The Most Coveted Prize(4)

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Something was going on here. Kiryl's sharply keen senses told him that.  Some undercurrent the meaning of which with regard to his own plans he  had yet to divine and define.

He lifted one eyebrow and joked, "He sounds more like a gaoler than a brother.'

Alena immediately felt guilty again. She was being horribly disloyal to  Vasilii, but at the same time there was a sense of relief and release  for her in talking about how she felt. Something about this intense  stranger had her opening up about things she'd never confided to anyone  before. Even so, her love for her brother insisted that she defend him  and correct Kiryl's misconceptions.

"Vasilii is protective of me because he loves me, and because  …  because  he promised our father when he was dying that he would always look after  me.' She dipped her head. "I worry sometimes that it is because of that  promise that Vasilii has never married. Because of the business and  because he worries so much about me that he has never had time to meet  someone and fall in love.'

Fall in love? What planet was the girl living on if she actually thought  that the marriage of one of Russia's richest men would involve "falling  in love'? Not that he blamed Demidov for that. When the time came for  him to marry himself his wife would be carefully chosen, by a logical  process, not by some temporary burn of desire in his loins. Not that he  was going to tell Alena that. The more she revealed to him the more  convinced he became that this young woman-this girl, really-just might  be his rival's Achil es' heel.

Kiryl wasn't someone who gave in to his own emotions, though. Always  back up gut instinct with hard facts before acting-that was his own  personal mantra, and he wasn't going to go against that now, no matter  how urgently the voice inside him was demanding that he now secure  without delay his bait he might be able to use in a trap set against his  rival for the contract.

Hard facts closed traps. A mixture of gut instinct backed up by hard facts was what he lived by.

Alena's emotional defence of her brother had warmed the silver-grey of  her eyes. They were like deep clear pools within which he could see each  and every one of her thoughts, Kiryl recognised, as she looked at him  over the rim of her teacup and then flushed, quickly concealing her gaze  with the dark fan of her eyelashes.

It had been wrong of her to discuss Vasilii with Kiryl. He was, after  all, a stranger, and she knew how Vasilii felt both about protecting her  and protecting his own privacy. She put down her teacup.                       
       
           



       

"I really must go.'

Kiryl nodded his head, and then got up.

"Thank you for the tea,' Alena told him as he summoned the waitress.

"It was my pleasure-and it was just the first of many pleasures I hope we shal enjoy together, Alena Demidova.'

Before Alena could guess his intent, he reached for her hand and lifted  it to his mouth. Just the sensation of the warmth of his breath on her  trembling fingers was enough to send hot molten quivers of sensation  racing up her arm, making her feel weak with awareness of her  vulnerability to him. He was flirting with her, and more than fulfilling  the fantasies she had been indulging in ever since she had first seen  him with the sensual promise implicit in his words.

As she moved she caught sight of her watch. Vasilii! There would be  e-mails from him and he would worry if she did not reply speedily to  them.

"It's four o'clock. I really must go. My brother  … ' "Ah, like Cinderel a  fearing the stroke of midnight you rush to leave me-and without so much  as a shoe to trace you by. But we shal meet again. Have no doubt about  that. And when we do I shal be tempted to ensure that the promise I have  seen in your eyes when you look at me becomes more than just a look.'





CHAPTER TWO


IN THE privacy of his own suite Kiryl telephoned his agent, announcing  the minute the older man answered the call, "Alena Demidova, sister of  Vasilii Demidov-I want to know everything there is to know about her.'

From the windows of his suite he could look out on the private garden in  the square below, where the February light was now beginning to fade. A  young East European woman was walking there with two children, both of  them wearing the uniform of an exclusive prep school, but Kiryl had no  interest in the garden or its occupants. All his intention was focused  on the game plan now unfolding inside his head.

"Everything, Ivan-from who her friends are, how she spends her time, to  what she eats for her breakfast. I want to know it all. And even more  importantly I want to know everything there is to know about her  relationship with her brother Vasilii, and his with her. I want to know  what he thinks of her and what he plans for her. And I want to know by  tomorrow morning.'

Ending the call before the other man could say anything, Kiryl paced the floor of the sitting room of his suite.

He could feel his whole body tingling with a potent mixture of  excitement, challenge, and the knowledge that he had embarked on a game  he would win. Alena was the key to her brother's downfall. He was sure  of it. He could sense it, smell it, and feel it deep down inside himself  in the Romany genes given to him by his mother and so loathed and  despised by his father.

Unexpectedly inside his head he had a momentary image of Alena as she  had been when they had had tea together-as fragile as a flower a man  might pick and then crush in his hand, her emotions and desires plain to  see. Something was struggling to come to life inside him-

something that had its roots in that brief time he had shared with his  mother before she had died, the only time in his life when he had been  truly loved. For a moment he hesitated. But he could not afford to be  weak-not now. As weak as the mother who had loved his father and  conceived him against that father's wishes. He'd had to be strong in  everything he had striven so long and hard for, goaded and driven during  his struggle by the memory of the man who had been his father sneering  down at him as he pushed him into the gutter before walking away from  him.

It was finally within his grasp. And if Alena had to be sacrificed so  that he could keep the mental promise he had made his dead mother, then  so be it.

"The promise I have seen in your eyes when you look at me.' In the grey  London light of the February morning Alena lay in the bed in her  expensively designed and decorated bedroom, cocooned in the highest  thread-count sheets that money could buy, but feeling every bit as  uncomfortable as though she were that fairytale princess lying on the  discomfort of a sharp pea. Fairytales. Wasn't that what this was all  about?

A young woman's fairytale, though, rather than a child's. A fairytale of  a prince who wasn't just handsome and kind but a prince who was also  sensual and sexy-a prince who offered not the experience of a pampered,  indulged lifestyle, but the experience of real raw sensuality  …  the kind  of intensely emotional and passionate sex that perhaps was merely a  fantasy.

Was that why she now felt so unnerved and afraid? Because now that she  had been given a hint that she could make her fantasy reality she feared  that she might discover that being sexually involved with Kiryl would  destroy that fantasy? Sex with Kiryl. Intimacy with Kiryl. The intimacy  of shared kisses and caresses, her skin shivering with excitement, and  the enticement of his hands-his lips-on her naked body. She was  shivering with that excitement now, at the mere thought of it. But  wasn't the reality that she needed to put him out of her thoughts and  out of her life? That was certainly what Vasilii would want her to do.                       
       
           



       

Alena looked at her alarm clock.

She had an appointment later in the morning at the offices of a charity  set up by her mother. Vasilii would prefer her to wait until she was  twenty-five to step into her mother's shoes and fully take over her role  at the head of the charity, Alena knew. He felt that even at  twenty-one-

which she would be in just over fifteen months-she would be still too  young for such a responsibility. Alena, though, was determined to prove  her half-brother wrong. She had been assiduous in studying the workings  of the charity since her mother's death.

It was a big responsibility-a huge responsibility, in fact. The charity  handled not only the income from the millions her parents had donated to  it, but also the income that came from various sponsors and donors to  the charity's cause, which was the education of children who would not  otherwise receive any. How much chance would she have of convincing her  half-brother that she was ready to take on that responsibility if he  ever got to know of her reckless fantasies and even more reckless  behaviour over Kiryl? None at all. He would judge such behaviour as  immature and irresponsible.