The Ruthless Magnate’s Virgin Mistress

CHAPTER NINE

‘WHAT are we going to do about Drew’s debts?’ Caroline whispered in a despairing tone, her voice still hoarse from the constant crying she had done in recent days.

‘I don’t know,’ Abbey replied honestly, drained by the stress of trying to calm and support her friend through the family crisis. ‘But I’ve done the sums. Right now-assuming there’s no new disaster waiting in the wings to jump out on us-the business is at least bringing in enough cash to pay your regular outgoings and your home is safe.’

‘We can’t even sell it to settle the debts. We owe more than the house is worth,’ Caroline lamented. ‘I can’t live like this.’

‘I know that you’re scared and that you feel that Drew has let you down-’

‘Drew’s had a lot to bear in other ways.’ Caroline cast a speaking glance down at her wheelchair. ‘But even though I’m not the woman he loved and married any more, he’s never once complained. Maybe the gambling was an escape from the pressure of living with me.’

Abbey made no comment. She had no idea what had got into her brother and did not feel qualified to hazard a guess. Drew had always been quiet and sensible, and dangerous, thrill-seeking behaviour like compulsive gambling seemed out of character for him. But Abbey had only to look at her own conduct in recent weeks to accept that people often acted in unpredictable ways and not always for any clearly defined or rational reason. How, after all, could she explain her own total obsession with Nikolai? Was it a physical infatuation that would fade?

‘You could ask Nikolai Arlov for a loan.’

Abbey’s bright auburn head jerked up in dismay at that unwelcome suggestion. Caroline’s oval face was pale and strained and her shadowed eyes were pleading.

‘I couldn’t,’ Abbey replied curtly. ‘That’s out of the question.’

‘Why not? I mean, the bank wouldn’t even consider us in the state we’re in, but Nikolai might as a favour to you.’

Abbey was furious with Caroline for even broaching the subject. ‘Fixed as we are for finance right now, it would take us a lifetime to pay Nikolai back. And if I asked him to give us money it would be like selling myself to him!’ Abbey proclaimed, compressing bloodless lips and almost shuddering at the idea. Of course she had thought about asking Nikolai for help, of course she had, but she didn’t see why he should be expected to settle her brother’s debts for him. And she cherished the truth that she had never looked on Nikolai or treated him like an open wallet. She was not greedy like his previous lovers and she knew he valued that difference.

‘Don’t be so fanciful,’ her sister-in-law argued. ‘Nikolai seems to delight in spending money on you. He never stops buying you expensive gifts and you’re already practically living with him! Everyone reckons that what he has with you is much more than a casual affair.’

Everyone? Not Abbey, however. She stared out into the back garden where Alice and Benjamin were playing on the swing set. Every so often one of the twins cast an anxious look back towards the house, revealing that both children were aware of the tension in their home. Abbey hurt for her nephew and niece, who’d had to contend with a lot of parental rows and grief over the past fortnight. She wished she had a magic wand to wave that would make all the trouble and strife go away, but she didn’t.

‘Nikolai and I…well, it’s not like you think,’ Abbey argued uncomfortably, wishing she could tell the other woman about Nikolai’s desire to fool the press into believing that he was involved in a serious relationship with her. Only then would Caroline understand how hollow Nikolai’s apparent attentiveness really was at heart.

Caroline gave the younger woman an unimpressed glance. ‘Isn’t it? You’ve been here thirty minutes and he hasn’t phoned yet to maintain contact and I’m surprised. Over the last two weeks I doubt if you and Nikolai have been apart for longer than a couple of hours.’

Abbey dropped her head, knowing that that was the truth. The even more disturbing truth was that she had revelled in every minute of that intense togetherness and had discovered a happiness she had not known she was capable of experiencing. Happiness for her was falling asleep in Nikolai’s arms at night and waking up still in them.

‘And that’s not the way he usually behaves with women according to the articles I’ve read,’ Drew’s wife contended. ‘He’s a cold customer as a rule and yet he’s bought you a fortune in diamonds, is having you driven around in your own personal limousine and he marches you out everywhere he goes.’

‘I returned the diamonds to him,’ Abbey reminded Caroline and, catching sight of the time, she frowned. ‘Look, I’ll have to go or I’ll get caught up in the traffic-’

‘And be late, which Nikolai detests. He’s got you dancing to his tune all right. It’s hard to credit that only a week or so ago you were heartbroken about Jeffrey and Jane Dalkeith.’

Abbey’s face shadowed, as she recognised the slight hint of scorn in that unnecessary reminder of her lowest hour. After the shock of Jeffrey’s betrayal had sunk in, she had adapted fairly quickly and she had no quarrel with that assessment. ‘Well, I had to get over that, didn’t I? I wasted too many years grieving for Jeffrey to waste any more time agonising over a past that I couldn’t change and a man who never loved me the way I loved him.’

‘Very sensible. I only wish you would practise some of that sense around Nikolai.’

‘Common sense died the day I met him,’ Abbey quipped on the way out and she wasn’t joking when she said it. Something stronger than she was had drawn her to Nikolai and forged links she couldn’t break or walk away from.

The limousine ferried her back to Nikolai’s penthouse apartment where she had spent a great deal of the last fortnight. Lady, more at home there than she was at Abbey’s apartment and thoroughly spoiled by the attentive domestic staff, danced up to Abbey playfully in the hall to greet her. Abbey smiled and scooped up the Siamese kitten to cuddle her. When she reached the bedroom with the overnight bag she had brought she undressed and went for a shower. It was her last night with Nikolai, at least the last night of the two weeks she had agreed to spend with him, and who could tell what would happen next? Would she even see him tomorrow? She had no idea.

Nikolai never mentioned the future and never referred to anything more than a week in advance. Bearing that nerve-racking truth in mind, Abbey did not understand how it had come about that she could not picture a future without him. She could scarcely accuse him of having encouraged such delusions. Yet, a thousand memories bound her to him now. He filled every corner of her existence and most of her thoughts. He phoned her all the time. He gave her flowers and gifts every day. He listened to her when she talked. He had escorted her to parties, clubs and dinners and in his company time flew. She was getting used to the designer clothes, the diamonds and the endless pursuit of the paparazzi. She was getting dangerously accustomed to having Nikolai in her life.

She lifted a fleecy towel to dry herself before massaging rose-scented oil into her skin. Workwise, the past weeks had been less successful. She had so far failed to fire Nikolai’s interest in any of the country properties she had researched and, even though Drew’s financial problems and the fallout from that revelation had proved a source of continual worry for her, she had found comfort and forgetfulness in being with Nikolai.

He was the tough guy who had never had an indoor pet until Lady came along as a regular house guest. Nikolai talked much more freely about his background now. For the first nine years of his life he had been cared for and indulged. He had attended a private school and had shared the many privileges that his grandfather had enjoyed as a leading diplomat. But the older man’s sudden death from a heart attack had ended that life for ever and had catapulted Nikolai into the custody of a bullying father, who had never wanted him, and a stepmother who despised him. As heir to his grandfather’s substantial estate, Nikolai had been violently resented by his birth father’s family. When Nikolai was finally hospitalised for the injuries inflicted on him by his relatives, his father had decided it would be safer to banish him from the household altogether and he had fostered out his illegitimate youngest son to a poor family in one of the toughest estates in St Petersburg.

‘That experience and those years made me what I am today,’ Nikolai had insisted fiercely. ‘I learned how to rely on myself and how to fight my own corner. After I completed my military service I educated myself for the business world.’

The very bareness of his later childhood had touched Abbey’s compassionate heart to the core. She knew exactly what had made him tough and unyielding. He had never known a woman’s love and tenderness as a boy and the experience of violence followed by hunger and poverty had brutalised him, before a soldier’s training and the horrors of war had made his reserve even more impenetrable. Yet she had watched him play with the tiny Siamese kitten with a gentleness that fascinated her. This was the same guy who held her close in the aftermath of passion and let her smother him in kisses. She adored him and it was precisely because she adored him that she would not ask him to bail her brother out of trouble, for that single act would throw up the barrier of his great wealth between them. She was convinced that it would also erase any suggestion that they might be equals and destroy his respect for her.

Nikolai respected her independence and her refusal to grab at all the material things he could offer her. She wore the clothes and the jewellery because he insisted, but when he ended their affair she would leave those expensive trappings behind her, for the last thing she would want would be the reminders of what had been. She climbed into a filmy bra and knicker set and smoothed pale lace-topped stockings up her very long legs. Mischief sparkled in her eyes. The two weeks might be over, but she wanted him to regret the fact, not celebrate the prospect of his renewed freedom.

On the drive back to his penthouse Nikolai studied the tabloid gossip page Olya had given him. It included one of the official photos he’d had taken of Abbey and himself at the party he had thrown days earlier.

Abbey looked spectacular in a green satin dress that showed off her glorious hourglass shape as well, its décolleté neckline displaying the diamonds he had draped her in. Speculation about their relationship was now rife in the British media. The paparazzi were following their every move. There were already rumours about the house purchase and her involvement in its selection. The word inseparable was being thrown about with great abandon. And, in truth, during the past fortnight, Nikolai had managed to spend a good part of every day and all of every night with Abbey. And with Lady.

His sardonic mouth quirked with amusement. Abbey and her kitten, Lady, were truly inseparable because Abbey, for all her steely efficiency, was a total pushover for her tiny pet. He had watched her get out of bed during the night without complaint to comfort the lonely animal when she’d cried, and strive to meet her constant demands for attention. It had struck him that Abbey would make a terrific mother. It was easy to imagine her with a baby in her arms and the very fact he had imagined such a thing for the first time in his life with a woman had seriously spooked Nikolai. He had got in too deep. It was time to back off.

He was happy to admit that the nights had been amazing and that his hunger for her voluptuous body had yet to abate. Between the sheets, for all her innocence at the outset, she had proved to be a fast learner, who was surprisingly willing to fulfil his every fantasy. Indeed, sexually she was gradually surrendering her inhibitions to become his perfect match. He enjoyed showing her off as well. Abbey was his in a way no other woman had ever contrived to be-an intelligent partner, who could talk on a business level, and a stimulating companion who never bored him. He thought he would miss her when there was no longer any need for their pretence. He had yet to muster the interest to look out for her replacement in his bed, a lack of forward planning which was most unlike him.

The one aspect of Abbey’s nature that he knew he would not miss, however, was her reserve. Throughout their time together he had been aware that something was amiss and that she was seriously worried about that something, but despite the many opportunities he had given her she had steadfastly refused to confide in him and, indeed, had continued to infuriate him by insisting that nothing was wrong. Nikolai did not appreciate being treated as though he were stupid. He had always believed that it was a man’s fundamental right and responsibility to look after his woman, but it was not a role that Abbey seemed willing to extend to him. He had no doubt that her late husband, Jeffrey, had enjoyed more preferential treatment.

And he knew that Abbey’s attitude was influencing his own, because although he had that morning received an extraordinary visit from the Greek tycoon, Lysander Metaxis, Nikolai had no plans as yet to share the amazing content of what had been discussed with Abbey. Was it even remotely possible that he could be related to an Englishwoman? For about the tenth time Nikolai brought up a photo of Lysander’s wife, Ophelia, on his laptop and studied her with a frown. She was very small and blond and pretty. Physically there was no resemblance whatsoever. It was most probably a wind-up, not a deliberate one, of course, for Metaxis was not the joking type, Nikolai acknowledged wryly. But someone somewhere might well have got their wires crossed and screwed up the investigation into the history of Ophelia’s troubled mother. Even so, Nikolai was still keen to go to the party Lysander had invited him to this evening and interested in meeting Lysander’s wife and looking over the documentation that had been mentioned.

A gift bag in one hand, Nikolai strode down the corridor to the bedroom where he knew Abbey would be waiting for him. After a day apart from her he could never resist the need to immediately reacquaint himself with the allure of her warm, willing body and, after being carried off to the bedroom or ambushed on the sofa day after day, she had given up trying to interest him in food and good conversation when he first came through the door. When he saw her standing across the room, her glorious body fetchingly attired in sexy green lingerie, he was entranced. Setting the gift bag down by the bed, he moved towards her.

‘Nikolai.’ Abbey turned round the minute she heard the door open. Her violet eyes were luminous, her soft full mouth settling into a radiant smile. He still stole the breath from her body every time she saw him. It wasn’t humanly possible for him to get more gorgeous but her response to him never lessened. In a spectacularly elegant Italian designer suit, his lean, darkly handsome visage roughened by a faint masculine shadow of blue-black stubble, he looked stunning from the brilliance of his dark golden eyes to the sensual slant of his beautiful mouth.

‘You look really hot, lubimaya,’ Nikolai husked, running his smouldering gaze over her with bold appreciation.

Nikolai reached for her without hesitation, folding her slim, shapely body into his with sensual thoroughness. He found her generous mouth and kissed her with a slow erotic skill and hunger that sent heat hurtling through her quivering length like a fizzing firework of energy. He turned her round, long fingers curving across her stomach to ease her hips into contact with his erection. As a whimper of sound left her lips, he lifted his hands to caress her breasts through the fine fabric of her bra, catching the pink-topped peaks between thumb and forefinger to tease them to prominence.

‘Tell me why is it that when I had you only this morning, I still spent the entire day fantasising about coming home to have you again?’ he breathed in a hoarse undertone.

‘I don’t know,’ she said when she could get her voice to emerge levelly again, although she could have told him, had she felt sufficiently generous, that she’d reacted to him the same way.

‘You’re an addictive habit,’ he murmured, unhooking her bra and stripping it away.

A gasp escaped her as he moulded his hands to her full breasts. The straining peaks were very sensitive. He continued to explore her while she watched him in the mirror. There she was poised like a doll to be undressed in his arms, enslaved by desire and longing. She didn’t like the image or the thought, for both hurt her pride.

Nikolai studied their reflection in the same mirror with a thrill of fierce satisfaction; he had tamed his haughty beauty and she was his now to enjoy. An arm curved round her narrow waist, he sent seeking fingers down to the junction of her pale slender thighs. He skimmed over the slippery surface of her panties, feeling her body leap with response, the shiver that racked her against him and finally the heat and damp below her mound that telegraphed her readiness.

‘It’s been a wonderful two weeks,’ he conceded, shimmying down the panties over her hips and slowly lifting her free of them, every single move, every single glide of his expert fingers calculated to increase her craving a thousandfold.

Abbey tensed. That was his first reference to the fact that their agreement as such on where she slept was almost over. It wasn’t much for the basis of a relationship, she thought wretchedly, but it was all they had as a framework. Nikolai swept her up into his arms and down onto the bed.

‘Did I mention that we’re going to a party tonight?’ he murmured.

‘No…’ Abbey wasn’t pleased, for she had been looking forward to spending an evening at home with Nikolai and enjoying his undivided attention. ‘And I haven’t brought anything with me to wear either.’

‘I’ll take you home first to get changed. But you’ll definitely need the diamonds. Our hosts are Lysander Metaxis and his wife, Ophelia.’

Abbey’s lashes fluttered as she focused on his darkly handsome face above hers. ‘I’ve seen him in the business pages of the newspapers-’

‘His wife looks like a Botticelli angel,’ Nikolai remarked, poised at the foot of the bed and shedding his clothes in a careless heap.

It was unusual for Nikolai to compliment another woman in her presence-he was far too clever with her sex to make mistakes like that. And Abbey discovered that she was insecure enough to experience a stab of jealousy about a woman she had never met. She studied Nikolai, her attention pinned to his muscular, hair-roughened chest and long, powerful thighs while she marvelled at how natural it felt to be with him now. He came down beside her and she ran appreciative hands over him. The hot pulse at the heart of her and the groan of satisfaction he emitted urged her on. She loved to touch him and revelled in his response. While she had no idea what went on in his head, she had a much better grasp of what he liked in bed.

Nikolai knotted his hand in her tumbling curls and vented a driven groan of tormented pleasure, a long, deep shudder racking his long, powerful length before he hauled her up and rolled her over onto her back. ‘I’ve been thinking of this all afternoon, milaya moya-’

‘I thought nothing came between you and business.’ Abbey was trembling with excitement as he spread her thighs and slid between them.

‘Except you.’ His need for her at a torturous height, Nikolai stared broodingly down at her, wondering what it was about her that got under his skin to such an extent, wondering what insanity had taken hold of him when he had gone to the effort of buying the contents of the gift bag by the bed.

Mollified by the assurance, Abbey let her head roll back on the pillow, her slender neck extending. He rocked against her and she lifted her hips to receive him. He plunged into her silken depths with a husky growl of masculine pleasure. ‘I’ll make it last, zolotse moya,’ he swore.

And he did, driving her up to the heights with his slow, sure movements, where she splintered into a hundred pieces of sobbing delight. But it wasn’t over, for no sooner had she recovered from that first climax than he turned her over onto her stomach and took her again. This time he shifted the pace up tempo and set a hard, insistent rhythm that made her cry out in an agony of abandon and raw excitement. His passionate possession overwhelmed her and there were tears in her eyes when he turned her back to face him again. Exultant dark golden eyes raked over her hectically flushed face.

‘Bihla dika…that was wild,’ he breathed appreciatively, and he buried his face in the damp valley between her heaving breasts before kissing his way up to the delicate skin at the side of her neck.

Abbey’s head was swimming, her body tingling from the aftermath of sweet, drowning pleasure. All around her, the world seemed to have slowed down and she felt detached from it and ridiculously happy with Nikolai’s arms round her. In fact just then she never wanted to move again. Nikolai nuzzled at her neck and she felt the slight nip of his sharp teeth and made no complaint. She knew she had probably left scratch marks halfway down his back: she had got carried away, too.

‘You can’t go to sleep. We’re going out,’ Nikolai reminded her cruelly, literally lifting her off the bed and carrying her into the shower with him.

‘It’ll take me for ever to do my hair!’ Abbey complained, not wanting to go anywhere when she felt such a mess, particularly not to a party presided over by a woman with the face of a Botticelli angel.

‘I could have a hairdresser called in-’

‘It’s not that simple-’

‘If you would let me take care of you, it’s always that simple!’ Nikolai declared with supreme confidence.

Ten minutes later, Abbey was unwinding the towel from her damp hair when she saw the bruise marring her pale throat. A smothered shriek of horror erupted from her as she peered at her reflection in the vanity mirror above the sink. ‘Oh, my word, what have you done to me?’ she gasped, touching the blue-black bruising that now marked where he had employed his teeth. ‘I thought only teenagers did stuff like this!’

A towel anchored round his lean bronzed hips, Nikolai studied her neck with a disbelief akin to her own. He could not believe that that one tiny nip could have inflicted such highly visible damage. Dark blood flared over his cheekbones. He was equally stunned by his own lack of control and forethought.

‘Do you have vampires in Russia? Are you in training?’ Abbey demanded. ‘I can’t go out with a love bite on my neck! People will laugh at me.’

‘Won’t make-up conceal it?’ Nikolai prompted a tinge desperately.

‘Nothing I have will cover that up.’

‘Get ready. I know what will cover it-’

‘I’m not going to the party, Nikolai.’

‘I am. With or without you,’ he responded without hesitation. Lysander Metaxis had most effectively roused his curiosity. ‘But I would much prefer to have you by my side.’

Engaged in combing her wet hair, Abbey blinked back the hot moisture suddenly stinging the backs of her eyes since his declaration that he would go to the party alone if necessary had startled her, as well as rousing the fear that the end of their affair was already within view as far as he was concerned.

She switched on the hairdryer despite thinking that getting ready to go out was a waste of time because she could see no way that she could be made presentable enough to appear in public. He went to get dressed. When she joined him an hour later she had done her make-up and straightened her hair into smoothly acceptable curls and pulled on a pair of jeans.

‘Our evening meal awaits us and the solution to my…’ Nikolai struggled to find a suitable word ‘…thoughtlessness,’ he selected, bending down to scoop up Lady, who was playing with his shoelaces.

Purring like a car engine revving up, the Siamese was deposited back down again before she could shed hair on his suit. The kitten tried to persuade him to lift her again and wound her sleek body round his ankles like a crying fur muff. Abbey lifted the noisy little animal to comfort her.

Abbey was stunned when she realised what Nikolai’s solution to the love bite entailed. A decidedly superior jeweller and his assistant awaited them in the main reception room with a choice of jewelled collars. A magnificent pearl collar with a sapphire clasp was selected to encircle her neck and cover the bruise. She was still fingering it uncertainly when she took a seat at the dining table to eat.

‘You’re not seriously buying this just to cover the mark up, are you?’ Abbey pressed in dismay.

‘The subject is closed,’ Nikolai told her loftily.

‘As long as other people can’t see it, I don’t mind. In fact you’re forgiven. A love bite is a sort of rite of passage, isn’t it?’ Her eyes danced with belated amusement. ‘And I did miss out on the experience when I was younger.’

‘You always strike me as very young,’ Nikolai admitted. ‘You have a quality of freshness and naïvety that you’ll probably never lose.’

Abbey was still thinking about the statement when they walked into her apartment. Did he find her immature? Unsophisticated? Gullible? How big a strike against her was that quality? Already having decided what she would wear, she rifled through the built-in wardrobe in the guest room until she found the short gold metallic dress she sought. The dress was bang on trend in colour and style and very elegant worn with oyster shoes that reflected the shade of the breathtakingly conspicuous pearl collar.

The paparazzi took so many flash photos as they emerged onto the street that she was bedazzled and blinking frantically when she climbed into the limousine.

‘I meant to give you this earlier.’ Nikolai handed her a gift bag as they drove across the city to the party.

Abbey extracted several small items carefully wrapped in tissue paper. The first package produced a miniature horse that was dressed in medieval war tack. A frown line pleated her brows. The second item she unwrapped was a doll’s house doll, a distinctly handsome black-haired male dressed like a Crusader knight about to go into battle and armed to the teeth with little metal weapons.

‘Nikolai…this is incredible,’ she whispered in fascination.

‘There’s no man in your doll’s house. Someone must have fathered the tribe of kids in the attic.’

‘Where on earth did you get him from?’

‘The Kensington Doll’s House Festival.’

‘I had planned to go but I couldn’t find the time,’ Abbey confided, stunned by the gifts and setting her warrior onto his horse where he looked most at home and very impressive. She would not have dreamt of telling Nikolai that, while her fatherless doll’s house family might inhabit a medieval castle, he had got the time frame wrong for the interior and the inhabitants were more staidly set in the Victorian age. And she was dumbfounded that he had chosen to attend such an event purely to buy her presents. A third package yielded a minuscule silver dressing table set that was exquisite and a skilful miniature landscape painting. ‘Wow…I’m astonished. Thank you very, very much.’

‘I was amazed by the quality of the craftsmanship.’

‘You’re much too generous,’ Abbey told him uncomfortably.

‘I enjoy giving you stuff. I don’t have a family to spoil like other men,’ Nikolai pointed out.

That observation warmed and touched her, but it was to be the last pleasant moment in a challenging evening. When they arrived at Lysander and Ophelia Metaxis’s spectacular town house, they were personally greeted by their hosts. Abbey was immediately aware of her hostess’s keen interest in Nikolai. The tiny exquisite blonde, who was unquestionably a beauty, bubbled over with warmth and chatter from the instant she laid eyes on Nikolai and greeted him with breathless enthusiasm. A cold presentiment of trouble slid through Abbey like ice trickling into her tummy. Lysander Metaxis was equally gracious in his welcome. Indeed, amidst the exchanged glances, companionable chuckles and general air of bonhomie shared between their hosts and Nikolai, Abbey felt very much like an outsider, marooned on the edge of a charmed circle.

Abbey told herself off for being silly and over-sensitive. When had she become so jealous and possessive that she couldn’t handle Nikolai enjoying the company of an attractive woman? But on more than one occasion during the evening that followed, it seemed to Abbey that Nikolai’s gaze regularly strayed in an effort to pick Ophelia Metaxis out of the crush. He was quiet as well, his manner preoccupied. An hour later, Abbey turned round and discovered that Nikolai appeared to have vanished and that there was no sign of their hostess either.

As she walked out of the beautiful ballroom towards the hall Lysander Metaxis strode forward to intercept her. ‘Ophelia is showing Nikolai our art collection. Didn’t he mention it?’

‘Maybe I didn’t hear him…’ Abbey stared up at her tall, classically handsome host, who seemed to find nothing odd or worthy of comment in his wife’s behaviour with Nikolai.

‘I’m sure they’ll be back soon. Let me get you a drink,’ he murmured smoothly, cupping her elbow to guide her back into the ballroom.

Some time later when Abbey was striving to work up an appetite for the delicious spread of food being served at a buffet, she received a call on her mobile phone. When she answered it, her face froze in dismay at the onslaught of Caroline’s sobbing hysterical voice.

It took Abbey several minutes to calm her sister-in-law down enough to understand what the other woman was trying to tell her. When she did work it out, she was very much shocked: earlier that evening, Drew had been attacked in the staff car park by a couple of men and beaten up. Her brother was in hospital.

‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can get there,’ Abbey promised, her heart hammering out her tension. ‘Did you call the police?’

The police had gone to the hospital but Drew was refusing to make a statement. That information confirmed Abbey’s worst fears. Evidently Drew believed the attack was linked to his gambling debts and he was afraid to make a formal complaint. She called to order a taxi to pick her up. Its arrival alerted Lysander Metaxis to Abbey’s planned departure and brought him to her side, just as she sent Nikolai a text telling him that she was leaving the party because her brother had been hurt. She explained the situation to her Greek host, apologised for leaving early and politely ignored his suggestion that she wait to consult Nikolai on her next move. Just at that moment, Abbey didn’t care if she never laid eyes on Nikolai Arlov again.

Her phone started ringing as she was getting into the taxi, but when she realised the caller was Nikolai she switched it off. She had had a lousy, humiliating evening and she was in no mood to pretend otherwise. The first half of the party Nikolai had virtually ignored her, the second half he had performed a disappearing act with another woman. Clearly, Abbey was no longer flavour of the month on Nikolai’s terms and she was feeling horribly hurt and betrayed at a time when she believed she should only be thinking about her brother’s plight.