The Russian Seduction by Nikki Navarre Page A

“Although I do prefer it.”
    “Well, if you’re going to work with me, captain, you’d better get used to sharing the bridge.”
    “I look forward to it, Alexis,” he murmured, and flashed her that bad-boy smile. “I’ll be waiting for you at the rendezvous point at 1530. Don’t be late.”

CHAPTER FOUR

    To her dismay, Captain Kostenko hadn’t been chauffeured to the Embassy in the MFA’s sedate sedan. Instead, he drove his own high-end sports car: black sapphire exterior, classic star-spoke wheels, cushy leather seats trimmed in ruthenium gray. Low-slung and powerful, sturdy enough to elbow through the rowdy Moscow traffic, and sporting the Holy Grail of Russian traffic talismans: blue government plates that he’d probably bribed someone to get.
    The captain shifted gears with a hard, capable hand as they swung tightly onto the Leningradsky Shosse and rocketed north. Purring like a satisfied lion, the vehicle accelerated past trolleybuses belching monoxide, grim Stalin-era apartment blocks, and neon-lit casinos crawling with stone-faced security. Then the landmarks blurred as Kostenko kicked the vehicle into light speed, like the Millennium Falcon making the jump to hyperspace. But without those nifty deflector shields.
    Perched tensely in the passenger seat, with the excellent heater kicking out BTUs against her knees, Alexis slanted him a cautious glance. “I hope you didn’t pilot your submarine like this, captain. You’re breaking every traffic law on the books.”
    “Don’t get excited, Ms. Castle,” he said dryly, shifting gears. “The police don’t stop this car—not even for bribes.”
    “How convenient for you,” she murmured. “It isn’t exactly your traffic record that I’m worried about—”
    She held her breath as the vehicle zipped up to a busy intersection. Kostenko sliced a narrowed glance left and right, then gunned through the red light.
    “As I’ve already noted,” she finished, “you’re rather accustomed to getting your way, aren’t you?”
    For a few beats he was silent, his stern profile thoughtful under a sable fur cap emblazoned with naval insignia. In the tailored overcoat, his powerful body seemed too overpowering for the space, though she supposed the damn car’d been configured for him.
    The stately strains of Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony poured from the speakers. Kostenko’s fingers drummed idly against the leather-wrapped steering wheel.
    “You come from money, yes?” he said at last. “Your dossier suggests—don’t take offense—that you descend from the equivalent of American aristocracy. Your father the Undersecretary was heir to one of the so-called ‘robber barons’ of the American Gilded Age. And your mother was linked to one of the great European banking families.”
    Alexis shifted uncomfortably in her seat. This was precisely the ‘legacy’ she’d been trying to escape when she ran away to Stanford.
    “I’m impressed,” she said lightly, “to find I have a detailed dossier, and that you’ve taken time from your challenging schedule to read it. But yes, those particulars are more or less correct.”
    “Relax,” he murmured, clearly picking up on her discomfort. “It’s not a crime to possess a pedigree in Russia these days. All I’m saying is that you know how it is to be one of the favored few.”
    “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” She concentrated on stripping off her fur-lined gloves and folding them in her lap. “Although I like to think I’ve earned at least some of my current advantages.”
    “Well, I didn’t inherit my fortune,” he said gruffly. “I earned it from a few well-timed investments in the ‘90s, when our Russian economy was exploding with double-digit growth per annum.”
    A few well-timed investments. Well, that was suitably vague and intriguing. The car alone had to be worth a year’s salary for a junior Foreign Service Officer, even without the custom fit.
    As the sports car knifed through