Читать книгу Instinctive Male - Cait London, Cait London - Страница 8

M ikhail Stepanov was the one man Ellie Lathrop did not want to ask for anything.

At eight o’clock on a late February night, fog curled seductively around the Washington State coastal road; it was treacherous with curves and damp with the drizzling rain that had been falling all day. Ellie tightened her hands on the mini-station wagon’s steering wheel and glanced at the sleeping child in the back seat, nestled amid her favorite blanket and toys.

The drive from Albuquerque was draining, requiring stops at rest areas for Tanya to play. A few hours at night were spent sleeping in the well-lit parking lots of restaurants because motels would have taken the last of Ellie’s money. In the last six months, she had spent most of her reserves in traveling from place to place, always moving, keeping Tanya safe. Ellie drove skillfully, carefully, more so than if she had been traveling by herself—because nothing could happen to her legally adopted, precious child.

Her sister’s biological child…and now Hillary wanted Tanya back, to use as a pawn in her marriage game.

Ellie ran her hand through her hair and realized she was shaking, running on coffee, nerves and fear.

Just over four years ago, she had cruised down this same twisting road, determined to irritate stern man of steel Mikhail Stepanov. Ellie’s father owned the chain of Mignon International Resorts, to which Mikhail’s Amoteh Resort belonged; as the boss’s daughter, she often stayed at the various resorts free of charge. She had driven a sleek custom-ordered red sports car then, and fresh from a luxurious European spa, she had been up to battling Mikhail—one of her most enjoyable diversions, pricking at his meticulous businessman exterior, trying to find the man beneath. Back then, she didn’t care what he thought of her, and it was all a game.

One tilt of that arrogant head, one slash of those green eyes, and her instincts told her to cut the Ice Man down a notch. Maybe back then she’d had to make him pay for being so like her father, focused on business, untouchable in his emotions.

Her father’s files were complete—Mikhail Stepanov had been divorced five years ago, refusing his wife’s demand to leave plans for the Amoteh Resort. JoAnna had come to Mignon’s main offices and had told Paul Lathrop everything—including that she’d deliberately aborted Mikhail’s baby. And yet, Mikhail revealed nothing of the emotions that would disturb another man.

Ellie’s taunting games had stopped when she had became a mother to her sister’s biological child. Tanya, just four years old, had to be protected, and Mikhail was the only man who could help. At six-foot three inches, he towered over Ellie’s five-foot-seven frame, and when he was nearby, her instincts as a woman prickled. She refused to be intimidated by those narrowed green eyes, that forbidding scowl of dark brown brows.

Her windshield wipers click-clacked as Ellie thought of Mikhail Stepanov, the man she must face. With a Russian immigrant father and a Texas beauty as his mother, Mikhail was devoted to his family and to the Amoteh Resort. As manager, he moved through the luxurious corridors like a lord cruising his fortress, frighteningly efficient, quiet, dark and dangerous. Always perfectly groomed and dressed in a suit, his dark brown hair neatly clipped, Mikhail was about as approachable as an iceberg. Maybe that was why she had loved taunting him so much—just to see if he was human…to see what ran beneath that steely surface.

Mikhail had the unique ability to challenge her at a level that made her want to taunt him, to bring out the real man. Her senses told her that beneath Mikhail’s perfectly groomed, civilized suit lurked a primitive, sensual male—one she wanted to taste and captivate before moving on….

A woman whose mother had deserted her as an infant and who had been raised by a cold, hurtful father, Ellie wasn’t one to stay in relationships that could hurt.

Mikhail couldn’t be hurt. Not once in eleven years since she’d first met him in her father’s offices did he disprove her appraisal. He’d been married and divorced in that time and so had she, but whatever nettled her about Mikhail hadn’t changed.

Ellie doubted that Mikhail had any personal weaknesses—the man was all steel and business, the same ilk as her father.

Her lips pressed tightly as she watched the windshield wipers smear wet trails across the glass. It was dangerous for her to attempt to pit Mikhail against Paul Lathrop—she could lose. Correction: Tanya could lose.

On the hill overlooking the small town of Amoteh, Ellie slowed the small station wagon and stopped briefly. Located on the Pacific edge of southwest Washington State, the town had taken its name from the Chinook word for strawberry, amoteh. The lights of the tourist town, now wrapped in rain and fog, glowed eerily in the distance.

Mikhail had fought Paul, persuading him to finance a Mignon resort in the slow-moving, quiet town. The battles weren’t sweet, but Paul had known that Mikhail’s determination would find finances to create the Amoteh Resort—Mikhail’s beloved “baby.”

Those battles convinced Ellie that Mikhail could protect Tanya from her grandfather and irresponsible mother.

Ellie shivered, despite the warmth of the mini-station wagon. Her nails, no longer long, buffed and glossed, were now short and practical as they tightly gripped the steering wheel. She despised her helplessness, the desperation that had made her contact Mikhail Stepanov.

As her resources dwindled, she’d been wrangling with Mikhail, trying to nudge him into welcoming her and Tanya at the resort; Lathrops always had free accommodations. Then, six months ago, she’d been desperate. She’d ordered him to reserve a suite for her, with one room prepared for a child. After the first telephone volley between them, he hadn’t answered her telephone calls, e-mails or faxes. Because she had nowhere else to send Tanya’s toys, she had sent them to the Amoteh Resort.

As her father’s daughter, Ellie knew how to bully and maneuver. Begging would be new and humiliating. At thirty-six years old, she was forced to deal with a man just like her father, to make concessions, to be at the mercy of his decisions…. In Mikhail’s tersely expressed opinion, she was a playgirl, a jet-setter without responsibilities, legendary for her whims and parties, and she had botched a major project for the Mignon chain.

She’d botched nothing, merely taken the blame for Hillary, and she wasn’t that playgirl any longer; she was desperate to protect her child and nothing of her former wealth remained. Ellie tightened her hands on the steering wheel; she was done wrangling, threatening and contacting Mikhail. If she had to, she’d beg….

Rain slashed against the windshield, as cold and welcoming as Mikhail would be. Ellie brushed a tear from her cheek. She hated crying, and yet with her financial reserves and strength almost gone and danger threatening Tanya, she needed the only man who could help her keep her child…if he would.

She weighed arriving at the Amoteh Resort and facing Mikhail; Tanya shouldn’t be exposed to that first clash, because they always clashed, didn’t they? Mikhail in that quiet, dark, intense way as a response to her glittering, slashing offensive. She’d circled him, looking for a weakness, and had found none.

But this time, Ellie would not let herself respond to the instincts that Mikhail always set off. She would not….

Ellie turned the car from the Amoteh and toward the Stepanov home. She had met Mikhail’s parents, Fadey and Mary Jo Stepanov, earlier, at a social dinner at the opening of the Amoteh, and had liked them instantly.

With the instinct of a mother protecting her child, Ellie drove to the Stepanov home, a bold wooden structure overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Two hours later, Mikhail Stepanov wanted to toss Ellie Lathrop out on her expensive derriere, the one clad in black designer jeans and seated on the walnut desk in his sprawling office. As manager of the expansive Amoteh Resort, he knew how to get rid of unwanted “pests.” Mikhail narrowed his eyes, considering the terms in which to best frame Ellie, and came up with “A Big Bloody Thorn in My Side, the Potential to Ruin Everything, the Woman I Wish Were Anywhere But Here.” Then he added mentally, “The woman who dumped a pitcher of ice water over my head at a business meeting when I agreed with Paul, the woman who lobbed pâté across an elegant dinner table at me, the woman who brought an entire party into my bedroom at her father’s house, the woman I want most to avoid.”

At nine o’clock at night, the rain outside Mikhail’s office window pattered softly. The Amoteh Resort, luxuriously huge and sprawling, was ominously quiet. The few off-season tourists, taking advantage of the lower rates, had settled in for the night, and the minimal staff had gone to their homes in the small, quaint oceanside town.

With a mix of rain, ice and snow expected, Mikhail would have ordinarily gone to his parents’ home to meet the guest staying there. But Ellie wasn’t just any guest, and he wanted their battle to be private.

Mikhail sent a pointed, narrow-eyed message to said curved bottom on his desk, and Ellie smiled blandly at him. She tilted her head just that bit that said she recognized his hint and wasn’t taking it. Cut in different layers, her shoulder-length hair was sun-streaked, the tips catching the light, shifting over the darker layers beneath. A smooth strand of silky hair slid across her cheek, gleaming and catching the soft lighting. Her tan was genuine, not from a bottle. But above that soft cheek, Ellie’s gray eyes were taunting and veiled by her sweeping eyelashes.

He liked order in his business and in his life, and Ellie knew exactly how to tear that order apart. He refused to let her nettle him.

Her mouth curved slightly and one fine dark eyebrow lifted, challenging him as she moved just enough to nudge a neat stack of papers. The top one slid aside and Mikhail checked himself from straightening them. She knew perfectly well that he preferred order.

All five-foot seven, sleek, selfish, spoiled inches of her, from that carefully tousled shoulder-length hair down to her neatly trimmed boots, had irritated him since the day he first met her—the boss’s daughter.

“I warned you that I was coming. You’ve had months to prepare. I told you to get a suite ready with a room for a child,” Ellie said softly in her cultured, I’ve Got You, Bub, Boss’s Daughter tones. “I sent boxes of toys. Where are they?”

If he could have tossed Ellie out into the night, he would have. From experience, he knew that where Ellie went, she brought trouble.

In this case, she had brought trouble to his parents’ home—in the form of a four-year-old girl. His parents’ delight had sounded over the telephone; they were happy to baby-sit while Ellie Lathrop came to see him. The child was already tucked in and sleeping deeply after his father’s bedtime stories.

Mikhail didn’t want to think about whose child she was. Ellie hadn’t been pregnant at the opening of the Amoteh over four years ago, and now she’d collected a four-year-old child. Paul had been silent about his daughters, but then he wasn’t a sentimental man. Guessing anything about Ellie was a disaster; she was unpredictable. “The toys are in the storeroom. You can take them with you. You’re not setting up camp in the Amoteh.”

“Oh, I’m not?”

There was just that crisp, taunting tone that could set him on edge. How typical of her, Mikhail thought, to arrive at night. Just for the night—because in the morning, she was leaving, Paul Lathrop’s daughter, or not.

“My parents called, warning me of your arrival. They said the little girl is asleep in their guestroom. That’s an indication you aren’t certain of your welcome at the Amoteh, and you went to my parents because you know of their softness for children. Let me clarify the situation for you—You will not use my family, Ellie, and you are not welcome here.”

“Your mother and father were thrilled to baby-sit. I’m going to be staying with them, too. I’m more than welcome there, if not here. I’ll be a regular part of your family. Won’t that be nice?” she asked too sweetly, in the taunting tone she’d used before.

Mikhail chewed on that galling truth—his mother, Mary Jo, had been thrilled, of course…almost as delighted as Fadey, his father. Their first grandchild, Jarek Stepanov and his wife Leigh’s baby, would be born in three weeks, and they had always loved children. Therefore, it made sense that Ellie chose the loving Stepanov family for her victims—a stealthy way to get to Mikhail and torture him as only she could do.

And for some unexplained reason, Mikhail’s parents delighted in hearing of his clashes with Ellie. Their interest in his battles with Ellie was only exceeded by his younger brother’s teasing. Jarek liked her, and before his marriage to Leigh, Jarek and Ellie had played a flirting game that they both knew would go no further. Mikhail had sensed that they did so to torment him.

His ex-wife’s games and torments had made him immune to flirtation from self-serving women like Ellie.

Outside, the black swells of the Pacific eased to caress the shoreline, fog curling around the piers, creeping up the steps to enfold the massive Amoteh Resort, caressing it like a lover.

An offshore buoy sounded softly, warningly, as Mikhail opened the window for a breath of the crisp, salt-scented air he had loved all his life. Soft lights shone in his parents’ home, a jutting wood and rock structure with sprawling porches that overlooked the ocean and, a distance away, his brother Jarek’s new home with Leigh.

Just north on the coastline was Strawberry Island. In another century a Hawaiian chieftain, captured and enslaved by whalers and shipwrecked on this island, had died. Bitterly alone and longing for his homeland, Kamakani had placed a curse on Strawberry Island: only a woman who knew her own heart could dance before his grave and remove that curse.

Mikhail decided that Ellie was his private curse. He’d known it from the moment he’d met her eleven years ago in Paul Lathrop’s Seattle office, expensively dressed for a tennis game, and—on the company payroll—laying out her day of saunas and beauty shops and a party that night. He’d known she was a curse when the Amoteh opened and Ellie held a private party in her suite. Mikhail had been called to break up the brawl between two rich playboys competing for her favors. Playing her games, she had sent a pack of equally spoiled women after Mikhail. Ellie had told them that just-divorced Mikhail was on the lookout for a new wife.

One wife of the same spoiled social set as Ellie was enough for Mikhail. At thirty-nine years old, he had one love—the Amoteh Resort.

He turned to Ellie and frowned slightly as she eased off the black leather jacket she had been wearing to reveal a buttoned-up white sweater that fitted her curves perfectly. She arched and stretched sensuously and looked drowsily at him.

Mikhail inhaled sharply, surprised at the impact of that look. He jammed his hands into his pockets; they had a sensation stirring in them—how would her breasts would feel cupped in his hands? “Try that on someone else,” he said briskly. “I’m immune.”

She yawned and stretched again, a feminine contrast to the heavy walnut Stepanov furniture in his office. “I’m not playing games with you, Mikhail. I’m too tired. But thanks for the invitation.”

Ellie knew just where to place the barbs. “I wasn’t inviting,” he said. “You are not welcome at the Amoteh.”

That his parents’ home was another matter grated.

She turned to him, her expression set, eyes narrowed and glittering like steel, just as it was when she was determined to have her way. Her word was a slashing order. “Reconsider.”

“Not a chance. Every time you’re in the vicinity, bad things happen. There was that botched deal at the last minute—it cost Paul a prime chunk of prospective Cannes real estate and hours of negotiation. Brawls, staff quitting, food tossing, midnight swimming contests, that sort of thing. You have no regard for the schedule your father’s staff must keep. This incident is an Ellie classic—You were angry with Paul once and distracted a business meeting at corporate headquarters in Seattle by bringing a dog fashion show right into the conference room. He had to donate money to the animal shelter on the spot, just to get rid of the menagerie causing havoc during an important meeting. It was simple blackmail.”

“That little Yorkie loved you and you know it.” Ellie bared her teeth in a smile. They gleamed, all perfect and sharp. “I promise to be good,” she singsonged softly.

Mikhail refused to respond; he had seen Ellie in action. Paul Lathrop’s daughter was a life-seasoned fighter, holding her own. She knew how to blend femininity with steel, how to cut and slash and bargain, and she always landed on her feet, taking care of herself. She might not know it, but in Paul’s hard heart, he respected her. Mikhail had seen Paul and Ellie, toe to toe, in an argument, yelling, verbally hitting at each other, and she was very good at getting what she wanted.

She was not getting what she wanted this time.

She frowned slightly, her voice low, all humor erased, just stating facts, summing them up in a neat package as though she had thought carefully about each one. “Everyone knows that you’ve got one thing on your agenda, and that is the perfection of the Amoteh. You’ve pushed Paul into putting one of his Mignon International Resorts into a bit of isolated beach with nothing to offer, off the main interstate. You’re determined to make the resort succeed, drawing in trade for the townspeople, and supply the rooms with Stepanov furniture, made by your family. My father is using your setup here as a model for his other resorts—you’re his star high-achiever. You’re a man he respects.”

Mikhail let that remark pass. Paul’s personal ethics did not agree with Mikhail’s, but the owner of the worldwide resort chain was a good businessman and he could be made to listen. An orphan who came from the harsh city streets, Paul Lathrop had built a worldwide chain of resorts. Mikhail understood the desperation for respect—as an immigrant, Fadey had been desperate to prove himself worthy of Mary Jo’s wealthy Texan family. “Whatever you want—no.”

“Listen, bud,” Ellie said slowly as she rose to her feet. “I’m dead tired and in no mood to present my problem in a sensitive, logical way. I need you to help me. You’re the only man who can. I’ve tried everything else, and you’re my last resort. Do you actually think I would humiliate myself in front of you if I had any other choice?”

She smiled weakly as if admitting defeat to herself, and for the first time, Mikhail noted the taut lines of her face, the fatigue shadowing her eyes. A little of the brittleness shifted into a softness he hadn’t expected. “See you in the morning, bud. And try to be a little more pleasant for my daughter, will you? Tanya is an innocent in this whole mess.”

Daughter. Whoever had given birth to the child, it wasn’t Ellie. Mikhail remembered her body in that sleek, black maillot suit and pressed close against him as she taunted him; it wasn’t maternal just over four years ago. While he was turning that thought, Ellie slowly, tiredly made her way out of his office. He followed her to the doorway and frowned when she braced a hand against the wall, slumping. She turned to the wall, placing both hands flat against it, as if she had nowhere else to go. She looked fragile and wounded and too tired to go on.

“I hate you. You’re so much like him,” she whispered as he came close and supported her with an arm around her waist. Without the feline arrogance she usually tossed at him, her body seemed terribly light and fragile.

And then he saw that she was crying—tough, willful, spoiled Ellie was crying. Not racking, hard sobs, but the soft sound that said she was trying to withhold her burden and couldn’t.

The hair on Mikhail’s nape lifted warningly. He might dislike Ellie, but he wasn’t immune to a woman crying. And Ellie Lathrop never cried—she pushed and shoved and threatened and sulked and maneuvered and haunted, but she never cried.

With a sinking feeling and mental warnings flashing in the softly lit corridor, Mikhail eased her gently into the Stepanov Furniture display room and closed the heavy door. Ellie seemed to sink to the massive bed created by Fadey. With shoulders slumped, she brushed her hands wearily against her face. In the next moment, as though she feared he would see too much, she was on her feet, standing taut as if held upright by strings. She smiled too brightly. “Got to go. Talk with you in the morning.”

He didn’t trust her. Was this a new act? Something she’d devised to mock him?

Mikhail could feel the tension ripping through her like electricity. From those shadows beneath her eyes, he surmised that whatever was bothering her had taken its toll. He placed a hand on her shoulder and eased her back down to sit on the bed. “Talk now.”

“I don’t want to talk now,” Ellie said bluntly, tiredly. “I’m not up to fighting with you. Give me a break, will you?”

“No. Talk…now.”

She scrubbed her hands over her face, and Mikhail noted the absence of her usual perfect but light cosmetics—no mascara, no glossy, sexy lips. His gaze ripped down her body, and found, for the first time, the missing button on the leather jacket, the slightly frayed collar of the sweater, the worn seams of her jeans and her scuffed boots.

Ellie noted his closer inspection and turned her face away. “I’m not at my best,” she admitted shakily and sank back down on the bed. “I’m just so tired.”

What could have made her swallow her pride and come to him? Whose child had she borne…or otherwise acquired? Had the man deserted them? Mikhail folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the sturdy walnut armoire he had helped to build. “Tell me.”

“No.”

“You will.” He reached to turn on an elegantly crafted brass lamp, lightbulbs hidden in the almost realistic bouquet of tulips. The lamp was a product of a local craftsman, just like the woven table runners on the dining room table. Mikhail smoothed the mauve-colored glass petals with his fingertip, admiring the skill of the artist. More than one family in Amoteh depended on the resort’s success and the display of their crafts. His goal was to provide work in a community he loved—and he wasn’t going to let Paul Lathrop’s willful daughter spoil the resources the Amoteh could provide for local artists.

In profile, Ellie’s head lifted, her gray eyes shadowed into black. Even exhausted, the defiance and the skill of holding her own with a powerful man like her father was there. “I’ll deal with you when I’m ready.”

Mikhail didn’t want the night watchman to interrupt. Ellie had brought a child to his parents and she had asked for his help. It must have cost her pride, and he had to have answers. What could have driven her away from her social set to the isolation of Amoteh? Why were her clothes worn, when Ellie had always dressed perfectly? Who had fathered her child?

He resented the need to know more, and his instincts told him that he should resist curiosity.

His instincts told him that she desperately needed him.

Mikhail reached to hang a Do Not Disturb sign to the outside of the showroom. Though his apartment was just down the hallway, he sometimes relaxed in this room filled with furniture his family had made. Occasionally his brother, Jarek, used the showroom to romance his wife away from their new home. The Do Not Disturb sign meant the Stepanovs were in the showroom and did not want to be disturbed. He clicked the lock on the showroom door closed. “I can wait.”

“You would.” Ellie was on her feet, stalking the room filled with the heavy walnut furniture. A restless woman, she stopped to smooth the wood admiringly, to open a drawer, closing it smoothly, to trace the intricate hardware of a dresser.

Mikhail dismissed the too-tense sensation prowling his body as he watched her move gracefully, a pampered woman whose only obsession had been her own indulgences.

She turned on him like a tigress, fists clenched, her hair and body softly outlined by the lights from the parking lot. “You’re amused. I see it in your expression. I don’t like being your entertainment du jour. Au revoir, bud.”

With that, she walked past him to the door and reached for the lock.

Mikhail studied her. Ellie Lathrop was too tense, too brittle…and she had cried. What game was she playing?

“Walk out that door and you’re not getting a second chance.” He watched her hesitate and her slender hand slid from the lock. What could be so important as to make Ellie sacrifice her pride?

Why did he want to tug her back to him, hold her safe and warm against him?

He tossed that thought aside. It was only natural for a Stepanov man to want to protect a woman in dire need.

The tingle at the back of his neck warned him that his own instincts could endanger him.

With her back to him, Ellie shook her head, and a spill of sun-lightened hair caught the soft light in sparks. “You’re so much like Paul—my dear old dad. No wonder my mother left him as soon as she was able, leaving me, too, of course. My half sister’s mother did the same. It seems that maternal instincts don’t run in our family. You know that I’m tired—dead tired—and you’re pushing. You pick others’ weak moments like a shark scenting blood… anything to get your way. I should have expected no less. You’re not going to make this easy.”

She turned slowly, leaning back on the door, her hands behind her. In the soft lighting, her face was pale, her eyes huge and shadowed. She spoke in an uneven whisper. “I have a child. She needs protection. And you are my last resort. I’ll do anything you say to keep her safe. Just help me—rather help her. If I have to beg, I will.”

The honest plea in her voice struck him…a tired, desperate mother seeking shelter. She seemed to sag then, against the dark heavy wood of the door, her head down. “I can’t run anymore, Mikhail. I need your help.”

“Details,” he demanded roughly to cover his unsteady emotions. He didn’t know if he should trust this submissive Ellie. “You were married. Less than three and a half years ago, wasn’t it? I received an invitation to the wedding.”

“And I received your gift. Crystal, wasn’t it? I forget. It brought a nice price when I sold it. I’ve sold a lot of things in the past few years.”

He’d chosen the crystal vase because it reminded him of the woman—glittering, perfect and hard. “He’s the child’s father?”

She scrubbed her hands together now, as if trying to dislodge a cold that came from her bones. “I wish he were. Mark would have been a wonderful father, but he couldn’t accept someone else’s child. We’re divorced. I took back the Lathrop name, just to torture Paul, to remind him that he does have a daughter…. Parental obligations and all that. Or let’s just say I’ve inherited Paul’s perversity. By the way, has my dear father called?”

Mikhail nodded, remembering Paul’s brisk, slightly angry tone. “Several times in the past six months. He wondered where you were.”

“That’s why I didn’t let you know that we were coming. I didn’t want him to know until I’d—until I’d talked with you.”

Ellie sat on the bed, shoulders slumped, and then with a sigh, settled against the back, legs outstretched. She sent him a glance that could only be labeled as resentful. “It’s not easy to talk with you, you know. You don’t inspire easy conversation. You give nothing away—do you have feelings, Mikhail? Do you? Or are you just made of wood, like the totem poles outside?”

A homage to the northwest Native Americans, the totem poles were huge and savagely painted masks created in wood, unsoftened by the tall pine branches enfolding them. The carved symbols represented the Hawaiian chieftain enslaved by whalers and dying far from his beloved homeland.

“I might be slightly more attractive,” he said quietly and watched her frown at his dry humor.

In one of those lithe, lightening quick movements, she was on her feet and standing near him, looking up. “I’m going to do something that may frighten you, Mikhail, but I really need this.”

With that, she slid against him, her arms circling his waist. She placed her face against his throat. “Could you just hold me? Just hold me, and let me feel safe and not alone for just one minute?”

Mikhail held very still, every nerve taut, warnings leaping inside him. Ellie was shivering, reminding him of a little wounded seagull he’d once found. He’d seen Ellie lean close to men before, casually, flirting with them, but this was different. This was desperation.

“What game are you playing?” he asked rawly as a soft strand of her hair brushed his lips.

Because he knew the dangers of playing with Ellie, the effects she’d had on other men, tantalizing them, he reached to move that silky, fragrant strand from his skin—the texture was too feminine, too intimate. Then, instinctively, his fingers lodged in her hair, his fist crushing that softness as he drew her face up to his.

With his other hand, he angled her face to the light. She was thinner, her cheekbones sharply defined beneath that gleaming, damp skin; her lashes had spiked, those dark haunted eyes bearing the sheen of tears. Her body still shook against his.

She dropped her arms beside her body, seeming to hang there, suspended as he studied her, his hands holding her because Ellie seemed as if she would drop when he released her. “When was the last time you slept?”

Her answer came on a ragged sigh that had to be genuine, and she closed her eyes. “Days, it seems. I napped on the way from Albuquerque.”

Ellie never admitted personal weakness. She was all gloss and well-tuned, moving like a sleek tigress; he’d seen her glittering, flashing temper with Paul and playing games amid her jet-setter crowd, but not like this. A warning trickle that she might really need him frizzoned up Mikhail’s nape. “You’re thinner. Are you sick? Do you want something to eat…drink?”

“I’m not hungry.” Her lashes fluttered, as if she were trying to open her lids, and her words were no more than a sigh. “I’m so tired, Mikhail. Can we discuss this in the morning?”

Okay, so he felt like a brute, demanding answers of an exhausted woman. That’s what JoAnna had called him, wasn’t it? A low-class, cold brute without a drop of anything to make a woman happy.

Mikhail released Ellie’s silky hair at once. His other hand, cradling her upturned face, contrasted with that fine light skin, and he frowned as he noticed his thumb caressing the texture. He jerked his hand away and Ellie seemed to sag, her shoulders drooping. She didn’t move, her eyes closed, as if too tired to think, to taunt.

“We’re expecting a mix of weather tonight. It’s already started to snow, and the road back to my parents’ house is probably iced by now. You can sleep here. My parents will take care of the child. We need to finish this discussion,” Mikhail said roughly, surprising himself as he swept back the lush purple comforter to the fresh black sheets and the featherbed beneath. He turned off the lamp, but the rain on the windows caught light, seducing soft flowing pools into the room.

Ellie didn’t move.

“Ellie?” he asked softly, turning her to him.

Her eyes were open now, but not seeing. He knew that look; she was already asleep on her feet. Mikhail took a deep breath and helped her out of her jacket, tossing it onto a heavily built chair. “Sit,” he said and when she didn’t move, he eased her onto the bed, then kneeled to untie her boots.

The worn shoelaces had been knotted instead of replaced, the toes of the boots were scuffed.

Then she was tilting, eyes closed, already sleeping deeply before her head touched the pillow. Mikhail slid her boots from her feet and noted the worn, mismatched socks before stripping them away. He eased her legs up onto the bed and covered her.

Ellie snuggled into the luxurious featherbed and comforter with a sigh. Suddenly, she sat up, her eyes pleading with him. “Mikhail? Mikhail, you’ll see that Tanya is okay, won’t you? She wakes up at night, and she needs to know that I’m with her.”

She threw back the coverlet as though fear drove her. “I’ve got to go. She’ll need me.”

What fear could drive her so desperately? Mikhail recognized an exhausted mother who would give her last for her child. The image did not suit what he knew of Ellie. “If she needs you, my mother will call. You’re staying here.”

“You promise that she’ll call?” She sounded like a sleepy, hopeful child and not like the willful Ellie he’d known.

“Of course,” he returned with an arrogance typical of the Stepanov males. “I have said so, have I not?”

“Of course. When you say that, I know….” With as light smile, Ellie allowed herself to be tucked in again. She was soundly sleeping within minutes, and Mikhail was left with an uneasy sense that he was susceptible to her. What could have driven her so hard, so desperately, to him?

Asleep, one hand by her face, her hair splayed across the black satin pillowcase, she looked like a vulnerable child, her lips slightly parted.

No, she looked like an inviting woman and trouble, and after experiencing his ex-wife, he’d already had his share of spoiled society women. Mikhail jammed his hands into his slacks pockets, resenting the sensual tug Ellie could always draw from him. The need to hold all that fire in his hands, to possess her in a storm that would wash him free of her.

Or would it?