The Only Woman to Defy Him(9)

                His word, her command.

                ‘Actually...’ Alina gave a tentative cough before continuing, ‘I can’t have lunch with you.’

                ‘Excuse me?’

                ‘I have to have lunch separately from the client.’ Alina attempted the impossible, to explain rules to a man who made his own. ‘It’s in the agency guidelines. It’s on the contract that you signed last night.’

                ‘Did I?’

                Alina fished out the boilerplate contract from her bag and showed Demyan, who looked at his unmistakable signature. Last night remained a bit of a blur. ‘So I did.’ He flicked through the contract. ‘It says here that you are to finish promptly at five, with no exceptions. Can I ask why?’

                ‘I’m a temp,’ Alina said. ‘It’s simply the agency guidelines.’ She didn’t add that Elizabeth would very possibly throttle her if she knew what was being said. Elizabeth would have her staying back to midnight if it pleased Demyan. Neither did she add the guidelines meant that by finishing promptly at five she was able to work in the evenings.

                ‘Very well.’ Demyan shrugged. ‘We have a lot to do between now and five but first I need to eat.’

                Alina called a restaurant from the list Marianna had emailed over and she called for his driver too, who was waiting for them as they stepped onto the forecourt.

                For the first time in her life, Alina felt heads turn.

                Though, of course, they turned for Demyan.

                The door to a sleek silver car was being held open and after a teeny hesitation Alina realised that Demyan was waiting for her to get in.

                In the back.

                With him.

                So this was how his PA lived, Alina thought as they drove through the city. With him, not beside him but separate, for she might as well not be there. At first he made no attempt at conversation, instead looking out the window, quite content not to fill the silence.

                Alina’s heart was still hammering; it hadn’t stopped since they’d first met. It was close to one o’clock and almost five hours since first she had laid eyes on him and not by a flicker had his beauty or presence dimmed.

                Alina stared out of her own window, unused to the awareness that had flooded her body, and then she heard his voice.

                ‘Roman was born there.’ He said it more to himself. Aware that his time in Australia was now limited, Demyan had been silently taking it all in. He stared at the hospital as they passed it, remembering how proud he had been that day, how determined he had been to do this right.

                As Alina turned and glanced over, she noticed that all the arrogance in him seemed to have gone; she had never seen such sadness. Had she known him, even loosely, she would have followed instinct and asked what was wrong for there was torture in his eyes as they passed the hospital.

                ‘So was I.’

                Alina’s voice and his mild surprise at her statement pulled Demyan from introspection and their eyes met. It was surely the only similarity they shared, Alina thought. Demyan’s vast wealth would ensure now that he attended only the most esteemed private hospitals but that Roman had been born there told her that he had started from the bottom.

                ‘How long ago?’ Demyan asked, and she told him it had been twenty-four years.