‘Maisy?’
He actually sounded disconcerted. She shook her head disbelievingly. ‘I thought we’d sorted this out. I thought we had an arrangement.’
‘Okay.’ He backed up. ‘What’s the problem? You’ve been like a cat on a hot tin roof since we got up here.’
‘You put me on your damn payroll. I thought it was a joke, but it’s not. You got that awful Carlo Santini to give me money!’
‘I’m not allowed to spend money on you?’
‘You’re not spending money on me. You’re paying me.’ She shook her head. He just didn’t get it. ‘And for your information I have my own money.’
‘No doubt. But life is going to get expensive for you, Maisy. You’re with me now.’
‘Am I?’ She doubted that. The problem was she didn’t feel as if she was with him—and how could she after a single day? She felt like a fraud. The girl who accidentally ended up in Alexei Ranaevsky’s bed whilst he was on vacation from his models and his actresses and his Euro trash. She added the last to make herself feel a little better.
Alexei closed in on her again, his hands closing over her arms. ‘Don’t make it a big deal, Maisy. Let’s just play it as it goes.’
‘You think less of me because I’ve never held down a job,’ she blurted out, not sure what she was saying any more.
‘Where did that come from?’ He angled a frown at her.
‘You said so last night—’
‘I said a lot of things last night, dushka. I want you to forget them and just focus on the here and now.’
‘I have a job. Looking after Kostya,’ she ploughed on, refusing to be diverted. ‘And I can tell you, caring for a young child is a hundred times more difficult than buying up companies or cruising the stockmarket or whatever it is you do!’
Alexei’s mouth quirked at Maisy’s dismissive summing up of his hard-won business empire.
‘I agree,’ he said. ‘It is more difficult and in a completely different way. But I’m here now. That life is over, Maisy. Time to let it go and face up to a few facts of life.’
‘Facts? Such as?’
‘Life has changed for you. The horizon has widened. Your little purse, dushka, isn’t going to bear the strain.’ He smiled slowly, his eyes stroking her. ‘Let me spoil you, Maisy.’
That line usually worked a treat.
Maisy’s mouth formed an ominous little line. ‘Does that mean I get a diamond necklace?’
Alexei’s eyes hardened, his hands falling away from her. ‘You’ve been reading the tabloids.’
‘No, just upmarket magazines. You’re a bit hard to miss.’
‘Is that what this is all about? Don’t you think that’s a bit beneath us, dushka?’
He actually sounded impatient. Maisy’s temper went into overdrive.
‘You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?’ she exploded, giving him a good shove, frustrated that even when she put all her effort behind it she couldn’t shift him an inch. ‘A different girl for every day of the week. Well, I’m not going to be one of them, Alexei. I have my own money. I have my own jewellery. All I want from you is—’ She broke off, scrambling for a neutral term.
‘Da? What is it you want from me, Maisy?’
‘Sex,’ she snapped. ‘To quote you. Just sex.’
‘Now we’re talking.’ His gaze did a run of her body.
Maisy stiffened all over. She couldn’t imagine what he saw in her. And that was the problem. She knew it was her own insecurities—but, damn it, why couldn’t his former women-friends be a little less polished, a little more … ordinary?
But she was looking at the reason why. Spectacular bone structure, height, lean muscular build and a mind like a steel trap. He was a prize. But not one granted to girls like her. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him why. But that would have been too humiliating.
He in turn was studying her like a puzzle. She backed away from him and began shoving the underwear back into the carrier, refusing to look at him. She felt like such a fool, going to all this effort to look pretty for him, spending money she couldn’t afford on lingerie that was probably laughably tame compared to what he was used to.
Out of her depth didn’t even cover it. Don’t make it a big deal. Those were his words. Because it clearly wasn’t a big deal to him.
‘I’m convinced I should have tied you to the bed this morning,’ Alexei muttered, expression shuttered.
Maisy turned her back on him and marched into the wardrobe. When she re-emerged he was gone.
Just sex, he’d said. So now she knew.