Drew was irritable when she questioned him. ‘It’s not my fault you don’t keep up with the latest bank statements,’ he told her with a curtness that made her view him in surprise.

‘I know, but I didn’t appreciate that we were quite so short of funds. What’s brought that about?’

‘All our operating costs have risen and we have some very late payers on our books.’

‘Give me the names,’ Abbey urged, feeling guilty that she had not kept abreast of the firm’s dwindling cash-flow situation. ‘I’ll chase them up for payment.’

As she returned to her office to make good on that proposal she thought that it would be a good idea for her to spend an evening going through the accounts in an attempt to identify exactly when and how things had gone wrong. Just a few months earlier, Support Systems had been riding high with more clients than they could cope with. Unhappily, expansion appeared to have come at a massive cost in overheads. Even so, while that overdraft might suggest a downturn in the firm’s fortunes, Abbey and her colleagues were still so busy they were run off their feet.

Chasing up the firm’s debtors gave her little time to agonise over the approaching interview with Nikolai. But as she crossed the city to the massive office block that housed the UK headquarters of Arlov Industries she was painfully aware that, while she might not want to accept work from Nikolai, Support Systems currently needed all the business it could get. Even so she totally hated and despised him for forcing her to face him again and in a professional capacity. He was the very last man alive she wanted to see again.

CHAPTER FIVE

WHILE Abbey waited in the elegant reception area on the top floor, she was conscious of being under scrutiny. She was already aware of the identity of two of the women who had wandered out past reception to get a better look at her: she recognised both Olya and Darya from the audience at the fashion show.

Furthermore, she, too, was human and curious and she had checked out Nikolai on the Internet before dining with him. She had marvelled at how much information there was about him that in effect gave very few actual facts. His exact background might be shrouded in mystery, but the trio of stunning Russian beauties who acted as his executive team were a modern-day business legend. Sveta, Olya and Darya were frequently referred to in suggestive terms as Nikolai’s ‘stable’ or ‘harem’. All three women were highly educated and well qualified for the positions they held in his empire, but their sheer physical beauty, and the level of trust and intimacy they enjoyed with their oligarch employer, had encouraged more provocative interpretations of their relationship with him. Several of Nikolai’s past lovers had complained of having to compete with the trio for his attention.

Ten minutes after her arrival, Abbey was escorted into a large airy office in which Nikolai was working with his Russian aides. Nikolai crossed the floor to greet her. ‘I appreciate your punctuality,’ he told her.

She was shattered by the pure impact of his potent dark beauty on her senses. His straight ebony brows highlighted the brooding dark depth of his spectacular eyes that were enhanced by inky black lashes. The strong blade of his arrogant nose bisected high cheekbones, throwing into prominence a strong masculine jaw and a perfectly modelled wide sensual mouth. One glance at his lean, dark, dazzlingly handsome face and her mouth ran dry and her breath shortened in her throat as if an electric shock had gone through her. His natural grace of movement only added to his potent level of virile attraction by welding her attention to him. Recognising that she was being closely watched by his three female executives, Abbey experienced the sudden fear that her responses could be read on her face. In reaction to that daunting thought she felt her skin heat with self-conscious colour and she scolded herself furiously for acting like a blushing schoolgirl at an important business meeting. Her mood was not improved by a flashback of recollection from the night before that scorched colour as far as her hairline and dampened her upper lip with perspiration.

‘Everything that we discuss within this room will be highly confidential,’ Nikolai warned her.

‘Of course,’ she acceded as he introduced his aides and then dismissed them.

Abbey discovered that she was relieved to no longer be the centre of attention for three sharp pairs of female eyes.

Nikolai studied Abbey with the appraising attention of a connoisseur. Her black trouser suit and yellow shirt were standard business-issue apparel, but she wore them with cool elegance. He appreciated her height and her proud carriage almost as much as the sleek line of her shapely curves and long, endless legs. She wore her fabulous mane of colourful hair in a high ponytail. Tiny coppery curls had escaped to soften her hairline and a hint of make-up accentuated her remarkable violet eyes and her soft full pink mouth. She looked incredibly young and untouched for a married woman, he reflected grimly. And, now, as the male who had discovered and taken her innocence for himself, he knew the literal truth of that observation.

The familiar tightening at his groin infuriated him, for he had spent half of the previous night in a cold shower, his hunger for her refusing to abate. It incensed him that he should still lust after her to that extent. It didn’t make sense after the way she had treated him either. He wanted to walk away and turn his back on her without a thought, something he had contrived to do with every other woman he had ever known. He didn’t want her to be different or exceptional in any way. And he remained very curious about the kind of man who had chosen to leave such a beauty virginally intact. In fact he had already instructed Sveta to check out the late Jeffrey Carmichael and bring him a detailed report.

Abbey gritted her teeth in the heavy silence. ‘After the way we parted, I’m sure you can understand my surprise when I got to the office this morning and discovered that you had made an appointment to see me.’

‘I want you to work for me-’

‘Work for you? After last night? Are you out of your mind?’ Abbey demanded thinly, dragging her straying attention from his fabulous bone structure and scolding herself for looking at him in the first place.

‘Not at all.’

‘I refuse to work for you in any capacity!’ Her violet eyes flashed a warning to him, her slender figure rigid with animosity.

‘At least hear me out first,’ Nikolai drawled, his gaze lingering on the ripple of her shirt as she breathed in and the way the fine silky fabric clung and outlined her wonderfully lush curves. ‘But I should also make it clear that I won’t accept you delegating the responsibility of working for me either to your employees or to other professionals whom you may choose to engage on my behalf.’

In receipt of that comprehensive embargo, which would make personal contact with him unavoidable, Abbey focused on him with angry incredulous intensity. Noticing where his unrepentant gaze was resting, she began buttoning her jacket with scarlet cheeks and hands that were trembling with sheer rage. ‘As I can’t imagine working for you under any circumstances, I think that’s superfluous information.’

‘That would be a great shame. Your references impressed me with the belief that you are exactly what I’m looking for.’

‘References?’ Abbey questioned, her temper rising in direct proportion to his incredible cool. Last night had evidently not embarrassed him by so much as an atom, while she felt like a dupe being cruelly taunted with a massive blunder. She could not shake free of humiliating recollections of their lovemaking. She had given herself so completely: she had held nothing back and had virtually begged for his sexual possession. Those images smarted in her memory like an open wound and an unwelcome reminder of weakness and stupidity.

‘I’ve had enquiries made and past clients speak very highly of your efficiency and devotion to detail. You have a lot of satisfied former clients out there.’

‘That’s good to know.’ Abbey was slightly relieved by the news that he had had enquiries made, for it suggested that he was shining a professional rather than personal light onto the task of engaging her services. ‘But it doesn’t change my attitude. In what way did you envisage Support Systems working for you?’

‘I’m planning to move my business base permanently to the UK. That is extremely confidential information, which I don’t want discussed outside this room,’ Nikolai spelt out, his lean, dark, devastatingly handsome face sober and serious. ‘My staff are already handling the business ramifications, but I would like you to deal with the more social aspects of my move.’

‘Social?’ Abbey queried the term.

‘As you know, my penthouse apartment here in London is convenient to this office, but if I’m to live here all the year round I will require a much larger London base, as well as a country house suitable for entertaining.’

Abbey could not believe his sheer nerve. ‘You are planning to ask me to house-hunt for you?’

‘A little more than that. I would prefer it if the press were kept in the dark with regard to this move for a few weeks longer.’ His brilliant dark eyes gleamed in the morning sunshine filtering through the blinds. ‘When the paparazzi descended on us last night and I saw the headlines this morning, it occurred to me that I could make double use of your presence in my life.’ As he spoke he extended a tabloid newspaper to her.

Abbey stole a reluctant look at the headline that screamed that the Russian billionaire had found a British lover. She was relieved to note that a photo of them together on the pavement outside his apartment building the night before was so out of focus that her best friend wouldn’t have recognised her. Her name was misspelt, her marital status incorrect and her career demoted to the level of a clerical assistant to her brother. She cringed at the prospect of her face and her private life being paraded across publications that only made money from the shock value of gossip and salacious revelations.