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His grandfather smiled. ‘I thought London was where everyone wanted to be these days,’ he said mischievously. ‘I suspect Véronique Repiquet would have preferred to have her wedding there. She told me London was cool.’
Nikolai raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Véronique would! I, however, am thirty-six years old. I don’t chase fads any more.’
‘You seem to manage to have a pretty good time when you get there, however,’ Pauli said drily.
Nikolai did not pretend to misunderstand him. ‘Oops,’ he said, wincing.
More than one celebrity-watch magazine had published photographs of Nikolai at last year’s fashionable Christmas parties in London. He had been with a different woman in each picture, as his grandmother had pointed out acidly to her husband at the time. Pauli had just said it was nice to see that Nicki was getting over his brother’s death and enjoying himself again.
He had tactfully not told his wife about the picture which had fallen out of one of Nikolai’s Christmas cards last year. It had shown what looked like a student party in a cellar. The Countess would have been horrified by the sight of her grandson jamming at the piano, having discarded most of his clothes. Pauli, however, was more realistic, and even, as Nikolai knew, faintly envious.
‘There must be friends you would like to look up,’ Pauli pointed out now innocently. There had been a number of lively-looking girls in that picture.
Nikolai was dry. ‘Which particular friend did you have in mind?’
But his grandfather shook his head. ‘Matchmaking is your grandmother’s department, not mine,’ he said decisively. ‘All I want is to make sure that Tatiana isn’t being—er—unwise.’
‘My great-aunt Tatiana,’ said Nikolai, who had spent several strenuous hours with her and her accountant in December, and was not anxious to repeat the experience, ‘is a self-willed old woman. She has been barking for years. I should think it is a cast-iron certainty that she is being unwise.’
Pauli did not bother to deny it. ‘But you’re fond of her,’ he pointed out. ‘You wouldn’t want anyone to take advantage of her.’
Their eyes met in total mutual comprehension. Nikolai curbed his frustration.
‘You should have been in public relations,’ he said at last bitterly. ‘Or politics. All right, Pauli. I’ll go to London and check on Tatiana. What’s the story?’
Lisa did not see much of Tatiana over the next few weeks. She was busy all day; and in the evenings, proving to herself as much as her old friends that she had not left them behind with her move, she went out clubbing.
Which was why, when the doorbell rang at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, Lisa was still in bed.
‘No,’ she groaned. She pulled the pillow over her head, blocking both ears. ‘Go away.’
But it rang again, insistently. Lisa gave up. Blearily she swung her legs out of bed and felt for a robe. Failing to find one, she pulled last night’s coat round her instead.
As the bell rang for the third time she trod heavily up the stairs, muttering.
‘What is it? Don’t you know it’s Sunday?’ she growled as she flung the door open.
Nikolai Ivanov blinked. There was not much that shook him. He had a cool and generally well-justified confidence that there was nothing he had not seen before. But Lisa was a new phenomenon, even to a man of his experience.
He took an involuntary step backwards, his eyes widening in stunned silence. He would have said that he had seen all the weirder life forms, but he had never before encountered Lisa Romaine after a heavy night’s clubbing. Getting back at five in the morning she had, quite literally, taken off her clothes and tumbled into bed. As a result her hair was still full of last night’s rainbow colours, though some of the spikes had been flattened in sleep. She was also sporting panda shadows round her eyes from unstable mascara. To say nothing of her pugnacious expression.
Nikolai stared in appalled fascination. And found he could think of nothing to say.
‘Well?’ demanded Lisa.
The man on the doorstop was so tall it hurt her neck to look up at him. Squinting into the morning sun, Lisa made out high, haughty cheekbones and deep brown eyes under lazy lids. It was an arrogant face. And spectacularly handsome.
‘What do you want?’ she said, thoroughly put out.
Lisa did not like handsome men. She had learned the hard way that they tended to be more in love with themselves than any woman who happened to cross their path. It had soured her.
The handsome stranger scrutinised her for several unnerving seconds. It did nothing to mollify her.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
Lisa gave him an evil look.
‘I’m the householder. I was fast asleep.’
He looked taken aback. Then, as if in spite of himself, he looked her up and down in one comprehensive survey. His mouth twitched.
‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ he murmured.
Lisa did not like being laughed at. She ran her hand through the residual spikes and glared.
‘Either tell me what you want or go away.’
‘Well, I did want to see the householder,’ Nikolai admitted.
He should, of course, have demanded Tatiana immediately. But now the shock had worn off he found he was intrigued by this apparition. In her bare feet she came no higher than his chest. Yet she seemed quite unconscious of being at any sort of disadvantage. She might be half asleep, but she was still definitely punching her weight, he thought. He admired that.
Lisa folded her arms with exaggerated patience. It was a mistake because it made her coat gape. That revealed, if Nikolai had not already guessed it, that she was wearing nothing underneath.
He did not pretend that he hadn’t noticed. His eyes widened and he stared openly. And if he did not actually laugh aloud, he did not try to disguise his amusement.
What he did disguise—at least Nikolai hoped so—was his sudden rush of pleasure at the sight. It was unexpected, unwelcome and deeply primitive. That intrigued him, too. He was in no rush to demand Tatiana until he had explored this feeling further.
Lisa seemed oblivious. ‘You want to see me? You’re seeing me,’ she pointed out. ‘So—?’
Nikolai let his eyes drift down. ‘I am indeed,’ he agreed, in suave appreciation.
Lisa was used to being teased. You did not survive in the dealing room if you let it bother you. Normally she ignored it. Now, after a quick look down, she clutched the coat together more securely over her breasts.
‘What do you want?’ she yelled, losing patience.
‘I want to see the lady who owns this place,’ he said more sharply.
Now that he’d had time to reflect on more than that distracting cleavage, Nikolai’s amusement was abating abruptly. Where was Tatiana? Why did this gamine not mention her? Could it be that Pauli was right and his aunt had gone mad and signed over her home to some unknown waif off the street? Nikolai had been certain his grandfather was panicking unnecessarily. Now, for the first time, he wasn’t sure.
Lisa saw the suspicion darken his eyes. It made him look like a tiger, watchful and dangerous. It contrasted oddly with his beautifully cut City suit. Somehow it just made him seem all the more powerful. And who the hell wore suits on a Sunday, anyway?
Then she remembered: Rob had warned her that Sam would make sure the bank checked up on the suitability of her new address. Surely he had just been winding her up? Surely it couldn’t be true? But, with his suit and tie on a Sunday morning, what else did this man resemble but a banker at work? In fact, now she looked, she saw he even had a briefcase.
She said defiantly, ‘I live here. Lisa Romaine, as it no doubt says in your dossier. Do you want a signature, or will you now go away and leave me in peace?’
The tiger’s eyes narrowed to slits.
‘And what has happened to Madame Lepatkina?’
Whatever Lisa had expected it was not that. In the act of closing the door, she hesitated.
‘Tatiana?’ she said, bewildered. How did her employers know about Tatiana?
‘Well, at least you admit she exists,’ the man said grimly.
He shouldered his way past her into the hall and shut the door behind him. In the narrow hall he seemed even taller. She wished she were wearing heels. Or shoes. Or anything. She huddled the coat round her.
Nikolai saw her sudden uncertainty and pressed home his advantage.
‘Now, let’s start again. Where is Tatiana?’
Lisa shrugged. Then remembered and grabbed the coat tight again.
‘I haven’t a clue. Why didn’t you try knocking?’
He was disconcerted. ‘There is only one bell,’ he said, after a tiny pause.
‘I know,’ she said nastily. ‘Mine. If you want to talk to Tatiana you use the knocker. Big black thing? Gargoyle’s face? You can’t miss it.’
She made to open the door on him again, but one look at him barring the way changed her mind. In spite of the suit he gave the impression of being solidly muscled. She frowned, swung round and thumped on Tatiana’s door. There was no answer.
Lisa looked at her big Mickey Mouse watch. ‘I suppose she might have gone shopping,’ she said uncertainly.
‘On a Sunday?’
She looked at him with dislike. ‘This is cosmopolitan Notting Hill. You can shop any day you like.’
‘And any time you like as well,’ he pointed out. ‘So why would Tatiana go shopping at the exact hour she knew I was coming to see her?’
Lisa seized the opportunity to look him up and down, in just the same way as he had done.
‘You might just have answered your own question,’ she drawled with deliberate insolence.
He was clearly disconcerted. Not used to people being less than delighted to see him. Lisa thought sourly. The thought rang a faint bell in her head.
She didn’t have time to pursue it. The man was knocking at the door to Tatiana’s part of the house. There was no answer. He looked back at Lisa, all the way down that haughty nose.
‘Do you have a key to Tatiana’s place?’
‘No,’ said Lisa.
His mouth tightened. He looked very determined. The inner bell rang louder.
She said grudgingly, ‘I could go up through the garden and see if she’s there.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, that’s an idea. All right.’
“‘Thank you very much, Miss Romaine”,’ Lisa muttered.
He did not appear to hear.
Lisa thumped her way bad-temperedly down the stairs. She was sure nothing had happened to Tatiana. She had met her in the hall last night, off to attend a ballet recital, looking stupendously glamorous and about half her age. She had probably just gone out to avoid this pestilential stranger. What was more, Lisa didn’t blame her.
She turned round to shout as much up to him, and found he was close on her heels.
‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, swaying backwards in shock.
He caught the lapels of her coat and steadied her.
And that was another shock. The backs of his fingers brushed against the softness of her upper breasts. It was only a touch, but it felt as if he had branded her. Lisa heard her own intake of breath. In the narrow space of the staircase it sounded as loud as a warning siren.
‘Whoa,’ she said, shaken.
Nikolai was shaken too. But his control was better than hers. And his recovery time was not affected by a series of late nights.
‘Are you all right?’ he said, his expression enigmatic.
‘You startled me,’ she muttered. ‘I didn’t expect you to come with me.’
‘I could hardly leave you to climb into Tatiana’s on your own.’
‘Climb in?’ said Lisa, startled.
‘If necessary.’
She glared at him for a frustrated moment. Then shrugged and led the way downstairs.
Her small kitchen diner stretched the width of the house. Tall French windows gave on to the garden. Lisa waved a hand at them.
‘Help yourself. Security key’s on the table. I’ll get some clothes on.’
He acknowledged that with the merest flicker of the opaque brown eyes. But Lisa could sense his amusement as if he had laughed out loud. Suddenly she realised what it must be like to blush. She whisked into her bedroom and closed the door between them with a decisive bang.
She returned in three minutes, in grubby jeans and a cropped shirt. She had stuffed her feet into deck shoes and tied a scarf round her hair, but she hadn’t done anything about the ravages of last night’s make-up. To tell the truth, Lisa had forgotten it. But to the man awaiting her it looked like a deliberate statement that she didn’t care how he saw her.
Once again he felt that unexpected, unwanted kick of interest. Crazy, he told himself.
‘Well?’ said Lisa.
He had opened her French windows. An ironwork spiral staircase went up from the garden to Tatiana’s balcony. There was a tray of seedlings and a watering can on the stair. He indicated them with a gesture.
‘Well, if she’s in the garden, of course she didn’t hear us,’ said Lisa, disgusted. She thought about what she had just said. She didn’t like the way she had coupled them together like that. ‘You,’ she corrected herself. ‘Of course she didn’t hear you.’ She raised her voice to the volume that could cut through the buzz of a hundred-man dealing room. ‘Tatiana! Where are you?’
Nikolai winced. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to go and look? It is Sunday morning, after all. Some people are probably still sleeping. Or—’
Or in bed making love. He did not say it. But Lisa’s eyes flew to his in shocked and instant comprehension.
And this time she did blush. She couldn’t help it. Disbelieving, she pressed her hands to her face and felt the heat there. She could never remember blushing in her life before.
