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‘I don’t do what I’m told,’ she said. ‘And I warn you, I fight dirty.’
‘Who’s fighting? Nikolai said softly.
He gave her his most charming smile. The one that made hostesses forgive him for arriving late and had girls lure him home for coffee after an evening together. On Lisa it had no effect at all.
She stood looking at him for an appraising moment. Then she put her head back and screamed at the top of powerful lungs. It startled Nikolai so much that he dropped the unwieldy bag. And it brought an interested audience out onto the pavement to join them.
Lisa stopped screaming. She gathered up the shopping.
‘Thank you,’ she said composedly.
She turned her back and walked away from him. It felt good. So good, in fact, that she didn’t bother to put up the umbrella. Instead she lifted her face to the rain and let it cascade off her cold skin. She even broke into a little run of pleasure.
She was halfway home when the powerful car caught up with her. It cruised to a halt on the wrong side of the road, beside a line of parked cars. Nikolai opened the window and called across to her.
‘Round one to you,’ he said. ‘I still need to talk to you.’
Lisa sent him a look of dislike. She steamed on, not saying anything. The shopping bag bumped against her legs. The baguette had snapped, of course. It hung over the edge of the bag at a crazy angle, smeared with dirt from where it had hit the wet pavement.
Nikolai called after her temptingly, ‘I’ve got you a replacement loaf.’
Lisa ignored him.
He kept the car cruising in second gear, matching her pace. Lisa looked at him with irritation.
‘In this country we drive on the left.’
Nikolai chuckled. ‘In London, you drive where you can get through. Anyone will be able to pass me,’ he said with confidence. ‘But if you got in the car I could go back to driving on the legal side of the road.’
She shrugged, still marching. ‘Break the law if you like. I don’t care.’
‘That’s not a very responsible attitude,’ said Nikolai reprovingly. He was beginning to enjoy himself.
Lisa fixed her eyes straight ahead. ‘I’m not responsible for anyone but myself. You want to behave like a nutter—your choice.’
‘It’s raining. The car is warm and dry,’ he said temptingly.
Lisa did not abate her pace. ‘My mother always told me never to get into cars with strange men.’
‘But, as we have already established, you are more than able to take care of yourself,’ Nikolai said ruefully. ‘Besides, I’m not a stranger. I’m Tatiana’s nephew.’
That brought Lisa up short. She did stop then. In disbelief, she turned to face the car. Nikolai brought it gently to a halt and sat returning her stare.
‘The jungle warrior?’
Suddenly Nikolai was not enjoying himself quite so much. A faint look of annoyance crossed the handsome face.
‘I do go on expeditions to the jungle, yes.’
‘Beard?’ said Lisa gropingly. ‘Camouflage trousers?’
‘Not in London,’ said Nikolai stiffly.
The annoyance turned to downright affront. The terrible girl had started to laugh.
It was not a quiet laugh. She flung back her head and let out a full-throated peal of delight. To a wincing Nikolai, the sound seemed to bounce between the Palladian terraces with the resonance of a kettle drum.
‘Are you always this noisy?’ he said, irritated.
‘Yup,’ said Lisa without apology.
Nikolai looked at her with frustration. It had started to rain heavily again. He set the windscreen wipers going.
Now that the rainbow spikes had gone, he saw that she was a blonde. The rain was plastering her hair to her head. Her head, he noticed with a little shock of pleasure, was a very elegant shape.
He had not thought of elegance in relation to this girl before. She had called herself a dirty fighter, and a street fighter was exactly how she had looked when she’d opened the door this morning. Now, suddenly, he was seeing deeper: long throat, porcelain skin, deep-set wide open eyes with gently curling lashes. Her eyelashes, he saw with an odd clutch in his stomach, were long enough for the raindrops to gather on. He wanted to lift the drops off with his fingertip.
It startled him. It also made him angry. This was not a girl he wanted to be attracted to. She was too rude and too loud and he had severe doubts about the honesty of her dealings with his aunt. Yet here he was, thinking about her as if he wanted to take her to bed. He was furious with himself. It translated into fury with her.
‘Get in,’ he said. It was an order.
Lisa jumped. Her laughter died. She raised her chin belligerently.
‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ she flashed.
But Nikolai had had enough. ‘Then stop playing games. You’re no helpless innocent. And you don’t think I’m any threat to you. For God’s sake be sensible and get out of the rain.’
Slightly to her own surprise, Lisa did.
Nikolai set the car in motion. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Let’s start again. Who are you?’
Having surrendered a point by getting into the expensive comfort of his car, Lisa was going to make him fight for every scrap of information he got out of her.
‘What’s it got to do with you?’
Nikolai looked at her out of the corner of his eye. ‘Tatiana,’ he said quietly, ‘is my great-aunt. We don’t see enough of her but that doesn’t mean we forget her. Besides, I am very fond of her.’
‘Oh.’ Lisa bit her lip. She was fond of Tatiana too. To her regret, she had to admit that he had a point.
Nikolai hid a triumphant smile.
‘So, who are you and where do you come from?’ His tone was quite pleasant but it demanded an answer.
Lisa shrugged and gave him one.
‘Lisa Romaine. Tatiana and I go to the same dance studio.’
‘So she said. And that’s not quite what I meant,’ said Nikolai drily.
A faint flicker of resentment returned. ‘What do you want to know?’ she snapped. ‘My ancestry for the last six generations and my bra size?’
He was taken aback.
‘I think we can skip the ancestry,’ he said smoothly. ‘I was thinking along the lines of where you lived before and whether you work.’
Lisa was insulted. ‘Of course I work. I’m Head of Bond Trading at Napier Kraus.’
The car slewed dangerously close to the parked cars. Nikolai braked.
‘Napier Kraus?’ He saw enough of Uncle Dmitri at family gatherings to know the bank’s name—and know that it was not a lightweight institution. ‘You’re a banker?’ he said blankly.
Lisa was pleased with the reaction. ‘I told you. A bond trader.’
‘You don’t look like a banker,’ said Nikolai, unheeding. There was a strong note of indignation in his voice.
‘Oh?’ said Lisa dangerously.
He didn’t notice the danger. ‘You’re too young. Too scruffy. Too—’
‘Female?’
He did hear it then. For a moment his face went blank. Then he glanced sideways at her and drawled very deliberately, ‘Well, you’re certainly not feminine.’
There was a sharp silence. Then Lisa gave a silent whistle.
‘Oh, very nasty,’ she congratulated him in her most affable tone. ‘You must be a real barrel of laughs in the jungle.’
Nikolai was annoyed with himself. ‘I just thought—’
‘Yes?’ She was too angry to let him off the hook. ‘I’d be interested to know just exactly what you did think.’
That was when Nikolai made a tactical error. ‘Tatiana knows some strange people. And she can be—unwary.’
There was a long pause.
Then Lisa said on a note of discovery, ‘You think I’m a con artist.’
He did not deny it.
Lisa began to shake, very slightly.
It had happened before, but not very often. Usually when someone threatened her family; once or twice when it had been Lisa herself in a corner and fighting for the job on which they all depended. It had something to do with survival and a lot more to do with justice.
Now the unfairness of it blinded her. For a glorious moment she lost control of her temper and let it ride her. Straight to the devil, if that was where it wanted to go.
She said sweetly, viciously, ‘After all, a scruff like me couldn’t rent a room in a posh place like this any other way, could she?’
Nikolai was taken aback. He hadn’t expected retaliation so swift or to the point.
‘I shouldn’t have said that you were scruffy,’ he said stiffly. ‘I apologise.’
‘Oh, why bother?’ She gave him a glittering smile. ‘It’s so much easier to do business if you’re straight with each other, don’t you think?’
At once he was very still. ‘Are we going to do business, then?’
Lisa widened her green eyes and gave him her sweetest smile. ‘Aren’t we?’ she asked dulcetly.
She was so angry she could barely hold it together. But she was not going to let him see that. Instead she was going to lead him to think that she was the worst sort of con artist he could imagine—and then show him there was not a thing he could do about it. It was time somebody showed this control freak that he was no master of the universe.
They were back in Stanley Crescent now. There was the tightest possible parking space on the opposite side of the road from Tatiana’s house. Lisa, who did not like driving, thought he would never slot the car into it. She fell silent, in pleased anticipation.
But to her annoyance Nikolai backed in at first go. He hardly seemed to notice the difficult manoeuvre at all. He was frowning, but not about wheel angles.
‘Are you asking me to pay you to leave my aunt’s house?’ he said bluntly.
Lisa inspected her nails.
Nikolai said softly, ‘Let me warn you now. I’m not a good subject for blackmail.’
‘And I’m not a good subject for bullying.’ She gave him a bland smile and unlocked her seat belt. ‘Should make for an interesting negotiation.’
‘I am not,’ said Nikolai between his teeth, ‘going to negotiate with a woman like you.’
Lisa could feel the rage in him. And the frustration. It gave her a heady sense of power that almost swamped the effect of the insult. Almost.
‘Up to you,’ she said, and reached for her shopping.
His hand closed over her arm. For a moment Lisa blinked in real alarm. He was shockingly strong. Suddenly she could believe in his jungle prowess. Quickly she reminded herself that she was not afraid of him. She even gave a scornful laugh.
Their eyes met. Lisa’s expression dared him. Nikolai’s grip relaxed a fraction. But he did not let her go.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said.
‘About what?’
‘Taking me on.’ He let her go and drew back, considering her with a connoisseur’s deliberation. ‘You can’t win, you know.’
‘I can do anything I choose,’ Lisa said calmly. ‘I have something you want and we both know it.’
The atmosphere in the car was suddenly arctic.
‘Oh?’ Nikolai sounded mildly interested, but Lisa knew he was wound up tight as a spring. ‘And what do you think that is?’
She showed her teeth.
‘Squatters’ rights.’
Lisa swung out of the car. Nikolai didn’t move to prevent her. He was sitting very still, his expression frozen.
