Zara felt physically sick. Why had he done this? Made such an expansive gesture after what had happened. Had he actually paid her for the sex? Was that what this ridiculous sum was all about?
For a moment she had to sit down until she had recovered herself, telling herself that now was not the time to go to pieces. Her mind raced with possibilities about how she should react, but she knew that only one thing would give her any degree of satisfaction—no matter how foolish it might be in the long run. Her hands were still shaking as she ripped the cheque into tiny shreds, threw them into one of the bureau drawers before closing it shut with a bang. A cleaner wouldn’t dare touch anything in his drawers, she thought grimly—so let him find it.
Running down to her staff accommodation at the back of the vast estate, she threw her clothes into the small case—not caring that she was crumpling and creasing them in the process. And then with hot tears spilling down her cheeks she sat huddled on the bed, looking out at the misty Provençal mountains as she waited for the car to take her to the airport.
CHAPTER NINE
FOR the third time in a row, the phone went dead in his ear and Nikolai stared at it with a growing feeling of disbelief. Had she hung up on him—again? He shook his head. No. It was inconceivable. How could the sexy little waitress who should have been grateful for all he’d given her have possibly slammed the phone down on him?
He paced the floor of his penthouse office which gave a picture postcard view of London—and which he had once vowed never to take for granted—but for once the soaring skyline made no impression on him. What the hell was she playing at?
He clicked his intercom and one of his aides came on the line immediately. ‘That woman, Zara Evans?’ he said crisply. ‘You remember—the one I asked you to find for me?’
‘Da, Nikolai.’
‘Do we have an address for her?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then send someone round there. Now. I want to know when she’s there and I want to know who she’s with.’
His fury growing as the minutes ticked away, he had to wait until past midnight before word came through that she’d arrived home—alone—presumably after she’d finished one of her shifts. Nikolai knew it would be sensible to leave what he had to say until the next morning—the trouble was that he wasn’t feeling in a particularly sensible mood. He was feeling impatient, angry and mystified—and none of this was helped by remembering the way she’d kissed him when he had been deep inside her body …
At half-past midnight his limousine came to a halt in front of a tiny mid-terrace house in a run-down part of town he was unfamiliar with. Dustbins stood at the front of each property—presumably because there was nowhere else to store them—and further down the road graffiti had been scrawled on a wall. It was the kind of place where shops wer
e boarded up after dark—or where a car might find its tyres missing in the morning.
The driver turned round with a frown on his face. ‘You sure this is the right place, boss?’ he questioned, in Russian.
For a moment, Nikolai was quiet. It certainly wasn’t the worst place he’d seen in his life—far from it—and every city in the world had areas where the less fortunate lived. But these days he rarely encountered poverty and it took him back to a time and place which he usually kept locked away. Funny how vividly it all came back, if he let it. Memories vivid enough to make the little hairs on the back of his neck stand on end now came into sharp focus. A Moscow tenement, an apartment shared with three other families. The cold eyes and suspicious glances of his hungry neighbours. And a boy who did whatever he could to get a ruble to put food in his mouth.
His mouth hardened as he got out of the car and rang the bell on a fading door. It took a moment or two before a hall light went on and she must have peered out through the spy-hole because he heard her voice and the note of disbelief in it.
‘Nikolai? Is that you?’
‘Expecting someone else?’
‘What…what are you doing here?’
‘I want to talk to you.’
‘Well, I don’t …’ From behind the protection of the closed door, Zara sucked in a deep breath and willed him to go away. But you don’t want him to go away, do you? Not really. Haven’t you been lying sleepless, night after night—just remembering the way he kissed you? And regretting an impetuous gesture that you could ill afford to make. ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ she finished. ‘And it’s late.’
‘I know it’s late—and if you don’t open the damned door then I’ll keep knocking until all your neighbours wake up.’
‘You can’t do that.’ But she knew that he could—and probably would—so she loosened the chain and opened the door, to see him standing like some unmoveable force on her door step. ‘That’s blackmail,’ she accused.
‘Net,’ he negated grimly as he saw her tug the lapels of her cheap cotton dressing gown closer together. ‘It is known as getting what you want.’
‘Which we both know you always do.’
If only she knew, he thought grimly. If only she knew. ‘Oh, always,’ he agreed mockingly as he stepped inside and looked around the cramped hallway. ‘You look as if you’ve fallen on hard times,’ he observed slowly. ‘Or does it always look like this?’
Zara flushed. ‘I’ve lived here since I was a little girl,’ she defended. ‘And it may not be looking at its best at the moment, but I haven’t really had the chance to do much decorating lately.’
‘But this street …’ His words tailed off and he looked into the defiant green gaze of her eyes.
A fierce sense of pride made her want to explain—though part of her wondered whether someone like Nikolai would have any comprehension of what she was talking about. ‘When I was growing up—it was different. Families lived in this area and people took pride in their houses then. Now most of them are rented out. I’m hoping to put it on the market soon—and, while it may not be a multimillion dollar villa in the south of France, it’s clean,’ she added proudly. ‘And it’s home.’