The Most Coveted Prize(2)

Inside his head an image formed: a man's profile, his eyes hard and  denying, rejecting the child he had been. His father. The father who had  denied him not just the right to his name but also the right to his  Russian blood. Just as Vasilii Demidov would if he now denied him the  right to complete the end game he had striven for so long.

"Then you must hope for a miracle-because that is what it will take for you to beat Demidov and win this contract.'

Typically Kiryl did not allow any of what he was feeling to show in his  demeanour or his voice, simply saying, in a voice as relentlessly cold  as winter, "There must be something that would make him back off-some  way of undermining him. A man does not make the money he has made  without having secrets in his past he would not want exposed.'                       
       
           



       

The agent inclined his greying head in acknowledgement of Kiryl's  statement before warning him, "You are not the first man to look for  some weakness in Demidov that can be exploited, but there isn't one. He  is armour plated. He has no vulnerability, no known past sins to catch  up with him, and no present vices to use against him. He is  impregnable.'

Kiryl's mouth hardened.

"He is impressive, I agree. But no man is impregnable. There will be a  way, a vulnerability-and I promise you this: I will find it, and I will  use and exploit it.'

The agent remained silent. He knew better than to argue with the man  facing him. Kiryl had grown to his wealth and his present position of  authority and power through the hardest and most challenging of  circumstances-and it showed.

Nevertheless, he felt obliged to remind him as they parted, "As I have  already said, what you require if you are to win out against Demidov is a  miracle. Take my advice and back out now-let him have the contract.  That way at least you will save face and not have to endure the  humiliation of publicly losing to him.'

Back out? When he was so close to fulfilling the vow he had made to himself so many years ago? Never.

Could she risk picking up her teacup now, without her hands trembling so  much that she risked spilling the hot liquid? Alena wasn't sure. Her  heart was still jumping around inside her chest cavity, and her face was  still burning from the effect that one piercing brilliant green gaze  had had on her. He had looked right at her. She put her hands on her  still hot cheeks in an attempt to cool them down. She must not look at  him again. She simply didn't have the strength to withstand the raw  maleness of such a gaze. It had melted her insides, turning them into a  soft liquid pulse of longing that quivered within her still. And yet she  had to look-she had to let her senses and her body drink in their fill  of the dangerous excitement of all that fierce sexual masculinity.

Her pulse had started to race, and her throat was so dry that she had to  swallow hard as she allowed her head to turn again in his direction,  the longing and excitement beating even more fiercely than ever inside  her with anticipation-only to crash down to wretched disappointment when  she realised that he wasn't there. He had gone, and thanks to her  silly, immature stupidity she had missed her chance to  …  to what? To  prolong the intensity of that mesmerising gaze until her bones melted  and her heart burst with the unbearable excitement of it? He might have  come over, introduced himself. He might have  …

There was something on the floor-a gold pen. It must be his. He must  have dropped it. Quickly Alena rose from her seat and went to pick it  up. It felt cool and hard against her fingertips. She was shaking so  much that she couldn't stand up again without her head swimming. She  could see him standing close to the hotel exit. The man he had been with  was leaving the hotel. Was he going to follow him? Without allowing  herself the chance to think about what she was doing, Alena crossed the  hotel foyer.

The click of her heels alerted Kiryl to her presence. When she walked  she swayed as delicately as the silver birches in Russia's northern  forests.

"You dropped this.'

Her voice was as soft as the sigh of a spring breeze, cooling the stuffy, overheated hotel air as it brushed his skin.

She was holding out a pen to him. Not his pen, but he took it from her  nonetheless. Her hand was delicately boned, her fingers long and slim,  her nails buffed to a natural sheen. She had a look about her that money  alone could not buy: a translucent, shimmering natural beauty all ied  to the kind of discreet grooming that whispered privilege and  protection. This woman had been feather-bedded from the moment of her  birth.

Angry with himself for being so aware of her, he punished her for that  awareness by telling her mockingly, "And of course you would seize such a  golden opportunity to return it to me, wouldn't you? Given your  interest in me. Hasn't anyone ever told you that it is the male's role  to pursue his quarry and reveal his desire, not the female's.'



Hot colour ran up under Alena's skin like burning fire. She deserved his  mockery-and his cruelty: Vasilii would have said so. But she hadn't  been prepared for it and it hurt. Inside her head-foolishly-she had  built up an image of him in which his danger was tempered by a desire  for her that matched her own for him. Now she was being made to pay for  that fantasy.

Kiryl watched as she struggled to overcome her humiliation, pride  battling against pain as her small white teeth bit so hard into that  soft bottom lip that it swelled swiftly. Just as it would swell beneath  the fierce demand of a man's kiss? Against his will Kiryl felt the ache  in his groin the sight of her had aroused earlier return-with interest.                       
       
           



       

"My apologies. That was ungracious of me.'

His apology was deliberately insincere. He didn't have either the time  or the desire to deal with the fragile ego of an emotional woman-no  matter how desirable. He knew himself too well, and he knew that in the  mood he was in now, thanks to Vasilii Demidov, the darkness within him  that he had never wholly been able to control would unleash itself and  seek a victim. Over the years Kiryl had taught himself to think of that  darkness as something of a mental vampire, an echo of himself that, when  aroused, could only be calmed by feeding off the emotional pain of  others. No doubt there were those who would say that that dark need  sprang from his childhood, but Kiryl had no intention of dwelling on a  time when he had been vulnerable. Instead he preferred to live in the  present, and living in the present meant securing that contract. The  girl was simply a spare pawn in the game, and as such he had no use for  her other than as a momentary outlet for his pent-up inner frustration  with regard to his bid and the competition he was up against.

For Alena, though, his caustic cruelty was unbearable. She retreated  from him, feeling too upset and too humiliated to defend herself, merely  shaking her head and turning away to hurry back to her table.

Once there she asked for her Bill and proceeded to gather up her coat  and her bag. She had shown herself up most dreadfully. She deserved the  punishment he had meted out, she told herself. She was just glad that  her half-brother hadn't been there to witness it. Fresh tears blurred  her vision.

Automatically Kiryl tracked her uncoordinated, anxiously urgent  movements. Because he wanted to distance himself from her, that was all.

And yet his gaze and his senses were somehow reluctant to let her go.  Even now, when she was plainly upset, there was still a grace about her,  a breathtaking natural sensuality, a pliable softness-from the top of  her shining fall of dark blonde hair to the delicacy of ankles so fine  Kiryl suspected he could easily close his hand around them-that said the  whole of her could be bent to the will of the man who possessed her.

And did he want to be that man? It wasn't so much a matter of wanting as  of taking advantage of what he was being offered so blatantly. Kiryl  shrugged aside his inner criticism of himself. He was, after all, a  man-with a man's needs. And it was obviously what she wanted. She had  practically been begging for it, and it would be one way of ridding  himself of the anger he felt at having his plans threatened by Vasilii  Demidov.

He had taken the savagery of the sharp raw edge off it via his mockery  of her. He could make amends quite easily. He knew the format. She would  initially pretend to refuse to allow him to do so. He would then  flatter her and she would give in. It was a game as old as life itself,  and an hour or so in bed with her in his suite would surely be enough to  satisfy the ache in his groin.

A brief movement of his hand summoned a waitress. Giving her his instructions, he made his way over to the table.