Rafe knew about the other man or his beautiful daughter.
‘It is,’ he confirmed slowly. ‘Thank him for me, but I would prefer to drive myself.’ Having his own transport meant that Rafe could leave when he’d had enough. He also bridled at the thought of being organised by the arrogant Dmitri Palitov!
Nina Palitov frowned at his refusal. ‘I know my father would prefer to have one of his cars collect you.’
‘And I would prefer to drive myself,’ Rafe repeated unrelentingly.
‘I very much doubt you know where he lives.’
‘I doubt many people do,’ he came back knowingly.
‘No.’
He nodded briskly. ‘Perhaps you would like to leave the address with my secretary some time tomorrow? After you’ve spoken to your father again, of course.’
She chewed on her bottom lip, instantly drawing Rafe’s attention to those pouting, slightly reddened lips, and in turn to those captivating moss-green eyes. He realised his mistake as he felt as if he were drowning in those smoky-green depths.
Just as he was aware the rest of him was being pulled, as if by a magnet, towards her, as his head slowly lowered—
‘I should go and check security now,’ Nina rasped abruptly even as she stepped back and away from him. ‘I’ll pass your message on to my father.’
‘Fine.’ Rafe straightened abruptly, inwardly cursing the obviously increasing attraction he felt towards Nina Palitov, and sincerely hoping his date this evening with Jennifer would put that attraction out of his mind—and appease his aching body! ‘Do you want me to come down with you to view security in the basement?’
Nina gave a rueful smile at the obvious lack of enthusiasm in his voice. ‘I believe that I can find my own way, thank you.’
Rafe eyed her irritably. ‘I was being polite.’
‘I noticed,’ she drawled.
Rafe nodded abruptly before striding across to open the office door for her, a little disconcerted at instantly finding himself the focus of two pairs of wraparound sunglasses, the two bodyguards—Rich and Andy?— standing directly outside the door. ‘I assure you, Miss Palitov has come to no harm while in my office,’ he drawled mockingly.
There wasn’t so much as an answering smile in either of those two grimly set faces, neither man sparing Rafe a second glance as Nina stepped out into the hallway. ‘Good day to you, Mr D’Angelo,’ she murmured before walking off towards the lift, the two men falling into step behind her.
Which in no way hindered Rafe of the view of Nina Palitov’s heart-shaped backside in those tight-fitting denims. A view his once-again throbbing body enjoyed to the full.
He was in trouble—serious trouble!—Rafe acknowledged with a low groan, if just looking at the perfect curve of Nina’s bottom in a pair of tight-fitting denims could succeed in making his shaft swell and ache!
CHAPTER THREE
‘YOU LIKE THIS Raphael D’Angelo who is coming to dine with us this evening?’
Nina tensed, her hand shaking slightly, as she paused in pouring her father’s usual pre-dinner drink of single malt whisky from the cut-glass decanter into one of the matching glasses on the silver salver. She waited several seconds for her hand to stop shaking, and to compose her expression, before she finished pouring, and then turned to carry the glass over to her father. ‘Have I told you how handsome you look this evening, Papa?’ she complimented lightly.
‘A man of almost seventy-nine cannot be called handsome,’ he drawled dismissively, his English still accented, despite his having lived in the States for more than half his life. ‘Distinguished, perhaps. But I am too far beyond the flush of youth to ever be called handsome.’
‘You always look handsome to me, Papa,’ Nina assured him warmly.
Because he did. Her father might be heading towards his eightieth year, but his habitual air of suppressed vitality made him seem much younger, and his iron-grey hair was still thick and plentiful, his face one of chiselled strength, even if his eyes had faded over the years to a pale green rather than the same moss-green as her own.
Her father gave her a knowing look. ‘You are avoiding answering my original question.’
That was probably because Nina had no idea what had prompted her father to ask it.
She had once again spent the day at the gallery, organising the final arrangement of the display cabinets. She’d felt slightly on edge in case she should see Rafe D’Angelo again, and then a certain amount of disappointment when she’d left the gallery at four o’clock without catching so much as a glimpse of its charismatic owner.
A disappointment she had chastised herself for feeling as she lay soaking in a perfumed bath an hour or so later; Rafe D’Angelo was not a man she should become in the least interested in. He was arrogant, mocking, and, even more importantly, not in the least bit interested in her.
Even so, Nina hadn’t been able to resist switching on her laptop and looking him up on the Internet once she had finished her bath, sitting on her bed in her dressing gown, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, to scroll through the pages and pages of information and gossip on the highly photographed Raphael D’Angelo. She’d told herself that it was because she needed to know all that she could about the man her father had invited to dinner this evening—other than the fact that he brought out a physical reaction in her that she found distinctly uncomfortable.
It had taken her several minutes of scrolling before she found a photograph of him from the previous evening, as he enjoyed an intimate dinner for two at an exclusive New York restaurant, with the beautiful actress Jennifer Nichols—obviously the ‘previous engagement’ that had prompted him to refuse her father’s initial dinner invitation. Nina had switched off her laptop in disgust.
Nina had decided that Rafe D’Angelo was nothing more than a rake and a womaniser, and she refused to waste any more of her time—or her emotions—on him.
‘You are still avoiding it, Nina,’ her father prompted gently.
She gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘That’s probably because I have no idea what prompted you to ask such a question, Papa.’
‘You are looking very beautiful this evening, maya doch.’
‘Are you saying I don’t normally?’ she teased.
Her father gave an answering smile. ‘You know you are always beautiful to me, Nina. But tonight you seem to have made a special effort to be so.’
Probably because, after seeing that photograph of Rafe D’Angelo with the actress Jennifer Nichols, that was exactly what she had done! Which was pretty silly of her; she could never hope to compete with the beauty or sophistication of the A-list actress.
Nor should she want to.
Rafe D’Angelo meant nothing to her. As she meant nothing to him.
‘And I do not believe you have made this special effort on my behalf,’
