The Most Coveted Prize(27)

"Kiryl should be here any minute,' he warned her, looking at the gold  dress watch he was wearing, which had originally belonged to his father.

Autocratic Vasilii might be, but Alena had never doubted his love for  his father. "I suggested that the three of us should travel to the vill a  together.'

Alena nodded her head. Just the sound of Kiryl's name made her heart ache with pain.

"Thank you for these,' she told Vasilii, touching her new necklace and  then the bracelets. "They are absolutely beautiful, Vasilii, but you  really should not have.'

"I didn't,' he responded promptly.

Alena stared at him, confusion and dismay filling her.

"Oh, no! You mean that they must have been intended for someone else.'

"I shouldn't think so. I am sure they were intended for you, Alena. But I  am not the one who chose them for you. I rather think that instead they  are a gift from your future husband. Something to commemorate his  success, perhaps?'

Whilst Alena just looked at him the maid came in, to tell them that  Kiryl had arrived and was waiting for them in the apartment's sitting  room.

It was too late now for her to wish she had never worn the diamonds,  which now felt like a cold, mocking weight against her skin, shackling  her to him. It was a bond she wanted to reject, but couldn't-just as she  couldn't reject or escape her love for Kiryl himself.

The sight of Alena wearing the diamond jewel ery he had chosen so  carefully for her made Kiryl's heart turn over inside his chest in a  blend of pain and pleasure. She looked thinner, her cheekbones more  pronounced, the luminous glow gone from her eyes, but she was still  incredibly beautiful A beautiful woman both inside and out, he  acknowledged helplessly. He ached so badly for what he had lost, and the  right it would have given him to go to her and take her in his arms.

As it was, they left the apartment and got into the limousine that was  to take them to the party without Alena so much as looking at him, never  mind speaking to him. What had he expected? Alena had made it plain  enough to him how she felt about him and their marriage, hadn't she?

She would have to thank Kiryl for his gift and congratulate him on his  success in winning the contract at some stage during the evening, Alena  knew. Good manners necessitated that, she admitted. She stared out of  the darkened window of their transport, leaving Vasilii and Kiryl to  talk to one another in low voices, no doubt about business matters, as  they were driven out of St Petersburg to the south of the city where  their host had built his new vill a on similar lines to those of one of  St Petersburg's most famous royal palaces, although on a smaller scale.

Alena sighed a little when they approached it and turned into a long  drive. Both the drive and the house were ill uminated with modern  lighting that washed both the grounds to the front of the vill a and the  vill a itself in a series of changing colours. In midwinter perhaps the  effect might have been attractive, but now the bright ill umination  seemed at odds with the delicacy of the natural light that would  ultimately fade, as Alena knew from her previous visits to St  Petersburg, to a miraculously soft twilight.                       
       
           



       

With so many important people invited to the party they had to wait in  the car for their turn to draw up alongside the red carpet and alight  from their transport. Somehow, without her managing to see how he had  done it, it was Kiryl who stood at her side, his hand beneath her elbow  as her partner, whilst Vasilii stood slightly behind them. Alena could  feel her whole body trembling just because he was touching her.  Trembling with longing for him, and not revulsion as it should have  been.

At the top of the vill a's flight of white marble steps it wasn't their  host and hostess who waited to greet them but instead a major-domo, who  took their coats and then called their names up to another official who  was standing at the foot of a very grand return staircase at the back of  the marble hal

It was only at the top of these stairs that they were finally greeted by  their host-a very powerful man indeed. But it was obvious to Alena from  the way in which he greeted them both that he thought very highly of  Kiryl and Vasilii.



His new wife, although outstandingly beautiful, looked both slightly  petulant and bored-until she saw Kiryl and Vasilii, when her eyes  widened all uringly and she gave them both a sultry come-on smile.

The fierce stab of angry female antagonism at the sight of another woman  smiling all uringly at "her' man caused Alena to lift her hand to her  heart, as though to still its fierce thudding. Now she was jealous of  another woman smiling at Kiryl on top of everything else!

Watching Alena, Kiryl frowned. She looked so fragile, her face pale and  set. He reached towards her, but Vasilii was saying something to her and  she turned away to listen to her brother. Naturally she would prefer  talking to Vasilii than to him, given the way she felt about him, Kiryl  recognised. But he intended to make amends to her-to make things right  for her. Or at least as right as he was able to make them  …





CHAPTER TWELVE


IT WAS over three hours since they had first arrived at the party.  Alena's head was aching from the volume of noise created by the huge  number of guests talking to one another, the sound intensified by the  marble floors and drowning out the music being played by a  world-acclaimed string quartet.

Alena turned towards Kiryl, intending to ask him if he thought there was  any chance of the pop singer being heard later on in the evening, when  she gave her performance, but he was deep in conversation with one of  the many businessmen who had came to talk to him during the course of  the evening. Although he had acted the part of attentive fiancé to  perfection, never once leaving her side, they had barely spoken to one  another. The emotional gulf between them was so wide that Alena could  barely swallow for the pain of the throat muscles she had locked against  her misery.

Uniformed waiters and waitresses were circling amongst the guests,  carrying plates of canapés-small blinis heaped with smoked salmon and  caviar-that gleamed beneath the light of the many chandeliers.

The man talking to Kiryl had finally moved away.

"I'm just going to the ladies,' she told him, handing him her still half-full glass of champagne.

Kiryl watched her walk away She looked like a delicate lilac wraith, in a  gown that was so much more elegant and restrained than the over-the-top  outfits so many of the other female guests were wearing. The jewel ery  he had bought her after Vasilii had told him how irritated he was with  himself for forgetting to get her mother's jewel ery out of the London  bank vault looked every bit as good on her as he had thought. He had  seen the set in a store window and thought how much it would suit her,  because of the purity of the diamonds and the elegant simplicity of its  design. He had seen her touching the necklace every now and again during  the course of the evening, but the look on her face when she had done  so hadn't said that she was enjoying wearing his gift. Far from it, in  fact.

A little to Alena's surprise, when she emerged from the ladies she found  that Kiryl was standing watching the door, obviously waiting for her.

"I've just seen Vasilii,' he told her when she rejoined him. "He's got  some business matter he wants to discuss with someone he's met here, so  he won't be travelling back with us.'

"Oh, I see.' That was all Alena could manage to say. It was ridiculous  that the thought of the intimacy of journey home alone in the back of a  chauffer-driven limousine with Kiryl should make her feel so weak with  need.

"Alena  … .' Kiryl began, but Alena spoke at the same time, desperate to remind herself of the reality of their relationship.

"I haven't thanked you yet for this,' she told him, touching her new  necklace. "Vasilii said that you must have bought it for me to mark the  success of your bid. I haven't congratulated you on that yet either. I  meant to earlier, but  … '                       
       
           



       

"I haven't accepted the contract. And the diamonds haven't got anything to do with it.'

Alena might have heard Kiryl's deliberately firmly spoken words, despite  the backdrop of conversational noise all around them, but she still  couldn't take them in. She looked up at him and then away from him,  whilst her heart thudded and raced in confusion and disbelief, before  managing to say, "But you wanted it so much. It was what you wanted more  than anything else. You said so. I heard you.'

"I know. I was wrong. Alena, I need to talk to you-properly. There's  something I have to say to you about  …  about the future-your future. But  not here. It's too noisy. Will you come back to St Petersburg with me?'