Not Just the Boss's Plaything(16)

"No, thank you," Alicia told the emissary from his army of assistants    two days after that, who walked up to Alicia as she stood in the open    plan part of the office with every eye trained on her and asked if she    might want to join them all for a meal after work?

"Mr. Korovin wanted me to tell you that it's a restaurant in Soho he    thinks you'd quite enjoy," the woman persisted, her smile never dropping    from her lips. "One of his favorites in London. And his treat, of    course."

Alicia's heart hammered in her chest so hard she wondered for a panicked    moment if she was having some kind of heart attack. Then she   remembered  how many people were watching her, much too avidly, and   forced a polite  smile in return.

"I'm still catching up from my trip," she lied. "I'll have to work late    again, I'm afraid. But please do thank Mr. Korovin for thinking of  me."

Somehow, that last part didn't choke her.

By the end of that week, the fact that ruthless and somewhat terrifying    billionaire Nikolai Korovin had taken an interest in Alicia was the   only  thing anyone in the office seemed able to talk about, and he'd    accomplished it without lowering himself to speak to her directly. She    felt hunted, trapped, and she hadn't even seen him since that night on    the street.

He was diabolical.

"I believe Nikolai Korovin wants to date you, Alicia," Charlotte said as    they sat in her office on Friday morning, going over the presentation    for their team meeting later that afternoon. She grinned widely when    Alicia looked at her. "I don't know whether to be excited or a bit    overwhelmed at the idea of someone like him dating a normal person."

"This is so embarrassing," Alicia said weakly, which was perhaps the    first honest thing she'd said on the topic all week. "I honestly don't    know why he's doing this."

"Love works in mysterious ways," Charlotte singsonged, making Alicia groan.

Everybody loves a romance, he'd said in that cold, cynical voice of his. Damn him.

"This is a man who could date anyone in the world, and has done," Alicia    said, trying to sound lighter, breezier, than she felt. "Why on earth    should a man like that want to date me?"

"You didn't drop at his feet on command, obviously," Charlotte said with    a shrug. Only because he hadn't issued that particular command that    night, Alicia thought sourly, fighting to keep her expression neutral.    "Men like Nikolai Korovin are used to having anything they desire the    moment they desire it. Ergo, they desire most what they can't have."

* * *

Alicia hadn't been so happy to see the end of a work week in years. She    hated him, she told herself that weekend, again and again and again,    until she could almost pretend that she really did. That it was that    simple.

"I hate him," she told Rosie, taking out her feelings on the sad little    boil-in-the-bag chicken curry they'd made for Sunday dinner with a    violent jab of her fork. It had been two blessed Nikolai-free days. She    couldn't bear the thought of what tomorrow might bring. "He's   incredibly  unprofessional. He's made the whole office into a circus!   Nothing but  gossip about him and me, all day every day!"                       
       
           



       

Rosie eyed Alicia from her side of the sofa, her knees pulled up beneath her and her blond hair piled haphazardly on her head.

"Maybe he likes you."

"No. He does not. This is some kind of sick game he's playing for his own amusement. That's the kind of man he is."

"No kind of man goes to all that trouble," her friend said slowly. "Not    for a game. He really could simply like you, Alicia. In his own    terrifyingly wealthy sort of way, I mean."

"He doesn't like me, Rosie," Alicia retorted, with too much heat, but    she couldn't stop it. "The women he likes come with their own Vogue    covers."

But she could see that Rosie was conjuring up Cinderella stories in her    head, like everyone else, as Nikolai had known they would. Alicia felt    so furious, so desperate and so trapped, that she shook with it. She    felt his manipulation like a touch, like he was sitting right there  next   to her, that big body of his deceptively lazy, running his amused    fingers up and down her spine.

You wish you were anything as uncomplicated as furious, a little voice taunted her, deep inside.

"Maybe you should play along," Rosie said then, and she grinned wide.    "It's not going to be a drink down at the pub on a date with the likes    of him, is it? He's the sort who has mistresses, not girlfriends. He    could fly you to Paris for dinner. He could whisk you off to some    private island. Or one of those great hulking yachts they always have."

"He could ruin my reputation," Alicia countered, and yet despite    herself, wondered what being Nikolai's mistress would entail-what sort    of lover he would be, what kind of sensual demands he would make if he    had more than one night to make them. All of that lethal heat and all    the time in the world... How could anyone survive it? She shoved the    treacherous thoughts aside. "He could make things very difficult for me    at work."

"Only because they'll all be seething with jealousy," Rosie said with a    dismissive sniff. "And your reputation could use a little ruining."

Because she couldn't imagine what it was like to actually be ruined,    Alicia knew. To have gone and ruined herself so carelessly, so    irrevocably. She couldn't know what it was like to see that disgust in    her own father's eyes whenever he looked at her. To feel it in her own    gut, like a cancer.

Rosie smiled again, wickedly. "And I think Nikolai Korovin sounds like the kind of man who knows his way around a ruining."

Alicia only stabbed her chicken again. Harder. And then scowled at the    television as if she saw anything at all but Nikolai, wherever she    looked.





 CHAPTER FIVE

ALICIA WAS RUNNING a file up to Charlotte's office the following week    when she finally ran into him, larger than life, sauntering down the    stairs in the otherwise-empty stairwell as if he hadn't a care in the    world.

The shock of it-the force and clamor that was Nikolai-hit her as hard as    it had at the club. As it had outside the office building that night.    Making her feel restless in her own skin. Electric.

Furious, she told herself sternly.

He saw her instantly and smiled, that tug in the corner of his hard    mouth that made her insides turn to water no matter how much she wished    it didn't. No matter how much she wanted to be immune to it. To him.

Because whatever she was, whatever this thing was that made her so aware of him, she certainly wasn't immune.

And Nikolai knew it.

He moved like water, smooth and inexorable. He seemed bigger than he    actually was, as if he was so powerful he couldn't be contained and so    expanded to fit-and to effortlessly dominate-any and all available    space. Even an ordinary stairwell. Today he wore another absurdly    well-fitting suit in his usual black, this one a rapturous love letter    to his lean, muscled, dangerous form. He looked sinfully handsome,    ruthless and cool, wealthy beyond imagining, and it infuriated her. So    deeply it hurt.

Alicia told herself that was all it did.

"This is harassment," she informed him as she marched up the stairs, her    heels clicking hard against each step, her tone as brisk as her spine    was straight.                       
       
           



       

"No," he said, his gaze on hers. "It isn't."

Alicia stopped moving only when she'd reached the step above him,    enjoying the fact it put her on eye level with him, for once. Even if    those eyes were far too blue, bright and laughing at her, that winter    cold moving in her, heating her from within.

She hated him.

God, how she wished she could hate him.

"It most certainly is," she corrected him with a bit of his own    frostiness. "And I hate to break this to you when you've gone ahead and    made your pretend infatuation so public, but it's actually quite easy   to  resist you."