Nikolai made a rare effort to be entertaining by finding out what interested her. He was on his very best behaviour. Checking her watch over the coffee, Abbey was taken aback when she realised just how much time had passed over the delicious meal. He was highly intelligent and excellent company and she was dismayed by how much she had contrived to enjoy herself.

‘I don’t want to be too late tonight because I have an early start in the morning.’

As she rose from behind the table Nikolai followed suit. He pulled her to him with confident hands. ‘You could have an early start with me.’

As she thought of it a tremor ran through her, sexual heat curling low in her pelvis. Desire was in her now like a dark enemy, undermining her defences. She had a dim picture of him lying on tumbled white sheets. She remembered how she had lost her head with him in the limo and knew that he would be utterly irresistible in less inhibiting circumstances. He bent his handsome dark head and took her parted lips with devouring hunger. She quivered against him, her heart racing as fast as the blood in her veins, driven by a heady combination of excitement and longing. Disturbed by the intensity of what she was feeling, she stiffened.

‘I’m going home,’ she breathed when he lifted his head again.

Paparazzi were waiting outside the building when they emerged. Cameras went off even as Nikolai’s security team made the waiting photographers back off and give them a clear passage to the glossy black Ferrari now parked in readiness by the kerb. Her colour high as demands for her name were loudly shot at her, Abbey climbed into the car with her head down, reluctant to give anyone the chance to get a decent picture of her.

‘They’ll follow us back to your apartment so that they can identify you,’ Nikolai forecast.

‘Surely not?’ But even as she spoke she saw two men jumping onto motorbikes across the road and her heart sank. ‘Is it always like this for you?’