The Ruthless Magnate’s Virgin Mistress

an escape from the pressure of living with me.’

Abbey made no comment. She had no idea what had got into her brother and did not feel qualified to hazard a guess. Drew had always been quiet and sensible, and dangerous, thrill-seeking behaviour like compulsive gambling seemed out of character for him. But Abbey had only to look at her own conduct in recent weeks to accept that people often acted in unpredictable ways and not always for any clearly defined or rational reason. How, after all, could she explain her own total obsession with Nikolai? Was it a physical infatuation that would fade?

‘You could ask Nikolai Arlov for a loan.’

Abbey’s bright auburn head jerked up in dismay at that unwelcome suggestion. Caroline’s oval face was pale and strained and her shadowed eyes were pleading.

‘I couldn’t,’ Abbey replied curtly. ‘That’s out of the question.’

‘Why not? I mean, the bank wouldn’t even consider us in the state we’re in, but Nikolai might as a favour to you.’

Abbey was furious with Caroline for even broaching the subject. ‘Fixed as we are for finance right now, it would take us a lifetime to pay Nikolai back. And if I asked him to give us money it would be like selling myself to him!’ Abbey proclaimed, compressing bloodless lips and almost shuddering at the idea. Of course she had thought about asking Nikolai for help, of course she had, but she didn’t see why he should be expected to settle her brother’s debts for him. And she cherished the truth that she had never looked on Nikolai or treated him like an open wallet. She was not greedy like his previous lovers and she knew he valued that difference.

‘Don’t be so fanciful,’ her sister-in-law argued. ‘Nikolai seems to delight in spending money on you. He never stops buying you expensive gifts and you’re already practically living with him! Everyone reckons that what he has with you is much more than a casual affair.’

Everyone? Not Abbey, however. She stared out into the back garden where Alice and Benjamin were playing on the swing set. Every so often one of the twins cast an anxious look back towards the house, revealing that both children were aware of the tension in their home. Abbey hurt for her nephew and niece, who’d had to contend with a lot of parental rows and grief over the past fortnight. She wished she had a magic wand to wave that would make all the trouble and strife go away, but she didn’t.

‘Nikolai and I…well, it’s not like you think,’ Abbey argued uncomfortably, wishing she could tell the other woman about Nikolai’s desire to fool the press into believing that he was involved in a serious relationship with her. Only then would Caroline understand how hollow Nikolai’s apparent attentiveness really was at heart.

Caroline gave the younger woman an unimpressed glance. ‘Isn’t it? You’ve been here thirty minutes and he hasn’t phoned yet to maintain contact and I’m surprised. Over the last two weeks I doubt if you and Nikolai have been apart for longer than a couple of hours.’

Abbey dropped her head, knowing that that was the truth. The even more disturbing truth was that she had revelled in every minute of that intense togetherness and had discovered a happiness she had not known she was capable of experiencing. Happiness for her was falling asleep in Nikolai’s arms at night and waking up still in them.

‘And that’s not the way he usually behaves with women according to the articles I’ve read,’ Drew’s wife contended. ‘He’s a cold customer as a rule and yet he’s bought you a fortune in diamonds, is having you driven around in your own personal limousine and he marches you out everywhere he goes.’

‘I returned the diamonds to him,’ Abbey reminded Caroline and, catching sight of the time, she frowned. ‘Look, I’ll have to go or I’ll get caught up in the traffic-’

‘And be late, which Nikolai detests. He’s got you dancing to his tune all right. It’s hard to credit that only a week or so ago you were heartbroken about Jeffrey and Jane Dalkeith.’

Abbey’s face shadowed, as she recognised the slight hint of scorn in that unnecessary reminder of her lowest hour. After the shock of Jeffrey’s betrayal had sunk in, she had adapted fairly quickly and she had no quarrel with that assessment. ‘Well, I had to get over that, didn’t I? I wasted too many years grieving for Jeffrey to waste any more time agonising over a past that I couldn’t change and a man who never loved me the way I loved him.’

‘Very sensible. I only wish you would practise some of that sense around Nikolai.’

‘Common sense died the day I met him,’ Abbey quipped on the way out and she wasn’t joking when she said it. Something stronger than she was had drawn her to Nikolai and forged links she couldn’t break or walk away from.

The limousine ferried her back to Nikolai’s penthouse apartment where she had spent a great deal of the last fortnight. Lady, more at home there than she was at Abbey’s apartment and thoroughly spoiled by the attentive domestic staff, danced up to Abbey playfully in the hall to greet her. Abbey smiled and scooped up the Siamese kitten to cuddle her. When she reached the bedroom with the overnight bag she had brought she undressed and went for a shower. It was her last night with Nikolai, at least the last night of the two weeks she had agreed to spend with him, and who could tell what would happen next? Would she even see him tomorrow? She had no idea.

Nikolai never mentioned the future and never referred to anything more than a week in advance. Bearing that nerve-racking truth in mind, Abbey did not understand how it had come about that she could not picture a future without him. She could scarcely accuse him of having encouraged such delusions. Yet, a thousand memories bound her to him now. He filled every corner of her existence and most of her thoughts. He phoned her all the time. He gave her flowers and gifts every day. He listened to her when she talked. He had escorted her to parties, clubs and dinners and in his company time flew. She was getting used to the designer clothes, the diamonds and the endless pursuit of the paparazzi. She was getting dangerously accustomed to having Nikolai in her life.

She lifted a fleecy towel to dry herself before massaging rose-scented oil into her skin. Workwise, the past weeks had been less successful. She had so far failed to fire Nikolai’s interest in any of the country properties she had researched and, even though Drew’s financial problems and the fallout from that revelation had proved a source of continual worry for her, she had found comfort and forgetfulness in being with Nikolai.

He was the tough guy who had never had an indoor pet until Lady came along as a regular house guest. Nikolai talked much more freely about his background now. For the first nine years of his life he had been cared for and indulged. He had attended a private school and had shared the many privileges that his grandfather had enjoyed as a leading diplomat. But the older man’s sudden death from a heart attack had ended that life for ever and had catapulted Nikolai into the custody of a bullying father, who had never wanted him, and a stepmother who despised him. As heir to his grandfather’s substantial estate, Nikolai had been violently resented by his birth father’s family. When Nikolai was finally hospitalised for the injuries inflicted on him by his relatives, his father had decided it would be safer to banish him from the household altogether and he had fostered out his illegitimate youngest son to a poor family in one of the toughest estates in St Petersburg.

‘That experience and those years made me what I am today,’ Nikolai had insisted fiercely. ‘I learned how to rely on myself and how to fight my own corner. After I completed my military service I educated myself for the business world.’

The very bareness of his later childhood had touched Abbey’s compassionate heart to the core. She knew exactly what had made him tough and unyielding. He had never known a woman’s love and tenderness as a boy and the experience of violence followed by hunger and poverty had brutalised him, before a soldier’s training and the horrors of war had made his reserve even more impenetrable. Yet she had watched him play with the tiny Siamese kitten with a gentleness that fascinated her. This was the same guy who held her close in the aftermath of passion and let her smother him in kisses. She adored him and it was precisely because she adored him that she would not ask him to bail her brother out of trouble, for that single act would throw up the barrier of his great wealth between them. She was convinced that it would also erase any suggestion that they might be equals and destroy his respect for her.

Nikolai respected her independence and her refusal to grab at all the material things he could offer her. She wore the clothes and the jewellery because he insisted, but when he ended their affair she would leave those expensive trappings behind her, for the last thing she would want would be the reminders of what had been. She climbed into a filmy bra and knicker set and smoothed pale lace-topped stockings up her very long legs. Mischief sparkled in her eyes. The two weeks might be over, but she wanted him to regret the fact, not celebrate the prospect of his renewed freedom.

On the drive back to his penthouse Nikolai studied the tabloid gossip page Olya had given him. It included one