The Russian's Ultimatum(16)

She didn't know much about leukaemia other than that survival rates had   improved dramatically in recent years. How old was he? Thirty-four?  When  he'd had it, the survival rates had been dire. The battle would  have  been immense. She kept imagining the small child he'd been and the   desperate worry of his parents. She wanted to travel back to the past   and hug that small child.

It explained so much about him.

For the first time, she tried to think from his point of view. There he   was, pouring all his energy into buying the firm his adored adopted   father had founded, having to do it amidst the highest secrecy, when   he'd learned a sum of money had gone missing on a senior executive's   watch. He hardly knew this employee. The sum was significant by any   normal person's standards, but to a billionaire it wasn't significant   enough to warrant an immediate investigation, not when priorities lay   elsewhere.

Twirling a curl absently around her finger, Emily sighed. However much   she might disagree with his methods, she understood the reasons.

If only she wasn't so aware of him. Her attention might be firmly fixed   on what was going on outside but still she sensed every move he made.

He was back on the sofa, his nose buried in his book.

Even if there had been a book in English she wouldn't have been able to   concentrate. There was too much energy racing through her veins. More   than that, she was too consumed with him to concentrate properly on   anything.

She heard every page he turned. She knew every time he ran his fingers   through his hair. She knew when he stretched his long legs out.

After another hour of silence had passed, during which the storm hadn't abated at all, she heard him close his book.

'I need to get some sleep,' he said. 'You can have the bed. I'll take the sofa.'

'Don't worry about it-I'm a night owl. You take the bed. I'm happy   watching the storm.' Before he could open his mouth to argue, she turned   her head and threw him a wry smile. 'I'm half your size and probably   need half the sleep you do. It's more logical for me to take the sofa.'

Pascha wanted to argue with her but, studying Emily's expression, he could see she didn't look remotely tired.

He wasn't tired either.

His body clock, usually so good at regulating his sleeping patterns, appeared to have gone on strike.

But he had to sleep-at least had to try to-even if Emily was sitting mere feet away from him.

'If the sofa is too uncomfortable, feel free to join me in the bed,' he   said in as casual a tone as he could muster. 'You have nothing to fear   from me.'

His veins thickened anew at the thought of her climbing in beside him,   her sweet scent inches from him, close enough for him to reach a hand   out, touch her skin and discover for himself if it was as silky as it   seemed. Close enough to discover for himself exactly what her glorious   hair smelled like.                       
       
           



       

With iron will, he forced the torrent of desire away.

'I know.' She turned her face back to the window before he could read what was written on it.

After brushing his teeth, he poured himself a glass of water and padded   around the shelter turning off all the lights bar the small lamp near   where Emily sat curled like a cat.

Her concentration was firmly focussed on the storm outside, yet he could   feel her awareness of him as keenly as he felt his own awareness of   her.

Did she realise she'd been twirling that same curl round her finger for the past hour?

He stripped to his boxers and slid under the covers. Usually he slept   nude but tonight he felt it more appropriate to wear something. He   didn't want her feeling uncomfortable with him. 'Goodnight, Emily.'

She didn't look at him. 'Night.'

His eyes wouldn't close. Try as he might, he couldn't stop his mind   drifting into what would happen if she did join him in the bed. He   didn't think he'd ever felt the blood running through his veins so   keenly, a thick desire that, if he'd been alone, he'd be able to do   something about. If he'd been with any other woman, he'd have been able   to do something about it too. Since making his fortune, he'd never been   rebuffed by a woman. But he'd never felt a woman's disinterest in his   money as keenly as he did with Emily. His wealth meant nothing to her.

She was only here on Aliana Island with him, in a storm shelter, out of sufferance.

No, he corrected himself. She was here out of love. Love for her father.

She was also a thief, he reminded himself. However good her intentions,   she'd stolen her father's pass key, incited someone into giving her the   code-he would find out who as soon as he returned to the UK-and had   intended to steal every scrap of data from his hard drive. If he hadn't   returned earlier from Milan than intended, she would have got away with   it.

And yet...

Her actions had been born out of desperation. Born out of love.

As sleep continued to elude him, he cursed that he hadn't sent her to   the staff shelter. Forget all his good reasons not to have done; for the   amount he paid them, his staff could have put up with Emily for one   night. Sleep was an essential function of his life. He'd never forgotten   the words of his doctors when he'd been a child. Sleep will help you   get better, they'd told him. And he had got better. He'd recovered. He'd   beaten the odds and he'd survived.

He heard movement-Emily quietly making herself a hot drink before settling back on the armchair.

Pascha willed sleep to come quickly.





 CHAPTER EIGHT

SLEEP DIDN'T COME. Time dragged ever more slowly. But Pascha must have   drifted off at some point, for one minute Emily was there and the next   she was gone.

Rubbing his eyes, he sat up. The armchair she'd been sitting in was empty. The small lamp still glowed.

He checked his watch and saw it was three a.m.

He looked through the porthole. It appeared the worst of the storm was over. The trees still swayed but the rain had stopped.

Stopping only to pull on a pair of shorts, he turned the handle. The   door was unlocked. Stepping outside, he found her huddled up in the   fleece blanket on the bench in front of the shelter.

The chill of the breeze hit him immediately. Not all the storm clouds   had disappeared but right above Aliana Island they had cleared enough to   reveal a black night sky alight with stars.

She turned her face to him. Under the glow of the outside light he could see her desolation.

'It's three o'clock,' he said gently, crouching down to her height,   noting that she'd taken the padded mats off the dining table chairs and   placed them along the bench to sit on.

She nodded, blinking rapidly. She cleared her throat. 'I needed some air. I'll come back in if the wind picks up any more.'

She isn't a child, he reminded himself. If she wanted to sit out in the   cold wind, then that was her business. But the look on her face  reminded  him of a child. Emily looked lost.

He sat next to her, thankful for the mats she'd placed on the bench.

At first she didn't acknowledge him, simply kept her deadened gaze on the starry sky.

After long moments of silence, she opened her mouth. 'When I was a   little girl, my mum told me the stars were our dead ancestors looking   down on us.'

'That's a nice thing to believe,' he answered carefully.

'I want it to be true. I want to believe she's up there looking over us   all.' She hugged the blanket tighter around herself. 'You know you  asked  me why I went into fashion?'                       
       
           



       

He nodded, a pointless gesture with her eyes still staring upwards.

'It was because of her. It was a way to spend time with her, just me.   She loved us all but so much of her time was spent managing Dad's   depression and trying to limit its impact on me and James that sometimes   it was hard to get her to myself. We'd hole ourselves up in her study   and design and make our own clothing. I kept trying to talk her into   going to my old fashion college as a mature student, but she kept   putting it off, saying she would do it one day. And now it's too late.   She'll never do it. All the dreams she had...all gone.'

'When did she die?'

'Three months ago.'

The jolt this information gave him felt like a physical blow.

Three months?

That meant Malcolm Richardson had lost his wife only weeks before the money had gone missing...

He lost his train of thought when he felt her slump beside him, saw her   drop forward to wrap her arms around her knees and bury her face.

For too long he stared at her shaking body before placing a hand on her back.

She shuddered. He thought she was going to shrug off his ineffectual   attempt at comfort; instead she twisted into him, placing her head on   his chest as she sobbed, her tears falling onto his naked skin.