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,’
