She’d asked herself over and over again whether she’d been right to come here and put herself at the mercy of the powerful and sexy Russian. But there hadn’t really been any choice, had there? Not in the end.
Any second thoughts she might have had about agreeing to Nikolai’s offer had been swiftly quashed when a whole new raft of bills had arrived. Zara had opened up the brown envelopes, seen the bold red print screaming out at her—and there, sitting incongruously among all the final demands, had been a first-class air-ticket to Nice. She’d picked it up and studied it with a terrible sense of inevitability, knowing there was no way she could afford to turn down the kind of money he was proposing to pay her.
So she’d taken the plane from Heathrow and tried to quell her rising nerves, but it hadn’t been easy, especially when disturbing images of his cold face and hard body kept drifting into her mind. At Nice, a car had been waiting to drive her through the hairpin bends of the Corniche—with its stunning green mountains on one side, dropping dramatically down to sapphire sea on the other. And when she’d arrived at Nikolai’s villa it had been like stepping into something you saw between the glossy pages of lifestyle magazines.
The vast gardens were a picture of cascading fountains and curving paths, while flowers in every shade imaginable dazzled the eye. At the end of the long drive was the house itself, a building which dwarfed every other she’d ever seen. Coloured a beautiful pale rose, it stood contrasted against the magnificence of the mountains behind, and offered breathtaking views of the glittering Côte d’Azure.
Turning off the shower, Zara towelled herself dry and pulled on a clean uniform, telling herself that the lavish beauty of Nikolai’s world was irrelevant. And so was the fact that she found him overwhelmingly attractive. She was here to work and walk away with a hefty pay-cheque, and she’d better not forget that.
Going straight to the kitchens, she checked timings with the chef and had just carried a bottle of vintage champagne up to the terrace when she heard the sound of footsteps behind her. Fingers tightening around the cold silver ice bucket, she felt her heart skip a beat, because instinct told her that Nikolai Komarov was right behind her.
Act like you normally would if he were any other employer. Smile politely and say hello. But her legs felt wobbly as she slowly turned round, her heart now crashing against her ribcage as his cool gaze washed over her.
There was nothing of the billionaire about Nikolai Komarov today. He was wearing the kind of off-duty clothes worn by men the world over, be they billionaire or student, but Zara doubted whether anybody had ever looked as good in them as he did. Faded blue jeans skated over the narrow jut of his hips and skimmed down over the hard, muscular legs. A simple black T-shirt moulded his lean torso and the short sleeves showed off powerful forearms, his tanned skin looking as if it had been dusted with flecks of gold.
Meeting the mockery in his ice-blue eyes, she swallowed and tried to control breathing which had suddenly become shallow and erratic. Why had she stupidly discounted how gorgeous he was? As if a few days’ distance might have given her some kind of magical immunity to him. Well, she was going to have to acquire some—and quickly! Somehow she found her voice. ‘Good morning, Mr Komarov.’
‘Oh, please.’ His eyes gleamed sardonically as he took in the tremble of her lips. ‘I think we know each other well enough to dispense with unnecessary formality, don’t you? It’s quite acceptable for you to call me Nikolai when we are alone.’
Zara’s polite smile didn’t slip. ‘If that’s what you want.’
He thought that now wasn’t the moment to tell her exactly what he wanted—even if she did sound deli-ciously compliant. How huge her green eyes looked as they studied him, he mused. All startled and bright, yet somehow managing to be both wary and yearning all at the same time. ‘You know, I half expected you not to show up,’ he observed. ‘To have decided that this job might be a little more than you can handle.’
‘But we came to a professional agreement,’ she defended.
‘And the money was too good to turn your back on?’
‘There is that, of course.’ Her eyes were very steady as she looked at him because she was damned if she would let him make her feel bad about needing the money. What would he know about pinching and scraping and trying to get creditors off your back? ‘And I’m not in the habit of letting people down.’
‘I’m impressed,’ he murmured, noticing the almost imperceptible elevation of her chin and hearing the sudden note of pride which had entered her voice.
‘That wasn’t my intention.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ she answered. ‘I’m simply here to do a job and to do it to the best of my ability.’
And judging by her appearance, it occurred to him that she might be speaking the truth—because she didn’t look as he had been expecting her to look. Hadn’t he thought she might play the vamp? For her hair to be tumbling in provocative tendrils around her face and her skirt suddenly to have shrunk by a couple of sizes? Something more befitting her status as the kind of woman who was out for everything she could get than a lowly little waitress. But she looked nothing like that. He frowned. Her face was almost bare of make up, her hair was tugged back into a functional ponytail—and surely an off-duty nun would have found no fault in the respectable length of her dull black skirt.
And wasn’t it ironic that her very lack of adornment was only increasing his desire for her instead of diminishing it? So that for a moment he felt irritated that he couldn’t just pull her into his arms and kiss her and have done with it. That he was going to have to endure this charade of her waiting at his table in order to bed her. Reluctantly, he elevated his gaze to her face.
‘You look very…professional—although your uniform isn’t the most alluring I’ve ever seen,’ he remarked as, with another kick of surprise, he noted her soft rise of colour. ‘And now I’ve made you blush.’
His comment made her colour deepen even more. ‘I blush at the drop of a hat,’ she admitted.
‘Really?’ He slanted her a mocking glance. ‘And yet I didn’t really have you down as the shy, retiring type.’
> Zara remembered the way she’d responded to him in the back of his car—like some kind of insatiable maneater, devouring his lips and letting him suckle on her breasts when they’d only just met. Could she blame him if he’d leapt to the wrong conclusion about her? Feeling wrong-footed and with no way of defending herself, Zara heard the sound of approaching footsteps with a sigh of relief.
‘No time to stand around chatting,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I think your guests are about to make an appearance. I’d better go and start opening the champagne.’
His gaze held hers and in that moment he silently cursed his guests. ‘I suppose you must,’ he said reluctantly.
Zara reached for the champagne bottle as if it were a lifeline. Why the hell was he giving her that sexy sizzle of a stare? Hadn’t he heard her when she’d told him in London that this was going to be a purely professional engagement—or did men like him simply ride roughshod over someone else’s wishes if they didn’t happen to coincide with their own? And if that was the case, how the hell was she going to deal with it when she found him so completely irresistible? When part of her wanted him to tease her and mock her like that, while sexual tension fizzed in the air around them.
Tearing gold foil from the bottle and easing out the cork with a quiet pop, she saw a couple walk out onto the terrace and began to study them with covert interest. She’d wondered what Nikolai’s house guests might be like—but this mismatched pair weren’t at all what she’d been expecting.
The man was short, rotund and aged about fifty and, despite his loose linen clothes, kept dabbing at his damp neck with a linen handkerchief. But it was his girlfriend who was the eye-catcher. She was about three decades younger than him, and wore red patent shoes which made her tower over her companion. A waterfall of blonde hair fell to her tiny waist and sawn-off denim hot-pants emphasised her long, tanned legs. She looked as if he’d picked her out of a catalogue, thought Zara. And in her plain A-line black skirt and flat shoes, she suddenly felt like a complete frump in comparison.