‘My mum wanted to have me at the local hospital or at home but I was complicated. I mean, the pregnancy was complicated.’ She blushed. Alina always did around men and especially him, but this had more to do with what she had just said. She didn’t usually open up easily and yet she just had.
‘I would have been nine years old,’ Demyan said. ‘I don’t think I had even heard of Australia then.’
Alina did the maths and placed him at thirty-three, and she knew from the glossies and a little internet research yesterday that Roman was fourteen. ‘You were a very young father.’
‘Not really,’ Demyan, said and he didn’t respond to her questioning frown. He wasn’t about to explain to his PA that he had never in his life felt young. Even as a small child he had had so many responsibilities.
‘I went to school near here.’ Alina filled the silence.
‘I thought you lived in the country.’
‘I boarded during the week,’ Alina said. She told him the name of the school and Demyan raised one eyebrow. It was a very strict, all-girls school. ‘My mum was very adamant that I get a good education.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Believe me, it wasn’t.’ She looked at two girls walking along, chatting, in red and white dresses and boaters. ‘Even the sight of the uniform still makes me feel ill.’
‘You didn’t like high school?’
‘I hated it,’ Alina said. ‘I didn’t fit in.’
‘That’s not such a bad thing.’ Demyan shrugged and got back to looking out the window but he didn’t end the conversation. ‘I never have.’
Alina looked over at him.
Wondered about him.
But Demyan had gone back to his own space.
They pulled up at the restaurant Alina had booked and she felt just a little bit foolish when she again declined his offer to join him for lunch.
‘I’ll meet you back at the car.’
‘Very well. How long does the contract say you have for lunch?’
She knew he was being facetious. Demyan wasn’t going to plan his schedule around her and she asked the driver to text her as soon as Demyan was ready to leave.
Yes, some might consider her foolish, for instead of joining Demyan and eating from the most luxurious menu, Alina bit, without much enthusiasm, into a salad sandwich that she had prepared that morning.
It felt far safer, though.
Alina had never met anyone so completely male before. She had never known her body react even remotely the way it was this morning and it scared her.
She blew out a long breath and gave up on her sandwich. There was a low, unfamiliar thrill at her very base that all morning she had been doing her level best to ignore. Now, instead of ignoring it, she tried reason.
Stunning to look at he may well be, but he was bad, he was dangerous. The way he’d spoken to his ex-wife told her that, the three women leaving his suite were a pretty decent clue...
Alina took a less than enthusiastic bite of her apple and then promptly threw it in the bin.