He stared at Carissa, absorbed in her drawing. She never tried to charm or flatter. It was refreshing not to be fussed over, to be treated as an equal, or, Alexei realised with a silent huff of laughter, as an inanimate object to be sketched. But he knew one touch, one word, even alook, would have her burning for him. She was her own woman, but she was his too.
For the moment.
Did he really want more?
If so, what about her father? Alexei couldn’t let Carter off the hook.
She’d want nothing to do with Alexei once he brought her father to justice. Yet she knew that was Alexei’s goal and it hadn’t deterred her.
‘Why didn’t your father encourage you to study art?’ Maybe father and daughter weren’t as close as he’d imagined.
‘He wanted me to do something useful. Likeeconomics.’ Mina’s tone echoed horror. ‘It would have been a disaster!’
That didn’t sound like the man who’d spoken indulgently about his artistic daughter. But Carter had said she wasn’t suited to business. Perhaps he’d originally wanted her to follow in his shoes. As for Carissa not coping with economics, Alexei recalled their conversations and knew she had a better-than-average understanding.
‘So you persuaded your parents to let you try art.’
Her hand stopped on the page, her knuckles tightening. Had he hit a nerve?
‘I didn’t ask. I just applied.’ Slowly her hand moved again, though her strokes weren’t as bold as before. She stopped and raised her head. Alexei’s curiosity rose as he saw her flushed cheeks.
‘How about you?’ Her bright eyes snared his and awareness throbbed. How easily they struck sparks. ‘How did you start in IT? Did you spend all your free time as a kid on the computer?’
‘Hardly. We didn’t have one.’
He read the question in her expression yet she didn’t ask. She kept to their unspoken agreement not to pry.
Alexei was the one pushing the boundaries. His curiosity was insatiable. He had to decide if he wanted more than the time they had left till the showdown with her father.
He needed to know more about this woman who engaged his mind as well as his body. To do that he’d have to share things he never shared with anyone. He paused, considering.
‘There wasn’t money when I was growing up, and what little we had my stepfather spent on himself.’
‘He sounds unlikeable.’
‘You could say that.’ Alexei’s vital organs knotted. ‘He targeted my mother for the insurance money she inherited when my father died. It wasn’t a fortune but it would have paid for a roof over our heads and a decent education for me.’
Instead the money had gone on his stepfather’s whims. A sports car that he crashed while drunk. A ‘get rich quick’ scheme that failed. Expensive clothes, ‘business’ expenses for unspecified enterprises that involved late-night entertaining.
‘You didn’t have a home or decent education?’ He heard sympathy in Carissa’s voice as she bent her head, concentrating on a new sketch. Of his hands clenched in fists rather than relaxed as before. There was something soothing, almost hypnotic about watching the lines appear on the page, seeing form appear out of what had seemed random scratchings.
Though she worked, he knew she focused on his words. There was a tension about her that hadn’t been there earlier. But she didn’t push. She gave him space, and a measure of privacy, avoiding his gaze.
‘We had a roof for the first couple of years. Mum remortgaged the place to finance his spending but he ran through that soon enough. He lived off her for years but when the money went, so did he.’
Alexei raked a hand through his shaggy hair, then realised what he’d done.
‘Sorry.’ He dropped his hand, fisting it on his thigh like its mate.
‘Don’t worry.’ Her upward look, with that fleeting smile, eased the old tension brewing inside. ‘I’ll sketch your hands however you hold them. I love them. I’m thinking of using them in a piece I want to do.’
Alexei scowled down at his tight hands. For reasons he couldn’t define her words unsettled him. Love. She’d used the word casually, yet he’d experienced a pang of...could it beyearning?
It was easier, suddenly, to think about the past than the knotty issue of how she made him feel.
‘He sounds despicable,’ Carissa said, her quiet voice vibrating with rage. ‘To target a woman. Touseher. There are too many selfish people in the world.’
Alexei’s stare sharpened. ‘You sound like you’ve met some.’ He’d imagined she’d led a cosseted life.