Innocent in the Ivory Tower

Maisy struggled along behind, no longer holding his hand but being shackled and dragged. So much for taking the reins. But she didn’t mind all that much. If he wanted to behave like a caveman she was happy to be what he was dragging back to his cave.

To her annoyance, Carlo Santini stepped out of the corridor at the top of the stairs. Alexei swore when he saw him. A volley of vitriolic Russian intruded on Maisy’s dreamy state.

Alexei made a silencing gesture with one hand, then turned with elaborate politeness and said in English, ‘A small emergency has arisen, Maisy. I may be some time.’

He didn’t touch her. He didn’t kiss her. He just walked away. And Maisy, disappointment settling over her, very slowly bent down and removed her shoes, sinking back down to ground level.

In her stockinged feet she returned to her room. She felt alarmingly keyed-up, but had no intention of decking herself out on his bed on the faint chance he would return and want her on tap. The moment had passed.

She didn’t know why, but seeing Carlo Santini had reminded her of the type of relationship Alexei had set down for them. He had his life, his work—which he was now attending to—and he had a woman for recreation. Which happened to be her.

It didn’t go a long way to making a girl feel special.

Maisy stripped herself of all her clothes but didn’t take a shower. She spent a long time scrubbing her make-up off until she was barefaced. She hesitated over the negligee. Something was niggling—something that told her if she donned it and waited for him she would be playing right into his stupid mistress scenario.

So she dug out her old sleepshirt instead. It was just a long white T-shirt with a cartoon mouse on the front, soft from hundreds of washings. It felt so familiar she was assailed with an overwhelming longing for a simpler life, and the less complicated girl she had once been.

I need Anais, she thought sadly, curling up like a snail on her bed. Anais would read Alexei like a book and provide footnotes. To me he’s just a seething mass of testosterone and conflicting messages. I can’t keep up. She yawned and snuggled into her pillow, hugging it to her. Her bed felt huge and empty, but it wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to sleeping alone.

She surfaced to consciousness with a sigh. A large male hand was on her inner thigh and she jolted, rolling backwards to thud into his big, solid body.

‘Alexei. You gave me a fright,’ she mumbled groggily.

‘I apologise, dushka, I didn’t mean to wake you.’ But he was kissing the back of her neck in the way she’d learned she liked, and her bottom was pressed against what was clearly on his mind.

‘I can’t do this,’ she protested, but he was already lifting her T-shirt, peeling it up her body. She squirmed and pulled away. ‘No, stop it.’ She kicked out at him. ‘I need to sleep.’

‘Sleep?’ Alexei sounded incredulous.

‘Yes,’ she muttered. ‘And so do you if your mood’s anything to go by.’

A very big part of her wanted him to pull her into his arms and override her objections. Instead Alexei literally thrust himself away from her, rolling onto his back, sweeping aside the covers.

‘Where are you going?’ she demanded softly, struggling to sit up.

He jack-knifed out of the bed. ‘I need a shower, if that’s all right by you. A cold one.’

Maisy pulled the covers back over her, but as the minutes went by she felt herself shivering. It only grew worse as the time ticked by. She heard the shower being switched on and off. Any minute now he was going to walk through here and out of that door.

She heard the door open, shut. Maisy rolled over to watch him in the moonlight coming through the window. He was picking up her clothes.

‘What are you doing?’ she framed softly.

He didn’t reply. He draped her gown over the armchair in the corner, and then her bra, her stockings and barely there cami-knickers. All the bits she had strewn carelessly over the floor. Maisy had never met a coat hanger she liked.

She watched him silently, still shivering but feeling strangely moved. His gestures were so precise they seemed to have meaning. Now he would leave, she thought, as he ran out of items. Except he didn’t. He climbed into bed beside her and there was only the sound of his breathing, steady and deep, and hers, uncertain and shallow.

‘Your emergency,’ she said uncertainly. ‘What was it about?’

Alexei was silent for so long Maisy didn’t think he was going to answer her. His words startled her when he did speak. ‘It was to do with a timber company.’

‘Nothing serious?’ She had an excuse now to roll over.

Alexei was lying on his back, naked, one arm hooked behind his head. He was staring up at the ceiling and didn’t look at her, but she could see the tiredness in the set of his profile and for the first time it occurred to her how work never stopped for him.