At first Alicia thought she was imagining it, given where her head had been all day.
And then it hit her. Hard.
She wasn’t hearing things.
She knew that voice.
She’d know it anywhere. Her body certainly did.
Rough velvet. Russian. That scratch of whiskey, dark and powerful, commanding and sure.
Nikolai.
Her whole body went numb, nerveless. The door handle slipped from her hand and she jerked her head up to confirm what couldn’t possibly be true, couldn’t possibly be happening.
The heavy door slammed shut behind her with a terrific crash.
Every single head in the room swivelled toward her, as if she’d made her entrance in the glare of a bright, hot spotlight and to the tune of a boisterous marching band, complete with clashing cymbals.
But she only saw him.
Him. Nikolai. Here.
CAITLIN CREWS discovered her first romance novel at the age of twelve. It involved swashbuckling pirates, grand adventures, a heroine with rustling skirts and a mind of her own, and a seriously mouthwatering and masterful hero. The book (the title of which remains lost in the mists of time) made a serious impression. Caitlin was immediately smitten with romances and romance heroes, to the detriment of her middle school social life. And so began her life-long love affair with romance novels, many of which she insists on keeping near her at all times.
Caitlin has made her home in places as far-flung as York, England, and Atlanta, Georgia. She was raised near New York City, and fell in love with London on her first visit when she was a teenager. She has backpacked in Zimbabwe, been on safari in Botswana, and visited tiny villages in Namibia. She has, while visiting the place in question, declared her intention to live in Prague, Dublin, Paris, Athens, Nice, the Greek Islands, Rome, Venice, and/or any of the Hawaiian islands. Writing about exotic places seems like the next best thing to moving there.
She currently lives in California, with her animator/comic book artist husband and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.
Recent titles by the same author:
A ROYAL WITHOUT RULES
(Royal & Ruthless) NO MORE SWEET SURRENDER (Scandal in the Spotlight) A DEVIL IN DISGUISE THE MAN BEHIND THE SCARS (The Santina Crown)
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Not Just the Boss’s Plaything
Caitlin Crews
To the fabulous Sharon Kendrick, who sorted out what was wrong with an early draft of this book on a long, rainy, Irish drive to and from Sligo town and an atmospheric tour of Yeats country—both of which amounted to a Master Class in writing.
And to Abby Green, Heidi Rice, Fiona Harper and Chantelle Shaw, for our inspiring days in Delphi.
And to all the readers who wrote me to ask for Nikolai’s story. This is for you most of all!
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
TORTURE WOULD BE preferable to this.
Nikolai Korovin moved through the crowd ruthlessly, with a deep distaste for his surroundings he made no effort to hide. The club was one of London’s sleekest and hottest, according to his assistants, and was therefore teeming with the famous, the trendy and the stylish.
All of whom appeared to have turned up tonight. In their slick, hectic glory, such as it was. It meant Veronika, with all her aspirations to grandeur, couldn’t be far behind.
“Fancy a drink?” a blank-eyed creature with masses of shiny black hair and plumped-up lips lisped at him, slumping against him in a manner he imagined was designed to entice him. It failed. “Or anything else? Anything at all?”
Nikolai waited impatiently for her to stop that insipid giggling, to look away from his chest and find her way to his face—and when she did, as expected, she paled. As if she’d grabbed hold of the devil himself.
She had.
He didn’t have to say a word. She dropped her hold on him immediately, and he forgot her the moment she slunk from his sight.
After a circuit or two around the loud and heaving club, his eyes moving from one person to the next as they propped up the shiny bar or clustered around the leather seating areas, cataloging each and dismissing them, Nikolai stood with his back to one of the giant speakers and simply waited. The music, if it could be called that, blasted out a bass line he could feel reverberate low in his spine as if he was under sustained attack by a series of concussion grenades. He almost wished he was.
He muttered something baleful in his native Russian, but it was swept away in the deep, hard thump and roll of that terrible bass. Torture.
Nikolai hated this place, and all the places like it he’d visited since he’d started this tiresome little quest of his. He hated the spectacle. He hated the waste. Veronika, of course, would love it—that she’d be seen in such a place, in such company.
Veronika. His ex-wife’s name slithered in his head like the snake she’d always been, reminding him why he was subjecting himself to this.
Nikolai wanted the truth, finally. She was the one loose end he had left, and he wanted nothing more than to cut it off, once and for all. Then she could fall from the face of the planet for all he cared.
“I never loved you,” Veronika had said, a long cigarette in her hand, her lips painted red like blood and all of her bags already packed. “I’ve never been faithful to you except by accident.” Then she’d smiled, to remind him that she’d always been the same as him, one way or another: a weapon hidden in plain sight. “Needless to say, Stefan isn’t yours. What sane woman would have your child?”
Nikolai had eventually sobered up and understood that whatever pain he’d felt had come from the surprise of Veronika’s departure, not the content of her farewell speech. Because he knew who he was. He knew what he was.
And he knew her.
These days, his avaricious ex-wife’s tastes ran to lavish Eurotrash parties wherever they were thrown, from Berlin to Mauritius, and the well-manicured, smooth-handed