A Prize Beyond Jewels

‘I do not want to see you hurt by this man, maya doch,’ her father said gently.

‘And I’m assuring you that isn’t going to happen,’ Nina insisted firmly. ‘I told you, I haven’t even decided yet whether or not I even like Raphael D’Angelo!’

‘That’s a pity, because I’ve decided I like you, Nina,’ drawled an infuriatingly familiar voice.

Nina felt the colour drain from her cheeks as she turned sharply to face Rafe D’Angelo as he stood in the doorway slightly behind her father’s butler, obviously having just arrived, and looking breathtakingly handsome in his black evening clothes, with that overlong ebony hair brushed back from his handsome face.

Rafe almost laughed out loud at the look of dismay on Nina Palitov’s face as she realised he had overheard her telling remark in regard to him.

But he only almost laughed...

Not only was it not particularly amusing to hear her state her uncertainty of liking him so plainly, but the way she looked this evening had totally robbed him of the breath to laugh even if he had wanted to!

Nina was wearing a gown the same moss-green as her eyes, a knee-length sheath of a gown that clung lovingly to her womanly curves, with two ribbon straps across her otherwise bare shoulders and arms, the swell of her breasts visible above the low neckline, those long legs revealed as being slender and shapely, with three-inch-heeled shoes of the same colour as her gown bringing her height up to six feet. Her fiery red hair, that crowning glory, was held back from her temples with two diamond clips, but otherwise fell in that tumbling cascade of curls down the length of her spine to rest above the shapely bottom he had so enjoyed looking at yesterday as she’d walked away from him.

‘Mr D’Angelo, sir.’ The English butler maintained a wooden expression as he belatedly announced Rafe’s arrival.

‘Do come in and join us, Mr D’Angelo,’ his host invited smoothly.

Rafe gave the butler a ruefully sympathetic smile as he stepped past him into the sitting room, that smile freezing, becoming fixed, as he looked at his host fully for the first time and realised that Dmitri Palitov was sitting in a wheelchair rather than one of the cream velvet armchairs!

‘I trust you will understand why I do not get up to greet you, Mr D’Angelo,’ Dmitri Palitov drawled dryly as he obviously saw Rafe’s look of surprise.

A surprise Rafe quickly masked beneath a politely bland smile as he strode across the room to shake the hand the older man held out to him. ‘No problem. And please call me Rafe,’ he invited lightly as he released his hand from the other man’s strong grip. ‘Despite being unsure as to whether or not she likes me, your daughter already calls me Rafe,’ he added softly before glancing challengingly across to where Nina stood silently watching the two men. His glance was slightly censorious, but not because of what Nina had said; Rafe would have appreciated a heads up in regard to knowing her father was in a wheelchair before actually meeting his host this evening.

Although he acknowledged that might have been a little difficult for her to do. Nina had done as he’d asked, and left her father’s address with his assistant earlier, but Rafe admitted to going out of his way to ensure the two of them didn’t actually meet during the hours she had been at the gallery today.

Because he was annoyed.

With himself, not Nina.

Nina could have no idea that his evening with Jennifer Nichols had gone so disastrously wrong for the simple reason he couldn’t stop thinking about Nina. Or, at least, his rebellious body had refused to stop thinking about Nina.

So much so that Rafe hadn’t felt an ounce of desire to bed the beautiful actress at the end of the evening, and had instead merely kissed Jennifer on the cheek after driving her home, before then going home alone to his own apartment and his empty bed. Not to go straight to sleep, unfortunately, as a certain part of his anatomy had refused to comply, and even when he had finally slept it had been fitfully, and filled with dreams of bedding flame-haired Nina!

Consequently Rafe hadn’t been in the best of moods all day; he’d certainly felt no inclination to actually see or talk to the woman who was causing his present lack of sexual desire to bed another woman. Something that had never happened to him before, and Rafe didn’t appreciate that it was happening to him now either.

‘Do not blame Nina for her earlier remark,’ his host advised ruefully. ‘What you overheard her say was merely as a result of my having just teased her.’

Rafe wondered exactly what Dmitri Palitov had been teasing his daughter about to have elicited such a vehement response from her, and that curiosity was added to by the sudden blush that now coloured Nina’s cheeks.