Carol Marinelli - The Cost Of The Forbidden

‘You’d get weekends off.’ Sev dismissed that obstacle. ‘Unless we were overseas.’

‘And also,’ Naomi added, just to make certain that he didn’t hire her, ‘I don’t really have experience in your field.’

‘Experience in my field?’ Sevastyan frowned and he knew exactly what she meant but he was enjoying watching her get flustered. ‘I’m not a farmer.’

‘I meant that I don’t know much about cyber security.’

‘If you did then you’d be my rival.’

She stood and held out her hand.

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘Part of the package is an apartment overlooking Central Park. Well, once Felicity moves out. It’s nice...’ he mused. ‘Well, I like living there.’

‘We’d be in the same apartment block?’

It got worse and worse!

‘It’s huge. Don’t worry, I shan’t be knocking on your door to borrow a cup of sugar. It’s convenient if there’s an early morning or late-night meeting. And it saves time when we’re travelling, which there’s a lot of. Being in the same building shaves off ten minutes if I don’t have to pick you up from another address and there’s a helipad.’ And then he told her what her wardrobe allowance would be, which should have had her cheering.

‘No, really...’

Naomi wanted her life back.

She wanted a world where she had never seen this man. But Sev now wanted her.

She was as plump as forbidden fruit and, God, but he loved the word ‘no’. He considered it a pesky firewall to get around or disable.

It really was a great motivator.

‘Thank you for your time,’ Naomi said, still holding out her hand, but he didn’t offer his.

‘Sorry,’ she said again, only this time it didn’t irk him. He simply sat in silence and watched her leave.

He picked up the next résumé and read through it.

Yawn, yawn, Sev thought, his mind still on the girl with the sad brown eyes.

Spaniel brown.

Like some puppy expecting to be kicked but hoping for love.

And a stray he did not need.

He headed out to call Emmanuel in.

The waiting room was empty.

‘Felicity...’ he called out to his PA, but her seat was empty too.

And her bag was gone.

There was her farewell message to him on the computer screen.

I FAKED IT!!!!

‘No, you didn’t.’ Sev grinned but his smile faded as the lift opened and Emmanuel, presumably, dashed down the corridor.

‘I’m so sorry that I’m late, Mr Derzhavin...’

Sev frowned. He recognised him. That’s right, he had interviewed Emmanuel a couple of years before and now he was back for another go.

And he was five minutes late.

‘Not the best first impression,’ Sev said.

‘I know but—’

‘Let’s not waste each other’s time.’

‘But...!’

Sev didn’t wait to hear his excuses. Instead he headed back to his office and caught the last floral notes of Naomi Johnson. His mind made up, Sev picked up his phone.

Naomi was just checking hers when it rang and, given her recent text to her father, naturally she assumed it was him. He’d actually seemed impressed when Naomi had told him about the interview with Sevastyan. Maybe he was ringing to find out how it had gone?

‘Hi, Dad, I was just—’

Her voice was all gushing and needy and not one she’d used on him, Sev thought. ‘It’s not your father. This is Sev.’

‘Oh.’

He heard the sag of disappointment in her voice, which was a first for Sev—women were usually falling over themselves to get a call from him. ‘Your boss.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Ha!’ Sev said. ‘We’ll have to work on that one. Congratulations, Naomi, you’ve got the job.’

Naomi stood in the foyer and knew that she should end the call.

Simply hang up and get the hell out of there.

‘I thought that I’d made it clear—’ Naomi attempted, but Sev interrupted her.

‘How about I sweeten the deal with quarterly trips home to the UK? I’m actually going there in November for a private visit. You can have a couple of weeks off. I’m sure your fiancé will be pleased to see you.’

Naomi swallowed but then frowned at his next question.

‘Why didn’t he come with you?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘To New York?’ Sev said. ‘Why did you come alone?’

‘We trust each other...’ Her voice was shrill because, bizarrely, at this very moment, Naomi didn’t trust herself.

‘I wasn’t talking about trust, I’m just curious why he didn’t come.’

Oh, he was like a shower of needles, getting into her skin. His question was one that Naomi had asked herself several times.

‘He has an important job.’

‘So do I,’ Sev said, then he decided it didn’t matter. A fiancé, and an absent one at that, was completely irrelevant to him so he deleted her fiancé from the file in his mind named Naomi Johnson.

Irrelevant.

‘Come and work for me, Naomi,’ Sev said, and Naomi closed her eyes and then opened them but she still felt giddy.

Breathless and dizzy just at the sound of his deep voice.

‘Do we have a deal?’ Sev asked.

She was playing with fire, Naomi knew, but then again it was an internal one, and she doubted whether a man as suave as Sevastyan was, at this moment, self-combusting at the thought of her.

It was just a matter of keeping her private feelings in check and, Naomi knew, she was extremely good at that.

She’d been doing that for most of her twenty-five years after all.

She thought of telling her father that she’d scored such a prestigious job, that maybe, finally, she might see a flare of approval in his eyes.

It might be the new start they needed.

‘Naomi,’ Sev pushed. ‘Do we have a deal or not?’

‘We do,’ Naomi croaked. ‘When would I start?’

She hoped that he’d say a month, or even in two weeks’ time.

Or Monday.

She just wanted a little space to clear her head before she faced him again but then came the deep of his voice.

‘Turn around and get back in the elevator,’ Sev replied, and then, like some expert quizmaster, he hit the stopwatch on her life. ‘Your time with me starts now.’

CHAPTER ONE

NAOMI WOKE UP lying in a very warm, comfortable bed. She just stared out into the darkness and waited for dawn with butterflies dancing in her chest.

Last night she had called Andrew and had told him that they were over.

As expected, he hadn’t taken it well at all.

But, then, he hadn’t taken her coming to New York to spend time with her father well either. In fact, they had broken up the night before Naomi had flown out. The next morning he had turned up at Heathrow with an engagement ring, telling her that he would wait.

Now she didn’t look back at that time with tenderness. She had been sideswiped, Naomi knew. It had taken these months apart to see that she had said yes under pressure and that she didn’t need him to magnanimously grant her a year’s leave of absence.

It was done and while she should feel relief and did, Naomi wasn’t thinking about Andrew any more.

Instead the butterflies had turned into a flock of sparrows and she felt sick with dread at another difficult conversation she would be having at some point today.

With Sev.

Of course, Andrew had asked her if there was someone else and Naomi had hesitated for a beat too long before answering him.

No, there was no one else, she had told him, and that was the truth.

Sort of.

Naomi had been working for Sev for three months now and, yes, he’d tried it on a couple of times.

Once when they had been stuck in his jet for hours on a runway in Mali and he’d put down the book he always read on take-off and had suggested she might want to go for a lie-down.