Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife

The formalities of travel complete, Alissa, a slim elegant figure clad in a full length black coat and boots, went to meet her father. When he saw her he rose from his table and hurried into the concourse to greet her. As he approached her her bodyguards came between them.

‘It’s okay. I know him. You can take a break,’ Alissa urged her bodyguards in some embarrassment, making vague shooing motions with her hands as if she were dealing with a flock of hens.

The two men exchanged uneasy glances and backed off with reluctance. Appraising her troubled face with a frown, Maurice Bartlett closed both his hands round hers as if he feared she might suddenly decide to walk off again. He was a handsome blond man who looked a good deal younger than his age. ‘Thanks for coming. I knew you couldn’t be as hard and unforgiving as your sister has been.’

‘I’m not forgiving you for the past six months-just now I couldn’t,’ Alissa admitted gruffly half under her breath. ‘But you’re still my father.’

‘I can’t believe how long it’s been since I saw you.’

She was appalled to feel a surge of childish tears sting her eyes. ‘That’s not my fault. You left us—’

‘No, I didn’t. I left your mother,’ he argued, wrapping his arms round her to pull her close as her tears overflowed and rolled down her cheeks. ‘I can’t bear to lose you and Alexa as well. These last months haven’t been easy for me either—’

He urged her into a seat and sped off to get coffee. Being with him felt wrong to Alissa, like straying into the enemy camp. The pain he had caused all of them was still too fresh. She breathed in deep and blinked back the tears, hoping that her mascara was waterproof.

Her father sat down beside her and gripped her hand in his. ‘If it makes you feel any better, it’s not working out with Maggie,’ he confided heavily.

Alissa swallowed hard, for that news was not a comfort. It only made her wonder if all the heartbreak had been for nothing. ‘I’ve only got a few minutes,’ she warned him.

‘So how did you fall in love with a billionaire?’ he quipped. ‘Now if it had been your sister, I would have been less surprised.’

Alissa was grateful for the abrupt change of subject. ‘Harry, Alexa’s man, is lovely. He adores her.’

‘For his own sake, I hope he can stand up to her as well. Alexa’s headstrong and I can’t quite picture her settling down to be a wife and mother,’ the older man confided ruefully.

Alissa looked at her father and without even meaning to heard herself say accusingly, ‘We used to be such a happy family.’ As soon as she said it and saw him recoil guiltily, the tears welled up in her eyes again. Both happy and sad memories tore at her. She would never have dreamt that the breakdown of her parents’ marriage would cause her so much grief as an adult.

She was swallowing back a sob when she noticed a pair of photographers standing nearby with cameras angled in their direction. Anxiety gripped her because Sergei had warned her that she needed to be on the lookout for the paparazzi now to avoid them. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said abruptly and stood up.

Her father hugged her and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said despondently. ‘I’m really sorry. Sometimes you don’t know what you have until you lose it.’

Alissa eased gently free again. Moisture still glittering on her pale cheeks, she moved away, noting the relief of her security team as they fell in either side of her. Her father was a weak man who didn’t seem to know what he wanted any more. Only a couple of months ago he had told them all that he could not live without Maggie Lines and that he had to be with her. Did he want to go back to her mother now? Or was that a fanciful idea?

Alissa’s first experience of travelling in a private jet soothed her fractured emotions. She revelled in the peace and tranquillity and all the space while the cabin crew attended to her every need. She watched a film and skimmed through several glossy magazines before enjoying a very pleasant meal followed by a box of Belgian chocolates, which she found impossible to resist. She had one chocolate and closed the box feeling very virtuous, but was eventually tempted into eating more. Sergei phoned her during the flight.

‘Thanks for the chocs,’ she murmured, ‘but I shouldn’t be thanking you, I should be complaining. I’ve already eaten half of them.’

‘Didn’t I tell you that I’m fattening you up for Christmas?’ Sergei teased.

‘That’s not a joke, Sergei. When it comes to chocolate you have to be cruel to be kind,’ she warned him. ‘I’m not great with will power.’

‘I have a meeting this evening, so I won’t see you before the ceremony,’ he told her.

Stark disappointment flashed through Alissa and took her very much by surprise. Why was it that she had to constantly remind herself that she was deceiving her family to play a paid role in Sergei’s life? Why did she keep on forgetting that basic fact? Why the heck couldn’t she stop thinking about Sergei Antonovich? What was she? An immature adolescent or an adult? His attraction ought to be outweighed by his ‘Neanderthal man’ approach to women, she told herself sternly.

Mid-evening the jet landed at Pulkovo Airport in St Petersburg. It was much colder than it had been in London. A limo wafted her slowly through the city streets. She had never seen so many fabulous old buildings grouped in one place, so she was less surprised than she might have been when she was deposited outside a splendid classical property and informed that she had arrived at Sergei’s home. She mounted the steps, her breath like puffs of smoke in the icy air, and walked into the merciful warmth of a superb big hallway with an intricate polished wooden floor. The lemon-coloured walls, stucco work and restrained furnishings were supremely elegant and quite unexpected after the edgy modern design of Sergei’s London apartment.

The stylish décor continued upstairs and into the green and gold guest room where her luggage was deposited. She turned down the offer of food and stifled a yawn. It had been a long day and she was very tired. A pair of maids arrived to unpack for her and she took refuge from all the attention in the stunning bathroom. Lying back in the hot water while jets pummelled her weary limbs was wonderfully relaxing and she stayed there longer than she had planned and indeed was beginning to drift off to sleep when a loud rata-tat-tat sounded on the door and made her sit up with a start.

‘Yes?’ she called in dismay, clumsily scrambling up and clamber

ing out to grab a towel.

‘It’s Sergei…I want to speak to you.’

Aquamarine eyes flying wide with surprise in her flushed face, Alissa snatched the white towelling robe off the back of the door and hastily put it on. It was not a flattering garment but it was better than a bath towel.

Barefoot and hesitant, she emerged, feeling naked without her make-up on. She had not even had the time to run a brush through the tousled damp hair she had piled on top of her head.