The Russian's Acquistion(18)
It was gone before unease could take a proper hold on him, hidden by the shift of her body away from him. Her stiff shoulders were proud. “You’re the one who sold this place out from under me. Stop complaining that it’s cutting into your plans.”
She was acting like an amateur.
Aleksy narrowed his eyes on her back, always aware when women were trying to manipulate him and occasionally willing to allow it when it suited his end purpose: primarily to get the physical release his body required. If Clair was attempting to wring guilt out of him, she was being predictable and hopelessly misguided. If she didn’t appreciate how powerful and absent of empathy he was, he’d demonstrate.
With one call—in English so she’d understand it—he swept away her stall tactic.
“The brawny and coldly efficient Lazlo again?” she asked without turning.
“He’s enlisting a young man you might know. Stuart from accounting? He’s proving to be extremely cooperative. A stickler for procedure. Stuart will make an inventory of your property and put it in storage at my expense.”
“Stuart from accounting wants to paw through my underpants drawer? And run back to the office with what he found in my medicine chest?”
“Not if he intends to keep his job.” Aleksy didn’t like the way she paled and liked even less the thought of some flunky fondling her undergarments. His hands tingled to cradle her in reassurance. He shook off the unfamiliar urge. “Gather your personal things if it will put an end to this delay,” he muttered. “You have one hour.”
* * *
In the end she chose Paris, but not for the reason he thought.
“The city of lovers,” he’d said ironically, the timbre of his voice stirring her blood. “Of course. A perfect weekend retreat.”
Weekend. The word punched low, gushing delicious heat through her abdomen.
She shook off the reaction and bit back an explanation that she’d picked Paris because she could get home on her own steam if she had to. Not that she had a home to come back to, but flying back to London from Cairo or Vancouver or Sydney would destroy her shallow savings.
As they traveled, she focused on budgeting for a new flat and where she’d start looking for a job so she wouldn’t recall the way Stuart’s Adam’s apple had bobbled when he found Aleksy in her flat.
Aleksy had curved a possessive hand against the back of her neck and said, “I don’t date my employees. Clair is no longer with the firm.”
Clair had lifted a disillusioned Could you be more blunt? expression to him.
Aleksy had quirked his split brow in a Want me to be?
She’d left without saying a word, her guilty blush burning her cheeks, aware that he’d sealed her fate. Her reputation as a tart was solidified and so much better than criminal. That made her squirm, but she’d learned to shield herself against judgment long ago. No, it was the way he’d gotten into her head so easily that really disturbed her. It made her feel vulnerable.
“Clair.”
His touch turned her from staring out the car window, once again opening that invisible gateway through her defenses. His intense personality whirled into her psyche like a restless summer wind, scattering her thoughts and inducing an instant, fluttering sensuality that reached toward everything in him.