Too Proud to be Bought (7 page)

Uncomfortably, she shrank even further away from him. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, giving her dress a quick tug so that it sat respectably on her knees as she glanced over at the clock on the dashboard. ‘And besides, time is running out. I’m supposed to be serving cocktails on the terrace at seven—and I need to shower and change before that.’

He waited for the ‘but’ which never came—and to his astonishment Nikolai could see that she meant every word of it. He noted the defiant little tilt of her chin—a gesture which was as clear as daylight. She was turning him down!

‘You’re not serious?’

‘Oh, but I am.’

He stared at her for a moment longer, as if daring her to continue—but continue she did, stubbornly and primly crossing her arms across her chest as if she were posing for a team photo! Bemused and more than a little frustrated, he jammed his shades back on and started the car with an angry click of the ignition. He put his foot down for the journey back and the loud noise of the engine killed the need for conversation. Not that he felt like saying very much to her, other than to ask whether she’d done some sort of intensive research into teasing men to a dangerous point of provocation. And he didn’t say another word to her, apart from a curt goodbye when he dropped her off at the gate of his house and roared off towards the garage block with a noisy spurt of gravel.

Afterwards, he told himself that she must be playing more games with him—she
must
be. Women didn’t turn him down. Nobody
ever
turned Nikolai Komarov down and certainly not more than once! There had to be a reason for it. He wondered if her sudden prim response had been motivated by a desire to gain access
to his bedroom. To play at being mistress of his house, perhaps? Or simply to extract from him an even more generous pay-cheque than the one he was already offering her?

For the first time in his adult life, his ego felt bruised and, although he didn’t particularly like the feeling, neither did he dwell on it. All he knew was he hadn’t felt this lustful for a long time, and, inexplicably, this little waitress had fed that hunger with her reluctant behaviour. She was running rings round him and now it had become more than desire—it was a matter of pride. Did she really think that she would be able to resist him much longer when it was as clear as the blue sky above that she was hot for him, too?

Maybe some men might have cut their losses and walked away—found a lover who was far more suitable for their life and needs. But Nikolai never gave up on what he wanted and he wanted Zara Evans.

He
had
to have her.

I
F
Z
ARA
had been in London she might have got another waitress to cover her shift that night. Anything other than having to face Nikolai again, after that sexy encounter on the mountainside. But she wasn’t in London—she was trapped in the Russian oligarch’s luxurious villa in the south of France with nobody to turn to. And with barely enough time to shower away the heat of the afternoon and the memory of what had so nearly happened in his sports car, before going out onto the terrace with a tray of Cosmopolitans and a smile which felt like a grimace.

Crystal had changed into a sheath of a dress covered completely with silver sequins, her newly washed hair falling in a white-gold curtain to her waist. She kept giggling wildly at everything Nikolai said, while her oblivious partner Sergei perspired gently beside her and kept checking his cell-phone.

Deliberately, Nikolai held Zara’s gaze as she offered him a drink. ‘You’ve caught the sun, Zara,’ he said silkily.

‘Yes.’

‘Have you been sunbathing?’

For a moment the blue eyes held her captive and heat rushed to her cheeks as she saw his mouth harden into a sensual curve. Was he deliberately trying to make her
feel uncomfortable by reminding her of that steamy encounter? She guessed that he would if he could. With an effort, she pushed away distracting thoughts of his fingers drifting intimately over her body. ‘No, sir,’ she said crisply.

‘I’m very pleased to hear it. You should protect yourself at all costs.’ His eyes glittered as he paused. ‘It was certainly very hot out there today, wasn’t it?’

‘Nikolai!’ chided Crystal. ‘Will you stop it? She’s only trying to do her job and you’re making the poor girl blush!’

And even though the ‘poor girl’ tag rankled, in that moment Zara actually found herself warming towards Crystal for getting Nikolai off her back.

At least the meal was lavish enough to require all her concentration, since the chef had decided to present a range of delicious culinary set-pieces to impress the dinner guests. She tried to keep her eyes averted whenever she had to offer something to Nikolai, but he seemed to take great pleasure in goading her until she was forced to look at him. And then she would tremble as she read the erotic messages he was sending out from the mocking slant of his eyes. Was he deliberately leaning back in his chair to watch her as she moved around—his gaze seeming to burn into her? To remind her of just what he had been doing to her that afternoon—and the way she had responded to him so hungrily?

It was the longest evening of her life and, even though Zara couldn’t wait for it to end, part of her was dreading it, too. Because what was going to happen once it was over? Was Nikolai determined to finish what had been so frustratedly halted in his sports car? And if he came to her room once the guests had gone to bed—what
then? He was her boss, after all—and hadn’t they already established that he could do what the hell he liked?

Zara bit her lip as she unloaded a tray in the kitchen, hating the thoughts which flooded into her mind. Because she didn’t think for a moment that he would
demand
she respond to his advances—why would he need to do that when he’d witnessed her behaving like a piece of molten candle-wax whenever he touched her? But if he demanded to speak to her…could she honestly resist him?

But Nikolai did not come. He dismissed her soon after midnight—when he, Sergei and Crystal were sitting drinking calvados on the terrace—and Zara walked back to her room over the moon-washed paths, feeling inexplicably empty. As if there was a party going on to which she hadn’t been invited—which was actually very true.

She showered and slipped on a little cotton nightie, climbing in between the crisp cool sheets and hoping that sleep might claim her and put an end to her tumultuous thoughts. And to her surprise, it did. She must have been more tired than she’d thought because when she awoke, it was morning.

Blinking her eyes as she opened up the shutters, she couldn’t rid herself of a curious feeling of
flatness
—and, yes, of disappointment, too. How stupid women could be, she told herself crossly as she pulled on her white shirt and black skirt.
You’re angry because he didn’t come to you last night. Because it shows that he was merely playing with you.

She took herself off to serve breakfast and it felt almost like being back in the sleepy little village of St Jean Gardet, because the kitchen was completely deserted. There was no sign of the chef—and no sign that
he might have risen early to start the meal by chopping fruit or warming bread and croissants.

So what did she do? Had he overslept and should she go and wake him? The trouble was that she didn’t have a clue where his room was.

For a moment she stood lost in thought, staring at the pristine oak table which was usually cluttered with bowls and wooden spoons and other utensils, when she heard a whistling sound from behind her and breathed a sigh of relief. Waitresses might spend their time moaning about chefs, but they certainly couldn’t do without them.

‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ she said, turning to greet him. ‘I was beginning to think that you’d …’ But her words tailed off into disbelieving silence when she saw that it wasn’t the chef standing there. Instead, she was confronted with the sight of Nikolai—holding a freshly baked baquette in his hand and somehow managing to make even
that
look sexy.

Something unknown glittered at the depths of his ice-blue eyes and his jaw was dark with the shadow of new growth. There was an edgy and dangerous air about him this morning, she thought, with a sudden nervous skitter of her heart. And he was
still wearing the formal black suit and white silk shirt that he’d had on at dinner last night!
‘What…what on earth are you doing here?’ she stumbled.

Nikolai surveyed her clear green eyes and scrubbed face, the plain black skirt and the frumpy shoes, and felt his throat thicken. ‘It’s my house, remember? ‘

‘No, I mean …’ Desperately, she looked over his shoulder, as if expecting to see other people walking in behind him. ‘Where’s the chef?’

‘I gave him the day off.’

The significance of this statement confused her. ‘But what about breakfast?’

He held the baguette aloft. ‘What do you think this is for?’

With trembling fingers, she reached for the fruit knife.
Act normally,
she told herself fiercely.
You …'re adaptable, Zara—remember?
‘Okay,’ she said, trying to inject a bright and breezy note into her voice. ‘So I’d better start preparing the—’

But he halted her with the brief brush of his hand over hers, which made the knife slip uselessly from between her suddenly trembling fingers and clatter onto the work surface. ‘I don’t think I want you with a knife in your hand while I’m in the vicinity,
angel moy,’
he purred. ‘Shall we think of something else for you to do instead?’

Her heart thumped. ‘But your guests will be down for breakfast soon.’

‘Actually, they won’t.’

Now her confusion was magnified. ‘They won’t?’

He shook his head, put the bread down on the side and pulled off his tie. ‘No, they’ve gone.’

She stared at the tie, which he had dropped so that it lay in a silken ebony coil on the oak table, and wondered if he had somebody to clear up after him wherever he went. ‘Gone where?’

‘After you went to bed last night, the three of us headed down to the casino at Monte Carlo—Sergei is fond of gambling and Crystal decided that her new dress needed a bigger audience than the one she was getting here. We played cards for most of the night and then they decided they were too tired to journey all the way back here.’ He threw her a speculative glance. ‘So I came back alone.’

‘Stopping only to give the chef the day off and to buy bread,’ she said slowly as she lifted her eyes to his. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Don’t you?’ He looked at her curiously. Was she really as innocent as she sometimes seemed? For a moment, those bright green eyes of hers looked completely guileless. ‘I was actually thinking about your sensibilities,
angel moy,’
he declared softly as the step he took closed the space between them. ‘I thought you might welcome the opportunity for us to be alone together. To have the run of the house without interference—so that we can make love in private instead of all these frustrated encounters we seem to keep having in cars.’

Zara’s mouth dried. Now that he was this close, the shadow of new growth at his jaw seemed to flaunt an overt and unashamed virility, while the bright glitter from his eyes was making all her defences slowly crumble. Desperately, she tried to cling onto her determination not to fall into a situation which would lead her to nothing but hurt and heartache.
You’re nothing to him, Zara—just a part-time waitress who lied.
‘But I have no intention of letting you make love to me.’

Nikolai’s mouth curved into a cynical smile. How smoothly those fabrications dropped from her lips, he told himself. How could she honestly come out with a statement like that when her eyes were just begging him to kiss her? ‘Oh, really?’ he questioned as he pulled her into his arms, so that her lips were mere inches away. ‘Do you want to prove that to me? ‘

‘I shouldn’t …’ But instead of protesting, all she could do was register the painful elevation of her heart as his mouth grazed negligently over hers.

‘Shouldn’t?’

‘Have to …’

‘Have to what?’

Closing her eyes, she struggled for coherent thought. ‘P-prove anything.’

‘No? Then humour me instead. Just kiss me,
angel moy.
Kiss me properly and then I’ll be a happy man. Is that such an unreasonable request?’

She tried telling herself that
of course
it was unreasonable—that he had all the power in this situation and he was playing games with her. But somehow she was finding it impossible to listen to her own doubts. When his voice dipped into that sultry caress and was accompanied by the slow, circular movement of his thumb at the small of her back, Zara thought that if he’d asked her to leap over the moon it would have sounded like a reasonable request. ‘Nikolai,’ she breathed.

‘Mmm?’

‘I …’ But her reply was lost because now he was kissing her and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to let him. On and on it went, deeper and deeper—like no kiss she’d ever experienced before. It felt like heaven—better than heaven. ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered as she came up for air.

‘You like it?’

‘No, I’m hating every second of it—can’t you tell?’

With a low laugh, he pulled her tightly into his body, his mouth whispering against her ear.

‘I’ve thought about you all night long,’ he said unsteadily. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever lost quite so much money before. I couldn’t give a stuff about the damned dice when all I was thinking about was how luscious and curved your body is.’ Reaching down, he began to unbutton her white shirt until it was completely undone and he slid it away from her shoulders to encounter the satin skin beneath. He swallowed. ‘It’s just a pity I can’t
see a bit more of it. A situation which needs resolving immediately, don’t you think?’ Moving his hand round her back, he dealt with her bra—a deft flick of his fingers and it was soon gaping open.

‘You’ve…you’ve done that before,’ she said, from between lips which suddenly seemed to have swollen to about twice their normal size.

‘So have you,’ he declared unsteadily as she lifted her breasts up towards his mouth and he pushed her back towards the table.

But she hadn’t—not like this. At least, it had never felt remotely like this—as if she were on some sensual merry-go-round that was fast gathering speed and giving her no opportunity to get off. As if she’d been given a crash course in making love and was about to give Nikolai all the benefits of her education. She could feel her bottom dipping against the wooden table and then he was pushing her down on top of it—his lips and his hands hot and hungry as they urgently roved over every available bit of bare flesh. And even though some lost little voice was trying to make itself heard—trying to get her to call a halt to this mad-ness—Zara was in no mood to listen to it.

He yanked off her shirt and threw it to the floor. The bra quickly followed, while he captured one ripe and straining nipple in his mouth. She bucked with pleasure as he teased it with the light graze of his teeth and the warm flick of his tongue. And then he was slithering her skirt up around her thighs, impatient fingers hooking into her panties and sliding them down over her knees until they fluttered to the floor, like a white flag of surrender.

Shrugging off his jacket he returned his mouth to hers
again. ‘I want you,’ he growled, his fingers skating with delicate precision over her thighs.

‘And…and I want you, too,’ she blurted out, gasping as his hand moved upwards, briefly brushing over the soft fuzz of curls before plunging his fingers deep inside her molten heat.

‘Yes, it seems you do,’ he murmured appreciatively.

‘Nikolai—’

‘Come here,’ he said urgently, his lips returning to her breasts, teasing them, sucking them—grazing them with the provocative scrape of his teeth. He concentrated on only her breasts until she was writhing impatiently beneath his lips. He’d been planning to take his mouth all the way down…over her belly, and beyond. But now he could see that might not be the smartest thing to do because her lips were circling towards his in a silent invitation he couldn’t resist.

Reaching deep into the pocket of his trousers, he pulled out a small foil packet and Zara felt a moment of apprehension as she heard the rasp of a zip. She wished it could have been different—that there could have been some deep emotion which flowed between the two of them, which would have made it less about sex and more about making love. But she wasn’t going to start acting coy now. Her words had been true. She
did
want him—more than she could remember wanting anything.

Swallowing down her reservations, she stared into his ice-blue eyes. Maybe what she was about to do with Nikolai was wrong—but right now it didn’t feel like it. It felt anything
but
wrong. It felt like the best thing on offer in a life which had been spectacularly short on treats.