Long fingers delved into her hair to tip up her face and her breath tripped up in her throat, anticipation leaping through her in a wild surge. He covered her mouth, his tongue darting deep into the moist interior beyond, and she shuddered violently, a stifled whimper wrenched from her struggling lungs. ‘No, not here,’ she protested.
Nikolai lifted his arrogant dark head. He ached for her. He couldn’t keep his hands off her or his thoughts on business. Tawny eyes smouldering he hauled her up into his arms and strode to the chair behind his desk, sinking down with her on his lap.
‘Nikolai…’ Abbey argued in a ragged plea.
Shimmering eyes hotly intent on her, he laid his fingertips against her reddened lips to silence her. ‘I am not made of stone…’
Fiercely aware of his arousal, Abbey was engulfed by the demanding heat of his mouth in a kiss that fired her every skin cell with awareness. Her fingers smoothed the roughened skin of his jaw line where stubble was beginning to mar the close shave he had had earlier that day. The familiar scent and the sensual feel of him sent her pulses racing. As he unbuttoned her shirt she was remembering the night that had passed. He had woken her up a couple of times, his desire for her flatteringly intense and his sexual expertise compelling. Then, as now, his sheer passion and unbridled masculinity exhilarated her.
Nikolai bent her back over his arm to plunge his mouth down on the pouting pink nipple he had uncovered for his pleasure. Abbey looked down at the ripe curves of her bare flesh and shame overwhelmed her. She flung herself off his lap and began to right her clothing in a series of jerky desperate movements. ‘
‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’ Nikolai growled, furious with her for once again limiting his pleasure in her as a lover. ‘What does it take to make you break the rules?’
Love and commitment, she might have told him, for only then would she have had the trust and confidence to respond to him regardless of boundaries. But Abbey knew that neither love nor commitment was on offer, which severely limited any desire on her part to break rules. ‘I have to get back to the office-’
‘You could join me for lunch and we could go on from there to the house viewing,’ Nikolai breathed curtly, already foreseeing a negative answer in the tense down curving of her generous mouth.
Abbey was convinced that lunch would end up being a polite blanket term for a bout of sex somewhere and she cringed for herself when she felt a pulse of wickedly responsive heat throb in her pelvis. ‘You want me to view the house with you?’
Nikolai dealt her a sardonic appraisal. ‘Of course.’
‘Give me a time and we’ll meet there.’
Nikolai was like a brooding thundercloud when Abbey departed after a brief chat with Sveta. Abbey was uneasily conscious that she had dissatisfied and disappointed Sveta’s employer in every possible way. Her insistence on striving to be professional during the hours of daylight pleased her Russian lover as much as a slap in the face. She was beginning to get the message about what he wanted from her. He didn’t handle rejection well. He expected to come first in her life in every way and in every situation. Argument, disagreement, working ethics that interfered with his sex life and independence were all very unpopular responses.
On the way back to the office, Abbey received an urgent call from her PA about a man waiting to see her, who insisted that it was important that he speak to her rather than to her brother. New clients did occasionally arrive at Support Systems with very set ideas and required tactful handling. With a sigh, Abbey picked up her messages from her PA’s desk and invited the smartly dressed older man in reception to come into her office.
‘I’m Abbey Carmichael, Mr…Bailey. Is that correct?’ Abbey prompted as the man took a seat.
‘Yes. DonBailey. I won’t keep you long, Mrs Carmichael. I don’t know how much you know about your brother’s debts, but I’m afraid the operation that I represent is not prepared to wait indefinitely for settlement.’
Abbey’s face had tightened with surprise and uncertainty. ‘Debts? My brother’s debts?’ she queried in astonishment. ‘Apart from the obvious fact that I’m not at liberty to discuss anything pertaining to my brother, I can’t understand why you’ve asked to see me.’
‘Your brother’s mucking us about and we want our money, Mrs Carmichael. It’s a big chunk-over one hundred and twenty thousand pounds at the most recent count.’
Abbey had to lean back against her desk to stay upright on legs that suddenly felt hollow and weak. She could barely believe what she was hearing. ‘One hundred and twenty thousand pounds?’ Feeling out of her depth, she reached for the phone. ‘Look, I’ll call my brother in and you can talk to him-’
In a sudden unexpected move, Don Bailey closed his hand over hers to prevent her from making the call. ‘No, that’s not a good idea, Mrs Carmichael. Drew will be annoyed I’ve come here to see you, but we’ve been exceptionally patient with him. Unfortunately we can’t continue to be so understanding and matters are likely to take an unpleasant turn if the cash isn’t forthcoming very soon.’
Abbey snatched her hand from beneath his repulsive clasp and backed away, her skin clammy with fright and nervous tension. ‘Was that a threat, Mr Bailey?’
‘It’s whatever you choose to make of it,’ he replied with a menacing lack of concern on that score. ‘Drew’s a gambler and, like many another, while he’s happy enough to win, he’s in no hurry to pay his dues when he loses. But make no mistake, your brother does have to pay his debts and in full.’
Abbey swallowed the lump of extreme anxiety in her throat. Had Drew been gambling? All those nights he had come home late? Was this why he was so stressed out and short-tempered? Was it possible her brother could owe such a huge sum of money? And if he did, what were they going to do about it?
‘Now, I had a choice today about whether I should come and see you or go to see Drew’s wife.’
Abbey felt ill at the thought of this horrible man tackling her friend, Caroline. ‘No, you did the right thing asking for me.’
‘I thought so, too. You are a partner in this business as well and, if you don’t mind me mentioning it…’ Don Bailey gave Abbey a meaningful look ‘…according to the newspapers, you are also very friendly with a Russian billionaire who could easily settle all your brother’s problems for him.’
Abbey could not conceal her distaste at that suggestive sally. ‘Let’s leave that friendship out of this!’
‘Whatever you say. After all, we only want what’s owing to us and we don’t care who pays it or how. But the debt
Abbey was pale and she felt queasy. ‘Yes.’
From a rear window she watched Don Bailey climb into the Mercedes parked in the staff car park. There were a couple of other men waiting in the vehicle and although at that distance it was hard to be certain, she suspected they were the same grim-looking men whom she had seen before and whom Drew had pretended were potential customers. Abbey spared the group one last troubled glance before going straight into Drew’s office and telling him about the visit. As Don Bailey had forecast, her brother was furious.
‘Look, it doesn’t matter that he talked to me. All I want to know is-is it true? And do you owe that ghastly man one hundred and twenty thousand pounds?’
His angry flush receding to leave a greyish pallor, her brother settled down heavily behind his desk again. ‘Yes…yes, it’s true.’
Abbey was appalled by the story Drew went on to tell her. He had first gone to the casino where Don Bailey worked as what her brother termed a ‘heavy’ to play the tables with a friend. Winning money at that first visit, he had soon returned and had quickly found it impossible to stay away.
‘You might as well know the worst. I’ve drawn thousands and thousands of pounds from the business to finance my gambling habit and lost every penny of it. I’ve mortgaged my family’s home for every penny I could get and lost that as well. Ever since last winter I’ve been trying to pay off massive losses. But I haven’t once played since then,’ Drew declared. ‘I’m a compulsive gambler and now I attend Gamblers Anonymous meetings every week to help me stay in control of my addiction. Unfortunately I wised up and joined too late to stop myself from dragging us all down into financial ruin.’
Abbey was devastated to learn that her big brother, whom she trusted and loved, had stolen from both her and his family by secretly bleeding vast sums of money from Support Systems and putting even their business at risk of collapse. Indeed she was stunned. But the news that he had fought his addiction and was still dealing with his compulsion by attending GA meetings made her think better of him. Even so, she blamed herself for not keeping a closer eye on the firm’s finances, because, had she discovered what Drew was up to sooner, she might have been able to stop him gambling before matters had got quite so out of control. ‘Does Caroline know about any of
