A Prize Beyond Jewels

‘Nina,’ she invited softly.

‘Rafe,’ he countered, golden eyes glittering angrily.

Rafe.

Yes, the shortened version, the rakish version, of this man’s name suited him far more than the more formal Raphael.

‘Nor do I react well to threats, Nina,’ he drawled softly.

‘I believe you will find I made a statement rather than a threat, Rafe,’ she replied just as ultra-politely. ‘As I also believe you will find that the contract between my father and your brother is completely binding on both sides.’

Nina had been present on the day Michael D’Angelo had met with her father at his Manhattan apartment, both men also having their lawyers present in order to check the details of the contract before it was signed by both of them. Her father never left anything to chance, and the safety of his beloved jewellery collection came second only to his protection of Nina.

‘If you have any reservations or doubts, then I suggest it might be preferable if you take them up with your brother before speaking to my father,’ she added challengingly.

She had no idea what it was about Raphael, or rather Rafe, D’Angelo that made her bristle so defensively. So uncharacteristically. That arrogant confidence perhaps? Or maybe it was the fact that he was just too dangerously handsome for his own—and any woman’s—good? Whatever the reason, Nina found herself wanting to challenge him in a way she never had any other man.

Rafe had more than ‘reservations’ where Nina Palitov was concerned. Where his attraction to her was concerned.

But he certainly didn’t doubt her claim regarding the contract and the security of her father’s collection. He knew from the steadiness of that unflinching moss-green gaze that Nina Palitov was telling him nothing but the truth about the contract Michael—ergo, Archangel—had signed with her father. Something else Michael hadn’t warned him about, and which Rafe intended taking up with his big brother at his earliest convenience.

He nodded abruptly. ‘Very well, I’ll make the necessary arrangements for you to view the gallery’s full security tomorrow.’

‘Today would be more convenient.’

Rafe looked down at her through narrowed lids, easily seeing the challenge in those unblinking green eyes. ‘Very well, later today,’ he ground out tautly.

‘Good.’ She gave another terse nod. ‘I’ll see you in your office on the third floor at eleven o’clock.’ She turned away dismissively, gathering up the wild abundance of her hair and pushing it back under her baseball cap as she walked over to rejoin her workmen.

The two bodyguards shot Rafe a warning glance before following hot on Nina Palitov’s heels.

A totally unnecessary warning, as far as Rafe was concerned.

He had absolutely no interest in deepening his acquaintance with one Miss Nina Palitov. She was beautiful, yes, and those lips definitely begged to be explored in deeper, more sensuous detail, but the presence of the bodyguards said that wasn’t going to happen any time soon, and her dismissive attitude towards Rafe wasn’t in the least encouraging either.

No, Miss Nina Palitov was not a woman Rafe had any intention of pursuing on a personal basis.

CHAPTER TWO

A DECISION RAFE had serious reason to question when his assistant, Bridget, showed Nina Palitov into his office two hours later!

Rafe had been extremely busy over those two hours, having no intention of being caught wrong-footed again where this young woman was concerned.

His telephone conversation with Michael hadn’t been particularly helpful, his brother showing no interest in the fact that Nina Palitov was aged in her twenties rather than middle-aged, as Rafe had assumed she would be. Michael had simply repeated that it was Rafe’s duty to keep Miss Palitov sweet.

The Internet had proved a little more helpful regarding Nina Palitov, revealing that she had been born to Dmitri and Anna Palitov when her mother was thirty and her father in his mid-fifties, which now made Nina twenty-four. It also stated that Anna had died five years after Nina was born, but gave no cause for her premature death.

It also listed the schools Nina had attended, after which she had gone on to Stanford University, attaining a degree in art and design, before taking up a position in her father’s extensive business empire.

None of which changed the impact the flesh and blood Nina Palitov had on Rafe when she walked into his office at eleven o’clock.

Somewhere during the course of her morning’s work she had removed the bulky black sweatshirt, revealing a close-fitting white T-shirt beneath. The tightness of the material across her breasts also revealed that she wasn’t wearing anything beneath that T-shirt. Her breasts were small and pert, and tipped with darker nipples—the same peach colour as her lips?—as they pressed noticeably against that clinging white material, her abdomen silkily slender as the T-shirt finished just short of her low-rise denims.