Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife

Crown Prince Jasim was already rising to greet her approach with a wide smile of welcome. ‘Alissa, what a great pleasure it is to be at your wedding. When the invitation arrived, I’m afraid I paid no attention to the bride’s identity, for it never occurred to me that I might already know her.’

‘Elinor isn’t here with you?’ Alissa queried just as Sergei drew level and curved an arm to her slender spine.

‘Sergei…’ The handsome heir to the hereditary desert throne of Quaram delivered his congratulations before turning back to Alissa to answer her question about her friend and former flatmate. ‘Sami has a bad dose of chickenpox and Elinor could not bring herself to leave him.’

Alissa fully understood that maternal decision on her friend’s part. ‘Of course, she couldn’t. If Sami’s miserable he’ll need his mother for comfort.’ She asked after Jasim and Elinor’s little daughter, Mariyah. When Alissa had last seen the royal children, Mariyah had been a newborn baby.

‘How did you get to know Jasim’s wife?’ Sergei asked, amazed that such an association had escaped his knowledge.

‘I met her when she was pregnant with Sami and living in London. I was a student then and Elinor and I, along with another girl, shared a flat for a while,’ she explained. ‘But it’s been months since I last heard from Elinor. We always meet up when she visits London. She’s still one of my closest friends but since she married Jasim she’s become incredibly busy. I must phone her and catch up. What’s your connection with Jasim?’

‘We see each other regularly at OPEC meetings. I’ve never met his wife but I’ve heard that she’s a beauty.’

A warm smile lit up Alissa’s heart-shaped face. ‘She is. And I learned to knit purely for Sami’s benefit. He was the most gorgeous baby,’ she told him softly.

Someone else was toasting them and the same chant of ‘Gorko! Gorko!’ started up again. Dark eyes locked appreciatively to her smiling face, Sergei took her into his arms to kiss and she was more than ready for the experience the second time around. It was like falling from an exhilarating height and burning up in the process. In the aftermath, her pulses were racing. When the wedding breakfast was served, she drank champagne and picked without much appetite at the first course she was served while an internationally famous singer took to the floor to entertain them.

In a party atmosphere that ensured that there was a good deal more drinking than eating going on, Alissa enjoyed several drinks and felt a little dizzy when she got up to dance with Sergei. She was wondering how a man she barely knew could have such a massive impact on her. Around him her body had a life of its own. She was short of breath without running and when he drew her close and the evocative scent of his skin and the cologne he used assailed her, butterflies went mad in her tummy. Inwardly she was already regretting that, with vodka flowing like literal water, she might have accepted too many of the drinks pressed on her.

‘Tell me,’ Alissa asked as she ditched her usual caution while they danced, ‘was a wish to please your grandmother the reason you wanted a wife?’

Sergei tensed and glanced down at her with cool dark eyes.

Alissa tilted her chin. ‘There’s no need to look at me as if I’m about to run off and tell the newspapers!’

His aggressive jaw line clenched. ‘You had better not,’ he murmured with chilling bite. ‘I will not have Yelena hurt.’

‘I wouldn’t hurt her. She’s so happy you’ve got married,’ Alissa whispered, noting the old lady’s animation as she chatted to her companions at the table. After a bad first marriage, Sergei had been understandably reluctant to take the plunge a second time. That made perfect sense to her. His caring so much for an elderly relative, however, touched her heart and showed her another side to his tough character. But her smooth brow furrowed because she could only consider his solution to Yelena’s desire for him to remarry downright quixotic and blind in the short term. Surely his grandmother would only be more upset when his second marriage broke down as well?

‘To ensure that you don’t cause a scene, milaya moya,’ Sergei murmured lazily, ‘I will warn you that you are about to be snatched away from me. It’s a tradition. I ransom you back.’

So, Alissa made no protest at being hustled out of the function room by a noisy crowd of well-refreshed guests and thrust into what she at first took for a cupboard but which, on lengthier scrutiny, she realised was a housekeeper’s storage room. She leant back against the shelves and wondered how long it would take for him to pay the ransom.

Only minutes later she had her answer when the door flew open framing Sergei’s tall, powerful frame. He snatched her into his arms again and kissed her, all the raw energy and white hot sexuality of his temperament poured into that potent sensual assault. As he whirled her away to a chorus of approval someone trod on her dress and she heard a worrying ripping sound.

‘My dress is torn!’ she exclaimed, her hands clutching the sparkling fabric over her thighs in dismay.

Sergei crouched down to examine the frayed remnant of fabric now trailing. He leapt up again and signalled someone. Ten minutes later she was standing in the bedroom of a fabulous hotel suite, clad only in her lingerie while her dress was carefully repaired in the reception roo

m next door. She flinched and spun round in dismay when the door opened without even the hint of a warning knock.

Sergei focused on her small slender figure and the laughing comment he had meant to make fell from his memory there and then. She whipped her arms protectively round her scantily clad body but not before he had had the opportunity to enjoy an enchanting glimpse of her pale rounded curves. He leant back against the door and snapped home the lock, his dark eyes flashing hot gold at the sight of the pouting breasts encased in white gossamer-fine lace that revealed her delicate pink nipples. Her tiny waist, the feminine swell of her hips and the elegant sweep of her slender thighs only heightened his interest.

‘Why are you hiding yourself? Let me see you properly, milaya moya,’ Sergei urged, discovering to his amazement that he was as eager as a boy to see her naked. The pulse at his groin, which had kept him simmering on the edge of full arousal for hours, accelerated.

Her aquamarine eyes widened, her body quickening with a desire she couldn’t stifle. His heated look of masculine appreciation flattered her, making her unexpectedly proud of her body. But innate common sense told her that such a thought was brazen and likely to get her into trouble. Furthermore she could not credit that her rather ordinary shape could compare to that of the international selection of well-known beauties he was accustomed to being with. Embarrassment and discomfiture attacked her then in a blinding wave. She sat down at the foot of the bed and crossed her arms, concealing her lightly clad body as best she could.

Sergei had had more than enough of waiting. Ever since the first night with her at his club, he had been ablaze with fierce sexual need and impatience. For a man with no concept of female reluctance or of pleasure deferred, that wait had proved a tough and thankless challenge. Now, with his lean muscular body honed to a raw edge of desire by the kissing, the dancing and the lack of privacy that had enforced rigorous restraint on his strong libido, he was intensely hungry for her and in no mood to hide it. In a sudden movement, he pitched off his jacket and yanked loose his tie.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ Alissa asked, wide-eyed.

‘You’re not very good at following through on orders, are you?’ Sergei murmured in his deep, dark, accented drawl. ‘That wilful independent streak is something we can work on together—’

‘We can’t…er…get involved,’ Alissa protested, her voice taking on a slightly shrill note that carried a hint of panic.

‘There’s no point in saying that we can’t do what we’ve already done,’ Sergei countered with fierce conviction and he reached for her hands to tug her up off the bed without further ado. ‘I’ve been involved from the first moment I saw you. It’s not what I planned; it’s definitely not what I wanted. I never mix business with pleasure—’

‘This is business,’ she reminded him shakily, having discovered that those scorching golden eyes of his had sufficient impact to hold her as securely still as handcuffs and leg irons. She wanted to pull back and stay connected to him at one and the same time.