Innocent in the Ivory Tower (6 page)

‘It’s so lovely,’ she said, gazing around. ‘I would eat up here all the time if I could. Is Maria preparing the meal?’

‘I left that to the chef,
dushka
.’ He looked faintly curious, as if her questions were not quite what he was expecting.

‘She didn’t mention it, that’s all, and the kitchen was very quiet.’

‘What were you doing in the kitchen?’

‘Talking to Maria.’

Alexei gave her an odd look. ‘Then you were talking to Andrei?’

She nodded. ‘I didn’t know you had a chef. Maria’s been
making all my meals. She’s a wonderful cook. I’m sure I’ll put on ten pounds whilst I’m here if I don’t start running again. Why are you staring at me? What I have said?’

‘I hadn’t realised you were so tight with the housekeeper,’ was all he observed, sipping from his glass.

‘She’s been incredible with Kostya, and he’s really taken to her.’

Alexei merely inclined his head, and suddenly Maisy understood the man sitting across from her didn’t really care about any of this. He wasn’t listening to her. He was
watching
her. He never actually looked directly at her breasts, but Maisy knew that he was
seeing
them because they had tightened, and suddenly the boning in her dress didn’t feel anywhere near substantial enough.

Men didn’t make a habit of looking at her like this. Especially men sitting across from her, pouring her champagne and looking as if they’d stepped out of a style magazine.

‘Let’s talk about Kostya,’ she said, her high voice betraying a sudden rush of nerves.

‘Drink your champagne, Maisy. You haven’t touched a drop.’

Automatically she lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip. It tasted divine. She took another sip and sucked some of it off her lip. Premier champagne and pink shimmer lipstick—perhaps not the perfect combination.

Alexei watched her lip plump out, all wet and shiny from her tongue and the champagne. He would lick her there, later on, and then he would lick her further down, where she would also be plump and wet and wanting. He shifted in his chair as his body stirred to life.

Maisy put her glass down with a bump and he noticed her hands were trembling a little. Which was good. Hell, his weren’t exactly steady. He lifted his eyes to hers, but instead of desire he saw a little worry line of concern drawing her lovely dark brows together.

‘We really need to talk about Kostya,’ she insisted a little more firmly.

Alexei made a frustrated but resigned sound in the back of his throat. ‘Fine. We talk.’

Maisy folded her hands in her lap. She looked prim and proper—and that, he discovered, revved him up too.

‘Do you intend for Kostya to live here in Ravello?’

As enquiries went it was pretty innocuous and reasonable, yet it was one Alexei knew he wouldn’t answer in any other circumstances. He was so accustomed to guarding his privacy it had become habit never to respond to questions. Refusing to answer, however, wasn’t conducive to persuading Maisy out of that dress, so he settled for neutral. ‘
Nyet
. Villa Vista Mare is only one of my homes.’

Maisy experienced a sinking feeling. ‘How many do you have?’

‘Seven,’ he said briefly, as if it were of no import.

‘Seven?’ she repeated. ‘What on earth do you need seven homes for?’

‘Convenience,’ he said after a pause.

At that moment a waiter appeared with their entrée—crab bisque—and Maisy smiled at him and waited as she was served.

Alexei wondered a little testily if she showered those smiles on every male she met except him.

‘Does that mean Kostya will be travelling the world with you, to these homes?’

‘Da.’

Maisy sighed deeply, looking past him into the flickering darkness, saying almost to herself, ‘How is this going to work?’

Alexei gestured to her plate. ‘Eat, Maisy. Worry later.’

She nibbled on some crab meat and finally gave him the full impact of her smile. ‘It tastes of the sea,’ she imparted, as if this were a wonder.

‘It should,’ he replied, enjoying her reaction. ‘It came out of it this afternoon.’

The main course received the same enthusiasm and he watched her eat, itself a rare event. Most of the women he sat
down at a table with picked their way around a plate and drank like fish. Maisy hardly touched her champagne, but cleaned up her plate.

‘I’ve spoken to a child psychologist, as I told you earlier,’ said Alexei as their plates were cleared. ‘He informs me Kostya needs to feel secure here before he’s told about his parents.’

‘I agree completely.’

Her cheeks were flushed now—a combination of the spices in the main dish and her single half glass of champagne. Alexei knew they had to get this thorny question of Kostya’s welfare sorted before he could dance with her and feed her
gelato
and watch her lick it off the spoon, and then off his tongue. He also had to get his body under control before he stood up.

‘I’m dreading it,’ she confessed.

He experienced a measure of guilt for his lascivious thoughts. He needed to focus on this. It mattered.

‘He hasn’t asked for his parents?’ he said slowly.

Maisy folded her napkin. ‘No.’

There was a long silence. He was clearly waiting for an explanation, but Maisy didn’t know where to start without being disloyal to Anais.

For once he didn’t push her, and Maisy heard herself saying, ‘I don’t know how it is in Russia, but often in England in high-flying families the children can be overlooked.’

Alexei went very still. ‘You’re telling me Leo was a neglectful parent?’

Maisy suddenly felt uncomfortable, realising she had stepped unwarily into dangerous territory. She wasn’t the only person at the table protective of the Kulikovs’ memory. Alexei wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

‘It depends on your definition of
neglect
.’ She decided to talk to her plate. It seemed the easiest thing to do. ‘He was a busy man—you know that. He wasn’t always around.’

‘Kostya is an infant,’ Alexei said with some assurance. ‘It’s natural his mother would be his primary caregiver.’

‘Anais had some difficulties.’ Maisy released the breath
she had been holding. ‘She was very young—only twenty-one when she had him. She wasn’t particularly close to her own mother. It’s hard to explain. Anais didn’t spend a lot of time with Kostya.’

There—she’d said it. It was out there. She looked up to find Alexei was staring at her, and it wasn’t a look she was accustomed to from him.

‘What sort of concoction is this, Maisy? You’re trying to make me believe Leo Kulikov wasn’t a good father?’

‘It’s not a concoction, and I’m not saying they were bad people,’ she insisted. ‘I’m just trying to make you understand what’s going on in Kostya’s little head.’

‘I don’t need you for that,
dushka
, I’ve got a child psychologist who will deal with that problem. What I’m more interested in is why you’re so keen to make me think the worst.’

‘I’m not,’ Maisy protested. ‘You wanted to know—’ She broke off, upset by the contempt she could see forming in his eyes.

‘I know how much Leo loved his boy,’ said Alexei, in a voice that brooked no argument.

Maisy pushed the remainder of her plate away. ‘I’m not hungry any more,’ she said in a low voice.

Alexei leaned towards her. ‘Listen to me, Maisy. I don’t want to hear these stories. They don’t do you any credit. I wasn’t going to bring this up with you, but I’ve got some questions about your background I’d like cleared up before we go any further.’

‘My background?’ She hated the nervous tremor in her voice. It made her sound guilty of something.

‘Daughter of an unemployed single mother, yet privately educated, and you’d never held down a job until you appeared in the Kulikov household two years ago.’ He wielded the facts as if they were accusations.

Maisy flinched from them. He’d brought back so many memories she had hoped to leave behind for ever. She didn’t want them here tonight on this Italian rooftop. She wanted to
be the woman she was in the process of becoming. She wanted him to be the man she had imagined him to be.

All of a sudden she felt the past was very close to the surface.

‘How did you find out all that?’ she asked, gathering herself together.

‘It’s my business to know. What? Did you think I’d just let you in the door without a background check? Give me a break.’

‘You could have asked me,’ she said, with no little dignity.

‘Yes, but would I believe you,’ he replied silkily.

The unfairness of his accusation hurt. ‘Probably not. You seem to think I’m a liar, but to what purpose I have no idea.’

He was looking at her as if she had done something unforgivable—as if she’d crawled out from under a rock somewhere. It would have been easier to make up some story, she realised sadly, tell him the same lies everybody else had expected from her: Leo and Anais were a super couple, with a super life and a super baby. But the truth was—like everyone—they had been flawed, and because they’d been larger than life their flaws had enlarged accordingly.

‘Tell me,’ said Alexei with deceptive calm, ‘why do you think I invited you to have dinner with me tonight?’

Maisy knew she was walking into a trap. She would answer and he would say something clever and she would look a bigger fool. So she didn’t say anything. She stared endlessly at her half-empty champagne glass as the seconds ticked by.

‘Did you think, Maisy, we were going to talk about your employment contract? With you in your strapless frock and me pouring you champagne?’

Don’t say it
, she willed him.
Please don’t say it.

‘Or did you think I was going to take you to bed and keep you in the style to which you’ve become accustomed?’

His words stripped her of cover. She had nowhere to hide from them because it was true. She had wanted to go to bed with him. She had worn her best dress and her laciest knickers. She had drunk some of the champagne for Dutch courage.

Kostya’s future had come second to her desire to draw Alexei to her.

For the first time she had put the little boy second and herself first, and now she was going to pay for it. He’d set her up. She wasn’t fit to look after the needs of a young child. She was a sex-crazed bimbo.

Swallowing hard, she lifted guilty eyes to meet his icy scorn. Her dignity lay in shreds around her. She felt the same way she had when huddled behind the bathroom door at Lantern Square. He
did
this to her.

‘Are you going to send me away?’ she asked hollowly.

Their eyes locked.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

There was a fraught silence.

Alexei suddenly wanted to smash the last five minutes and go back to where they’d been before. She was looking at him like a deer caught in the headlights—that same lost look he remembered from London. It made him want to gather her up and shelter her from the harsher realities of life, including his own. But she’d pushed all his buttons with that crack about Leo. It was absurd and it was wrong, he told himself.

‘Kostya needs you.’

Maisy frowned. He said it as if the idea was distasteful to him. As if she was everything he said she was. It gave her the nerve to push out her chair and get up.

‘If your stupid investigator had done a better job he would know I never
worked
for the Kulikovs. I went to school with Anais. We were best friends. I would have done anything for her. And I won’t let you wreck her little boy’s life. I’m one hundred per cent sure if Anais had known the future she would have named
me
Kostya’s guardian. You’re Leo’s work.
Leo
made the mistake. Kostya shouldn’t have to pay for it.’

She took a deep sustaining breath, taking some satisfaction that he looked pale and tense, but also horribly aware she had said some cruel things. But he had too. He had said she wanted to go to bed with him for
money
. He had
hurt
her.

‘You lucked out, Alexei. I don’t want anything from you. I thought I wanted to make love with you, but now I’ve never wanted anything less.’

Swaying a bit on her heels, she didn’t look at him. She just walked away. He didn’t try to stop her. Lust didn’t override loyalty. Family came first. And Maisy, however inviting, was just a woman. Women were everywhere, he thought cynically.

‘That dress,’ he said coolly after her. ‘Nice for a nanny. Leo must have paid you well. I expect you’re
very
expensive to keep, Maisy.’

‘No one has ever kept me,’ she defended herself over her bare shoulder.

‘I bet.’ It was a crass thing to say, and Alexei instantly regretted it.

His throwaway line hit Maisy square in the solar plexus. He made her feel like a whore in her pretty dress and her make-up. All the
effort
she’d gone to … She spun around, determined not to let him have the last word, only to find he was already on his feet and coming towards her, his expression contrite, as if he’d realised he’d gone too far. But she’d moved too quickly, and her spindly heels wouldn’t support the shift in her weight, and she went sprawling, jarring her shoulder as she tried to break her fall with one arm. Pain speared up her arm, making her cry out, and then she was lying on the ground, holding her arm and sucking back tears.

Alexei was on his knees beside her instantly, his arms coming around her. But as he touched her shoulder she cried out again.

‘Let me help you,’ he said gently, his anger no longer evident.

Maisy was too shaken up to protest, but as he lifted her she was thrown into immediate physical intimacy with him and it robbed her of breath. She could feel his biceps hard beneath her back, his big hand fastened around her thigh. He had to do these things to carry her, she reasoned wildly, but after the terrible things he had said to her the shivery reaction running
through her body felt shameful. She averted her face from him, determined to block him out. If he saw how much he disturbed her it would just be more fuel for his accusations.

He carried her across the roof to the access door and down the stairs, as if she weighed nothing. Pain was pulsing through her shoulder, but the sheer awfulness of how cruelly his taunts had gone home overwhelmed it. He thought she was a liar, a party girl who spread her legs for anybody with enough cash, and he didn’t want her looking after Kostya.