Too Proud to be Bought
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‘That part was easy—you can find anyone you want if you have the means,’ he drawled. ‘But what I really want to know is why you were masquerading as a guest at the ambassador’s party. Why you played that erotic hide-and-seek which had me following you like a puppy-dog.’ And he had fallen right into it, hadn’t he? Lids half hooding his eyes, he watched closely for her reaction. Was she a celebrity stalker? he wondered. One of those women who fixed a wealthy man in their sights and pursued him? What did she want from him? ‘Were you deliberately targeting me?’
Zara’s heart gave a guilty lurch. Would it sound stupid if she told him that, yes, she had been looking out for him, but that the motive had been nothing but an innocent bit of advertising? And then things had all got out of hand—when she had seen him and danced with him and that sizzling chemistry had combusted between them. Would he believe her or think that she was lying? Think that she put out like that all the time? Play for time, she told herself. Find out the kind of man you’re dealing with. ‘Why should I want to target you?’
‘Please don’t be disingenuous,’ he warned, and as he saw the rise in colour to her cheeks he knew she was hiding something. ‘Powerful men are subjected to all kinds of come-ons from women—some cleverer than others. Usually I can see through them, but your approach was novel.’ And sexy, he conceded. She had made him chase her. For once, he’d felt the thrill of the hunt, the blood pumping hotly through his veins as he’d followed the silken curves of her bottom.
His reaction had taken him aback. It had been a primitive, subliminal response and it had been inordinately compelling. Why, hadn’t the thought of finding her again filled him with a heady kind of anticipation—until he had discovered her true identity and suspected that he might be the victim of some kind of crude scam? ‘I want the truth,’ he snapped. ‘Or is that too big an ask?’
Zara saw the glitter of danger which was hardening his eyes and realised that she was doing herself no favours by being evasive.
‘Okay. I had no right to be at the party—at least, not as a guest,’ she admitted. ‘I gatecrashed it—though I knew most of the waitresses, obviously, since I work with them most of the time. I was modelling the dress for a friend of mine, Emma. Her mother owns the catering agency I work for. That’s how she knew who was going to be on the guest-list.’
His expression didn’t alter. ‘Go on.’
‘Emma’s a fashion student—and she’s very ambitious.’
He frowned. ‘A fashion student?’
‘That’s right. She’s good at designing evening gowns and she wanted a bit of exposure.’
‘Exposure being the operative word,’ he drawled. ‘You certainly left very little to the imagination.’
Something in his tone brought another rush of colour to Zara’s cheeks. ‘The dress I was wearing was no more revealing than plenty of others there.’
But no other woman in the room had possessed her firm and slinky young body, Nikolai remembered with a sudden ache. Whatever it was she had, it had appealed to him on a very fundamental level. It still did. Even the drab knee-length skirt and innocuous white blouse she was wearing tonight were doing dangerous things to his blood pressure. Remember that she’s nothing but a fraud, he told himself. And that all women are frauds.
‘So what exactly was your brief?’ he demanded.
‘I was supposed to give you one of her business cards.’
‘Hoping that I’d play fairy godfather and give her the big break she deserved?’ he questioned sarcastically.
‘Something like that.’
‘But you didn’t, did you?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘So what happened, Zara? Did you decide to jettison that idea when something better came along? Did you think that by capitalising on the undoubted chemistry between us you could aim even higher than a mere marketing opportunity?’ He raised his eyebrows in a mocking question. ‘Maybe you thought that if you could get your claws into me, then you might benefit far more than just getting a cut from the sale of your friend’s clothes?’
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