He was stunned by his own indecision, for she had made her late husband his rival and in any kind of competition Nikolai’s usual goal was winning whatever the cost. To be made uneasy by doubts was out of character for him. Nikolai wondered what the matter with him was. He had never been the sensitive type of male. Fate had handed him an advantage and naturally he would make the best possible use of it.

CHAPTER SIX

THE cameras went wild when Abbey climbed out of the car and rested her hand on Nikolai’s arm. For an instant she froze, almost blinded by the flashes and startled by the questions flying at her from all directions.

While Nikolai’s PR consultant discreetly ensured that everyone knew exactly who Abbey was, he escorted her up the red carpet into the cinema. He was proud to be with her. He thought she looked extraordinarily like a queen in the peacock-blue dress with the sapphire-and-diamond necklace and earrings flashing against the rippling mane of red-gold tresses spilling across her pale shoulders. But the very first thing he had noticed when he picked her up was that she had removed her wedding ring from her finger.

Abbey found that she was grateful for the arm that Nikolai kept at her back and the ease with which he chatted to the milling crowd of celebrities in the foyer. His assurance increased hers and, although she was madly conscious of being the centre of much curious attention and her jewellery was very much admired, she was soon laughing and smiling by his side. The film was the sort that she never went to see: a horror movie that had her sitting taut on the edge of her seat. To her embarrassment she let out a stifled shriek of fright at one point and Nikolai closed a supportive hand over hers. She glanced at him and caught the look of unholy amusement in his brilliant eyes as well as the charismatic smile that made her heartbeat perform a ridiculous somersault.

After the premiere they exchanged views on favourite films and enjoyed a lively discussion. ‘You are a very entertaining companion,’ Nikolai murmured levelly.

Abbey realised how much she had been talking and could hardly credit that she had relaxed to such an extent with him. ‘I never go to see horror films.’

‘But admit it-you enjoyed it,’ Nikolai teased, curving her closer to his tall, powerful body.

‘I suppose I did, in an odd way,’ Abbey conceded and suddenly a smile curved her full pink mouth.

‘When you smile like that I want to kiss you, milaya.’

Abbey froze, conscious of the number of eyes on them. ‘Don’t!’ she urged him. ‘I’m not a fan of public displays of affection.’

‘What do you like in a man?’

Abbey almost told him that she had never thought about that, but then Jeffrey’s image came immediately to mind. ‘Someone intelligent and confident-’

‘Honest?’

‘Of course,’ she answered loftily.

‘Faithful?’

Abbey raised a fine dark brow. ‘Naturally. And of course he would have to love me.’

‘You don’t mention passion.’

‘I’m sure, if all the other things were there, that would come, too,’ Abbey countered in a dismissive tone.

‘Speaking as an authority in that field, I would have to say that passion is not that easily found, milaya. But no relationship could be considered complete without it.’

Hot colour warming her cheeks, Abbey refused to look at him as he helped her back into the limousine, cameras flashing all around them. For that brief instant before he joined her, she felt curiously bereft. Away from his powerful presence and the aura of his high-voltage energy, everything felt flat and empty, an acknowledgement that disturbed her. She reminded herself that she could not afford to forget that she was engaging in a high-profile pretence for which he was paying Support Systems a very handsome price.

‘You inspire me with immense passion,’ Nikolai intoned in a roughened undertone, smouldering dark eyes as hot on her face as flames.

‘It’s not enough,’ she told him flatly, keen to head him off before he said anything more on that controversial issue.

Nikolai bent his handsome dark head, his breath warm and moist against her temples, and she trembled. The very scent of his skin was dangerously familiar and in the space of a moment her mind was taken over by treacherous images of Nikolai in bed with her. Over her, in her. And, whoosh, all the passion she would have denied, given half a chance, roared up inside her in an uncontrollable burst of anticipation and craving. Her fingers delved into his thick black hair and she dragged his mouth down to hers because she couldn’t wait one second longer to make that connection. And the instant of impact did not disappoint: the ravishing plunder of his tongue was what she wanted and needed, only it was not enough to satisfy her. The fiery urgency already pulsing through her quivering body shocked her and made her pull back from him.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ she breathed in an awkward rush. ‘I don’t want this with you-’

Lean bronzed features clenched taut, Nikolai stared down at her, his stunning eyes bright with the passion she denied. ‘Yes, you do. Stop lying to yourself and to me.’

Abbey tilted her chin, violet eyes cool as ice water, her pride fired up in self-defence. ‘I’m not lying. But I once had something a lot more worthwhile-’

‘Did you?’ Nikolai was looking at her with raw intensity and gooseflesh prickled at the nape of her neck, for there was something strangely chilling about both his look and his tone. ‘Are you referring to your marriage?’

Her slender fingers coiled into angry fists, for she did not like his tone of derision. ‘Don’t try to make me ashamed that I still value what I had and lost!’ she countered.

His hard-boned profile might have been carved from stone. He could not believe that once again she was making a comparison between him and her worthless, lying husband! It was a colossal insult and wholly eloquent of her closed state of mind. The day her husband died Abbey Carmichael had suspended all critical judgement. Surely it would be a good deed to help her to move on from the past by giving her access to the truth?

‘Perhaps you didn’t lose a fairy tale,’ Nikolai remarked.

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Abbey hissed back at him.

‘That we’ll finish this discussion at my apartment.’

‘I would like to know now what you are implying.’

‘I think you have a very good idea, but I’ll give you the proof of my words once we get there. I don’t play mind games, lubimaya.’

Her smooth brow had furrowed. ‘The…proof?’

In the private lift on the way up to his penthouse, he said, ‘I had your late husband investigated by a private detective agency.’

Unable to credit that shocking announcement, Abbey pinned wide, startled eyes to his lean, dark, devastating face. ‘Why the heck would you have done that?’

‘A whim? You talked so much about Jeffrey that you made me curious about him as well,’ Nikolai admitted.

‘I can’t believe that you invaded my personal life and violated my privacy like that!’ Abbey gasped in outrage. ‘It was a disgusting thing to do!’

‘In this case it was more illuminating.’ The forceful dark gaze that met hers contained not an ounce of remorse or apology. In the opulent hall of his apartment he left her standing and strode through a doorway. She followed him at a slower pace, her mind buzzing with conjecture and uncertainty.

Nikolai withdrew the file from the safe. Had she not challenged him again he might have retained it while he considered both his timing and his options, but he felt that she had a real right and need to know what he had discovered.

‘Jeffrey was a wonderful man!’ Abbey told him stridently. ‘I don’t care what is in that file. It won’t change my mind about my husband! I loved him and he loved me. Nothing can alter those facts.’

Nikolai extended the file. ‘Don’t be so sure.’

Abbey snatched it off him. ‘I hate you-I’ll never forgive you for this! Don’t you have any morals?’

‘More than your husband had when he picked a naïve little schoolgirl to be his bride.’

Abbey sank down in an armchair by the door and began to scan the close lines of print. There was nothing untoward or new to her in the facts of Jeffrey’s childhood and education. Then a female name that Abbey recognised leapt out at her-Jane Morrell, who had read law at Oxford with Jeffrey and who had worked in the same close circle of leading barristers. According to the enquiry agent, Jeffrey and Jane had been lovers at university, something which Abbey had not known for sure but had once suspected from the tenor of the older woman’s rather acidic comments at her wedding.

Jane had married a judge, given birth to a couple of children and become Lady Jane Dalkeith long before Abbey even met Jeffrey. But what appalled Abbey as she read was the bald declaration that Jeffrey had restarted his affair with Jane while he was still in his twenties and that the couple had then continued as secret lovers for almost fifteen years. She flipped the page to be greeted with the staggering statement that Jeffrey had spent the weekend before his wedding to Abbey holed up in a Paris hotel with Jane.

‘This is vile stuff and nothing but filthy lies!’ Abbey spat in disgust, leaping upright. ‘I don’t believe any of this rubbish for one moment. I have total faith in Jeffrey.’

‘Their liaison was widely known among their peers,’ Nikolai informed her. ‘It’s a shame that nobody had the decency to tell you what was going on. Silence was cruel in the circumstances, particularly after his death.’

Abbey was shaking with rage and barely able to vocalise or think. ‘How dare you hand me this filth and try to destroy Jeffrey’s reputation? How low can you sink?’