by Penny Jordan
It had been a real man, though, who had touched her flesh and brought her body into singing, longing life. The real Kiryl who had kissed her and caressed her, taken and possessed her, until her senses and her body were totally in thrall to him—then, now and for ever, Alena admitted helplessly.
In the sitting room of his St Petersburg hotel suite Kiryl stared unseeingly at the painting on the wall above the desk where he was seated.
He had won the contract.
Where was the triumph? The sense of achievement and pleasure in having finally reached his goal and bested his father?
Where was the euphoria of victory? The sensation of standing over the fallen body of his enemy, slain by his own superiority?
Why couldn’t he even manage to summon up the mental image of his father standing over him so contemptuously, as he had done so many times over the years, to increase the burn of his bitterness and to fuel his own private hunger to inflict his chosen punishment on his parent?
Why, instead of that image, was the only one that filled his senses one of Alena? Alena lying in his bed, her hair spread around her, her eyes warm and liquid with her love for him. Alena crying out in shocked pleasure as he taught her all that pleasure was. Alena holding him safe when he succumbed to his own need and his own release from it.
Alena.
He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since she’d walked out on him at the house in London. He’d been angry then—angry with himself for wanting her so much that he’d broken all the rules he’d ever made for himself and then some by allowing his aching need for her to overwhelm his will power. A need that only she had aroused in him, and a need which he suspected only she would ever be able to arouse in him. He had wanted to make her desire him because of his own desire for her, but his success had backfired on him—because in gaining her response he had lost his own ability to control his reaction to her.
Acknowledging that had made him very angry with himself. He had, after all, far more important things to think about than his inconvenient and unwanted physical vulnerability to Alena.
Only he also had to acknowledge that he wasn’t just physically vulnerable to her. He was emotionally vulnerable to her as well. As he’d held her in his arms before she had run away from him, what he had most wanted to hear her say wasn’t that she wanted him but that she loved him.
Pacing the floor of his bedroom later that night, he had felt all the things she had said to him earlier in the day about his father and about himself come back to him. There hadn’t been a day since then—or a night, and the nights were the worst—when he hadn’t examined her words over and over again.
And now, when everything he had worked for was finally in his grasp, when he had achieved the goal he had worked so hard towards for so long, Kiryl felt that in reality he had nothing of any true value.
‘Is this what your mother would have wanted for you?’ Alena had asked. ‘Is this the way she would want you to represent the love she had for you?’
For years he had deliberately stopped himself from thinking about his mother. Her pain, her humiliation at the hands of his father, had diminished her—and would diminish him if he allowed himself to recognise it. That was what he had told himself. Instead of being proud of her he had allowed his father to make him feel ashamed of her. All these years when he had thought he was being strong.
Rubbing eyes that were dry from lack of sleep, Kiryl pushed his hand into his hair and then grimaced. Vasilii had phoned him earlier, to congratulate him on winning the contract. This evening he would be escorting Alena to what would be one of the major social events of the season. There would be plenty of people there willing to congratulate him on getting the contract, and many of them would remember his father and how he had rejected him. The thought of the sweetness of that triumph had been the lodestar that had enabled him to work so tirelessly to overcome all the obstacles and the hardships he had faced. With the contract secured—and through his marriage to Alena his connection to Vasilii secured—he would have everything he had believed he would ever want.
Everything but Alena’s love—that infinitely precious gift he had valued so little and then discarded, and for which he now hungered so much.
Kiryl closed his eyes against the burning ache of his own emotions and then opened then again. He had things he had to do—and do now.
Alena was just on the point of going to her room to get changed for the evening’s event when a courier arrived from the St Petersburg branch of one of the world’s most famous jewellery houses. The maid who had answered the door to his knock was looking far more excited than Alena felt when she brought her a discreetly monogrammed carrier bag containing beautifully gift-wrapped boxes—four of them in all.
Taking them to her room to unwrap and open them, Alena thought ruefully that her half-brother had obviously decided she had to have jewellery to wear tonight, even if he had to buy her some so that she could do so.
Perhaps another woman’s heart would have lifted at the thought of new jewellery, but nothing could lift her heart, Alena knew. However, when she opened the first and largest of the leather boxes she had to admit that the beauty of the necklace inside it did make her catch her breath. In fact Alena didn’t think she had ever seen something so exquisitely lovely and elegant, each diamond so pure that the light reflecting from it made her blink. Completely the opposite of ostentatious, this piece of jewellery was deliberately simple and understated, and designed by a master craftsman.
For a moment a tremulous smile touched her mouth. Vasilii obviously understood her far better than she had realised to have given her this. Everything about it said that he knew the way she thought and, more importantly, the way she felt. There was even a small note inside the box, confirming that the diamonds were ethically sourced.
Inside the other boxes were a pair of bracelets to match the necklace, and delicate drop earrings in the final box completed the set.
It had been thoughtful of Vasilii to take time out of his busy schedule to choose such a lovely gift for her, but the only gift she really wanted from her brother was to be freed from a marriage which she knew would destroy her, Alena thought with a heavy heart. How could she live side by side with Kiryl, day after day, knowing she loved him, knowing he would never return that love, and worst of all knowing what he could have been but had chosen not to be?
The silk evening dress she was wearing was a soft shade of lilac, its silk swathed and draped by its designer so that it hinted at the curves of her body rather than deliberately outlining them. High-necked and long-sleeved, the dress was semi-sheer almost to the waist at the back, and, whilst it was discreetly sensual rather than deliberately provocative, Alena was still glad that it had a matching wrap to go with it, should she feel that it was more revealing than she felt comfortable with.
In order to show off her new earrings to advantage she’d put her hair up, securing it with a pair of antique silver combs that had been one of her father’s gifts to her mother. She’d finished the outfit with a pair of silver high heeled sandals and a matching silver clutch bag.
She had just spritzed her favourite scent into the air and walked into it, so that it would create a delicate cloud of scent around her as she moved, when after a brief rap on her door Vasilii opened it and walked in, dressed in the formality of a dinner suit and looking extremely handsome if somewhat formidable. Her halfbrother was a very good-looking man, Alena thought ruefully. But he was also one whose autocratic manner often meant that others held him in some awe.
‘Kiryl should be here any minute,’ he warned her, looking at the gold dress watch he was wearing, which had originally belonged to his father. Autocratic Vasilii might be, but Alena had never doubted his love for his father. ‘I suggested that the three of us should travel to the villa together.’
Alena nodded her head. Just the sound of Kiryl’s name made her heart ache with pain.
‘Thank you for these,’ she told Vasilii, touching her new necklace an
d then the bracelets. ‘They are absolutely beautiful, Vasilii, but you really should not have.’
‘I didn’t,’ he responded promptly.
Alena stared at him, confusion and dismay filling her.
‘Oh, no! You mean that they must have been intended for someone else.’
‘I shouldn’t think so. I am sure they were intended for you, Alena. But I am not the one who chose them for you. I rather think that instead they are a gift from your future husband. Something to commemorate his success, perhaps?’
Whilst Alena just looked at him the maid came in, to tell them that Kiryl had arrived and was waiting for them in the apartment’s sitting room. It was too late now for her to wish she had never worn the diamonds, which now felt like a cold, mocking weight against her skin, shackling her to him. It was a bond she wanted to reject, but couldn’t—just as she couldn’t reject or escape her love for Kiryl himself.
The sight of Alena wearing the diamond jewellery he had chosen so carefully for her made Kiryl’s heart turn over inside his chest in a blend of pain and pleasure. She looked thinner, her cheekbones more pronounced, the luminous glow gone from her eyes, but she was still incredibly beautiful A beautiful woman both inside and out, he acknowledged helplessly. He ached so badly for what he had lost, and the right it would have given him to go to her and take her in his arms.
As it was, they left the apartment and got into the limousine that was to take them to the party without Alena so much as looking at him, never mind speaking to him. What had he expected? Alena had made it plain enough to him how she felt about him and their marriage, hadn’t she?
She would have to thank Kiryl for his gift and congratulate him on his success in winning the contract at some stage during the evening, Alena knew. Good manners necessitated that, she admitted. She stared out of the darkened window of their transport, leaving Vasilii and Kiryl to talk to one another in low voices, no doubt about business matters, as they were driven out of St Petersburg to the south of the city where their host had built his new villa on similar lines to those of one of St Petersburg’s most famous royal palaces, although on a smaller scale.
Alena sighed a little when they approached it and turned into a long drive. Both the drive and the house were illuminated with modern lighting that washed both the grounds to the front of the villa and the villa itself in a series of changing colours. In midwinter perhaps the effect might have been attractive, but now the bright illumination seemed at odds with the delicacy of the natural light that would ultimately fade, as Alena knew from her previous visits to St Petersburg, to a miraculously soft twilight.
With so many important people invited to the party they had to wait in the car for their turn to draw up alongside the red carpet and alight from their transport. Somehow, without her managing to see how he had done it, it was Kiryl who stood at her side, his hand beneath her elbow as her partner, whilst Vasilii stood slightly behind them. Alena could feel her whole body trembling just because he was touching her. Trembling with longing for him, and not revulsion as it should have been.
At the top of the villa’s flight of white marble steps it wasn’t their host and hostess who waited to greet them but instead a major-domo, who took their coats and then called their names up to another official who was standing at the foot of a very grand return staircase at the back of the marble hall
It was only at the top of these stairs that they were finally greeted by their host—a very powerful man indeed. But it was obvious to Alena from the way in which he greeted them both that he thought very highly of Kiryl and Vasilii.
His new wife, although outstandingly beautiful, looked both slightly petulant and bored—until she saw Kiryl and Vasilii, when her eyes widened alluringly and she gave them both a sultry come-on smile.
The fierce stab of angry female antagonism at the sight of another woman smiling alluringly at ‘her’ man caused Alena to lift her hand to her heart, as though to still its fierce thudding. Now she was jealous of another woman smiling at Kiryl on top of everything else!
Watching Alena, Kiryl frowned. She looked so fragile, her face pale and set. He reached towards her, but Vasilii was saying something to her and she turned away to listen to her brother. Naturally she would prefer talking to Vasilii than to him, given the way she felt about him, Kiryl recognised. But he intended to make amends to her—to make things right for her. Or at least as right as he was able to make them …
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT WAS over three hours since they had first arrived at the party. Alena’s head was aching from the volume of noise created by the huge number of guests talking to one another, the sound intensified by the marble floors and drowning out the music being played by a world-acclaimed string quartet.
Alena turned towards Kiryl, intending to ask him if he thought there was any chance of the pop singer being heard later on in the evening, when she gave her performance, but he was deep in conversation with one of the many businessmen who had came to talk to him during the course of the evening. Although he had acted the part of attentive fiancé to perfection, never once leaving her side, they had barely spoken to one another. The emotional gulf between them was so wide that Alena could barely swallow for the pain of the throat muscles she had locked against her misery.
Uniformed waiters and waitresses were circling amongst the guests, carrying plates of canapés—small blinis heaped with smoked salmon and caviar—that gleamed beneath the light of the many chandeliers.
The man talking to Kiryl had finally moved away.
‘I’m just going to the ladies,’ she told him, handing him her still half-full glass of champagne.
Kiryl watched her walk away She looked like a delicate lilac wraith, in a gown that was so much more elegant and restrained than the over-the-top outfits so many of the other female guests were wearing. The jewellery he had bought her after Vasilii had told him how irritated he was with himself for forgetting to get her mother’s jewellery out of the London bank vault looked every bit as good on her as he had thought. He had seen the set in a store window and thought how much it would suit her, because of the purity of the diamonds and the elegant simplicity of its design. He had seen her touching the necklace every now and again during the course of the evening, but the look on her face when she had done so hadn’t said that she was enjoying wearing his gift. Far from it, in fact.
A little to Alena’s surprise, when she emerged from the ladies she found that Kiryl was standing watching the door, obviously waiting for her.
‘I’ve just seen Vasilii,’ he told her when she rejoined him. ‘He’s got some business matter he wants to discuss with someone he’s met here, so he won’t be travelling back with us.’
‘Oh, I see.’ That was all Alena could manage to say. It was ridiculous that the thought of the intimacy of journey home alone in the back of a chauffer-driven limousine with Kiryl should make her feel so weak with need.
‘Alena ….’ Kiryl began, but Alena spoke at the same time, desperate to remind herself of the reality of their relationship.
‘I haven’t thanked you yet for this,’ she told him, touching her new necklace. ‘Vasilii said that you must have bought it for me to mark the success of your bid. I haven’t congratulated you on that yet either. I meant to earlier, but …’
‘I haven’t accepted the contract. And the diamonds haven’t got anything to do with it.’
Alena might have heard Kiryl’s deliberately firmly spoken words, despite the backdrop of conversational noise all around them, but she still couldn’t take them in. She looked up at him and then away from him, whilst her heart thudded and raced in confusion and disbelief, before managing to say, ‘But you wanted it so much. It was what you wanted more than anything else. You said so. I heard you.’
‘I know. I was wrong. Alena, I need to talk to you—properly. There’s something I have to say to you about … about the future—your future. But not here. It’s too noisy. Will you come back to St Petersburg with me?’
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Alena nodded her head. Her heart was beating much more heavily now, as though it had recognised something ominous in Kiryl’s words. She desperately wanted to know what he meant, but he was right—this was not the place to try and hold a private conversation.
Even when Kiryl had sent for their car, and they were installed in the back of it, he refused to say any more.
It was gone midnight when the car pulled up outside the apartment block, but when Alena headed towards the entrance Kiryl caught hold of her hand and shook his head, saying, ‘Let’s walk. It will be easier for me to say what I know has to be said that way.’
Easier for him? What on earth could he have to say to her that would be hard for him to tell her?
‘Very well,’ she agreed.
Kiryl had released her hand now, and she missed the warmth of his touch. Without thinking about what she was doing, she moved closer to him—only to have him move away as he started to walk in the direction of the river, matching his pace to hers.
Here and there were a handful of pleasure boats on the Neva, and the lights from villas and parties being held on some of the islands were flickering in the distance. One of those islands was the one where they had stayed in winter. Why was she thinking about that now, when she knew how vulnerable she was to those memories?
‘I intend to speak to Vasilii about this tomorrow,’ Kiryl told her. ‘But I want you to know now that since I have decided not to go ahead with the contract there is no longer any reason for us to marry. You don’t need to worry, Alena. I shall make it clear to Vasilii that nothing we have shared will ever become known to anyone else. Vasilii can make it known publicly that you were the one to end our engagement. From the way in which men were looking at you tonight I know that I shall be much pitied for losing such a beautiful and charming bride-to-be.’
