A Rich Man's Whim (A Bride for a Billionaire 1)

always haunt her. If she had left on that helicopter, would he have come after her?

‘I own a country house that I believe you will like,’ Mikhail volunteered. ‘You can invite your sisters there, treat it as though it was your own home and next week you can attend Luka’s wedding with me as my partner.’

Her restive fingers clenched on the edge of his silk-and-linen-mix jacket, wet clogged eye lashes lifting on drenched green eyes as she stared up into his handsome face, her heart pounding like a piston engine.

His forefinger gently traced the generous curve of her lower lip. ‘It will work beautifully … you’ll see,’ Mikhail forecast with his usual invincible confidence, and then he kissed her with passionate urgency and thought took a hike from her head.

At the end of that day she lay in his bed, her body weak and sated from the hungry demands of his, and she wondered if she had been foolish to agree to stay with him. Was she merely putting off the heartbreak that awaited her? Extending her suffering? She loved him like crazy, but was very much afraid that he was simply in lust with her and not yet ready to give that pleasure up.

CHAPTER TEN

MIKHAIL LISTENED TO the lawyer’s advice only because he paid generously for all advice that offered him greater financial protection. But he was immoveable when it came to the issue of presenting Kat with another legal agreement, on this occasion one relating to her status as his live-in lover. No way was he making that mistake again! He had still to hear the last from her lips regarding the previous agreement, and in any case he was convinced that Kat didn’t have a mercenary bone in her body. Time and time again she had spurned the chance to enrich herself at his expense. Even though she had been desperate for money to settle her debts when they first met, her bill for that one night of accommodation in her former home had been ridiculously modest.

‘My girlfriend is not a gold-digger,’ Mikhail murmured levelly. ‘I am not that much of a fool. I can scent a gold-digger at a hundred yards.’

‘Situations change, people change,’ the smooth-talking legal eagle pointed out speciously. ‘It is of crucial importance that you consider the future and protect yourself.’

Mikhail reckoned that he had been protecting himself all his life in one way or another, so there was nothing new in that idea. Protecting himself was second nature. He was well aware that he was still feeling punch drunk at the roaring success of letting Kat into his life on a less temporary basis. That had proved to be an excellent move and he was certainly reaping the benefits on the home front. If it was possible to bottle the essence of Kat, he would be constantly drunk. An abstracted smile curled his handsome mouth as he thought of Kat in his hot tub, Kat in his bed, Kat at his dining table, Kat … whenever and wherever he wanted her. After a mere six weeks he was happy to judge his new living arrangements as the essence of perfection. Even better, he had worked out exactly where his father had gone wrong in his relationships with women. The true secret was moderation. He didn’t allow himself the pleasure of Kat every night; he carefully rationed himself to ensure that she did not become too necessary to his comfort. Sometimes he stayed over quite deliberately in the city and pleaded the pressure of work. Sometimes he didn’t phone her, although she was getting remarkably good at phoning him to ask why he hadn’t phoned, which rather put paid to the point of that attempt to set out his boundaries. As long as he stayed in control, however, he foresaw no problems.

‘Are you considering marriage?’ the lawyer asked in a bald enquiry.

Mikhail frowned and compressed his lips at the question.

‘Do you think your Russian is considering marrying you?’ Emmie was asking her sister at that exact same moment as she zipped up the frock Kat was trying on in the spacious cubicle. ‘You know … is the living with him a trial for the ultimate commitment in his eyes?’

‘No. Mikhail seems quite happy with where we are now,’ Kat pronounced thoughtfully. ‘He’s very cautious … What do you think of this dress?’

‘The silver metallic one has the most impact. I already told you that,’ Emmie repeated, smoothing an abstracted hand over the obvious swell of her own pregnant stomach as she too looked in the mirror at their combined reflection. ‘I just don’t want you to be hurt, Kat … and goodness knows, you’re not getting any younger—’

‘Like I need that reminder!’ Kat quipped with a wry laugh.

‘Yes, but it is something you need to seriously consider. If you do want children some day you haven’t got much time left to play with.’

‘Emmie, only a few months ago there was no man in my life,’ Kat reminded her ruefully. ‘I certainly can’t expect the first one who comes along in years to want to start a family with me. That would be a big ask for a guy who shies away from serious commitment.’

‘Have you discussed the subject with him?’ Emmie asked.

Kat stiffened, her thoughts hurtling back several weeks to the evening she had received the proof that their contraceptive oversight on the yacht had not resulted in conception. Mikhail had absorbed the news without comment, revealing neither relief nor regret, but Kat had been shocked by the stark wave of disappointment that had consumed her. As she had spent so many years raising her siblings she had always assumed that she would never crave the added responsibility of having a child of her own. Unfortunately for her, somehow even being with Mikhail had given her a powerful yearning for a baby, but she was utterly convinced that nothing would ever come of it.

Mikhail had brought her into his life but he wasn’t building his life around her, Kat reflected sadly. He had moved her into Danegold Hall, his impossibly impressive Georgian country house, and urged her to make whatever changes she thought necessary there, only that was not an invitation to take too much to heart when the male giving it really didn’t give a damn about his surroundings as long as he was comfortable. He had made the move easy for her by sending professional packers to Birkside. Her belongings and the pieces of furniture that Emmie didn’t want were now stored in a barn on the estate for her to go through at her leisure. Emmie was living in the farmhouse now, drawing up plans to open a business while earning a living from the pedestrian job she had found locally. But on her days off, Emmie regularly got on the train and met up with her sister in London for a shopping trip. On this particular occasion the sisters were looking for a dress for Kat to wear to Luka Volkov’s wedding.

‘Kat?’ Emmie persisted.

‘Look, Mikhail’s only thirty. He’s got years and years ahead of him when he can choose to have a family and naturally he’s not in any hurry,’ Kat said lightly.

‘But if he loves you—’

‘I don’t think he loves me. I don’t think I’m in a for-ever-and-ever relationship with him,’ Kat confided truthfully, lifting the silver dress off the hook and heading gratefully off to pay for it with one of the string of credit cards that Mikhail had insisted she accepted from him.

Even so, Kat disliked feeling like a kept woman and she would have preferred to look for employment. But Mikhail wanted her to be available when he was free and able to travel if need be and there was no way she would be able to manage that feat and him and his vast Georgian home and even larger staff there if she had a job to go to every day. She had had to ask herself which was more important: her pride and independence or her love. And love had won because when Kat wasn’t being tormented by her various sisters’ awkward questions about her relationship with Mikhail, she was deliriously happy, certainly much happier than she had ever thought she could be. He was the sun, the moon and the stars for her, but she knew that she had to accept that outside the bounds of marriage many such relationships eventually came to an end.

Her phone buzzed. It was Mikhail.

‘Meet me at the office and we’ll go for lunch, milaya moya,’ he suggested huskily, his dark deep drawl sending a responsive tremor down her spine.

Kat smiled into the phone, delighted that he was so eager to see her. He had stayed in his city apartment the night before and she had

missed him. Possibly he had missed her as well, she reasoned with satisfaction, for otherwise he would have been willing to wait until he got back to the hall later that evening to see her.

Emmie gave her a stern look. ‘He owns you … that’s what I don’t like.’

Kat’s eyes widened in dismay. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘You’re like … addicted to him,’ Emmie pronounced with unhidden distaste and disapproval. ‘Even Topsy noticed that weekend she stayed with you that when Mikhail enters the room, you can’t see anyone else but him.’

‘I do love him and I don’t think it does Topsy any harm to see that I care deeply for the man I’m living with,’ Kat said gently, wishing she knew more about the background to Emmie’s pregnancy, for with every week that passed Emmie seemed to be becoming more of a man hater.

A limo whisked Kat to Mikhail’s London headquarters. She was accompanied by Ark, Stas’ kid brother. Mikhail, from Kat’s point of view, appeared to be obsessed by the idea that she might be mugged or attacked and had insisted she accepted Ark’s presence when she was out in public. Only when she had recognised that that risk was a source of very genuine concern for him had she finally agreed, but she often felt sorry for Ark, reduced to hanging around bored while she shopped or sat gossiping over lengthy coffee sessions with her sisters.

Mikhail was in a meeting when Kat arrived and she stowed her shopping by the wall and sat down in Lara’s office to wait while Ark hovered in the corridor.

Lara glided across the room to greet her with a rather tight smile of welcome and bent down to study more closely the emerald pendant that Kat wore. ‘May I see it?’ the other woman prompted politely.