CHAPTER SIX
MINA’SHANDMOVEDswiftly over the sketchpad, but her thoughts focused on the role she played. She should end this farce now.
She wouldn’t betray Carissa and leave her prey to Alexei. Yet, with each hour, Mina grew more desperate. After two days on his island, the atmosphere grew thicker, more intense. He’d kept his distance physically but that only accentuated her catastrophic response to him.
As if it had a mind of its own, her body woke in his presence. The symptoms were depressingly irrefutable. Budding nipples, a surge of heat that threatened to flood her cheeks and flickered like wildfire in her veins. Butterflies the size of circling vultures in her stomach and a heavy, pulsing throb between her legs.
Sexual interest.
She could view it clinically. The trouble was that when they were together Mina felt anything but clinical detachment.
Frowning, she stared at her less-than-impressive sketch, then shoved it over the spiral spine of her drawing book to start afresh.
To make matters worse was Carissa’s news, received via text. The elopement was delayed. Pierre was still in the USA, finishing negotiations on the tricky deal that he hoped would cement his professional success. Despite Carissa’s pleas he was determined to stick it out, saying their future hinged on it. Mina sympathised. If his family disowned him for making a marriage they didn’t approve, one of the pair needed a steady income. Carissa was talented but only starting her commercial design business.
Which meant Mina was stuck here for at least a couple more days, pretending to be someone else. Pretending to be impervious to Alexei. The strain was unbearable.
No other man had got under her skin like this. Just the mellow sound of his rare laugh or the deliberately confrontational twitch of one black eyebrow and her pulse revved out of control. Fortunately he never got close enough to touch. Despite those daydreams where he touched her in the most delicious, disturbing ways.
Mina set her chin and tried to focus on her drawing. She had work to do. An exhibition to prepare for. She couldn’t sit in the Caribbean twiddling her thumbs. She needed...
Her hand stilled. Therewasa way out. Why hadn’t she seen it?
Probably because her head was too skewed by thoughts of Alexei Katsaros.
Mina had accepted Carissa’s assumption that her father’s job would suffer if the marriage fell through. But surely itmustfall through. Once Carissa was married to Pierre there’d be no question of a match with Alexei.
Besides, though Alexei could be daunting and demanding, the last couple of days had revealed another side to him. His manner with Marie and Henri indicated a man far more approachable and likeable than she’d imagined. A man who didn’t expect to be treated as a superior being because he paid their wages. A man who could be surprisingly considerate.
He wasn’t the complete ogre Carissa had imagined.
If Carissa, or, more accurately, Mina, were to say she couldn’t go through with an arranged marriage, he’d have to respect that.
Mina blinked down at the half-formed sketch as she ran through the scenario in her mind. All she needed to do was say she’d considered but decided against the match. She’d be free to return to Paris, her work and her routine.
Funny how the thought didn’t fill her with relief or anticipation.
Instead, Mina felt a pang of regret at the idea of leaving the island. And Alexei.
Her pencil dropped to roll unchecked across the paper. Mina blinked as it described a half circle on the page.
Was she serious?
Alexei Katsaros?
She huffed out a fierce breath. But it did no good to tell herself she didn’t like big, bold, bossy men whose dark eyes twinkled with amusement just when she was about to explode with indignation.
Because she did. She liked him too much. Though he made her weak in ways she never wanted. For weakness was an invitation for men to trample you. She’d seen it too often.
‘You look annoyed. Trouble with your drawing?’ The deep voice came from beside her and Mina jumped. It was as if she’d conjured Alexei out of thin air by thinking of him.
She turned, her gaze on a level with snug faded jeans. Mina’s heart rapped out a new, frantic tattoo as she fought not to let her eyes linger on the outline of muscled thighs. Instead she tilted her head up and up, till finally she met his quizzical gaze.
A jolt, like the impact of an electrical current, drove down through her body. Her breath stalled and the blood coursed faster in her veins.
This wasn’t right. She didn’t want to feel this or anything like it for Alexei. Despite his occasional charm he was the sort to stomp all over a woman.
‘It’s not going well.’ She dragged her gaze back to the sketchpad and flipped it closed. The black cover mocked her with its blankness. That was how her brain was when he got near, and her artistic ability. How could she finish her designs when all she could concentrate on was him?