LITMIR.BIZ

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now it just didn’t matter any more.

      It was a movement, not a sound, that pulled her out of her miserable thoughts with an abrupt jab of adrenaline. Something shifted at the corner of her vision and her head jerked up, her shoulders pulling tight as twine.

      Someone was in the house.

      She froze, listening intently.

      In that moment two men stepped out of the pooling darkness beyond the island bench, and as she processed their presence the room filled up with men. Three more came rushing down the stairs, and another two bursting through the garden entrance. That they all seemed to be wearing suits brought Maisy no comfort as the spoon dropped from her hand and she stumbled backwards out of her chair.

      The shortest of the thugs came towards her and said, ‘Hands behind your head. Get on the floor.’

      But a bigger man—taller, leaner, younger—brushed him aside and said something brusquely in a foreign language.

      Maisy stared open mouthed at him, shock rooting her to the spot and he swore.

      ‘English, Alexei Fedorovich,’ said another of the men, almost as terrifying with his height and bulk.

       Oh, God, it was the Russian mafia.

      The hysterical thought coincided with the younger man making a sudden movement towards her, and Maisy’s body reacted to protect itself.

      She grabbed the chair and threw it with all her might at him. Then she screamed.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘ALEXEI,’ said a voice at his elbow. ‘Perhaps we should wait.’

      Alexei barely spared a glance for his factotum Carlo Santini. He didn’t do waiting.

      The first thing he’d noticed about the house was that the security code hadn’t been changed. Clearly no one was in charge. The second had been the almost abnormal silence of the house. It was close on midnight, but there was a closed-up feeling to the rooms. His hackles raised, he’d headed towards a pale light gleaming from the stairwell leading downstairs into the basement. His godson had been alone for four days, and he wanted to see for himself the situation he was walking into. Although his security would move up through the house from basement to attic, he knew it would be easier to cut to the chase himself.

      He had spotted her immediately—a shapeless figure hunched over a bowl, sitting in the dark. Good—staff. As he’d walked across the room she had seemed to sense him, because her head had come up and for a moment he’d been thrown by the vulnerability that softened her dimly lit features as she’d sought to make sense of his presence. He’d had a further impression of fragility and femininity, despite the clothes that enveloped her.

      In that moment the French doors had exploded open in front of him and more personnel had come thundering down the stairs behind him. The woman had reacted like a loaded gun. They were protecting him, but she wasn’t to know that.

      The trigger for this overreaction had heaved her chair and dived under the table, rolling herself into a ball. Now, Alexei cursed and shoved the table over a few feet, hauled her up into his arms, registering her real terror as she began to kick and struggle against him. Better him than one of his security detail, who would be less inclined to go gently with her.

      His muttered imprecations and rough assurances of, ‘I am not going to hurt you,’ did little to stem her reaction—until he realised in his exhausted state he was using Russian. ‘Calm yourself,’ he said distinctly in English. ‘No one wishes you any harm.’

      Maisy jerked her head sideways and her eyes welded to his. They were deep blue, heavily lashed and stunning. His cheekbones were like scimitars, and she recognised that faint upsweep of his bone structure as Slavic.

      He clearly hadn’t shaved in many days, but otherwise he smelled good. Maisy’s body recognised this as her mind struggled to keep up. His cologne filled her nostrils, along with the subtler but more enticing smell of him—warm, male flesh. She could feel the fight slipping out of her body as her senses told her this man truly meant her no harm, even as those same senses began to be overloaded with other messages.

      Alexei sensed the change in her. She was no longer a victim fighting back but a woman in his arms, waiting for him to make a move. He reluctantly set her down, but kept one hand fastened over her shoulder, holding her in place. He didn’t want his security detail marching her off, possibly manhandling her. He didn’t question why other men touching her filled him with the primitive urge to protect her. He was tired, and he hadn’t had sex, and he was in the mood to tear down the house if he didn’t get that child.

      ‘Talk to her,’ he said, the weight of his hand lifting from her shoulder.

      Feeling suddenly adrift, Maisy looked up to face another man—shorter, slighter, perhaps a decade older and sharply dressed—who stepped forward and inclined his head rather formally.

      ‘Good evening, signorina. I apologise for the intrusion. I am Carlo. I work for Alexei Ranaevsky.’

      Maisy’s head swivelled back to the younger man. He wasn’t even listening. He had retrieved a phone from his jacket and was reading whatever messages it contained.

       This was talking to her?

      ‘Try Spanish,’ was all he said, in a deep, gravelly voice she hadn’t registered before when he had spoken in Russian.

      Maisy sat through Spanish, Italian and interestingly Polish renditions of the same introduction. As the Polish rolled musically on she tried to marshal her racing thoughts. Her gaze kept creeping back to the man who had restrained her. He seemed to be the focus in the room, and he reeked confidence and control. Except when she had been in his arms for a moment there she had sensed something else. Something very much uncontrolled.

      Maisy suppressed an involuntary shiver and his head came up, as if sensing her movement. His darkened eyes moved over her, settling on the pulse that was beating wildly at the base of her throat. It held his assessing gaze for a moment. Then he said abruptly, ‘She’s English.’

      He despatched the mobile and gave her a measured look.

      ‘I need to know where the boy is.’

      Maisy’s skittering pulse went still. Every hackle in her body rose.

      Alexei saw the moment she shut down, and cursed himself inwardly. He didn’t have time for this. When she didn’t answer he lost patience. ‘I’m taking Leonid Kulikov’s son out of here. I need you to take me to him.’

      ‘No,’ she said.

      No? No? Alexei made a soft sound of disbelief.

      ‘I’m not letting you anywhere near the Kulikovs’ child. Who in the hell do you think you are?’

      The kitten could scratch. Despite himself, Alexei felt his libido give a little kick.

      ‘I’m Alexei Ranaevsky, his legal guardian.’

      Her gaze made an involuntary skate over the breadth of his chest and shoulders, then fastened on his face. He had dark hair, curling and close-cropped, and he was about as close to a fantasy as Maisy had ever had.

      Yet her stomach twisted, even as she knew she ought to feel relief.

      Someone had finally come for Kostya. But because no one was walking Kostya out of this house without her, this man had come for her too. Only he didn’t know it. Something fluttered low in Maisy’s chest and she recognised it was fear—quite different from the terror she had felt when these men had burst in on her. This was fear of the known.

      Alexei had apparently said everything he was going to say to her, and turned around and headed for the stairs.

      Maisy’s anxious ‘Wait!’ didn’t break his stride.

      She chased him up two flights of stairs, all the while babbling about not waking Kostya,

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