The note struck a
pang of wistfulness in Clair Daniels's chest. She wondered
if anyone would ever write something so romantic to her.
Then she recalled the waves of emotional highs and lows Abby
had been riding for months, all under the influence of that
elusive emotion called "love." Being independent was more
secure and less hurtful, she reminded herself. And the
roller coaster she'd been through in the last two weeks,
after losing a man who was merely a friend and mentor, was
brutal enough.
Still, she had to hide envy as she
handed the note back to Abby and said with a composed smile,
"That's very sweet. The wedding is this
weekend?"
Abby, the firm's receptionist, nodded with
excitement as she placed the card back in the extravagant
bouquet Clair had admired. "I was just saying to everyone—"
She waved at the ladies gathered with their morning coffee.
"I texted him that after Saturday, we can wake up together
forev…" She trailed off as it struck her who she was talking
to.
The horseshoe of women dropped their
gazes.
Clair's throat closed over a helpless I
wasn't waking up with him. She'd never slept with anyone
but couldn't say so. Her confidentiality clause with Victor
Van Eych had made such confessions impossible.
Still,
she knew everyone had thought her relationship to the boss
went deeper than merely being his PA. The gossip had eaten
her up, but she'd let it happen out of kindness for a man
whose self-assurance had been dented by age. Other people's
opinions of her shouldn't matter, she'd told herself. Victor
was nice to her. He had encouraged her to start the
foundation she'd always dreamed of. Letting a white lie
prevail in return had seemed harmless.
Then his
family had refused to let her into his mansion to so much as
share condolences, turning their backs and pushing her to
the fringes like a pariah.
She wasn't someone who
wore her heart on her sleeve, but the one person she had
begun to count on had died. Shock and sorrow had
overwhelmed her. Thankfully she'd had a place to bolt to for
a week and absorb her loss. Ironic that it had been the
orphanage, but what a timely reminder how important the home
and foundation were, not just to her, but to children as
alone as she was.
Now she was feeling more alone than
ever, trying not to squirm under the scrutiny of her
colleagues, not wanting to reveal that her chest had gone
tight and her throat felt swollen. It wasn't just Victor's
unexpected death getting to her, but a kind of despair.
Would anyone ever stick? Or was she meant to walk through
life in isolation forever?
Into the suffocating
moment, the elevator pinged and the doors whispered open.
Clair glanced over her shoulder to escape her anxiety, and
what she saw made her catch a startled breath.
A
hunting party of suits invaded the top floor. It was the
only way to describe the tribe of alert, stony-faced men.
The last off the elevator, the tallest, was obviously their
leader. He was a warrior whose swarthy face wore a blaze of
genuine battle injury. At first that was all Clair saw: the
slash of a pale scar that began where his dark hair was
combed back from his hairline. It bisected his left eyebrow,
angled from his cheekbone toward the corner of his mouth,
then dropped off his clean-shaven jaw.
He seemed
indifferent to it, his energy completely focused on the new
territory he was conquering. His armor-gray suit clung with
perfect tailoring to his powerful build. With one sweep of
his golden-brown eyes, he dispersed the clique of women in a
subtle hiss of indrawn breaths and muted clicks of
retreating heels.
Clair couldn't move. His marauding
air incited panic, but her feet stayed glued to the floor.
She lifted her chin, refusing to let him see he intimidated
her.
Male interest sparked to life as he held her
stare. His gaze drifted like a caress to her mouth, lowered
to her open collar and mentally stripped her neatly belted
raincoat and low-heeled ankle boots.
Clair set her
teeth, hating these moments of objectification as much as
any woman, but something strange happened. Her paralysis
continued. She wasn't able to turn away in rejection. Heat
came to life in her abdomen like a cooling ember blown into
a brighter glow. Warmth radiated into her chest and bathed
her throat.
His attention came back to her face,
decision stamped in his eyes. She was something he would
want.
She blushed, still unable to look away. A
writhing sensation knotted in her stomach, clenching like a
fist when he spoke in a voice like dark chocolate, melting
and rich, yet carrying a biting edge.
She didn't
understand him.
Clair blinked in surprise, but he
didn't switch to English. His command had been for one of
his companions, yet she had the impression he'd been talking
about her if not to her. He swung away, moving into the
interior offices as if he owned the place. One of the men
flanking him murmured in a similar language.
"Was
that Russian?" Clair asked on a breathless gasp as the last
pin-striped back disappeared. She felt as if a tank had just
flattened her.
"They've been coming in all week. That
tall one is new." Abby dragged her gaze away from the hall
and became conspiratorial as she leaned over her keyboard.
"No one knows what's going on. I was hoping you could
enlighten us."
"I wasn't here," Clair reminded her.
She hadn't even been in London. "But Mr. Turner told me
before I left that everything would carry on as usual, that
the family were keeping things status quo until they'd had
time to settle his private affairs. Are they lawyers?" She
glanced toward the hall but was certain that man wasn't
anything as straitlaced as a lawyer. He struck her as
someone who made his own rules rather than living by any
imposed on him. Her skin still tingled under the brand of
ownership he'd imprinted on her.
"Some are, I think,"
Abby answered. "Ours have been meeting them every
day."
"Our—? Oh, right." Clair forced herself back to
the conversation. Lawyers. Not just her friend deceased but
the boss and owner, leaving the place on tiptoes of tension.
She'd noticed the mood the second she returned. Having
strangers prowl like bargain hunters at a fire sale didn't
help. Clair decided she didn't like that trespasser of a
man.
Abby glanced around before hunching even closer.
"Clair? I'm really sorry for what I said. I know losing Mr.
Van Eych must be hard for y—"
"It's fine. Don't worry
about it," Clair dismissed with a light smile. She stepped
back to freeze out the empathy.
Putting up walls was
a protective reflex, an automatic reaction that probably
accounted for why no one ever sent her flowers or love
notes. She wasn't good at being close to people. That was
why she'd let herself fall into a fake romance with Victor.
He'd offered companionship without the demands of physical
or emotional intimacy, protecting her from anyone else
trying to make a similar claim. No risk, she'd thought. No
chance of pain. Ha.
That Russian would make
incredible demands, she thought, and her stomach dipped even
as she wondered where her speculation had come from. No way
would she let someone like that into her private life. He
was a oneway ticket to a broken heart. Forget
him.
Nevertheless, trepidation weakened her knees as
she looked toward her office, the direction he'd taken.
Silly to be afraid. He would already have forgotten
her.
"I'll check in with Mr. Turner," Clair said,
holding the smile of confident warmth she'd perfected as
Victor's PA. "If I'm able to tell you anything, I
will."
"Thank you." Abby's worried brow
relaxed.
Clair walked away, determined to push the
Russian from her mind, but she'd barely hung her coat and
bent to tuck her purse into her desk drawer before Mr.
Turner appeared in the doorway. Waxen paleness underpinned
the flags of red in his sagging cheeks.
Clair stood
to attention, heart sinking with intuitive fear. "What's
wrong?"
"You're to report to—" He ran a hand over his
thinning hair. "The new owner."
Aleksy Dmitriev set
the waste bin next to his feet, reached for the first plaque
on the wall and tossed it in, taking less satisfaction in
the loud clunk of an industry award hitting the trash
than he'd anticipated. This coup had been too easy.
Clunk. The bastard wasn't alive to see his world
collapse. Clunk. Van Eych had succumbed to the
lifestyle he'd enjoyed at the expense of men like Aleksy's
father rather than face the revenge Aleksy had intended to
wreak. Clunk.
The blonde in the foyer was that
filthy dog's mistress. Smash!
A delicate
crystal globe shattered in the bottom of the can, leaving a
silver heart exposed and dented.
"What on earth," a
clear female voice demanded, "do you think you're
doing?"
Aleksy lifted his head and was struck by the
same kick of sexual hunger he'd experienced fifteen minutes
ago. The part of his anatomy he couldn't control suffered
another tight, near-painful pull.
At first sight he'd
judged her snowflake perfect, delicate and cool with creamy,
unblemished skin, white-gold hair and ice-blue eyes. As
potent as chilled vodka with a kick of heat that spread from
the inside. He'd demanded her name and details.
Now
the dull raincoat was gone, revealing warmer colors. Her
peach knit top clung to slender arms and hugged smallish but
high breasts, while her hips flared just enough to confirm
she was all woman.
He smothered reckless desire with
angry disgust. How could she have given all that to an old
man, especially that old man?
Under his stare,
her lashes flickered with uncertainty. She turned one boot
in before setting her feet firmly. Her fists knotted at her
sides, and her shoulders went back. Her chin came up in the
same challenge she'd issued when they first came
face-to-face.
"Those might have sentimental value to
Mr. Van Eych's family," she said.
Aleksy narrowed his
eyes. The heat of finding the fight he'd been anticipating
singed through his muscles. She was an extension of Victor
Van Eych, and that allowed him to hate her, genuinely hate
her. His sneer pulled at his scar. He knew it made him look
feral and dangerous. He was that and more. "Close the
door."
She hesitated—and it irritated him. When he
spoke, people moved. Having a slip of a woman take a moment
to think it over, look him over, wasn't
acceptable.
"As you leave," he commanded with quiet
menace. "I'm throwing out all of Van Eych's trophies, Miss
Daniels. That includes you."
She flinched but
remained tall and proud. Her icy blue eyes searched his,
confirming he was serious.
As the heart attack
that killed your meal ticket, he conveyed with
contempt.
She turned away, and loss unexpectedly
clawed at him.
He didn't have time to examine it
before she pressed the door closed, remaining inside.
Inexplicable satisfaction roared through him. He told
himself it was because he would get the fight he craved, but
what else could he expect from a woman of her nature? She
didn't live the way she did by walking away from what she
wanted.
Keeping her hand on the doorknob, she tossed
her hair back and asked with stiff authority, "Who are
you?"
Unwillingly, he admired her haughtiness. At
least she made a decent adversary. He wiped the taint of
dust from his fingertips before extending his hand in a
dare. "Aleksy Dmitriev."
Another brief hesitation;
then, with head high, she crossed to tentatively set her
hand in his. It was chilly, but slender and soft. He
immediately fantasized guiding her light touch down his
abdomen and feeling her cool fingers wrap around his hot
shaft.
He didn't usually respond to women like this,
rarely let sex thrust to the forefront of his mind so
blatantly, especially with a woman he regarded with such
derision, but attraction clamored in him as he closed his
hand over hers. It took all his will not to use his grip to
drag her near enough to take complete ownership, hook his
arm across her lower back and mash her narrow body into
his.
Especially when she quivered at his touch. She
made a coy play at pretending it disconcerted her, but she'd
been sleeping with a man old enough to be her grandfather.
Acting sexually excited was her stock in trade. It made him
sick, yet he still responded to it. He wanted to crowd her
into the wall and kindle her reaction until she was helpless
to her own need and he could sate his.
Disappointment
seared a blistering path through his center. He wanted her,
but she'd already let his enemy have her.
Aleksy
Dmitriev released her hand and insultingly wiped his own on
his tailored pants, as if her touch had soiled his
palm.
Clair jerked her hand into her middle, closing
her fist over the sensation of calluses and heat. He was
hot. In every way. All that masculine energy and muscle was
a bombardment. She didn't want to react, especially to
someone who wanted to fire her.
She dragged at
her cloak of indifference, the one she'd sewn together in a
school full of spoiled rich kids. "What gives you the right,
Mr. Dmitriev, to take away my job?"
"Your 'job' is
dead." His curled lip told her what he thought her job
was.
"I'm a PA," she said tightly. "Working under the
president. If you've taken ownership, I assume you're moving
into that position?"
"On top of you? A predictable
invitation, but I have no use for his
leavings."
"Don't be crass!" she snapped. She never
lost her temper. Poise was part of her defense.
He
smirked, seeming to enjoy her flush of affront. It
intensified her anger.
"I do real work," she
insisted. "Not whatever you're suggesting."
His
broken eyebrow went up. They both knew what he was
suggesting.
"I manage special projects—" She cut
herself off at his snort, heart plummeting, suddenly worried
about her own very special project. The foundation was a few
weeks from being properly launched. After last week, she
knew the building she'd grown up in was badly showing its
age. The home needed a reliable income more than ever. And
the people…
"Clair, are you okay? You're more
quiet than usual," Mrs. Downings had said last week,
catching her at the top of the stairs where she'd been
painting. They'd sat on the landing and Clair hadn't been
able to keep it all in. Mrs. Downings had put her arm around
her, and for once Clair had allowed the familiarity, deeply
craving the sense that someone cared she was
hurting.
She'd come away more fired up than ever to
get the foundation off the ground. She had to keep people
like Mrs. Downings, with her understanding and compassion,
available to children with the same aching, empty hearts
that she had.
"Are you shutting down the whole firm?"
Clair asked Aleksy with subdued panic.
He turned
stony. "That's confidential."
She shook her head.
"You can't let everyone go. Not immediately. Not without
paying buckets of severance," she guessed, but it was an
educated one. There were hundreds of clients with
investments managed here.
"I can dismiss you," he
said with quiet assurance.
Another jolt of anger
pulsed through her, unfamiliar but invigorating. "On what
grounds?"
"Not turning up for work last
week."
"I had the time booked months ago. I couldn't
have known then that my employer would pass away right
before I left." And she would have stayed if Victor's family
hadn't been so cutting. If someone, anyone, had said she was
needed here.
"You obviously cared more about enjoying
your holiday than whether your job would be here when you
returned."
The annual blitz of cleaning and repair at
the home was the furthest thing from a holiday, not that he
wanted to know. "I offered to stay," she asserted, not
wanting to reveal how torn she'd felt. With her world
crashing around her here, she'd been quite anxious to escape
to the one stable influence in her life.
"The VP
granted my leave," she continued, scraping her composure
together by folding her arms. With her eyes narrowed in
suspicion, she asked, "Would I still be employed if I'd
stayed?"
"No." Not a shred of an excuse.
What
a truly hateful man! His dislike of her was strangely
hurtful too. She tried hard to make herself likable, knowing
she wasn't naturally warm and spontaneous. Failing without
being given a chance smarted.
"Mr. Turner assured me
before I left that another position would be found for me.
I've been here almost three years." She managed to hang on
to a civil tone, searching for enough dignity to disguise
her fear.
"Mr. Turner doesn't own the company. I
decide who stays."