One Stolen Kiss (7 page)

Adrik heard her little intake of breath, even while the plane’s engines revved up as it started to taxi onto the runway.

No wonder everyone in the room guessed they had a past.

“
Small Manhattan Gallery’s Big Secret
…” Christie gulped as she read the headline aloud.

“
They’ve just said it explains the mystery of why the identity of ‘Paparazzka’ was revealed at
Harding’s
,” Adrik reassured her, running a finger down the two neat paragraphs below the picture. “Our relationship.”

“
Oh.” Christie nodded, apparently not daring to read further in case anything negative leapt out at her. Fortunately, words like ‘engaged’ and ‘delighted’ and ‘Lake Como’ stood out – Eileen’s contacts had done their job well already. But the snapshot outshone any number of words that could have been printed. “Okay.”

“
It’s a nice photo,” he added, encouragingly. “I’m going to keep it.”

She did not react or comment, just gave him a look of blank curiosity. It intrigued and saddened him in equal measure, and he reached for her hand once more as the plane took off.

CHAPTER FIVE.

“
Oh no…”

Even though it was now the middle of the night in London, a small handful of optimistic photographers had gathered at the leafy Holland Park address Adrik had given to their transfer driver from the airport.

“Drive past,” Adrik instructed the chauffeur, and the car remained in gear, not slowing too much as they skirted the front gates. “Now who could that be…?”

At second glance it appeared that the focus of the knot of journalists outside the huge, double-fronted white stucco villa was a tall brunette in Burberry, with a too-large Louis Vuitton overnight stay bag conspicuously over one arm. Dark glasses in place against the glare of nothing more than streetlamps and cameras, she was alternately checking her watch and cell phone, as if pretending she was not surrounded by the British paparazzi.

“Isn’t that Olga Rose?” the driver commented, glancing in his side mirror. “The supermodel – the one who dropped her bag of coke on Harry’s foot.”

“
How do you know her?” Christie asked.

“
I don’t,” Adrik replied, equally mystified. “Never met her. But this is nothing new, believe me. Stop just down here on the left, please.”

He took out his own cell phone, and dialled the house as the driver pulled into a discreet shadow outside a scaffolded property nearby, beyond a builder’s skip full of perfectly adequate bathroom suites.

“There appears to be a crack party on the pavement outside,” he said, as the call was answered. “Would you move them on so I can get in, please?”

He disconnected the call, and rolled down the passenger window.

“Listen,” he told Christie, his finger to his lips.

Christie undid her seatbelt and leant across a little towards the open window. Adrik put his arm along the back of the seat, his hand resting on her shoulder reassuringly.

There was the faint sound of a front door opening, and camera flashes began to start, flaring off the scaffold beside their car in its wrapping of high-visibility tape.

And then the much louder, electronically-amplified click of someone clearing their throat, through what could only be a sports stadium loudhailer.

“Get off my doorstep, dirty crack-heads!” boomed a woman’s throaty Nigerian accent. It would have been intimidating enough without the amplifier. “Go and deal your drugs elsewhere! Or I call the police!”

The effect was instantaneous. The street reverberated with running footsteps, car doors slammed, engines revved – and within about thirty seconds, the road was deserted. Somewhere, dogs were now barking.

“Whoa,” Christie remarked, while the chauffeur chortled away heartily to himself. “That was fast.”

“
I never have to call the police,” Adrik said almost apologetically, by way of explanation. “But the neighbours will call them now, even if they haven’t looked outside. So it serves the intruders best to run away, and not have to explain themselves.”

“
I see. A sort of Neighbourhood Watch public announcement service?” Christie surmised. “Whatever happened to just a simple ‘Twelve of the clock, and all’s well’?”

“
Sometimes all is not well.” Adrik winked, and opened the car door to get out. “Should be safe now. Let’s go.”

Christie still felt wary as she followed him to the gated front path, angling her baseball hat down as Derek would have instructed her to do. In fact, in this sort of scenario, he had been known to merely dispatch her straight to a hotel instead of risking being seen with her. But Adrik seemed quite comfortable, and in no hurry either.

“Look,” he said, stopping at the open iron gate. He was pointing down the street.

“
Where?” Christie whispered. She instinctively ducked into the shadow of a tree, scanning for professional photographers and other snoopers.

“
Fox,” said Adrik. A sinuous, feral shape slunk quickly from patch to patch of light before disappearing between the parked cars. “City fox. My cat likes to chase them. I think there might be cubs nearby.”

“
Oh…” Christie straightened up a little, although her neck still prickled as if sensing the imaginary hidden observers, implanted firmly in her mind by Derek Goldman’s PR training. There really was only a fox besides them in the immediate vicinity now – but she couldn’t help checking out every other shadow, out of nervous habit.

“
What are you doing back there? Hiding from the SVR?” Adrik chuckled. “Better come indoors, before
you
get mistaken for paparazzi – Paparazzka.”

He doesn’t understand
. Christie kept scanning either side of them as they headed up the path to the front steps.
Privacy isn’t an entitlement. It’s a privilege. People have to work hard for it, to earn it – to protect it…
She knew it was Derek’s voice quoting those words in her head, but they were the only truth she knew since moving to the bright, glaring –
unforgiving
– lights of Manhattan.

They reached the top of the stone steps. Adrik opened the door, and she let out a sharp gasp.

Something heavy, fast and fluffy had barged in past them, right through her legs. The sound of claws skittered across the honey-coloured oak floors, fading rapidly into the depths of the mansion.

“
I think the fox just ran in!” Christie hissed, almost frozen with fright.

“
No – that was cat,” Adrik corrected. “His master is home, therefore he thinks it is time for dinner.”

Another Nigerian voice, male this time, and equally angry, hollered through the building.

“Out of my kitchen, bastard!” And there was the unmistakeable clattering of wooden spoon against saucepan.

“
By the sound of it, dinner is not ready,” Adrik concluded. “Prepare yourself to meet my… my… well, I’m not sure exactly what it is they do, specifically. Elsie and Lucas. I think they just moved in with me and take my money.”

“
Have they lived with you for long?” Christie asked, noting the loudhailer standing on the Georgian mahogany sideboard in the hallway.

“
The last two years. I’m afraid it’s them that we will have the most trouble convincing of our partnership. They are very – protective, let’s say. Or maybe I mean, judgemental. Somewhere between the two.”

But before Christie had time to ‘prepare’ as Adrik suggested, the view along the hallway was eclipsed by a curvaceous figure in a royal blue tunic and white trousers.

“What time do you call this?” the woman shouted in a sing-song manner, giving Christie an odd sense of
déjà vu
. “And what have you got there? A new bodyguard, is it?”

“
Elsie, this is Christie Harding,” said Adrik. “My future wife.”

“
Ah, from the newspapers today?” Elsie strutted towards them as if she owned the place, looking them both up and down as Christie stiffened, the entire premise of the situation alien to her. “I thought that was another lie. Take your hat off, Miss Harding – let’s have a look at you, then.”

Christie slowly pulled off the baseball cap, and straightened her hair self-consciously.

“So it is you.” Elsie folded her arms and nodded. “I thought it was a nice photo.”

“
Me too,” Adrik agreed, putting his arm around Christie’s shoulders and giving her a squeeze. Christie’s knees weakened, not helped by the fact that she hadn’t quite recovered her land-legs yet since the flight. “I think we’re just going to grab something to eat and go to bed. It’s been a long day, and the plane back was kind of choppy.”

Bed!
Christie felt his arm around her tighten. Perhaps he was warning her not to run away this time…

Elsie jutted her chin and beckoned.

“He is cooking tonight. Mr Delia Smith.” She strolled ahead of them, waving into various rooms. “Do not go in this drawing-room, I am still dusting and vacuuming. And this one, I think there is a squirrel in the wall, the man is coming tomorrow. You can eat in the dining room, I have polished already in there. Or there is the snug, or the den, but I am sure I can smell something in both of them.”

“
I can smell something,” Adrik muttered. “A staff party while I was away.”

“
What?” Christie was shocked.

“
What was it this time, pot luck, or bring your own bottle?” Adrik asked Elsie.

“
Bring your own pot.” Elsie roared with laughter. “Dinner is about ready. Go and sit down. I’ll bring you something to drink. What do you like, Miss Harding? Coffee, tea? Champagne? Sambuca? Jägerbomb? I can’t tell by looking at you. Some girls, you know they only drink red wine. Others, you say to yourself, hmmm, I don’t know, maybe Perrier water, ice and lemon? And then they ask you for a pint of Guinness.”

“
Welcome to London.” Adrik grinned at Christie wryly.

“
Er – tea, please…” Something else was already distracting her. Elsie acknowledged and disappeared down some stairs to the lower ground floor.

As Christie tagged along behind Adrik, not really registering the layout of the enormous townhouse, what she was really noticing were the vast canvases punctuating the smooth-painted walls. Most were unframed, in bold colours, abstract, post-impressionist, and expressionist art. Not modern and interesting wastes of time and money used to jazz up some interior design – they were all in their own way beautiful pieces of work by genuinely talented artists, old and new. Completely uncharacteristic of the reclusive, quietly dignified persona that Adrik Maksimov seemed to exude in the public eye.

“Your taste is quite eclectic,” she murmured.

“
If I see something I like,” he shrugged, “it doesn’t have to match.”

He led the way into a cosy sitting-room with dark red walls and a huge plasma screen, and dropped both of their bags onto one of the soft leather sofas. The far wall was just bookshelves, crammed with books, magazines, document files, DVDs and even CDs.

“My father’s old filing system,” he said, waving a hand at the monolith. “The den was his study before. Very much the same as it was when he was alive, except more vertical.”

“
You keep everything?” she remarked.

“
Everything that was his. It’s not as if it’s in the way.” He picked at a few magazine spines idly. “It gives me insight. One of his favourite films, look –
Yakuza
, with Robert Mitchum. All about honour and loyalty. And love. Making the past right in the present.”

He turned around to look at her, and she felt as though the air itself around her started to tingle.

“Sit down,” he said. “We’ll just chill out in here for a bit.”

She peeled off her jacket, and he reached down the remote to turn on the TV, wincing as a chart music station blared on. Images of hotties in hot-pants in hot-tubs filled the screen.

“Party room last night,” he muttered accusingly, and selected a comedy channel instead, turning the volume down some. “Is this okay for you? Or do you want to see the news?”

“
This is fine – thank you.”

Christie sank into the sofa facing the screen, so comfortable after the plane and the car that it was like sitting on a cloud. Adrik unbuttoned the plaid shirt he wore and pulled it off from over the No Fear tee, tossing it on top of their bags on the other sofa before collapsing into the seat beside her. The sudden displacement of air in the cushions nearly bounced her off again over the armrest at the far end.

“Sorry,” he snorted, stifling a laugh. “Exhausted – I’m not used to anyone sitting there.”

“
That’s all right.” Christie resettled herself gingerly.

He unlaced his boots and kicked them off.

“My turn to put my feet up,” he said, and pivoted in the seat. Instead of resting his feet on her lap, though, he wiggled them underneath her knees and out the other side, so that she was effectively sitting across his shins. “Mmm – that feels familiar.”

She reddened at his grin, as he settled his head on one arm against the cushions. Surely he could feel the quickening pulse trying to beat its way out of her?

“Put yours here if you want.” He patted his abdomen. “I won’t bite.”

“
I’m okay,” she barely whispered.

“
Getting comfy already? That’s good!” Elsie’s strident voice held a motherly tone as she barged in on them with the tea tray. It was deposited on the low table in front of the sofa, and she clapped her hands as she hurried straight back out of the den again. “Mr Delia Smith! Come and feed these people! My boy is fainting from the hunger already…”

“
Keep your peace, woman!” the man’s voice retaliated. “You come here, and put bastard cat back outside before he jumps straight into the oven!”

Christie started to lean forward to try and reach the teapot, far too aware of her weight moving on Adrik’s legs.

“I’ll get it – you stay put.” He sat up, feet still tucked underneath her, and reached over to the table with much more ease, pulling it closer towards them.