Untouched by His Diamonds

by Lucy Ellis

  Her chest gave a little flutter at that thought. He’d been magnificent. He’d just handled it. You didn’t run into guys like that in London.

  The light hit her face and, pulling awkwardly at her skirt, she ascended the steps. She was chilled despite the sun, and that was her own fault too. She should have changed out of this ridiculous outfit Verado liked her to wear, back into her street clothes. But there hadn’t been time, and she’d left the bag of clothes at the store, and now she was wandering the streets of St Petersburg in great boots but frankly looking a little too uncovered for her own liking.

  Emerging into the street, she hobbled over to a nearby kiosk and took a seat. She was really shivering now, and it didn’t have much to do with her lack of layers. She supposed it was delayed shock, but she also felt naked without her bag—vulnerable. She was used to depending on herself and that bag had everything she needed to keep herself safe. She was beginning to wish she hadn’t sent the Cossack away.

  It was useless going back to her lodgings. She needed to head back into the city centre, find Luke.

  That was when she saw the limo. It was idling across the road, one of its doors angled wide, and then she saw him, striding straight towards her. He’d removed his jacket and had his hands shoved into his pockets, so that the fabric of his superfine blue shirt pulled taut across a muscular chest and abdomen. Clementine’s miserable thoughts dwindled to a virtual halt. He looked powerful and it wasn’t just his size. It was the way he held himself, with tremendous confidence and that measured response to what was going on around him she had seen in action in the underpass.

  But what he was giving her now was full sensual male interest. Clementine told herself she could handle men, but all her female instincts were telling her she couldn’t handle this man at all.

  He was so male as to be of another species.

  Big shoulders, big arms, hard thighs—long and lean and coming straight at her.

  He’d crunched bones for her, broken skin, shed blood.

  ‘Come on, get in. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.’ He spoke abruptly, his voice deep and deliberate.

  She just sat there, looking up, trying to clamber over the overwhelmed feeling to something more considered.

  He lifted those big hands of his. ‘I’m a good guy. I don’t wish you any harm. You need some help, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Clementine said softly, distracted by the intensity of his green eyes.

  ‘Are you staying far from here?’

  Clementine knew she should tell him nothing and refuse the ride. But he had helped her. He had put himself at risk for a stranger. This was a good guy. This was a very, very sexy man. This would buy her a little more time with him. And she was so tired of looking after herself. It wouldn’t hurt to accept a lift.

  ‘Do you know where the Australian embassy is?’

  ‘I’ll find it.’

  And she believed he would.

  Serge gave directions to his driver, watched as those long legs folded themselves into his car, slid in alongside her, observed her scoot over to put a respectable distance between them. Then she shifted forward and leant down.

  She was unzipping the boots.

  The shell of each boot collapsed and she tugged one stockinged foot out, then the other, revealing her long legs in those sheer pale stockings that gleamed like silk. Her activity seemed unselfconscious, as if he couldn’t possibly be interested, but of course she had to know what she was doing. She wriggled her toes and cocked a curious look at him up through her lashes.

  ‘Sorry, honey,’ she said. ‘They’re new, and they’re rubbing.’

  She pressed her knees primly together and folded her hands in her lap, utterly ladylike.

  She was incredible.

  ‘You’re Australian? From Sydney?’ His own voice sounded hoarse, and he gave an inward laugh at his susceptibility to this woman.

  ‘Melbourne.’ She smiled, her eyes not quite meeting his. It was such a subtle smile. She kept her lips pursed, as if she was keeping a secret.

  If only she’d stop rubbing her knees together. The shub-shub of the fabric was highly stimulating to his imagination.

  ‘So far away. What are you doing in Petersburg? Business or pleasure?’

  ‘Both. I’m here working.’ She gave a little shrug as if it wasn’t important. Those lips parted into a more open smile. ‘But I’ve dreamed of seeing St Petersburg. It’s so romantic, so full of history.’

  ‘You like what you’ve seen so far?’

  ‘Very much.’ She gave him a sidelong look, making it clear she wasn’t talking about the city—and didn’t that just notch up the temperature in the car? She turned her head away, made a show of looking out of the window, exposing the length of her lovely pale throat, and he dwelt on the golden tendrils of silky hair tickling against her neck.

  He decided to cut to the chase. ‘When do you leave?’

  She met his gaze, let him see those grey eyes, darker now than when he had first seen them. ‘My contract winds up tomorrow.’

  Two days. Perfect. ‘Such a shame,’ he mused.

  ‘What do you do?’ she ventured. ‘I mean, you must do something—you’re riding around in a limo.’ She laughed nervously. ‘You’re either rich or something else.’

  He laughed low, and watched the pulse in her throat give a little throb. ‘Or something else,’ he murmured, which clearly intrigued her.

  ‘You’re not one of those overnight millionaires you read about, are you, honey?’

  ‘Nyet, sorry to disappoint you. I worked very hard for my first million.’

  ‘Right.’ Those slender hands fluttered in her lap. She was obviously attracted to him, but the money helped. His inner cynic gave a rueful shrug.

  ‘This would be the moment to ask you, if you’re not otherwise engaged, to join me for dinner tonight.’

  He actually saw her swallow. She moistened her lower lip, dragging his attention to the contours of her mouth. She looked at him through her lashes. ‘You work fast. I’ll give you that.’

  ‘You haven’t given me much time.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t imagine that stopping you.’

  ‘Nothing much does, kisa.’

  She gave a negligent little shrug, a naughty sparkle in her grey eyes. ‘Okay, Slugger, we’ll see how you do.’

  A challenge—and didn’t he just relish that?

  Lifting his head above the pleasure horizon, he made a quick judgement call. This girl clearly liked to play games, however guarded she was being now. It was reasonable to wonder how many other men she’d played them with.

  He hesitated.

  Did it matter?

  This was his favourite type of female. A woman with a sparkle in her eyes and a willingness to just enjoy herself. No ties, no drama. No happy-ever-afters.

  This girl was clearly that woman.

  Libido humming nicely, he gave her body a comprehensive, less polite once-over. In response she surprised him. Her hands knotted up in her lap and her shoulders tensed. That little Mona Lisa smile flickered and vanished. She turned the lights down low on her eyes with those thick lashes.

  Chastened, he put a clamp on his imagination.

  It was a reminder that he needed to be kind and considerate and gentlemanly—as he would be with any other woman.

  And look after her until she waved goodbye in a few days’ time.

  She was going on a date with the Cossack.

  Clementine’s imagination was beginning to gallop, but before it did perhaps she should take the opportunity to clear a few things up. But what was she going to say? I don’t make a practice of putting on sex shows for strange men? I’ve agreed to dinner but that’s it. I’m a nice girl.

  But he had asked her to dinner, hadn’t he?

  And he’d rescued her.

  That was huge. She was still feeling a little breathless over that.

  And, honestly, how nice a girl was she?

  He really should be rewarded.


  A little smile formed on her lips.

  She needed to think this through. She’d seen the way he’d looked her over, as if making a sexual inventory of the bits he’d like. She knew which way this road led and she didn’t want to walk it again. Not even for a Cossack whose incredible green eyes made her tremble behind the knees and her nipples perk up.

  He had one arm spread along the top of the seat, so that his hand hung just inches from her shoulder. He had positioned himself so he was angled towards her, long muscular legs stretched out. Without his jacket she could see the hard width of his shoulders and the taut flat belly delineated by the fitted dark blue shirt, crisp on his large frame. He really was mouthwateringly delicious.

  For crying out loud—she had to stop this now! She didn’t even know his name, or he hers. She could remedy that, at least.

  ‘I’m Clementine Chevalier, by the way,’ she said, sticking out her hand in a forthright fashion.

  ‘Clementine.’ His accent did wonderful things to her name. He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, and she felt the tingle all through her girly bits as he turned her endeavour to keep their interaction on a guy-to-guy basis into an old-fashioned gesture. The sort of gesture that got her just where her inner princess lived.

  ‘I am Serge—Serge Marinov.’ Serj, she pronounced silently, practised it a couple of times. It was far too sexy. She was such a goner.

  Expectation shimmered in the air. The car had glided to a halt. Clementine registered belatedly that they were no longer moving and hit ground level as real life intruded again. She reached for her boots.

  ‘Thanks for the lift.’ She sounded breathless even to her own ears. ‘Should I give you my address or shall I meet you somewhere …?’ She trailed off.

  ‘I will collect you,’ he said, as if this was the only logical response, ‘and I think you should let me handle the embassy.’

  Okay. She wasn’t going to argue over that. ‘You really want this date,’ she observed as he opened her door, helped her out.

  He gave her an inscrutable smile. ‘How am I doing?’

  ‘How do you think?’ She threw a feminine sway into her hips and preceded him into the building, enjoying herself far too much.

  People were looking at them.

  Probably wondering what a girl like her was doing with a guy like him.

  She was wondering the same thing.

  Clementine had pictured queues, waiting endlessly, forms to be filled in. Apparently Serge Marinov didn’t live in that world. He lived in a parallel universe where you were taken upstairs to a plush office and offered tea or coffee or something stronger, and where a senior official turned up in a neat business suit and low heels, eyes lighting up as she focussed on Serge. The woman was so poised and elegant, her flirtatiousness pitch perfectly low-key, giving Clementine a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew women must fawn over him all the time.

  Yet he had saved her from who knew what in that underpass, and he’d asked her out to dinner, and now he was making a difficult situation evaporate. He was putting in all the work. And within an astonishing half an hour Clementine was sorted: passport, visa, bank account. All of it done and dusted.

  ‘Who on earth are you?’ she blurted out as they descended the marble stairs of the embassy building. It was shabby and worn, but the interior had clearly once been a beautiful example of early nineteenth-century classicism. In any other situation she would have lingered to take it all in, but right now all she was interested in was the man beside her.

  ‘I have a few contacts in the city,’ he answered neutrally. ‘Where can I take you now?’

  Anywhere you want, a little voice sang. The boring, nice middle-class girl part of her gave him her address, registered his disapproval.

  ‘Is it too far out of your way?’

  ‘It’s not a particularly savoury area.’

  ‘I’m sure your car will be all right—I mean you can just drop me and go.’

  That stopped him in his tracks. ‘I am concerned that a woman is living alone in this building. Who arranged this for you?’

  ‘It’s a work thing.’ Clementine shrugged, feeling uncomfortable under his scrutiny. She put her game face back on. ‘It’s fine, really. I’m a big girl, Serge.’

  It was the first time she had said his name and it ran through her like electricity. He seemed to like it too, because he was suddenly idling in front of her, blocking her view of the reception area and the street with his body. She liked it that she could barely see over his shoulder, even in her heels.

  He seemed to read her thoughts, because he leaned in a little closer and said softly, ‘You seem much too lovely to be staying there on your own.’

  Clementine felt the backs of her knees give. She found her gaze buzzing on the line of his mouth. It was so unforgiving, yet there was a softness in his lower lip. She wanted to press her thumb there, see if she could coax a smile out of him. Just for her.

  ‘You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl,’ she said, as lightly as she could, but her voice came out a whole octave lower.

  He leant in, his breath soft on her ear. ‘Do you need sweet-talking?’

  ‘A little,’ she demurred, the sudden rush of response in her body embarrassing her.

  He gave her a slow, knowing smile. ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’

  This date wasn’t just about dinner. She’d been a little slow on that score. Already she’d been planning her dress, and imagining candlelight and waiters bringing champagne and being romanced, when she should probably be thinking about lingerie and condoms.

  It was stupid to feel disappointed. He was here now and all of this had started because of sex. And he expected it was going to end with sex. She was a big girl. She understood how it all worked. She’d learned the hard way that guys like this didn’t date working girls like her with a view to a future. But she needed to make a decision about how she was going to handle that before she went any further.

  Not that he’d pushed anything. Apart from that brief gesture of his lips on her hand he had not laid a finger on her. He was all well-mannered restraint. She felt completely safe with him, and enormously grateful, and suddenly horribly self-conscious—because all of a sudden she wondered if he looked at her and saw what another man had seen in her unhappy past: a sure thing.

  The Vassiliev Building. He wouldn’t kennel a dog there. Yet this warm, vibrant girl was sleeping there. Probably with a lock on the door a five-year-old could snap.

  If there were no funds she should be staying in one of those concrete hotels that housed tourists. They weren’t attractive but at least they were safe. Well, this was the last time she’d be sleeping here, so that problem was solved.

  It still went against the grain to let her out here, and Serge found himself accompanying her inside and up the stairwell. She seemed embarrassed, as if the dire surroundings were somehow her fault.

  She’d been quiet on the drive across town from the embassy. He’d expected a little flirting, but she’d gone back to pinning her knees together and she hadn’t taken off her boots. The mixed messages didn’t bother him as much as watching her let herself into that room and knowing he was going to leave her there.

  She was unbelievably trusting. She had climbed into his car. She had given him her details. She’d probably open this door to anyone.

  ‘Keep this locked,’ he said, thumping the doorjamb with the side of his fist. ‘Don’t open the door to anyone you don’t know.’

  She had sort of angled the door so he couldn’t see inside. Either that or she was worried he was going to lunge at her now they were in stepping distance of a bed. Which didn’t make sense. She’d been more in danger of that in the back of the limo. But he had no intention of rushing anything. A few hours wasn’t going to make much difference, and he intended to work Clementine Chevalier over so thoroughly she wouldn’t forget St Petersburg in a hurry.

  It was going to be very mutually enjoyable.

  If she
stopped giving him these glimpses of vulnerability and expectation. As if simple consideration was something she hadn’t much experience of.

  He handed her his card. ‘This is my number. Call me if you have any hassles. I’ll be here at eight.’

  She nodded, those grey eyes wary in her heart-shaped face. Then that sweet curve at the corner of her mouth made its appearance, and Serge fought free of an impulse to lean in and kiss her—because once he did that he’d be setting up a softer scenario than the one he had planned.

  Straight up sex, not seduction. That was on the menu for tonight and tomorrow night.

  He’d save the seducing for a woman who needed it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CLEMENTINE lingered in her shabby rats’ hole long enough to whip off her boots and slip on jeans and her trainers, then hightail it for the Grand Hotel Europe.

  ‘You’re doing what?’ Luke slid his spectacles down to the end of his nose after listening to her story.

  That those glasses were only for show made the gesture all the more endearing. They had known each other since Clementine’s teenage years, when Luke had moved in next door. Meeting up with him again in a pub in London had been serendipitous. Without Luke, Clementine doubted she would have lasted more than a few months in London in that first year. He’d got her this job with the Ward Agency.

  Clementine sat down on the end of his hotel bed. As head of public relations for the Verado shoot Luke got a whole room in the Grand Hotel Europe.

  ‘It’s just dinner, Luke.’

  ‘No, he ogled you in a shoe store and followed you up the Nevsky—’

  ‘And saved me.’

  ‘Saved you—right.’ Luke was all cynicism. ‘Some guy stole your bag—’

  ‘Two—two pretty nasty types. And then he just made the whole problem go away. Took me around in his limo.’