LITMIR.BIZ

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life could be like if his past wasn’t a permanent shadow hanging over him.

      ‘You need to leave.’ He turned to look at her, allowing the anger to sluice over him and wash away the lingering desire. She was as deceitful and scheming as his grandmother and he wouldn’t allow her to expose the truth and hurt his mother. She’d suffered enough shame.

      * * *

      Emma blinked and recoiled at the change in Nikolai. Where had the tender lover gone? Anger rushed from him like a fierce tide crashing onto the rocky shore.

      ‘No, we need to talk.’

      ‘I’m not saying anything else to you.’ He spat the words back at her, the dim light of the room only making his anger even clearer. What had she done to make him suddenly hate her? The questions had only been part of her job and she’d never hidden that from him.

      He stepped closer to her and she became aware of her nakedness again, clutching the covers against her once more. From the hard expression set on his face, she knew their moment of intimacy was over. The connection between them they’d shared last night had been severed as surely as if he’d cut it.

      He reached into his jacket pocket and seconds later tossed a business card onto the bed. ‘If you want to pry into my life any more, you can contact me on that number.’

      Ice shuttered around her heart, freezing the new emotions she’d allowed herself to have for this man. How had she been stupid enough to believe he was different, that like her he was hurting because of the past? She’d thought that made what they’d shared last night more intense, more powerful.

      She took the card, holding it as if it might explode at any second. The bold black print in which Nikolai Cunningham was written was as hard as the man who stood angrily before her.

      ‘One last thing,’ she said before she could think better of it. ‘Why do you no longer use your family name, Petrushov?’ It was the one thing which had puzzled her since she’d been given the assignment on the Petrushov family and had been told the only grandson would meet her in Vladimir.

      ‘I have no wish to use my father’s name.’ The harshness in his tone made his hatred and anger palpable. It filled the room and invaded every corner. ‘And, so that you have your information correct when you use my family’s sordid past to further your career, I changed my name to that of my stepfather when I was sixteen.’

      ‘I’m not going to use any of what you’ve just told me, Nikolai. What kind of woman do you think I am?’ She couldn’t keep the shock from her voice or the hurt from cutting deep into her. Did he really think that badly of her?

      ‘You are obviously the kind of woman who will trade her virginity to climb a career ladder.’ The hardened growl of his accusation sliced painfully into her, sullying the memories of giving herself to him so completely last night.

      ‘No,’ she gasped, wishing she was wearing something so that she could go to him. How could he think that of her? ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’

      He gave her one last frosty glare and then strode to the door. ‘Now you have all you need to ruin mine and my mother’s reputations, you can get the hell out of my life.’

      The door slammed behind him and she was left, blinking in shock. Only hours ago they had been locked in the arms of passion. Nothing else had existed. A tear slid down her face as she threw back the covers and picked up the black dress from the floor, trying not to remember the burn of desire she’d had for him as it had slipped off her body last night. Angrily she pulled it on, not caring about her underwear. All she wanted was to get along the hotel corridor to the sanctuary of her room and lock herself in until her heart stopped breaking.

      Still reeling from the shock of Nikolai walking out on her, she shut the door of her own room and made for the shower, needing the warmth of the water to soothe her. After standing there for what felt like hours, Emma finally turned the water off and wrapped herself in a towel, trying not to dwell on the accusations Nikolai had hurled at her. Did he really think she’d all but sold herself just to get information out of him?

      Her phone buzzed on the cabinet next to her bed. Instantly she was on alert. What if it was Nikolai? With a slight tremor in her hands she reached for it and, as she looked at the text from her sister, she knew the day was going from bad to worse. Even with the limited words of the text Emma could sense Jess’s distress, but it was the final word which really propelled her into motion:

      I need you, Em, come now. Please.

      * * *

      Finally the overnight train arrived in Perm and Emma made her way straight to the ballet school. The tearful conversation she’d had with Jess during that long journey was still fresh in her mind, which at least had given her little time to think of the night spent with Nikolai and how it had drastically changed things, how he’d rejected her.

      ‘I’ve missed you so much, Em,’ Jess said, dragging her mind back from thoughts of the tall, dark-haired Russian who had lured the woman she’d always wanted to be out of the shadows.

      ‘Is that what this is all about?’ Emma kept her tone light but, for the first time ever, felt constrained by looking after her sister. If she hadn’t had to rush and get a train ticket sorted, she might have seen Nikolai again. She’d at least wanted to try and explain, especially after the intimacies they’d shared. All she knew was that he’d checked out.

      ‘You’ve been so far away and it’s been months since I’ve seen you. I guess I couldn’t stand the thought of you being so close.’

      ‘Not exactly close.’ Emma forced herself to forget her problems and laughed, pulling her sister into a hug, unable to be irritated by the intrusion into her life at the worst possible moment. ‘It was a very long train journey from Vladimir. It took me all night.’

      ‘I hope I didn’t spoil anything for you,’ said Jess, looking a little subdued suddenly, and Emma wondered if there was more to this.

      ‘There wasn’t anything to spoil.’ Nikolai had already done that, accusing her of all but seducing the story out of him. Well, she’d show him. Nothing he’d said to her in his room would find its way into her article, although it did go some way to explaining his shock at seeing his family home again.

      ‘That’s all right, then,’ began Jess, sounding brighter already. ‘I only have the rest of today off class, then it’s back to it.’

      ‘Then we need to do something really good.’

      Later that night, lying alone in a different hotel room, having spent the entire day with Jess, Emma’s doubts crept back in. She remembered Nikolai standing at the window, the light shadowing his body, and wished she could turn back time. The only thing she wanted to change was the doubt on his face, the worry in his eyes.

      Several times this evening she’d wanted to call him, wanted to reassure him that all he’d told her about his childhood would stay with her. She knew what it was to feel unloved and out of place. Was that why he’d gone to great lengths to put off the meeting with his grandmother? Was there another side to the story? Had she been fooled by his heart-wrenching admission of his past?

      She had spent time on the train drafting out what she wanted to write and none of it would include the torture of the man who’d shown her what being loved could be like, even for a few brief hours. If she told him that, would he believe her? She relived the moment he’d accused her of seducing him for information and knew he would never believe her.

      Tomorrow she would be taking the train back to Moscow and from there a flight home to London. There wouldn’t be an opportunity to see him; maybe fate was trying to tell her that what she’d shared with Nikolai that night was nothing more than a moment out of time.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      NIKOLAI STOOD AT a window of his apartment, looking at, but not seeing, Central Park bathed

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