It all happened in a moment. His mouth was gone, his hands were gone, and she was leaning up against her bedroom door, clutching a towel to her near nakedness and staring into the eyes of a man who looked shell shocked.

What in the hell was he doing here? He had twelve security personnel scoping the property, a car waiting and a jet on the tarmac at Heathrow, and he—Alexei Ranaevsky—was seducing the nanny in an upstairs bedroom.

And doing a spectacularly lousy job of it.

‘Maisy.’ He spoke her name abruptly.

‘You haven’t changed your mind?’ she challenged with what nerve she had left, strengthening her voice with the knowledge that Kostya came first. ‘About me coming? With Kostya?’

For a moment he actually looked confused, as if she had said something completely out of left field, when it was the only thing that mattered—wasn’t it? Then he sighed and ran a hand over his unshaven face.

‘No, I haven’t changed my mind,’ he muttered. ‘God help me, I haven’t changed my mind.’

About the Author

LUCY ELLIS has four loves in life: books, expensive lingerie, vintage films and big, gorgeous men who have to duck going through doorways. Weaving aspects of them into her fiction is the best part of being a romance writer. Lucy lives in a small cottage in the foothills outside Melbourne.

INNOCENT IN THE IVORY TOWER is Lucy’s first book!

Innocent in the Ivory Tower

Lucy Ellis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Martha

CHAPTER ONE

ALEXEI RANAEVSKY strode across the light-filled environs of his floating boardroom and picked up the newspaper one of his staff had been careless enough to leave behind.

He had made it clear he wanted to see no reportage of the Kulikov tragedy, but now the initial shock was wearing off he found himself drawn to what could only be described as the circus that was attaching itself to events. How to dismantle that circus was his current concern.

How to grieve for his closest friend would come after.

Events had moved to the third page. A picture of Leo and Anais at a race meeting in Dubai, Leo’s head thrown back, laughing, his arm welded around Anais’s slender waist. A golden couple. Alongside was exactly what Alexei didn’t want to see: a photograph of the mangled car wreck. The 1967 Aston Martin—Leo’s ‘baby’—nothing more than steel and destroyed electronics. Leo and Anais’s very human bodies hadn’t stood a chance.

The commentary below—because you couldn’t call it news—was adjective-heavy, full of references to Anais’s beauty and Leo’s work for the UN. Alexei scanned it for a few seconds, then sucked in a sharp breath.

Konstantine Kulikov.

Kostya.

There was something about seeing that name in print that made what had felt for days now like a nightmare fiercely, immediately real. At least there was no picture of the boy. Leo had been intensely guarded about their private life: he and Anais had been fair game for the media, but their family life had been off-limits to anyone outside their circle. It was a sentiment Alexei admired him for. It was a rule he laid down in his own life. There was the public man, and the private familya, and the fact that Leo had been that family for him made his grief all the more stupefying.

‘Alexei?’

His head snapped up, jaw hard, eyes emotionless.

For a second her name evaded him. ‘Tara,’ he said.

If she noticed the lapse it did not register on her stunning face. It was a face that was currently making her several million dollars a year in beauty endorsements, in lieu of an acting career that had gone nowhere.

‘Everyone’s waiting, darling,’ she said smoothly, crossing the space between them and pulling the newspaper out of his hands.

It was the wrong thing to do.

He had never struck a woman in his life, and he had no intention of starting now, but every fibre of his body wanted to lash out. Instead he froze. Tara lifted her chin defiantly. She was nothing if not bold—and wasn’t that what had drawn him to her?

‘You don’t need to look at that trash,’ she said harshly. ‘You need to pull it together and get out there and put a civilised face on this whole debacle.’

Everything she said was everything he knew, but something—some important mechanism between his brain and his emotions—had snapped. Many would say he didn’t have any emotions, not real ones. He certainly hadn’t cried for Leo and Anais. He hadn’t even cried for his own dead parents. But there was something surging through him that his brain wasn’t going to be able to control. Something that had its wellspring in that child’s name in black-and-white in newspaper ink.

Kostya.

Orphaned.

Alone.

Tara’s ‘debacle’.

‘Let them wait,’ he said coldly, his English coloured by his Russian accent. ‘And what in the hell are you wearing? This isn’t a cocktail party—it’s a family gathering.’

Tara snorted laughter. It was one of the traits he had once found appealing about her, her lack of self-consciousness—as if her overwhelming physical beauty made it possible for her to say anything, do anything, be anything.

‘Family? Give me a break—those people aren’t your family.’ She reached out and pressed her red-taloned hand to his waist, taut beneath the expensively tailored cream shirt. ‘You have as much family feeling as a cat, Alexei,’ she stated, face upturned, lips wet and red, her hand making its way down the front of his dark trousers. ‘A big, mean, feral cat. Very big.’ Her hand settled on what she found there. ‘Not up to play today, darling?’

His body had begun to respond as long familiarity with the process had taught it, but sex was not on today’s agenda. It hadn’t been on the agenda since Monday, when his right-hand man, Carlo, had brought him the news in the early hours. He remembered the snapping on of the lamp, Carlo’s murmured voice as he laid out the spare, basic facts such as they had been. Then he had been alone in that big flat bed, swimming in emptiness. Tara had been beside him, dead to the world under a blanket of whatever drugs she took to sleep. A body.

He had been alone.

I never want to have sex with this woman ever again.

He grasped her forearm and gently but with leashed force revolved her one hundred and eighty degrees to face the door.

‘Off you go,’ he murmured in her ear, as if imparting an endearment—only his voice was completely dead of feeling. ‘Join them on deck. Don’t drink too much, and here.’ He picked up the newspaper she had dropped on the boardroom table. ‘Dispose of this.’

Tara had been in the wide world long enough to know she was experiencing the infamous Ranaevsky Chill Factor. She just hadn’t expected to feel it herself, or perhaps not quite so soon.

‘Danni was right. You are a cold bastard.’

Alexei didn’t have a clue who Danni was—didn’t particularly care. He just wanted Tara out of the room. Out of his life.

He wanted the people outside off his boat.

He wanted to turn the clock back to Sunday.

Mostly he wanted his control back. Control over the situation.

‘How in the hell are you going to raise a child?’ Tara snarled as she strutted out through the door.

Control. His dark eyes fixed on the Florida coastline, visible through the wraparound windows. He would begin by doing what he needed to do. Speaking to the people outside. Speaking to Carlo. Most of all speaking to Kostya, a two-year-old infant. But first he needed to fly across the Atlantic to do it.

‘“The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat,”‘ sang Maisy in a soft contralto, her body arced over the small boy curled on his side in the crib. He had been sucking on the plump flesh of his fist, but as sleep claimed him his pink mouth closed and presently his barrel-shaped chest rose and fell beneath the delicate ribbed cotton singlet he wore.

She had been singing to him for a while now, after a full half-hour of reading, and her throat felt dry, her voice slightly hoarse. But it was worth it to see him like this, so peaceful.

Standing up, she scanned the room, checking everything was in its place. The nursery was as it had always been—a place of womblike security—yet everything outside it had changed. For this little boy, for ever.

Tiptoeing out, she closed the door. The baby monitor was on and she knew from experience he would sleep now until after midnight. It was her chance to get some food and then some sleep herself. She’d been awake so much of the past thirty-six hours she couldn’t even gauge how much sleep she’d had.

Two floors down, the kitchen was dimly lit. Valerie, the Kulikovs’ housekeeper, had left the spotlights over the benches on for her, and they cast an almost ghostly glow. Valerie had also left a dish of macaroni and cheese in the fridge to be reheated, and Maisy silently thanked her as she slid the bowl into the microwave.

The older woman had been a godsend this week. When the news had come through of the crash Maisy had been in her room, packing for a vacation that was due to start on Tuesday. She remembered putting down the telephone and sitting by it for a full ten minutes before she even thought of what to do next. Then she had rung Valerie and life had resumed movement.

She and Valerie had both expected Leo and Anais’s families to sweep in, but the house in the private London square had remained silent. Inside, Valerie continued to do her hours and return to her family at night, and Maisy cared for her charge and waited for the plea that had not yet come. I want Mama.

The press had been there for a couple of days, pushing up at the windows, clambering over the iron railings to drop to the basement. Valerie had kept the blinds drawn, and Maisy had only taken Kostya out once, to the private garden across the road. Maisy had worked for the Kulikovs since Kostya’s birth, and lived in this house all that time. Leo and Anais had travelled frequently. Maisy was accustomed to being alone with Kostya for weeks at a time. Yet there was something—empty—tonight. The house felt too quiet, and Maisy found herself jumping as the microwave pinged, pressing open the door with a hand that trembled.

Get a grip, she told herself sternly, using an oven mitt to carry the bowl over to the big French provincial table. She didn’t bother to turn on the main light. There was something comforting about the darkness.

Steam rose off the macaroni. She ought to be hungry, and she needed to keep her strength up. Her fork made a cruise around the edges. In her mind’s eye she could still see Anais in this very room a week ago, laughing in that full-throated way at a drawing Kostya had done in crayon on the floor tiles of a giraffe with a head like his mummy’s. Anais had been almost six feet tall, and mostly legs, which had been the focus of her modelling career. It was clearly how her little son had seen her from his diminutive position.

Maisy remembered the first time she had met Anais. She had been a small, dumpy swot, detailed by her headmistress to introduce the skinny, impossibly tall Anais Parker-Stone to the rituals of St Bernice’s. Anais hadn’t known then that Maisy Edmonds was a charity girl, her place in the very exclusive girls’ school arranged for her on a government programme. When she had found out, Anais hadn’t changed her allegiances. If Maisy had been ostracised for her background, Anais had been victimised for her height.

For two years the girls had been close friends, until Anais dropped out at sixteen and four months later had started modelling in New York. Two years later she was famous.

As Maisy had matured she’d lost her puppy fat, gained a waist and some length in her legs, and her curves had become an asset. She had gone on to university but dropped out before the first term had even begun. Her only contact with Anais had been via the glossy magazines Anais stalked through. When Maisy had run into her at Harrods it had been Anais who’d recognised her—probably because she had hardly changed, Maisy thought ruefully.

Anais, all sleek blonde bob and three-inch heels, had shrieked with joy, thrown her skinny arms around Maisy’s small shoulders and jumped up and down like a teenage girl. A teenage girl with a baby bump. Three months later Maisy had been ensconced in Lantern Square, with a newborn baby in her arms and a completely overwhelmed Anais weeping and threatening to kill herself and trying to escape the house every chance she could. Nobody had ever told her motherhood wasn’t a job she could walk away from, that it was for life.

A far too short life, as it had turned out, Maisy thought heavily and stopped pretending to eat. She pushed the plate away. She had cried for her friend, and she had cried for tiny Kostya. She imagined at some point those tears would dry up. Right now it seemed they had.

She had more pressing considerations.

Any day now a lawyer for the Kulikovs, although more likely for the Parker-Stones, would land on the doorstep. People who would take away Kostya. Maisy knew nothing about the Kulikovs other than that Leo had been an only child and his parents were deceased. But she remembered Arabella Parker-Stone, who had seen her grandson once, a few days after his birth. It had been a brief visit, involving calla lilies and harsh words between Anais and her mother.

‘I hate her, I hate her, I hate her,’ Anais had wailed afterwards into a sofa cushion, whilst Maisy rocked Kostya in her arms.

Arabella had upset everyone. But her mind was failing and she was now in a nursing home. Kostya would not be going to live with his grandmother.

Nor will he be living with me.

Maisy didn’t know how she was going to hand Kostya over to strangers. Wild thoughts of simply absconding with him had crossed her mind yesterday and today. It all seemed possible, with the world ignoring them, but once it paid attention how on earth would she manage it? She was jobless and her only skill was as a carer for the infirm, the elderly, or the very young. Her vocation was loving that little boy upstairs. He had become her family—but, more painfully, she was his. Somehow she had to find a way to stay with him. Surely whoever stepped forward would need a nanny? Would not be so cruel as to separate them … ?

Maisy took a deep breath and pushed the hair out of her face. She reeled her bowl back in and, head resting on one hand, picked at a first mouthful of pasta, munching by rote. She needed sustenance; this would give it to her. Tomorrow she would have to go through Leo’s office and phone people. Such had been his mania for privacy, very few outsiders had been in this house. Anais had never complained—she had merely gone out. Another excuse to leave her son. Maisy had never understood Anais’s inability to bond with Kostya, but she had excused it.

And now it just didn’t matter any more.

It was a movement, not a sound, that pulled her out of her miserable thoughts with an abrupt jab of adrenaline. Something shifted at the corner of her vision and her head jerked up, her shoulders pulling tight as twine.

Someone was in the house.

She froze, listening intently.

In that moment two men stepped out of the pooling darkness beyond the island bench, and as she processed their presence the room filled up with men. Three more came rushing down the stairs, and another two bursting through the garden entrance. That they all seemed to be wearing suits brought Maisy no comfort as the spoon dropped from her hand and she stumbled backwards out of her chair.

The shortest of the thugs came towards her and said, ‘Hands behind your head. Get on the floor.’

But a bigger man—taller, leaner, younger—brushed him aside and said something brusquely in a foreign language.

Maisy stared open mouthed at him, shock rooting her to the spot and he swore.

‘English, Alexei Fedorovich,’ said another of the men, almost as terrifying with his height and bulk.

Oh, God, it was the Russian mafia.

The hysterical thought coincided with the younger man making a sudden movement towards her, and Maisy’s body reacted to protect itself.

She grabbed the chair and threw it with all her might at him. Then she screamed.

CHAPTER TWO

‘ALEXEI,’ said a voice at his elbow. ‘Perhaps we should wait.’

Alexei barely spared a glance for his factotum Carlo Santini. He didn’t do waiting.

The first thing he’d noticed about the house was that the security code hadn’t been changed. Clearly no one was in charge. The second had been the almost abnormal silence of the house. It was close on midnight, but there was a closed-up feeling to the rooms. His hackles raised, he’d headed towards a pale light gleaming from the stairwell leading downstairs into the basement. His godson had been alone for four days, and he wanted to see for himself the situation he was walking into. Although his security would move up through the house from basement to attic, he knew it would be easier to cut to the chase himself.

He had spotted her immediately—a shapeless figure hunched over a bowl, sitting in the dark. Good—staff. As he’d walked across the room she had seemed to sense him, because her head had come up and for a moment he’d been thrown by the vulnerability that softened her dimly lit features as she’d sought to make sense of his presence. He’d had a further impression of fragility and femininity, despite the clothes that enveloped her.

In that moment the French doors had exploded open in front of him and more personnel had come thundering down the stairs behind him. The woman had reacted like a loaded gun. They were protecting him, but she wasn’t to know that.

The trigger for this overreaction had heaved her chair and dived under the table, rolling herself into a ball. Now, Alexei cursed and shoved the table over a few feet, hauled her up into his arms, registering her real terror as she began to kick and struggle against him. Better him than one of his security detail, who would be less inclined to go gently with her.

His muttered imprecations and rough assurances of, ‘I am not going to hurt you,’ did little to stem her reaction—until he realised in his exhausted state he was using Russian. ‘Calm yourself,’ he said distinctly in English. ‘No one wishes you any harm.’

Maisy jerked her head sideways and her eyes welded to his. They were deep blue, heavily lashed and stunning. His cheekbones were like scimitars, and she recognised that faint upsweep of his bone structure as Slavic.

He clearly hadn’t shaved in many days, but otherwise he smelled good. Maisy’s body recognised this as her mind struggled to keep up. His cologne filled her nostrils, along with the subtler but more enticing smell of him—warm, male flesh. She could feel the fight slipping out of her body as her senses told her this man truly meant her no harm, even as those same senses began to be overloaded with other messages.

Alexei sensed the change in her. She was no longer a victim fighting back but a woman in his arms, waiting for him to make a move. He reluctantly set her down, but kept one hand fastened over her shoulder, holding her in place. He didn’t want his security detail marching her off, possibly manhandling her. He didn’t question why other men touching her filled him with the primitive urge to protect her. He was tired, and he hadn’t had sex, and he was in the mood to tear down the house if he didn’t get that child.

‘Talk to her,’ he said, the weight of his hand lifting from her shoulder.

Feeling suddenly adrift, Maisy looked up to face another man—shorter, slighter, perhaps a decade older and sharply dressed—who stepped forward and inclined his head rather formally.

‘Good evening, signorina. I apologise for the intrusion. I am Carlo. I work for Alexei Ranaevsky.’

Maisy’s head swivelled back to the younger man. He wasn’t even listening. He had retrieved a phone from his jacket and was reading whatever messages it contained.

This was talking to her?

‘Try Spanish,’ was all he said, in a deep, gravelly voice she hadn’t registered before when he had spoken in Russian.

Maisy sat through Spanish, Italian and interestingly Polish renditions of the same introduction. As the Polish rolled musically on she tried to marshal her racing thoughts. Her gaze kept creeping back to the man who had restrained her. He seemed to be the focus in the room, and he reeked confidence and control. Except when she had been in his arms for a moment there she had sensed something else. Something very much uncontrolled.

Maisy suppressed an involuntary shiver and his head came up, as if sensing her movement. His darkened eyes moved over her, settling on the pulse that was beating wildly at the base of her throat. It held his assessing gaze for a moment. Then he said abruptly, ‘She’s English.’

He despatched the mobile and gave her a measured look.

‘I need to know where the boy is.’

Maisy’s skittering pulse went still. Every hackle in her body rose.

Alexei saw the moment she shut down, and cursed himself inwardly. He didn’t have time for this. When she didn’t answer he lost patience. ‘I’m taking Leonid Kulikov’s son out of here. I need you to take me to him.’

‘No,’ she said.

No? No? Alexei made a soft sound of disbelief.

‘I’m not letting you anywhere near the Kulikovs’ child. Who in the hell do you think you are?’

The kitten could scratch. Despite himself, Alexei felt his libido give a little kick.

‘I’m Alexei Ranaevsky, his legal guardian.’

Her gaze made an involuntary skate over the breadth of his chest and shoulders, then fastened on his face. He had dark hair, curling and close-cropped, and he was about as close to a fantasy as Maisy had ever had.

Yet her stomach twisted, even as she knew she ought to feel relief.

Someone had finally come for Kostya. But because no one was walking Kostya out of this house without her, this man had come for her too. Only he didn’t know it. Something fluttered low in Maisy’s chest and she recognised it was fear—quite different from the terror she had felt when these men had burst in on her. This was fear of the known.

Alexei had apparently said everything he was going to say to her, and turned around and headed for the stairs.

Maisy’s anxious ‘Wait!’ didn’t break his stride.

She chased him up two flights of stairs, all the while babbling about not waking Kostya, but he ignored her completely.

Why isn’t he listening to me?

He’d reached the nursery landing when she launched herself at him physically. ‘Please. Stop.’

Alexei paused midstride as female arms came around his waist. Bumping up against him, she grappled to take hold of his jacket. She was panting, and Alexei looked down to see some of her curls had come loose. With the colour high in her cheeks she was considerably more intriguing than she had been at first glance. She was also clearly very distressed.

But that was not his concern, Alexei dismissed irritably. She knew who he was. She was either trying to garner his attention or behaving irrationally. Either was of no interest to him. He moved and she didn’t, and a very decisive ripping sound rent the air between them.

There was an awful moment as Maisy realised what she had done. His eyes locked on hers, whatever he’d been about to say giving way to a look of complete disbelief. Satisfaction at finally gaining his attention turned up the corners of Maisy’s lips, and his stare dropped to the lush unpainted pink of her mouth and buzzed there.

Disconcerted, she lost her concentration for a moment, and something of this must have communicated itself because an answering smile hovered over his mouth. Struck, Maisy dropped her gaze and, making the most of her advantage in that moment, moved fast, scooting ahead of him and blocking his way as best she could.

‘I am not letting you see Kostya until you tell me what’s going on.’

His gaze ran the length of her, and his tone was an arctic degree cooler than his eyes. ‘You’re in full possession of the facts. I’m his legal guardian. Remove yourself.’

As if that was all he had to say.

‘Or what? You’ll get one of your bully boys to do it for you?’ Maisy challenged. Some part of her brain told her this was not persuading him she was the right person to look after Kostya, but he was making her so angry with his high-handed attitude. It wasn’t his house. Kostya wasn’t his child. And she certainly wasn’t his doormat.

‘Do you cook here? Clean?’ he rapped out. ‘Because, quite frankly, I don’t explain my actions to staff.’

‘I’m the nanny,’ she flung at him—which was close enough to the truth.

He swore under his breath, those blue eyes narrowing suspiciously on her. ‘Why in the hell didn’t you say so earlier?’

‘I wasn’t sure what was going on.’

It sounded lame even as she said it. She couldn’t very well say, You put your arms around me and I felt your body and I got thoroughly distracted, and then I saw your face and you reduced me to a puddle of wanting woman. Because she darn well knew it probably happened to him every other day.

Maisy moistened her lips, drawing herself up to her full height of five feet four inches. ‘I want you to hold on and explain to me exactly what you intend doing.’ Her voice sounded high and breathless, and unlikely to get her a response from this hard man.

He didn’t look ready to explain. He looked as if he wanted to shake her. He looked as if he couldn’t believe he was having this—any—conversation with her. A child’s wail broke the stalemate.

‘Konstantine.’

‘Kostya.’

They both spoke at once. Maisy dared him with her eyes to push her aside and he hesitated, clearly not wanting to let her pass but less sure about how gung-ho he should be with a two-year-old infant.

Maisy seized the opportunity and went first, but she could sense him close behind her all the way. She hesitated at the nursery door, then swung around and almost bumped her nose on his hard chest. His big body tensed and she cringed. She had to stop touching him. He’d think there was something wrong with her. Yet already a reactive shiver of response was running the length of her body and she instinctively took a step back.

‘Listen,’ she said, groping for composure. ‘You will stay out here. He’ll only be frightened if he sees a strange man.’

He inclined his head. ‘I will wait.’

Maisy ducked into the room, dimly lit by a night lamp near the cot. Kostya was standing in the middle of the mattress, face red and wet as his cries died away on a last wail when he saw what he wanted. Maisy. His chubby arms extended trustfully towards her and Maisy closed the distance between them in an instant.

‘Maisy!’ he enunciated clearly.

She struggled with lifting him. He was big for his age, and in another year she would have difficulty carrying him in her arms. She felt for the armchair behind her and slid into it, cradling the warm little body in her arms.

Alexei stood watching them. He hadn’t expected to be moved in any way by the sight of the child in a woman’s arms. She seemed at ease in a way he knew he could never be with such a small child. He supposed it came naturally for some women, being maternal; it had certainly not been a natural function of any of the women he knew. In fact he struggled, now he thought about it, to come up with any woman he’d been with who was comfortable around children.

Which was something he had in common with them. He definitely had no interest in his friends’ kids. He’d been godfather to Konstantine for two years and seen the child once: on the day he’d stood up for him in the Russian Orthodox Church here in London.

‘I didn’t know he would be so … small,’ Alexei said quietly, not wanting to startle the child.

Maisy smoothed her hand over the back of Kostya’s restive head as the little boy peered around to see where the male voice had come from. It was a voice that sounded somewhat like his father’s, Maisy registered. A shade deeper, but with the irregular emphasis on vowels that revealed English was a second language for him.

‘Papa,’ he said uncertainly, in his clear, high child’s voice.

‘No, it’s not Papa,’ Maisy said softly, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.

He came slowly towards them and dropped down beside the chair, so that his height and bulk were no longer frightening, and said in a grave voice, ‘Hello, Kostya. I am your godfather, Alexei Ranaevsky.’

Some of the tension Maisy was holding in her body shifted and melted with those words. Kostya’s godfather. Why hadn’t she remembered? The day of Kostya’s christening she had been in bed with a fever, but the au pair girl had brought back a gushing description of the übercool Alexei Ranaevsky, and here he was—in the flesh.

He lifted those megawatt blue eyes to her and said quietly, ‘You will get him back to sleep and I will wait for you outside.’

The velvet of his voice brushed over her. Maisy recognised his words as a directive and wondered if Alexei Ranaevsky ever asked permission for anything.

When she emerged the house felt empty again. The security detail had evaporated, although Maisy doubted they were far away. She stood at the top of the stairwell, listening for movement.

‘Here,’ came a deep voice from across the landing.

Maisy followed it into her own room. She hesitated on the threshold. Alexei was standing by the window, somehow managing to fill the entire room with his presence. Amidst the delicately feminine decor of duck-egg-blue and white he looked absurdly out of place.

‘Sit down,’ was all he said.

‘I’d rather stand …’

‘Sit down.’

Maisy rolled her eyes and sat on her narrow bed. He began to walk around, lifting framed photos, knick-knacks, even examining an atomiser of the perfume Maisy usually wore. All the while his attention seemed to be on her, and it was disconcerting. His raw energy was starting to roll through her and Maisy shifted on the bed, wishing she hadn’t sat down.

Alexei rubbed his chin ruefully and wondered why it was that after four days of abstinence, and a total lack of interest in sex for the first time in his adult life, it had all come roaring back the minute his body made contact with hers.

Looking at her now, it seemed she didn’t appear to have a waist under all that wool, but he remembered the curve of it under his hands. In the same way he knew her breasts would be soft and round and her hips and bottom lush in his hands. Her hair was much longer than it looked—she had it all caught up—and it would be long and curling. He could bury his hands in it when she was on her knees to him …

He almost growled with frustration. What was it about death and sex? Maybe that was why his body had gone there and his head had followed. Leo was dead. Leo’s child was now his lifetime responsibility, and he took his responsibilities seriously. Sitting in front of him was something both life-affirming and yet not serious at all. Sex with a real woman—not a sprayed, painted, waxed, plastic actress/model perfume commercial. Hell, she wasn’t even wearing make-up. She didn’t really need it, she had great skin, and that hair …

Suddenly she stood up. ‘Mr Ranaevsky—’

‘Alexei,’ he offered.

‘Alexei.’

She took a deep breath, and he registered she was about to make some sort of speech. That was never good.

‘I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Maisy. Maisy Edmonds.’

Maisy.

‘Sit down, Maisy.’

‘No, I need to say this standing up.’

‘Sit down.’

She sat. It was a good sign. Pliable.

She stood up. ‘No, this is important. I want to come with Kostya. I don’t know what your circumstances are, or what you have organised, but I want to stay with him until he’s settled. And he doesn’t know yet. When he’s told, I need to be there.’

Alexei frowned heavily. ‘He doesn’t know his parents are dead?’

Maisy shook her head, the pain rushing through her.

‘I had no intention of leaving you behind,’ was his only comment. ‘Do you have a valid passport?’

‘Yes,’ said Maisy. ‘But why—?’

‘Pack a bag. We move in twenty.’

‘But—’

He gave her a brief, almost offended look. ‘I’m not accustomed to explaining myself.’

To staff, added Maisy silently, biting down on a sharp retort.

Alexei registered her frustration, thinking wryly it was nothing next to his own. He had to get out of there before he did something stupid. He had overlooked momentarily who this woman was—a future employee. And he didn’t bed his female staff. He left her to it, reaching for his pager as he plunged down the stairs to alert his men to the changed situation.

It took Maisy twenty minutes to bag up enough of Kostya’s belongings for a week’s stay. She assumed the rest of his life would come later. Her own would take considerably longer to assemble, but fortunately she still had that suitcase she had packed for France on Sunday. Only five days ago, but it felt a lifetime.

But before she took a step out that front door she was going to have a shower.

Downstairs, Alexei consulted his watch for the third time. Half an hour. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t used to waiting on a woman. He had yet to meet one whose ‘five more minutes’ meant anything less than twenty. But Maisy Edmonds wasn’t in any way, shape or form a date, and he didn’t have time for this.

He never dealt with the small stuff, and he could have sent someone up for her, but with his libido humming he realised he actually wanted her at his side. The sparks at least were keeping him awake and functioning.

Her bedroom door was slightly ajar. He gave it a push, half expecting to find her knee-deep in clothes. Instead he found a naked wet woman wrapped in a little white towel, with ringlets of damp hair cascading down her back.

Lust roared through him like a hot desert wind, obliterating thought.

She didn’t cry out, or protest, or do any of the things an outraged woman should do in this situation—something that would make him turn around and leave her alone. She just gaped at him, clutching at the towel, her eyes growing wider, and then she actually stepped towards him.

He crossed the space between them, caught her around that surprisingly small waist and pulled her into his body, half dragging the towel off in the process. He was conscious of her making a noise as he hungrily took her mouth with his own, his tongue invading the sweetness inside. She was stiff in his arms, and he could feel her hands pushing at his biceps, but the rest of her was soft and pliant. Everything about her was everything he wanted in that moment; she was all feminine roundness and softness and warmth. He could bury himself in her and forget everything that had happened, everything that was going to happen. Sweet oblivion inside sweet Maisy.

Maisy could hardly form a coherent thought. Shock had turned to humiliation as she felt her towel shift and drop, and she was aware that at any moment she would be completely naked in a strange man’s arms. This man was kissing her with a passion that went beyond expertise, as if his mouth and his tongue and his touch were desperately searching for something from her. And Maisy found something in herself was tentatively responding. The resistance melted out of her hands as she nestled closer to the source of this warmth that was spreading through her, seeking the shelter his arms offered, leaning into the strength that seemed so much a part of him. His hunger softened into something else as she began to respond.

It was almost too much. Her heartbeat was speeding out of control and his arms around her were almost too powerful, too possessive. She struggled a little, but only to drag his head back down to hers as he shifted in response, and she felt him laugh uninhibitedly against her mouth. He half lifted her and swept her up against the back of the door. It slammed with a thud, his forearm taking the brunt for her back, and Maisy felt his other big, callused hand smooth up her inner thigh. She grabbed it, muttered, ‘No,’ against his hair, and his mouth dropped to the pulse-point throbbing at the base of her throat. He licked her like a big cat, right there, his tongue rough and wet and hot.

Oh, Lord, thought Maisy, her body on fire. I can’t do this. I’m not ready to do this.

‘Lose the towel, Maisy,’ he murmured hotly against her ear, his hands at her hips, moving around to cup her bare bottom.

‘I can’t,’ she winced, embarrassment crawling through her.

And then it was over. It all happened in a moment. His mouth was gone, his hands were gone and she was leaning up against her bedroom door, clutching a towel to her near nakedness and staring into the eyes of a man who looked shell-shocked.

He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth, as if removing the taste of her, and said in a low, fractured voice, ‘That was inexcusable. I’m tired. I made a mistake. Forget it ever happened.’

Maisy’s hazel eyes prickled. A mistake? Forget it ever happened?

Alexei knew he wasn’t thinking straight. The girl in front of him was staring at him as if he was mad, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d started something he couldn’t finish. He’d left her high and dry, and the ache in his body wasn’t going to go away any time soon.

What in the hell was he doing here? He had twelve security personnel scoping the property, a car waiting and a jet on the tarmac at Heathrow. And he, Alexei Ranaevsky, was tupping the nanny in an upstairs bedroom.

The goddamned nanny!

And doing a spectacularly lousy job of it.

Shoving aside the useless introspection, Alexei sized up the woman huddling against the door.

‘You need to move so I can get out of here,’ he directed. ‘And for God’s sake put some clothes on.’

Maisy flinched, but she still didn’t move. She wanted desperately to be away from him, to be behind the bathroom door, to sink to the ground and wish away all her humiliation, but she knew the moment she stepped aside she might lose her chance.

She probably already had. He seemed so angry with her it was more than likely he had changed his mind. She should have shoved him off her to begin with. She should never have responded. She should have remembered Kostya came first.

Anais would be horrified if she knew what was going on, what had just happened—in her own home, just days after … Maisy felt so sick she actually thought she might throw up.

‘Maisy.’ He spoke her name abruptly.

‘You haven’t changed your mind?’ she challenged, with what nerve she had left, strengthening her voice with the knowledge that Kostya came first. ‘About me coming? With Kostya?’

For a moment he actually looked confused, as if she had said something completely out of left field when this was the only thing that mattered, wasn’t it? Then he sighed and ran a hand over his unshaven face.

‘No, I haven’t changed my mind,’ he muttered. ‘God help me, I haven’t changed my mind.’

She looked so lost for a moment something twisted inside him. He remembered her driven, ‘No,’ when he had asked her to drop the towel, her hand like a trap on his when he’d sought to find the sweet wet place between her thighs.

But then why would she have left her door ajar if she hadn’t wanted him to walk in?

Cynicism firmly in place, he took one last frustrated look at what he wasn’t going to have and informed her, ‘Get dressed. You’ve got five.’

It was the hardest walk Maisy had ever had to make. She hated him seeing her after what had happened—so much bare skin, as if offering herself up to him on a plate. He must have been watching her because she didn’t hear her bedroom door close until after she’d shut herself in the bathroom and sunk onto the floor. Waves of humiliation rolled over her, and then she snatched her towel off and grabbed at the big fluffy bath sheet she should have been wearing. It wrapped around her like a hug, and she buried her face in its folds.

She’d been so uninhibited, so out of control. She’d felt his raw need, his naked desire, and she’d matched it with her own. Shame burned through her. This was not part of her bargain with herself and Anais. The last gift she could give her friend was a secure future for her son, and instead she had been wrapped around his godfather, seeking the comfort she needed, Kostya far from her mind.

It was the shock, she told herself. The grief. She would never have responded to him like that if she wasn’t half out of her mind with misery and lack of sleep. But even as she formed the excuses she knew they were a lie, and it shamed her.

She had no choice. She must get up, wash her face, get dressed and go down there and face him. This volatile, unpredictable man was going to be Kostya’s father to all intents and purposes. She must learn to deal with him.

Yet her fingers strayed to her swollen lips and she allowed herself a small shudder. That kiss. That mistake. It must never happen again.

CHAPTER THREE

THE boy, the plane … and the nanny.

No, cancel that last appellation. The red-haired sex kitten, curled up in her chair and pretending to sleep whilst he endeavoured to make sense of the figures being pumped into his email from New York. No sleep, the altitude, and now the unexpected introduction of his libido into the equation meant he was in danger of making a mistake that could cost a great many people their jobs.

He gestured to one of the attendants—a young guy named Leroy. Alexei didn’t hire attractive female staff any more for his private jet. They tended to lose focus on their job.

‘Leroy,’ he said. ‘Miss Edmonds. Move her. I don’t want her in my eyeline.’

Leroy looked from the sleeping bundle that was Maisy back to his boss. Alexei knew what the man was thinking but would never say, so he added tiredly, ‘She’s not asleep. She’s faking it.’

Maisy gritted her teeth. She had heard every word Alexei Ranaevsky had uttered since he’d sat down over an hour ago. Usually in Russian, usually brief and to the point. He hadn’t addressed a single syllable to her. It was as if she had simply ceased to be. But apparently she was distracting to his eyeline.

She lifted her head as Leroy approached her. He bent down and said in a soft voice, ‘Miss Edmonds—’

‘I know.’ Maisy gave him a resigned smile, then yawned, ruining it. She stretched and gathered up her angora travelling blanket, and climbed out of the luxurious seat. She looked pointedly at Alexei, who had removed his jacket and was propped with his feet up, scrolling through the information on the state-of-the-art laptop positioned in front of him. He didn’t even acknowledge her, his amazing bone structure taut under this artificial light. He looked more tired than she felt, which was saying something.

‘Put Miss Edmonds in a bed,’ he said as she passed by him.

Alexei heard a faint, ‘Thank you,’ in that sweet, tangy voice of hers, and felt his whole body shift instinctively in her direction.

Down boy. He growled. This wasn’t the time or the place to indulge his sudden craving for soft-eyed redheads. He’d had six long months of not particularly satisfying sex with Tara. Five months and twenty-nine days too long, in his opinion. Although not in Tara’s. She was telling the press they were still ‘good friends’ two days after he broke up with her. Ironic, as he’d never had a female friend—and if he did he wouldn’t choose Tara.

It was complicated. Maisy Edmonds was in his household, for now. Although she was no nanny. She’d lied to him straight up—another element to keep in mind. He had a fair idea who she was: one of Anais’s crew of hangers-on. Somehow she’d inveigled her way into the house and into Kostya’s life. If Leo was alive he might have vouched for her—a single word would have sufficed. But if Leo had been alive Alexei would never have met her in such fraught circumstances, leading to such a stupid indiscretion.

Which was bound to happen again.

The fierceness of her sexual response had taken even him off guard. It had turned blind need into something more exciting, edgier. It had been he who was out of control, he recognised. Whilst she had met him every inch of the way, she had also backed down fast. Meeting that resistance had saved him from a very big mistake, and possibly a costly one. Because there were always consequences.

He didn’t do casual sex. And he didn’t do sex full stop without a condom—which he wasn’t carrying. He could only have her word on where she’d been. He wondered if Leo … Then he closed down that thought, because it suddenly made him very angry. An image of Maisy Edmonds in a towel, rubbing herself against a series of men, flashed through his tired brain, firing his temper, and he swore.

It wasn’t going to happen—not in the coming days and weeks anyway. The dust still had to settle on Leo’s portfolio, and more importantly there was his child.

Kostya had been unexpectedly lively earlier on the trip, but now was sleeping as if the world had ended. Alexei envied him that ability to completely shut down. He imagined he had possessed it once, many aeons ago, when he was an infant. A childhood rubbed raw by neglect and strife had worn it off. He rarely slept a regular eight hours. The past few days had robbed him even of that.

With the kitten safely put to bed, he could focus on what the screen was telling him. None of it was good news. His shares in Kulcor were merely window dressing. If the company foundered it wouldn’t show up as a blip on his financial radar, but it was Kostya’s inheritance—he had to hold it. It was the least Leo would have expected of him. Family came first. However, growing up with nothing but the clothes on his back had taught Alexei to value material security. When people let you down, abandoned you, and all you had was yourself, several billion in the bank was a nice bulwark against destitution.

Leo’s son would never want for anything. He would make sure of it.

A bed. Not the bed—not the one and only bedroom on a private jet—but a bed. One of three. What kind of a man had three bedrooms on a plane? Maisy smiled helplessly at her thoughts. He had a private plane. The number of bedrooms was probably beside the point.

She sat down on the sumptuous bed, looking around at the luxurious fabrics on the walls and furniture. She ran her hand over the silky bed coverings in deep purple and black. A man had definitely chosen the colour scheme, although she couldn’t quite picture Alexei Ranaevsky spending much time with fabric swatches.

She could, however, imagine him on this bed, and her mind began to drift as she settled down under the luxurious covers, entertaining imagery mainly to do with him diving into bed with her. In the fantasy she didn’t stop him; she was confident and even sexually aggressive. Part of her wanted to call a halt to the daydreaming—it wasn’t healthy; she could never act on it. He probably wouldn’t fancy her in the cold light of day … But another, darker part seized on his mouth hot on hers and his hand like a brand on her inner thigh. She shifted in the bed, irritatedly aware she was arousing herself, which only made it all worse.

She was never like this. She didn’t fantasise about men to the point where she got hot and bothered. Her mind just didn’t go there. Mind you, she hadn’t had time to have a rich fantasy life, let alone an active sex life. Not with a baby. She wasn’t even accustomed to air travel. She was the original stay-at-home girl. With the Kulikovs there had been several shuttles to the Paris house, but life with a new baby had pretty much shut down her opportunities to explore further afield than the Île de la Cité.

Her thoughts drifted from blue-eyed, hard-bodied Russian oligarchs to the more prosaic realities of her life. It had been impossible to leave Kostya for more than a few hours, and Anais had insisted no one had Maisy’s ‘way’ with him. The deal had been she would have two days a week to herself, but the reality of a demanding infant had virtually turned Maisy into the mother of a newborn, with all the rigours that involved. The only normal life she had ever had was in those few months before Anais gave birth. Then they’d been girlfriends together, enjoying each other’s company and all the fun opportunities London had to offer.

Leo had been home a lot then too, as Anais grew huge, and settled, hovering over her protectively, acting on her merest whim. Maisy had envied her friend that security, that devotion. Anais in turn had encouraged her to date, pushed her out through the door with a gaggle of Anais’s other girlfriends into nightclubs.

For a few months she had lived like any other twenty-one-year-old girl in London. Those were the days when she’d had time to spend hours trawling clothes shops and dancing until dawn. She had met a couple of boys around her age and been in the awkward position of having to choose. Dan had worked at something in the music industry that apparently involved twiddling knobs, but he had been gentle and self-effacing and would sit up talking to her in little cafes until dawn drew her back to Lantern Square and Anais’s barrage of delighted interrogation.

She had finally gone back to his flat near Earls Court and slept with him. It had seemed the right thing to do, moving the relationship along, except it hadn’t quite turned out that way. She remembered lying there on his hard bed, staring at the pattern of cracks in the ceiling as Dan pushed into her virgin body, feeling self-conscious about their nakedness and wondering if she was doing something wrong. It had been quick and painful and messy, and not something she particularly wanted to repeat with him, and with that thought had came the utter certainty she had made a mistake.

She hadn’t shared this with Anais—she hadn’t told anybody. And a few days later, after an awkward coffee with Dan and an invitation to spend the weekend with him on a working trip, she’d ended it. The fact that he hadn’t seemed too bothered had made her wonder if she was the only girl in his life.

Within weeks Anais had gone into labour, and Maisy’s life as she’d begun to live it had been over. From then on, for two years, she had been the mother of a demanding baby boy.

It would have been impossible to make Alexei Ranaevsky understand the complexities of her relationship with Anais and Kostya last night. He probably would have been even less inclined to take her along. ‘A friend of Anais’s’ sounded insubstantial—and, knowing many of Anais’s girlfriends, she wouldn’t have left a pot plant in their care, let alone a two-year-old.

No, nanny sounded sensible and professional and useful.

He needed a nanny, not a flighty girl with her head in a fashion magazine and her body on a beach in Ibiza. Yet deception did not sit easily with her. She wanted to be herself, not an imitation of whatever was expected of a nanny in this man’s home. She hadn’t even asked him if he had a partner or children. It would be shocking, given his actions last night, but not unheard of. Maisy had lived long enough in Anais’s world to know adultery was a common coin and nobody blinked an eye.

What had happened tonight made no sense to her—from his perspective at least. He must have read signals into her behaviour, and she thought guiltily about the way she had visually eaten him up. She was less irresistible to him. He had been far more in control than she had. It had been he who had stopped it, owned it for a mistake.

He was clearly exhausted. The shadows under those beautiful eyes … the lines carved around his sensual mouth. Running on empty, Leo would say. Maybe she’d been available fuel, a willing female body. And she had been willing—shamingly willing. She had never felt that instant drench of attraction in her life. She still couldn’t look at him without wanting to touch him, feel the solid heat of his body pressed up against hers. It was wicked.

She rolled onto her back, staring up at a ceiling starred with dozens of tiny pinpricks of light. Was this how Anais had felt about Leo? Was this like the wellspring of her friend’s uninhibited passion for her husband, which had manifested itself as a longing for him whenever he was absent and a great deal of time spent in the bedroom, or the library, or on the kitchen table—much to Maisy’s embarrassment as she’d come home unexpectedly one afternoon?

This was what she had been looking for, Maisy realised with a start. This passion. This excitement. This much man.

Except he was the wrong man.

Just as she was the wrong woman. The nanny.

Dawn was breaking over Naples when they hit the tarmac. Maisy had never travelled in a private jet, and the waiting limos were another shock to her system.

Alexei Ranaevsky was seriously loaded.

He was also not coming with them.

In the first limo with Kostya, Maisy gathered the courage to ask Carlo, who was travelling with them, why not.

‘A chopper to Rome,’ he replied briefly. ‘London has held up several important meetings.’

Meaning his visit to Lantern Square. Perversely, Maisy felt a rush of anger towards both Carlo and Alexei. Kostya was not a hold-up. He was a little boy who had lost his parents. Surely Alexei could carve out more than an overnight flit to welcome the child?

Carlo gave her a wry look. ‘Don’t worry, bella, he’ll be back. You’ll see enough of him.’

Maisy stiffened at the familiarity of bella, and its implications. Plain enough words, but all of a sudden Maisy wondered if Alexei had spoken to Carlo, revealed what had occurred. It was too crass to bear thinking about, but Maisy’s hands made fists in her lap and her whole body was on red alert.

She averted her face to the window and didn’t say another word.

So this was where he lived.

The sixteenth-century exterior of Villa Vista Mare had not hinted at its sleek interior: soaring ceilings, glass everywhere, and blinding white surfaces. It was like stepping into the future. Maisy was accustomed to the shabby Georgian chic at Lantern Square and the pretty comfort of the Kulikovs’ other residence on the Île de la Cité in Paris. This sort of cutting-edge modernity and the money it took to fuel it was startling, and also troubling. Kostya’s life was going to be here now. It screamed style and money and glamour. It didn’t hold you in its arms and murmur ‘home’.

Seven days later she was doing her best to install some of Lantern Square into Kostya’s surroundings. She couldn’t fault the nursery. Not unexpectedly, it was over the top. Alexei clearly believed the advent of a child into his life called for lots of stuff. The life-size pony on rockers was perhaps the worst of it. A sleigh for a bed was inspired. Over the week she had shifted the worst out and created a softer space.

Kostya was universally loved by the household; Maria the housekeeper, a handsome woman in her middle fifties, doted on him. But every morning Maisy woke with the expectation that today would be the day Alexei Ranaevsky would put in an appearance, and every morning she was disappointed. She couldn’t make sense of his behaviour. He had spoken of his responsibility for Kostya, yet his actions spoke volumes as to where he saw Kostya in his life.

There was a room for the nanny off the nursery. It was utilitarian, with a view of the courtyard wall. Maisy tried not to spend any time in there other than to sleep, and she slept a lot. Alexei had organised a night nurse to be on duty, which meant she could sleep through the night for the first time since Kostya had been born. Six nights of uninterrupted sleep. She felt a hundred years younger.

Every day she took Kostya down to the beach in the morning, and read books on the terrace during the afternoon whilst he took his nap. In the evenings she would have liked to eat with Maria, but the housekeeper usually left at seven, after providing a solo meal. The rest of the skeleton staff seemed paid to be invisible. It was as if she was living in a palatial hotel all by herself.

On the seventh day she asked Maria if she might have a car to take down into the town. She had noticed a converted stable in the grounds securing seven sleek luxury vehicles.

‘I don’t want anything fancy,’ she hastened to add. ‘Just some beat-up thing I can motor about in.’

Maria laughed at her. ‘You can borrow mine, Maisy. It’s insured, and there’s a child’s seat in the back. I use it for my granddaughter.’

Maisy recognised that she was feeling a wild pleasure at the thought of getting out of the villa out of proportion to the lure of shops and other people. She ran upstairs and shimmied out of her T-shirt and shorts, replacing them with a green-and-pink floral sundress she had bought for her aborted trip to Paris. It was modest in the neckline, protecting her décolletage from the harsh sunshine, and fell just above her knees, but was virtually backless. She whipped her hair out of its ponytail and shook out her curls, solving that problem.

She got Kostya ready and strapped him into the car, giving Maria an enthusiastic wave as she rolled out of the courtyard and took off up the dusty road towards the highway that would take her down the hairpin bends and dips of the road into Ravello.

She had specific chores to undertake: organise funds from her English bank account, purchase a sturdier hat to protect Kostya from the fiery Italian sun, and stock up on trashy paperbacks. But it was impossible not to get sidetracked by the beauty of the old town.

Crossing the road after purchasing gelato for herself and Kostya, she spotted a beauty therapist’s. The warm breeze caressed her bare legs and reminded her she was in desperate need of a wax. With Kostya sucking on his ice and occupied with a box of toys, she was able to deal with her legs and have her hair trimmed and blow-dried. Feeling infinitely more attractive than she had going in, Maisy strapped Kostya back into his pushchair and headed for the gardens she had spotted at the other end of the road.

Several cars slowed down, passing her, and a group of youths called out in Italian to her. She didn’t understand a word but it was fairly clear it was appreciative. Maisy shook her head in disbelief. A pretty dress and ‘new’ hair and suddenly she was on display.

‘Don’t you grow up to be so silly, Kostya,’ she said, ruffling the top of his fair head.

A screeching of tyres made her look up. A low-slung sports car was humming alongside the kerb. Maisy froze.

‘Get in the car.’

Maisy released a deep breath, unaware she had been holding it. Alexei.

He was leaning over the steering wheel, his cobalt eyes hidden behind razor-sharp sunglasses. He looked what he was: cool, ruthless, very male.

She needed to handle this with the same cool. It was important not to appear eager or pleased or even furious that it had taken him seven days—seven days—to put in an appearance. It wasn’t easy when any woman in her right mind would have leapt in that car with him without a second thought.

She glanced ahead at the gardens and then, deciding, put the brake on the pushchair and crossed the few steps to the kerb, leaning in.

‘We’re going to the gardens. I promised Kostya.’

She turned her back on his incredulous face, kicked off the brake and kept moving, making a beeline for the gates.

Alexei slotted the car into a space overlooking the sea and took off after Maisy on foot. When Maria had casually told him Maisy had just walked out of the villa and taken the boy with her he’d been annoyed his security team hadn’t been alerted. The further information that she had taken Maria’s old Audi had infuriated him. Those hairpin bends were suicidal if you didn’t know them. But it was the sight of her in a flowery dress, with her arms and legs bare and all those pre–Raphaelite curls flowing down her back, being cat-called and ogled by Italian males that had sent him over the top.

Maisy wasn’t sure if he would drive away and leave them alone, or come after them. What she didn’t expect was for him to lay a hand on her elbow and wrench her almost off her feet. He whisked her around as if she were a doll. She had forgotten how big he was. The breadth of his shoulders and his musculature were outlined by the expensive weave of an olive T-shirt. Held up against him, Maisy felt warmth sweeping up into her cheeks, his proximity having the same upending effect on her senses it had had in London.

‘What in the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he blistered at her.

The sunglasses meant she couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel them nevertheless—boring into her.

‘Going into the gardens,’ she answered, trying to pull her arm free. But he had a firm grip. ‘For goodness’ sake, let me go. I don’t understand why you’re so angry.’

Alexei took in her wide hazel eyes and soft mouth, the colour in her cheeks. She was a time bomb waiting to go off. He couldn’t have this much woman living under his roof. He’d end up giving her anything she asked for.

She made a soft distressed sound as his hand instinctively tightened and he released her immediately, shocked by his own conduct. He had imagined—imagined—he could deal with her in a short interview at the house. Confront her with his investigator’s report, set out the terms for her remaining with Kostya until he settled, and then ignore her. He was doing a good job of ignoring her. For six days and seven nights. Long nights—except for the sixteen hours he had slept under the effect of a sedative.

He wasn’t unaccustomed to periods of time without a woman in his bed. There was something rejuvenating about the spread of a cool, empty king-size bed. But Maisy Edmonds had been there every night in his waking dreams, with her wild red curls and her lush, eminently squeezable bottom, and the spicy taste of her still tingling in his mouth. He hadn’t misremembered her mouth—it was sweet and pink. The places he had imagined that mouth had been … To see it now, unmarked by lipstick, soft and innocent-looking, he felt like a sex-crazed brute.

‘Leave my Maisy alone!’ stated Kostya, standing up in his pushchair. He had managed to unclip his belt, and this held Maisy’s amazed attention, whilst Alexei, deeply shaken by his reaction, faced her little protector with a tad more subtlety.

He instantly dropped down to Kostya’s height. ‘I didn’t mean to upset Maisy. I’m Maisy’s friend too. I came to bring you both home.’

‘Don’t want to go home. Want to be on holiday.’

‘The villa is holiday,’ explained Maisy, still looking at Alexei uneasily, as if he was liable to spring at her.

Alexei released his breath with a hiss and straightened up, extending his arms to Kostya. ‘Come on, little man. How about I carry you for a bit?’

Kostya looked up at Maisy, and after a hesitation she nodded encouragingly, holding her breath as Alexei lifted the little boy into his arms. For a minute it seemed he might protest, but Alexei held him confidently, and Maisy saw the moment the little body relaxed into the man’s shoulder.

It gave her a chance to observe him more closely. He was wearing jeans and they clung to him like a second skin. They also made him look younger, and it occurred to Maisy for the first time he was really only a few years older than she was. He couldn’t be more than thirty and look at the life he led, the power he wielded, the level of sophistication he wore so casually. Maisy suddenly felt hopelessly out of her depth—and she was—but she had Kostya’s wellbeing to fight for, and that gave her the added push she needed.

And the fact remained he had been gone for an entire week.

‘Where have you been for the last seven days?’ The words were out of her mouth before discretion could check her tongue.

He shrugged. ‘What does it matter? I’m here now.’

He was here now. Maisy simmered on that for a few minutes as they resumed their stroll. She leaned into the pushchair that felt light as a feather now Kostya wasn’t in it.

‘How long will you stay?’ she asked evenly, as if it were not the most important question.

‘I’ve factored in three days.’ He announced it with an air of magnanimity that stole Maisy’s breath away.

Three days! She studied the man beside her. She was aware people were watching them, women were watching him. A couple of beautiful Italian girls perhaps her own age swung past them, sweeping Alexei’s length with unabashed sexual speculation. Maisy blushed for him. Alexei, however, seemed completely unaware of anyone but herself and Kostya. In fact his focus was a little intimidating.

‘Three days isn’t very long,’ she ventured quietly, carefully.

‘It’s all I have.’ His tone was a warning to cease questioning him, to keep her mouth shut. She remembered his statement—’I don’t explain my actions.’ Certainly not to the nanny, she thought wryly.

‘Explain to me why you borrowed Maria’s car and made this very dangerous little trip into town,’ he said in a quiet undertone clearly used to avoid disturbing Kostya.

He had pushed the sunglasses back through his hair revealing those incredible eyes that were every bit as intense as she remembered.

‘It wasn’t dangerous,’ she replied, copying his neutral tone. ‘I’m a good driver and I’m careful.’ Then the truth surfaced and she made a frustrated sound. ‘You try being cooped up in one place for a full seven days.’

He smiled slowly, knowingly. ‘You were bored, dushka?’

Maisy was startled by the smile, the sudden intimacy of his tone. She shook it off with the suspicion he was probably like this with all women under thirty, unthinkingly working them up with throwaway charisma.

‘Not bored, exactly,’ she said uncertainly, wondering how honest she should be.

Your house is full of people who don’t talk to me; Maria and the night nurse have taken over many of the usual calls on my time; I’m only twenty-three and I feel like I’ve been walled up alive some days.

‘I just wanted to look around, get my bearings.’

‘Yes, I saw you getting your bearings on the street. Half the male population of Ravello is going to be on the villa’s doorstep.’

He spoke casually, but there was an edge in his voice.

‘It’s not my fault if Italian men are appreciative of women,’ she replied stiffly. ‘I didn’t invite it.’

‘That dress invites it.’ His tone remained casual, but Maisy heard the censure and stiffened.

‘Are you suggesting I’m trying to pick up?’ she challenged.

Alexei’s expression was taut, hinting at inner tensions she couldn’t guess at. ‘I’m Kostya’s guardian,’ he enunciated plainly. ‘I expect you to behave like a lady and not flaunt yourself.’

Maisy didn’t know what to say. In what way had she flaunted herself? What was wrong with coming into town for the day? What was wrong with her dress? All of a sudden the warmth and freedom of the day dwindled down to a cluster of doubts, and Maisy tugged self-consciously on her skirt. She couldn’t help flashing back to herself in a towel, stunned by his presence in her room. Was that the impression he had of her? A woman who displayed herself to strange men for sex? She cringed at the thought.

The truth wasn’t much better, and it wasn’t fair. It was him. It was because of him she had responded so uninhibitedly. But how could she explain that to him without making even more of a fool of herself?

Kostya had slumped over Alexei’s shoulder, taking in the view from this new height. He looked so comfortable up there Maisy only felt worse.

She had to rid herself of this stupid infatuation. It wasn’t fair to Kostya, and it wasn’t fair to her.

‘You’ve gone very quiet,’ Alexei said in a neutral voice.

‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware I was supposed to entertain you. I wouldn’t want to be accused of flaunting myself.’ Where had that bitter tone come from? She bit her tongue.

Alexei’s eyes swept her body in a way that was disturbingly intimate, met her stormy eyes. ‘You can have a social life here, Maisy. I just don’t want you bringing men back to the villa.’

Maisy almost choked, forced to defend herself. ‘What men? The only men I’ve seen for the past week have been in uniforms, and they barely give me the time of day!’

‘Hence your little day out.’ He spoke so quietly, so reasonably, Maisy could have hit him.

She stopped on the path, aware there were other people around and that Kostya, however young, shouldn’t be overhearing this conversation. ‘I think you’ve made it clear how low your opinion of me can go. I don’t think I should have to defend myself when I’ve done nothing wrong.’

Alexei instantly felt like a jerk. He knew he was being tough on her, but she provoked him. She was so lovely even a sackcloth wouldn’t stop men looking at her, and why it bothered him so much he was struggling to understand.

Because you want her, and if it backfires you’re stuck with her, a cool, cynical voice intervened.

The child heavy in his arms was a reminder of how careful he had to be.

‘I think we should go back,’ he said gruffly. ‘The boy has fallen asleep.’

Maisy didn’t reply. She just jerked the lightweight pushchair around and headed back up the path ahead of him.

It occurred to him she was acting like a girlfriend, not the nanny. And he didn’t have any experience of girlfriends.

Alexei took them back to the villa in his high-speed toy at a reasonable pace, handling the bends with such care and confidence Maisy realised he might have a point about the danger. Maria’s Audi would be returned to her by a despatched member of staff.

There was a taut, tense silence in the car that was tying Maisy’s stomach in knots.

She took a deep breath and examined his hard, uncompromising profile as he negotiated the road. An innocent trip into town had been turned into a man-trawling exercise on her part. He was clearly ready to believe the worst of her because it would make it easier for him to get rid of her when the time came.

Whatever I do, she thought a little desperately, it won’t be enough because he’s decided I’m a party girl. Which was so ludicrous she snorted.

His attention snapped to her. ‘What is it?’

Maisy checked over her shoulder. Kostya’s head was hanging; he was still deeply asleep.

She gave Alexei her best impression of Anais-like insouciance. ‘I was just thinking, if all the men in Ravello are hot for me I’m going to need some evenings off to accommodate them. How about Fridays and Saturdays?’

It was a stupid thing to do, but he was so self-righteous. She wanted to show him how silly all his preconceptions of her actually were. Instead, the moment the words were out of her mouth she knew she had made a mistake.

The car shifted down a gear, slowed, came to a soft standstill on the side of the road. Alexei unsnapped his safety belt, glancing into the backseat at the slumbering infant. Maisy shrank back against the door, suddenly wary of what she’d stirred up.

‘Wh—what are you doing?’ she stammered.

‘I need to make a call,’ he informed her, head averted, scissoring the door open and closed.

Lacing his hands behind his neck, Alexei walked out his frustration along the verge, taking a few deep breaths. She was a very young, very provocative woman. She was taunting him because he’d offended her. She didn’t mean to push his buttons. But she had.

He couldn’t drive safely until he’d worked this through.

All the men in Ravello. He’d brought it up. He’d put the words into her mouth. He’d put the thoughts into her head. Maisy was clearly no more promiscuous than he was. Yet … images he’d never be free of flashed like a viewfinder through his mind. His mother’s clients—sordid, terrifying for the child he had been. He let them flicker, then shut them off with abrupt practised closure, glancing back at the car. He could see her head bent, the gleam of all those fiery ringlets. He took a breath. This was Maisy—this was different. There was nothing more natural than his desire to take her to bed.

Maisy sat drowning in the sudden silence. She watched him in the rear-vision mirror as he walked slowly away from the car. Even through her shot nerves she registered his back view was every bit as scrumptious as the front, and he had an amazing taut behind.

She buried her hot face in her hands. Me and my mouth, she cursed. What was I thinking? What am I doing? It was a joke—a silly joke. But of course he doesn’t do jokes. This is all getting completely out of hand.

She heard a click and felt the shift of weight in the car, dragging her hands away too late to find him beside her, watching her with the oddest expression. It was too late to hide her embarrassment.

Unsophisticated, foot-in-mouth Maisy.

‘That didn’t take long,’ she blurted out, sounding uncomfortably breathless.

He was watching her and there was real, undisguised heat in his eyes. Maisy’s breathing hitched and sped up. The buzzing atmosphere she recognised from her room was in the car. She had never felt anything like it, and with it came the memory of the feel of his mouth sliding over hers, the sheer force of his lust. You couldn’t dress it up as anything else—they barely knew one another, and she had been with him all the way. Why wouldn’t he think she would do it again?

‘I decided I didn’t need to make the call.’ A smile sat tight on his lips as he turned over the quiet engine. ‘Maybe you should reconsider all the men in Ravello, Maisy. I have a feeling you’re going to be pretty busy.’

‘With Kostya?’ said Maisy by rote, her mouth dry, her throat closed.

‘No.’ He swung the sports car fluidly back onto the highway and accelerated ever so slightly, so that the breath leapt from her body. ‘That would be with me.’

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