One Kiss in... Moscow: Kholodov's Last Mistress / The Man She Shouldn't Crave / Strangers When We Meet

‘I knew this place was cheap.’

He laughed aloud, and the sound touched Hannah’s heart. She grinned at him. ‘Actually,’ he told her, ‘I believe there are over three hundred channels.’

‘Only three hundred?’ She shook her head. ‘That’s rather shabby.’

‘I’ll make a complaint.’

‘You must think me very gauche,’ Hannah said, turning serious even though she kept her tone light. ‘This is all so out of my experience.’

‘I don’t mind that.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. It was out of my experience too, once.’

‘You’re a self-made man.’

‘You could say that.’

She nodded playfully towards the huge TV. ‘So it’s okay if I channel surf?’

‘Oh, I think we can think of better things to do than watch TV,’ Sergei told her, and closed the space between them. Hannah stepped into the circle of his arms, resting her cheek against his shoulder. She knew Sergei wanted to kiss her, to turn this softness into seduction. She wouldn’t let him, not quite yet. For a second at least she just wanted to stay in the circle of his arms and feel the beat of his heart against her own. She gave a little sigh of happiness, and Sergei stepped away from her, sliding his BlackBerry out of his pocket. ‘We should go.’

She tried to suppress the pang of disappointment his withdrawal gave her. ‘Go? We just got here.’

‘You have an appointment at a boutique in an hour.’

She stared at him in surprise. ‘A boutique?’

‘You’ll be accompanying me to various functions. Based on the dress you wore to dinner the other night, I think you might need a few more things.’ He didn’t even look at her as he said it, and Hannah felt her fragile spirits plummet. Ridiculous, when Sergei had just told her he wanted to buy her clothes. What woman wouldn’t want that?

Yet somehow the thought that he was going to outfit her felt sordid. Wrong. As if he were buying her favours, or keeping her sweet.

She turned towards the bedroom. ‘Okay. I’ll just go freshen up.’

‘Fine,’ Sergei said, his gaze still focused on his phone. Hannah wondered if he even noticed she’d gone.

‘Twirl.’

Hannah obeyed the saleswoman and twirled, the lavender skirt of the silk evening gown belling out around her.

From the sofa in the boutique’s private dressing room, Sergei, his BlackBerry in one hand and a sheaf of papers on his lap, nodded and smiled. ‘Perfect.’ He turned back to his work and the saleswoman led Hannah back to the curtained changing area and the next gown she would slip on for Sergei’s approval.

‘How about this one?’ The saleswoman reached for a gown that was a column of black silk, elegant and stark.

‘Okay.’ It was her third shopping trip in as many days and by now Hannah had stopped bothering to have an opinion about any of the clothes Sergei insisted on buying her. Since they’d arrived in Paris she felt as if he were putting her in her place and it wasn’t a comfortable fit.

He’d distanced himself, made her feel like … like a mistress. What an awful thought. Yet clearly an imbalance existed in their relationship. An inequality.

Who was she kidding, Hannah thought as she slipped into the rather severe black dress. They didn’t even have a relationship. They’d had three days of some spectacular sex and a few tender moments. That was all.

Yet she loved those moments, loved bantering with Sergei, watching those ice-blue eyes soften to sky when she made him laugh. Yet she felt as if Sergei was wearing his authority and power like a shield, armour that kept him closed off from every emotion.

Even so, those rare moments were enough to make her feel different, lighter, almost a return to the woman she’d once been. The woman who believed in hope, and happiness, and maybe even love.

No. She couldn’t go there. Couldn’t afford to think like that, because she knew it wasn’t true. Hadn’t the last year taught her anything? Matthew’s deception, her parents’ trickery, even Sergei himself. His brutal rejection back in Moscow still had the power to wound, and now she was only here because he wanted her to be. And when he stopped …

‘Hannah?’ Impatience edged Sergei’s voice and Hannah took a deep breath.

‘Coming.’ She left the changing room, her steps awkward and mincing in the tight black column of a dress. Sergei’s eyes narrowed as he took in the latest fashion.

‘No.’ He turned back to his BlackBerry, punched in a few numbers.

‘No?’ Hannah stood there, feeling ridiculous and a little bit vulnerable, hating that Sergei said no so quickly. Held so much sway.

He looked up again, and in his eyes she saw another swift assessment and dismissal of the dress, of her. ‘No.’

‘Of course,’ the saleswoman murmured, attempting to lead her away. ‘We’ll try something else.’

Hannah jerked her arm away from the woman and stared at Sergei. ‘Why no?’

‘Because I don’t like black.’

‘You were dressed all in black when I first met you,’ Hannah pointed out. ‘You liked it well enough then.’

Sergei’s eyes narrowed. ‘All right,’ he said, his tone clearly conveying that she was stretching his patience, ‘I don’t like black on you. It makes you look washed out.’

Hannah blinked. Ouch, even if she kind of agreed with him. She still didn’t like how autocratic and distant he was being. She’d wanted to resist this whole shopping expedition, but she hadn’t had the strength or a really good reason to. She was already accepting his largesse by getting on the plane, staying in the hotel, sleeping with him every night. Wasn’t this all part of the package?

Yet still something about it felt wrong. Sordid and cheap, no matter how much money Sergei was shelling out. Silently she turned and went back to the dressing room.

‘Perhaps something brighter …’ the saleswoman murmured, ruffling through racks of clothing, but Hannah just shook her head.

‘I’m done.’

The saleswoman looked alarmed; Hannah supposed Sergei’s mistresses weren’t meant to object to him dropping a fortune on their clothes. Yet already she was tired of playing the game. Fed up with acting like being showered with clothes and ordered around was what she wanted. The only times she’d enjoyed these last three days were the ones where she didn’t feel like an expensive ornament, the moments where they had actually been real with each other. She could count them on one hand.

She slid the dress off and rummaged through the discarded gowns for the simple jeans and tee shirt she’d entered the boutique in. They weren’t there. She looked up, saw the saleswoman eyeing her with obvious apprehension.

‘Where are my clothes?’

‘Mr Kholodov asked me to get rid of them—’

‘Rid of them?’ Without another word she stalked out of the changing room, the rings of the curtain clattering against one another as she pushed it aside.

Sergei looked up from his BlackBerry, his eyes flaring as he took her in standing there in just her underwear. At least her bra and panties, worn as they might be, were her own.

Then the corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile and he lounged back against the sofa, his thumb still punching buttons. ‘Aren’t you a little cold?’