Ruthless Russian, Lost Innocence - Shaw Chantelle - Страница 31

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Mistress! How she hated that word, Ella thought savagely, looking away from him so that he would not see how much his casual description of her role in his life had hurt her. Vadim was a charming and charismatic companion, and a generous lover, but she sensed that there were secrets in his past that he would never reveal to her.

‘I just thought you looked bothered by something,’ she muttered stiffly, telling herself that it was ridiculous to feel rejected just because he chose not to confide in her. They did not have that kind of relationship, she reminded herself. She was his temporary mistress, and all the wishing in the world would not change the situation.

‘It’s sweet of you to be concerned about me,’ he said, in a faintly amused tone that caused a flush of embarrassment to stain her cheeks. ‘But I assure you there is no need.’ Vadim’s conscience gnawed at him when he saw the flare of hurt in her eyes. He knew he had sounded abrupt, but he had no intention of revealing to Ella that her rendition of Mozart’s exquisite Eine Kleine Nachtmusik had reminded him of an evening many years ago, when he had taken Irina to a concert by the Moscow State Symphony.

It had been a few months after their marriage, a celebration of the news that Irina was pregnant with their first child, and he could still recall the excitement he had felt that he was going to be a father. Why had he allowed his ambition to make money to become more important than his wife and child? he wondered bleakly. His obsession with developing his business had hurt Irina, but by the time he had realised just how much she and Klara meant to him they had already made their fateful journey to Irina’s home village, and although he had followed them he had arrived too late to save them.

‘Did you remember we’re meeting Sergey and Lena Tarasov for dinner tonight?’ He dragged his mind from the past and forced a casual tone.

‘I hadn’t forgotten.’ Ella glanced at her watch. ‘I think I’ll go and shower and start getting ready now,’ she muttered, needing to get away from him before she gave in to the stupid urge to burst into tears.

She had met Vadim’s Russian friends the Tarasovs on several occasions. They were a charming couple, and she enjoyed their company, but if she was honest she would have preferred an intimate dinner on the terrace with Vadim, followed by a stroll along the beach in the moonlight before he swept her off to bed. When they had first arrived in Antibes they had spent many evenings alone together at the villa, but lately he had accepted invitations to social events every night, and she wondered if it was a sign that he was growing bored of her.

She’d known right from the start that their relationship would only ever be a temporary affair, she reminded herself when she stepped out of the shower, smoothed fragrant lotion onto her lightly tanned skin and returned to the bedroom to dress. She had also known that falling in love with him would be emotional suicide-but Vadim had dismantled her defences one by one, until she feared she was in danger of losing her heart to him irrevocably.

A noise from the doorway alerted her to his presence, and she pinned a smile to her face as she spun round and swept a hand over her dress. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think you look stunning,’ Vadim said truthfully, feeling the familiar tug of sexual hunger in his groin when he studied her. The black silk strapless sheath was deceptively simple, its bodice cut low over the upper curves of her breasts, and the side split in the skirt revealing a glimpse of slender thigh encased in gossamer-fine black hose.

With her hair swept up into a chignon, she looked elegant and desirable-the perfect attributes for a mistress. She would turn heads tonight, and he knew that other men would fantasise about her slender body beneath her dress and envy him. But she belonged to him, and only him. He was surprised by the feeling of possessiveness that surged through him. She meant nothing to him, he reminded himself grimly. She was just another blonde, passing briefly through his life, and the realisation that he was becoming addicted to her company-in and out of the bedroom-was the reason he had started to accept social invitations which ensured that he spent less time alone with her.

‘I have a present for you,’ he said, strolling over to her and taking a slim black velvet box from his pocket.

Ella caught her breath when he extracted a glittering diamond necklace from the box and fastened it around her throat. ‘I can’t possibly accept it,’ she faltered as she stared at her reflection in the mirror and watched how the diamonds sparkled in the golden glow of the setting sun. ‘It must be worth a fortune.’

He shrugged. ‘You deserve it.’ Unlike his previous mistresses, Ella never expected him to lavish her with gifts. ‘It pleases me to buy things for you. Don’t you like it?’ he murmured, his voice whispering against her skin as he traced his lips up her neck and found the sensitive spot below her ear.

‘It’s beautiful.’ Ella said quietly, but the words ‘you deserve it’ echoed in her mind. Did he regard the necklace as payment for her services in the bedroom-along with the designer clothes he had bought her? She was his mistress, she reminded herself dully, and he was a billionaire who probably bought all his mistresses diamonds. She remembered the daisy chain he had made for her the previous day, when they had lain on the grass beneath the shade of the olive trees, and wondered what he would say if she told him she would rather wear the simple necklace made of flowers that was now hidden in her bedside drawer than the priceless and meaningless precious gems that felt like a weight around her neck.

Vadim’s Aston Martin had been shipped to the villa a few days after their arrival. The powerful car ate up the twenty miles between Antibes and Monaco, and they drove through the Principality to the famous Grand Casino, where they met up with the Tarasovs.

‘It’s a spectacular place, isn’t it?’ Lena Tarasov murmured, after the two couples had dined in the exclusive restaurant and were strolling through the casino’s opulent gaming rooms, where magnificent crystal chandeliers sparkled down on the array of glittering diamonds and gems worn by every designer-clad female guest. ‘Monte Carlo is a world away from the slums of Moscow, where Sergey, Vadim and I grew up.’

Ella glanced at the beautiful dark-haired Russian woman at her side. ‘Did you know Vadim when he was a child?’ she asked curiously.

‘No, he and Sergey became friends when they were in the army, and Vadim was best man at our wedding. When Sergey’s electronics company folded a few years ago, Vadim offered him the position of company director at his Russian headquarters.’ Lena smiled. ‘Vadim is a good man and loyal friend. To be honest I think he was glad of the opportunity to hand over the Russian operation to someone he knew he could trust and move to Europe. Russia holds bad memories for him.’

Ella nodded, recalling Vadim’s description of his unhappy childhood with his father and cruel grandmother, after his mother had abandoned him. ‘Yes, he’s told me about his family.’

‘He has?’ Lena gave her a speculative glance. ‘I had not realised. As far as I know, Vadim has never spoken about his wife and daughter to anyone but his closest friends.’ She appeared unaware of the shock wave that had ripped through Ella, and gave her another warm smile. ‘Losing them both was such a terrible tragedy. I don’t think Vadim has ever really come to terms with it. He has always maintained he would never fall in love again. But…’ She shrugged her shoulders expressively. ‘You are different to all his other women. I said so to Sergey the first time we met you. Maybe you can unlock Vadim’s heart and make his eyes smile again?’

They had reached the salon, where the two men were already seated at the roulette table. The room was hot and busy, and buzzing with the hubbub of conversation, and Ella struggled to squeeze through the crowds thronged around the tables, trying to keep up with Lena so that she could question the Russian woman about her astounding revelation that Vadim-the most commitment-phobic playboy on the planet-had once had a wife and child.

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