Читать книгу The Platinum Collection - Эбби Грин, Maisey Yates - Страница 29

MIKHAIL LISTENED TO the lawyer’s advice only because he paid generously for all advice that offered him greater financial protection. But he was immoveable when it came to the issue of presenting Kat with another legal agreement, on this occasion one relating to her status as his live-in lover. No way was he making that mistake again! He had still to hear the last from her lips regarding the previous agreement, and in any case he was convinced that Kat didn’t have a mercenary bone in her body. Time and time again she had spurned the chance to enrich herself at his expense. Even though she had been desperate for money to settle her debts when they first met, her bill for that one night of accommodation in her former home had been ridiculously modest.

‘My girlfriend is not a gold-digger,’ Mikhail murmured levelly. ‘I am not that much of a fool. I can scent a gold-digger at a hundred yards.’

‘Situations change, people change,’ the smooth-talking legal eagle pointed out speciously. ‘It is of crucial importance that you consider the future and protect yourself.’

Mikhail reckoned that he had been protecting himself all his life in one way or another, so there was nothing new in that idea. Protecting himself was second nature. He was well aware that he was still feeling punch drunk at the roaring success of letting Kat into his life on a less temporary basis. That had proved to be an excellent move and he was certainly reaping the benefits on the home front. If it was possible to bottle the essence of Kat, he would be constantly drunk. An abstracted smile curled his handsome mouth as he thought of Kat in his hot tub, Kat in his bed, Kat at his dining table, Kat … whenever and wherever he wanted her. After a mere six weeks he was happy to judge his new living arrangements as the essence of perfection. Even better, he had worked out exactly where his father had gone wrong in his relationships with women. The true secret was moderation. He didn’t allow himself the pleasure of Kat every night; he carefully rationed himself to ensure that she did not become too necessary to his comfort. Sometimes he stayed over quite deliberately in the city and pleaded the pressure of work. Sometimes he didn’t phone her, although she was getting remarkably good at phoning him to ask why he hadn’t phoned, which rather put paid to the point of that attempt to set out his boundaries. As long as he stayed in control, however, he foresaw no problems.

‘Are you considering marriage?’ the lawyer asked in a bald enquiry.

Mikhail frowned and compressed his lips at the question.

‘Do you think your Russian is considering marrying you?’ Emmie was asking her sister at that exact same moment as she zipped up the frock Kat was trying on in the spacious cubicle. ‘You know … is the living with him a trial for the ultimate commitment in his eyes?’

‘No. Mikhail seems quite happy with where we are now,’ Kat pronounced thoughtfully. ‘He’s very cautious … What do you think of this dress?’

‘The silver metallic one has the most impact. I already told you that,’ Emmie repeated, smoothing an abstracted hand over the obvious swell of her own pregnant stomach as she too looked in the mirror at their combined reflection. ‘I just don’t want you to be hurt, Kat … and goodness knows, you’re not getting any younger—’

‘Like I need that reminder!’ Kat quipped with a wry laugh.

‘Yes, but it is something you need to seriously consider. If you do want children some day you haven’t got much time left to play with.’

‘Emmie, only a few months ago there was no man in my life,’ Kat reminded her ruefully. ‘I certainly can’t expect the first one who comes along in years to want to start a family with me. That would be a big ask for a guy who shies away from serious commitment.’

‘Have you discussed the subject with him?’ Emmie asked.

Kat stiffened, her thoughts hurtling back several weeks to the evening she had received the proof that their contraceptive oversight on the yacht had not resulted in conception. Mikhail had absorbed the news without comment, revealing neither relief nor regret, but Kat had been shocked by the stark wave of disappointment that had consumed her. As she had spent so many years raising her siblings she had always assumed that she would never crave the added responsibility of having a child of her own. Unfortunately for her, somehow even being with Mikhail had given her a powerful yearning for a baby, but she was utterly convinced that nothing would ever come of it.

Mikhail had brought her into his life but he wasn’t building his life around her, Kat reflected sadly. He had moved her into Danegold Hall, his impossibly impressive Georgian country house, and urged her to make whatever changes she thought necessary there, only that was not an invitation to take too much to heart when the male giving it really didn’t give a damn about his surroundings as long as he was comfortable. He had made the move easy for her by sending professional packers to Birkside. Her belongings and the pieces of furniture that Emmie didn’t want were now stored in a barn on the estate for her to go through at her leisure. Emmie was living in the farmhouse now, drawing up plans to open a business while earning a living from the pedestrian job she had found locally. But on her days off, Emmie regularly got on the train and met up with her sister in London for a shopping trip. On this particular occasion the sisters were looking for a dress for Kat to wear to Luka Volkov’s wedding.

‘Kat?’ Emmie persisted.

‘Look, Mikhail’s only thirty. He’s got years and years ahead of him when he can choose to have a family and naturally he’s not in any hurry,’ Kat said lightly.

‘But if he loves you—’

‘I don’t think he loves me. I don’t think I’m in a for-ever-and-ever relationship with him,’ Kat confided truthfully, lifting the silver dress off the hook and heading gratefully off to pay for it with one of the string of credit cards that Mikhail had insisted she accepted from him.

Even so, Kat disliked feeling like a kept woman and she would have preferred to look for employment. But Mikhail wanted her to be available when he was free and able to travel if need be and there was no way she would be able to manage that feat and him and his vast Georgian home and even larger staff there if she had a job to go to every day. She had had to ask herself which was more important: her pride and independence or her love. And love had won because when Kat wasn’t being tormented by her various sisters’ awkward questions about her relationship with Mikhail, she was deliriously happy, certainly much happier than she had ever thought she could be. He was the sun, the moon and the stars for her, but she knew that she had to accept that outside the bounds of marriage many such relationships eventually came to an end.

Her phone buzzed. It was Mikhail.

‘Meet me at the office and we’ll go for lunch, milaya moya,’ he suggested huskily, his dark deep drawl sending a responsive tremor down her spine.

Kat smiled into the phone, delighted that he was so eager to see her. He had stayed in his city apartment the night before and she had missed him. Possibly he had missed her as well, she reasoned with satisfaction, for otherwise he would have been willing to wait until he got back to the hall later that evening to see her.

Emmie gave her a stern look. ‘He owns you … that’s what I don’t like.’

Kat’s eyes widened in dismay. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘You’re like … addicted to him,’ Emmie pronounced with unhidden distaste and disapproval. ‘Even Topsy noticed that weekend she stayed with you that when Mikhail enters the room, you can’t see anyone else but him.’

‘I do love him and I don’t think it does Topsy any harm to see that I care deeply for the man I’m living with,’ Kat said gently, wishing she knew more about the background to Emmie’s pregnancy, for with every week that passed Emmie seemed to be becoming more of a man hater.

A limo whisked Kat to Mikhail’s London headquarters. She was accompanied by Ark, Stas’ kid brother. Mikhail, from Kat’s point of view, appeared to be obsessed by the idea that she might be mugged or attacked and had insisted she accepted Ark’s presence when she was out in public. Only when she had recognised that that risk was a source of very genuine concern for him had she finally agreed, but she often felt sorry for Ark, reduced to hanging around bored while she shopped or sat gossiping over lengthy coffee sessions with her sisters.

Mikhail was in a meeting when Kat arrived and she stowed her shopping by the wall and sat down in Lara’s office to wait while Ark hovered in the corridor.

Lara glided across the room to greet her with a rather tight smile of welcome and bent down to study more closely the emerald pendant that Kat wore. ‘May I see it?’ the other woman prompted politely.

Kat flushed with self-consciousness and nodded uneasy agreement as Lara minutely examined the emerald. She guessed that the other woman probably thought the pendant was far too ostentatious to wear out on a shopping trip and Kat could actually have agreed with her on that score. But the sticking point was how Mikhail felt about it. Mikhail loved to see Kat with the emerald round her neck and Kat wore it frequently to please him.

‘The jewel is magnificent,’ the gorgeous blonde commented thinly, overpowering envy souring her flawless features as she stepped back from her examination. ‘The word is that the boss has never spent so much on a gift for a woman—you must feel very pleased with yourself.’

Kat’s fine brows pleated in surprise and she flung the blonde a startled glance, not quite sure if Lara could have meant that comment the way it had sounded. ‘No, that’s not how I feel. I’m just … happy,’ she breathed in a discomfited tone, offended at the suspicion that Lara could suspect that she might only be with Mikhail for his wealth.

‘Of course you’re happy. Why would you not be? Suka!’ Lara snapped sharply, at which point, unnoticed by either woman, Ark put his head round the door to peer into the room. ‘But I could tell you something that would wipe that smug smile right off your face!’

No longer suffering the misapprehension that her understanding was at fault, Kat gave the younger woman a cool appraisal. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lara.’

‘Well, I will tell you whether you want to know or not!’ Lara practically spat the words at her. ‘Remember that night before you were supposed to leave the yacht? Mikhail spent that night with me … that’s how little you matter to him!’

The blood drained from Kat’s face. Suddenly her skin felt clammy and the palms she had pressed to the handbag on her lap felt damp. For a moment she could not even make sense of what the other woman was saying and only knew that she was being verbally attacked. Just as quickly she was recalling that night that she had spent alone and sleepless and she was also recalling Mikhail’s knock on her door. Her tummy lurched in stricken protest.

‘Didn’t you realise that he slept with me as well?’ Lara queried, lifting a scornful brow at such apparent stupidity. ‘He always has. I don’t make demands on him. I’m always available …’

Out of nowhere the strength returned to Kat’s rigid body and she leapt upright. She dragged her shattered gaze from the furious blonde and walked out of the door, ignoring the lift and Ark’s query to head for the stairs instead. She needed some time on her own to think about the bombshell Lara had delivered and what she would have to do about it. She fled down the fire stairs, flight after flight, heard Ark shout after her and kept on going, not wanting anyone to see or speak to her in the state she was in. Her hurrying feet took her straight out of the building and into the welcome and anonymous crush of the lunchtime crowds on the pavement.

Her heart thudding so fast she was convinced she could hear it actually thumping in her ears, Kat walked at a smart pace with no destination in view. Only the fact that her high-heeled shoes had not been made for that amount of walking finally pierced her miasma of misery. Wincing at the sharp pinches of pain assailing her feet, Kat then headed into a café to get a seat. There she sat hunched over a cup of tea, as dazed as if her head had been struck in an accident. At that point she heard her phone ringing and she pulled it out, saw she had received about six missed calls from Mikhail and switched it off because she didn’t want to speak to him, didn’t have to speak to him, she consoled herself. She sat there a long time struggling to get the turmoil of her thoughts into some kind of rational order.

Lara was an absolutely gorgeous-looking young woman, very glossy and sophisticated and exactly the sort of woman whom Kat had often secretly believed Mikhail should have chosen as a girlfriend in place of herself. Why would Lara tell such a lie? In fact, like it or not, the evidence suggested that Lara was telling the truth. Why? For the simple reason that Lara must have been with Mikhail that night to be so certain that he had not been with Kat. Every other night Kat and Mikhail had shared his suite but that one night, which Lara had chosen to mention, Kat had slept alone. Mikhail had had motive and opportunity. Had he taken advantage of it? Had he been carrying on a casual long-term affair with his PA even before he met Kat? She shuddered at the suspicion, sick with pain, jealousy and a growing sense of despair. How could she have been so wrong about the man she loved?

Back at his office in the wake of the drama Kat’s sudden exit had caused, Mikhail was also thinking about bad choices and his expression was as hard as granite. In a crisis he was discovering that his strict policy of moderation in his relationship with Kat had a serious basic design flaw. Moderation had kicked him in the teeth when he least expected it: she wouldn’t even take a phone call from him. And now she was gone, lost, upset, maybe even upset enough to walk out in front of a bus or something stupid like that, he thought with a fear that had a ferociously aggressive edge unfamiliar to his usual self-discipline.

Over her cooling tea, Kat realised that whatever she chose to do she had no choice other than to return first to Danegold Hall. Her passport, important documents, everything she couldn’t simply get by without was there. Feeling cold inside and out and fighting distress, Kat headed for the railway station. She might prefer to avoid Mikhail but she had to be practical as well and walking out on her life with him without forethought and planning wasn’t possible. In any case, if he had any sense at all, he would be equally keen to avoid the fallout from Lara’s revelation—that was assuming Lara admitted what she had done. Ark had heard some of that conversation though, Kat reckoned in mortification, and no doubt Ark would tell his brother, Stas, who would tell Mikhail what they thought he needed to know.

On the train journey, Kat saw nothing of the passing scenery for a constant parade of mental images was playing through her head. Her brain was scouring every glimpse she had ever had of Lara and Mikhail together in the same room in search of some proof of Lara’s claim. What amazed Kat then was the reality that she had often been baffled by the way Mikhail treated Lara like a piece of office equipment, seemingly impervious to his PA’s stunning beauty and appeal. Kat had not once witnessed the smallest sign of awareness or intimacy between them. Indeed on the face of it Mikhail and Lara hadn’t even seemed that friendly. Their working relationship was distant and formal, untouched by banter or even a hint of flirtation.

Could Mikhail be that smooth and effective at deception? That he could treat a lover as though she were nothing more than a barely regarded employee? Kat frowned, for in her experience Mikhail was more naturally blunt and open in nature, so that she could quite easily tell when something annoyed or irritated or worried him. But then, to be fair, he himself had remarked that she was unusually accurate in her ability to read his thoughts. She had almost told him that that was because she loved him and when it came to him love seemed to have given her keener powers of observation. That was how she knew that when he lifted a brow in a certain way he was irritated, that when he moved his hands or stilled them altogether he was usually angry, and that when his mouth compressed it was usually a sign of concern.

On the other hand, men didn’t automatically regard the kind of casual sex that Lara had suggested had taken place over a sustained period as a tie worthy of acknowledgement. In that way, sex could be treated as being of no more account than a meal. Was that how Mikhail might have rationalised such behaviour? Had he been amusing himself with Lara on the sidelines while Kat agonised about whether or not she would sleep with him? It was a humiliating, wounding suspicion. Until that moment it had not occurred to her how much she had valued Mikhail’s apparent willingness to wait for her to share his bed or her natural assumption that no other woman was satisfying his needs while Kat remained unavailable.

When she got off the train Kat assumed she would have to phone for a taxi and wait because she had not informed anyone what time she was arriving, but she was greeted on the platform by one of Mikhail’s drivers and she slid into the waiting Bentley with a sinking heart. Had he already guessed that she would soon be back at Danegold Hall? Was she now honour-bound to stage some ghastly sordid confrontation over the head of Lara? Of course, if he was there and she was moving out she would have to give him some sort of explanation. She comforted herself with the awareness that Mikhail would only be home during the day mid-week on the very rarest of occasions and wondered if a brief note would do, in which she would say something meaningless but not unpleasant such as that things were not working out for her.

She ought to hate him, she thought painfully, wondering what the matter with her was. Perhaps she was still too much in shock to be thinking clearly, she reckoned wretchedly, in shock that Mikhail was not the man she had honestly believed he was and that he was a much more lightweight, untrustworthy and dishonest individual than she could ever have guessed from the way he had treated her. Ironically he had treated her very well. So, did he think that sexual infidelity was unimportant? She remembered the clusters of eager young woman who had surrounded him every time he went out in public and accepted that temptation must often have come his way. Yet to have slept with a woman who worked for him, whom Kat knew and accepted, was beyond forgiveness.

Kat mounted the steps to the front door, which was already standing open with Reeves, Mikhail’s imperturbable butler, stationed there. With a pained smile in response to his greeting, Kat limped in, acknowledging that if anything her feet were hurting her even more than they had earlier that afternoon. Maybe taking them off on the train had been unwise. Halfway across the hall she came to a halt, slid the beautiful but too-tight shoes off and walked barefoot up the stairs. She headed straight to the bedroom she shared with Mikhail and the dressing room where a miniature trunk held everything from her passport to her birth certificate. She lifted out the papers, slapped them down on the bed and went off to locate a suitcase. She couldn’t believe she was leaving the man she loved, couldn’t bear even the thought of it, yet knew she had no choice. Lara could only have known that Mikhail had not slept with Kat that night if Lara had spent that same night with him: her brain could not get past that fact.

From drawers she dug out a few basic changes of clothing. She wasn’t fool enough to try and pack everything. She would just take what was necessary for a couple of weeks and ask for the rest to be sent on to her. She supposed she would move back to the farmhouse with Emmie and knew her sibling would be glad to have company. What price her fine sensitivity about accepting the house from Mikhail now?

‘You’re not even giving me a chance to defend myself?’

Kat froze and spun to see Mikhail poised in the doorway, his lean darkly handsome face grim and taut as he asked that question. He had discarded his tie and his jacket and stood there in shirt sleeves, his black diamond eyes hard. He was toughing Lara’s confession out, Kat assumed, determined to admit no fault. She turned her head away from him because she felt as if her heart were breaking inside her.

‘Kat?’ Mikhail prompted.

‘Yes, I heard what you said but I don’t really know how to respond. Sometimes it’s best to say nothing. I don’t want to argue with you—what’s the point?’

‘The point is us,’ Mikhail growled. ‘Isn’t what we have worth fighting for?’

Kat dropped the clothing in her hands into the open case and shot him a furious glance of reproach. ‘OK. Did you sleep with her?’

‘No,’ Mikhail framed succinctly, hard dark eyes challenging her.

Kat turned back to her packing. ‘Well, of course you’re going to say that,’ she told him, totally unimpressed.

‘What the hell was the point of asking me, then?’ Mikhail roared back at her. ‘You know you’ve put me through one hell of an afternoon?’

Refusing to be intimidated by that lion’s roar, Kat kept on packing. ‘I can’t say that I enjoyed my afternoon either—’

‘First of all I had to put up with a melodramatic tantrum from an employee, then you went missing!’ He stressed the word.

Infuriated, Kat whipped back to him. ‘I did not go missing!’

‘How do you think I felt when you took off after that nonsense Lara spouted to you? I was worried sick about you!’ Mikhail bit out furiously. ‘I knew you were upset and—’

Kat lifted a russet brow and turned to him again, hating him at that minute, convinced she knew exactly why he was behaving the way he was. ‘How could you know I was upset? You got a spy hotline to my brain or something? I wasn’t upset. Naturally I was surprised, rather disgusted, in fact,’ she confided with growing vigour. ‘And I needed some time to myself—’

‘You needed time to yourself to think about that poison like you needed a hole in the head!’ Mikhail shot back at her with lethal derision.

‘Don’t you dare shout at me!’ Kat shrieked back at him.

Sudden smouldering silence fell. Mikhail breathed in deep and slow, his broad chest expanding. ‘I didn’t intend to shout.’

‘When you’ve been accused of infidelity, bellowing like a bull in a china shop is not a good idea,’ Kat informed him curtly.

‘Wrongly accused,’ Mikhail fired back at her, his stunning dark eyes scorching hot with annoyance. ‘That is the crucial fact.’

‘Mikhail …’ Kat swallowed hard and collected her churning thoughts, unhappiness bowing her shoulders like a giant weight as she accepted that the scene could not be avoided. ‘Lara knew that we didn’t spend that last night together before I was supposed to leave The Hawk. She must’ve been with you that night to know that.’

‘Wrong!’ Mikhail framed grittily. ‘She was standing on the deck outside the office below us eavesdropping on our last exchange over dinner that night when you told me you wanted to sleep alone. So, if that’s your only piece of evidence against me, you’re on a losing streak!’

Kat’s lashes fluttered in confusion. ‘Are you sure that’s how she knew we were sleeping apart?’

‘How the hell else could she have known?’ Mikhail swore suddenly in Russian and shifted his hands as he moved towards her. ‘Kat, you saw me at three in the morning that same night and I was still in my own room,’ he reminded her.

‘Yes, but—’

Mikhail withdrew a mobile phone from his pocket and pressed several buttons. ‘Watch this …’ he urged. ‘Stas was clever enough to record Lara screaming at me …’

Kat focused on the screen and saw a flurry of blurred movement and heard a noise. The blur became Lara, blonde hair whipping round her enraged face and she was shouting. ‘Why didn’t you want me? You could have had me! What’s wrong with you that you didn’t want me? She’s old, she’s past it! It’s an insult. I’m young and beautiful—how could she be the one you move into your home?’

Kat was transfixed. There were another few sentences of distraught ranting from Lara before she suddenly appreciated that a camera was recording her tantrum and she launched herself at Stas in a vitriolic fury, whereupon the recording came to a sudden telling halt.

Mikhail switched it off. ‘Do you want to see it again?’ he enquired smoothly.

‘No …’ Kat’s admission was small, her face heavily flushed with chagrin. She had listened to a vain and immature hysteric’s fantasy and swallowed her ridiculous lies as solid fact. Her legs were wobbly and she sank down on the edge of the bed with ‘old, past it!’ still ringing unpleasantly in her ears.

‘Ark heard everything she said to you, his attention drawn by the fact that she called you a rude word in Russian,’ Mikhail explained. ‘He informed me and I confronted her and, as you saw, she went crazy. There was a lot more that Stas didn’t manage to record. She was jealous of you and furious that I didn’t find her attractive but the situation that developed today was still my fault.’

‘How was it your fault?’ Kat asked limply, shot from the conviction that he was an unfaithful rat to the conviction that she had misjudged him at such speed that her head was still spinning. She felt dizzy and bewildered and stupid, much as though a huge rock had landed on her from a height.

‘Lara came on to me when I first hired her. That’s happened to me many times and I didn’t consider it sufficient grounds to sack her.’

Kat’s eyes were wide with consternation at the news. ‘You … didn’t?’

‘I made it clear I wasn’t interested and as a rule that is sufficient to bring an end to such behaviour, but Lara is extremely vain about her own attractions and her resentment grew when you came into my life. I suspect she tried to cause trouble between us before in small ways. Luckily she wasn’t close enough to me to have the power to do more. I think you can probably blame her for the horrible make-up you wore the first night when you dined with me.’

‘And for not telling me when to meet you,’ Kat guessed.

‘And persuading you to wear red that evening at the club—I hate the colour red, always have,’ he confided.

‘Such trivial things,’ Kat commented seriously. ‘I’m grateful she didn’t have the ability to cause more trouble.’

‘Lara isn’t clever enough to appreciate that a man wants a woman for more than her looks …’

Kat wasn’t quite sure how to take that statement.

Mikhail laughed out loud, his amusement smashing the strained silence. He snatched up her case and tossed it on the floor and sank down beside her on the bed. ‘I find you much more beautiful than Lara.’

‘You couldn’t possibly. I’m old and past it,’ Kat muttered shakily, the tears gathering.

‘You knocked me sideways the very first time I saw you. And you had class and strength and you refused to want me back, which shocked me.’

‘It did you good to have a woman say no to you for a change,’ Kat countered a shade tartly, unwilling to let all her tension go for fear that something bad was still about to happen that would part them.

Mikhail curved a powerful arm round her taut body to draw her close. ‘It did, but the fear of losing you that I suffered today almost brought me to my knees,’ he admitted gruffly. ‘I was so determined to stay in control of our relationship and not give way to my strong feelings for you, and then suddenly I was facing the prospect of losing you and all that seemed so trivial in comparison—’

‘Strong feelings?’ Kat prompted, one small hand awkwardly engaged in stroking the arm wound round her.

His fingers curved to her chin to turn her face gently round to his. His eyes were warmer than she had ever seen them. ‘I love you very much, Kat … so much I can’t contemplate a life without you. But until today I saw that as a weakness and a fault. I watched my father slowly drink himself to death after he lost my mother. He was cruel to her and he was never faithful, but when she died he went to pieces. He was much more dependent on her than any of us ever realised,’ he related ruefully. ‘I was terrified of ever needing a woman that much. I thought he was an obsessional personality. I thought I had to protect myself from that because, in common with my father, I do tend to be rather intense in personality, and then I met you and right from the start you had a very potent effect on me …’

The chill still inside Kat was soothed by the tenderness in his gaze and his honesty and she pushed her face into a broad muscular shoulder, revelling in the warm familiar scent of him and the new sense of soul-deep security flooding her. ‘I love you too,’ she whispered fervently.

‘You should have guessed how I felt about you that morning I prevented you from boarding the helicopter,’ Mikhail muttered with a frown. ‘I tried to make myself let you go and I found that I literally couldn’t face sending you away. The night before was the longest and worst night of my life. I wanted you. I needed you: choice didn’t come into it. You’ve owned my heart ever since.’

‘That may be so, but you’ve been pretty good at hiding it,’ Kat voiced, although when she thought back to recent weeks it occurred to her that he had probably shown it every time he looked at her, every time he curled her into his arms and held her tight through the night, only unfortunately she had been too insecure to recognise and interpret what she was seeing.

‘I won’t be hiding it any more. If you had known I loved you today you might have been more inclined to talk to me and trust my word rather than Lara’s. Would you have believed me without having seen that recording?’

‘Yes … deep down inside me it was a real struggle to believe that you would behave that way,’ Kat acknowledged with quiet certainty.

Mikhail lifted her hand and carefully threaded a ring onto her wedding finger. ‘I’ve had this in my possession since the first day you moved in.’

Kat studied the fabulous diamond solitaire with wide eyes of sheer wonderment. ‘But you resisted giving it to me?’

‘Yes. I’m a stubborn man, lubov moya,’ Mikhail groaned. ‘That means, “my love” and you are the only woman I’ve ever loved. You’ve had the chance to see the worst of me. Will you still marry me? And soon?’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ Kat carolled, flattening him to the mattress in a sudden marked demonstration of enthusiasm. ‘As soon as it can be arranged … when I let you out of bed, which is not going to be any time soon,’ she warned him with sparkling eyes from which the last shadow of insecurity had fled.

A wolfish grin of satisfaction slashed his handsome mouth. ‘I should have given you the ring the day I bought it.’

‘Yes, you’re a slow learner as well as stubborn,’ his future wife conceded. ‘But you did buy the ring weeks ago, which gains you points … not that you need them.’

‘I only need you,’ Mikhail told her, running his fingers lazily through the spirals of her russet hair. ‘And I won’t feel secure until I see my wedding ring on your hand.’

His phone buzzed.

‘Switch it off,’ she said.

A hint of consternation entered his beautiful eyes. ‘Have I created a monster?’ he murmured with flaring amusement.

Kat ran a rousing hand quite deliberately along a muscular male thigh and he tensed with sensual anticipation. ‘I’ll switch it off,’ he promised instantly. ‘Sometimes I’m a very fast learner, dusha moya.’

And so was Kat, bending over him to kiss him with a confidence she had never had before while trying to keep a lid on the wild, surging happiness assailing her in glorious waves. He was hers, finally, absolutely hers, her dream come true, and some day he would accept that being obsessionally in love with a woman who loved him every bit as intensely could be wonderful, rather than threatening.