delight of someone encountering an old friend. How she had always loved that little tree.
But as she glanced up from the vibrant leaves she saw in Dimitri’s eyes the unmistakable flicker of fury.
‘So. Start explaining,’ he bit out.
Her knees had suddenly gone wobbly and she sat down on one of the leather sofas, even though he hadn’t asked her to—terrified of appearing weak when she knew it was vital to stay strong. She looked up into his face and tried to keep her voice steady. ‘I don’t think it needs very much of an explanation, do you? You are as aware of the facts as I am. We spent that night together...’
Her words trailed off because it still felt faintly unbelievable that she’d ended up in his bed, when he could have had any woman on the planet. And yes, she’d found him attractive—in the way that you sometimes looked at the ocean and were rendered speechless by its power and beauty. Erin certainly hadn’t been immune to the carved symmetry of Dimitri’s proud Russian features, or the hair which gleamed like dark gold. There probably wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t have looked twice at his powerful body or admired his clever mind or the way a rare flash of humour could sometimes lighten his cold face. But she had never let her admiration show, because that was unprofessional—and she was pragmatic enough to know that she was the kind of woman he would never find attractive, even if she hadn’t been his secretary.
She had worked for him for years. He’d plucked her from a lowly job within his organisation—mainly, she suspected, because she didn’t go into instant meltdown whenever he came into the room. She had trained herself not to be affected by his sex appeal and a charisma undimmed by his haughty arrogance. She’d tried to treat him as she would treat anyone else, with dignity and respect. She had been calm and capable in the face of any storm—he’d told her that often enough. Soon he’d started giving her more and more responsibility until gradually the job had begun to take over her life, so that she’d had little left of her own. Maybe it was always that way when you worked for a powerful oligarch, with fingers in so many pies that he could have done with an extra pair of hands. She’d lost count of the times when she’d had to take a call from him during a dinner date, or miss the second half of a film because Dimitri had been flying in from Russia and needed her.
And she’d liked that feeling of being needed, hadn’t she? She’d liked the fact that such a powerful man used to listen to her—plain, ordinary Erin Turner. Maybe her ego was bigger than she’d given it credit for. Maybe it was that same ego which was responsible for allowing her feelings to slip from the consummate professional to being a woman with a stupid crush, despite her increasing awareness of the murkier side of her boss’s life. She began to nurture feelings about him which were unaffected by his gambling and clubbing and drinking and women. And those feelings began to grow.
She used to watch in mild horror from the sidelines as he played the part of the wild oligarch as if it were going out of fashion—as if he’d needed to prove something to the world, and to himself. There had been luxury yachts and private jets stopping off at Mediterranean fleshpots and Caribbean islands—always with some supermodel hanging on to his arm like a limpet. He’d mixed with empty-eyed men with faces even harder than his own. His hangovers had been legendary. He’d been...reckless—embracing life in the fast lane with a hunger and a speed which had seemed to be getting more and more out of control. Even his trusted bodyguard, Loukas Sarantos, had ended up resigning in frustration as Erin had looked on in despair. She remembered ringing up Loukas in desperation after he’d left—and the terrible bust-up in Paris which had followed.
Had it been her growing feelings for Dimitri which had made her start watching out for him, above and beyond the call of duty? Why she’d gone round to his apartment one dark and rainy night, a stack of papers beneath her arm—worried because he hadn’t been answering his phone and she’d been imagining the worst?
She remembered that her hand had been shaking as she’d rung the doorbell and had started shaking even more when he’d answered the door wearing nothing but a tiny towel, his bronzed body still damp and gleaming from the shower. Erin had been so relieved to see him that she’d been struck dumb, until it had dawned on her that he was almost naked. And that his face was dark and unsmiling.
‘Yes?’ he said impatiently. ‘What is it, Erin?’
Even now she could remember the hard pounding of her heart. ‘I’ve...er...I’ve brought some papers for you to sign.’
He frowned as he began to walk towards the dining room and made an impatient indication that she follow him. ‘Couldn’t they have waited until the morning?’
Faced with the sight of her powerful and very sexy boss wearing nothing but a tiny towel was playing havoc with her breathing, but Erin remembered looking at him very steadily as she put the papers down on the table.
‘Actually, I was worried about you.’
‘And what precisely were you worried about?’
‘You haven’t been answering your phone.’
‘So?’
Painfully aware of his proximity and the heat of his body, Erin was struck dumb. She’d planned to say something on the lines of wishing he wouldn’t keep such dangerous company, but the only thing she could think of right then was the danger of being alone with him like this.
She wondered if something in her expression gave away the desire which was shooting through her. Or whether it was the way she nervously licked her lips which made his body tense like that. His eyes seemed drawn to the involuntary movement of her tongue and then he nodded, like someone doing a complicated mathematical puzzle and coming up with a totally unexpected answer.
‘Oh, I see,’ he said, his lips curving into a predatory smile. ‘And there was me thinking you were the one woman who was immune to my charms, Erin.’
She didn’t even get a chance to object to his arrogance because without warning he gave a low laugh and pulled her against him—his lips covering hers in a hard kiss, as if he was trying out a new kind of sport. And Erin dissolved because she’d never been kissed like that before. Never. Within seconds of that kiss, she was so aroused that she barely noticed that the towel had slipped from his hips. It was only when her hand slipped down his back to encounter the rocky globe of a bare buttock that her eyes snapped open as she stared into his.
‘Shocked?’ he drawled.
‘N-no.’
‘I think you want me,’ he said unevenly as he began to unbutton her jacket. ‘Do you want me, zvezda moya?’
Did the sun rise every morning?
Of course she wanted him.
Erin gasped with hunger and delight as he pulled the navy jacket impatiently from her shoulders and unclipped the matching pencil skirt so that it slid to the ground.
She thought he might carry her into the bedroom, the way he’d done so often in her wilder fantasies. But instead he laid her out on the dining-room table—like some kind of sacrificial offering—and things happened very quickly after that. He started tearing hungrily at her underwear and she was shocked by how much she liked that, writhing her hips in silent hunger as she urged him on. She had vague memories of him putting on a condom and making some remark about how aroused she was making him feel. And then he thrust deep inside her and it wasn’t a dream, or a fantasy—it was really happening.
She had been a virgin, but he
