“Of course.” That impudent grin of his split his face, doing strange things to her insides. “That’s what I’d call you if you and I really were involved together. I mean, I’ve heard Kyle and Allie both refer to you by the nickname Caro. I like it, actually—and it really would suit you just fine if you’d ever let your hair down—both figuratively and literally!” His eyes danced with mischief as he gazed at her assessingly. Then, shaking his head and shrugging nonchalantly at the reproving look she gave him in response, he continued. “Besides, what’s a little more grist for the gossip mill, anyway? It’s already churning overtime with the report that you gave Kyle the sack yesterday. Is that true?”
“Yes—and I guess with what Mary will have to tell tomorrow morning, everybody will soon be saying that Kyle’s departure is somehow tied to our relationship!” The notion irritated Caroline no end. “And the truth is that Grandmother was right. He just wasn’t cut out for the corporate life. And if we’re going to make this marriage to save your hide work, I really must insist that you stop making these unflattering observations about my personal appearance and character. Just because I don’t choose to dress like some flamboyant punk rocker and behave like a gregarious, glad-handing Pollyanna doesn’t mean I am, in reality, the haughty, aloof Ice Queen that everybody at Fortune Cosmetics calls me behind my back!”
By now, Caroline was so wrought up that she was practically shouting—she, who never raised her voice, who always dealt with everyone and everything so coolly and calmly. She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t know what was the matter with her, how she had come to lose her temper so badly in the space of just a few minutes.
Adding to her mortification and outrage was the fact that Nick didn’t look in the least perturbed by her outburst. Instead, his dark eyes gleamed with amusement—and something more—and his mouth was curved in a smile of what appeared to her, strangely, like satisfaction.
For the second time in as many days, she had to quell the urge that assailed her to box his ears and wipe the smirk clean off his face.
“Well, it would seem there is, indeed, fire beneath the ice,” he drawled disconcertingly. “And to think that all this time, I thought you possessed a very slow-burning fuse, Caro. I stand corrected.” Striding to her office closet, he opened the door and withdrew her coat, holding it out for her. “Shall we go, my fiery bride-to-be?”
Incensed and unnerved, Caroline opened her mouth to issue a caustic retort, then, with effort, closed it again, knowing instinctively that nothing she might say would put a dent in Nick’s armor. He was obviously a master at the duel of wits between a man and a woman—and she was barely a novice. She couldn’t possibly hope to compete with him in this arena.
That realization disturbed her. She was accustomed to being better than most at whatever she put her mind to. That in Nick Valkov she had perhaps met her match was an irksome thought.
Abruptly turning her back to him, she slid her arms into her coat, he wrapping his own arms around her as he helped her into it. For a moment, despite how she attempted to pull away from him, Nick held her close against his hard, lean body. Despite herself, the physical contact, the warmth of him, set her heart to hammering. He bent his head to her nape, inhaling deeply.
“Appassionato.” He correctly identified the expensive Fortune perfume she wore. “A formula made up of jasmine, gardenias, lilies, roses, vetiver, musk and a few other intoxicating essences positively guaranteed to charm the savage beast.” His voice was low and husky in her ear.
“Don’t you mean ‘soothe the savage beast’?” Caroline asked tartly.
“No, I don’t.” He released her then, sliding his hand under her elbow to escort her from the office. “It’s still early enough that if we hurry, we’ll miss most of the rush-hour traffic,” he observed as they made their way past Mary—who watched them covertly from her desk—then into one of the elevators that would take them down to the parking garage. “We’ll take my car,” Nick announced peremptorily.
“No, there’s no need for that,” Caroline protested. “I can follow you in my own car out to your house. That’ll save you from having to make an unnecessary trip back into town.”
“I don’t mind. Besides which, the drive will give us a chance to start getting better acquainted.” After unlocking it, Nick opened the passenger door of his sleek black Mercedes-Benz to assist Caroline inside. Then, leaning over her, he fastened her seat belt for her. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he explained cockily. “Wives don’t grow on trees, you know—and I’m afraid that the thought of winding up with somebody like Agnes Grimsby would make me thank the INS for deporting me!”
Agnes Grimsby worked in the company’s cafeteria and was the female counterpart of Otto Mueller. Caroline couldn’t help but laugh at the incongruous image of Agnes and Nick together.
“Actually, I think you and Agnes would make a lovely couple,” she insisted, doing her best to keep a straight face as, after opening his own door, Nick slid into the seat beside her. “I’d be happy to hint to her that you’re interested….”
“Don’t even think about it—or else I’m going to make sure you wind up with dependable old Otto following you around like a faithful puppy.” Punching the key into the ignition, Nick started the car, backing out from the parking space that was reserved for him. Some minutes later, the Mercedes-Benz was traveling along one of the freeways, heading west from the city. Nick turned on the radio, and classical music began to drift softly from the speakers. “So…what’s your favorite color?” he queried.
“Lilac, why?”
“Because that might be one of the things the INS will ask us if they decide to investigate our marriage. Husbands and wives generally know little details like that about each other. My favorite color is blue, by the way. I smoke Player’s cigarettes. I drink Stoly…Stolichnaya vodka,” he clarified at her inquiring glance. “I like the ballet, snowy winters, moonlit walks along the lakeshore and—as you’ve probably no doubt guessed by now—classical music. When it comes to laboratories and chemicals, I’m the proverbial whiz kid. I’m thirty-four years old, six-foot-one, and weigh a hundred and eighty pounds—most of it solid muscle, because I work out at a gym at least five times a week. Do you think you can remember all that?”
“I’ll give it a shot. But honestly, Nick, I have to tell you that it sounds to me like you’re providing me with a dossier, preparing me for some sort of spy mission. Are you sure you’re not a former KGB agent?” Caroline was only half joking.
“Yes, I’m sure. When you’ve grown up the way I did—behind the Iron Curtain before it fell—you tend to take politics quite seriously. My country’s come a long way in the past few years, but it’s still got a long way to go. My job there was strictly of a civilian nature. So let me reassure you. You don’t have to worry that you’re about to embark upon some escapade more appropriate to a James Bond movie, Caro.” Nick’s voice was wry.
“I’m sorry. But I—I couldn’t help but wonder. I mean, there must be some reason why the INS would have come to such a mistaken conclusion about you, which would lead them to want to deport you, Nick.”
“Don’t you think I have considered that? In fact, I’ve thought of nothing else since I opened that damned INS letter. I know I’m innocent of these shadowy allegations against me, so I have to believe there’s something else at the bottom of this matter.”
“Like what?”
“Like…maybe despite all our precautions, word has somehow leaked out about the secret youth formula. Even though it’s strictly confidential at Fortune Cosmetics, there must be any number of people who have access to information about it, including assistants and secretaries. What I’m wondering now is if one of our competitors has somehow got wind of it…enough of a whiff, at any rate, that they figured out that removing a key element—meaning me—would represent a major setback to Fortune Cosmetics.”
“Oh, Nick!” Caroline exclaimed, stricken. “Nothing like that had even occurre
d to me! I just can’t imagine that anyone at the company would prove so untrustworthy. Actually, until this very moment, I’ve always thought grandmother’s gone a trifle overboard when it comes to her fears about industrial espionage. But now…I don’t know what to think. What if you’re right? How could we find out? What could we do to try to protect ourselves from this kind of thing in the future? And what if our marriage simply leads whoever is behind this to target somebody else at Fortune Cosmetics?”
“Well, then at least we’ll have some sort of an answer, won’t we,” Nick rejoined grimly. “However, I wouldn’t worry about it at the moment, Caro. Except for what’s happened to me, there’s no real reason at this point to suspect industrial espionage. I only mentioned it because I think we should at least bear it in mind as a possibility.”
He turned onto a secluded drive that wound through stands of trees toward the lake, pulling the car to a momentary halt before a big, rustic but beautiful house. To Caroline, it seemed a part of its surroundings, lightly shrouded with snow and ice, and glittering in the dusk like some kind of enchanted woodland palace.
“Here we are. Home. Do you like it, Caro?” Nick asked softly, not understanding why he had paused here in the drive so she could see the house fully before going inside, why it was suddenly so important to him that she found it pleasing.
“Yes, I do…very much. It’s just lovely…a dream house—but, quite frankly, not at all what I expected, Nick. I thought you’d have something…oh, I don’t know…much more elegant and sophisticated, like your car, I guess.”
“Ah, yes. But you see, that’s only my public persona,” he asserted, smiling. “I’m much different in my private life.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. That’s one of the things you’ll discover about me…in time.” He shifted the Mercedes-Benz and pulled around the drive, into the garage. Shortly afterward, he led Caroline into the house, flicking on lights as they went.
The interior surprised her as much as the exterior had. The great room soared to its heavy timber rafters, one whole wall nothing but windows that provided a magnificent view of the lake beyond. Snow white carpet stretched across the floor to kiss a towering fieldstone fireplace with a huge, unscreened hearth and oak logs piled high in the niche. From both sides of the room, open staircases rose to meet the upstairs balcony that ran along three walls above. Overstuffed, contemporary chairs and sofas mingled with antique armoires and tables, on which sat Tiffany lamps and Lalique vases. The latter were filled with fresh mixed flowers that Caroline knew, in the dead of winter, had to have come from a florist.
The entire room managed at once to be exquisite and yet invitingly comfortable. It was, she thought, startled, actually very much like her own apartment, very much the way she had always envisioned a real home of her own would be.
In that moment, strangely, she suddenly found it difficult to believe she and Nick were not really going to be married in any true sense of the word, that they were not going to be building a life here together, making children together.
Get a grip, Caro! she told herself sternly as she abruptly realized the direction her thoughts had taken. This is purely a business arrangement, so don’t go making a fool of yourself by starting to think it’s anything else. Good heavens! Yesterday morning, you didn’t even like Nick Valkov!
“Here, let me take your coat, and then I’ll show you around.” Smoothly, Nick slipped her coat from her shoulders before conducting her on a tour of the premises.
These included a large, warm, welcoming country kitchen filled with plants, baskets and copper pots, a study where Nick obviously worked when at home, a library filled from floor to ceiling with books, and then four bedrooms upstairs—one of which was his own.
It was a wholly masculine room, dominated by a massive canopy bed, an armoire and a dresser, another large fireplace and Russian works of art. Quickly, Caroline averted her gaze from the bed, having suffered another unbidden image of herself and Nick together, this time lying naked and entangled on the goose-down duvet.
As though he had read her mind, Nick drawled, “You are, of course, welcome to sleep here, if you wish.”
“Ours is to be a marriage in name only,” Caroline reminded him, knowing she was blushing again and grateful for the dim lamplight, which she hoped concealed her pink cheeks.
“Of course,” he responded evenly, although she thought she saw a glimpse of regret in his eyes—which surprised her. After all, this morning he hadn’t seemed too enthused about having her as his wife. “Still, you can’t blame a guy for trying, can you? Which of the other bedrooms would you prefer, then?”
“I’ll take the one at the other end of the hall.” Caroline’s gaze fell nervously before his eyes, which glittered mockingly, knowingly, and his mouth, which twisted in a grin of amusement.
“Naturally,” he drawled dryly. “I’ll get it ready for you tomorrow. Would you like me to install a dead bolt on the door, as well?”
“Actually,” she said quietly, glancing up at him again then—earnestly, so he would know she was serious, “I was hoping you would prove gentleman enough that I wouldn’t need to make such a request, Nick.”
“I am—more’s the pity. So you don’t need to worry that after we’re married, I won’t keep my end of the bargain, Caro. Or that I’ll fall on you like some ravaging beast one night when you least expect it. I won’t—at least, not unless you want me to,” he added insolently, grinning again. Then, as yet another blush stained her cheeks, he observed, “You’re really not used to being teased by a man, are you. Somehow, I find that highly intriguing and most illuminating. I’m beginning to realize you’re actually nothing at all like the woman I’ve always imagined you to be. Shall we go back downstairs now, have a little supper and a nightcap before I run you back to the office to pick up your car?”
“Oh, no. That’s not necessary,” she insisted quickly, her heart beating fast in her breast at his observations about her. He was very perceptive. She would have to be on her guard against him, Caroline realized. Otherwise, he would soon be tunneling his way beneath the defenses she had so carefully erected around her inner self, the barriers that shielded her heart. “Really. It’s getting late, and you’ll still have to come back here after dropping me off. I can grab a quick bite to eat on my way home.”
“What? A greasy burger from some fast-food place? I don’t think so. Forgive me for speaking so bluntly, Caro, but a body like yours deserves better.” Nick’s gaze roamed over her again appreciatively. He made a short tsking sound with his mouth. “I confess I can already see that I might grow to regret this look-but-don’t-touch marriage of ours. Oh, well. I’ll just have to learn to live with it, I guess. Come on. My beef stroganoff is to die for.”
This last was not an idle boast, Caroline presently learned after they had gone downstairs into the kitchen. There, what was supposed to have been a “little supper” somehow turned into a rather grand and lengthy production, as though Nick were in no great hurry to get rid of her. In fact, Caroline thought, bewildered, he was behaving as though they were on a real date and he were doing his best to win her approval. And the more charming he acted, the more her pulse raced and the more she felt herself being enveloped by an indefinable sense of panic.
She tried to remind herself that this was the same man she had for ages thought of as being impossibly arrogant, domineering and insufferable, a man with highly archaic, Old World tendencies, which involved keeping a woman barefoot and pregnant. But it didn’t help.
Nick’s obviously mercurial moods, his light-hearted—clearly deliberately risqué—teasing, his intelligent conversation…all contrived to make Caroline feel as though she were being sucked helplessly into some dangerous whirlpool from which there was no escape. Despite all her worldly, sophisticated family background, she was out of her depth in this milieu, she reflected, dismayed. She hadn’t had enough experience with men to know how to deal with one like Nick Valkov.
She w
ondered what motivated his attitude toward her, if his pleasantness and flirting were his way of attempting to seduce her. He had something of a reputation as a playboy at Fortune Cosmetics. Had he decided that the prospect of a prolonged period of celibacy held no appeal, after all? Finally, unable to restrain her curiosity any longer, she asked him outright why he was apparently putting his best foot forward where she was concerned.
“I thought I had made it clear to you earlier, Caro.” With a pair of tongs, he expertly tossed the salad he was preparing—Russian dressing, of course, she noted. “Depending on the position the INS takes with regard to our marriage, we may be husband and wife for as much as a year—or even longer. And personally, I simply don’t relish the idea of spending that much of my life in a veritable war zone. You know the old saying that a man’s home is his castle? Well, it’s true. And I want mine peaceful—not filled with hostilities. So, of course I’ve been trying my best to put you at ease toward that end. It seemed the only sensible course of action—and until now, I had flattered myself that I had something of a way with women. However, it would appear from your words that where you, at least, are concerned, I am failing miserably.”
“No…it’s not that. It’s not that at all. I was just…puzzled, that’s all.”
“In what way?”
“Well, you’ve just never seemed quite so…oh, I can’t explain it. You’ve just always struck me as being very—”
“Proud, egotistical, impatient, demanding and not a man to be ruled by a woman?” He laughed softly at her obvious surprise. “You see, I do know my own faults. Caro—the main one of which is that I don’t suffer fools gladly.” Taking up the beef stroganoff, he placed it on the table, which she had set earlier. “But you’re not a fool. In fact, you’re probably one of the smartest women I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, and whether you think so or not, I do respect that.”
“But you’d rather I were stupid?”
Hired Husband Page 5
