Billionaires: The Daredevil: Claimed for Makarov's Baby / Defying the Billionaire's Command / Redeeming the Billionaire SEAL

The car took them to his skyscraper apartment overlooking the river and Erin was filled with a horrible feeling of déjà vu as they walked into the magnificent marbled foyer, with its forest of tall, potted palms—behind which sat one of the burly porters who were all ju-jitsu trained. Sometimes she used to come here to take dictation if her boss was getting ready to go abroad, and it was a place she had always liked—a coldly magnificent apartment which was worlds away from her own rented home. She’d liked the river view and the fact that you could push a button and the blinds would float down, or another button would send music drifting out from one of the many speakers. She’d liked pretty much everything about it until the night when she’d overstepped the mark. When she’d offered him comfort during the one time she’d seen Dimitri looking vulnerable.

And he’d responded by taking her virginity on his vast dining-room table, tearing off her panties like a man possessed and making that almost feral moan as he drove deep inside her.

She could see the porter looking her up and down as she stepped out of the revolving door in her badly fitting white dress, with Dimitri’s jacket hanging around her shoulders. Briefly, she felt like some sort of crazy woman, especially when he propelled her into the waiting elevator at great speed.

‘Hurry up,’ he said as he pressed the button for the penthouse elevator. ‘I don’t want my reputation being trashed by being seen with a woman in a second-hand wedding dress.’

‘I didn’t think it was possible for your reputation to sink any lower!’

Pale eyes swept over her. ‘You might be surprised how out of touch you are,’ he said mockingly.

‘I doubt it,’ she spat back.

But as the elevator gathered speed Erin knew she had to forget the past and concentrate on the present. She had to think about the situation as it was, not what it used to be. If only she hadn’t allowed her feelings for him to ruin everything. If only she hadn’t started entertaining romantic fantasies about him—when she knew better than anyone that grand passion brought with it nothing but disillusionment.

She bunched up the material of her white dress as he unlocked his apartment and stood aside to let her pass, and she couldn’t work out whether to be happy or sad when she noticed that very little had changed. The vast, wooden-floored entrance hall still provided the perfect backdrop for all the Russian artefacts which were everywhere. The Fabergé eggs he collected were displayed in a casual grouping, which only seemed to emphasise their priceless beauty. There was one in particular which she used to love—a perfect golden sphere studded with emeralds and rubies, which seemed to mock her now as it sparkled in the autumn sunlight.

‘Come with me,’ he said, as if he didn’t trust her to be out of his sight for a second.

He walked into the main reception—a room dominated by a panoramic view over the river and the glittering skyscrapers which housed much of the city’s wealth. Yet it was the room itself which drew the eye as much as the view. He had always kept bonsai trees—exquisite miniature trees which experts came in weekly to tend. Sitting on a polished table was a Japanese Acer—its tiny leaves the bright red colour of a sunset. Erin stared at it with the delight of someone encountering an old friend. How she had always loved that little tree.

But as she glanced up from the vibrant leaves she saw in Dimitri’s eyes the unmistakable flicker of fury.

‘So. Start explaining,’ he bit out.

Her knees had suddenly gone wobbly and she sat down on one of the leather sofas, even though he hadn’t asked her to—terrified of appearing weak when she knew it was vital to stay strong. She looked up into his face and tried to keep her voice steady. ‘I don’t think it needs very much of an explanation, do you? You are as aware of the facts as I am. We spent that night together...’

Her words trailed off because it still felt faintly unbelievable that she’d ended up in his bed, when he could have had any woman on the planet. And yes, she’d found him attractive—in the way that you sometimes looked at the ocean and were rendered speechless by its power and beauty. Erin certainly hadn’t been immune to the carved symmetry of Dimitri’s proud Russian features, or the hair which gleamed like dark gold. There probably wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t have looked twice at his powerful body or admired his clever mind or the way a rare flash of humour could sometimes lighten his cold face. But she had never let her admiration show, because that was unprofessional—and she was pragmatic enough to know that she was the kind of woman he would never find attractive, even if she hadn’t been his secretary.

She had worked for him for years. He’d plucked her from a lowly job within his organisation—mainly, she suspected, because she didn’t go into instant meltdown whenever he came into the room. She had trained herself not to be affected by his sex appeal and a charisma undimmed by his haughty arrogance. She’d tried to treat him as she would treat anyone else, with dignity and respect. She had been calm and capable in the face of any storm—he’d told her that often enough. Soon he’d started giving her more and more responsibility until gradually the job had begun to take over her life, so that she’d had little left of her own. Maybe it was always that way when you worked for a powerful oligarch, with fingers in so many pies that he could have done with an extra pair of hands. She’d lost count of the times when she’d had to take a call from him during a dinner date, or miss the second half of a film because Dimitri had been flying in from Russia and needed her.

And she’d liked that feeling of being needed, hadn’t she? She’d liked the fact that such a powerful man used to listen to her—plain, ordinary Erin Turner. Maybe her ego was bigger than she’d given it credit for. Maybe it was that same ego which was responsible for allowing her feelings to slip from the consummate professional to being a woman with a stupid crush, despite her increasing awareness of the murkier side of her boss’s life. She began to nurture feelings about him which were unaffected by his gambling and clubbing and drinking and women. And those feelings began to grow.

She used to watch in mild horror from the sidelines as he played the part of the wild oligarch as if it were going out of fashion—as if he’d needed to prove something to the world, and to himself. There had been luxury yachts and private jets stopping off at Mediterranean fleshpots and Caribbean islands—always with some supermodel hanging on to his arm like a limpet. He’d mixed with empty-eyed men with faces even harder than his own. His hangovers had been legendary. He’d been...reckless—embracing life in the fast lane with a hunger and a speed which had seemed to be getting more and more out of control. Even his trusted bodyguard, Loukas Sarantos, had ended up resigning in frustration as Erin had looked on in despair. She remembered ringing up Loukas in desperation after he’d left—and the terrible bust-up in Paris which had followed.

Had it been her growing feelings for Dimitri which had made her start watching out for him, above and beyond the call of duty? Why she’d gone round to his apartment one dark and rainy night, a stack of papers beneath her arm—worried because he hadn’t been answering his phone and she’d been imagining the worst?

She remembered that her hand had been shaking as she’d rung the doorbell and had started shaking even more when he’d answered the door wearing nothing but a tiny towel, his bronzed body still damp and gleaming from the shower. Erin had been so relieved to see him that she’d been struck dumb, until it had dawned on her that he was almost naked. And that his face was dark and unsmiling.

‘Yes?’ he said impatiently. ‘What is it, Erin?’

Even now she could remember the hard pounding of her heart. ‘I’ve...er...I’ve brought some papers for you to sign.’

He frowned as he began to walk towards the dining room and made an impatient indication that she follow him. ‘Couldn’t they have waited until the morning?’

Faced with the sight of her powerful and very sexy boss wearing nothing but a tiny towel was playing havoc with her breathing, but Erin remembered looking at him very steadily as she put the papers down on the table.

‘Actually, I was worried about you.’

‘And what precisely were you worried about?’

‘You haven’t been answering your phone.’

‘So?’

Painfully aware of his proximity and the heat of his body, Erin was struck dumb. She’d planned to say something on the lines of wishing he wouldn’t keep such dangerous company, but the only thing she could think of right then was the danger of being alone with him like this.

She wondered if something in her expression gave away the desire which was shooting through her. Or whether it was the way she nervously licked her lips which made his body tense like that. His eyes seemed drawn to the involuntary movement of her tongue and then he nodded, like someone doing a complicated mathematical puzzle and coming up with a totally unexpected answer.

‘Oh, I see,’ he said, his lips curving into a predatory smile. ‘And there was me thinking you were the one woman who was immune to my charms, Erin.’

She didn’t even get a chance to object to his arrogance because without warning he gave a low laugh and pulled her against him—his lips covering hers in a hard kiss, as if he was trying out a new kind of sport. And Erin dissolved because she’d never been kissed like that before. Never. Within seconds of that kiss, she was so aroused that she barely noticed that the towel had slipped from his hips. It was only when her hand slipped down his back to encounter the rocky globe of a bare buttock that her eyes snapped open as she stared into his.

‘Shocked?’ he drawled.

‘N-no.’

‘I think you want me,’ he said unevenly as he began to unbutton her jacket. ‘Do you want me, zvezda moya?’

Did the sun rise every morning?

Of course she wanted him.

Erin gasped with hunger and delight as he pulled the navy jacket impatiently from her shoulders and unclipped the matching pencil skirt so that it slid to the ground.

She thought he might carry her into the bedroom, the way he’d done so often in her wilder fantasies. But instead he laid her out on the dining-room table—like some kind of sacrificial offering—and things happened very quickly after that. He started tearing hungrily at her underwear and she was shocked by how much she liked that, writhing her hips in silent hunger as she urged him on. She had vague memories of him putting on a condom and making some remark about how aroused she was making him feel. And then he thrust deep inside her and it wasn’t a dream, or a fantasy—it was really happening.

She had been a virgin, but he didn’t mention it—and neither did she. She wasn’t even sure he’d noticed. And it hadn’t hurt the way people warned you it might—maybe because she wanted him so much. All she knew was that she’d never seen Dimitri looking quite so out of control. As if the universe could have exploded around them and he wouldn’t have paid it a blind bit of attention.

She remembered that first urgent thrust—as if he’d wanted to lose something of himself deep inside her. And hadn’t she felt exactly the same? As if her whole life had been spent in preparation for that moment. She remembered the way she’d shuddered with pleasure, orgasming not once, but twice, in rapid succession. And he had laughed—softly and triumphantly—running his fingertip over her trembling lips and telling her that she handled better than any of his cars.

‘Yes, we spent the night together,’ he said impatiently, completing her sentence, and Erin blinked as Dimitri’s voice shattered her erotic memories. She came back to the present with a start—to the cheap wedding dress and the unforgiving coldness of his face as he paced around his vast apartment.

‘We had a night of sex which should never have happened,’ he continued harshly. ‘I thought we both decided that. That it had been a mistake.’

Erin nodded. That was what he had said the morning after, and she’d felt there had been no choice but to agree. What else could she have done—clung to his naked body and begged him to stay with her and do it to her all over again? Told him that she wanted to care for him and save him, and keep him safe from the awful world he inhabited? She remembered the bedcovers falling away from her breasts and the sombre look which had come over his face. The way he’d suddenly got out of bed, as if he hadn’t been able to wait to get away from her. His final words had killed off any hopes she might have had for a repeat. ‘I’m not the kind of man you need, Erin,’ he’d said abruptly. ‘Go and find yourself someone nice and kind. Someone who will treat you the way you should be treated.’

After that, dignity had seemed the only way forward, especially when he’d left the country the next day and kept communication brief and unemotional during the weeks which had followed.

‘And we used a condom,’ he said, his brow furrowing and his lips flattening into a scowl. ‘I always do.’

His words seemed intended to remind her that she was just one of many and Erin looked at him, her clasped hands feeling sticky as she buried them within the folds of her wedding dress. ‘I know we did,’ she said.

‘I never wanted a child,’ he added bitterly.

She knew that, too. He’d made no secret of his thoughts about marriage and childhood. That marriage was an expensive waste of time and some people were never cut out for parenthood. Was that one of the reasons why she’d balked at telling him about her pregnancy—terrified he would try to prevent her from having his baby? She remembered going round to his apartment, sick with dread at the thought of blurting out her momentous news—and what she had found there had made her turn around and never go back...

But his condemnatory words were bringing something to life inside her and that something was a mother’s protective instinct. She thought of Leo’s innocent face—all flushed and warm after his evening bath—and a feeling of strength washed over her. ‘Then pretend you don’t have a child,’ she said fiercely. ‘Pretend that nothing has changed, because I have no intention of forcing something on you which you don’t want. You can walk away and forget you ever found out. Leave me with our son and don’t let it trouble your conscience. Leo and I can manage perfectly well on our own.’