There was a slightly tart edge to her voice.
‘Go into my bureau,’ Sev said. He had actually bought a gift for Jamal and Allem. ‘There should be a polished box there you could wrap for me. You could give it to him as a little sweetener until I arrive.’
‘Okay.’
‘Is it there?’ Sev asked, wondering if he might have left it in his apartment.
‘I’ll look when I get to the office.’
‘You’re not in yet?’
‘No,’ Naomi said. ‘Caught.’
‘Caught what?’
‘Having a lie-in.’ Naomi said, but then hurriedly added, ‘I’m up now, though.’
‘Liar.’
‘You trained me well,’ Naomi responded. They were both in bed and both knew it.
‘Go up to my apartment before you head into work. It might be in my desk there. If not, then it’s in the bureau at work. It’s got a statue in it.’
‘Okay. So what lie do you want me to feed Allem?’
But Sev’s mind was on other things.
Yes, he’d been feeling bad about Allem but knowing that Naomi was in bed, hopefully as naked as he, was, well, a bit of a turn-on.
She drove him crazy.
He could not read her.
It was like a weather report telling you it was sultry and hot and then stepping out to sleet and ice.
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘No,’ Naomi answered. ‘About Allem. What am I to tell him?’
Oh, that was right. The reason for his call.
‘Just tell him there was a family emergency that I had to attend to. He’s big on family. Tell him that my mother was taken ill and I’m on my way back from Russia.’
‘Sev, is your mother alive?’
‘Yes?’
‘Is she sick?’
‘She could be.’
He heard a slight noise as she sucked in her breath. ‘You don’t like the idea.’
‘It’s not for me to judge...’
‘Oh, but, baby, you do,’ Sev snapped. ‘Over and over you do. And do you know what? I don’t need it. I’m warning you—’
‘Officially?’ Naomi checked, more than happy for him to fire her now, even the dark rise of his voice turned her on.
‘Unofficially,’ Sev said.
God, but he even liked rowing with her.
Sev didn’t row. Usually he simply couldn’t be bothered to.
They both lay in tense angry silence but neither ended the call and then Sev said it again but his voice wasn’t angry now.
‘Can I ask you something?’ No, he wasn’t angry. His voice had that low edge to it that had her pull up her knees.
‘Go ahead.’ Naomi sighed.
‘It’s personal.’
She had guessed that it might be.
‘I’m just curious about something.’
Somehow he didn’t offend her.
Naomi was curious about him too.
She just lay there naked in bed, trying to imagine how that low voice might sound while making love to her, and she was terribly, terribly tempted to find out.
To just finally give in to the suggestive air they created.
‘Ask away.’
‘Well, I’m assuming, if you’re engaged, that you must love your fiancé.’
She didn’t answer.
‘And fancy him.’
Naomi said nothing.
‘So how do you...?’
‘How do I what, Sev?’
‘You’ve been in New York for three months and in that time I can’t recall him coming over to see you.’
‘He hasn’t.’
‘So,’ Sev asked, ‘how do you manage?’
Manage!
Oh, it was as basic as that to Sev, Naomi thought. An itch to be scratched, a line on his to-do list to be regularly ticked off.
‘Sev,’ Naomi crisply replied, when she would far rather dive under the covers and prolong the call, ‘I’m giving you an official warning now.’
She hung up on him. Sev tossed the phone down in frustration.
Bloody Naomi, Sev thought as he lay there. He was hard for her and had been left hanging. And then he remembered why he’d come to Rome.
She had been brunette.
It was as simple and as messed up as that.
He was over Naomi and her moods.
Sev didn’t need some sanctimonious PA sitting on her moral throne. She was there to run his life, not have him account for it.
Who cared what she thought?
He cared about no one.
Only that wasn’t quite right.
God, but he hated this month already.
Sev hated November.
He always had and he always would.
In Russia it was Mother’s Day at the end of November.
At school, the ‘home kids’, as he and his friends had called the students who’d had families, would sit and make cards for their mothers as the ‘detsky dom’ kids stuck rice onto paper for, well, no one in particular.
There had been four at his table, they had been together since nursery school.
Sevastyan had always been the nerdy one, Nikolai had liked ships and then there had been the twins, Roman and Daniil, who were going to be famous boxers one day.
Some day.
Never.
‘If you don’t have a mother then make a card for someone you care about,’ the teacher had suggested each year.
The ‘detsky dom’ kids’ cards had never got made.
A few years back Sevastyan had found out that he did have a mother, but he now knew that she wouldn’t have appreciated a card with stuck-on rice anyway.
He’d send flowers, of course, but rather than rely on Naomi he would try to work out himself what to put in the note.
Each year it became harder to work out what to write.
Thanks for being there?
She hadn’t been.
With love to you on this special day?
It wasn’t a special day to her.
And there was no love.
November also meant that it was his niece’s birthday.
Her eighteenth! Sev suddenly remembered.
He’d stop at Tiffany on the way to the office Sev thought, then decided not to bother.
Whatever he sent would just end up being pawned or put up on some auction site.
Yes, for so many reasons he hated November.
Sev closed his eyes but he still could not sleep.
He stared into the dark and could remember as if it were yesterday, rather than half a lifetime ago, hearing his friend quietly crying in the night.
These had been boys who had stopped crying from the cradle and so Sev had not known whether his friend would appreciate that he knew that he was.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sev had asked. ‘Nikolai, what has happened?’
‘Nothing.’
‘It doesn’t sound like nothing.’
‘Leave it.’
He had.
To Sev’s utter, utter regret, he had.
In the morning Nikolai had been gone.
A week later his body had washed up and Sergio had come back with his bag, in it a ship Nikolai had been making out of matches.
Sev lay there and thought of his friend and his sad end.
And the thought of the others he still missed to this day.
On the twelfth of November, the day Nikolai had run away, Sev would be in London for yet another futile attempt to meet with his past.
He might give it a miss, Sev thought, but he was as superstitious as he was Russian.
If he didn’t go, of course it would be the one year that Daniil showed up.
CHAPTER THREE
SHEIKH ALLEM WAS extremely gracious about the change in plans.
In fact, when Naomi had called him at nine he hadn’t seemed in the least surprised. He’d told Naomi that he would come to the office at four but in the meantime, would she mind taking Jamal shopping?
‘Of
course.’
Naomi had dressed in a navy shift dress and flat ballet pumps and she headed up to Sev’s apartment to check if the gift he had bought for Allem was there.
His apartment took up the entire floor.
She was often in there, packing his case, doing little jobs, showing through a designer because he’d decided he had changed his mind about a wall or a light or whatever it was that he might suddenly decide that he wanted changed. She basically took care of many details of Sev’s life so that he didn’t have to.
His maid was in there, changing the flowers and making sure everything was perfect for his return.
Naomi said hi and went through to Sev’s study.
There was no polished wooden box that she could see in any of the drawers.
She looked on top of the desk.
There was no box there either, just a rather scruffy little ship.
It was odd, Naomi thought, picking it up and examining it. It was old and poorly put together, unlike anything else in the apartment.
She put it down again and then headed into his bedroom, deciding to take the opportunity to take a couple of fresh shirts to the office.
His bedroom was her favourite room.
Not because of him.
Well, maybe.
But it kind of fascinated Naomi.
The mahogany door she opened didn’t close as the same thing.
Bored with the trimmings, he had made a few alterations to a heritage building and the other side of the door was ebony.
As were the rest of the trimmings.
Another maid was in there, changing the bedding on his big black wooden bed.
It was beautiful.
The view was amazing and the curtains were black on ivory with a dash of pistachio-green—the only dart of colour in the entire room, apart from the view.
Because it was the beginning of the month, Naomi took out her tablet and made a quick inventory.
He had one woman who shopped for his clothing, who Naomi liaised with. He had another who dealt with food and beverages.
His PA dealt with personal items.
She went to his dressing table and saw the cologne she had ordered last month from Paris. The container was still half-full but she made a note and then, joy, went to his bedside table and made another note of items that needed to be replenished!
She would not miss this part of her job in the least. In fact, she was so annoyed that she forgot to go through to the bathroom and instead took the shirts and headed into work.
Sure enough, in the bureau in his office was a gleaming wooden box and Naomi had a peek inside and frowned.
He’d bought it in Mali, she remembered.
And she’d wondered why at the time.
It was a fertility statue.
Naomi considered whether she should call Sev and tell him that this might not be the best gift to give the sheikh but what the hell, it was his faux pas and she was still cross with him and not in the mood for another little chat with a naked Sev.
Naomi wrapped the gift and decided that Sev could give it to him and deal with the consequences and she placed it back in the bureau. She then went to meet Jamal and spent a few hours shopping and chatting before Naomi saw her back to her hotel. She got a call from Sev’s driver to say that his plane had landed but she came back to an office still devoid of Sev.
Damn.
Allem would be here soon.
She felt terrible, lying for Sev. Till today she hadn’t even known that Sev had a mother. She knew everything and nothing about him.
He never spoke about family.
She was never asked to send presents or flowers for anyone other than girlfriends.
Naomi pulled up his account at the florist and looked at May.
No, judging by the messages sent that month, a Mother’s Day bouquet hadn’t been sent.
It was none of her business, Naomi told herself.
She just wanted to know some more.
She was alerted that Allem had arrived and Naomi greeted him. He was robed and wearing a kafeya and just so polished and well mannered she wondered if he was royal.
‘His plane has just landed,’ Naomi said, and fired Sev a text as they waited.
And waited.
Allem didn’t seem to mind in the least.
‘How long have you been working for Sevastyan?’ Allem asked, as Naomi poured tea.
‘Three months.’
And with her notice served it would be three months and two weeks. Naomi had absolutely decided that she was going to do it.
Finally Sev appeared, as rumpled as if he had flown economy to get here rather than on his luxury private jet.
Still beautiful, Naomi thought, but though she smiled a greeting it didn’t quite meet her eyes.
His neck was a mess from his weekend of passion and she knew now why it had taken so long for him to get from the airport—from the bag he was carrying it was clear that he had stopped off at Tiffany.
Not for a second did she presume he’d stopped to buy something for her.
‘I’m very sorry to hear about your mother,’ Allem offered. ‘How is she?’
‘Touch and go,’ Sev replied, and jiggled his hand. No, he didn’t say sorry for being seven hours late. ‘Let’s go through to my office.’ He led Allem through and as he closed the door he gave Naomi a smile of thanks.
No doubt he thought he had got away with it and Allem believed that his mother was sick—didn’t he get it that Allem was just too polite to mention the bite marks on his neck?
Naomi was completely over this job.
No, she wasn’t burnt out.
It was far more than that.
He’d lie about his own mother.
Sev was a bastard.
Felicity had told her that at her first interview.
Even Sev had warned her that he was on her very first day.
‘I prefer computers,’ he’d yawned, as he’d called on her, on her very first day, to handle a teary previous date who’d kept calling him on the office phone. ‘No tears, no dramas.’ He’d seen her cheeks redden. ‘I’m not talking about porn.’
‘I never said that you were.’
‘I’m just saying that I prefer computers to people.’
Naomi thought back to her first day and now and the months in between and, really, even if she knew so many details about his life, she knew him no better at all. She didn’t even know how he took his coffee.
It, like Sev, changed on a whim.
* * *
Sev closed the door on Naomi’s silent disapproval and as Allem took a seat Sev opened up the bureau to see that Naomi had wrapped the gift for him.
‘I got this for Jamal when I was in Mali,’ Sev said and handed over the gift and watched as Allem opened it. ‘I remember you saying that she likes statues and I...’ his voice trailed off as Allem started laughing when he took out the ebony statue that had caught Sev’s restless eye a few weeks ago. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘Sevastyan, this is a most inappropriate gift to give to my wife,’ Allem said, but with a smile. ‘It’s a fertility statue.’
‘Really! Well, I want it out of this office, then.’
‘Actually, Jamal will laugh when I tell her that you bought this with her in mind. You are in fact a little too late. I’m delighted to tell you that we are expecting a baby in March.’
Sev said all the right things.
Well, he tried.
Allem had been wild once, Sev thought.
Perhaps that was why they had got on so well.
They had used to hit the clubs wherever in the world they were.
But in the past couple of years it had been lengthy dinners with Allem and Jamal and whatever date Sev brought along.
Now, Allem spoke about morning sickness and how Jamal had lost weight and was a touch teary and Sev had to stop his eyes from crossing as Allem droned on.
‘Though Jamal enjoyed shopping with Naomi and is very much looking forwar
d to dinner tonight.’
Sev smothered a yawn.
‘Will Naomi be joining us tonight?’ Allem checked.
‘Of course,’ Sev answered. He knew better than to expect Jamal to come out for dinner without female company.
‘So you and Naomi are dating?’ Allem pushed the conversation to the personal when Sev would far rather that they spoke about work. ‘I see she is wearing an engagement ring.’
‘Well, it’s not mine,’ Sev snapped. ‘What on earth gave you that idea?’
‘It’s just that you don’t often bring your PA to our dinners.’
That was true, Sev thought. Generally he rustled up a date, promising her that if she would sit through the very tame dinner, he would make it up to her later that night.
It had been easier, though, to take Naomi lately.
She really was exceptionally good with his clients.
For all her faults, for all her little digs about his lifestyle, Naomi certainly knew how to smooth the feathers that he tended to ruffle along his decadent way.
Finally they got around to work and, yes, Sev agreed, he would need to come to Dubai. ‘I really am booked out, though, Allem,’ he explained. ‘I need four clear days at least and I don’t have anything like that until March.’
‘Which is when the baby is due,’ Allem said. ‘Sev, I know you are busy but I have been asking for a while now.’
Sev nodded and pulled up his diary onto his computer screen.
This week he had to go to Washington DC and there could be no getting out of that. Next week he was heading off to London, which, despite earlier thoughts about not going, really was non-negotiable to him. But maybe he was growing a conscience—Allem had been asking him to come to Dubai as his guest for months, as well as do some work for him.
And he had been inexcusably late today.
‘I’ll get Naomi to reschedule some of my clients,’ Sev offered. ‘We can be there on Saturday.’
‘Excellent.’
* * *
Naomi looked up when the two men came out of Sev’s office. Allem was all smiles.
He came and thanked her for the tea she had made and for taking care of Jamal.
‘We’re looking forward to dinner,’ Allem said.
‘So am I.’ Naomi smiled.
Instead of only seeing Allem as far as the elevator, which was as far as Sev usually went when saying farewell to clients, he was clearly going to see Allem to his car.
The Cost of the Forbidden (Irresistible Russian Tycoons) Page 3
