The Only Woman to Defy Him by Carol Marinelli Page A

into his head.
    ‘Impressionable?’ Alina offered.
    ‘No...’ Demyan shook his head. With two languages at his disposal he couldn’t place the word he’d use to describe her.
    ‘Persuadable?’ Alina smiled.
    That would be me, Demyan thought, because right now he could scrub ‘no virgins’ out of his rule book and bed her and bed her and bed her.
    Beddable.
    That was the word.
    Breakable.
    He looked at that lovely face and a mouth waiting to be kissed and he denied them both the pleasure, but for once it was for her sake.
    ‘Come on,’ Demyan said. ‘I take you home.’
    She didn’t want home, she wanted back to the hotel, she wanted all his body had promised as they’d danced. The music shifted and they could step back but they danced one more dance and he moved them so they were well in the shadows. He wanted to kiss her, which was unusual for Demyan. She wanted a night with this man. In high heels she still didn’t match his height but as she spoke, her mouth grazed his neck and she felt the pressure of his palm on her head and her lips brushed the skin, which wasn’t a kiss and he could perhaps allow that.
    His skin was not his mouth, but she kissed it as if it was and Demyan closed his eyes at the unexpected pleasure of her tongue on his skin and then the hush of his thoughts, for right now the only place he was was on a dance floor. Right now, when he needed to focus more than ever, for a fleeting moment his mind wavered from its controlled path, and it jolted Demyan enough to halt her.
    ‘Come on.’ He was terribly nice to her because, to make things a little better perhaps, on the way home, he cared enough to lie. ‘I don’t get involved with people I work with.’
    ‘Sure.’
    Alina knew he was lying. Marianna had alluded to a couple of the perks of her job.
    Demyan could be very blunt at times, but what he didn’t know was that he should have been just a little bit blunter then. Had he simply said, I don’t do virgins, Alina might have understood better.
    As it was, she walked into her flatmate’s noisy party, barricaded herself in her bedroom and then promptly burst into tears. She’d thrown herself at him. In her very best dress, in her Kissed-by-Demyan shoes, she’d thrown herself at him but, worse than that, Demyan, who’d screw anything, had turned her down.
    He simply didn’t want her, Alina realised.
    No one ever had.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    D EMYAN ASSUMED , though correctly this time, that Alina’s red eyes were over him.
    It was claustrophobic in the office, though the tension wasn’t all down to last night.
    Demyan went to his room and tried to call Roman but got sent straight to voicemail.
    Nadia texted to say she was moving things forward.
    She was now planning for her and Roman to leave as early as next week and so, Demyan decided, would he. ‘Come now.’ He strode out of his bedroom. ‘We go and look at the farm.’
    ‘I’ll call your driver.’
    ‘Just call for the car,’ Demyan said. He was agitated, restless about the news from Nadia and also not in the least happy with his handling of Alina last night. The speeches were still playing in his head and her red, puffy eyes weren’t helping matters. ‘I’ll drive.’ As he went to put on his jacket he glanced down at her heels. ‘Did you remember your flats this time?’ Even as he said it, Demyan regretted the small tease. There would be no more mixed messages.
    He just wasn’t prepared for her answer.
    ‘It’s fine,’ Alina said. ‘I’ve got some boots in my car, I’ll go down and get them.’
    That was the woman she was, Demyan thought.
    The trouble was, though, that he liked it.
    As they left the city, Alina couldn’t help filling the silence.
    ‘I’d never have imagined you owning a farm. It’s just not the sort of property I’d picture you having...’
    Demyan shrugged. ‘It is...’ He tried to think of the best way to describe it. ‘The constant toothache...’
    ‘Farms are.’
    ‘Always there is