CHAPTER 4

         Andrey stared at his Executive Assistant as if he’d never seen her before. There was something about the way she tilted that perfect, pretty oval of her face, the way her usually calm gray eyes sparkled with the force of her temper… And something about that mouth of hers.

          He couldn’t seem to look away from it. Unbidden, a memory teased through his head, of her hand on his cheek, her gray eyes warm and something like affectionate, her lips… but no. There was no need to revisit that insanity. He’d worked much too hard to strike it from his consciousness. It was one regrettable evening in five smooth, issue-free years. Why think of it at all?

“I would rather draw my last breath here and now,” she said again as if she was under the misapprehension that he had not heard her the first time.

“That can always be arranged, Miss Bryant,” Andrey said, searching that face he knew so well and yet, apparently, so little.

          He was looking for some clue as to what had brought this on. Here, now, today.

“Have you forgotten? I am a very formidable man. I can do whatever I set my mind to do. And I have the means to do it.”

“Are we at this point? Well, if you are going to make threats, Mr. Romanoff,” Addison replied in that crisp way of hers, “at least pay me the compliment of making them credible. You are many things, but you are not a thug. Never was one.”

          For the first time in longer than he could remember, since, perhaps, he had been the fatherless child whose mother, all the village had known too well, had been so disgraced that she had taken to the convent after his birth rather than face the wages of her sin in its ever-growing flesh, Andrey Romanoff was at a loss.

          It might have amused him that it was his Executive Assistant who had wrought this level of incapacity in him, his glorified little ‘Girl-Friday’, for God’s sake, when nothing else had managed it.

          Not another multimillion-pound deal, not one more scandalous affair reported breathlessly and inaccurately in the tabloids, not one of his new and, dare he say it, visionary business enterprises. Nothing got beneath his skin. Nothing threw him off balance. Only this little, feisty woman. As she had once before. It was funny. It was…  

          Andrey was certain he would laugh about it at some point, and at great length, but first, he needed to solve this little crisis and do it fast. She couldn’t go away from his company… He needed her too much.

          He needed her back in line where she belonged, back securely in the role he preferred her to play, and Andrey ignored the small whisper inside him that suggested that there would be no repairing this.

          That she would never again be as comfortably invisible as she’d been before, that it was too late, that he’d been operating on borrowed time since the incident in Cadiz three years ago and this was only the delayed fallout…

“So, if you are done with the threats, Mr. Romanoff, I’ll be on my way,” Addison told him. “I got other things to do with my time.”

          She met his gaze as if he were a naughty child in the midst of a tiresome strop, and enunciating each word as if she suspected Andrey was too busy tantruming to hear her otherwise.

“You will have to come to terms with my decision and if you still feel it necessary to file suit against me, then, by all means, go ahead with it. I booked a ticket to Bora Bora this morning. I’m sorted.”

          And then, finally, his brain started working again. It was one thing for her to take herself off to wherever she lived in London, or even off on a week’s holiday to, say, Ibiza, as he’d suggested.

          But French Polynesia… a world away? Unacceptable! Because he could not let her go… He already said no. And he wanted to examine that as little as he had the last time he’d discovered that she wanted to leave him.

          Three years ago, only a week after that night in Cadiz he’d seen, and still saw, no point in dredging forth. It wasn’t personal, of course, then or now. Addison Bryant was an asset. In many ways, the most valuable asset he had.

          She knew too much about him. Everything, in fact… From his inseam to his favorite breakfast to his preferred concierge service in all the major cities around the globe, to say nothing of the ins and outs of the way he handled his business affairs.

          Andrey couldn’t imagine how long it would take to train up her replacement, and he had no intention of finding out. He would do as he always did… whatever was necessary to protect his assets. Whatever it took.

“I apologize for my behavior, Miss Bryant,” Andrey said then, almost formally.

          He shifted his stance and thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers, rocking back on his heels in a manner he knew was the very opposite of aggressive.

“I must admit that you took me by surprise.”

          Her gray eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Andrey wished that he had taken the time to learn how to read her as thoroughly as he knew she could read him. It put him at a disadvantage, another unfamiliar sensation.

“Of course, I will not sue you… or hurt you in any way,” he continued, forcing himself to keep an even, civil tone, and the rest of himself in check. “I was simply reacting badly, as anyone would. You are the best Executive Assistant I’ve ever had in… years. Perhaps the best in all of London. I am quite sure you know this.”

“Well… thank you for that… I guess,” Addison added, dropping her gaze, which he found unaccountably fascinating.

          She said something almost under her breath then, something that sounded very much like ‘that’s nothing to be proud of’. Andrey wanted to pursue that but didn’t. He had every intention of cracking her wide open and figuring out every last one of her mysteries until he was sure that none remained, that she could never take him by surprise again…

          But not now. Not here. Not until he’d dealt with this situation the only way he knew how. Which was to dominate it and contain it and make it his, by whatever means necessary.

“As you must be aware, however,” he continued, “there will be a great number of papers to sign before you can leave the company, Miss Bryant. Confidentiality agreements being the least of it.”

          He checked the watch on his wrist with a quick snap of his arm.

“It’s still early. We can leave immediately.”

“I’m sorry… Did you just say ‘leave’?” she demanded, openly frowning now.

          Andrey slowly narrowed his eyes. It occurred to him that he’d never seen her do that before. Addison was always so very serene, with only the odd flash in her eyes to hint at what went on in her head.

          He’d never wanted to know. But this was a full frown, eyebrows drawn and that mouth of hers tight, and Andrey was riveted. Why could he not tear his attention away from her mouth?

          The lines he’d never seen before made the smooth expanse of her forehead more interesting somehow… It made him much too close to uncomfortable. As if she was a real person instead of merely his most prized possession, exhibiting brand-new traits. Worse yet… As if she was a… woman.

          But he didn’t want to think about that. He certainly didn’t want to remember the only other time he’d seen her as anything more than his shadow... capable to pit every single piece of his life in the right place.

          No… He didn’t want this woman in his bed. Of course, he didn’t. She was too clever, too good at what she did. He wanted her at his beck and call, at his side, where she belonged.

“Miss Bryant, my entire legal team is in Zurich,” Andrey reminded her gently. “Surely you have not forgotten that already in your haste to leave? We need to solve everything before your trip to… where did you say? Ah, yes… Bora Bora…”

          Andrey watched her stiffen, and thought she would balk at the idea of a quick trip to Switzerland, but instead, she swallowed hard. Quite visibly. And then squared her shoulders as if a not-quite-two-hour trip on the private jet was akin to a trial by fire. One that she was reluctantly willing to suffer through if it would rid her of him.

“Fine by me, Mr. Romanoff,” Addison replied, with an impatient sort of sigh that he did not care for in the least. “If you want me to sign something, anything, I’ll sign it. Even in bloody Zurich, if you insist. I want this over with. I want to be free from everything I’ve been a part of during these five years.”

“Very well Miss Bryant. Let’s go,” Andrey said and smiled because he had her.