Was she aware that somehow she’d lured him into her little honey trap and was she building up little fantasies about the future even now, while fixing him with that dreamy smile? Was she perhaps thinking that the sexual compatibility they shared might overlap in a more general way? Nikolai’s face hardened. Some women didn’t need very much to let their minds wander down the white lace and diamond route—especially when a man had never been married before and had been tagged with that tiresome ‘eligible’ label. And if Zara was doing that—could he really blame her? Wasn’t it time that she got some sense of what he was really like—the kind of man he really was? To warn her that any kind of long-term wish fulfilment was a waste of her time?
‘You’re not working tonight, are you?’ he questioned idly.
Zara swallowed as he began to pull on a pair of silk boxers. Sometimes when she watched him getting dressed it seemed even more intimate than when they’d actually been having sex. It was intimate, she realised. Why, when she’d seen Emma at the book-launch party yesterday lunchtime, her friend had exclaimed that she and Nikolai were practically living together. And when Zara had protested—rather feebly, it was true—Emma had said something on the lines of did-she-realise-what-kind-of-man-she-was-dealing-with? That a man who was known as a commitment-phobe was not the kind of person you should lose your heart to.
And Zara had shrugged and said that there was no way she was losing her heart to him—and she certainly wasn’t stupid enough to imagine that she and Nikolai might have some kind of long-term future together.
Except that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Even when common sense told you one thing, that didn’t seem to stop your heart from longing for the complete opposite…Hadn’t she seen him lying asleep beside her one morning, his dark lashes feathering into two arcs above his high, carved cheekbones—and hadn’t she started to wonder what his son or his daughter might look like? His daughter would be very beautiful, she mused—if she inherited those ice-blue eyes and dark gold hair.
Coming out of an engrossing daydream about little Svetlana Komarov’s first birthday party, she realised that Nikolai was standing there, half naked and waiting for an answer to his question, and for a minute she blushed. Imagine if he’d been able to read her mind!
‘No, I’m not working tonight. I…well, you know I requested daytime shifts wherever possible? And Emma’s mum is still absolutely fine about it, so I’ve got most evenings off.’
‘Good.’ He glimmered her a cool smile as he began to button up his shirt. Of course he was pleased that he could have the evenings with her. He hated seeing her going off each day to wait on men who were doubtless eyeing the luscious swell of her breasts instead of what was on the tray she was offering them. But maybe it was time they started venturing out beyond the bedroom. Stop letting sex blind him to all the differences between them and shine some real life on the relationship. Let him see for himself that there was no real relationship. ‘I thought we’d go out for dinner.’
‘Lovely.’ Rather nervously, she looked at him. Apart from that last night in France, it was the first time he’d taken her out and she didn’t want to let him down. ‘Um, is it somewhere very grand?’
‘Actually, it’s somewhere very un-grand,’ he said softly.
But surely his idea of ‘un-grand’ would still be fairly posh? Zara’s only job that day was a lunchtime business meeting in a vast loft in Soho—which gave her time to go shopping afterwards. She bought a silky green dress from one of the cut-price stores and a string of giant fake pearls and went back to Nikolai’s house to get ready.
Going into the house was always a slightly daunting experience. She didn’t have a key and she knew that his housekeeper disapproved of her—probably remembering her from the night she’d worked there, serving canapés. But she forced a bright smile as the older woman opened the door.
‘Is Nikolai home yet?’ asked Zara.
‘Not yes, miss. Mr Komarov is expected shortly.’
Murmuring her thanks, Zara went upstairs, showered and made her face up and by the time Nikolai came home she was ready and dressed. He paused for a moment in the doorway of the bedroom, his eyes raking over her.
Green suited her, he thought—especially when it skimmed over her bottom like that and allowed him to see a great deal of her spectacular thighs.
‘Why, you look magnificent, angel moy,’ he said softly as he pulled off his tie.
‘Do I?’ She was about to tell him that it was only a cheap dress but then stopped herself. A woman should always keep something back—and mightn’t he think that she was hinting he buy her something more expensive?
‘Mmm. Completely delectable. In fact, I don’t think I’d better risk kissing you in case I change my mind about going out—so give me ten minutes to get changed.’
His car took them to a restaurant in Shoreditch which overlooked the Regent’s Park canal—but the air was sultry and heavy as they stepped onto the baking pavement and Zara wondered if they were due a storm. It was a very simple venue—a large room with scrubbed wooden floors and tables and bare walls—so that all the attention was focused on the green-grey water of the canal which slid past the giant windows. The menu was simple, too—much of the food grown on nearby allotments, according to the enthusiastic young waitress who served them. They ordered risotto cooked with courgette flowers and a big, herby green salad.
‘This wasn’t the kind of place I was expecting,’ said Zara as she took a sip of red wine which tasted of raspberries.
‘And what kind of place were you expecting?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She looked around at the blackboard and the wire basket of lemons on the bar. ‘Somewhere more in the centre of town, I suppose—with crisp white tablecloths and candles and gleaming crystal.’
‘Is that what you would have preferred? ‘
Something dark in his tone unsettled her and she put down her fork and stared at him, her heart beating very fast. ‘We’re not back onto the gold-digger theme, are we, Nikolai?
‘Of course not. I was simply asking a question.’
Was he? She never really knew what he was thinking—just as she sometimes felt she didn’t know him at all. All she ever saw of him were the bits he wanted her to see—the veneer he presented to the world. He was like one of those painting-by-numbers kits she used to have as a child, the picture all grey and indistinct—until portions of it gradually came to life with the addition of various bits of colour. But he gave her no colour to play with, she realised—and maybe she was going to have to dig deeper and find some for herself.
‘No, I would not have preferred somewhere like that—I work in places like that. I like it here. It’s different—and I like the simplicity.’ She ran her fingertip around the edge of her wine glass. ‘Do you have restaurants like this in Russia?’
‘Of course we do. There are restaurants like this all over the world. But only in affluent areas will you find peasant food which comes with a mighty price-tag,’ he commented wryly. ‘That’s one of the many ironies of life, Zara. Those who have known hardship try to recreate it once they have escaped from its clutches.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’ Her fingertip halted and she looked up into his eyes. ‘Have you known hardship, then?’ she questioned softly.
His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s this, the beginning of an interrogation?’
‘Interrogation?’ She put her glass down. ‘That’s a slightly heavy way to put it! I can’t deny being interested in your life—why wouldn’t I be when we’ve been spending so much time together—and, besides, you wanted to know about mine, didn’t you?’
Idly, he swirled the red wine in his glass. Maybe her question was another subconscious warning that, essentially, women were all the same. That deep down they wanted to bleed you dry—and if it wasn’t materially, then it was emotionally.
He took a sip of wine, aware that he hadn’t yet changed the subject with the seamless skill for which he was known when anyone
tried to stray too close. Was that because there was something about Zara which made him less inclined to be dismissive about his past? She was not the usual type of woman he had an affair with. She was poor, for a start, yet she was fiercely independent in spite of that. He suspected that she was honourable, too, and much too decent a person to use any private information against him when their affair eventually ended.
Besides, some of his background was already on the record—he supposed that he should be grateful she hadn’t already hit the search engine of her computer to try to find out about him. But nobody had ever managed to put flesh on the bones of his past…and wasn’t talking about a subject he kept so firmly off-limits more than a little tempting?
‘Yes, I’ve known hardship,’ he said slowly. ‘I grew up in a time and a place where hunger and poverty were commonplace.’
A fragment of something he’d once said floated back to her. ‘Did you lose your parents when you were very young…in some kind of accident?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘I just thought …’ She remembered the sudden flash of understanding in his eyes when she’d told him about her parents being killed. Hadn’t part of her thought that it might have been some sort a shared bond between them? Two people who’d been formed by tragedy. She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
Nikolai took a bigger mouthful of wine, wondering why he had ever agreed to go down this road. The wine was rich, and strong—it should have been relaxing were it not for the subject which now reared up from the past, like an ugly spectre. For wasn’t there part of him which wished his parents had been killed in some tragic accident—which would have allowed him to remember them with fondness and love, instead of anger?
And shouldn’t Zara hear that? Wouldn’t it make her understand why he could never be the man he suspected she wanted him to be? A normal, rounded guy who was eager to create a family unit of his own. ‘I never knew my father,’ he said quietly. ‘But being illegitimate certainly wasn’t unusual in Moscow in those days. And neither was being hungry.’
He found himself recalling the lines of shabby washing flapping at the front of the high-rise flats. The kitchen and the bathroom shared with three other families. The food eaten at speed—as if fearful that it might be snatched from your plate. It had taken him a long time to learn how to eat slowly.
‘And your mother?’ questioned Zara tentatively.
‘Ah. My mother.’ His mouth hardened and he felt the painful lurch of his heart. ‘My mother could never quite get used to hunger. When your stomach is empty it dominates your world—and she had envisaged a life where there were greater preoccupations than where the next meal was coming from. She was beautiful, you see. Extraordinarily beautiful. I don’t think she could ever quite believe the cards that fate had dealt her. In another time and another place she probably would have risen effortlessly on looks alone. The trouble is that poverty and a fast-growing child do not tend to be great enhancers of beauty. And she was perceptive enough to see a window of opportunity she needed to take, before her looks faded.’
He shook his head as the waitress approached their table. ‘So she travelled to England.’
‘To England? You mean you were brought up in England?’
Nikolai realised that he had opened a door and invited Zara to look inside…what he hadn’t realised was how much it could still hurt. If he could have taken his preceding words back, he would have done so in an instant—but he was in too far now to slam the door shut again. ‘No. I was left behind in Moscow with my aunt and her boyfriend while my mother came here to earn what money she could to make our lives more bearable.’
There was a pause. A pause so full of raw emotion that Zara could barely breathe. She saw the pain in his eyes and flinched, but she knew that she couldn’t shy away. Not now. ‘What…what happened?’
There was another pause, but this time when he spoke his voice was flat, and Zara thought he didn’t sound like a man at all—but one of those machines which spoke people’s weight.
‘Nothing happened. Oh, there used to be a card at Christmas and every year she remembered my birthday. But she never came back to Moscow and she never sent the money she promised, either. And I found that living with a drunken aunt and her wastrel of a partner was more than I could endure.’ He gave a bitter laugh, pushed his plate away.
‘I left Russia as soon as I could earn enough money for the fare—and I went to America, where I had been told that hard work would bring its own reward. For two years I worked in construction and salted away every cent I could. Eventually, I bought a property—a complete wreck of a place, but I could see its potential. Every hour I could spare, I worked on that house and I made a killing when I sold it—so I bought another. And then another. One day I discovered that I had a talent for speculation and so I began to play the markets—and when the money started to come in I diversified my portfolio into aluminium and telecommunications. It was the very best investment I could have made and I poured the profits into revitalising a big store which was on the decline. One store led to another and the rest, as they say, is history.’
Zara stared at him. His rise from rags to riches was impressive—but surely he had missed out the most important part of the story? ‘And your mother? What happened to your mother? ‘
The temperature in the air seemed suddenly to plunge and there was a long moment before he chipped out the icy words. ‘I never saw my mother again.’
For a moment Zara felt her heart lurch in shock as she stared at him in disbelief. ‘What, never?’
A steely quality entered his voice but part of him could have shaken her for her damned persistence. ‘Once I had the wherewithal, I tracked her down. I discovered that she’d found herself a wealthy lover—and that she’d been living with him on his estate in Oxfordshire all that time. It seemed that she’d put him first all along. That her son counted for nothing.’ There was a pause. ‘Soon after that, word reached me that she’d died.’
‘Oh, Nikolai.’ She tried to imagine the poor, lonely little boy he must have been—waiting for his mother to return. Waiting for money to arrive and lift him out of poverty, and the comfort of her arms around him. But he had been bitterly disappointed on both counts. How bewildered he must have been, she thought as she reached out and laid her hand over his on the table, but he did not return her tentative caress. ‘That’s terrible.’
‘Maybe. But it is what it is. A therapist I once dated told me that my mother’s behaviour was responsible for my “careless” attitude towards women. She said it explained why I was such a cold, heartless bastard.’ He gave a short, humourless laugh. It hadn’t stopped the woman from trying to get into his bed at every available opportunity, of course—or to persuade him that she wanted to have his baby. And it had taught him a very important lesson: never date therapists.
‘Nikolai—’
But he shook his head. ‘And do you know something? She was right. I am a cold-hearted bastard,’ he said. ‘I can go only so far, but no further. I don’t do love. I don’t want to marry—and I certainly don’t want children of my own. And neither—’ his ice-blue eyes now glittered out a distinct message ‘—do I want some woman on a mission—however sweet and sexy she might be—thinking that she’s going to change my mind for me. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Zara?’
She thought that you would have needed to be completely dense not to have understood the meaning which he had just hammered home so ruthlessly. And even though her heart clenched with a terrible feeling of disappointment she tried to tell herself that it was better to know the facts. He wasn’t spinning her stories and making her build him up in her head and her heart. He was warning her. Showing her where the boundaries lay. Telling her not to fall for him because to do so would be pointless. I don’t do love, he had said unequivocally—and nothing could be clearer than that.
Staring at the question in his ice-blue eyes, she nodded. ‘Of course I do.’
&n
bsp; ‘And that if we are to carry on seeing one another, you have to realise that I mean it. That there isn’t going to be some miraculous conversion or change of heart.’
If we are to carry on seeing one another. If. Zara looked down at her hand, which still covered his. It was such a tiny word—but such a powerful one. He was laying down his terms, she realised. Just as he would do a business acquisition. ‘Yes, I can see that you do mean it,’ she said quietly.
‘I can offer you a great deal, Zara—and if you want to continue with the arrangement we have, then nothing would please me more. You make a great—if somewhat unconventional—mistress. But I’ll never marry you—and I’ll never give you a baby. I’m sorry.’ His gaze was very cool and very steady. ‘I can’t offer you long-term security, and if you want any of those things, then you’d better walk away right now and find it with someone else.’
Zara bit her lip. His words were harsh and brutal, but clearly that was his intention—just to be sure that there was no misunderstanding. She could be his mistress, yes—with all the pleasure that offered—but only if she was prepared to make the biggest sacrifice any woman could be asked to make. To kiss goodbye to the chance of having children as long as she stayed with him.
‘You’re very quiet,’ he said softly.
‘That was a bit of a bombshell. Actually, quite a big bombshell.’
There was a pause as his eyes seared into her. ‘And?’
For a moment, she didn’t answer. Nobody could say he hadn’t been honest with her—but was honesty enough? Would she be settling for a situation which would ultimately break her heart—and wouldn’t a sensible person end it now, before she got in any deeper?
But as her eyes drank in the angles and shadows of his sculpted features, Zara knew that she had neither the strength nor the inclination to end it. What had started out as fierce physical attraction between them had grown into something she’d neither wanted nor expected. And tonight he had peeled away some of the layers which made him such an indomitable force. She had seen through to the core of the man who lay beneath. A man with his own vulnerabilities and heartache.
Too Proud to be Bought Page 11
