Untouched by His Diamonds

Clementine looked up at him. ‘Thank you for inviting me. All I’ve been doing lately is working. It’s nice to put on a frock and be taken out somewhere fun.’

Bozhe, she was so sincere. And he was buying it. It probably made him a sap, but there was something about her in this moment that made him want to believe her.

‘You’re a very easy woman to please, kisa,’ he said at last, ‘but the evening has hardly begun, no?’

Clementine hid a smile. ‘Maybe for you, Slugger, but I’m beat and I’ve got an early start tomorrow.’

And didn’t that just tie up all his expectations in knots and toss them in the river? Serge rolled his shoulders. ‘Right,’ he said—and everything fell into place.

She’d known all along tonight wasn’t going to end in bed, which meant the little act in the car had been for her own amusement. He remembered the sparkle in her eyes, the invitation to laugh along with her.

He’d missed it because he’d been deep down in lust land.

Which meant tonight was a lost opportunity—for both of them. She was going home on Saturday, leaving him with a decision to make.

Was she worth the pursuit? Or—the better question—should he be messing with her? This nice girl? All sweet and sincere? And didn’t that just get him in the traditional Russian male part of himself that he didn’t make a habit of showing off? Where had he got the idea she wouldn’t need seducing? Why shouldn’t she make him work for it?

Instincts he didn’t have a whole lot of familiarity with told him he needed to handle this delicately. Another, more familiar instinct was telling him to take her in his arms and drive every thought she could possibly have about other men out of her head—at least until tomorrow. It had to be tomorrow. Because she was going back to London on Saturday.

And if he didn’t have her in his arms in one form or another tonight he was going to go crazy.

He reached and caught her hand—something he’d been wanting to do all night. She turned towards him, expression expectant, amused. He closed the space between them and lifted his other hand to hook one of her artfully liberated coils of hair away from her cheek. Her smile faded, her eyes grew a little rounder, her mouth softened.

‘You’re killing me, Clementine,’ he said in Russian, and moved in to put himself out of his misery.

In that moment she made a soft little sound of dismay and to his surprise turned away, slipping her hand free of his with a nervous laugh.

‘I still want to buy you that ice cream,’ she said over her shoulder.

Ice cream. Not sex. Not even a kiss. Not tonight.

She began walking, swaying a little on those silly heels, and he stood there, stock still, gazing after her.

She threw him a backward glance.

‘Coming, Slugger?’

She was going the wrong way. The ice cream vendors were in the other direction. But her question dissolved into a teasing smile, and without giving it a second thought he took off after her.

CHAPTER FOUR

SERGE had spent the morning listening to the argument that had broken out between the president of his company and the man he trusted above all others: trainer Mick Forster. Broadcast from the boardroom in the Marinov Building in New York City to the screen facing him, it had convinced him of one thing.

‘I’ll be at JFK tomorrow lunchtime,’ he said briefly, and closed his laptop. He pushed away from the desk, striding over to the windows of his Fontanka Canal apartment.

He’d been out of the country less than a day and he already had problems with a young fighter, Kolcek, who was up on assault charges and getting a raft of publicity that was not the kind the organisation needed. More importantly they were behind on the stadium going up in New York—an ongoing issue—but his management team were scrambling in the onslaught of media attention, as evidenced by this morning.

He didn’t like the look of it.

Yet all he could think about was that because of tardy contractors and a coked-up fighter who needed to be cut loose he was going to lose Clementine Chevalier.

Sexy, tempting, guarded Clementine. What was her game?

He’d taken her back to that dismal lodging last night, insisted on walking her up to her door. He’d been thinking more about the woeful security than infiltrating her defences when he’d lingered in her doorway. He’d seen once more the drab room, and then his eyes had lit on the condoms sitting on her bedside table right beside the door.

For a girl who didn’t kiss on a first date she had come prepared.

Was she sleeping with someone else? Was that the problem?

She’d said she didn’t have a boyfriend, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t sexually active. In fact it would be a crime against nature if she wasn’t.