The Most Coveted Prize(8)

"This way,' he told Alena, taking a firm hold on her upper arm to turn  her in towards the lifts, when she would have walked past them towards  the entrance to the hotel's restaurant.

Taking advantage of her confusion, when the lift doors opened he guided  her inside it, ignoring the faint resistant stiffening of her body.

"What are you doing?' she demanded. "I thought we were supposed to be having lunch together?'

"We are,' Kiryl agreed equably. "But not in the restaurant. I thought it would suit us both better if we had lunch in my suite.'

Suit them both better? What exactly did he mean by that? Alena could  feel guilty, excited heat flooding swiftly through her body. Even her  face felt as though it was burning with her awareness of how the thought  of such intimacy with him was affecting her. And very concerned and  wary of that feeling she ought to be, Alena reminded herself as the lift  rose swiftly upwards.

Impulsively, her actions driven by sudden apprehension and the frantic  pounding of her heart, she turned to him and told him unsteadily, "I'm  not sure  … '                       
       
           



       

"You're afraid to be alone with me? You think I might try to seduce  you?' he guessed. "Or is it more that you have been wondering what it  would be like if I did try?'

"No!' Alena denied immediately.

The lift had stopped. The door was open. He was looking at her with an  expression that was a mixture of amusement and something else that  re-ignited the desire she had felt earlier.

"Good,' he told her as he guided her out of the lift. "Because I can  assure you that for me this lunch will be strictly business.'

That much was true-even if he had no intention of allowing her to know what exactly that meant.

Torn between relief and embarrassment that he had guessed what was going  through her mind, Alena reminded herself that for her the only purpose  of this lunch must be the fact that she would be able to claim to  Vasilii later that she had secured Kiryl's donation to the charity, and  that it proved she was mature enough to step into her mother's shoes.

The thick pile of the carpet in the corridor muffled their footsteps as  Kiryl guided her towards one of a mere handful of doors in its length,  opening it on his suite and indicating that she should precede him into  it.

Opposite the entry door to the small rectangular lobby in which she was  now standing was a pair of double doors, which Kiryl went to open for  her. The sight of natural daylight coming in through the tall windows of  the suite's sitting room brought a welcome easing of the tight  constriction of her throat, which she was trying to insist to herself  had come from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the small windowless  space of the lobby.

The decor of the suite's sitting room was familiar to her from staying  in exclusive hotels all over the world. Luxuriously comfortable, the  room contained everything a demanding guest might need-from a faux  fireplace with two small sofas either side of it, through to a desk and  the large cupboard which she suspected contained a concealed TV set and a  mini-bar, and dining chairs placed neatly against one of the walls.

The coll our scheme of creams and greys was very "boutique hotel', the fabrics and carpet obviously expensive.

"I'll ring down for our lunch. I hope you'll like what I've ordered. Oh,  and there's a guest bathroom through the door off the lobby,' Kiryl  informed her.

Alena nodded her head. She was glad about that, of course. She wouldn't  have wanted to have to walk through his bedroom to find its en suite  bathroom. Of course not. She wouldn't have wanted to do that at all.  Because if she had she might have looked at the bed-Kiryl's bed-

and once she had done that she might have started imagining him lying on  it  …  naked  …  the magnificent body her senses insisted on repeatedly  telling her lay beneath his clothes exposed to her hungry gaze.

By the time she reached the relative sanctuary of the guest bathroom  Alena was breathing so heard, her heart pumping so frantically, that she  had to lean on the door once she was inside and slowly count to ten  inside her head in an effort to calm herself down.

Pulling away from the door, she ran cold water over her wrists to cool  her overheated skin, reminding herself of just why she was there. The  charity and Kiryl's donation to it. That was the only pairing she should  be thinking about, she warned herself, quickly reaching for one of the  immaculate white linen towels to dry her wrists and hands when she heard  the buzzer to the suite and guessed that it was announcing the arrival  of their lunch.

And what a lunch!

Alena's eyes widened when one of the two waiters who had wheeled in a  hot trol ey, along with a table already dressed with a starched white  cloth and all the accoutrements one would expect from the most  prestigious of restaurants, pulled out her chair for her. The other did  the same for Kiryl, and then placed her first course in front of her.  Her favourite, she realised as she looked down at the serving of warm  pear and goat's cheese salad.

"Thank you-we shal serve ourselves from here.' Kiryl dismissed the  waiters with a discreetly given tip, before getting up once they had  gone to say, "A drink first, I think-our national drink to start with.'  He removed a bottle of chilled vodka from the ice bucket and poured it  into two waiting shots glasses.

"Vodka?'

He was holding one of the glasses out to her across the intimacy of the  small table, which was also set with wine glasses, giving her no real  option other than to take it. Her fingers had to curl around his as she  did so. Why had she never known before this intense difference between  her own flesh and that of another? The sensation of his cool, firm skin  against hers seared her senses, flooding them with the most acute  awareness of him. She could smell the subtle expensive scent of his  cologne, fresh and yet somehow at the same time powerfully erotic. He  was so close to her that she was sure she could see the dark shadow of  the body hair on his chest beneath the fine cotton of his white shirt.                       
       
           



       

She hadn't taken so much as a sip of her vodka yet, and already she was  beginning to feel dizzy and lightheaded. Because she knew how important  this meeting was-for the charity and for her. Her hand started to shake,  and then her body, but to her relief he didn't appear to notice,  releasing the glass into her shaky hold before reaching for his own, and  toasting her.

" Za vashe zdorovye-your good health,' he said, before emptying the glass in one swallow.

Alena knew that she was expected to do the same. It was the tradition to  do so. But even though she managed to return the toast, she could only  manage to sip at the fiery ice-cold liquid.

"They say it is less intoxicating if you drink it down in one, but I can  see that you are a woman who likes to draw out and enjoy her sensual  pleasures. And drinking vodka slowly is a very particular sensual  pleasure for those who can bear it. One has to withstand its icy cold  and then endure its burning heart. Not a task for the faint-hearted-but  then I already know that you have a very brave and reckless heart  indeed. You have already proved that to me.'

He was smiling at her, his gaze trapping hers and holding it easily with  the same strength with which she suspected he would hold her body  between his hands if he chose to do so. And surely worse than being  trapped was the feeling that in his compelling dark green gaze was a  knowing glint that suggested  …

Alena didn't want to risk thinking about what it was telling her.

She couldn't help wondering feverishly if his words could really mean  that he wanted to remind her of his earlier suggestion that she was  afraid to be alone with him, when she had denied that suggestion.

"I am referring, of course, to your bravery in meeting the challenge  inheriting responsibility for your late mother's charity must place on  you.'

Of course he was. Why must she keep on putting a personal slant on  everything he said to her? And, even worse, dragging it into the far too  overheated sensual awareness of him she should be resolutely ignoring  rather than encouraging. He himself was making it plain that his  interest in her was not personally biased at all. Was it because she  wanted him to have a personal interest in her? Because she wanted him to  desire her and, desiring her, show her that desire? No. No-a thousand  times no.

"I am proud to take on that responsibility,' Alena assured him,  finishing her vodka so that she could break the eye contact he was  maintaining with her, hoping she sounded suitably businesslike.

Gesturing towards her starter, Kiryl said, "I hope the food I have chosen will be to your liking?'