Our—? Oh, right.” Clair forced herself back to the conversation. Lawyers. Not just her friend deceased but the boss and owner, leaving the place on tiptoes of tension. She’d noticed the mood the second she returned. Having strangers prowl like bargain hunters at a fire sale didn’t help. Clair decided she didn’t like that trespasser of a man.

Abby glanced around before hunching even closer. “Clair? I’m really sorry for what I said. I know losing Mr. Van Eych must be hard for y—”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Clair dismissed with a light smile. She stepped back to freeze out the empathy. Putting up walls was a protective reflex, an automatic reaction that probably accounted for why no one ever sent her flowers or love notes. She wasn’t good at being close to people. That was why she’d let herself fall into a fake romance with Victor. He’d offered companionship without the demands of physical or emotional intimacy, protecting her from anyone else trying to make a similar claim. No risk, she’d thought. No chance of pain.

Ha.

That Russian would make incredible demands, she thought, and her stomach dipped even as she wondered where her speculation had come from. No way would she let someone like that into her private life. He was a one-way ticket to a broken heart. Forget him.

Nevertheless, trepidation weakened her knees as she looked toward her office, the direction he’d taken. Silly to be afraid. He would already have forgotten her.

“I’ll check in with Mr. Turner,” Clair said, holding the smile of confident warmth she’d perfected as Victor’s PA. “If I’m able to tell you anything, I will.”

“Thank you.” Abby’s worried brow relaxed.

Clair walked away, determined to push the Russian from her mind, but she’d barely hung her coat and bent to tuck her purse into her desk drawer before Mr. Turner appeared in the doorway. Waxen paleness underpinned the flags of red in his sagging cheeks.

Clair stood to attention, heart sinking with intuitive fear. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re to report to—” He ran a hand over his thinning hair. “The new owner.”

* * *

Aleksy Dmitriev set the waste bin next to his feet, reached for the first plaque on the wall and tossed it in, taking less satisfaction in the loud clunk of an industry award hitting the trash than he’d anticipated. This coup had been too easy. Clunk. The bastard wasn’t alive to see his world collapse. Clunk. Van Eych had succumbed to the lifestyle he’d enjoyed at the expense of men like Aleksy’s father rather than face the revenge Aleksy had intended to wreak. Clunk.

The blonde in the foyer was that filthy dog’s mistress. Smash!

A delicate crystal globe shattered in the bottom of the can, leaving a silver heart exposed and dented.

“What on earth,” a clear female voice demanded, “do you think you’re doing?”

Aleksy lifted his head and was struck by the same kick of sexual hunger he’d experienced fifteen minutes ago. The part of his anatomy he couldn’t control suffered another tight, near-painful pull.

At first sight he’d judged her snowflake perfect, delicate and cool with creamy, unblemished skin, white-gold hair and ice-blue eyes. As potent as chilled vodka with a kick of heat that spread from the inside. He’d demanded her name and details.

Now the dull raincoat was gone, revealing warmer colors. Her peach knit top clung to slender arms and hugged smallish but high breasts, while her hips flared just enough to confirm she was all woman.

He smothered reckless desire with angry disgust. How could she have given all that to an old man, especially that old man?

Under his stare, her lashes flickered with uncertainty. She turned one boot in before setting her feet firmly. Her fists knotted at her sides, and her shoulders went back. Her chin came up in the same challenge she’d issued when they first came face-to-face.

“Those might have sentimental value to Mr. Van Eych’s family,” she said.

Aleksy narrowed his eyes. The heat of finding the fight he’d been anticipating singed through his muscles. She was an extension of Victor Van Eych, and that allowed him to hate her, genuinely hate her. His sneer pulled at his scar. He knew it made him look feral and dangerous. He was that and more. “Close the door.”

She hesitated—and it irritated him. When he spoke, people moved. Having a slip of a woman take a moment to think it over, look him over, wasn’t acceptable.

“As you leave,” he commanded with quiet menace. “I’m throwing out all of Van Eych’s trophies, Miss Daniels. That includes you.”

She flinched but remained tall and proud. Her icy blue eyes searched his, confirming he was serious.

As the heart attack that killed your meal ticket, he conveyed with contempt.

She turned away, and loss unexpectedly clawed at him.

He didn’t have time to examine it before she pressed the door closed, remaining inside. Inexplicable satisfaction roared through him. He told himself it was because he would get the fight he craved, but what else could he expect from a woman of her nature? She didn’t live the way she did by walking away from what she wanted.

Keeping her hand on the doorknob, she tossed her hair back and asked with stiff authority, “Who are you?”

Unwillingly, he admired her haughtiness. At least she made a decent adversary. He wiped the taint of dust from his fingertips before extending his hand in a dare. “Aleksy Dmitriev.”

Another brief hesitation; then, with head high, she crossed to tentatively set her hand in his. It was chilly, but slender and soft. He immediately fantasized guiding her light touch down his abdomen and feeling her cool fingers wrap around his hot shaft.

He didn’t usually respond to women like this, rarely let sex thrust to the forefront of his mind so blatantly, especially with a woman he regarded with such derision, but attraction clamored in him as he closed his hand over hers. It took all his will not to use his grip to drag her near enough to take complete ownership, hook his arm across her lower back and mash her narrow body into his.

Especially when she quivered at his touch. She made a coy play at pretending it disconcerted her, but she’d been sleeping with a man old enough to be her grandfather. Acting sexually excited was her stock in trade. It made him sick, yet he still responded to it. He wanted to crowd her into the wall and kindle her reaction until she was helpless to her own need and he could sate his.

Disappointment seared a blistering path through his center. He wanted her, but she’d already let his enemy have her.

* * *

Aleksy Dmitriev released her hand and insultingly wiped his own on his tailored pants, as if her touch had soiled his palm.

Clair jerked her hand into her middle, closing her fist over the sensation of calluses and heat. He was hot. In every way. All that masculine energy and muscle was a bombardment. She didn’t want to react, especially to someone who wanted to fire her.

She dragged at her cloak of indifference, the one she’d sewn together in a school full of spoiled rich kids. “What gives you the right, Mr. Dmitriev, to take away my job?”

“Your ‘job’ is dead.” His curled lip told her what he thought her job was.

“I’m a PA,” she said tightly. “Working under the president. If you’ve taken ownership, I assume you’re moving into that position?”

“On top of you? A predictable invitation, but I have no use for his leavings.”

“Don’t be crass!” she snapped. She never lost her temper. Poise was part of her defense.

He smirked, seeming to enjoy her flush of affront. It intensified her anger.

“I do real work,” she insisted. “Not whatever you’re suggesting.”

His broken eyebrow went up. They both knew what he was suggesting.

“I manage special projects—” She cut herself off at his snort, heart plummeting, suddenly worried about her own very special project. The foundation was a few weeks from being properly launched. After last week, she knew the building she’d grown up in was badly showing its age. The home needed a reliable income more than ever. And the people…

“Clair, are you okay? You’re more quiet than usual,” Mrs. Downings had said last week, catching her at the top of the stairs where she’d been painting. They’d sat on the landing and Clair hadn’t been able to keep it all in. Mrs. Downings had put her arm around her, and for once Clair had allowed the familiarity, deeply craving the sense that someone cared she was hurting.

She’d come away more fired up than ever to get the foundation off the ground. She had to keep people like Mrs. Downings, with her understanding and compassion, available to children with the same aching, empty hearts that she had.

“Are you shutting down the whole firm?” Clair asked Aleksy with subdued panic.

He turned stony. “That’s confidential.”

She shook her head. “You can’t let everyone go. Not immediately. Not without paying buckets of severance,” she guessed, but it was an educated one. There were hundreds of clients with investments managed here.

“I can dismiss you,” he said with quiet assurance.

Another jolt of anger pulsed through her, unfamiliar but invigorating. “On what grounds?”

“Not turning up for work last week.”

“I had the time booked months ago. I couldn’t have known then that my employer would pass away right before I left.” And she would have stayed if Victor’s family hadn’t been so cutting. If someone, anyone, had said she was needed here.

“You obviously cared more about enjoying your holiday than whether your job would be here when you returned.”

The annual blitz of cleaning and repair at the home was the furthest thing from a holiday, not that he wanted to know. “I offered to stay,” she asserted, not wanting to reveal how torn she’d felt. With her world crashing around her here, she’d been quite anxious to escape to the one stable influence in her life.

“The VP granted my leave,” she continued, scraping her composure together by folding her arms. With her eyes narrowed in suspicion, she asked, “Would I still be employed if I’d stayed?”

“No.” Not a shred of an excuse.

What a truly hateful man! His dislike of her was strangely hurtful too. She tried hard to make herself likable, knowing she wasn’t naturally warm and spontaneous. Failing without being given a chance smarted.

“Mr. Turner assured me before I left that another position would be found for me. I’ve been here almost three years.” She managed to hang on to a civil tone, searching for enough dignity to disguise her fear.

“Mr. Turner doesn’t own the company. I decide who stays.”

“It’s wrongful dismissal. Unless you’re offering a package?” She hated that she tensed in hope. She knew exactly how marketable her skill set was: barely adequate. Going back to low-end jobs, scraping by on a hand-to-mouth existence made her insides gel with dread. This job had been her first step into genuine security.

The Russian tilted his head to a patronizing angle. “We both know you’ve enjoyed the full package long enough, Miss Daniels. If you haven’t set aside something for this eventuality, that’s not my concern.”

“Stop talking like I was—”

“What?” he demanded, baring his teeth. “Victor Van Eych’s mistress? Stop acting like you weren’t,” he snarled with surprising bite. In a few long strides he was at his desk, flipping open a file, waving a single sheet of paper. “Your qualifications are limited to typing and filing, but you’re occupying an executive office.” Another sheet flapped in the air. “You’re paid more than his personal secretary, but he still needed one because you were dedicated to ‘special projects.’” He cracked out a laugh as he snatched up the next record. “You live in the company flat—”

“In the housekeeper’s wing because it’s one of my duties to water the plants,” she defended, hearing how weak it sounded even though Victor had made it sound so logical.

“The janitors who dust the place can water the plants. You’re a parasite, Miss Daniels. One who’s being pried off the host. Take the day to pack your things.”

A parasite. She was doing everything in her power to pay back the system! This job had been a golden egg, but she’d tried not to take advantage of Victor’s generosity. Now she was finally on the brink of being able to help others instead of focusing on her own struggles—something she wanted not for the recognition, but to support children like what she’d once been—and he was calling her a parasite?

“You reprehensible, conscienceless…” Her voice dried up, which was probably best. She was shaking and liable to get personal. Mention that scar, for instance.

“Conscienceless,” he repeated through lips that peeled back in a snarl. He closed her file and took up a memo of some kind. “Do you even know what you’ve been sleeping with? Read that, then tell me who is conscienceless and reprehensible.”

CHAPTER TWO

ALEKSY TOLD HIMSELF he was only confirming that she’d actually left. He was not looking to run into her. Nevertheless, the part of him still prowling with a sense of anticlimax would leap on another chance to verbally tussle with her. Until she’d read the memo, paled, then walked out in stunned silence, Clair Daniels had been—

Forget her, he ordered himself again, but it wasn’t easy. Her type was usually fair game. He didn’t mess with marriageable women, just the types who enjoyed physical pleasure and material wealth over love. Clair had obviously fallen into that category, asking if he was offering a package. She’d been royally peeved when he turned her down, displaying the kind of passionate anger that suggested an equally passionate—

Stop it. He was here to take ownership of one more acquisition. That was all.

He keyed in the entry code to the firm’s penthouse and stepped into generic opulence. The plants looked very well tended. Unfortunately that was the only thing recommending the place. It was the height of modern convenience. No expense was spared in the white leather furniture or silk rugs over marble tiles, but it lacked…

Traces of her.

Absently stroking his thumb along the raised line on his chin, he strolled through a dining room that held no fresh flowers. The white duvet on the master bed was undented. The bathroom was not decorated with intriguing lingerie. In the kitchen, the pantry shelves were bare of all but the minimum staples. She’d vacated so completely, it was as if she’d never lived here at all.

How, then, would he find—

He caught the faint sound of a feminine voice through a wall and cocked his head, instantly alert. Moving past the refrigerator, he found an unlocked door to a laundry room. On the opposite side another door opened into a narrow kitchen, where the scent of toast lingered. Beyond, in a modest lounge peppered with colorful throws, unopened mail and abandoned shoes, Clair Daniels stood. She had her back to him as she finished a call. Her pert bottom and slim thighs were mouthwateringly silhouetted by clingy yoga pants.

The internal wolf that had been pacing restlessly inside him leapt to the fore, exploding his heart in his chest and slamming hot blood through his limbs. He was furious to find her here, but he smiled.

She hung up, turned and screamed.

* * *

Clair clapped a hand over her mouth as she recognized the Russian. As forbidding as he looked, as frightening as it was to have a man appear in her private space, she instantly knew she wasn’t in real danger. At a very deep level, she’d been expecting him. That unnerved her, but she ignored it.

Dropping her hand, she accused, “You scared the life out of me!”

“It wouldn’t have happened if you’d left as you were told.” He no longer wore the suit jacket and tie from earlier. His fog-gray shirt strained across his chest, barely containing his big shoulders and thick biceps. He’d turned up his sleeves, revealing strong flat wrists and a ruthlessly simple gold watch.

She had an urge to touch his arm to see if it was as hard as it looked, which was ridiculous. Men fell into two categories for her: Get lost and Friends is friendly enough. She’d never been silly over boys and had always found women who went hormonal a bit irritating. She was capable of noticing a man with nice abs or a handsome smile, but she didn’t get hot and weak-kneed. Ever. Especially over men who came on so strong. This quivery, oversensitized version of herself was not her.

And yet she watched with fascination as he moved with masculine grace, bending his arm and glancing at his exclusive watch, then flicking his gaze toward her bedroom door where her unpacked suitcase stood against the wall. “You’ve packed at least.”

“I haven’t unpacked from being away.” She shouldn’t take such pleasure in throwing defiance at him when she was falling into desperation, but it gave her ego a boost to let him know she wasn’t bowing and scraping under his every word. She didn’t like what he was doing to her and wanted to make it stop. Under no circumstances did she want him to know how much power he was wielding over her.

“Well, that saves time, doesn’t it?” he said with false pleasantry.

“Whose? Yours? Are you here to throw me out?” It wasn’t even five o’clock. She’d started calling hotels but had wasted precious hours trying to find a workable solution for the foundation first. She had survived starting with nothing before, but she couldn’t bear to let down people whose hopes she’d already raised. The trustees needed to run the home, not spend all their time scrambling for funding. She was stuck, but she didn’t want him to know how desperate she was. “Why didn’t you just send the clown who threw me out of my office?”

His arrogant head went back. “You can’t mean Lazlo?”

“The lowbrow who said, ‘I’m to assist you if you require it’? He might as well have grabbed me by the collar and thrown me into the street.”

Although she had to admit it had been less humiliating to stuff her few personal items into her laptop bag and make a quick exit than try to explain while saying goodbye to everyone. She’d been shaken by what she’d read in the memo and hadn’t wanted to speak to anyone while it sank in. Victor, the man she’d put so much stock and trust in, had put on far more fronts than having a young blond mistress.

“I’ll remind him to be more sensitive next time,” Aleksy said.

“Next time?” she repeated with a kick in her heart. “He’s here?”

“No, we’re alone.”

Her stomach quavered. She folded her arms over her middle, trying to project confidence when she felt gullible and stupid. “Well, I’d rather deal with him. At least he doesn’t sneak up on a person like a thief.”

Aleksy’s golden-brown eyes flashed a warning. “I bought the company fair and square and entered a flat I now own. You’re the one with no right to be here.”

“It’s a job perk!”

“It’s a love nest. One the firm will no longer support.”

So this was about money. She had deduced as much. He must have bought the firm believing its worth to be higher and only learned that Victor had falsified returns after the purchase went through. He didn’t have to take out his bad luck on her, though. They were both victims of Victor’s ruse.

“You know, if you let me keep my job, I could pay rent and this unused apartment could generate income, rather than be an expense,” she suggested.

He narrowed his eyes, displaying thick eyelashes. “How long have you been here?”

“Over a year.”

He moved through her small lounge with calculating interest, probably adding up the value of her few possessions. The place came furnished, but the faded snapshot of her parents in the cheap frame was hers. Her father’s pipe stood on the mantel above the gas flame fireplace. The items were all she had and didn’t come with real memories.

He jerked his chin at the pipe. “I’m surprised you let him keep you in here. A woman with your assets could have pressed for the main prize.” He turned his head.

She ought to have been offended, but her body betrayed her. Heat flooded her under his lingering stare. Her breasts became tight and sensitive and her thighs wanted to pinch against a sweet tingling sensation high between. She was compelled to wet her parted lips with a stroke of her tongue.

His cynical lift of an eyebrow stabbed her with mortification.

“That pipe was my father’s, not Victor’s.” She moved to snatch it up, as though that were all it would take to whisk away the pulsing attraction disconcerting her. “I never—” She cut herself off and tightened her fist around the pipe. “I signed a confidentiality statement,” she finally said, lifting her chin to see him better.

He was so looming and intense with not a shred of compassion for a naive young woman who had wanted to believe she’d been noticed because she worked hard. Aleksy Dmitriev was far above her, not just in wealth and education, but in confidence and life experience. Part of her was intrigued, but their inequality raised her barriers. It killed her to beg guidance off him, but she had to.

“I’m sure you would know better than I whether such agreements are meant to be binding after a death. With your being the new owner, are you in a position to insist I disclose—”

“I insist,” he commanded, flat and sharp. “Tell me everything.”

“Well, I don’t know anything of national import. Don’t get excited. I’m just sick of you accusing me of sleeping my way to the top when I didn’t. Victor was impotent.”

He took her chin between his thumb and curled finger. “Don’t lie,” he warned.

She lifted her free hand, intending to shove his disturbing touch away.

He caught her wrist in midair, but what really held her immobile was the ferocious flare of gold in his eyes. His irises glittered with more demand than this situation warranted. It made her still out of curiosity.

“Why would I lie?”

“Because you know I don’t want you if he’s had you.”

She sucked in a shocked breath and instinctively tried to pull away.

His grip on her wrist flexed lightly to keep her close. “That wasn’t really what he was hiding, was it?”

Clair was plunged out of her depth, body reacting with alarm, mind splintered in all directions by what he’d said about wanting her.

“I—I didn’t know until today that Victor was hiding anything,” she stammered, trying to ignore the detonations of nervous excitement inside her. “I thought he was exactly what he looked like. A successful businessman.” She tried to resist looking into his eyes, but once his stare caught hers, she couldn’t look away. Her nerves seared with something like fight or flight, but it wasn’t fear. The danger here was subtle. Sexual.

“How did you meet him?”

“Who are you? Interpol?” She longed to move away, disturbed beyond bearing.

“Tell me,” he insisted, not releasing her.

“He needed something after hours. I was working late in the file room.” She begrudged making the explanation but wanted him to believe her. Sort of. You know I don’t want you if he’s had you. It was such a Neanderthal thing to say, but it made her insides quiver. “I found it and he said I was the sort of person the top floor needed.”

“I bet he did.” His thumb moved into the notch below her bottom lip. He tilted her face up, into the fading light from the window. His gaze stroked her face like a feathery caress, taking in features she knew men found attractive, but she sensed evaluation, not admiration.

It shouldn’t matter, but it undermined her confidence. Her looks were all she had unless she managed a miracle with the Brighter Days Foundation, and losing her job had quashed that.

“I didn’t think his motive was romantic. He was old.” She tested his grip on her chin, but he held fast, making her vibrate with nerves and awareness. It took everything in her to suppress her shivers and pretend she barely noticed his touch. “When I did realize he wanted people to believe we were together, I told him I wasn’t interested and he said I didn’t have anything to worry about. He wasn’t able to make it with any woman, but he didn’t want people to know. He said if I was able to keep a confidence, I’d have a good career ahead of me as his PA. I needed the money and it wasn’t like he was grabbing me all the time or anything.” She pointedly moved her fist with the pipe into the center of his chest and pressed. “Unlike some men.”

His touch on her face changed. His fingers fanned out and he stroked his palm under her jaw to take possession of the side of her neck, thumb lightly grazing her throat.

The tender touch stilled her, not just because it was unexpected but because it felt so nice. She didn’t encourage people to touch her and hadn’t realized how cherished and important it could make her feel. Her lashes wanted to blink closed so she could focus completely on the lovely sensation.

“So you took him for all he’d give you and never put out for any of it.”

“It wasn’t like that.” He made it sound ugly when she hadn’t taken anything. “The raise and job title were his idea. He suggested I move into this flat because he held receptions and cocktail parties in the main suite. If people thought we were together, that was their assumption. Maybe neither of us corrected it, but all I did was work for him.”

“What kind of work? Hostess duties? Attending functions as his escort?” His lip curled. “Why on earth would people get the wrong impression?”

“He was a widower, so yes, I was his date. But he also put me in charge of forming the firm’s charitable foundation.”

“Ha!” He released her with a lifting of his hands in rejection. “Van Eych help the less fortunate? Now I know you’re lying.”

“I’m not.” The words rushed out, but a sense of loss washed over her as well. Let him believe what he wants to believe, she told herself, but if she was allowed to set the record straight, she wanted to, especially if he’d fired her because he thought she was involved with Victor. Maybe he would reconsider if he believed she hadn’t been. Maybe that’s what he’d meant when he’d said he didn’t want her if Victor had had her.

Dismay squirmed through her. She didn’t want him to want her physically, did she? No. She was trying to rescue the foundation. If there was even a remote chance of keeping her job, and keeping the foundation alive, she had to try.

Veering from him on shaky legs, she found her laptop bag and unzipped it. “You won’t have seen it on the books because it’s not up and running, but I can show you…”

Most of her records were on her laptop and it took forever to wake up, but she had a slender file with proof of the logo she’d recently approved. It wasn’t the fanciest letterhead, but it gave the foundation an identity and made it real. Her heart pounded with pride every time she looked at it. She showed him.

“‘Brighter Days’? It looks like a child drew it.” He barely glanced at it.

“It’s supposed to! It’s an organization that provides funding to group homes and offers grants to orphaned children so they can develop independence.”

“By underwriting their lives?”

“By providing support of many kinds!” Insulted, Clair whipped the file closed. “You obviously don’t know what it’s like to be without parents or you’d have some empathy.” As she tucked the file back into her bag, she let her hair fall forward to screen how wounded she was by his cynicism.

“Or maybe I do and I didn’t have the luxury of handouts to help me find my way. Maybe I managed on my own.” His tone was dangerously quiet.

The truth in the hardened brass of his gaze made her hesitate. The thought that he might have shared some of her struggles struck a chord of kinship in her, but he emanated aggression, provoking her defensive response.

“So did I,” she challenged. “I’m still capable of wanting to help others.”

His hard laugh cracked the air. “Van Eych gave you this flat, a manager’s salary, and countless other favors for that face.” He pointed at her features, then let his gaze traverse insultingly down her narrow shape. “Among other attributes. Not for any smiley face you drew on the sun. Hardly pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.”

He acted as if this illustration was all she had to show for her year of research and meetings and planning. Impotent fury threatened to engulf her, but to let him see he could get under her skin was handing him a weapon he didn’t deserve to hold.

“I don’t care if you believe me,” she said stiffly. “You’re obviously a bully who kicks people around for the fun of it. If you’d like to wait in your flat next door, I’ll clear out of this one by midnight.”

* * *

Such an ice queen, walking into the bedroom as though she wasn’t daring him to follow. Throwing out the bait that she’d never let Van Eych have her. He wondered how she’d homed in on the one reservation he had against her and dismantled it so effectively. A depth of experience in getting what she wanted from men, he supposed. Look at the way she had singled him out as the top dog this morning, making a play with one bold look before he even knew her name.

He almost didn’t care whether she had given herself to Van Eych, so long as he possessed her, which left him oddly defeated. Van Eych had stolen everything from him: not just his parents and home, but his youth and looks and his right to a normal life. No matter how Clair was connected, he ought to want to bury her, not bury himself in her.

He told himself her defiance provoked him. A man who’d conquered as many challenges as he had was internally programmed to trim the claws of a spitting cat and show her he wasn’t the easy dalliance she was used to. She wouldn’t be the biddable sex kitten he was used to either, but that made the thought of having her all the more exciting.

Listen to him. He knew better than to trust her, but he was halfway into bed with her anyway.

Pulling out his mobile, Aleksy texted his PA, then held his breath. He had the truth in seconds and swallowed back a howl of triumph. Her sugar daddy hadn’t been capable of making physical demands. That made taking her not just acceptable but imperative.

He pushed open the half-closed door and found more evidence to support her claim. She was moving clothes into a laundry basket set atop a narrow, single bed. There was something very youthful and innocent about her. He imagined Van Eych had been feeling his age—and beginning to feel the pressure of Aleksy’s running him to ground—when he’d discovered Clair in the file room.

Clair was just the old man’s type: young and pretty, angelic in looks but not in disposition. Van Eych had had women on the side even during his marriage, so it came as no surprise that he’d wanted to maintain the illusion of virility into his later years. The inability to fully enjoy Clair must have churned like bent nails in the old man’s gut.

If only he were alive to hate Aleksy for this. A wicked smile of enjoyment pulled Aleksy’s mouth. “The medical records confirm what you say. Van Eych was limp.”

She sent him a glance that tried for boredom but held an underlying flutter of nervous tension. “I told you, it doesn’t matter to me what you believe.”

“It matters to me.” He hooked a hand over the top of the doorframe, anchoring himself so he wouldn’t press forward into the room and take what he wanted before they’d outlined the terms. She had maneuvered a very profitable situation out of a criminal-class schemer. He couldn’t underestimate how conniving she could be.

She grabbed a hooded jacket off the suitcase near his feet. As she folded it, she hid her expression and any chance of reading her thoughts, but he heard the wheels turn.

He took in the unpacked case as he waited for her to make the next move, distantly wondering where she’d been for a week. With a real lover perhaps, but other men didn’t matter. She had never belonged to Victor. That was the important piece here. The thought of taking her for himself kindled a hungry fire in him. It was an approximation of the victory he craved, and he would have it.

With possessive satisfaction, he toured her shape, stoking the heat of anticipation as he hit narrow feet in bronze ballet slippers and climbed up slim but shapely legs. Hips that would fill his hands. A thick pullover sweater that hung loose, disguising whether she wore a bra. He’d bet she wore a snug undershirt of some kind, something that would trap the heat of her skin but still allow him to find and rub her taut nipples.

Her arm came across her breasts, forcing him out of his fantasy. Her blue eyes were wide, her lips parted. A blush of awareness bloomed across her cheekbones. She knew exactly what he was thinking and even though she was acting shocked, she wasn’t repelled. Her lashes dropped to hide her eyes, but she flirted light fingers through hair that looked as shiny and silky as gold tassels on a scarlet cushion. Her chest rose in a shaky little pant and she ran her tongue over ripe lips.

It struck him that she wasn’t accustomed to wanting the men she used.

He chuckled, delighted not only to have the upper hand, but to have her delectable body fall so easily under him. “Go ahead, Clair,” he taunted. “Ask me if offering to share that bed will persuade me to let you stay in it.”

CHAPTER THREE

FOR SOME REASON Abby’s note from this morning came back to Clair.

I miss waking up with you.

Clair didn’t allow herself to be an idealist. She knew better than to wait on Prince Charming, but her insides twisted all over again. She’d had invitations to sex before, even considered a few, but something had always held her back. Fear of letting down her guard. A sense of emotional obligation that wasn’t comfortable. Never once had she heard anything so blunt and tactical.

“I thought you believed me when I said I wasn’t sleeping with Victor.”

“Victor, yes. No man at all?” He was three thousand percent confident, laconically filling her bedroom doorway with his primed body. “You’re what? Twenty-five?”

Clair closed lips that had parted with indignant denial.

“Twenty-three,” she muttered, which was still long in the tooth to be a virgin, but she was stuck in a catch-22. She had thought she ought to save herself for someone she cared about, but she shied from any type of closeness. Opening up was such a leap of faith. Handing your heart to someone put it in danger of disappointment at the least and complete shattering at the worst. The right man hadn’t come along to tempt her into taking the risk.

This man shouldn’t tempt her, but sex without the entanglement of feelings held a strange allure. She suspected it would be very good sex too, not just because he looked as though he knew his way around a woman’s body, but because her own seemed drawn to his, sense and logic notwithstanding. He made her hot.

It was driving her crazy. She didn’t know how to cope with it except to pretend the reaction wasn’t there. Shaking out the T-shirt she wore to bed, she folded it against her middle and said frigidly, “What makes you think I want to sleep with you?”

“You’ve managed to convince me you’re capable of honesty, Clair. Don’t start lying now. You want me.”

He could tell? How? Humiliated, she avoided her own eyes in the mirror opposite, not wanting to see the flush of awareness he obviously read like a neon sign.

“That bothers you, doesn’t it?” he mocked. “That you’re attracted to more than my fat wallet?”

“What wallet?” she scoffed, ducking an admission that she was reacting to anything. “All I heard was an offer for one night in exchange for what, one more day here? You said I was selling myself short earlier. Surely a man in your position could do better than that.”

Her words didn’t take him aback, only provoked a disparaging smile. “You want the penthouse.”

“I didn’t say that,” she protested.

“Good, because the sale closes tomorrow.”

Her insides roiled. She really was homeless. She didn’t let him see her distress, only blurted, “You work fast.”

“Believe it.”

Her belly tightened at the resolute way he said it, and quivered even more when she saw the gleam of ownership in his eye.

“Well,” she breathed. “I can hardly ask you to share this bed if you can’t arrange for me to stay in it, can I? Pity.” Her false smile punctuated her sarcasm.

“I’ll provide you a bed. One that’s bigger and…sturdier.”

A jolt of surprise zinged all the way to the soles of her feet. He wasn’t supposed to take this seriously. She wasn’t.

She clenched her hand around the edge of the laundry basket as if it were a lifeline that would lift her out of this conversation, but for some stupid reason, her gaze dropped to his open collar where a few dark hairs lay against his collarbone. She imagined he was statue perfect under that crisp fabric, with sharply defined pecs and a six-pack of abs. His hips—

Good grief, she’d never looked at a man’s crotch in her life. She jerked her gaze away, mind imprinted with a hint of tented steel-gray trousers. She blushed hard and it was mortifying, especially when she heard him chuckle.

“I don’t even know you,” she choked, wanting it to be a pithy rejection, but it was more a desperate reminder to herself that this was wrong. She shouldn’t be the least bit interested in him.

“Not to worry, maya zalataya. I know you.”

That yanked her attention back to him and his supremely confident smirk.

“You’re waiting for me to meet your price. Let’s get there,” he said implacably.

“That’s so offensive I can’t even respond.”

“It’s realistic. If you were looking for love, you wouldn’t be living off an old man, allowing people to think you belong to him. I don’t need hearts and flowers either, but I like having a woman in my bed.”

“Your charm hasn’t landed you one?”

He shrugged off her scorn. “I’m between lovers. The takeover has kept me busy. Now I’m tallying up my acquisitions, preparing to enjoy the spoils.”

“Well, I don’t happen to come with this particular acquisition.” She kneed the side of the mattress. “I didn’t have to share this bed to sleep in it and I had a paycheck besides. Don’t throw that look at me!” she snapped, hackles rising when he curled his lip. “Victor was going to underwrite the foundation, and it—”

“By how much?” he broke in.

“Pardon?”

“How much was he going to donate toward ‘brightening your day’?”

“He— You— Oh…” She ground her teeth, glaring at his impassive expression. Planting her hands on her hips, she stood tall and said clearly, “Ten.” That ought to make him realize how seriously Brighter Days had been taken.

“Million?” His eyebrows shot toward his hairline.

“Thousand,” she corrected, startled. She could dream of having millions at her disposal, but Victor’s promised funds would have been enough to keep the doors of the home open until she raised more.

Aleksy removed his mobile from his pocket. “You do sell yourself short. We’ll add a zero to that and call it a deal.”

“What?” she squeaked, but he was already connecting to someone, speaking Russian, then switching to English.

“Daniels, yes. You have her details through payroll? Perfect.” He ended the call.

“What did you just do?” she gasped.

“The transfer will complete in the morning.” He pushed his mobile back into his pocket. “Come here, Clair.”

She stayed where she was, aghast. Infuriated. Was it wrong to be dazzled and elated, as well? Oh, what she could do at Brighter Days with a hundred thousand pounds!

“That’s—” She cleared her throat, recalling he was under the impression he’d just bought her. Her stomach turned over, except…well, it wasn’t with the repulsion she expected. It was like peaking on a roller-coaster track and feeling the car drop away while she hung suspended and breathless. She bottomed out quickly, though, rattled by the way the world began whirring by as the situation picked up speed. She didn’t know which way was up. She wanted off.

“That’s a very generous donation,” she choked, blindly scrabbling up her folded T-shirt. She snapped it out and creased it into a messy rectangle against the bedspread. “I’ll issue a proper receipt for the full amount after I’ve moved it into the trust account.”

“Do whatever you want with it. It’s yours. Now let’s find more pleasant surroundings. I’ll send someone to finish packing your things.”

“The transfer hasn’t cleared.” Terror provided the quick retort, but it felt incredibly good to lob it at him. Better than revealing how thoroughly he mixed her up. “And given that you repulse me—”

“Do I?” He launched from his lazy slouch in the doorway. She only had time for one backward stumbling step before he’d clamped hard arms around her, pulled her into the wall of his chest, then crushed her mouth with his.

Claw his eyes out, she told herself, but aside from the fact that her arms were trapped between them, the sensation of his mouth closing on hers was too remarkable to reject. He was domineering and inexorable, but this wasn’t punishment or force; it was—

Hot. Sexy. Enticing. She instinctively parted her lips under the angle of his firm ones, and his tongue speared wetly into her mouth, shooting such a jolt of pleasure through her that her knees buckled. She moaned and lifted her chin, seeking another thrust and another. Rocking her mouth against his and moaning again when his hand moved to her bottom, crushing her against the hard ridge at his hips.

It was unfamiliar and overwhelming, but she wanted to cry, it felt so good to be wrapped in strong arms, mind blinded to all but the pleasure flaring up from her abdomen, filling her with a blossoming sense of rightness. She didn’t know she was moaning with gratification until he drew away and she heard her own mewl of distress.

With a final nip of his teeth over her swollen lips, he released her, letting her crumple with dazed clumsiness onto the bed’s pillows.

He made an adjustment to himself, his stature powerful as a warrior’s, his harsh breath moving through parted lips, the grim line softened by the sheen of their kiss. “We can wait until morning if you really want to play hard to get, but I don’t think you do.”

“I do,” she gasped, struggling to sit up. The laundry basket tumbled off the narrow bed, dumping all her packing onto the carpet at his feet. “I don’t sleep with men for money. I’ll transfer the money right back to you. You can’t force me into bed with you.”

“I don’t have to,” he said on a snort, shoulders pinned back in a hard flex. “You just proved you want to.” He paused to let her absorb what she couldn’t deny.

An awful telltale heat suffused her, making her dig her fingernails into the edge of the mattress. It was true, she wasn’t immune to him. He kept effortlessly brushing past the invisible shield that usually protected her and branding himself against her core.

“So what if I do? My instincts are warning me that it would be a bad idea,” she told him, holding his gaze and trying to listen to those instincts even as everything in her reached longingly toward him. She could barely think of anything but sating this unfamiliar hunger when he looked at her as if he wanted to flatten her onto the bed and finish what he’d started. Her breath stuttered and her nipples contracted to tight, painful points. All of her felt magnetized toward him, but she stayed put, maintaining the distance.

Something flashed in his eyes. Frustration maybe, but it had a flicker of desperation that quickly dissolved into triumph. “And of course there’s your reputation. Wouldn’t you like to preserve that?”

She frowned. “Sleeping with you would ruin it!” Her voice came out throaty and oddly tinged with anticipation. She was struggling for logic, but all she could wonder was, how would it feel to have him on top of her? Inside her? An earthy part of her desperately wanted to know. No one had ever made her feel so much, and the feelings weren’t emotional and painful, but physical and exciting. Thrilling. Her lips were still burning, aching for the return of his.

She didn’t even know him.

But she wanted to. From the second he’d stepped off the elevator, she’d been wondering who he was. Her online search had turned up dry details about his business interests, nothing about his background. Where had he come from, besides the biggest country in the world? Why had he singled her out? Why did she react to him like this?

“You read the memo,” he said, interrupting her thoughts with grating flatness. “A full investigation has been launched at the firm. Anyone found to have colluded with Victor’s illegal activities will be terminated. I expect more than a few rats to jump ship before they’re fired.”

It took a moment for his statement to penetrate. She knew she wasn’t a rat, so she hadn’t been frightened. Until now. “I didn’t know what he was up to,” she reminded him, experiencing the stabbing sense of being falsely accused. “You don’t think people will say I was fired because— I would never take what I didn’t earn!”

“Says the woman who just accepted a hundred thousand pounds for a charity that doesn’t exist.”

“I didn’t ask for that!” She scrambled to her feet. “You’ll never prove any wrongdoing on my part.”

“Nevertheless, you’ve been sacked. People will draw their own conclusions. Something you’re comfortable with, I believe?”

“That was different! And if I slept with you after seeming to be with Victor, I’d look like—” The biggest gold digger in the world. Her heart plummeted.

“Better to be called what you are than presumed a criminal. I’m well known for drawing a hard line against cheaters and thieves. I wouldn’t have one in my bed, and the world knows it. Sleeping with me would clear your name, whereas walking away would heighten speculation. I don’t think you’d find another patron after that. Not one able to keep you in the style to which you’ve grown accustomed.”

She wouldn’t find a job frying chips with rumors of lawbreaking dogging her. “You could clear my name! You only have to speak up.”

“Make it worth my while,” he countered, not bothering to hide his superior enjoyment at having her exactly where he wanted her. He really was conscienceless.

“Why are you backing me into a corner like this?”

“Why are you fighting me when you know you’ll enjoy it?”

“You won’t,” she blurted, shoulders hunching. Her appalling lack of experience would bore him out of his skull before the first act was over.

Triumph flashed in his eyes and a satisfied smile drew the corners of his mouth back, revealing a wolfish grin. “I have no problem communicating what I like, and you seem receptive. We’ll do fine together,” he assured her.

She folded her arms, fingers plucking self-consciously at the cables knit into her sleeves. The thought of his laughing at her for being a virgin didn’t appeal, but she had to tell him. “Look, I’m not…what you think I am.”

“What I think,” he said, nudging aside a pile of tumbled clothing as he stepped closer, “is that you’re something Victor wanted.” He clasped her arms above her bent elbows, gently straining them backward so her breasts arched into his muscled chest.

She gasped, stiffening in shock, hands splaying over the ridges of his ribs, fingertips unconsciously moving to trace the powerful cage beneath warm fabric. Rivulets of heat poured through her taut abdomen to a place where need pooled, making her flesh tingle and ache to be touched. “Wh-what?”

“Victor couldn’t have you and that means I must. Do you have a passport?”

She couldn’t think when he touched her, but couldn’t draw away, trapped by his strength and her own weakness. But he was talking as if she were mere spoils of war.

“Did you travel with him?” he asked with exaggerated patience.

“I was supposed to, but he died before I went anywhere. Go back to that bit about why you…” She couldn’t bring herself to say “want” when it sounded as though the sexual attraction drowning her wasn’t affecting him. She shivered in a hot-cold shudder of uneasiness while blood rushed under her skin, flushing warmth into her chest, making her breasts feel swollen and sensitized. Her hips longed to press into his, seeking the hard length that had nudged her when they kissed.

He knew what he was doing to her. A smug gleam lit his narrowed eyes as his gaze dropped to her lips. He started to lower his head.

Jerking hers back, she gasped, “I haven’t agreed.” But did she really want to step onto the street at midnight with her meager possessions and become one of the homeless? Her few shallow friendships were all with people she worked with. They wouldn’t take her in for fear of losing their jobs. She didn’t have a cushion of savings, just a credit card she couldn’t pay off if she didn’t have an income.

The direness of her situation began to hit home. At least this afternoon she’d been sure she could find some kind of menial work, but not now. Any character reference out of the firm after today would be career-stoppingly negative. Flicking a look from his set jaw to his penetrating eyes, she whispered, “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

“I lost my redeeming qualities years ago,” he agreed, something dark flickering in his gaze. “Which means there’s no appealing to my better nature. Make this easy on both of us and give in, Clair.”

She was tempted to. She didn’t have anything to lose and no one to answer to while he was dangling—what? A night? A reprieve at any rate, one that advertised a fringe benefit of physical satiation she had never expected to want. The emptiness of a one-night stand was, well, empty enough to make her ache, but she wasn’t in the market for a real relationship, so…

“Why extend your takeover to include me?” she asked in a voice more husky than the disparagement she was aiming for. “Didn’t you get enough out of scooping up the firm from a dead man?”

“He was still alive when I started proceedings and no, I didn’t get anything near what I wanted. Don’t make out like you’re some kind of prey just because you’re used to being the predator. You get to keep the money,” he taunted softly.

“No matter what?” The jerky toss of her head was supposed to convey brash confidence. The question was real, though. She couldn’t help being seduced by the prospect of running the foundation her way, without needing approval on every detail. Without having to reveal that each of those details touched her personally and that was why she was fighting so hard for them. “I’m not into anything kinky,” she warned. “If you’re looking for someone to spank you, move along to the next girl in the secretarial pool.”

“I’m not the submissive in any relationship,” he assured her dryly. “I like straight sex and lots of it. I don’t hurt women, ever, if that’s what you’re dancing around asking. I might play with dominating one, controlling her…” He flexed his hands on her elbows, making her breasts press into his chest.

Excitement returned with a spear of pleasure straight into her loins. She gasped.

“If she likes it,” he murmured.

She struggled, but he held fast and to her chagrin the short tussle only caused her heated desire to kindle into a shivery anticipation. His vital strength was incredibly sexy and she must have had a kinky strand after all if she responded to having pleasure forced upon her. No guilt, she supposed.

“Too bad the money hasn’t cleared,” she said with breathless regret. “Go back to your own suite. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” After she’d had time to talk herself out of the rash agreement she was considering.

He slowly let his hands release her, his fingertips oh so slightly brushing the sides of her breasts, making need pierce her belly and leaving her shuddering with longing.

“So you can disappear with my money? I don’t think so. Van Eych might have been teased into giving without return, but I don’t tolerate cheats or thieves. Fetch your passport and we’ll take whatever you’ve left in that case. I have properties around the world. Lady’s choice where we go, but by the time we land, you’ll have your money and then—” He skimmed a proprietorial glance over her. “I’ll have you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“I’M LOSING MY home at midnight,” her soft lips pronounced before tensing with acrimony. “I need to pack. Traveling will have to wait.” There wasn’t an ounce of self-preservation in her as she matter-of-factly righted the laundry basket and heaped the tumbled clothing into it.

“Don’t test me, Clair. I’m not nice.”

She straightened with a flushed face, all out aggression blasting at him in a way that had him planting his feet.

“What do you want me to do? Leave my things for the new owners to throw in the trash? Exactly how much do you want from me besides my job, my home and—” She clamped her lips over whatever else she almost said. Her mouth trembled briefly and for a moment there was a cast of startling defenselessness to her.

It was gone before unease could take a proper hold on him, hidden by the shift of her body away from him. Her stiff shoulders were proud. “You’re the one who sold this place out from under me. Stop complaining that it’s cutting into your plans.”

She was acting like an amateur.

Aleksy narrowed his eyes on her back, always aware when women were trying to manipulate him and occasionally willing to allow it when it suited his end purpose: primarily to get the physical release his body required. If Clair was attempting to wring guilt out of him, she was being predictable and hopelessly misguided. If she didn’t appreciate how powerful and absent of empathy he was, he’d demonstrate.

With one call—in English so she’d understand it—he swept away her stall tactic.

“The brawny and coldly efficient Lazlo again?” she asked without turning.

“He’s enlisting a young man you might know. Stuart from accounting? He’s proving to be extremely cooperative. A stickler for procedure. Stuart will make an inventory of your property and put it in storage at my expense.”

“Stuart from accounting wants to paw through my underpants drawer? And run back to the office with what he found in my medicine chest?”

“Not if he intends to keep his job.” Aleksy didn’t like the way she paled and liked even less the thought of some flunky fondling her undergarments. His hands tingled to cradle her in reassurance. He shook off the unfamiliar urge. “Gather your personal things if it will put an end to this delay,” he muttered. “You have one hour.”

* * *

In the end she chose Paris, but not for the reason he thought.

“The city of lovers,” he’d said ironically, the timbre of his voice stirring her blood. “Of course. A perfect weekend retreat.”

Weekend. The word punched low, gushing delicious heat through her abdomen.

She shook off the reaction and bit back an explanation that she’d picked Paris because she could get home on her own steam if she had to. Not that she had a home to come back to, but flying back to London from Cairo or Vancouver or Sydney would destroy her shallow savings.

As they traveled, she focused on budgeting for a new flat and where she’d start looking for a job so she wouldn’t recall the way Stuart’s Adam’s apple had bobbled when he found Aleksy in her flat.

Aleksy had curved a possessive hand against the back of her neck and said, “I don’t date my employees. Clair is no longer with the firm.”

Clair had lifted a disillusioned Could you be more blunt? expression to him.

Aleksy had quirked his split brow in a Want me to be?

She’d left without saying a word, her guilty blush burning her cheeks, aware that he’d sealed her fate. Her reputation as a tart was solidified and so much better than criminal. That made her squirm, but she’d learned to shield herself against judgment long ago. No, it was the way he’d gotten into her head so easily that really disturbed her. It made her feel vulnerable.

“Clair.”

His touch turned her from staring out the car window, once again opening that invisible gateway through her defenses. His intense personality whirled into her psyche like a restless summer wind, scattering her thoughts and inducing an instant, fluttering sensuality that reached toward everything in him.

“We’re here.”

The lights of Paris came to sparkling life around her. The scent of rain-damp streets smelled promisingly fresh as he left the car. The strength in his hand as he took hers to help her exit made her heart trip in a nervous rhythm against her breastbone.

She paused as he steered her toward a building, turning her face up to the sprinkling black sky to take in the facade of elegantly lit stone. It wasn’t a towering structure of glass and steel, but an old-world walk-up with wrought-iron balconies and planter boxes already blooming with spring. “This is very—” charming, she almost said “—nice.”

“It’s a good investment,” he dismissed.

The statement chilled her. “If you’re so keen on good investments, why did I hear you dumping all of Victor’s properties?” He’d been positively ruthless, speaking harshly into his mobile as she’d moved through the flat collecting her few sentimental items. He hadn’t taken any losses that she could discern, but he hadn’t seemed concerned with making huge profits either. “I’m sure his family would have kept what you didn’t want.”

“His sons kept enough,” he said bluntly, pausing on the top landing to open a door by punching a code into the security pad. “I left them their homes because they have innocent wives and children, but they knew enough about how their father made his fortune that they didn’t fight my takeover. I didn’t have the evidence to prove Van Eych’s crimes until the firm’s accounting books were in my hands. Now the truth will come out and his sons will change their names to escape any connection to him.”

His mouth curled into a cruel smile as he held the door for her.

Foreboding crawled through her veins. “You think it’s funny to cause the severing of family ties?” Everything in her castaway upbringing was appalled.

“Funny? No. Justified? Yes.”

She stepped into a room lit with intimate golden pools, but she didn’t take it in, too caught up with looking for a crack of humanity in his unyielding expression. Until now she hadn’t worried what would happen to her, aware only that if she walked away from Aleksy’s money, she’d always cringe with regret. Orphaned children needed a voice and it wasn’t as if she could find support for the foundation elsewhere. Victor was gone and who else would sponsor it if rumors started up that its founder had been in collusion with a white-collar criminal? No, if she didn’t do this, the foundation was history, but reality hit as the door clicked shut behind them, loud and symbolic.

Aleksy Dmitriev was a hard man. Not cruel; she believed him when he said he didn’t hurt women. He’d already demonstrated that he held himself to specific, sharply defined ethics. But he wasn’t merely detached like her. She deflected emotions, but he didn’t feel them at all. That made something catch in her. Apprehension, but empathy too. What had made him so devoid of a heart? Had he ever had one?

Did it matter? She belonged to him regardless.

Her heart sank, taking her last chance of protest with it, leaving her feeling naked and defenseless. You’re not naked yet, a lethal voice whispered in her head.

“Dine out or in?” he asked, his accent raspy on her sensitized nerves.

Her breath stuttered and she struggled to catch it, not realizing she’d been holding it. Part of her would rather get the main event over with. It was late enough she was growing tired, but she was also wide-awake with nervous anticipation.

His nearness, the power of his intense glance, stole her voice. His hair had flattened into a dark helmet under the light rain. A shadow had grown in on his square jaw, accentuating everything male in him. She was ridiculously weakened by the sight. Her gaze should have been flashing a back off. Instead she studied his mouth, recalling the feel of those full lips moving with erotic control over hers. Her fingertips itched to trace the smooth curves that were uncompromisingly masculine, yet wickedly sexy.

“This stubble will burn if I kiss you the way you’re begging me to,” he said in a growled voice that slammed her back to reality.

“I—” She strangled on denial, mortified enough to jerk out of his hypnotizing aura and move across the room.

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