The Platinum Collection. Maisey Yates

alone and unobserved.

      The Kat she saw reflected in the mirror was all shaken up, her eyes dazed, her face pale and troubled. An affair seemed trouble free until the real world threatened and there could be nothing more real world than an accidental pregnancy. For goodness’ sake, her sister Emmie was pregnant and hadn’t she disapproved, deemed her irresponsible and feared for her sibling’s future? How much less excuse did she have at her age? She should have taken care of birth control even before she got on the yacht. Better safe than sorry should have been her guiding principle. She had been so sure she wouldn’t end up in Mikhail’s bed and where had that belief got her?

      Mikhail joined her in the shower. He ran a reproving fingertip along the anxious line of her compressed lips. ‘Stop worrying about it. If you conceive, we’ll handle it together. We’re not frightened teenagers,’ he pointed out levelly.

      But the day after tomorrow she would be leaving the yacht and he would no longer be part of her life. He had said nothing to make her think otherwise and she preferred that. She didn’t want him promising to phone and then not bothering. She had fallen in love with him but that wasn’t his fault. He had made her no promises and told her no lies. So, how had she managed to fall for him?

      Was it when he first ensured that she got her favourite chocolate breakfast drink every morning even though he thought it was a disgustingly sweet concoction? When he started teaching her simple words of Russian? When he tolerated her obsession with a certain television reality show and let her watch it even though it bored him to death? Or was it when he most unexpectedly ran her a hot bath when she found herself suffering one evening from embarrassing cramps? Or even when he treated her as though she was the only woman in the world for him, angling his head down to catch her every word, offering advice on the way she handled her sisters, telling her where she had gone wrong with her guest house? No, Mikhail’s full attention was not all a source of joy, she conceded with wry amusement, for he thought he knew everything and that there was no problem he could not fix.

      Sometimes she lay awake in bed beside him, studying his lean bronzed profile and the black lashes almost hitting his spectacular cheekbones, and she would try to remember what life had been like without him. Unhappily for her, she didn’t want to remember that time or the absence of fun and passion that had made her life so colourless and predictable. Life was never that predictable in Mikhail’s radius. It shocked her that she could have lived so many years without ever discovering such joy and delight in another person.

CHAPTER NINE

      ‘WHAT DO you want to do today?’ Mikhail prompted Kat the following morning as he wrapped a fleecy towel round her dripping figure.

      ‘I thought you had work to do—’

      ‘On your last day?’ A black brow slashed up.

      Her heart thudded as though he had pulled a knife on her, dismay reverberating through her slender body. She had actually thought he might not be aware that the month and the agreed amount of time was up. What a fool she had been! Clearly he had an internal calendar every bit as accurate as her own and it was a timely reminder that she had something she really did need to discuss with him before they parted.

      ‘Could we be ordinary people for a change?’ she heard herself ask, thinking that it would be easier to talk to him away from the yacht as he was highly unlikely to stage a row with her in a public place.

      ‘Ordinary?’ he queried blankly.

      ‘Walk down a street without an escort that attracts attention, window-shop, go for coffee some place that isn’t fancy …’ she extended uncertainly. ‘Simple things.’

      Dark as night eyes widening in surprise at the request, Mikhail shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘I’m sure I can manage that.’

      The tender dropped them at the boarded promenade walk that skirted the coastline of the resort. Stas and his companions followed them but kept their distance. Casually clad in shorts and an open-necked shirt, Mikhail urged her into the town and, closing a hand over hers, he walked her down the main street. She checked out shop windows and went into a gift shop where she insisted on paying for a small glass owl that she knew Topsy would happily add to her collection.

      ‘I’ve decided I don’t like independent women,’ Mikhail imparted, watching her study a display of sparkling dress rings in a jeweller’s window. ‘There’s nothing here worthy of your interest … At those prices it’s all fake.’

      ‘I’m not a snob—’

      ‘I am,’ Mikhail interposed without hesitation. ‘Which one do you like?’

      ‘The green one,’ she confided, surprised he had asked.

      ‘I couldn’t bear to look at that on your finger,’ Mikhail derided and he tugged her on down the busy street at a smart pace. ‘Where are we going for coffee?’

      Kat picked a quiet outdoor café set above the beach with comfortable seats and a beautiful view of the sea. A resigned look on his strong face, Mikhail folded his big powerful frame down into a chair that creaked alarmingly. ‘So what’s so exciting about coming here?’ he enquired, keen for her to spell out the source of the attraction.

      ‘That’s the point. It’s not exciting or fancy, it’s just plain and peaceful,’ she told him lightly, knowing she had a thorny subject to broach before she departed and wanting to get that little discussion over and done with somewhere where Mikhail was unlikely to lose his cool.

      Kat was so far removed from his usual style of lover that his fascination with her was understandable, Mikhail conceded impatiently, striving tolerantly not to frown with disapproval as she sipped at yet another sickeningly sweet chocolate drink, which could only be bad for her health. Didn’t she care about her well-being? Or the fact that she was currently as poor as a church mouse? Any other woman he had slept with would, at the very least, have thought nothing of marching him out to some designer retail outlet so that he could reward her generously for her time with the goodbye gift of a new wardrobe …

      So, it had finally come: the moment to say goodbye. He would miss Kat, he acknowledged reluctantly, and not only in bed. He would miss her ability to challenge him, her refusal to be impressed by what his money could buy, even her easy friendliness with his staff and his guests, although he would not miss her ridiculous obsession with reality shows that portrayed a lifestyle that ironically she appeared to have no interest in acquiring for herself. And missing a woman, even rating a woman as being capable of giving him more than a few weeks of amusement, was not a familiar experience for Mikhail. He had always believed that for every woman he left behind another even more appealing would soon appear and experience had borne out that trusty conviction. He would move on as he always did, of course he would.

      And no doubt she would move on quickly as well, he reflected darkly, for he was convinced that Lorne would track her down once he knew that Mikhail had ditched her. Lorne Arnold had been very taken with Kat … Lorne was waiting in the wings ready to pounce. Mikhail gritted his teeth, trying not to imagine Kat in bed with Lorne, parting those wonderfully long legs for him and making those throaty little cries when she climaxed. He felt sick to the stomach. But why should that imagery bother him so much? He wasn’t possessive about women, never had been, wasn’t sensitive either. When it was over, it was over. He wasn’t unstable and irrational like his father, the sort of man who obsessed over one special irreplaceable woman and drank himself to death when she was gone. He didn’t do emotion, he didn’t get attached … or hurt or disappointed either. That was the bottom line: he never ever made himself vulnerable. That was a risk that only the foolish ran and he had never been a fool.

      ‘What are you thinking about?’ Kat prompted, having noted the grim set of his strong jawline and the flinty hardness of his eyes as he gazed out to sea. ‘You look angry.’

      ‘Why would I be angry?’ Mikhail enquired, irritated that she watched him so closely and read him so accurately. She got under his skin in some way and