In receipt of yet another rebuff, Nikolai studied her as if he could not believe his ears. ‘Then when will I see you again?’

‘I don’t think a second meeting is on the agenda,’ Abbey replied.

‘I want you.’

I want you. That admission was bold and uncompromising and he delivered it like a challenge, a sworn statement of intent. Her heart lurched inside her ribcage as he stared down at her with stubborn brooding force etched in his lean, sardonic face. He had buckets of sex appeal and, no matter how hard she tried, she was insanely aware of his breathtaking good looks and far from impervious to his rough-edged masculine appeal. Antipathy and resentment shot through her tall shapely body, however, and she lifted her chin. ‘I’m not for sale, Mr Danilovich. And I can’t be bribed.’

‘Every human being under the sun has a price. It may not be money, it may be something else. It doesn’t follow that a bribe, as you call it, is morally wrong if it wins positive results,’ Nikolai traded.

‘We don’t see the world the same way,’ Abbey countered drily, unsurprised by his attempt to package his unacceptable bribe into an excusable act of benevolence. She was dealing with a hard, cynical man whose greatest god was money and who did not know how to accept the word no when it conflicted with his wishes. ‘And I doubt that we ever will.’

‘I’m a realist and rarely wrong.’

‘How comforting it must be to see oneself as supreme in all fields,’ Abbey replied.

‘Apparently not in this encounter,’ he quipped.

‘Goodbye, Mr Arlov. I hope you won’t regard a donation to Futures as being in any way influenced by my behaviour.’ Abbey walked away from him with a strong sense of relief.

Nikolai watched her until she vanished from view. He felt angry and frustrated. He had never met a more annoying or intriguing woman and her unexpected resistance and prickly personality had only heightened the intensity of his desire for her.