Not Just the Boss's Plaything(29)

But she knew that the sad truth was that she was going to do this,    whether she managed to work herself into a state or not. She was going    to wear the fine clothes he'd bought her and dance to his tune, quite    literally, because she no longer had the strength to fight it. To fight    him.                       
       
           



       

To fight her own traitorous heart.

And time was running out. By Monday it would be as if she'd dreamed all    of this. She imagined that in two months' time or so, when she was    living her normal life and was done sorting out whatever Nikolai fallout    there might be, she'd feel as if she had.

A thought that should have made her happy and instead was like a huge,    black hole inside of her, yawning and deep. She ignored it, because she    didn't know what else to do as she walked into the lounge. Nikolai   stood  in front of the flat-screen television, frowning at the financial    report, but turned almost before she cleared the entryway, as if he'd    sensed her.

She told herself she hardly noticed anymore how beautiful he was. How gorgeously lethal in another fine suit.

Nikolai roamed toward her, his long strides eating up the luxurious    carpet beneath his feet, the tall, dark, brooding perfection of him bold    and elegant in the middle of so much overstated opulence. Columns    wrapped in gold. Frescoed ceilings. And his gaze was as bright as the    winter sky, as if he made it daylight again when he looked at her.

There was no possibility that she would survive this in anything like one piece. None at all.

You can fall to pieces next week, she told herself firmly. It would be    Christmas. She'd hole up in her parents' house as planned, stuff  herself   with holiday treats and too much mulled wine, and pretend none  of this   had ever happened. That he hadn't happened to her.

That she hadn't done this to herself.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Define ready." She tried to keep her voice light. Amused. Because    anything else would lead them to places she didn't want to go, because    she doubted she'd come back from them intact. "Ready to attend your    exciting whirl of corporate events? Certainly. Ready to be used in my    capacity as weapon of choice, aimed directly at your ex-wife's face?"    She even smiled then, and it felt almost like the real thing. "I find    I'm as ready for that as I ever was."

"Then I suppose we should both be grateful that there will be no need    for weaponry tonight," he said, in that way of his that insinuated    itself down the length of her back, like a sliver of ice. The rest of    her body heated at once, inside and out, his brand of winter like a fire    in her, still. "This is only a tedious dinner. An opportunity to make    the donors feel especially appreciated before we ask them for more   money  tomorrow."

When he drew close, he reached over to a nearby incidental table and    picked up a long, flat box. He held it out to her without a word, his    expression serious. She stared at it until he grew impatient, and then    he simply cracked open the box himself and pulled out a shimmering    necklace. It was asymmetrical and bold, featuring unusually shaped    clusters of blue and green gems set in a thick rope that nonetheless    managed to appear light. Fun. As fanciful, in its way, as this golden    city they stood in.

The very things this man was not.

"I would have taken you for the black diamond sort," Alicia said, her    eyes on the necklace instead of him, because it was the prettiest thing    she'd seen and yet she knew it would pale next to his stark beauty.  "Or   other very, very dark jewels. Heavy chunks of hematite. Brooding   rubies  the color of burgundy wine."

"That would be predictable," he said, a reproving note in his low voice,    the hint of that dark humor mixed in with it, making her wish. Want.

He slid the necklace into place, cool against her heated skin, his    fingers like naked flame. She couldn't help the sigh that escaped her    lips, and her eyes flew to his, finally, to find him watching her with    that lazy, knowing intensity in his gaze that had been her undoing from    the start.

He reached around to the nape of her neck, taking his time fastening the    necklace, letting his fingertips dance and tease her skin beneath the    cloud of her curls, then smoothing over her collarbone. He adjusted  it   on her neck, making sure it fell as he wanted it, one end stretched   down  toward the upper swell of one breast.

Alicia didn't know if he was teasing her or tearing her apart. She could no longer tell the difference.                       
       
           



       

When he caught her gaze again, neither one of them was breathing normally, and the room around them felt hot and close.

"Come," he said, and she could hear it in his voice. That fire. That    need. That tornado that spiraled between them, more and more out of    control the longer this went on, and more likely to wreck them both with    every second.

And it would, she thought. Soon.

Just as he'd warned her.





 CHAPTER EIGHT

A GOLD-MIRRORED LIFT delivered them with hushed and elegant efficiency    into the brightly lit foyer of the presidential suite in one of  Prague's   finest hotels, filled with the kind of people who were not  required to   announce their wealth and consequence because everything  they did,  said  and wore did it for them. Emphatically.

These were Nikolai's people. Alicia kept her polite smile at the ready    as Nikolai steered her through the crowd. This was his world, no matter    how he looked at her when they were in private. No matter what  stories   she'd told herself, she was no more than a tourist, due to  turn  straight  back into a pumpkin the moment the weekend was over. And  then  stay that  way, this strange interlude nothing more than a  gilt-edged  memory.

She could almost feel the heavy stalk beginning to form, like a brand-new knot in her stomach.

Nikolai pulled her aside after they'd made a slow circuit through the    monied clusters of guests, into a small seating area near the farthest    windows. Outside, in the dark, she could see the magnificence of Prague    Castle, thrusting bright and proud against the night. And inside,    Nikolai looked down at her, unsmiling, in that way of his that made    everything inside of her squeeze tight, then melt.

"I told you this would be remarkably boring, did I not?"

"Perhaps for you," she replied, smiling. "I keep wondering if the    American cattle baron is going to break into song at the piano, and if    so, if that very angry-looking German banker will haul off and hit  him."

His blue eyes gleamed, and she felt the warmth of it all over, even deep    inside where that knot curled tight in her gut, a warning she  couldn't   seem to heed.

"These are not the sort of people who fight with their hands," Nikolai    said, the suggestion of laughter in his gaze, on his mouth, lurking in    that rough velvet voice of his. "They prefer to go to war with their    checkbooks."

"That sounds a bit dry." She pressed her wineglass to her lips and    sipped, but was aware of nothing but Nikolai. "Surely throwing a few    punches is more exciting than writing checks?"

"Not at all." His lips tugged in one corner. "A fistfight can only be so    satisfying. Bruises heal. Fight with money, and whole companies can  be   leveled, thousands of lives ruined, entire fortunes destroyed in  the   course of an afternoon." That smile deepened, became slightly  mocking.   "This also requires a much longer recovery period than a  couple of   bruises."

Alicia searched his face, wondering if she was seeing what she wanted to    see-or if there really was a softening there, a kind of warmth, that    made that wide rip in her feel like a vast canyon and her heart beat    hard like a drum.

He reached over and traced one of the clever shapes that made up the    necklace he'd given her, almost lazily, but Alicia felt the burn of it    as if he was touching her directly. His gaze found hers, and she knew    they both wished he was.