by Lucy Ellis
Serge was tempted to comment that the fleapit she was currently inhabiting told him more about her job than words. Instead he said, ‘What else do you do, Clementine, besides influence people?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
There was something in the way she asked, angling up her chin but with a hint of vulnerability in her eyes. He hadn’t expected that.
‘Yeah, I do,’ he said, surprising himself.
She gave him a curious look he couldn’t read. ‘Truthfully, not much lately. All I seem to do is work.’
‘You’re a beautiful woman. No serious boyfriend?’
She met his eyes candidly. ‘I wouldn’t be out with you if I had.’
Serge lounged back, rolling his shoulders, all big lazy Russian male.
Honestly, thought Clementine, what was it about men and competition?
He sipped his brandy, his eyes warm on her face, her bare shoulders.
‘What about you?’ She tossed back her hair, giving him her hundred-watt smile. ‘Why isn’t a rich, gorgeous guy like you taken?’
‘Gorgeous?’ He looked amused. ‘Good to know I measure up, kisa.’
He hadn’t answered the question. Clementine’s smile faded. Okay, it didn’t mean he was married or had a girlfriend or anything.
‘So no one’s waiting up for you at home?’ The question sounded so gauche she could have kicked herself.
‘No.’ He settled his glass on the table. ‘No one.’
It bothered her. He studied her suddenly tense face intently. ‘What gave you the idea I was married?’
‘A girl can’t be too careful,’ she said lightly.
Da, he could imagine an endless stream of guys hitting on her. Married men. Single. Hell, gay men. Any man with a pulse.
He had a personal distaste for adultery. He didn’t fool around with married women, ever. So why in the hell did it annoy him so much that she had brought it up?
It was the idea of a married man making a play for her.
Any man.
Because he wanted her. For himself. Exclusively.
And why in the hell did he feel that at any moment she could get up, excuse herself from the table and never come back?
Clementine knew there was something about her that attracted guys like this. Good-looking, confident men, who thought they could bulldoze her into bed. And they always had money. Luke said it was her personality, but he meant her confidence. She was a girl who liked to dress up and flirt. She always had. She intimidated a lot of nice guys who were too scared to approach her, imagining every night of her week was booked, or who—like Serge—wanted to know why she wasn’t in a relationship.
She had been. In two short-lived unsatisfactory relationships with nice guys who in the end had bored her silly. She recognised now that they had made her feel less like herself and more like the girl she imagined she should be. Clementine with the lights turned down.
Serge watched the emotions flickering across Clementine’s expressive face. Her guarded eyes suddenly made him feel uncomfortable with his crass plan for a couple of nights’ entertainment.
‘You still haven’t told me what you do,’ she said, sitting back.
She genuinely wanted to get to know him, and something tightened up in his chest.
‘I’m in sports management,’ he replied, unease making him brief.
‘Is it interesting?’
‘Sometimes.’
Clementine’s heart sank. He didn’t want to share any information about himself with her. For a moment she was thrown back to that strange whirlwind of months, almost a year ago, when she had been pursued by another wealthy man who had dodged personal questions as he smothered her in unprecedented romantic attention.
After her last break-up she had gone back to dating casually—until Joe Carnegie. She had met him through one of her PR jobs and he’d been a client—which meant he was off-limits by her own personal code. But the minute the job was done he’d been on the phone, roses had been delivered to her door. He had encouraged her to play up to her ‘gifts’, as he’d called them, supplying her with spectacular dresses he could show her off in. They would arrive boxed before a date. He had groomed her for a role and she had let him.
She had been so naive.
He’d wined her and dined her and treated her like a princess. She had opened herself up to him so quickly, so easily. Until the evening he’d taken her to a swish restaurant, the night she had decided their relationship should move beyond the bedroom door, and presented her with a real estate portfolio. He had purchased her a flat—a place he could visit her whilst he was in town.
It had never been about her. It had been all about the way she looked on his arm and how well she would perform in his bed. And then it had got worse. A couple of days later she had read in the newspaper about his engagement to a French pop star, who was also the daughter of a leading industrialist. A woman from his own social strata. She had been something else all along. He had always intended her to be his mistress on the side.
The memory still burned. He’d done a job on her and she was still paying the price. She had told herself she wasn’t going to let it ruin tonight, but already she was second-guessing Serge’s motives. He had been nothing but a gentleman—but so too had Joe Carnegie. She’d already come to the conclusion long ago that she wasn’t very good at working men out.
She looked around the restaurant, with its ambient lights and the laughter of other patrons and the wonderful smells of old-style Russian food, and realised she’d landed in yet another one of her stupid romantic fantasies.
‘Excuse me,’ she said abruptly, shifting to her feet. Serge rose. ‘Powder room,’ she murmured, unable to look at him.
The mirror in the ladies’ reflected back her pale made-up face and she cursed her lavish use of the mascara wand, because those tears prickling in her eyes were going to leave tracks.
She wasn’t sad. She was damn angry. With herself.
How in the hell did she get herself into these situations? Did she have ‘sucker’ tattooed on her forehead?
Two other women joined her at the taps, and Clementine made a show of washing her hands, checking her hair.
She looked up and recognised one of the girls as their waitress—one of the Kaminski daughters.
‘Serge Marinov,’ said the girl, making a sizzle gesture. ‘Lucky you.’
Yes, lucky me. Clementine gave her dress a tug and shook her head at her reflection. She was being an idiot. She had an incredible man sitting out there in that restaurant, waiting for her, and she was hiding in the ladies’ loo because one time some other guy had measured her value as low. It was time to suck it up and get on with her life. She was calling the shots, and if Serge Marinov had some stupid male agenda—well, she had one of her own.
As she approached the table he caught sight of her, and something akin to relief washed over his face.
Clementine almost ground to a halt. Well, fancy that. Guess who was on the hop. Confidence lifted her spine. He stood up as she approached, and she smiled to herself as he seated her.
‘Miss me?’ She couldn’t resist the question.
‘Every minute, kisa.’
‘Are we still eating?’
‘Coffee?’
‘Tea.’
When the samovar came the gypsy entertainment had invaded the restaurant and it became impossible to be heard above the music.
Serge watched Clementine coming under the spell of the performance, finding himself baffled by her. As the restaurant erupted into clapping she joined in, humming along unselfconsciously. When the performers came round to collect gold coins she fumbled in her clutch bag.
He reached across and laid a stilling hand on hers, tossed some money into the skirts of the girl.
Clementine shook a finger at him. ‘I can pay my way, Mr Millionaire.’
‘You’re with me,’ he replied, as if that said everything.
Clementine’s inner princess sighed, but h
er capable independent outer working girl patted his arm. ‘Come on, rich guy—let’s get out of here and I’ll buy you an ice cream.’
There was a flurry as they left. Clementine had made an impression on the Kaminskis, which was fine, but next time he came in here without her there were going to be questions. She was that sort of girl.
Hell, he had his own questions. Nothing had gone to plan. He should be rushing her across town right now to his place, after a meal spent trading sexual banter. Instead he’d spent the evening watching her enjoy herself—except for that bizarre moment he’d thought she’d got up and left the restaurant.
Walked out on him.
Even now he wanted to take her hand, weld her to his side, but she kept a neat distance between their bodies, held onto her purse with both hands, that classic little pose of hers complementing the sway in her walk.
Although it was after ten the evening was still light. They were so close to the White Nights of June. Serge shrugged off his jacket as they strolled down towards the embankment. The urge to slide an arm around her was very strong but he reined it in. Somehow this had turned into a real date. A first date.
Clementine looked up at him. ‘Thank you for inviting me. All I’ve been doing lately is working. It’s nice to put on a frock and be taken out somewhere fun.’
Bozhe, she was so sincere. And he was buying it. It probably made him a sap, but there was something about her in this moment that made him want to believe her.
‘You’re a very easy woman to please, kisa,’ he said at last, ‘but the evening has hardly begun, no?’
Clementine hid a smile. ‘Maybe for you, Slugger, but I’m beat and I’ve got an early start tomorrow.’
And didn’t that just tie up all his expectations in knots and toss them in the river? Serge rolled his shoulders. ‘Right,’ he said—and everything fell into place.
She’d known all along tonight wasn’t going to end in bed, which meant the little act in the car had been for her own amusement. He remembered the sparkle in her eyes, the invitation to laugh along with her.
He’d missed it because he’d been deep down in lust land.
Which meant tonight was a lost opportunity—for both of them. She was going home on Saturday, leaving him with a decision to make.
Was she worth the pursuit? Or—the better question—should he be messing with her? This nice girl? All sweet and sincere? And didn’t that just get him in the traditional Russian male part of himself that he didn’t make a habit of showing off? Where had he got the idea she wouldn’t need seducing? Why shouldn’t she make him work for it?
Instincts he didn’t have a whole lot of familiarity with told him he needed to handle this delicately. Another, more familiar instinct was telling him to take her in his arms and drive every thought she could possibly have about other men out of her head—at least until tomorrow. It had to be tomorrow. Because she was going back to London on Saturday.
And if he didn’t have her in his arms in one form or another tonight he was going to go crazy.
He reached and caught her hand—something he’d been wanting to do all night. She turned towards him, expression expectant, amused. He closed the space between them and lifted his other hand to hook one of her artfully liberated coils of hair away from her cheek. Her smile faded, her eyes grew a little rounder, her mouth softened.
‘You’re killing me, Clementine,’ he said in Russian, and moved in to put himself out of his misery.
In that moment she made a soft little sound of dismay and to his surprise turned away, slipping her hand free of his with a nervous laugh.
‘I still want to buy you that ice cream,’ she said over her shoulder.
Ice cream. Not sex. Not even a kiss. Not tonight.
She began walking, swaying a little on those silly heels, and he stood there, stock still, gazing after her.
She threw him a backward glance.
‘Coming, Slugger?’
She was going the wrong way. The ice cream vendors were in the other direction. But her question dissolved into a teasing smile, and without giving it a second thought he took off after her.
CHAPTER FOUR
SERGE had spent the morning listening to the argument that had broken out between the president of his company and the man he trusted above all others: trainer Mick Forster. Broadcast from the boardroom in the Marinov Building in New York City to the screen facing him, it had convinced him of one thing.
‘I’ll be at JFK tomorrow lunchtime,’ he said briefly, and closed his laptop. He pushed away from the desk, striding over to the windows of his Fontanka Canal apartment.
He’d been out of the country less than a day and he already had problems with a young fighter, Kolcek, who was up on assault charges and getting a raft of publicity that was not the kind the organisation needed. More importantly they were behind on the stadium going up in New York—an ongoing issue—but his management team were scrambling in the onslaught of media attention, as evidenced by this morning.
He didn’t like the look of it.
Yet all he could think about was that because of tardy contractors and a coked-up fighter who needed to be cut loose he was going to lose Clementine Chevalier.
Sexy, tempting, guarded Clementine. What was her game?
He’d taken her back to that dismal lodging last night, insisted on walking her up to her door. He’d been thinking more about the woeful security than infiltrating her defences when he’d lingered in her doorway. He’d seen once more the drab room, and then his eyes had lit on the condoms sitting on her bedside table right beside the door.
For a girl who didn’t kiss on a first date she had come prepared.
Was she sleeping with someone else? Was that the problem?
She’d said she didn’t have a boyfriend, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t sexually active. In fact it would be a crime against nature if she wasn’t.
Except right now he only wanted her sexually active with him.
He acknowledged he’d been unusually disappointed by the discovery she wasn’t quite what she seemed. For a few hours there he’d been enjoying the fantasy: man and woman out on a date, the simplicity and honesty of their interaction. Yet when it came down to it he would have left it there last night. Nice girls didn’t feature in his personal life.
He wasn’t in the market for a wife, or even a significant other, if that was the phrase, and the girl Clementine had seemed to be for a while there would have expected the whole romantic package.
He didn’t do romance. He did sex.
And what a girl like Clementine was offering in all her luscious glory was clearly uncomplicated, sizzling sex. Oblivion between her lush thighs. The promise in those sparkling eyes at the beginning of the night. The complete lack of emotional ties a girl like that came with. The sort of girl who could be bought.
A former lover had once accused him of being cold-blooded, but he doubted that. It was why he picked his partners very carefully. Women to whom under no circumstances he would become attached. Women who liked what he could give them more than anything he might promise for the future.
He had seen what emotional attachments could do—the mess they created, the havoc they played with innocent lives. He had seen it played out in his parents’ lives.
His father had loved his mother completely—taking over her life, turning all of their lives into a twopenny opera. When he’d died Serge had been ten years old and his mother had been devastated. Barely able to cope. He had seen both the intensity of love and the chaos it wrought when it went awry, or was simply taken away. His mother had remarried for financial reasons. Her second husband had beaten her for seven long years before she’d taken a familiar way out with an overdose of pills.
He had been away at boarding school, and later in the military. He had known nothing of her life until he’d stood by her grave with distant relatives who had spent no little time filling him in on the details of her disastrous second marriage—details no one had
seen fit to give him during her sad life.
Emotional detachment came easily to him.
So last night, when Clementine had seen the direction of his gaze and blood-red colour had risen up to the roots of her hair, he had been curious to see how she would play it. She had kept her cool and stared him down. Before babbling. He had to go now. She had his number. He had hers. Maybe he could call next time he was in London.
At first he’d thought she was giving him the brush-off. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened to him. This gorgeous, sexy, clever girl who wanted him to believe she had the morals of a nun, or next to it, was handing him his walking papers.
Then it had all made sense. She had put the ball in his court—was waiting to be asked to see him again. His body was saying yes but his mind had gone stone-cold. Something about the entire scenario: foreign girl in a cheap hotel, holding back on any sexual contact, waiting for him to make this about more than a one-night encounter.
He hadn’t been born yesterday. It wasn’t going to happen.
He’d had no choice but to leave without making any definite plans with her, but as he had walked away down the dank, dimly lit corridor he’d glanced back and found she was peeking out into the hallway, drawing back as he caught her and closing the door.
And that was that.
Except he was still thinking about her after a conference call, an hour looking at complicated design plans and a lot of coffee. He hadn’t slept well. Sexual frustration could do that. He’d had two cold showers—one on arriving home and another first thing this morning. There were other women he could call, but it was Clementine he was interested in.
He swigged another mouthful of coffee.
Where was she now? Working her little job? PR for Verado. He knew Giovanni Verado. High-end masculine luxury goods. She’d meet a lot of men in that job. Men with money—which was probably the point.
The nice girl had evaporated around about the time he’d spotted those prophylactics. If she wasn’t sleeping with him on a first date, she was sleeping with someone—or planning to.
His mouth twisted cynically. She liked the money. She probably had several guys with the right cars, the right lifestyle on a string and she was working it. Girls who looked like Clementine, with that level of independence and confidence, were never single. There was always something going on.
