Before she sat down he half rose from his chair, his manners clearly so ingrained that even when he was ignoring her he behaved like a gentleman. Maisy settled herself, still waiting to be spoken to. Nothing. She looked around. Maria was clearing the buffet. Steadying her nerve, she watched Kostya for a while. She was constantly aware of Alexei, typing into his phone, stabbing with his thumb, and Maisy experienced his uninterest like a well-placed kick to her fledgling sexual self-confidence. It was exactly like the aftermath of her sleeping with Dan. She had dressed in the cold whilst he had answered emails, his back to her. Except this was worse—because as she had buttoned herself up she had known she didn’t care for Dan and had no intention of repeating the experience.
This time she wanted to climb into Alexei’s lap. Her insides seemed to light up when she had his attention. Even now, as he fiddled with that stupid device, she couldn’t strip her eyes off him, was wishing he would just look up and acknowledge her. But she knew he wouldn’t. It was the equivalent of dressing in the cold.
All of her insecurities came rushing back. Maybe he had changed his mind. She might have been able to attract him but she couldn’t hold him. Her mind went helplessly back over events, trying to find the flaws in their lovemaking. Had she done something he didn’t like? Had she not been responsive enough? He had wanted her to take him in her mouth but she hadn’t felt confident enough. Maybe that was it?
She tried to sip her orange juice, but she was so tense it went down the wrong way and she ended up in a coughing fit.
Alexei looked up as she set down the glass with a bump and choked. Tears of reaction had sprung into her eyes, sparking the deeply held pain she was nursing, and more brimmed and slid down her cheeks. She swiped at her eyes, hoping he wouldn’t realise she was crying because of him. It would put the nail in the coffin of her humiliation for him to see how deeply all this was affecting her.
She pushed back her chair noisily, not looking at him.
‘Where are you going?’ He sounded genuinely surprised.
‘I’m disturbing you,’ she got out rapidly. ‘I’ll just go.’
‘You haven’t eaten any breakfast.’
He had noticed? She hadn’t thought he’d even registered her presence.
‘I’m not hungry.’ She had to get away from him. She walked blindly down the terrace, blinking rapidly.
Then she heard Kostya’s high little voice. ‘Maisy!’ And she had to go back for him.
However broken up she felt inside, she was all Kostya had. Funnily enough, he was all she had too. And as she hurried back the child met her halfway, arms extended to be lifted, cuddled, assured of her love. He was heavy, so she sank down onto the ground with him and rocked him in her arms, mustering a smile and reassuring chatter. She might be an abject failure with men, but she knew how to be a good mother to Kostya.
‘You have to leave him with me today,’ Alexei was saying. He was sauntering over, smart phone and papers abandoned, looking unaccountably edgy.
Maisy looked up, her eyes still wet so that her lashes had a starfish effect. Alexei tried to block the accompanying flash of emotion as he remembered how uninhibitedly she had given herself to him. Now she was acting as if she wanted to be anywhere but around him.
His first instinct was to reassure her, but it was clear she was carrying a bucketload of regrets. Well, tough. He wasn’t going to apologise for enjoying her body so thoroughly. Maisy was built for a man’s pleasure. Everything about her—from her wild glossy ringlets to the serious curve of her waist to the fulsome round of her bottom—sang to his libido. After too many women with borderline eating disorders, the curves and valleys of Maisy’s small yet womanly body reduced him to drooling, uncontrolled lust. He fully intended to keep her and have her again and again.
He could deal with her regrets with jewellery. It always worked a treat with women’s moods. Experience told him put a diamond pendant in the valley between those magnificent breasts of hers and she’d soon cheer up. He’d organise Carlo to have a selection sent down tomorrow.
Except deep down he knew jewellery would probably upset her.
But for now he had a small child to wrest from her arms. A thought which didn’t make him feel particularly proud of himself. Especially with Maisy looking so incredibly vulnerable. It would be too easy to gather her up into his arms and soothe that edginess in her away. He’d played it cool this morning, aware of the staff observing them. Any other woman and it wouldn’t have mattered, but Maisy had unaccountably befriended a good many of the people who worked for him. Those seven days he had left her alone here had backfired on him. Shy as she was around him at times, she clearly had no trouble drawing other people to her and holding them.