Шэрон Кендрик - Too Proud to be Bought

For days now, she’d been listless and distracted, her mind going round and round in circles. Preoccupied with the man who’d been haunting her dreams and waking hours ever since he’d taken her in his arms and made her body thrill to his experienced touch.

Nikolai Komarov. The icy-eyed Russian who had kissed her so passionately in the back of his luxury car after the embassy party last week. The man she had been trying desperately hard not to think about, but—no matter how much she tried to push the thoughts away—just the memory of the way he’d touched her made her heart hammer and her body ache.

Angrily, she straightened her shoulders. At least she should be grateful that there had been no repercussions after the event. Her friend’s mum, her boss, hadn’t found out that she’d gatecrashed the party—so at least her job was secure. She hadn’t even told Emma about what had happened, she’d simply returned the dry-cleaned dress to her friend a couple of days later and told her that she’d been unable to get a card to the influential Russian billionaire. And that much was true. If she’d thrust a card at him after letting him kiss her like that, wouldn’t it have looked like some primitive form of barter?

But the whole experience had left Zara feeling vulnerable—wondering how she could have behaved like that. Images of the intimate way he’d touched her kept coming back to haunt her with provocative clarity. She remembered the way his lips had sucked on her silk-covered breast. The way his fingers had drifted almost negligently over her bare leg. It had made her feel positively… wanton.

And added to her feelings of remorse was the financial insecurity which was still looming large and ugly on the horizon. The bills which had accumulated during her godmother’s illness still had to be paid. How on earth was she going to be able to honour them when waitressing paid so poorly and she was ill-equipped to be employed in any other capacity? Maybe she was going to have to sell the house after all, losing her toehold on the precious property market and at a time when prices were at an all-time low. Still, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it—at least, not tonight. She was here to do a job and so she had better just get out there and do it.

Resolutely putting her troubles to one side, she stepped out through tall French windows to the gardens, where she could see trees, bright flowerbeds, lawns and fountains. It looked more like an elegant public space than a private garden, she thought. Groups of people stood around in the warm summer evening—the women wearing pretty dresses and the men tieless and relatively casual. Waiters had already been circulating with chilled bottles of vintage champagne, and at the far end of the garden sat a woman with a fall of dark hair, who was playing gently on a harp.

‘Crayfish wrapped in toasted-sesame rice and topped with golden caviar?’ recited Zara as, with a smile, she offered her tray to group of bony-looking women in strappy little dresses—but they all shook their heads regretfully. Only the men accepted, devouring the costly treats in a careless mouthful, oblivious to the calorie-count they contained.

She moved from group to group, her smile not fading until she glanced to the end of the sunlit garden and saw a man standing there. She blinked and then blinked again, as if unable to believe what she was seeing. Because, standing perfectly still with his eyes trained on her, just as they had been when she’d first seen him, was Nikolai Komarov. Incredulity making her heart race, she registered the devastating combination of icy blue eyes, hair of beaten gold—and a body which was all honed muscular perfection.

Zara felt her feet stumble to a halt as she shook her head, thinking that she had simply imagined him, like someone who was parched from thirst imagining the gleam of water in the distance. Or perhaps the bright sunlight had blinded her to reality, making her think that because a man was tall and statuesque and stood as still as a waxwork it might be Nikolai Komarov.

But there could be no mistake. No other man looked like him. And no other man radiated that particular quality of power and domination …

She swallowed down the sudden lump in her throat as he began to walk across the grass towards her and she looked around her frantically, as if searching for some means of escape. But what could she do? Put her tray down on the lawn and run? And where could she run to in this enclosed garden, especially when at the very far end there were a couple of burly-looking security men, who didn’t look as if they’d let anyone go anywhere without their boss’s say-so?

She could see his face more closely now and his eyes looked so pale and cold that her heart began to hammer as he approached—and she could do absolutely nothing about the guilty prickle of her skin as her body acknowledged his devastating presence.

There was a pause before he spoke. A lifetime of a pause while he studied her with a look which managed to be both dispassionate and intense.

‘Hello, Zara,’ he said, in a voice edged with sensual danger.

For a moment she didn’t reply, as if she still might wake up and find she had been dreaming. But he stood as solid as granite before her, as real as any man had a right to be, and she felt the rush of colour to her cheeks. ‘Nikolai,’ she breathed.

‘The very same,’ he agreed, clipping the words out as if they were bullets, his groin hardening as she said his name in that breathless way. And all he could think of was that she was nothing but a fraud, a liar and a cheat—just like the rest of her sex. It was ironic how predictable women could be. At first he’d thought that he’d just been scarred by a bad experience. That the template set down for him by his lying and cheating mother—who had walked away and left him without a backward glance—was somehow unique. But he had been wrong. After her desertion—the precious bond between mother and son forgotten in her pursuit of wealth—he had discovered a whole world of ambitious and deceitful women out there. His mouth twisted. When would he ever learn that they were all the same?

He fixed her with a cool look. ‘Surprised?’ he questioned sarcastically.

Her throat was still as dry as sandpaper. ‘Of course I’m surprised,’ she croaked…‘Why…why are you here? I don’t…I don’t understand. What’s going on?’

Nikolai’s eyes narrowed. He had been waiting for her, yes, but the reality of seeing her again still took some getting used to—especially when she looked so dramatically different. Tonight those pert breasts were not showcased by the slippery green satin which had drawn his mouth to them like a magnet—and nor was she towering and tall in a pair of sexy high heels. Instead, she was wearing a plain black skirt, white blouse and apron—an outfit which should have done her no favours at all. And yet somehow the functional uniform did little to disguise the lush curves of her body, drawing attention to every sinuous line of it. Or maybe that was because he had a good idea what lay beneath.

‘Don’t you?’ He felt the breath thicken in his throat. ‘No ideas at all? ‘

She shook her head, her confusion made worse by the explicit memory of his kisses. ‘None.’

‘Think about it.’

From jumbled fragments, the facts began to form some kind of picture in her mind. The only solution which made any kind of sense and yet one which filled her with foreboding as she thought about the possible repercussions. ‘Is this…is this your house?’

‘Bravo!’ His lips curved into a mocking line. ‘It’s one of them. Do you like it?’

What could she say? Start protesting that her views on his property portfolio were irrelevant? Or just take the question at face-value and hope that her presence here was some kind of ghastly coincidence? ‘It’s a very beautiful house,’ she said carefully.