The Most Coveted Prize(7)

"You are taking it for granted that I will make a donation-even though  I'm sure your CEO has made it clear to you that I am simply  contemplating doing so. Isn't that rather dangerous?'                       
       
           



       

Caught off-guard, Alena could only protest. "No. I mean, I wasn't taking  it for granted. I just meant  …  I was just curious about why you had  chosen my mother's charity.'

"Were you? Or were you perhaps hoping that I had chosen it because of you? Because I wanted to  …  please you?'

"No!'

The lift had come to a halt and the doors were opening. Hot-faced, Alena  was glad of the fact that several other people were waiting to get in.  Blindly she stepped out of the lift, her head down, feeling both  embarrassed and exposed, stripped bare of her defences. She felt somehow  as though he could see right through into the vulnerable heart of her.  His penetrating green gaze was far too keen and astute. But then it had  probably looked upon many women who had been as sensually aware of him  as she was now. Many, many women. For her, though, all this was very  new-taking her up to the heights and then plunging her down into the  depths until she was so shaken up that she felt in danger of losing the  power to reason.

Instinctively heading for the main doors to the building, she was  brought to a halt when Kiryl reached for her arm, holding it in a firm  grip and half turning her towards him. He was standing so close to her  that she could feel the power of his male sensuality engulfing her. Like  a force-field it surged round her, locked round her effortlessly,  holding her captive.

"I am considering your charity because of my own mother.'

His words were so unexpected that it took Alena several seconds to grasp  their meaning. Her lungs greedily sucked in the air she had briefly  denied them before she was able to question, "Your own mother?'

Good-he had her hooked now. But then, given what he knew about the close  relationship she had had with her own parents-especially her mother-it  had been a foregone conclusion as far as Kiryl was concerned that to  bring his own mother into any conversation he had with her was bound to  elicit both her interest and ultimately her sympathy. Right now, though,  having piqued her interest, it was best to keep her guessing a little,  so Kiryl shook his head.

"This is not the time for such a discussion,' he told her. "It is  something better discussed over lunch. Do you mind riding back in a  taxi? Only when I'm in London I prefer to use taxis rather than to have a  car and driver following me around. I like the freedom it gives me.'

"No,' Alena assured him, forced into a small self-conscious half-laugh  as she admitted, "I love London taxis. And I'd much rather use them than  have a car and driver too.' She pulled a small face. "Vasilii doesn't  understand that, and doesn't really approve.'

It was a small thing to know that he too loved the freedom that being in  London gave her. A small thing, and yet immediately it made her feel  more relaxed in his company-as though they shared something.

Watching her, Kiryl smiled secretly to himself. He knew perfectly well,  from the information garnered by his agent, every single like and  dislike Alena possessed. His goal now was to disarm her to such an  extent that she ended up trusting him.

Once they were inside a taxi he told her, "I thought we'd have lunch back at your hotel.'

Alena nodded her head. The hotel did have an excellent restaurant, she  knew. The kind of restaurant where important business was conducted on a  regular basis. A man's restaurant, Alena often felt, with a menu that  was heavy on traditional gourmet meat and fish dishes and portions which  she found far too generous. It was silly of her to feel disappointed.  This was, after all, a business lunch and not a date. Kiryl was  obviously a busy man, just like her brother, and she knew that in  similar circumstances Vasilii would have done exactly the same thing.

The reminder to herself that their lunch was a business lunch had her  sitting up straight on her own side of the shiny leather taxi seat as  she automatically adopted what she hoped was the right pose for a  businesswoman.

From his own side of the seat Kiryl, who had relaxed into the darker  shadows of the corner of the seat refused to allow himself the mistake  of looking at her. Not yet. That would come later. As a boy, running  wild with other boys like himself-poor, ragged, half-starved boys,  living hand to mouth under the aegis of their elderly foster  grandmother, some of them lucky enough to have mothers who worked-he had  learned to fish.

Sometimes the fish he'd caught had been the only meal there was, so he  had had to learn how to take his time and to wait for the right moment  to catch his prey unawares.

He knew his silence now was bound to add to the tension he could see  Alena was already feeling, and that suited him. Fate had handed the very  best wild card he was ever likely to get when it had brought Alena  Demidova into his life-without her brother.                       
       
           



       

The traffic was building up; one of London's many sets of roadworks had  brought their taxi to a standstill. Kiryl looked from under his lashes  at Alena. His agent had done his work well, and Kiryl knew everything  there was to know about her-from the fact that her brother believed her  to be currently under the safe care of an elderly ex-matron of an  exclusive girls' school to the fact that she was probably still a  virgin. He knew all about her parents' marriage, and her English  mother's passion for her charity, just as he knew to the last pound how  many millions of pounds there were in her trust fund, and how many  shares in the businesses of her late father and her half-brother would  come into her control when she reached twenty-five.

She was a valuable asset-a valuable pawn, indeed-to the man who  controlled her future, and it was no wonder that her half-brother was so  protective of her and of her eventual inheritance. With such an asset  as his half-sister to barter Vasilii Demidov had a great deal of  persuasive power at his command. Via her marriage Vasilii would be able  to broker even more power for himself than he already had. There would  be many, many men who would want to form an all iance with him via  marriage to her. It wasn't her virginity that would be important, either  to her brother or the man who married her. It was the power of the all  iance that would be created.

He most certainly did not want to marry her. He did not want to marry  anyone. But he was quite prepared to let Alena think that he did to win  her over.

What he really intended to do was seduce her into falling for him-which  would be easy, given the susceptibility to him he had already seen in  her and her innocence-and then offer to end their relationship provided  her brother backed off from the contract they were competing for.

Kiryl's assessment was that he was the last person her brother would  want as a brother-in-law-a man born not just on the wrong side of the  tracks but brought up in the gutters of those tracks. In his judgement  her brother would far rather lose one contract than a pawn as valuable  as a sister who, married to the right man, would bring far more assets  into the family than merely one contract.



He wouldn't like what Kiryl was doing, of course. He wouldn't like it  one little bit. But he would have to accept it, because his sister's  vulnerability to Kiryl was his Achil es' heel. Kiryl had no doubts about  that. No man would guard his sister as Vasilii Demidov guarded his  unless she was extremely important to him.

And Alena herself  …  She would have the sexual pleasure those longing  looks she had been giving him said she wanted. And when her brother  exchanged her hand in marriage for an increase in his power and wealth  she would be able to remember that pleasure when she lay in the arms of a  husband she might not particularly want.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, inside his head he could see an image of his  mother's face-the anguish in her eyes when she had told him about how  she had trusted his father and how he had deserted her and refused to  recognise Kiryl himself. He dismissed it as swiftly and ruthlessly as he  always despatched any kind of emotional weakness he found within  himself.

The taxi pulled off the main road and into the designated drop-off area  outside the main entrance to the hotel. Whilst Kiryl paid the driver, a  uniformed doorman opened Alena's door for her and helped her out.  following her into the hotel, Kiryl tipped him generously. The man would  no doubt remember seeing him with Alena-and that would add further  reinforcement to his eventual challenge to her brother either to back  out of the contract race or risk seeing his besotted sister marry him.