The Russian's Acquisition

It was gone before unease could take a proper hold on him, hidden by the shift of her body away from him. Her stiff shoulders were proud. “You’re the one who sold this place out from under me. Stop complaining that it’s cutting into your plans.”

She was acting like an amateur.

Aleksy narrowed his eyes on her back, always aware when women were trying to manipulate him and occasionally willing to allow it when it suited his end purpose: primarily to get the physical release his body required. If Clair was attempting to wring guilt out of him, she was being predictable and hopelessly misguided. If she didn’t appreciate how powerful and absent of empathy he was, he’d demonstrate.

With one call—in English so she’d understand it—he swept away her stall tactic.

“The brawny and coldly efficient Lazlo again?” she asked without turning.

“He’s enlisting a young man you might know. Stuart from accounting? He’s proving to be extremely cooperative. A stickler for procedure. Stuart will make an inventory of your property and put it in storage at my expense.”

“Stuart from accounting wants to paw through my underpants drawer? And run back to the office with what he found in my medicine chest?”

“Not if he intends to keep his job.” Aleksy didn’t like the way she paled and liked even less the thought of some flunky fondling her undergarments. His hands tingled to cradle her in reassurance. He shook off the unfamiliar urge. “Gather your personal things if it will put an end to this delay,” he muttered. “You have one hour.”

* * *

In the end she chose Paris, but not for the reason he thought.

“The city of lovers,” he’d said ironically, the timbre of his voice stirring her blood. “Of course. A perfect weekend retreat.”

Weekend. The word punched low, gushing delicious heat through her abdomen.

She shook off the reaction and bit back an explanation that she’d picked Paris because she could get home on her own steam if she had to. Not that she had a home to come back to, but flying back to London from Cairo or Vancouver or Sydney would destroy her shallow savings.

As they traveled, she focused on budgeting for a new flat and where she’d start looking for a job so she wouldn’t recall the way Stuart’s Adam’s apple had bobbled when he found Aleksy in her flat.

Aleksy had curved a possessive hand against the back of her neck and said, “I don’t date my employees. Clair is no longer with the firm.”

Clair had lifted a disillusioned Could you be more blunt? expression to him.

Aleksy had quirked his split brow in a Want me to be?

She’d left without saying a word, her guilty blush burning her cheeks, aware that he’d sealed her fate. Her reputation as a tart was solidified and so much better than criminal. That made her squirm, but she’d learned to shield herself against judgment long ago. No, it was the way he’d gotten into her head so easily that really disturbed her. It made her feel vulnerable.

“Clair.”

His touch turned her from staring out the car window, once again opening that invisible gateway through her defenses. His intense personality whirled into her psyche like a restless summer wind, scattering her thoughts and inducing an instant, fluttering sensuality that reached toward everything in him.

“We’re here.”

The lights of Paris came to sparkling life around her. The scent of rain-damp streets smelled promisingly fresh as he left the car. The strength in his hand as he took hers to help her exit made her heart trip in a nervous rhythm against her breastbone.

She paused as he steered her toward a building, turning her face up to the sprinkling black sky to take in the facade of elegantly lit stone. It wasn’t a towering structure of glass and steel, but an old-world walk-up with wrought-iron balconies and planter boxes already blooming with spring. “This is very—” charming, she almost said “—nice.”

“It’s a good investment,” he dismissed.

The statement chilled her. “If you’re so keen on good investments, why did I hear you dumping all of Victor’s properties?” He’d been positively ruthless, speaking harshly into his mobile as she’d moved through the flat collecting her few sentimental items. He hadn’t taken any losses that she could discern, but he hadn’t seemed concerned with making huge profits either. “I’m sure his family would have kept what you didn’t want.”

“His sons kept enough,” he said bluntly, pausing on the top landing to open a door by punching a code into the security pad. “I left them their homes because they have innocent wives and children, but they knew enough about how their father made his fortune that they didn’t fight my takeover. I didn’t have the evidence to prove Van Eych’s crimes until the firm’s accounting books were in my hands. Now the truth will come out and his sons will change their names to escape any connection to him.”

His mouth curled into a cruel smile as he held the door for her.

Foreboding crawled through her veins. “You think it’s funny to cause the severing of family ties?” Everything in her castaway upbringing was appalled.

“Funny? No. Justified? Yes.”

She stepped into a room lit with intimate golden pools, but she didn’t take it in, too caught up with looking for a crack of humanity in his unyielding expression. Until now she hadn’t worried what would happen to her, aware only that if she walked away from Aleksy’s money, she’d always cringe with regret. Orphaned children needed a voice and it wasn’t as if she could find support for the foundation elsewhere. Victor was gone and who else would sponsor it if rumors started up that its founder had been in collusion with a white-collar criminal? No, if she didn’t do this, the foundation was history, but reality hit as the door clicked shut behind them, loud and symbolic.

Aleksy Dmitriev was a hard man. Not cruel; she believed him when he said he didn’t hurt women. He’d already demonstrated that he held himself to specific, sharply defined ethics. But he wasn’t merely detached like her. She deflected emotions, but he didn’t feel them at all. That made something catch in her. Apprehension, but empathy too. What had made him so devoid of a heart? Had he ever had one?

Did it matter? She belonged to him regardless.

Her heart sank, taking her last chance of protest with it, leaving her feeling naked and defenseless. You’re not naked yet, a lethal voice whispered in her head.

“Dine out or in?” he asked, his accent raspy on her sensitized nerves.

Her breath stuttered and she struggled to catch it, not realizing she’d been holding it. Part of her would rather get the main event over with. It was late enough she was growing tired, but she was also wide-awake with nervous anticipation.

His nearness, the power of his intense glance, stole her voice. His hair had flattened into a dark helmet under the light rain. A shadow had grown in on his square jaw, accentuating everything male in him. She was ridiculously weakened by the sight. Her gaze should have been flashing a back off. Instead she studied his mouth, recalling the feel of those full lips moving with erotic control over hers. Her fingertips itched to trace the smooth curves that were uncompromisingly masculine, yet wickedly sexy.

“This stubble will burn if I kiss you the way you’re begging me to,” he said in a growled voice that slammed her back to reality.

“I—” She strangled on denial, mortified enough to jerk out of his hypnotizing aura and move across the room.