The Most Coveted Prize. Penny Jordan

      She was holding out a pen to him. Not his pen, but he took it from her nonetheless. Her hand was delicately boned, her fingers long and slim, her nails buffed to a natural sheen. She had a look about her that money alone could not buy: a translucent, shimmering natural beauty allied to the kind of discreet grooming that whispered privilege and protection. This woman had been feather-bedded from the moment of her birth.

      Angry with himself for being so aware of her, he punished her for that awareness by telling her mockingly, ‘And of course you would seize such a golden opportunity to return it to me, wouldn’t you? Given your interest in me. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it is the male’s role to pursue his quarry and reveal his desire, not the female’s.’

      Hot colour ran up under Alena’s skin like burning fire. She deserved his mockery—and his cruelty: Vasilii would have said so. But she hadn’t been prepared for it and it hurt. Inside her head—foolishly—she had built up an image of him in which his danger was tempered by a desire for her that matched her own for him. Now she was being made to pay for that fantasy.

      Kiryl watched as she struggled to overcome her humiliation, pride battling against pain as her small white teeth bit so hard into that soft bottom lip that it swelled swiftly. Just as it would swell beneath the fierce demand of a man’s kiss? Against his will Kiryl felt the ache in his groin the sight of her had aroused earlier return—with interest.

      ‘My apologies. That was ungracious of me.’

      His apology was deliberately insincere. He didn’t have either the time or the desire to deal with the fragile ego of an emotional woman—no matter how desirable. He knew himself too well, and he knew that in the mood he was in now, thanks to Vasilii Demidov, the darkness within him that he had never wholly been able to control would unleash itself and seek a victim. Over the years Kiryl had taught himself to think of that darkness as something of a mental vampire, an echo of himself that, when aroused, could only be calmed by feeding off the emotional pain of others. No doubt there were those who would say that that dark need sprang from his childhood, but Kiryl had no intention of dwelling on a time when he had been vulnerable. Instead he preferred to live in the present, and living in the present meant securing that contract. The girl was simply a spare pawn in the game, and as such he had no use for her other than as a momentary outlet for his pent-up inner frustration with regard to his bid and the competition he was up against.

      For Alena, though, his caustic cruelty was unbearable. She retreated from him, feeling too upset and too humiliated to defend herself, merely shaking her head and turning away to hurry back to her table.

      Once there she asked for her bill and proceeded to gather up her coat and her bag. She had shown herself up most dreadfully. She deserved the punishment he had meted out, she told herself. She was just glad that her half-brother hadn’t been there to witness it. Fresh tears blurred her vision.

      Automatically Kiryl tracked her uncoordinated, anxiously urgent movements. Because he wanted to distance himself from her, that was all. And yet his gaze and his senses were somehow reluctant to let her go. Even now, when she was plainly upset, there was still a grace about her, a breathtaking natural sensuality, a pliable softness—from the top of her shining fall of dark blonde hair to the delicacy of ankles so fine Kiryl suspected he could easily close his hand around them—that said the whole of her could be bent to the will of the man who possessed her.

      And did he want to be that man? It wasn’t so much a matter of wanting as of taking advantage of what he was being offered so blatantly. Kiryl shrugged aside his inner criticism of himself. He was, after all, a man—with a man’s needs. And it was obviously what she wanted. She had practically been begging for it, and it would be one way of ridding himself of the anger he felt at having his plans threatened by Vasilii Demidov. He had taken the savagery of the sharp raw edge off it via his mockery of her. He could make amends quite easily. He knew the format. She would initially pretend to refuse to allow him to do so. He would then flatter her and she would give in. It was a game as old as life itself, and an hour or so in bed with her in his suite would surely be enough to satisfy the ache in his groin.

      A brief movement of his hand summoned a waitress. Giving her his instructions, he made his way over to the table.

      Alena was just about to leave, her back to him as she waited for another waitress to bring her bill.

      ‘You didn’t drink your tea earlier, and since I am very much in need of a cup why don’t we share a samovar together? Two Russians together, sharing a tradition from our homeland?’

      The unexpected sound of his voice had Alena spinning round, her shock intensifying when he reached out and closed long fingers around her wrist, his thumb on her unsteady, far too fast pulse.

      His smile was pure megawatt charm. It softened the earlier arrogant harshness of his features and turned him into every woman’s fantasy of a bad boy grown into an adult male. It gave him the sensuality of a Cossack, the romance of a gypsy, the wild devilry of a pirate and the alpha allure of a hero. With that smile he was all of them and more. And she would be a fool to give in to him.

      ‘No, thank you.’ She tried to sound distant and cool, but she knew he had heard the vulnerable huskiness of her voice, the note of doubt and longing that undermined her will-power. Her throat felt dry and raw with emotion and tension. She wanted to wrench her wrist free of his hold but somehow she couldn’t.

      He was smiling at her again, more intimately this time, the malachite eyes darkening and gleaming.

      ‘I was rude and I upset you, and now you are angry with me. You think, no doubt, that I do not deserve your company. And you are right. After all, such a beautiful woman can easily find a far more pleasant and appreciative companion. But I think you have a kind heart, and that that kind heart will whisper to you to take pity on me.’

      Oh, yes, he could be very charming—as well as very cruel. And Alena didn’t need Vasilii to tell her how dangerous that made him. Every woman carried within her DNA the instinctive knowledge of just how dangerous such a man could be. And just how compellingly and demandingly irresistible.

      The smile that accompanied his apology revealed strong white teeth and crinkled the skin around his eyes. Its effect on her locked the breath in her lungs and started a stampede of small butterfly movements of shocked but exhilarating excitement fizzing in her stomach. The hurt he had already caused her had left its mark, though—like a bruise against pale vulnerable skin and her brain warned her to be careful.

      He was massaging her skin, stroking that place where her pulse was thudding so tempestuously, but far from soothing her his touch was only increasing her agitation and her awareness of him. She must escape from him whilst she still could. He was dangerous, and she was not equipped to deal with that danger.

      ‘I must go. I …’

      Her English was refined and unaccented. Despite the samovar he had seen on the table she did not look or sound Russian, except for those silver-grey eyes that reminded him so intensely of the Neva and the city of his birth. And the pain he had known there …

      ‘I have ordered our tea. See—the waitress is bringing it now.’

      Two waitresses were heading for the table—one carrying fresh tea, the other bringing her bill. The waitress with her bill smiled at her and said politely, ‘I am sorry, Miss Demidova. I thought you wanted your bill.’

      She was Russian. She had to be with that surname. And not just any Russian surname either. The irony of her sharing the same surname—a relatively common one in Russia—as his rival for the contract he wanted so badly was not lost on Kiryl. Perhaps it was an omen. The voluntary foster mother or babushka, who had raised him after the death of his own mother, along with several other orphaned and unwanted children, had set great store by old superstitions and beliefs, but he did not. He was a modern man, after all.

      ‘You’re staying here in the hotel?’ he asked, pulling out a chair for Alena with his free hand and firmly guiding her into it, leaving her no option other than to remain at the table.

      He was even more magnificent,