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,’ he said uncertainly, in his clear, high child’s voice.
‘No, it’s not Papa,’ Maisy said softly, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.
He came slowly towards them and dropped down beside the chair, so that his height and bulk were no longer frightening, and said in a grave voice, ‘Hello, Kostya. I am your godfather, Alexei Ranaevsky.’
Some of the tension Maisy was holding in her body shifted and melted with those words. Kostya’s godfather. Why hadn’t she remembered? The day of Kostya’s christening she had been in bed with a fever, but the au pair girl had brought back a gushing description of the übercool Alexei Ranaevsky, and here he was—in the flesh.
He lifted those megawatt blue eyes to her and said quietly, ‘You will get him back to sleep and I will wait for you outside.’
The velvet of his voice brushed over her. Maisy recognised his words as a directive and wondered if Alexei Ranaevsky ever asked permission for anything.
When she emerged the house felt empty again. The security detail had evaporated, although Maisy doubted they were far away. She stood at the top of the stairwell, listening for movement.
‘Here,’ came a deep voice from across the landing.
Maisy followed it into her own room. She hesitated on the threshold. Alexei was standing by the window, somehow managing to fill the entire room with his presence. Amidst the delicately feminine decor of duck-egg-blue and white he looked absurdly out of place.
‘Sit down,’ was all he said.
‘I’d rather stand …’
‘Sit down.’
Maisy rolled her eyes and sat on her narrow bed. He began to walk around, lifting framed photos, knick-knacks, even examining an atomiser of the perfume Maisy usually wore. All the while his attention seemed to be on her, and it was disconcerting. His raw energy was starting to roll through her and Maisy shifted on the bed, wishing she hadn’t sat down.
Alexei rubbed his chin ruefully and wondered why it was that after four days of abstinence, and a total lack of interest in sex for the first time in his adult life, it had all come roaring back the minute his body made contact with hers.
Looking at her now, it seemed she didn’t appear to have a waist under all that wool, but he remembered the curve of it under his hands. In the same way he knew her breasts would be soft and round and her hips and bottom lush in his hands. Her hair was much longer than it looked—she had it all caught up—and it would be long and curling. He could bury his hands in it when she was on her knees to him …
He almost growled with frustration. What was it about death and sex? Maybe that was why his body had gone there and his head had followed. Leo was dead. Leo’s child was now his lifetime responsibility, and he took his responsibilities seriously. Sitting in front of him was something both life-affirming and yet not serious at all. Sex with a real woman—not a sprayed, painted, waxed, plastic actress/model perfume commercial. Hell, she wasn’t even wearing make-up. She didn’t really need it, she had great skin, and that hair …
Suddenly she stood up. ‘Mr Ranaevsky—’
‘Alexei,’ he offered.
‘Alexei.’
She took a deep breath, and he registered she was about to make some sort of speech. That was never good.
‘I didn’t catch your name.’
‘Maisy. Maisy Edmonds.’
Maisy.
‘Sit down, Maisy.’
‘No, I need to say this standing up.’
‘Sit down.’
She sat. It was a good sign. Pliable.
She stood up. ‘No, this is important. I want to come with Kostya. I don’t know what your circumstances are, or what you have organised, but I want to stay with him until he’s settled. And he doesn’t know yet. When he’s told, I need to be there.’
Alexei frowned heavily. ‘He doesn’t know his parents are dead?’
Maisy shook her head, the pain rushing through her.
‘I had no intention of leaving you behind,’ was his only comment. ‘Do you have a valid passport?’
‘Yes,’ said Maisy. ‘But why—?’
‘Pack a bag. We move in twenty.’
‘But—’
He gave her a brief, almost offended look. ‘I’m not accustomed to explaining myself.’
To staff, added Maisy silently, biting down on a sharp retort.
Alexei registered her frustration, thinking wryly it was nothing next to his own. He had to get out of there before he did something stupid. He had overlooked momentarily who this woman was—a future employee. And he didn’t bed his female staff. He left her to it, reaching for his pager as he plunged down the stairs to alert his men to the changed situation.
It took Maisy twenty minutes to bag up enough of Kostya’s belongings for a week’s stay. She assumed the rest of his life would come later. Her own would take considerably longer to assemble, but fortunately she still had that suitcase she had packed for France on Sunday. Only five days ago, but it felt a lifetime.
But before she took a step out that front door she was going to have a shower.
Downstairs, Alexei consulted his watch for the third time. Half an hour. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t used to waiting on a woman. He had yet to meet one whose ‘five more minutes’ meant anything less than twenty. But Maisy Edmonds wasn’t in any way, shape or form a date, and he didn’t have time for this.
He never dealt with the small stuff, and he could have sent someone up for her, but with his libido humming he realised he actually wanted her at his side. The sparks at least were keeping him awake and functioning.
Her bedroom door was slightly ajar. He gave it a push, half expecting to find her knee-deep in clothes. Instead he found a naked wet woman wrapped in a little white towel, with ringlets of damp hair cascading down her back.
Lust roared through him like a hot desert wind, obliterating thought.
She didn’t cry out, or protest, or do any of the things an
