He simply didn’t want to go home.
CHAPTER THREE
THEY MET AT the car but Boris didn’t open the door. Instead, he was speaking with Demyan, who had loosened his tie and was now wearing dark glasses. Demyan barely glanced over as she approached.
‘We are walking,’ he said as Alina went to open the car door.
Walking?
Where?
Demyan walked faster than Alina and she struggled to keep up.
‘How far away do you live?’ Alina asked, her feet already killing her.
‘We are here.’
‘Oh.’
Of course he’d be in the centre of everything.
A doorman greeted them and Alina held her breath as they stepped into a dark, blissfully cool foyer and approached the elevators.
‘You will speak with Security and they will issue you with keys and a code, but for now use mine.’
Oh, Alina!
She wanted to borrow his dark glasses, she wanted to hide her fear because this was so far beyond anything she had imagined. He could almost feel her worry as they walked towards the entrance. ‘What?’ Demyan asked as he turned and saw her biting on her bottom lip. ‘What is wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Alina said, suddenly remembering the hole in her stockings. ‘Do I have to take my shoes off?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I forgot to bring flats,’ she offered, but really she was more worried about the hole in her stocking and the fact it had been a little too long since she’d paid due attention to her toenails.
‘Alina.’ He turned and faced her before opening the door. ‘Do I look like someone who would ask you to remove your shoes?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m offended.’
Alina looked up.
He wasn’t offended.
Oh, she couldn’t see his eyes behind his glasses, but his lips were smiling, just a little bit, and to Alina his mouth looked beautiful as he spoke on. ‘And you don’t look like a woman who carries flats, just in case,’ Demyan said.
‘I want to be one, though.’ That smile was still almost there and Alina rewarded it with the truth. ‘There’s a hole in my stocking.’
Had he not still been wearing dark glasses, Demyan suspected that Alina’s stockings would have promptly evaporated from the look he shot her, but he bit back a very wicked response to that comment, as he took out his key. He’d been dreading coming here and certainly hadn’t expected to be smiling, let alone mildly turned on as he put the key to the door.
‘How good are you with numbers?’ Demyan asked, before opening the door.
‘You mean maths?’ Alina gave him a little yikes look. ‘Awful!’