‘I WASN’T aware that I had been guilty of making any assumption, so your attack is somewhat premature and excessive,’ Nikolai imparted very drily.

Abbey stabbed the air between them with an emphatic finger. ‘I agreed to dine with you this evening-that’s all! Perhaps you feel that you’re entitled to more for a charitable donation of half a million, but my body was never on the table…’

Steady dark eyes rested on her. ‘The table would be a little hard on both of us,’ he murmured with sardonic amusement. ‘Where did you get the impression that I have to buy women into my bed?’

‘You held your donation to Futures over my head!’ Abbey condemned hotly. ‘You told me that you would use any angle to get what you want, didn’t you?’

‘But I don’t pay for sex,’ Nikolai spelt out cool as ice. ‘I don’t ever under any circumstances pay for sex.’

Abbey lost colour, her freckles standing out against her pallor. His conviction washed over her like a bucket of chilling water, dousing her anger and leaving her uncertain of her position. ‘What about the dress, the shoes and the jewellery?’

‘I’m a generous guy. The women I meet enjoy and expect that sort of gesture from me.’

‘You meet the wrong kind of women.’

‘Perhaps. But it is offensive to suggest that I need to use my money to persuade a woman into my bed.’

‘Let’s not get bogged down in the irrelevant!’ Abbey broke in. ‘I heard you dismiss your driver for the evening.’

‘Perhaps I was planning to drive you home later myself,’ Nikolai murmured silkily, although the faintest tinge of dark colour demarcated his high cheekbones, for her assumption about his expectations had been one-hundred-per-cent accurate. He had assumed that she would share his bed that night.