A Prize Beyond Jewels

And she wasn’t just referring to the physical pleasure she had experienced with him last night.

These last few days with Rafe, and the things he had said to her last night when they argued, had made Nina once again question her own life, and the way in which she lived it.

Heaven knew, she never ever wanted to hurt her father. He had been hurt enough, but some of the things Rafe had said to her last night had settled deep within Nina, breaking open the fragile shell she had placed about her own hopes and dreams for the future, and forcing her to question as to whether or not, after all these years, it really was still necessary for her to live her life under the constant shadow of the past.

Surely there had to be some way of compromising? Some way of reassuring her father as to her safety, while at the same time being able to pursue her own dreams? Of being able to live her life without feeling as if she were in a gilded cage?

‘It is not okay,’ Rafe snarled as he spared a warning glare for the two burly bodyguards now flanking Nina. ‘We’re going up to my office to talk,’ he rasped as he stood to one side to allow her to precede him out of the gallery.

Nina knew by the glitter in Rafe’s eyes, his tight and thinned mouth, tensed jaw, and the angry flare of his nostrils that he was barely holding his temper in check.

A temper Nina hadn’t even realised he possessed until this moment, Rafe’s usual mood seeming to be one of laid-back charm and private amusement at the world.

Neither did Nina understand the reason for his current mood. The two of them had been out to dinner together yesterday evening, after which they had spent the night together, enjoyed each other to the full—as the pleasurable aches in Nina’s body testified!—so what was Rafe’s problem this morning?

Surely this was the way the game was played? No strings, no attachments, no expectations, on either side? Rafe’s past history with relationships certainly said that was the way he liked to live his own life. And it was the way Nina had decided she would treat their relationship.

‘I’m busy, Rafe.’

‘Now, Nina!’ he bit out harshly, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw.

‘I don’t think you should be talking to Miss Palitov in that tone of voice, Mr D’Angelo.’

‘Stay out of this!’ Rafe turned fiercely on the bodyguard. Rich or Andy—they were interchangeable as far as he was concerned!

He was just relieved to have something else—someone else—to vent his frustrations on.

Rafe’s imagination had run riot once he accepted that Nina had left his apartment without so much as saying goodbye. He wondered if in the clear light of day she was angry or upset about last night, or maybe a combination of the two.

He had become even more frustrated when he realised he didn’t even have a personal telephone number on which he could contact her, and he had been in no mood to speak with her father to get to her, either. No doubt the older man would have been informed, and have an opinion, on where his daughter had spent the previous night.

Not that Rafe gave a damn how Dmitri Palitov felt about that. He just wanted to talk to Nina, and he was pretty sure, after the previous warning Dmitri had given him in respect of his daughter, that the older man wouldn’t be in the least helpful in that regard.

Showering quickly before dressing and driving over to Nina’s apartment hadn’t been in the least productive either. The two men manning the reception desk—obviously yet more of the Palitov security—refused to tell Rafe anything other than Miss Palitov was ‘currently not at home’.

An ambiguous answer that caused Rafe to question whether or not Nina really wasn’t in her apartment, or just not at home to him, in particular?

Annoyed, frustrated, and more than a little concerned as to the reasons Nina had decided to leave so abruptly, and with no way of knowing and no one to answer those concerns, Rafe had driven to Archangel, deciding he would contact Nina again later today. Only to be told when he entered the gallery that Nina was here, as she had been for the past three days, working in the east gallery organising the display of the Palitov jewellery collection.

Rafe had gone straight to the east gallery, where he found Nina down on her hands and knees calmly arranging her father’s jewellery collection in one of the display cases—as if last night hadn’t happened. As if she hadn’t left Rafe’s apartment this morning before he had even woken up, as if he hadn’t been worried as to why she might have done that! It had turned his churning emotions, his worry and concern, into a burning fury.

A fury that he realised was all the more deeply felt because he had opened up to this woman last night. Let his guard down, confided things in her, in a way he had never done with any other woman.