скачать книгу бесплатно
But none of this mattered. Not really. Only Leo mattered and she didn’t dare put his livelihood at risk. A mother being dragged in front of the courts for participating in a sham marriage could not really be deemed a fit mother. Imagine the shame and the terror and the very real threat of a fine—or even jail. Her mouth set into a determined line, because nothing like that was ever going to impact on her beloved son. Wasn’t she only doing this to guarantee him a secure future and the feeling of safety which had always eluded her?
‘I’m afraid it does look as if we might have to postpone the wedding,’ she said, as apologetically as she could—though nothing in her vocabulary seemed a suitable response for such a bizarre situation. What could she say? She looked around nervously, like a stage compère facing a hostile audience. ‘Dimitri is—’
‘The only man she really wants—as her public capitulation has just proved,’ said the Russian with cool arrogance and an even more arrogant smile, which only emphasised the rage in his eyes. ‘Isn’t that right, Erin?’
And now she saw something more than danger in his eyes. She saw the dark flicker of knowledge and Erin’s heart twisted with pain. He did know! He must know. Had he somehow found out about Leo?
Her instinct was to get away from him and she wondered what would happen if she just picked up the skirts of her long dress and ran as fast as her feet could take her. The anonymous grey of the autumnal London day would swallow her up, leaving Dimitri far behind. She could take her wedding dress back to the same thrift shop from which she’d bought it. She could pick up Leo from school herself and tell him that Mummy wasn’t going away on holiday after all and that they wouldn’t be moving to a big house in the country.
If she ran away from him, she could cope—somehow. True, none of her immediate problems would have been solved, but she felt as if she could deal with anything as long as it wasn’t beneath the Russian’s unforgiving scrutiny and the fear of what he might or might not know.
But he had placed his hand at the small of her back—a light but proprietorial gesture which somehow managed to send out conflicting reactions of desire and dread. And she knew she wouldn’t be running anywhere, any time soon.
‘I’m sure this kind of thing happens all the time,’ he said smoothly. ‘The bride getting cold feet when she realises she’s making a big mistake.’
The registrar put her pen down. ‘Perhaps you would all like to leave the building,’ she said quietly, ‘and sort out your problems somewhere else?’
‘My sentiments entirely. Do you happen to have a room we could use to talk in private?’ questioned Dimitri in a pleasant tone which didn’t quite conceal the steely note of determination. And then he smiled and it was like the moon appearing from behind a dark cloud. ‘Please?’
The registrar looked up at him, her disapproving expression melting away beneath the sensual impact of that unexpected smile.
‘There is somewhere you can use,’ she said grudgingly. ‘But please don’t be long.’
‘Oh, we won’t be long. It won’t take long for me to say what I need to say,’ said Dimitri softly, his hand still at the small of Erin’s back. ‘That I can promise you.’
‘Come with me, then.’
They all followed the registrar out into the corridor and the two witnesses who’d been plucked from the street shrugged their shoulders and headed for the exit, probably to the nearest pub. Erin saw the shell-shocked expression on Chico’s face as Dimitri ushered her past and her feelings of powerlessness only increased.
The registrar was opening the door to a featureless-looking room, but now that some of the initial shock was leaving her system Erin started to recover some of her equilibrium. Remember why you were doing this, she reminded herself fiercely. There were good, solid reasons why you did what you did.
And out there stood a confused man who had never been anything but a good friend to her.
Pulling away from Dimitri, she glared at him. ‘I have to go and talk to Chico. I have to explain what is happening,’ she said, even though she wasn’t entirely sure herself. ‘Wait here for me.’
But he caught hold of her wrist, his fingers vice-like against the frantic hammering of her pulse. ‘Okay, speak to him if you must—but make it brief. And just make sure you come back, Erin,’ he said, his voice cold. ‘Because if you try to run away I will find you. Be in no doubt about that.’
She pulled away from him and went to find Chico, trying to explain why there wasn’t going to be a wedding, her heart twisting with distress as she saw his face crumple. But by the time she returned to the featureless room where Dimitri was waiting, her distress had turned into anger and she was shaking with rage as she shut the door behind her. ‘You had no right to do that!’ she flared.
‘I had every right,’ he said. ‘And you know it. And what is more—you didn’t fight me very hard, did you? If you don’t want a man near you, then you shouldn’t kiss him as if you want him to do it to you right then and there.’
‘You bastard.’
‘Is that what I am, Erin?’
‘You know you are!’
‘Shouldn’t you think very carefully about applying that particular word as an insult?’
His loaded words precipitated something—it must have been shock—for why else would her teeth have started chattering so violently? She made one last attempt at rebellion. He has no real hold over you, she told herself fiercely. He’s not your guardian or your keeper, or your boss. ‘I’m going now,’ she said, meeting his eyes with a defiant stare. ‘I want to go home.’
He laughed very softly and the sound filled her with dread.
‘Please don’t be delusional,’ he said. ‘We both know you aren’t going anywhere—at least not until you and I have had a little talk. So sit down.’
Part of her wanted to object to the masterful way he sat her down on a nearby chair, but in truth she was grateful because her knees felt as if they might give way at any minute. But any feeling of gratitude was soon forgotten when she looked into the determined set of his face. She’d forgotten just how ruthless he could be. How he moved people around as if they were pawns on his own personal chessboard. As his secretary she’d been granted the rare gift of immunity to his whims, because once he had liked her and respected her.
Once.
Sitting huddled in her too-big wedding dress, she stared up at him. ‘Now what?’
‘Now you tell me all about your Brazilian lover,’ he drawled. ‘Is he hot between the sheets?’
‘He isn’t...’ She hesitated, wondering how much he already knew. ‘Chico isn’t my lover—as I suspect you may have worked out for yourself, since he’s gay.’
His mouth twisted. ‘So it isn’t a love match?’
‘Hardly.’
‘You’re marrying a gay man,’ he said slowly. ‘Who I suspect is paying you for the privilege. Maybe he needs a visa, or a work permit.’ His icy eyes glittered. ‘Am I right, Erin?’
Did her face give her away? Did guilt wrap itself around her features so that he was able to give the smug smile of someone who’d just had his hunch confirmed?
‘And that—as we both know—is against the law,’ he continued softly.
Shaking herself out of her stupor, she glared at him, telling herself that attack was the best form of defence. ‘Is that why you turned up out of the blue today, to point out the finer points of the law?’ She willed herself not to show fear even though inside her heart was pumping like a piston. Brazen it out, she told herself. Just brazen it out. ‘Is that what this is all about, Dimitri—are you about to report me to the authorities?’
Suddenly, his face changed and Erin knew that when he spoke his voice would be different, too. It would be steely and matter-of-fact instead of mocking and casual. He was bored with playing games and was about to cut to the chase. She knew him much too well.
‘But you already know the answer to that question, Erin. You’ve known since the moment you turned round and saw me. You just haven’t had the guts to come out and admit it.’ In the featureless room with the blinds drawn down to block out the outside world, his eyes glittered like shards of blue ice. ‘Or maybe you were intending to keep my son hidden from me for ever—was that your plan?’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_4c501946-2364-52e4-b133-002f14f7d15e)
DIMITRI SAW ALL the colour drain from Erin’s face and felt a beat of something which felt very close to satisfaction. He watched as she leaned her head back against the wall—as if the weight of her head were too much for that slender neck to support—and looked at him warily, her green eyes slitted. He didn’t know what had hurt the most. No, not hurt. He didn’t do hurt. Mentally, he corrected himself. What had angered him most. The fact that she hadn’t told him, or the fact that she had lied to him, when once he would have counted Erin Turner as about the only truly honest person he’d ever known. She was still trying to lie—he could see it in the sudden whitening of her face and the way she was nervously licking her lips. He found himself thinking that she would make a useless poker player.
‘Your son?’ she said, as if it were a word she’d never heard before.
Her disingenuous question sealed his rage and Dimitri tensed, not daring to respond until he had his emotions under control, because not once in all his turbulent thirty-six years could he ever recall feeling such anger. Not even towards his cheating mother or crooked father. Instinct made him want to lash out at her. To haul her towards him and hurl his accusations straight into her lying face. To ask why she—of all people—would have betrayed him. But he had been successful for long enough to know that it was far more effective to hide the edge of anger beneath the velvet cloak of smoothness, even if Erin was one of the few people who would know how angry he really was.
‘Oh, come on, Erin,’ he said silkily. ‘Please don’t try to assume the role of innocent, because it insults my intelligence. You should have had an answer to this question by now because you must have been expecting that I would turn up and ask it at some point. Or did you really think I would never find out? Maybe not this year, or even next—but surely you must have anticipated that one day I would be confronting you like this to ask you about your son. My son.’
He thought she looked like a textbook study of guilt. She was looking from side to side, like an animal which had been cornered, and it was difficult for Dimitri to reconcile himself with this new version of her. The white-faced woman in the ill-fitting wedding gown was nothing like the Erin he’d known. The smart and straightforward woman who had worked by his side for years, ever since she’d left secretarial college. Who, unlike every other woman on the planet, had never flirted with him and had thus earned his grudging respect. She was the person who’d been given unprecedented access to all areas of his life and affairs. The one person he had trusted above all others. And yes, sleeping with her that one time had been a mistake. Definitely. It had quickly become apparent that things could never be the same between them afterwards—but even so how dared she keep the consequences of that night from him for all these years?
How dared she?
‘You aren’t going to deny it, are you, Erin?’ he continued mockingly. ‘Because you can’t.’
Her lips opened and she shivered and, powered by an instinct he wasn’t sure he recognised, Dimitri removed his jacket and draped it around her narrow shoulders. The suit’s grey jacket swamped her and made her complexion look even more waxy than it had been before and his mouth hardened. Was she opening those green eyes as wide as a kitten and thinking he would take pity on her? Because if that was the case—she was wrong.
Very wrong.
There was a tap on the door and a woman poked her head in, before mouthing sorry apologetically and withdrawing again.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said coldly.
He half lifted her out of the chair and ushered her outside, where a cold blast of autumnal air cut right through her and Erin was aware of people turning to stare as if the tall, molten-haired man were abducting the shivering bride. Instantly, a sleek black limousine purred to a halt in front of them and Dimitri opened up the door and bundled her inside. Sliding onto the seat beside her, he gave a peremptory tap on the window and the car began to move away.
‘Where are we going?’ she questioned, looking around her in alarm. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Cut the dramatics,’ he snapped. ‘We need to have a conversation, so it’s your place or mine. Up to you.’
His words were greeted with the expression of someone who had just been offered a choice of two poisons to drink, for she bit her bottom lip, bringing a little colour to its plump fullness. And suddenly Dimitri found himself remembering the way he’d kissed her in the register office—a kiss born out of rage and a desire to take control. A kiss intended to show young Chico exactly who was boss—as if any such demonstration were really needed. But it hadn’t worked out quite as he’d intended, had it? He hadn’t meant it to kick-start his libido, but it had. And despite his rage and disbelief, it was as much as he could do not to kiss her again. To pull her into his arms and feel that ripe, young body close to his, opening up like a flower. He’d forgotten just how instantly she went up in flames the moment he touched her. How her fairly commonplace exterior hid a powerful sexuality, which was both unexpected and surprising.
He could see her swallowing—the movement rippling down that swanlike neck of hers. And he could hear the note of anxiety which had entered her voice.
‘Why can’t we just have the conversation here?’
‘I think you know the answer to that, Erin. Apart from wanting complete privacy—and my driver speaks perfect English as well as Russian—I don’t think I trust myself to be in such a confined space with you when we are discussing something which I’m still having difficulty getting my head round.’ His voice lowered into a harsh rasp. ‘Discovering that I have a son and that you have kept him hidden from me for all these years is bad enough and I might be tempted into doing something which I might later regret. So you’d better make up your mind about where we’re going, or I’ll be forced to make the decision for you.’
Erin pulled the jacket closer around her shoulders—grateful for the warmth but wishing that the expensive cloth were not permeated with Dimitri’s distinctive scent. She was trapped—in every which way. She didn’t want to take him to the home she shared with Leo and her sister, Tara. Not because she was ashamed of the rather humble dwelling. No, the truth was more worrying than that. She was terrified of him seeing Leo. Afraid he might just take command and grab the child—stealing him away from her and thinking he was perfectly entitled to. Because mightn’t she attempt something similar if the situation were reversed? If she’d discovered that someone had kept her flesh and blood hidden from her like some kind of guilty secret for all these years?
A feeling of despair washed over her as she contemplated what lay ahead, knowing that further lies and evasion were pointless. And besides, hadn’t this been a long time coming? How many times over the years had she picked up the telephone to tell him about the blue-eyed little boy who was his spitting image? Hadn’t her heart sometimes burned with the pain of denying her boy access to his father? Until she had forced herself to remember the truth about the man and his appalling lifestyle.
She remembered the hours he’d spent in nightclubs and bars and casinos, gambling away millions of rubles as if they were nothing but loose change, in a vodka-or whisky-induced haze. She remembered all the women who had passed through his bed—the ones with the tiny dresses and tottering heels who exuded a dangerous kind of glamour, along with the occasional flash of their knickers. She certainly didn’t want her son growing up to think those kind of women were the norm. Who was to say that the seedy world Dimitri inhabited wouldn’t corrupt her golden-haired boy and introduce him to some unspeakable future?
She remembered his coldness towards her the morning after she’d slept with him—his shocked face when he’d opened his eyes and seen who was lying beside him. With her brown hair and narrow build she must have seemed like a different species from the blowsy women he usually bedded. No wonder he hadn’t been able to wait to get away from her.
‘We’d better go to your place, I suppose,’ she said, her voice filled with resignation.
His mouth hardened as he rapped on the window and spoke to the driver in his native tongue, and the car took a left, travelling towards the dockland area of the city.
Erin waited for his interrogation to begin, but when Dimitri took a phone call and began what was clearly a business conversation in his native Russian, she was momentarily perplexed. Until she remembered that his ability to switch on and off was legendary. And he was manipulative—that was one of the reasons he was so frighteningly successful. Right now, he would have realised that by leaving her to stew he would only increase her feelings of insecurity and put him in an even stronger position. His clever mind would be carefully stockpiling a series of questions, but he would ask them only in his time, and on his terms.
And really, there was only one question which she was going to have difficulty answering...
The car took them to his skyscraper apartment overlooking the river and Erin was filled with a horrible feeling of déjà vu as they walked into the magnificent marbled foyer, with its forest of tall, potted palms—behind which sat one of the burly porters who were all ju-jitsu trained. Sometimes she used to come here to take dictation if her boss was getting ready to go abroad, and it was a place she had always liked—a coldly magnificent apartment which was worlds away from her own rented home. She’d liked the river view and the fact that you could push a button and the blinds would float down, or another button would send music drifting out from one of the many speakers. She’d liked pretty much everything about it until the night when she’d overstepped the mark. When she’d offered him comfort during the one time she’d seen Dimitri looking vulnerable.
And he’d responded by taking her virginity on his vast dining-room table, tearing off her panties like a man possessed and making that almost feral moan as he drove deep inside her.
She could see the porter looking her up and down as she stepped out of the revolving door in her badly fitting white dress, with Dimitri’s jacket hanging around her shoulders. Briefly, she felt like some sort of crazy woman, especially when he propelled her into the waiting elevator at great speed.
‘Hurry up,’ he said as he pressed the button for the penthouse elevator. ‘I don’t want my reputation being trashed by being seen with a woman in a second-hand wedding dress.’
‘I didn’t think it was possible for your reputation to sink any lower!’
Pale eyes swept over her. ‘You might be surprised how out of touch you are,’ he said mockingly.
‘I doubt it,’ she spat back.
But as the elevator gathered speed Erin knew she had to forget the past and concentrate on the present. She had to think about the situation as it was, not what it used to be. If only she hadn’t allowed her feelings for him to ruin everything. If only she hadn’t started entertaining romantic fantasies about him—when she knew better than anyone that grand passion brought with it nothing but disillusionment.
She bunched up the material of her white dress as he unlocked his apartment and stood aside to let her pass, and she couldn’t work out whether to be happy or sad when she noticed that very little had changed. The vast, wooden-floored entrance hall still provided the perfect backdrop for all the Russian artefacts which were everywhere. The Fabergé eggs he collected were displayed in a casual grouping, which only seemed to emphasise their priceless beauty. There was one in particular which she used to love—a perfect golden sphere studded with emeralds and rubies, which seemed to mock her now as it sparkled in the autumn sunlight.
‘Come with me,’ he said, as if he didn’t trust her to be out of his sight for a second.
He walked into the main reception—a room dominated by a panoramic view over the river and the glittering skyscrapers which housed much of the city’s wealth. Yet it was the room itself which drew the eye as much as the view. He had always kept bonsai trees—exquisite miniature trees which experts came in weekly to tend. Sitting on a polished table was a Japanese Acer—its tiny leaves the bright red colour of a sunset. Erin stared at it with the delight of someone encountering an old friend. How she had always loved that little tree.
But as she glanced up from the vibrant leaves she saw in Dimitri’s eyes the unmistakable flicker of fury.
‘So. Start explaining,’ he bit out.
Her knees had suddenly gone wobbly and she sat down on one of the leather sofas, even though he hadn’t asked her to—terrified of appearing weak when she knew it was vital to stay strong. She looked up into his face and tried to keep her voice steady. ‘I don’t think it needs very much of an explanation, do you? You are as aware of the facts as I am. We spent that night together...’
Her words trailed off because it still felt faintly unbelievable that she’d ended up in his bed, when he could have had any woman on the planet. And yes, she’d found him attractive—in the way that you sometimes looked at the ocean and were rendered speechless by its power and beauty. Erin certainly hadn’t been immune to the carved symmetry of Dimitri’s proud Russian features, or the hair which gleamed like dark gold. There probably wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t have looked twice at his powerful body or admired his clever mind or the way a rare flash of humour could sometimes lighten his cold face. But she had never let her admiration show, because that was unprofessional—and she was pragmatic enough to know that she was the kind of woman he would never find attractive, even if she hadn’t been his secretary.
She had worked for him for years. He’d plucked her from a lowly job within his organisation—mainly, she suspected, because she didn’t go into instant meltdown whenever he came into the room. She had trained herself not to be affected by his sex appeal and a charisma undimmed by his haughty arrogance. She’d tried to treat him as she would treat anyone else, with dignity and respect. She had been calm and capable in the face of any storm—he’d told her that often enough. Soon he’d started giving her more and more responsibility until gradually the job had begun to take over her life, so that she’d had little left of her own. Maybe it was always that way when you worked for a powerful oligarch, with fingers in so many pies that he could have done with an extra pair of hands. She’d lost count of the times when she’d had to take a call from him during a dinner date, or miss the second half of a film because Dimitri had been flying in from Russia and needed her.
And she’d liked that feeling of being needed, hadn’t she? She’d liked the fact that such a powerful man used to listen to her—plain, ordinary Erin Turner. Maybe her ego was bigger than she’d given it credit for. Maybe it was that same ego which was responsible for allowing her feelings to slip from the consummate professional to being a woman with a stupid crush, despite her increasing awareness of the murkier side of her boss’s life. She began to nurture feelings about him which were unaffected by his gambling and clubbing and drinking and women. And those feelings began to grow.
She used to watch in mild horror from the sidelines as he played the part of the wild oligarch as if it were going out of fashion—as if he’d needed to prove something to the world, and to himself. There had been luxury yachts and private jets stopping off at Mediterranean fleshpots and Caribbean islands—always with some supermodel hanging on to his arm like a limpet. He’d mixed with empty-eyed men with faces even harder than his own. His hangovers had been legendary. He’d been...reckless—embracing life in the fast lane with a hunger and a speed which had seemed to be getting more and more out of control. Even his trusted bodyguard, Loukas Sarantos, had ended up resigning in frustration as Erin had looked on in despair. She remembered ringing up Loukas in desperation after he’d left—and the terrible bust-up in Paris which had followed.
Had it been her growing feelings for Dimitri which had made her start watching out for him, above and beyond the call of duty? Why she’d gone round to his apartment one dark and rainy night, a stack of papers beneath her arm—worried because he hadn’t been answering his phone and she’d been imagining the worst?
She remembered that her hand had been shaking as she’d rung the doorbell and had started shaking even more when he’d answered the door wearing nothing but a tiny towel, his bronzed body still damp and gleaming from the shower. Erin had been so relieved to see him that she’d been struck dumb, until it had dawned on her that he was almost naked. And that his face was dark and unsmiling.
‘Yes?’ he said impatiently. ‘What is it, Erin?’
Even now she could remember the hard pounding of her heart. ‘I’ve...er...I’ve brought some papers for you to sign.’
He frowned as he began to walk towards the dining room and made an impatient indication that she follow him. ‘Couldn’t they have waited until the morning?’
Faced with the sight of her powerful and very sexy boss wearing nothing but a tiny towel was playing havoc with her breathing, but Erin remembered looking at him very steadily as she put the papers down on the table.
‘Actually, I was worried about you.’
‘And what precisely were you worried about?’
‘You haven’t been answering your phone.’
‘So?’
Painfully aware of his proximity and the heat of his body, Erin was struck dumb. She’d planned to say something on the lines of wishing he wouldn’t keep such dangerous company, but the only thing she could think of right then was the danger of being alone with him like this.
She wondered if something in her expression gave away the desire which was shooting through her. Or whether it was the way she nervously licked her lips which made his body tense like that. His eyes seemed drawn to the involuntary movement of her tongue and then he nodded, like someone doing a complicated mathematical puzzle and coming up with a totally unexpected answer.
‘Oh, I see,’ he said, his lips curving into a predatory smile. ‘And there was me thinking you were the one woman who was immune to my charms, Erin.’
She didn’t even get a chance to object to his arrogance because without warning he gave a low laugh and pulled her against him—his lips covering hers in a hard kiss, as if he was trying out a new kind of sport. And Erin dissolved because she’d never been kissed like that before. Never. Within seconds of that kiss, she was so aroused that she barely noticed that the towel had slipped from his hips. It was only when her hand slipped down his back to encounter the rocky globe of a bare buttock that her eyes snapped open as she stared into his.
