A Rich Man's Whim(17)
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Mikhail indicated a couch in one corner of the vast room. ‘I’ll order coffee.’
‘That’s not necessary,’ Kat told him, dragging her attention from his bold bronzed profile and energy-zapping presence to examine his office. Large in both size and personality, he had an unnerving ability to utterly dominate his surroundings.
‘I decide what’s necessary,’ Mikhail contradicted and he lifted the phone to order coffee.
Kat had not required that reminder of how domineering he could be and her generous mouth tightened as she sat down on the couch, determined to behave normally and betray no hint of her nervous tension. A wonderfully vibrant abstract painting adorned the far wall, the only splash of colour in a room furnished with cold contemporary steel, leather and glass and everything cutting edge technology had to offer. Mikhail Kusnirovich as her landlord? That was a ridiculous euphemism for him to employ when he had repaid substantial cash sums on her behalf. No longer in debt to the loan company or the building society, Kat now considered herself to be in debt to him instead. Of course, he owed her an explanation for his astonishing intervention.
‘Why did you do it?’ Kat prompted tautly.
Mikhail compressed his wide sensual mouth and shrugged a broad shoulder. It was not an answer but it was the only one he was prepared to give her. He had no socially acceptable altruistic reason to offer in his own defence. What had driven him had been a great deal more basic and selfish: having seen her vulnerability, he had immediately wanted to ensure that he was the only person with access to it. He was a territorial male and he wanted her more than he had wanted any woman in a long time. And only free of debt could she be free to be with him.
His arrogant dark head turned, his striking deep-set dark eyes winging to her lovely face. He watched her colour beneath his stare, soft pink surging below that pale skin to highlight her bright eyes and taut cheekbones. He liked the fact that she blushed, could not recall ever being with a woman who still had that capability. His keen gaze lingered on her lush pink lips and the shadowy vee of white skin revealed by the neckline of the shirt she wore beneath her jacket. That fast, that easily the pulse at his groin reacted and he wanted to touch her and discover if her skin felt as soft and smooth as it looked. Soon he would know one way or another, he told himself soothingly.
The tension in the atmosphere thrummed through Kat as well. His scrutiny of her lips felt like a physical touch. Recalling the hunger of his mouth on hers, she quivered, her breasts full and heavy inside her bra, the tender tips pinching tight while unwelcome heat surged at the heart of her. With ferocious determination, she reined back that tide of debilitating physical awareness, refusing to be either sidetracked or silenced. ‘I asked you why you did it. I mean, you hardly know me,’ she continued doggedly. ‘It’s not normal to go out and dig up a person’s debts and offer to settle them. You’ve put me under a huge sense of obligation to you—’
‘That was not my wish,’ Mikhail lied, for he liked the fact that he had created a link between them that she could not reject. That he had not given her a choice in the matter didn’t bother him because he had protected her home for her when she stood to lose it.
In receipt of that guarded reply, Kat felt her growing sense of frustration surge up another notch and she scrambled upright, her russet-red hair streaming in trailing spirals across her narrow shoulders as she threw them back and straightened her slender spine. Getting an explanation out of him was like trying to pull teeth, she thought in exasperation. ‘There’s absolutely no point in you telling me that that was not your wish when I’m now in debt to you to the tune of thousands and thousands of pounds!’
‘But you’re not in debt if I refuse to acknowledge that there is a debt requiring repayment,’ Mikhail imparted with quiet emphasis. ‘I saved your skin. All you need to do now is say thank you.’
‘I’m not going to thank you for your interference in my life!’ Kat snapped back at him without hesitation, galled by his stinging reminder that he had dug her out from between a rock and a hard place. ‘I’m not so stupid that I don’t appreciate that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. I’m here to ask you what you want from me in return.’
‘Nothing that you’re not inclined to give,’ Mikhail retorted drily.
Kat was very tense, interpreting that statement in only one way. ‘Are you hoping that I will become your lover?’ she asked him baldly, lifting her chin as she voiced that embarrassing question.