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He had his own fragrance.
Alina could barely take it in. She removed the glass stopper and inhaled deeply, the scent exactly him, heady, exotic, bold. She could have breathed it in for ever, but hearing his phone ring she jumped a little, knocking a little bit onto her face and hand.
Quickly Alina replaced the stopper and punched out two tablets from the packet then headed back out to where Demyan was on the phone. He was speaking in Russian and, from the less than pleasant tone he was using, and because he said Nadia’s name, he was clearly talking to his ex-wife.
Alina stepped back into the bedroom and hovered, listening to her boss’s simmering anger and hoping she could just get through today without it turning on her.
‘Souka!’ Demyan said, and Alina heard the clatter as he tossed the phone.
That’s what you’re dealing with, Alina reminded herself again, because, as her mother had always told her, you could tell a lot from a man by the way he spoke to or about his ex.
Yes, her toes might be curling in her shoes just looking at him but there was no doubt in Alina’s mind that Demyan Zukov was an absolute bastard.
It was just that her body said otherwise.
Demyan glanced up as she approached. Those cheeks were on fire again but possibly, Demyan conceded, more from embarrassment at the disagreement she had just witnessed.
Demyan didn’t need to explain himself and he certainly wasn’t about to tell Alina what Nadia’s response had been when he had called her a whore—instead of dissolving or crying, or better still hanging up, Nadia had simply dropped her voice and purred into the phone, ‘If you want me to be.’
Alina held out the tablets, watching his mouth lift into a very wry smile as she held out her hand.
‘It will take a bit more than two,’ Demyan said to her offering. ‘Bring me the packet.’ When Alina still stood there, he was more specific. ‘Bring me the packet and a glass of iced water.’
‘It says on the packet that the dose is two.’ Alina watched his spiky black lashes blink at her small defiance.
‘If I wanted a nurse I would have hired one.’ His eyes lifted and met hers and Alina found that she was holding her breath as Demyan paused and his very straight nose breathed in air that was scented with the cologne she had spilled. ‘A nurse who didn’t meddle with my toiletries. Bring me the packet.’
‘I’m not getting you any more.’ Alina didn’t care if it meant that she was fired—she certainly wasn’t about to feed Demyan his drugs, even if it was just a couple of extra painkillers that he was asking for. She saw his eyes widen a touch, watched him open his mouth to speak, but Alina got in first. ‘If you want to overdose then you can fetch them yourself.’
Alina put the tablets down on the table in front of him and waited for the same roar he had served Nadia.
It never came.
Alina blinked in surprise when Demyan merely shrugged and stood up, though he did not head to the bathroom to get any more tablets; instead, he picked up his jacket. ‘We will go and look at my residence but first we will stop for lunch. Perhaps it is fresh air that I need more than painkillers.’ He liked her shy smile and the way that her serious brown eyes flared in relief.
He liked it that she defied him.
So few did.
‘Ring and book a table.’ Demyan had made more decisions than he cared to this morning, he simply wanted lunch. ‘You choose where.’
That should be it.
With anyone else, that would have been it.
His word, her command.
‘Actually...’ Alina gave a tentative cough before continuing, ‘I can’t have lunch with you.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I have to have lunch separately from the client.’ Alina attempted the impossible, to explain rules to a man who made his own. ‘It’s in the agency guidelines. It’s on the contract that you signed last night.’
‘Did I?’
Alina fished out the boilerplate contract from her bag and showed Demyan, who looked at his unmistakable signature. Last night remained a bit of a blur. ‘So I did.’ He flicked through the contract. ‘It says here that you are to finish promptly at five, with no exceptions. Can I ask why?’
‘I’m a temp,’ Alina said. ‘It’s simply the agency guidelines.’ She didn’t add that Elizabeth would very possibly throttle her if she knew what was being said. Elizabeth would have her staying back to midnight if it pleased Demyan. Neither did she add the guidelines meant that by finishing promptly at five she was able to work in the evenings.
‘Very well.’ Demyan shrugged. ‘We have a lot to do between now and five but first I need to eat.’
Alina called a restaurant from the list Marianna had emailed over and she called for his driver too, who was waiting for them as they stepped onto the forecourt.
For the first time in her life, Alina felt heads turn.
Though, of course, they turned for Demyan.
The door to a sleek silver car was being held open and after a teeny hesitation Alina realised that Demyan was waiting for her to get in.
In the back.
With him.
So this was how his PA lived, Alina thought as they drove through the city. With him, not beside him but separate, for she might as well not be there. At first he made no attempt at conversation, instead looking out the window, quite content not to fill the silence.
Alina’s heart was still hammering; it hadn’t stopped since they’d first met. It was close to one o’clock and almost five hours since first she had laid eyes on him and not by a flicker had his beauty or presence dimmed.
Alina stared out of her own window, unused to the awareness that had flooded her body, and then she heard his voice.
‘Roman was born there.’ He said it more to himself. Aware that his time in Australia was now limited, Demyan had been silently taking it all in. He stared at the hospital as they passed it, remembering how proud he had been that day, how determined he had been to do this right.
As Alina turned and glanced over, she noticed that all the arrogance in him seemed to have gone; she had never seen such sadness. Had she known him, even loosely, she would have followed instinct and asked what was wrong for there was torture in his eyes as they passed the hospital.
‘So was I.’
Alina’s voice and his mild surprise at her statement pulled Demyan from introspection and their eyes met. It was surely the only similarity they shared, Alina thought. Demyan’s vast wealth would ensure now that he attended only the most esteemed private hospitals but that Roman had been born there told her that he had started from the bottom.
‘How long ago?’ Demyan asked, and she told him it had been twenty-four years.
‘My mum wanted to have me at the local hospital or at home but I was complicated. I mean, the pregnancy was complicated.’ She blushed. Alina always did around men and especially him, but this had more to do with what she had just said. She didn’t usually open up easily and yet she just had.
‘I would have been nine years old,’ Demyan said. ‘I don’t think I had even heard of Australia then.’
Alina did the maths and placed him at thirty-three, and she knew from the glossies and a little internet research yesterday that Roman was fourteen. ‘You were a very young father.’
‘Not really,’ Demyan, said and he didn’t respond to her questioning frown. He wasn’t about to explain to his PA that he had never in his life felt young. Even as a small child he had had so many responsibilities.
‘I went to school near here.’ Alina filled the silence.
‘I thought you lived in the country.’
‘I boarded during the week,’ Alina said. She told him the name of the school and Demyan raised one eyebrow. It was a very strict, all-girls school. ‘My mum was very adamant that I get a good education.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Believe me, it wasn’t.’ She looked at two girls walking along, chatting, in red and white dresses and boaters. ‘Even the sight of the uniform still makes me feel ill.’
‘You didn’t like high school?’
‘I hated it,’ Alina said. ‘I didn’t fit in.’
‘That’s not such a bad thing.’ Demyan shrugged and got back to looking out the window but he didn’t end the conversation. ‘I never have.’
Alina looked over at him.
Wondered about him.
But Demyan had gone back to his own space.
They pulled up at the restaurant Alina had booked and she felt just a little bit foolish when she again declined his offer to join him for lunch.
‘I’ll meet you back at the car.’
‘Very well. How long does the contract say you have for lunch?’
She knew he was being facetious. Demyan wasn’t going to plan his schedule around her and she asked the driver to text her as soon as Demyan was ready to leave.
Yes, some might consider her foolish, for instead of joining Demyan and eating from the most luxurious menu, Alina bit, without much enthusiasm, into a salad sandwich that she had prepared that morning.
It felt far safer, though.
Alina had never met anyone so completely male before. She had never known her body react even remotely the way it was this morning and it scared her.
She blew out a long breath and gave up on her sandwich. There was a low, unfamiliar thrill at her very base that all morning she had been doing her level best to ignore. Now, instead of ignoring it, she tried reason.
Stunning to look at he may well be, but he was bad, he was dangerous. The way he’d spoken to his ex-wife told her that, the three women leaving his suite were a pretty decent clue...
Alina took a less than enthusiastic bite of her apple and then promptly threw it in the bin.
She was sick of apples.
Alina headed for a vendor and ordered a hotdog.
‘Extra onions, please,’ Alina said. ‘And extra cheese.’
She really had promised she would stick to her diet this week but a morning spent with Demyan and a hotdog, even with extra cheese, seemed a very mild vice to have.
He went against everything Alina liked in men, especially the way he behaved about his son. Yes, Alina had read the same magazine! How could she possibly even begin to fancy a man who could simply let go of his child? Well, Roman wasn’t a child exactly, he was a teenager. She had only been three when her father had left.
Alina bit into the salty, greasy hotdog and for the first time since two minutes to eight her mind escaped Demyan. She looked up at the skyscrapers and the Sydney skyline, wondering if her father was behind one of the windows, working through his lunch break perhaps? Or maybe he was among the group of suited men walking towards her?
Would she recognise him if he was?
Would her father recognise her?
Would he even care? Alina thought, going to take a huge bite of her hotdog and realising she’d already finished the thing.
Obviously not.
* * *
Demyan had chosen to eat outside and sat on the terrace, idly watching the crowds go by, when he saw Alina throwing her apple and sandwich away and then buying the lunch that she clearly preferred—he had never seen someone eat a hotdog so fast!
Should he keep her or not? Demyan mildly pondered. Alina was nothing like Marianna or his regular staff, who were as efficient as they were unobtrusive.
He found himself frowning, because it didn’t make sense. Yes, he might sleep with Marianna at times, but when working she could be sitting beside him and he wouldn’t even notice. Alina was so shy and so eager to fade into the background that you actually couldn’t help but notice that she was there.
So shy, so pleasing, yet she’d refused him those painkillers.
‘Can I get you anything, sir?’ the ever-attentive waiter asked.
‘Another coffee,’ Demyan said, but as the waiter walked off Demyan called him back. ‘Could you find me some painkillers? Just bring me the packet.’
‘Of course, sir.’
That was better, Demyan thought briefly.
Actually, it wasn’t.
He remembered the burn in her cheeks as she’d said no to him. Demyan looked back to where she stood, watching the world go by, and he found himself admiring her generous curves.
God, wouldn’t it be nice to bed her? Demyan thought. Once she’d stopped apologising, once she had forgotten how to be shy. Wouldn’t it be nice just to go back to the hotel room and get reacquainted with curves.
The richer he got the slimmer the pickings.
He would save her for later, Demyan decided. Alina would be a very nice reward to look forward to once he had faced the tough weeks ahead.
Demyan took time over his second coffee.
It had nothing to do with keeping her waiting.
He simply didn’t want to go home.
CHAPTER THREE
THEY MET AT the car but Boris didn’t open the door. Instead, he was speaking with Demyan, who had loosened his tie and was now wearing dark glasses. Demyan barely glanced over as she approached.
‘We are walking,’ he said as Alina went to open the car door.
