my father.’ The pain from his childhood made his voice a harsh growl and Emma pulled away from him to look up into his face. Could she sense the tension in him just thinking about how he’d been conceived, that he had been the product of a violent rape?
‘What happened?’ There wasn’t any disgust in her voice for his open admission, no judgement in those two words at all. Had she too known childhood heartache? Did she recognise it within him?
‘It was not a happy marriage and one my grandmother, Marya Petrushov, very much wanted to continue. She made things difficult for my mother, prolonged the unhappiness.’ He skirted around the truth, trying to explain without giving her any more of the sorry secret than she needed to know. She could even be storing away the information right now to put it in her damned article. He pulled away from her, broke the contact. It was the only way to be able to think straight.
‘Is that why you have been distracting me from meeting her?’ The bold question didn’t match the soft innocence of the image she created naked in his bed and he fought hard against the urge to abandon this conversation and use the language of desire and passion. Her next words killed that thought, so instantly his body froze. ‘I need the story, Nikolai, all of it. I have a job to do.’
How could she look so deliciously sexy when her words were like hail thrashing his naked body? Had he fallen for the oldest trick in the book? Had she acted innocent to ensure he took her to his bed and he was now spoiling her plans? Worse than that, had she bargained her virginity just to get the story she needed? He shouldn’t be telling her the intimate secrets of his family, not when she could portray a family ripped apart by greed and power as it had risen to new heights of wealth.
It was precisely what had happened. His mother must have been an easy target for a power-hungry man whose own family had come from nothing. Bile rose in his throat at the thought of his father’s mother selling the story. Did she expect it to keep her comfortable in her final years? Was she planning even now to blackmail him? It damn well wouldn’t happen if he had anything to do with it.
‘You’ll get your story,’ he growled as he stood up and stepped away from her, away from the temptation of her silky, soft skin. She was as devious as his grandmother. She’d only slept with him to get what she wanted. She’d crossed the barriers he’d long ago erected and had exposed his emotions to the light of a new day and, with it, the pain of who he was. ‘But not now. Not until I know if there are consequences from your underhanded way of interviewing me.’
‘Nikolai!’ she gasped and reached out, the sheet slipping, giving a tantalising view of her breasts. The fact that it turned him on, sending lust hurtling through him faster than anything he’d known, disgusted him.
He turned his back on her, not trusting himself to leave her alone, and savagely pulled on the remainder of his clothes. He’d been a fool. He’d thought he’d glimpsed what life could be like if his past wasn’t a permanent shadow hanging over him.
‘You need to leave.’ He turned to look at her, allowing the anger to sluice over him and wash away the lingering desire. She was as deceitful and scheming as his grandmother and he wouldn’t allow her to expose the truth and hurt his mother. She’d suffered enough shame.
* * *
Emma blinked and recoiled at the change in Nikolai. Where had the tender lover gone? Anger rushed from him like a fierce tide crashing onto the rocky shore.
‘No, we need to talk.’
‘I’m not saying anything else to you.’ He spat the words back at her, the dim light of the room only making his anger even clearer. What had she done to make him suddenly hate her? The questions had only been part of her job and she’d never hidden that from him.
He stepped closer to her and she became aware of her nakedness again, clutching the covers against her once more. From the hard expression set on his face, she knew their moment of intimacy was over. The connection between them they’d shared last night had been severed as surely as if he’d cut it.
He reached into his jacket pocket and seconds later tossed a business card onto the bed. ‘If you want to pry into my life any more, you can contact me on that number.’
Ice shuttered around her heart, freezing the new emotions she’d allowed herself to have for this man. How had she been stupid enough to believe he was different, that like her he was hurting because of the past? She’d thought that made what they’d shared last night more intense, more powerful.
She took the card, holding it as if it might explode at any second. The bold black print in which Nikolai Cunningham was written was as hard as the man who stood angrily before her.
‘One last thing,’ she said before she could think better of it. ‘Why do you no longer use your family name, Petrushov?’ It was the one thing which had puzzled her since she’d been given the assignment on the Petrushov family and had been told the only grandson would meet her in Vladimir.
‘I have no wish to use my father’s name.’ The harshness in his tone made his hatred and anger palpable. It filled the room and invaded every corner. ‘And, so that you have your information correct when you use my family’s sordid past to further your career, I changed my name to that of my stepfather when I was sixteen.’
‘I’m not going to use any of what you’ve just told me, Nikolai. What kind of woman do you think I am?’ She couldn’t keep the shock from her voice or the hurt from cutting deep into her. Did he really think that badly of her?
‘You are obviously the kind of woman who will trade her virginity to climb a career ladder.’ The hardened growl of his accusation sliced painfully into her, sullying the memories of giving herself to him so completely last night.
‘No,’ she gasped, wishing she was wearing something so that she could go to him. How could he think that of her? ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’
He gave her one last frosty glare and then strode to the door. ‘Now you have all you need to ruin mine and my mother’s reputations, you can get the hell out of my life.’
The door slammed behind him and she was left, blinking in shock. Only hours ago they had been locked in the arms of passion. Nothing else had existed. A tear slid down her face as she threw back the covers and picked up the black dress from the floor, trying not to remember the burn of desire she’d had for him as it had slipped off her body last night. Angrily she pulled it on, not caring about her underwear. All she wanted was to get along the hotel corridor to the sanctuary of her room and lock herself in until her heart stopped breaking.
Still reeling from the shock of Nikolai walking out on her, she shut the door of her own room and made for the shower, needing the warmth of the water to soothe her. After standing there for what felt like hours, Emma finally turned the water off and wrapped herself in a towel, trying not to dwell on the accusations Nikolai had hurled at her. Did he really think she’d all but sold herself just to get information out of him?
Her phone buzzed on the cabinet next to her bed. Instantly she was on alert. What if it was Nikolai? With a slight tremor in her hands she reached for it and, as she looked at the text from her sister, she knew the day was going from bad to worse. Even with the limited words of the text Emma could sense Jess’s distress, but it was the final word which really propelled her into motion:
I need you, Em, come now. Please.
* * *
Finally the overnight train arrived in Perm and Emma made her way straight to
