The Cost of the Forbidden (Irresistible Russian Tycoons) Read online

  Were they friends? Naomi pondered.

  They seemed such an unlikely mix.

  ‘I shan’t be long,’ Sev said to Naomi on his way out, and, behind Allem’s robed back, he made a gesture with his hand that was Sev language for Pour me a cognac.

  Naomi went in to his office and poured him a drink but then, unable to help herself, she slid open the drawer and took out the bag. She looked at the pretty robin-egg-blue box wrapped in a white bow and tortured herself with images of engagement rings.

  Was that why he’d flown to Rome?

  Oh, God, the white roses were bad enough but she could not stand the thought of Sev actually getting serious about someone.

  He had never bought anyone jewellery in all her time here; it had been white roses and that was all.

  ‘Snooping?’ Sev asked as he came, unheard by Naomi, into the office, and she was just too tired of it all to jump or even blush.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to wrap it.’

  ‘You think you’d do a better job than Tiffany’s?’ Sev teased.

  As she went to put the box back in the bag Sev held out his hand and she handed it to him.

  ‘I think I’ve changed my mind about them.’

  He tore off the bow, opened the box and stared for a moment then handed it to Naomi for her thoughts.

  She’d rather not share them.

  Silently she stared at the earrings—two heart-shaped, pink-diamond-encrusted studs.

  They were gorgeous.

  Seriously so.

  ‘They’re beautiful,’ Naomi said, but Sev wasn’t sure and he took back the box and looked at them again.

  ‘I think that they’re a bit too pink, but then again she’s young and the guy who served me said that was what they all wanted at the moment.’

  So, no white roses for Miss Roma, Naomi thought.

  ‘You don’t look very convinced,’ Sev said, noting Naomi’s lack of enthusiasm.

  Just how hard did she have to act?

  ‘Sev, they’re stunning.’ Naomi spoke, she hoped, with conviction. ‘Any woman would be thrilled to have them.’

  Especially from you.

  She looked at the little frown line between his eyes as still he examined the earrings. This man who cared so little for other’s feelings really did seem to care about this gift and its reception, Naomi could tell.

  And so it really was time to leave.

  ‘Okay, let’s run through my schedule,’ Sev said, snapping closed the box and leaving it for Naomi to re-tie the bow. ‘It’s changed. We’re going to be flying to Dubai on Saturday and then from there straight on to London. I have to be there for the twelfth.’

  ‘In the morning?’ Naomi checked.

  ‘No, no,’ Sev said. ‘I want to get there on the eleventh, just to allow for delays and things.’

  Naomi raised her eyebrows—Sev was usually the delay.

  ‘I know that you’ll have to rearrange a few things but I can’t not go to Washington and I really can’t keep putting Allem off.’

  ‘I get that,’ Naomi agreed. ‘Did he like the statue?’

  ‘He loved it,’ Sev answered, which only confused her more.

  ‘Sev, could I have word with you?’

  ‘Can it wait?’ Sev asked. ‘We’ve got to meet Allem in less than an hour.’

  ‘No.’ Naomi shook her head. ‘It can’t wait.’

  If she didn’t do it now then it would just get harder and, given they were going to be in Dubai, if there was going to be even a hope of finding her replacement she needed to get things under way soon.

  ‘You’ll have to watch me get changed, then,’ Sev said, picking up the drink she had poured and taking a long sip as he started to undo his tie.

  ‘Hardly a first.’ She didn’t take a seat, she was too nervous to, and so instead Naomi stood and leant on his desk.

  Tie off, he pulled open a door to a dressing room and selected a fresh shirt with no thought as to how it had got there.

  It wasn’t his problem.

  Sev peered into the mirror.

  ‘I’d better shave.’

  Naomi said nothing as he stripped off his shirt and dropped it to the floor and then walked over towards her to top up his drink.

  He just walked towards her with no thought about the effect a half-naked Sev had on her.

  That wasn’t his problem either.

  His skin was pale and on anyone else it might be too pale yet on Sev all it did was enhance his lithe, toned body and shadowed his chest to perfection. His arms were as long as his legs and his nipples were the same deep merlot of his mouth and just as tempting. His trousers sat a little too low on his hips, just that fraction between notches on a belt, and those were the details she fought not to notice as his hand reached for a heavy glass and held it up to her.

  ‘Have one,’ Sev said. ‘It’s going to be a very long, dry night.’

  Sometimes they had a drink about now, especially if they were going out for dinner, but Naomi declined with a small shake of her head. Even if a cognac to settle her nerves might be nice, she’d rather hold onto her inhibitions than lose them around him.

  This was going to be harder than she’d allowed for.

  She loved her job.

  Her career.

  It just wasn’t working.

  Oh, there was a reason she could not abide certain parts of her job. Had it been Edward, her previous boss, or any of her bosses before Sev, this would be an unnoted part of a long day—brief downtime before she headed out for a dinner with his clients.

  Instead she was trying to work out where to place her eyes when they wanted to rest on him.

  ‘If it’s about this morning,’ Sev said, lathering up his chin, ‘there’s no need. You don’t have to apologise.’

  Her lips moved into an unseen but incredulous smile.

  ‘We’re reducing your use of the “sorry” word, remember?’

  He really took the cake at times!

  Yes, she could tell him he had been the inappropriate one this morning yet she was looking at his back and fighting not to go over there.

  Naomi was truly tired of fighting her feelings.

  Feelings, Naomi knew, that could get seriously hurt.

  And neither did those feelings allow her to do her job properly. Naomi knew she had been surly this morning about his late arrival when, as his PA, she had no right to be.

  ‘That’s not what I’m here about, Sev.’ Naomi cleared her throat and watched as Sev picked up the razor. ‘I’m handing in my notice.’

  She watched as the razor hesitated over his jaw but then he commenced shaving as she carried on with her little prepared speech.

  ‘You said at the start that you’d be surprised if I lasted more than three months.’ Naomi reminded him.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And I’ve loved the work, I really have, it’s just...’

  He turned from the mirror. ‘Naomi, you don’t need to give a reason to leave.’

  He could be so kind at times—awkward, embarrassing things like resigning he dealt with so well.

  ‘Will you be sticking around to find a replacement?’ Sev asked, as he carried on with his shave.

  ‘I’ll do what I can this week but if we’re going to Dubai, it might be pushing it, unless you don’t need me to go.’

  ‘No, no,’ Sev said. ‘I need you to be there. I go to Washington the day after tomorrow...’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’ll come back on Thursday night. If you can have at least two applicants lined up by then, that would be good.’

  ‘Sure.’

  She’d have little trouble. Applications to work for Sevastyan Derzhavin arrived in her inbox all the time. ‘I’ll go from Dubai to London and there we can part ways.’

  ‘You’re coming back to New York, though?’ Sev checked.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Naomi nodded. ‘I want to have Christmas with my family here.’

  ‘How’s that all going?’ Sev asked, turning back to the mir
ror and getting on with shaving.

  ‘Good! I’m going there tomorrow night.’

  ‘For dinner?’

  ‘I’m babysitting,’ Naomi answered. ‘They’re going to the theatre.’

  Sev said nothing. He loathed how she jumped to her father’s every wish. They could be in the middle of a meeting and if her father texted or called, even if she tried not to respond, Sev could feel the tension in her.

  Then he chose not to say nothing. ‘You like the theatre,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘It says that you do on your résumé.’

  ‘And I told you that I lied about that.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask about a reference?’

  Naomi nodded.

  ‘I’ll do that first thing tomorrow,’ Sev promised.

  He rinsed his face and then dried it, splashed on a load of cologne, took a sip of his drink and then put on his fresh shirt.

  And that was that.

  She’d resigned. It was done with.

  And he’d barely so much as blinked.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘ARE YOU GOING to get changed?’ Sevastyan asked.

  Naomi nodded.

  His complete lack of reaction only confirmed that she was right to leave.

  It was easy come, easy go to Sev, and that hurt a lot.

  As she headed out of his office to get changed for their night out, only then did she remember. ‘I haven’t got my dress here,’ Naomi said. ‘I was supposed to pick it up from the cleaner’s in my lunch break but I went shopping with Jamal and I forgot.’

  ‘No problem.’ He dealt with it as easily as the news that she had resigned. ‘Do you have something at home ready to put on? We can stop on the way to the restaurant.’

  Of course she had something at home—given her lavish clothing allowance—and they headed to her apartment. She rather wished he hadn’t shaved or smelled so divine as they took the elevator to the tenth floor, where Naomi lived, rather than his penthouse.

  ‘So?’ Sevastyan asked on the way up. ‘Where are we eating tonight?’

  Naomi told him the name of a very upmarket Middle Eastern restaurant.

  ‘That’s not very imaginative.’ Sev pulled a face. ‘Won’t they be sick of Middle Eastern food?’

  ‘I doubt people get sick of their home cuisine,’ Naomi said as she let them into her apartment. ‘I had actually booked a French restaurant but Jamal is feeling a bit...’ She chose not to tell Sev the news that Jamal had shared with her as they’d shopped. He was insensitive at the best of times and completely devoid of social niceties at his worst. ‘She just wanted a menu she knows.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Help yourself to a drink,’ Naomi said. ‘I’ll just go and get changed.’

  Sevastyan would have helped himself to a drink had there actually been anything decent to choose from. He opened her fridge and there wasn’t even a bottle of wine in there.

  He walked back out to the lounge room and saw the picture of a man presumably her fiancé, lying on the table by the phone.

  How sweet, he thought with a brittle edge. She must look at him as she spoke to him on the phone.

  Then Sev remembered he and Naomi’s little near miss this morning and, though his question had been inappropriate, it had been a genuine one. Not just the sex. He knew he would never be close enough to anyone to get engaged but this jerk in the photo was.

  It had been Naomi’s birthday in October.

  Sev hadn’t known, he’d just known something was up, and when he’d pushed her, Naomi had told him she was upset that neither of her parents had called to wish her a happy birthday.

  ‘I’m sure something nice will happen,’ Sev had said.

  He had been sure.

  Surely her fiancé was on a plane right now, about to whisk her off for one night.

  And he wasn’t thinking as a snob with a private jet.

  Naomi had told him herself that her fiancé, Andrew, had an important job, so presumably it paid enough for a flight on your future wife’s birthday.

  Apparently not.

  Sev had taken her to the theatre, which he loathed, and then dinner, which he’d enjoyed.

  And then back to the same building, different floors by midnight.

  Which had confused him.

  He and Naomi...

  It was something that needed addressing.

  He was about to stick his middle finger up at the image of Andrew, but changed it to look as if he was scratching his ear as Naomi came out.

  She was wearing a very elegant, fitted dark grey dress. However, she needed help with the zip and was carrying her shoes and a necklace as she attempted to get ready in two minutes flat.

  ‘Do we have time for me to do my hair?’ Naomi asked, slipping her shoes on.

  ‘No.’ He looked over to where she was struggling with the zip.

  ‘Come here,’ he offered.

  She would really rather not but, choosing not to make a fuss, she went over and held up her hair. Sev went to the zip, but instead of pulling it the rest of the way up, he pulled it the rest of the way down. ‘Whoops.’

  ‘Sev!’ Naomi sighed. They really didn’t have time for his games.

  But Sev was in no rush now that he was looking at her delicate pink neck; her hand was shaking a touch as she held up her hair and, no, he decided, he hadn’t misread the sensual air he had sniffed back in the office. Naomi Johnson was as turned on as he—which was very.

  Her back was bare, apart from the strap of her bra, and he was very tempted to undo that too.

  She had a lovely back, Sev thought. Not that backs were generally his thing. He rather wanted to turn her around but instead he ran a light finger along her spine.

  Naomi closed her eyes to the bliss.

  ‘Hey, Naomi,’ Sev said. His voice was a bit lower than usual and there was definite tension in the air. ‘You do realise that now you’ve resigned, we can spend the next two weeks in bedded bliss.’

  ‘I missed that when I went through my contract,’ Naomi replied. ‘Just how did you come to that conclusion exactly?’

  ‘Well, you told me, when we were in Helsinki, that you would never sleep with your boss.’

  ‘Actually,’ Naomi corrected him, ‘that conversation happened on the runway in Mali and I believe what I said was I didn’t want to get involved with you.’

  ‘Because you’re engaged?’

  It would never enter his head, Naomi realised, that someone might just simply not want him.

  He was probably right, she knew, for she was fighting with herself not to turn around. Oh, she had been wise to keep her engagement ring on. Not that it warded him off. He had no scruples at all. His hand was now at the base of her spine, fiddling again with the zip, but then he got bored with even pretending that he was going to do it up.

  * * *

  Sev had wanted Naomi for a very long time. Only now that she had told him she was leaving, he seemed to want her even more.

  He was more than used to his assistants resigning.

  It had never troubled him at all in the past but now it did.

  He had consoled himself, however, that now she was leaving they could leave a bit of the business behind and concentrate on pleasure, but Naomi had just closed the door.

  He wanted it open.

  ‘In Helsinki I told you I’d cured myself of blondes...’ His finger moved up to the nape of her neck and he toyed with a stray dark curl.

  Naomi stood there as he blew on her neck, or was that just his breath?

  ‘I thought we had to be at the restaurant,’ Naomi said. ‘You said I didn’t even have time to do my hair...’

  ‘I’m not thinking about your hair now.’

  Neither was she.

  She was so tired of fighting it.

  Maybe she would order her own roses once it was over, Naomi thought.

  And it would be over.

  Being crazy about Sevastyan was a terminal
disease with no cure. She might just opt for some temporary pain relief, though.

  He moved in closer behind her but not too fast. Sev didn’t want her to startle to his hard-on and change her mind, but he could feel the shift in her.

  ‘You’ve lost weight,’ he observed, stroking the curve of her waist and moving a little higher.

  ‘I know,’ Naomi said, wondering how just the warmth of his hand on her skin could turn her on so. His hand had moved to the front of her body. Higher than her waist but lower than where she now wanted it to be. Her breasts ached, anticipating his touch. ‘I thought that I’d be putting it on...’ She halted her words—she was hardly going to tell Sev that with the amount of comfort eating she’d been doing lately, on top of the lavish dinners and lunches she shared with him, that should generally mean that she should be spilling out of her clothes. Instead they were hanging off her.

  It was Sev who stopped the intimate moment. As his hand paused a tiny frown registered unseen on his brow. Why would Naomi think she should be putting on weight? he asked himself, and then he remembered the conversation he had just had today with Allem.

  Yes, Naomi had certainly been moody of late.

  Oh, God! Eternally superstitious, Sevastyan thought of the fertility statue that had been sitting in his office for weeks.

  Was she pregnant?

  Was that why she was leaving?

  He glanced over to the picture of Andrew on the coffee table and then up went Naomi’s zipper.

  A pregnant PA he did not need and a pregnant lover he did not want!

  ‘Come on,’ he said in a gruff voice. ‘We’re already late.’

  * * *

  It was meant to be a very lovely dinner.

  But in actual fact it was not.

  It was one of those nights that you really wished you’d just stayed home.

  Sev sat sulking and silent and it was Naomi who moved the conversation.

  ‘It was cell phones then,’ Allem said, turning to Sev, who was calling to the waiter for more water.

  Naomi was quite sure there was a dash or three of vodka in his. He was in a horrible mood and she had no idea what had happened. One moment she’d been about to give in to three months of building desire but just as she had, Sev had changed his mind.

  She would never understand him.