Russian's Ruthless Demand

by Michelle Conder

His grin widened at her heated comeback. ‘Touché, Miss Harrington.’ He held out his hand. ‘Shall we start over?’

  ‘I don’t see why we should.’

  ‘Because as I said I have an opportunity—a possible job opportunity—to discuss with you.’

  ‘A job? Are you joking?’

  ‘I never joke about business.’

  ‘Well, I already have a job.’

  ‘One where you are currently underutilised.’

  ‘How would you know that?’

  Lukas nearly shook his head at her shocked outburst. Did the woman not know how to hide any of her emotions? ‘Tomaso Coraletti.’

  She tilted her head to the side. ‘How do you know Tomaso?’

  ‘He builds ships for me.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ she scorned. ‘For a moment I thought his taste in friends had plummeted.’

  Lukas smiled. If she was trying to put him off by being contrary it wasn’t working. In fact, the more riled she became, the more her interesting eyes sparkled and the more his body stirred. A realisation that surprised him. Perhaps Maria was right and he needed to go find himself some biscotti. Some very temporary biscotti. ‘He said you were one of the most talented students he’s ever taught and that you would be perfect for the project I am working on.’

  ‘Well, that’s very nice of him but it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve wasted your time coming here because...’

  ‘Look, Miss Harrington,’ Lukas interrupted, short of patience and time and not a little put out by his unexpected physical reaction to her. ‘You’ve voiced your unhappiness at my comments about your hotels and it’s been duly noted but business is business. It would be a mistake to confuse it with anything personal.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Her chin came up. ‘Are you implying that I am?’

  Clearly he’d hit a nerve.

  She stood up quickly, nearly overbalancing her stool, and would have stumbled if he hadn’t reached out and grabbed her elbow.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she grated at him. ‘Let me go.’

  He could feel the delicate bones of her arm through his gloves and slowly pulled his hand away. ‘My apologies,’ he drawled, somewhat disconcerted by the thought that he’d like to remove his glove and touch her bare skin with his own. ‘Should I have let you fall?’ he mocked. ‘I’m never sure with you card-carrying feminists.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  Giving himself a mental shakedown Lukas got his mind back on track. ‘Or perhaps you just don’t think you can do it.’

  Eleanore couldn’t believe the gall of the man. First he insulted her business and then he insulted her. About to lambast the man, the enormous overhead fan kicked in and a blast of cold air shot out of the vents and cooled her heated cheeks. It also blew the loose strands of her hair across her face.

  Pulling off a glove she reached up to carefully dislodge the hair that had snagged on her lipstick when her fingers collided with his. Apparently Lukas had also removed his glove and she knew a moment of absolute shock as the feel of his warm skin against hers zinged through her system in a flash of sexual heat. Like a cyborg waking from a deep sleep, parts of her body came online for the first time and her dazed eyes landed on his sculpted lips so close to her own.

  ‘An ice hotel,’ he murmured, his gaze lingering on her mouth as if he knew she had been wondering what it would be like to breach the insignificant gap between them and kiss him.

  Flustered, annoyed and tired, Eleanore glared at the man. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I’m building an ice hotel and my architect just quit. I want you to complete the design and project-manage the build.’

  An ice hotel? A whole ice hotel? For a moment all Eleanore’s other senses came to full attention. She’d tried to convince Isabelle to do an ice hotel in Canada the year before but she had thought it a waste of time and money. ‘Why did your architect quit?’

  ‘Because his ego was larger than his talent.’

  Eleanore’s lips quirked at his incongruous statement. ‘I’m sure he didn’t phrase it like that.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ He gave her a slow smile. ‘But I can see I have your attention now.’

  Annoyed at the victorious gleam in his eyes she shook her head. ‘Which part of no didn’t you get, Mr Kuznetskov? The n or the o?’

  ‘I don’t tend to respond that well to the word no,’ he drawled.

  ‘Then you haven’t wasted your time coming here after all because you’re about to be taught an important life lesson. And anyway, my sister would never agree to it.’

  Isabelle had been even angrier about Lukas’s disparaging comments two years ago than Eleanore had been.

  ‘Well, that’s too bad.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’ll approach Spencer Chatsfield and see what he can do for me.’

  Spencer Chatsfield? He was probably the only other man Isabelle disliked more. And what did Lukas know about their current feud? ‘Is that some sort of threat?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘I never make threats.’ His smoking-hot grin told her he knew he had her. ‘I’m in room 1006 if you change your mind.’

  ‘We don’t have a room 1006.’

  His grin faded into a cocky smile as if he knew his next words would choke her. ‘Room 1006 at The Chatsfield.’

  And he was right.

  Eleanore blinked as he strode unhurriedly from the bar, his loose-limbed grace drawing both male and female glances his way.

  Arrogant, horrible...

  ‘That got a little heated,’ Lulu said, materialising at her side.

  She wasn’t kidding.

  Eleanore frowned. ‘Have you seen my phone?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She reached behind an ice shelf on the bar. ‘I put it here when we got busy before and forgot to tell you.’

  Picking it up Eleanore tried to get her cold fingers to work long enough to call Isabelle. It was still early in New York—if in fact her sister was even in New York—but she still couldn’t get through to her.

  About to leave a message, she hung up. Would Lukas Kuznetskov really approach the Chatsfields for help with his ice hotel? And if he did what would Isabelle say if she knew Eleanore had passed up the opportunity to get in first?

  ‘I’m in room 1006 if you change your mind.’

  Arrogant, horrible...

  Annoyed Eleanore downed a glass of water on the bar and only realised halfway through that it wasn’t water.

  Lulu smacked her on the back repeatedly as she went into a coughing fit. ‘Honey, that was straight tequila,’ she advised.

  Eleanore dabbed at her watering eyes. ‘It’s in a water glass,’ she wheezed.

  ‘We ran out of shot glasses.’

  Great. A burnt oesophagus on top of everything else. What more could go wrong tonight?

  CHAPTER TWO

  TEN MINUTES LATER Eleanore found herself in a cab outside the main entrance of The Chatsfield, Singapore.

  She glanced out the window, scouting for any paparazzi lurking in the shadows. Fortunately no one was around other than a liveried doorman and she steeled her spine as he reached out to open her door.

  Deciding that the best way to go unnoticed was to act like she was just another guest coming in late for the night, she smiled confidently at the doorman as she strode past.

  Once through the gleaming glass doors she crossed the acre of white-and-blue-veined marble floors toward the wall of gleaming elevators, hoping that none of the Chatsfields were in residence. Running into one of them would be truly humiliating!

  If it was possible, she hated Lukas Kuznetskov even more for putting her in this nerve-wracking situation and only exhaled when the lift doors closed behind her, sealing her into its mirrored vault.

  One mission accomplished with
out incident, she thought with a relieved breath. Maybe the rest of the night would go the same way.

  She took a moment to study her reflection, smoothing out the lipstick she’d taken the time to reapply before leaving her hotel, and checked that her hair was still in place. No way was she meeting Mr Smooth-Talking Kuznetskov on his turf looking like one of Lulu’s wrung-out dish rags.

  Satisfied, she raised her eyes to track the ascending numbers on the lift panel and wondered again if she shouldn’t have left this meeting until morning. Then she decided that no, she was unlikely to fall asleep with Lukas’s ‘opportunity’ hanging over her head and—some wicked side she never would have guessed she possessed—hoped she might interrupt his sleep as payment for his arrogance.

  Unfortunately he wasn’t sleeping, he was on the phone when he answered the door, and he didn’t even pause in his conversation as he ushered her inside. She noticed that he’d rolled his shirtsleeves to his elbows and ignored the temptation to admire his impressive forearms. So the man had a good body. That didn’t make him an attractive person. A man needed a lot more than money and looks to get her attention.

  ‘Arrogant jackass,’ she murmured under her breath as she stalked past him, stopping in the centre of the spacious sitting room, her designer’s eye admiring the rich furnishings and sophisticated fittings.

  Still talking on the phone he bent over the low coffee table between two large sofas and pressed a few keys on his laptop. Then he swivelled the computer toward her and indicated for her to take a seat. ‘Have a look at these,’ he murmured before returning his attention to his caller.

  Rude was the only word that came to Eleanore’s mind and she resented the superior way he thought he’d won. She had half a mind to ignore his computer but that left only him to look at so she relented. And anyway, she reminded herself, she was here to stop him from offering someone at the Chatsfield Hotels a job until she had a chance to consider his proposal properly. Not that she imagined for one minute that Isabelle would be happy with her being here. Which made her incredibly uncomfortable because she adored her sister and would never do anything to upset her.

  A minute later a fresh bottle of water was plonked down in front of her. She glanced up and a smile tilted the corner of his lips as if he knew exactly how disgruntled she was. Which was impossible. She wasn’t that easy to read. Was she?

  ‘Sorry about the phone call. Unfortunately business doesn’t sleep.’

  The mention of sleep made her think of beds and tiredness and him and she shook off a wooziness probably brought about by the tequila slammer she’d inadvertently ingested.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want coffee? You look like you could use it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said tartly, knowing that even if she was dying for a cup she wouldn’t take one from him after that. ‘I’m perfectly fine.’ Now if he’d offered her a chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream on the side she might have set her pride aside. Okay, she would have, but coffee would only keep her up anyway.

  He shrugged at her response and sat down on the sofa beside her. The cushion bowed under his extra weight and she felt herself list toward him and had to put her hand down between their bodies to stop herself from touching him. Even so, her hand brushed the hard muscle of his thigh and she shifted away as if she was politely giving him more space when in reality his closeness seemed to addle her thinking. Or was that the cocktail and tequila? Either way Eleanore wanted to get this out of the way and get back to her bed. Alone.

  Well, of course alone, she admonished the voice in her head. She had little time or inclination for a man as it was and this man would never make her top one hundred, let alone her top ten. ‘So tell me what I’m looking at,’ she said briskly.

  He clicked the mouse a couple of times and a three-dimensional snowflake came onto the screen. ‘The hotel is designed to look like a snowflake. Five wings hold the guest bedrooms and one is the reception area and main restaurant.’ He scrolled through a few more images and despite her determination to be bored by the whole thing she wasn’t.

  ‘It’s very clever,’ she conceded reluctantly.

  ‘A compliment, Eleanore?’

  ‘Don’t take it to heart, Mr Kuznetskov.’ She didn’t like the way he said her name. It sounded too familiar on his lips. Too sexy coming from that deeply accented voice.

  He smiled as if he could read her like an open book. ‘It is clever, but I need someone to turn it from a concept into a reality. Can you do it?’

  Could she do it? Yes, she had no doubt she could—or at least she hoped she could. Would she give him the upper hand by revealing that? Never.

  ‘You might want to think about moving the restaurant so that it’s more central to the design,’ she said before she could stop herself.

  His brows drew together. ‘I already thought of that but I was told it wasn’t possible due to the positioning of the kitchen.’

  Eleanore stifled a yawn as her creative side warred with her need to get up and leave. ‘It is. You just have to know how to do it.’

  ‘And you know how.’

  ‘Yes, actually, I do. I was fascinated by the concept of living in an igloo as a child and incorporated ice buildings as one of my electives during my final year of study.’ She frowned at the screen. ‘The guest bedrooms are also a little...’

  ‘Dull?’

  His straightforwardness was refreshing, she thought. Too often people tried to cover up inadequacies or mistakes with excuses. ‘Yes, that word works. These rooms are basically designed all the same. If you want to be truly innovative you need to have them themed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, give your guests a reason to visit other than for a night sleeping in a fridge. Which is essentially what they’re getting.’

  ‘This hotel will be pure luxury. Whatever guests want they’ll have.’

  ‘To make it pure luxury on ice you’ll need designer rooms and a warm bathroom to be attached to each one.’

  ‘I was told that couldn’t be done either.’

  She shook her head when she realised how far she had been drawn in by him. ‘Why do I feel like I’m being manipulated?’

  He smiled and it belonged to a movie star. ‘What about the atrium in the reception area? I know there’s something wrong with it but I can’t pick it.’

  Eleanore knew she shouldn’t look. ‘It needs to be larger. The way it is now the spacing is all wrong and the reception desk is too close to the entrance.’

  ‘That’s it.’ He shot her an admiring glance. ‘I do believe you might be the genius.’

  About to tell him that compliments didn’t work on her, his phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. ‘Excuse me, I have to take this.’

  Releasing a pent-up breath, Eleanore’s eyes followed the long line of his body as he strode to the windows and looked out as he talked; legs planted wide apart, his gaze high as if he was a general surveying a battlefield he was about to conquer.

  A wave of tiredness hit her like a brick wall and she yawned and rested her head back against the soft cushion behind her. She would tell him she was leaving as soon as he finished up on his call and talk to him after she’d spoken to Isabelle.

  And she’d also find out the name of the company that supplied the hotel’s soft furnishings because this was possibly the most comfortable sofa she had ever sat on.

  * * *

  When Lukas ended his phone call he turned back to find Eleanore Harrington had fallen asleep. He stood over her, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed deeply. His eyes travelled lower to where her dress had risen to just above mid-thigh. She had fabulous legs. Shorter than he was used to because he didn’t date petite women, but no less shapely. And she still had on her brightly coloured ankle boots that somehow didn’t m
ake her ankles look fat at all.

  He almost felt like a voyeur watching her in her unconscious state. Or maybe it was that in sleep her face looked strangely innocent. Strangely...pure.

  An odd sensation constricted his chest. Pure? He was surprised he even remembered the term, let alone recognised the quality. Pure and innocent hadn’t been part of his life since conception probably and he wondered how he could attribute the term to a woman who had gone toe to toe with him earlier over the slight he had caused to her family’s company.

  He briefly considered waking her but she looked so peaceful he didn’t have the heart.

  Instead he let his eyes drift back over her slender torso to her breasts that were well hidden by her plain dress and up to the quirky chopsticks she had in her caramel-brown hair. They couldn’t be comfortable and he had an impulsive urge to pull them out to see how long her hair was. To see it tumble down her back and spread out over the cream-coloured sofa.

  Then he shook off the thought and frowned when he realised that his hands had moved closer to her to do exactly that. Diverting them to her feet he unzipped her boots and gently placed her feet up on the sofa. Immediately her body pitched more horizontal and her lovely legs curled up toward her chest in a child’s pose.

  Lukas felt his body stir again and clamped down on it. He couldn’t deny that on some level she intrigued him and he’d certainly enjoyed himself tonight more than he’d enjoyed himself in a long time, but success was everything, and no slip of a woman would ever interfere with that.

  He thought again about how she had taken him on over his criticism of her hotel. Probably she had been right to call him on it but the shock of having someone question his actions after being revered for so long had kept him from agreeing with her. Really though, she was right and he should have tabled his complaints appropriately instead of mouthing off on his phone to his PA.

  Frowning, he wondered when he’d become such a self-important popka.

  Not enjoying the unexpected attack of his conscience he fetched a blanket from the bedroom and draped it over her sleeping form. The chopsticks he left well enough alone.