Too Proud to be Bought (2 page)

‘Really?’ She widened her eyes. ‘On what?’

Nikolai’s lips gave a flickering curve of satisfaction. This was better. Much better. For a moment back then, he
had thought she meant it—that she was actually giving him the brush-off. And when had that last happened? Never, he reflected sagely. He might have been described as the world’s biggest commitment-phobe, but he was a master at getting women into his arms. He felt the quick beat of pleasure as he realised that up close she was just as delicious. ‘On whether you’re any good at dealing with difficult and demanding men,’ he mused.

It was such an outrageous thing to say that for a moment Zara forgot that all she was supposed to be doing was showcasing her friend’s dress. She found herself remembering all the fantastic people in the caring professions she’d met when she’d been nursing her godmother and all the difficult conditions they had to endure every day. And then she compared their stoicism with the arrogance she saw written on this man’s handsome face.

She found herself studying his costly black dinner suit—the price of which could probably have fed a family of four for at least a month. She thought about the pile of medical bills she’d been left with, and some rogue streak of rebellion made itself known. And besides, wasn’t it better to concentrate on indignation rather than acknowledge the dizzying effect he was having on her senses?

‘Most people don’t confess to their faults on a first meeting,’ she commented drily.

Icy blue eyes glittered with mischief. ‘Aren’t you rather taking it for granted that there’s going to
be
a second meeting?’ he questioned softly. ‘And isn’t that a little presumptuous of you, or is that what you’ve grown to expect from men—their instant capitulation and desire to see you again?’

Her experience of men was so small that Zara wanted to laugh—and the idea that someone like her should
have men
capitulating
was even funnier. Especially a man as gorgeous as this one, who was clearly living in a parallel universe. ‘Actually, I never take anything for granted,’ she answered. ‘And I certainly try to avoid generalisations about the opposite sex.’

Nikolai’s eyes narrowed as he heard a note in her voice which he couldn’t quite define. Something which sounded a little like…censure? Once again, he felt a stir of interest. ‘You know, I get the distinct sense that you don’t approve,’ he observed softly.

Now Zara sensed an even greater danger. Instinct told her to move away and yet another instinct—one which was much more powerful—kept her rooted to the spot. She stared up into the icy glitter of his blue eyes and her heart missed a beat. ‘Of what?’

‘Of me,
milaya moya.
Of me.’

‘How can I possibly have an opinion about you, when we’re complete strangers?’ she questioned.

‘Yes, we are,’ he agreed. ‘But that is something which is easily remedied.’ He gave a brief smile as he watched closely to see whether his name might stir any sign of recognition. ‘My name is Nikolai Komarov.’

Zara felt her throat thicken, knowing that now was the time to look at him and to say, very calmly:
Actually, I already knew that. I also know that you are a hugely influential man with your own department stores as well as innumerable gorgeous girlfriends—and my friend happens to be a very talented designer. Do you like the dress I’m wearing? Actually, it’s one of hers. Perhaps I could give you one of her cards and you might think about looking at her collection?
But as those palely intense eyes studied her she knew that she couldn’t go through with it. She couldn’t. Was that because she was enjoying the fantasy of flirting with him? Of pretending she
really
was
the person she was dressed up to be instead of some broke little waitress who was doing a friend a favour? ‘You’re…you’re Russian,’ she said slowly.

‘How very perceptive of you.’ But Nikolai felt his mouth tighten with an odd kind of disappointment. So it had
not
been an instant eyes-across-a-room thing after all. She
had
heard of him—he would have staked his fortune on that. He had seen the signs of suppressed recognition too many times in the past and he had seen it flare in her eyes. But he didn’t know why he should be either surprised or disappointed—because women always played these games, didn’t they? They lied. They indulged in subterfuge. They would open their pretty eyes very wide and insist that black was white—and sometimes he suspected they even ended up believing it themselves. ‘You know many Russians, perhaps?’

‘No. None at all.’

‘Until now, of course.’

‘Until now,’ she agreed, with a slightly nervous smile. Would he be appalled if he knew who she was—an imposter who had no right to be here? She searched for clues in his face. Good guy or bad guy? Or just a wickedly hot guy who was used to getting whatever he wanted from a woman?

‘And you are?’ he prompted.

His icy eyes were cutting through her defences as he waited for her to respond and for a moment Zara was half tempted to give him a false name. A bogus identity to go with her one-off appearance—until she told herself how stupid that was. She would never see him again after tonight. A name like hers meant nothing to a man like this.

‘I’m…Zara,’ she said falteringly. ‘Zara Evans.’

‘A beautiful name,’ he mused softly, observing that cute tremble of her lips. ‘To go with a very beautiful woman.’

The throwaway compliment made her skin glow—it seemed like for ever since someone had paid her one, and nobody had ever called her beautiful before. But Zara told herself that she mustn’t fall for his charm. He probably came out with statements like that every minute of every day—slick, perfectly timed statements, which were guaranteed to have women falling under his spell. She opened her mouth to say something smart and instead it came out as a breathless little ‘th-thank you’ and she could have kicked herself.

‘Can I get you a drink, Zara?’

She shook her head. ‘No, thanks—I’ve already had one.’

‘Oh, I think you’re allowed more than one.’ He stared straight into her eyes. ‘Though no more than two.’ He smiled slightly to show he was teasing her.

He was making it sound as if the two of them were involved in some kind of conspiracy and the thought of
that
made Zara draw herself up short. What the hell did she think she was doing? This wasn’t why she was supposed to be here—and if she had lost her nerve about foisting one of Emma’s cards on him, then she ought to make herself scarce.

Because this man was dangerous—hadn’t he told her so himself? ‘Actually, I’d better go.’

‘Why?’

‘Because …’ Her words tailed away as she tried to think of a good reason why she might wish to leave a party when she had only just arrived.

‘You don’t really have a reason, do you?’ he questioned as he saw her bite her lip in a moment of indecision, which was oddly appealing. ‘Not when there is
music playing and I’m being plagued by an urgent desire to dance with you, which simply won’t go away. So come here.’

To Zara’s horror, he reached out and laced her fingers with his and began to lead her through the throngs of people. Well, maybe horror wasn’t the right word, she conceded as people began to part to let them through. Excitement might have been more accurate. She could feel hot colour flaring at her cheeks as she became aware of heads turning to watch them and the pulse at her wrist began to hammer wildly beneath his fingertips. But it wasn’t until he had halted by the small space of floor directly in front of the musicians that she tipped her head up to gaze at him.

‘We can’t dance!’ she whispered.

‘Why not?’

‘Because—’

‘Stop saying “because”. Come and dance with me instead.’ His icy eyes glittered out a cool challenge. ‘You know you want to.’

And the awful thing was that he was right. She did. There was a melting, yearning pool in the pit of her stomach, which was longing for him to pull her into his arms—and when he did she gave an instinctive intake of breath, which caused his fingers to tighten around her waist.

‘You see?’ he murmured. ‘It’s what you wanted all along.’

Zara felt dizzy. What could she do? His hands had moved down and were now lying on her hips, the fingers splayed against the silk of her dress with a lazy and proprietary ease so that for a moment it felt as if he were touching the bare flesh beneath.

‘Relax,’ he instructed softly.

‘How can I relax when everybody is looking at us? ‘

‘You should just ignore them—or get used to it. The men are looking at us because they envy me, and the women because they wish they were standing where you were standing,
milaya moya.’

It was an arrogant assessment, though Zara doubted that the first part was true. Why would the men envy Nikolai? Especially when there were loads of women in the room who were more attractive than her—rich, titled women who would probably be dancing confidently instead of worrying that they were going to spear his foot with one of their lethal heels.

Yet the soft music was very seductive and more seductive still was the way in which he pulled her towards him—almost before she realised he’d done it. She could feel the jut of his hips against hers and suddenly she became aware of the formidable heat of his hard body pressing into hers and could sense the desire which radiated from his powerful frame. Zara swallowed.

‘Relax. You seem rather uptight,’ he commented as an irresistible tug of desire shot through him.

She felt the almost careless caress of his thumb at her waist. What could she say—that the last time she’d had a slow dance with a man had been at some awful, noisy club, and it had felt
nothing
like this?

‘I’m not used to dancing,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

Her face inches away from his shoulder, Zara wondered how best to answer him. Even if she hadn’t been tied to the sickroom for the past however many months, she still couldn’t have imagined herself whirling around a formal ballroom like this. It seemed rather old-fashioned.

She risked a glance up at his hard-boned face. How
old was
he?
Difficult to say, but certainly a lot older than her. He had experience written on every sculpted angle and there were faint lines of cynicism etching the sides of his mouth. Yet there was nothing old-fashioned about the way he was holding her, or the way it was making her pulse rocket. It felt elemental. As if dancing were something far too intimate to be doing in front of a crowd of people…‘Because—’

‘There you go. That wretched word again.’ He pulled her closer and felt her soft flesh yielding to his as he bent his head to her long neck and, closing his eyes, he inhaled her subtle scent. Was it roses he could smell? ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that repetition is boring?’

‘You asked me a question and I was answering it,’ she protested.

‘I know I did. But suddenly I’m much more interested in the language of your body.’

‘That’s
outrageous!’

He bent his lips to her ear. ‘I know it is. But you’re making me feel outrageous. Don’t you feel a little outrageous, too, Zara?’

‘No.’

‘Yes, you do,’ he demurred softly. ‘Go on. Be brave. Admit it.’

End the dance,
she told herself fiercely as she began to feel even more out of her depth.
End it now. Walk out of the ballroom and don’t stop until you’ve reached the street. If you do it firmly then he’s not likely to risk a scene by trying to stop you.

But it was difficult to do anything other than to let the sweet strains of the string instruments lull her and the power of his touch wash over her senses. Zara could feel the slide of silk over her skin as she moved in time to the music, and she could feel the barely touching sensation of
his fingers pressing against her flesh. A shiver of longing rippled over her flesh, a sensation so unexpected and unwanted that she felt the sudden thunder of her heart. Did he feel it, too? Was that why he positioned himself so that they were fractionally closer and her body seemed to be silently screaming that it wanted to be closer still? She had to stop all this—she
had
to, before she made a complete and utter fool of herself.

She pulled away from him with the reluctance of someone who was being forced to leave a warm fire to face a freezing blizzard outside. ‘I really must go,’ she said.

He nodded, knowing that if he stayed on the dance-floor with this rapidly escalating sense of arousal, then soon any kind of movement might prove impossible. And yet her abrupt ending of the dance made him reluctant to let the evening end—and he wasn’t quite sure why. Because he was the one who usually called all the shots, who made the decision when to leave and when to stay?

‘Okay. I’ll take you home.’ He saw her lips open and he shook his head. ‘And before you go through the motions of protesting, you must realise that I’m not going to allow you to go home on your own.’ Especially not looking like that, he thought. Not with the tight buds of her nipples outlined with such erotic clarity against the gleam of the emerald silk. ‘Unless you have your own car waiting outside?’ he questioned unevenly.

Could she swing it? Zara wondered. Convince him that one of those purring black limos which were clogging the streets around the embassy actually belonged to her? And then what? She could imagine him insisting on seeing her to the car and then the shame of having to admit that she was nothing but a fraud. She shook her
head. ‘No, I came by taxi. Um, where do you live?’ she hedged.

‘I have a house on the other side of the park.’

In a moment of real indecision, she looked at him until she realised that she was about to throw away a heavensent opportunity. Why
not
take up his offer? Mightn’t she get the chance to hand over Emma’s business card before she said goodnight? He had already admired the way she looked, so maybe she could turn round and tell him it was all her friend’s handiwork. ‘Okay, then…thank you—I will. But as I live a little…farther out—the car can drop you off first, and then take me on to my place afterwards.’

Nikolai ran a thoughtful finger over his lips. He thought that sounded like a very abrupt conclusion to an evening he had no desire to see end. At least, not yet. With a sudden ache, he acknowledged the sharpening to his senses which this fresh-faced minx seemed to have provoked. He’d been working so hard lately. Tunnelling all his energy and vision into his latest ambitious project, which meant that sex had been sidelined. And his last mistress had drained him with her tiresome requests that he ‘make an honest woman of her'. Was there an honest woman in the world? he wondered bitterly. If so, he had yet to meet her. He flicked Zara a look which was now speculative.