Innocent in the Ivory Tower

She climbed the back stairs to the kitchen, feeling a little like Cinderella gearing up for the ball and going in the back way.

‘Maisy, bella figura!’ Maria exclaimed in Italian when she came into the kitchen, dusting off her floury hands and leaving the bread she was kneading to come and encircle Maisy, smiling broadly.

‘Dinner with the boss, eh?’ Maria folded her arms, shaking her head.

‘To talk about Kostya,’ Maisy answered primly.

The older woman gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘He’s a good boy,’ observed Maria. ‘But all these parties, these women.’ She threw her hands up expressively.

Parties? Women? Maisy just knew she didn’t want to hear any of this. Yet when Maria sighed and went back to kneading the bread she wanted to scream, And?

Maria’s raisin-brown eyes slanted sideways at Maisy. ‘What he needs is a good girl who can cook, raise the bambinos and keep him happy in the bed, yes?’

Maisy didn’t know where to look. Cook, clean and heat up the sheets … Oh, and don’t forget the baby-making factory. No, thank you.

‘He might have learned the English, and he has the houses in Miami and New York, but he’s European.’ Maria leaned her floury forearms on the board and fixed Maisy with a steely determination at odds with her short, round little body. ‘The Russian men—they’re like the Italians. They are traditional. Oh, times have moved on, and Alexei is what they say—a modern guy—but when he settles down …’

Maria straightened up with a sigh and wiped her hands.

‘He doesn’t particularly strike me as being ready to settle down just yet,’ Maisy muttered, wishing they weren’t having this conversation so close to her sitting down to dinner with him in a strapless dress.

‘If you leave it to the men they’ll never be ready,’ said Maria. ‘They always need the little nudge.’

Alexei would need some heavy earth moving equipment and possibly a natural disaster to shift him out of bachelor status, Maisy thought ruefully. He didn’t strike her at all as the marrying type.

‘You must be careful, Maisy,’ said the older woman, her eyes settling on Maisy’s flushed décolletage. ‘He is the real man, and he will chase you, and you’re a nice girl.’

The real man. That he was, thought Maisy, giving her bodice an upward tug in an effort to reinstate the ‘nice girl’. Preoccupied, she made her way into the dining room. Alexei wasn’t there, but one of his suits was waiting for her. Maisy recognised him as Andrei, the young man who had driven her here on the first day. He was friendly towards her in a way nobody except Maria had been since her arrival and, feeling nervous, she instantly engaged him in conversation about his day as she accompanied him upstairs and onto the roof terrace.

Alexei heard her voice before he saw her, and when she emerged he made the immediate decision never to send another man to fetch Maisy. In future he would undertake that task himself.

She was wearing some sort of frock, but it was difficult to register that when she moved, because the killer heels made her sway and he was pretty sure there was nothing between Maisy and that dress but air. The neckline was relatively modest—she wasn’t spilling out of it, but the shape of her gave the impression she was. It was a dress designed to make a man think about what was poured into it. He was already planning how to take her out of it.

Maisy felt like a princess as he advanced towards her. Behind him there was a round table dressed in white and crystal, and there he was, in dark formal trousers and an expensive white shirt open at the neck to reveal the tanned strong column of his throat.

This wasn’t a considered discussion about Kostya’s future. This was a date.

‘You always make me wait, Maisy.’

She looked up at him without understanding.

Up close, he saw she’d made a mystery of her cinnamon eyes and her lush mouth was a deep pink. There was a faint scent of exotic flowers clinging to her skin. She’d made an effort to be beautiful for him, he acknowledged. It meant he had to make an effort and not ravish her on the table before the first course.

He seated her and sat down across from her.

‘You look beautiful, Maisy.’

She gave him a wry look. It wasn’t the reaction he had been after.

‘Do you always dine here, up on the rooftop?’

‘Occasionally, when the mood strikes.’

He lifted the champagne and decanted some into a flute glass for her and then poured his own. Maisy watched the pale bubbles surge.

‘It’s so lovely,’ she said, gazing around. ‘I would eat up here all the time if I could. Is Maria preparing the meal?’