by Lynne Graham
‘If you want the house, it’s yours,’ Abbey imparted. ‘You have an invitation to view it this afternoon if you like.’
‘Yes, I will, but I already know I want the house. I attended a party there once. It was held by the previous owner after he had carried out extensive renovations.’
Abbey ran through the house’s many attributes from the number of bedrooms to the massive garaging space and the basement swimming pool.
‘You’ve done spectacularly well,’ Nikolai delivered, closing his hands over Abbey’s and drawing her to him for emphasis. ‘I’m very pleased.’
Abbey connected with his gorgeous dark eyes and her tummy somersaulted as if she were on a big dipper ride. Breathing normally was suddenly a challenge. His high voltage sexuality engulfed her like a dangerous force field and memories assailed her. Only hours had passed since she had shared intimacies with Nikolai that she had never dreamt she would share with any man. Soft colour warmed her cheeks and heat curled low in her pelvis, making her legs tremble.
‘You want me, lubimaya,’ Nikolai pronounced with satisfaction.
Glancing away, Abbey took a measured step back from him. ‘Let’s keep that aspect of our relationship out of the office,’ she urged tautly. ‘It makes me feel uncomfortable.’
Nikolai frowned. ‘I don’t like rules and restrictions.’
Abbey forced a smile. ‘But there’s a right way and a wrong way of doing everything and I like to be sensible.’
‘Passion should be cherished,’ Nikolai countered.
‘In private. It’s too public here,’ she argued daringly. ‘Tell me about tomorrow night’s party.’
‘Sveta did a breakdown of the guest list.’ Nikolai handed her a small file. ‘I think she’s made some appointments for you as well.’
As Nikolai employed the phone Abbey was ready to gnash her teeth in frustration. Meeting Nikolai’s demands really was turning into a round-the-clock occupation. The useful information on various important business guests was paired with a list of beauty appointments that threatened to take up a good part of the following day.
Abbey slapped the sheet down on Nikolai’s desk. ‘I can’t keep up with this and you and work as well. There aren’t enough hours in the day! You are a very unreasonable man. I’m not a trophy girlfriend! And I flatly refuse to be made to feel like a kept woman. I’ve got better things to do with my time than spend the day being groomed like a pet poodle before I can be seen out with you in public!’
‘Exactly what are you so angry about?’
Purple eyes luminous with furious frustration, Abbey spread both arms in a helplessly expansive gesture. ‘You’re taking over my whole life!’
‘Am I? You left my bed at six-thirty this morning and didn’t even stay to breakfast,’ Nikolai reminded her.
‘And you’re still furious about that even though I was meeting with the owner of the house you want to buy?’ Abbey demanded hotly. ‘Does that strike you as reasonable behaviour?’
Nikolai grasped one of her slender hands in a firm hold and used his strength to inexorably pull her closer. ‘I want you with me, milaya moya. What’s wrong with that?’
The deep, dark note in his accented drawl thrummed down her sensitive spine like a sensual wake-up call. Ensnared by the brilliance of his dark, deep-set gaze, she snatched in a quivering breath. ‘Nothing, but-’
‘And the beauty appointments and the clothes? I don’t want you to be made to feel inadequate beside my well-groomed guests. To date, you haven’t even been at home long enough to have your new wardrobe delivered,’ Nikolai reminded her. ‘You demand too much of yourself. Give your keys to Sveta and she’ll organise delivery for you.’
Abbey felt uneasily as though the ground beneath her once sensible feet were being sliced away, leaving her teetering on the edge of an abyss. He wasn’t letting her reinforce her independence. Nor was he giving her space to withdraw. His thumbs were massaging the delicate skin of her inner wrists and her senses were singing. Her body was awakening to his proximity with a shameless range of physical responses that shook her. Her mouth was dry, her heartbeat accelerating at a crazy rate of knots. Her brain was urging her to step away from him as she had earlier, but less scrupulous responses were stronger. She felt as mesmerised as a rabbit caught in car headlights. She braced a hand against the rock-hard wall of his chest and leant in closer.
The evocative aroma of his skin hit her like a shot of adrenaline and made hunger skyrocket inside her. The strength of her desire to get closer, to feel his beautiful mouth take hers again, to feel the weight of him over her, shocked her rigid.
Nikolai surveyed her dazed face with cool satisfaction. He wondered why it was that when other women looked at him like that he wanted to ditch them, but when Abbey stood there fighting not to look at him like that he simply wanted to smash her self-control and encourage her to cling. ‘Stop fighting this,’ he urged.
‘I have to.’ The strength of her own physical response to him, allied to the see-sawing state of her emotions, scared Abbey. ‘I must have my own life, my own space-’
Long fingers delved into her hair to tip up her face and her breath tripped up in her throat, anticipation leaping through her in a wild surge. He covered her mouth, his tongue darting deep into the moist interior beyond, and she shuddered violently, a stifled whimper wrenched from her struggling lungs. ‘No, not here,’ she protested.
Nikolai lifted his arrogant dark head. He ached for her. He couldn’t keep his hands off her or his thoughts on business. Tawny eyes smouldering he hauled her up into his arms and strode to the chair behind his desk, sinking down with her on his lap.
‘Nikolai…’ Abbey argued in a ragged plea.
Shimmering eyes hotly intent on her, he laid his fingertips against her reddened lips to silence her. ‘I am not made of stone…’
Fiercely aware of his arousal, Abbey was engulfed by the demanding heat of his mouth in a kiss that fired her every skin cell with awareness. Her fingers smoothed the roughened skin of his jaw line where stubble was beginning to mar the close shave he had had earlier that day. The familiar scent and the sensual feel of him sent her pulses racing. As he unbuttoned her shirt she was remembering the night that had passed. He had woken her up a couple of times, his desire for her flatteringly intense and his sexual expertise compelling. Then, as now, his sheer passion and unbridled masculinity exhilarated her.
Nikolai bent her back over his arm to plunge his mouth down on the pouting pink nipple he had uncovered for his pleasure. Abbey looked down at the ripe curves of her bare flesh and shame overwhelmed her. She flung herself off his lap and began to right her clothing in a series of jerky desperate movements. ‘Not during working hours!’ she breathed shakily.
‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’ Nikolai growled, furious with her for once again limiting his pleasure in her as a lover. ‘What does it take to make you break the rules?’
Love and commitment, she might have told him, for only then would she have had the trust and confidence to respond to him regardless of boundaries. But Abbey knew that neither love nor commitment was on offer, which severely limited any desire on her part to break rules. ‘I have to get back to the office-’
‘You could join me for lunch and we could go on from there to the house viewing,’ Nikolai breathed curtly, already foreseeing a negative answer in the tense down curving of her generous mouth.
Abbey was convinced that lunch would end up being a polite blanket term for a bout of sex somewhere and she cringed for herself when she felt a pulse of wickedly responsive heat throb in her pelvis. ‘You want me to view the house with you?’
Nikolai dealt her a sardonic appraisal. ‘Of course.’
‘Give me a time and we’ll meet there.’
Nikolai was like a brooding thundercloud when Abbey departed after a brief chat with Sveta. Abbey was uneasily conscious that she had dissatisfied and disappointed Sveta’s employer in every possible way. Her insistence on striving to be professional dur
ing the hours of daylight pleased her Russian lover as much as a slap in the face. She was beginning to get the message about what he wanted from her. He didn’t handle rejection well. He expected to come first in her life in every way and in every situation. Argument, disagreement, working ethics that interfered with his sex life and independence were all very unpopular responses.
On the way back to the office, Abbey received an urgent call from her PA about a man waiting to see her, who insisted that it was important that he speak to her rather than to her brother. New clients did occasionally arrive at Support Systems with very set ideas and required tactful handling. With a sigh, Abbey picked up her messages from her PA’s desk and invited the smartly dressed older man in reception to come into her office.
‘I’m Abbey Carmichael, Mr…Bailey. Is that correct?’ Abbey prompted as the man took a seat.
‘Yes. DonBailey. I won’t keep you long, Mrs Carmichael. I don’t know how much you know about your brother’s debts, but I’m afraid the operation that I represent is not prepared to wait indefinitely for settlement.’
Abbey’s face had tightened with surprise and uncertainty. ‘Debts? My brother’s debts?’ she queried in astonishment. ‘Apart from the obvious fact that I’m not at liberty to discuss anything pertaining to my brother, I can’t understand why you’ve asked to see me.’
‘Your brother’s mucking us about and we want our money, Mrs Carmichael. It’s a big chunk-over one hundred and twenty thousand pounds at the most recent count.’
Abbey had to lean back against her desk to stay upright on legs that suddenly felt hollow and weak. She could barely believe what she was hearing. ‘One hundred and twenty thousand pounds?’ Feeling out of her depth, she reached for the phone. ‘Look, I’ll call my brother in and you can talk to him-’
In a sudden unexpected move, Don Bailey closed his hand over hers to prevent her from making the call. ‘No, that’s not a good idea, Mrs Carmichael. Drew will be annoyed I’ve come here to see you, but we’ve been exceptionally patient with him. Unfortunately we can’t continue to be so understanding and matters are likely to take an unpleasant turn if the cash isn’t forthcoming very soon.’
Abbey snatched her hand from beneath his repulsive clasp and backed away, her skin clammy with fright and nervous tension. ‘Was that a threat, Mr Bailey?’
‘It’s whatever you choose to make of it,’ he replied with a menacing lack of concern on that score. ‘Drew’s a gambler and, like many another, while he’s happy enough to win, he’s in no hurry to pay his dues when he loses. But make no mistake, your brother does have to pay his debts and in full.’
Abbey swallowed the lump of extreme anxiety in her throat. Had Drew been gambling? All those nights he had come home late? Was this why he was so stressed out and short-tempered? Was it possible her brother could owe such a huge sum of money? And if he did, what were they going to do about it?
‘Now, I had a choice today about whether I should come and see you or go to see Drew’s wife.’
Abbey felt ill at the thought of this horrible man tackling her friend, Caroline. ‘No, you did the right thing asking for me.’
‘I thought so, too. You are a partner in this business as well and, if you don’t mind me mentioning it…’ Don Bailey gave Abbey a meaningful look ‘…according to the newspapers, you are also very friendly with a Russian billionaire who could easily settle all your brother’s problems for him.’
Abbey could not conceal her distaste at that suggestive sally. ‘Let’s leave that friendship out of this!’
‘Whatever you say. After all, we only want what’s owing to us and we don’t care who pays it or how. But the debt must be settled and very soon before we lose our patience,’ the older man completed with an ominous look. ‘Is that understood, Mrs Carmichael?’
Abbey was pale and she felt queasy. ‘Yes.’
From a rear window she watched Don Bailey climb into the Mercedes parked in the staff car park. There were a couple of other men waiting in the vehicle and although at that distance it was hard to be certain, she suspected they were the same grim-looking men whom she had seen before and whom Drew had pretended were potential customers. Abbey spared the group one last troubled glance before going straight into Drew’s office and telling him about the visit. As Don Bailey had forecast, her brother was furious.
‘Look, it doesn’t matter that he talked to me. All I want to know is-is it true? And do you owe that ghastly man one hundred and twenty thousand pounds?’
His angry flush receding to leave a greyish pallor, her brother settled down heavily behind his desk again. ‘Yes…yes, it’s true.’
Abbey was appalled by the story Drew went on to tell her. He had first gone to the casino where Don Bailey worked as what her brother termed a ‘heavy’ to play the tables with a friend. Winning money at that first visit, he had soon returned and had quickly found it impossible to stay away.
‘You might as well know the worst. I’ve drawn thousands and thousands of pounds from the business to finance my gambling habit and lost every penny of it. I’ve mortgaged my family’s home for every penny I could get and lost that as well. Ever since last winter I’ve been trying to pay off massive losses. But I haven’t once played since then,’ Drew declared. ‘I’m a compulsive gambler and now I attend Gamblers Anonymous meetings every week to help me stay in control of my addiction. Unfortunately I wised up and joined too late to stop myself from dragging us all down into financial ruin.’
Abbey was devastated to learn that her big brother, whom she trusted and loved, had stolen from both her and his family by secretly bleeding vast sums of money from Support Systems and putting even their business at risk of collapse. Indeed she was stunned. But the news that he had fought his addiction and was still dealing with his compulsion by attending GA meetings made her think better of him. Even so, she blamed herself for not keeping a closer eye on the firm’s finances, because, had she discovered what Drew was up to sooner, she might have been able to stop him gambling before matters had got quite so out of control. ‘Does Caroline know about any of this?’
‘I’ve been too ashamed to tell her. Hasn’t she borne enough without learning that I’ve now wrecked her life and the kids’ by gaming away everything that matters to them?’ Drew muttered heavily. ‘I’m behind with the mortgage payments, too.’
Abbey was frantically trying to work out where she could get money from to pay off his outstanding debts, but she was paying a mortgage on her apartment as well. Furthermore, at a time when the financial markets were weak, interest rates were high and house prices were falling, it was not a good plan to seek to remortgage in the hope of clearing some surplus cash. ‘I don’t know what to say or do…’
‘There’s nothing you can do. I’ve ruined our lives.’
‘You have to tell Caroline. She’s going to find out and it would be kinder if she heard it from you first,’ Abbey told her brother and watched his eyes slide away from hers in instant dismay at that daunting prospect. ‘Surely she already knows about the mortgage on the house?’
Drew hung his head and released his breath in a hiss. ‘I forged her signature on the application.’
Abbey said nothing. She was way beyond exhibiting shock and voicing angry disapproval and was much too busy worrying about the ultimate result of Drew’s financial depredations on the firm. She went back into her own office with the account books and, in between studying them and eventually tracing the evidence of Drew’s unauthorised cash withdrawals, she sat staring into space. Caroline would be distraught. What if the business went down as well? Belatedly recalling that Nikolai was expecting her to join him to view the house he was planning to buy, she headed out to meet him.
Nikolai registered that something was wrong with Abbey within minutes of her appearance. There was a hollow look in her eyes and her usual pizzazz was noticeably absent. He was still annoyed with her. Women were usually eager to please him and he had learned to take that treatment for granted. Bu
t Abbey wouldn’t make the required effort and he could only take that as an insult when he compared her attitude to what he had gathered about her former behaviour with her late husband. He knew that he could call on any number of beautiful attentive women, who would not hesitate to fulfil his smallest request. Had he not been engaged in a pretence with Abbey designed to dupe the press, he would have dumped her by now, he assured himself grimly.
Mr bin Hashim greeted them and left them alone to explore the big house. Abbey wandered around in Nikolai’s wake with all the energy and sparkle of someone attending a funeral. Undeniably the property was vastly superior to anything she had shown him earlier that week and the entertainment suite and pool area in the basement were nothing short of spectacular.
‘Perfect for parties,’ Nikolai remarked.
Abbey’s delicate profile froze, as she was picturing naked beauties frolicking in the clear water and displaying their perfect bodies for his benefit. She had seen the way other women looked at him at the premiere and it had shocked her. He might as well have a bullseye painted on his back, for he was a target for predatory women. He was gorgeous, young and fabulously wealthy and generous. She had no real hold on him and she had never been so aware of the fact. She was, after all, just one of the herd and lower than most in her ranking, for their apparent relationship was ninety-per-cent bogus to fool the media, she reminded herself dully.
‘I’m very impressed that you pulled this off for me, milaya,’ Nikolai confided huskily, closing an arm to her spine and folding her close with the easy intimacy that could still catch her unawares. He was a very physical guy. She was tempted to rest back into his arms and lean on him like the sort of weak, needy female she would never allow herself to be.
‘Have you any advice to offer me with regard to the country property?’ she pressed instead.
‘Do you ever stop thinking of work? You look very tired,’ he censured.
The lawyers would negotiate and tie up the purchase of his new London home. In the back of his limo, Nikolai turned to her and handed her a jewel case. ‘A tribute to mark your efficiency,’ he murmured smoothly.
