ZARA picked up the tray of canapés and pinned her most professional smile to her lips as she and the other clutch of Gourmet International waitresses prepared to leave the vast kitchen. She glanced down to check that every grain of caviar was in place and that her tray contained a neat and snowy pile of napkins. Time to go out and flit between the guests. To be smooth and efficient. To top up glasses and whisk away discarded plates before they began to make the place look untidy.
The other waitresses were chatting as they made their way past priceless paintings which lined the corridor leading towards the gardens at the back of the house. But Zara wasn’t in the mood for chatting, even though cocktail parties in private houses were usually her favourite kind of job. They were short enough not to allow boredom to creep in, they paid well—and were often held in the most luscious of locations. Like tonight. This was such a huge and beautiful setting that it was hard to believe that she was in the centre of London. But then, only the super-rich could afford to live in somewhere like Kensington Palace Gardens—a place which had been tagged by the envious as ‘Billionaires’ Row'. Only the favoured few waitresses had been chosen for such a plum job and the bonus payment should have given Zara cause to smile, but smiling wasn’t coming very easily at the moment.
For days now, she’d been listless and distracted, her mind going round and round in circles. Preoccupied with the man who’d been haunting her dreams and waking hours ever since he’d taken her in his arms and made her body thrill to his experienced touch.
Nikolai Komarov. The icy-eyed Russian who had kissed her so passionately in the back of his luxury car after the embassy party last week. The man she had been trying desperately hard not to think about, but—no matter how much she tried to push the thoughts away—just the memory of the way he’d touched her made her heart hammer and her body ache.
Angrily, she straightened her shoulders. At least she should be grateful that there had been no repercussions after the event. Her friend’s mum, her boss, hadn’t found out that she’d gatecrashed the party—so at least her job was secure. She hadn’t even told Emma about what had happened, she’d simply returned the dry-cleaned dress to her friend a couple of days later and told her that she’d been unable to get a card to the influential Russian billionaire. And that much was true. If she’d thrust a card at him after letting him kiss her like that, wouldn’t it have looked like some primitive form of barter?
But the whole experience had left Zara feeling vulnerable—wondering how she could have behaved like that. Images of the intimate way he’d touched her kept coming back to haunt her with provocative clarity. She remembered the way his lips had sucked on her silk-covered breast. The way his fingers had drifted almost negligently over her bare leg. It had made her feel positively…wanton.
And added to her feelings of remorse was the financial insecurity which was still looming large and ugly on the horizon. The bills which had accumulated during her godmother’s illness still had to be paid. How on earth was she going to be able to honour them when waitressing paid so poorly and she was ill-equipped to be employed in any other capacity? Maybe she was going to have to sell the house after all, losing her toehold on the precious property market and at a time when prices were at an all-time low. Still, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it—at least, not tonight. She was here to do a job and so she had better just get out there and do it.
Resolutely putting her troubles to one side, she stepped out through tall French windows to the gardens, where she could see trees, bright flowerbeds, lawns and fountains. It looked more like an elegant public space than a private garden, she thought. Groups of people stood around in the warm summer evening—the women wearing pretty dresses and the men tieless and relatively casual. Waiters had already been circulating with chilled bottles of vintage champagne, and at the far end of the garden sat a woman with a fall of dark hair, who was playing gently on a harp.
‘Crayfish wrapped in toasted-sesame rice and topped with golden caviar?’ recited Zara as, with a smile, she offered her tray to group of bony-looking women in strappy little dresses—but they all shook their heads regretfully. Only the men accepted, devouring the costly treats in a careless mouthful, oblivious to the calorie-count they contained.
She moved from group to group, her smile not fading until she glanced to the end of the sunlit garden and saw a man standing there. She blinked and then blinked again, as if unable to believe what she was seeing. Because, standing perfectly still with his eyes trained on her, just as they had been when she’d first seen him, was Nikolai Komarov. Incredulity making her heart race, she registered the devastating combination of icy blue eyes, hair of beaten gold—and a body which was all honed muscular perfection.
Zara felt her feet stumble to a halt as she shook her head, thinking that she had simply imagined him, like someone who was parched from thirst imagining the gleam of water in the distance. Or perhaps the bright sunlight had blinded her to reality, making her think that because a man was tall and statuesque and stood as still as a waxwork it might be Nikolai Komarov.
But there could be no mistake. No other man looked like him. And no other man radiated that particular quality of power and domination …
She swallowed down the sudden lump in her throat as he began to walk across the grass towards her and she looked around her frantically, as if searching for some means of escape. But what could she do? Put her tray down on the lawn and run? And where could she run to in this enclosed garden, especially when at the very far end there were a couple of burly-looking security men, who didn’t look as if they’d let anyone go anywhere without their boss’s say-so?
She could see his face more closely now and his eyes looked so pale and cold that her heart began to hammer as he approached—and she could do absolutely nothing about the guilty prickle of her skin as her body acknowledged his devastating presence.
There was a pause before he spoke. A lifetime of a pause while he studied her with a look which managed to be both dispassionate and intense.
‘Hello, Zara,’ he said, in a voice edged with sensual danger.
For a moment she didn’t reply, as if she still might wake up and find she had been dreaming. But he stood as solid as granite before her, as real as any man had a right to be, and she felt the rush of colour to her cheeks. ‘Nikolai,’ she breathed.
‘The very same,’ he agreed, clipping the words out as if they were bullets, his groin hardening as she said his name in that breathless way. And all he could think of was that she was nothing but a fraud, a liar and a cheat—just like the rest of her sex. It was ironic how predictable women could be. At first he’d thought that he’d just been scarred by a bad experience. That the template set down for him by his lying and cheating mother—who had walked away and left him without a backward glance—was somehow unique. But he had been wrong. After her desertion—the precious bond between mother and son forgotten in her pursuit of wealth—he had discovered a whole world of ambitious and deceitful women out there. His mouth twisted. When would he ever learn that they were all the same?
He fixed her with a cool look. ‘Surprised?’ he questioned sarcastically.
Her throat was still as dry as sandpaper. ‘Of course I’m surprised,’ she croaked…‘Why…why are you here? I don’t…I don’t understand. What’s going on?’
Nikolai’s eyes narrowed. He had been waiting for her, yes, but the reality of seeing her again still took some getting used to—especially when she looked so dramatically different. Tonight those pert breasts were not showcased by the slippery green satin which had drawn his mouth to them like a magnet—and nor was she towering and tall in a pair of sexy high heels. Instead, she was wearing a plain black skirt, white blouse and apron—an outfit which should have done her no favours at all. And yet somehow the functional uniform did little to disguise the lush curves of her body, drawing attention to every sinuous line of it. Or maybe that was because he had a good idea what lay beneath.
‘Don’t you?’ He felt the breath thicken in his throat. ‘No ideas at all? ‘
She shook her head, her confusion made worse by the explicit memory of his kisses. ‘None.’
‘Think about it.’
From jumbled fragments, the facts began to form some kind of picture in her mind. The only solution which made any kind of sense and yet one which filled her with foreboding as she thought about the possible repercussions. ‘Is this…is this your house?’
‘Bravo!’ His lips curved into a mocking line. ‘It’s one of them. Do you like it?’
What could she say? Start protesting that her views on his property portfolio were irrelevant? Or just take the question at face-value and hope that her presence here was some kind of ghastly coincidence? ‘It’s a very beautiful house,’ she said carefully.
‘I know it is.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘I saw your reaction when you arrived.’
‘You did?’
‘Sure I did, angel moy. I was standing at my window when your minibus bumped its way up the drive. And I observed the look on your face as you jumped out.’ It was a look he knew well. That wide-eyed look of awe and wistfulness. The look of someone dazzled by his vast wealth; who coveted it for themselves. Some called it greed, others called it envy—all Nikolai knew was that money changed everything. It made people do extraordinary things. Debase themselves. Sell out. Betray even the strongest of bonds and shatter them beyond recognition. It took the very best of human qualities and it twisted them inside out until they were black and unrecognisable. Didn’t he know that—better than anyone?
Zara saw something dark and haunted pass over his shuttered features and a little shiver of dread began to whisper its way down her spine. ‘Why am I here?’ she whispered.
‘Oh, come on—there’s no need to make it sound like I’m preparing you for a human sacrifice.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s simple. You’re working for me. I specifically requested you. It’s my party. Didn’t anybody tell you?’
She shook her head. ‘We aren’t always told clients’ names in advance—we weren’t tonight.’
‘Well, my cover is blown, angel moy—and now you do. I’m your client and you’re working for me. You’ll be serving food. Handing out drinks. Making sure my guests have everything they need. That I have everything I need. You know the drill—you’re a waitress, aren’t you? That’s what you do. At least, that’s what you do some of the time. I have to say that I’m a little puzzled about your real identity, or indeed about your motives—but now is not the time to discuss it. We’ll have plenty of time for that later.’
His eyes glittered as they took in her trembling lips and he found that he wanted to crush them beneath his own in an angry kiss. And then? He pushed desire to the back of his mind. Desire could wait. His thick dark lashes lowered fractionally to reveal narrow shards of blue ice. ‘I’m looking forward to getting to know you better, Zara.’
And with that final silky whisper, which sounded more like a threat, he walked away to a group who were standing beneath a flowering tree—leaving Zara staring after him in disbelief. Why had he ‘specifically requested’ her, as he had put it—somehow managing to make her sound like some sort of commodity he’d purchased? In fact, why had he brought her here at all?
She realised that her tray needed replenishing, just as she realised that there was no means of escape—short of causing some kind of scene, which would heap dishonour not just on her, but on all the other staff. Nothing to do other than to carry on as she normally would and hope that he might give her some kind of reasonable explanation later. Yet even as she thought it she felt an overwhelming sense of unease, because Nikolai Komarov did not look like a man who did reasonable.
Trying to banish his image from her mind, she moved from guest to guest, wondering how she could endure a whole evening of having to stare into his impossibly handsome and mocking face. But as she continued to circulate she noticed that he barely glanced at her—and, ironically, Zara found this even worse.
Only once did she look up to meet his cold and imperious gaze and it felt like a lash of freezing rainwater flicked over her. She found herself swallowing down a growing sense of foreboding. Was he angry that she had pretended to be something she wasn’t—that the woman he had kissed so passionately in his car was nothing more than a common little waitress? And yet, if she stopped to think about it, could she blame him? Just one glance at the women here who were hanging onto his every word showed that he usually mixed with supermodels and glossy heiresses. How shocked he must have been to have discovered who she really was!
By nine, most of the guests had left and Zara helped carry the last of the dirty dishes down to the kitchen.
The catering tonight had been especially lavish and the clearing up seemed to take much longer than usual—and yet she willed for it never to end. Surely Nikolai Komarov had something better to do than to hang around waiting for her to finish work? She went outside for one last check that everything was tidy to find the garden deserted and she gave a sigh of relief.
She had just retrieved a champagne glass from one of the flowerbeds and was heading back into the house when she saw Nikolai walking out onto the terrace and Zara’s footsteps faltered to a halt. Had he seen her? He had removed his jacket to reveal a soft shirt of snowy silk and the top two buttons of the shirt were unbuttoned, revealing an enticing V of bare flesh—but the casual look made him no less formidable.
She felt her mouth drying as she stared up at the sensual curve of his lips and the icy gleam of his eyes. Yes, he had seen her.
‘So who exactly are you?’ he questioned as his footsteps brought him to a halt in front of her.
‘You know who I am. I told you. Zara Evans.’
‘Net.’ Impatiently, he shook his head and gave an imperious wave of his hand, as if he were swatting away some imaginary fly. ‘Your name may or may not have changed—but you certainly have done.’ His gaze flicked to the sturdy black shoes she wore with her uniform. ‘You’ll agree that you represent a rather dramatic fall from grace—from riches to rags within days?’
‘No. There are no riches. The rags are the real me.’ She bit her lip—as if suddenly becoming aware of the huge disparity between their two lives and the risk she had taken in pretending that she was his equal. How stupid could she have been? ‘I’m really a waitress.’
‘As I was to discover for myself.’
‘How? How did you find out?’
Cynically, Nikolai’s mouth hardened. Didn’t she realise that there wasn’t any information in the world which was off-limits if you had the money to pay someone to play detective? Tracking down a waitress had been child’s play.
‘That part was easy—you can find anyone you want if you have the means,’ he drawled. ‘But what I really want to know is why you were masquerading as a guest at the ambassador’s party. Why you played that erotic hide-and-seek which had me following you like a puppy-dog.’ And he had fallen right into it, hadn’t he? Lids half hooding his eyes, he watched closely for her reaction. Was she a celebrity stalker? he wondered. One of those women who fixed a wealthy man in their sights and pursued him? What did she want from him? ‘Were you deliberately targeting me?’
Zara’s heart gave a guilty lurch. Would it sound stupid if she told him that, yes, she had been looking out for him, but that the motive had been nothing but an innocent bit of advertising? And then things had all got out of hand—when she had seen him and danced with him and that sizzling chemistry had combusted between them. Would he believe her or think that she was lying? Think that she put out like that all the time? Play for time, she told herself. Find out the kind of man you’re dealing with. ‘Why should I want to target you?’
‘Please don’t be disingenuous,’ he warned, and as he saw the rise in colour to her cheeks he knew she was hiding something. ‘Powerful men are subjected to all kinds of come-ons from women—some cleverer than others. Usually I can see through them, but your approach was novel.’ And sexy, he conceded. She had made him chase her. For once, he’d felt the thrill of the hunt, the blood pumping hotly through his veins as he’d followed the silken curves of her bottom.
His reaction had taken him aback. It had been a primitive, subliminal response and it had been inordinately compelling. Why, hadn’t the thought of finding her again filled him with a heady kind of anticipation—until he had discovered her true identity and suspected that he might be the victim of some kind of crude scam? ‘I want the truth,’ he snapped. ‘Or is that too big an ask?’
Zara saw the glitter of danger which was hardening his eyes and realised that she was doing herself no favours by being evasive.
‘Okay. I had no right to be at the party—at least, not as a guest,’ she admitted. ‘I gatecrashed it—though I knew most of the waitresses, obviously, since I work with them most of the time. I was modelling the dress for a friend of mine, Emma. Her mother owns the catering agency I work for. That’s how she knew who was going to be on the guest-list.’
His expression didn’t alter. ‘Go on.’
‘Emma’s a fashion student—and she’s very ambitious.’
He frowned. ‘A fashion student?’
‘That’s right. She’s good at designing evening gowns and she wanted a bit of exposure.’
‘Exposure being the operative word,’ he drawled. ‘You certainly left very little to the imagination.’
Something in his tone brought another rush of colour to Zara’s cheeks. ‘The dress I was wearing was no more revealing than plenty of others there.’
But no other woman in the room had possessed her firm and slinky young body, Nikolai remembered with a sudden ache. Whatever it was she had, it had appealed to him on a very fundamental level. It still did. Even the drab knee-length skirt and innocuous white blouse she was wearing tonight were doing dangerous things to his blood pressure. Remember that she’s nothing but a fraud, he told himself. And that all women are frauds.
‘So what exactly was your brief?’ he demanded.
‘I was supposed to give you one of her business cards.’
‘Hoping that I’d play fairy godfather and give her the big break she deserved?’ he questioned sarcastically.
‘Something like that.’
‘But you didn’t, did you?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘So what happened, Zara? Did you decide to jettison that idea when something better came along? Did you think that by capitalising on the undoubted chemistry between us you could aim even higher than a mere marketing opportunity?’ He raised his eyebrows in a mocking question. ‘Maybe you thought that if you could get your claws into me, then you might benefit far more than just getting a cut from the sale of your friend’s clothes?’