A Rich Man's Whim(52)
Her lips parted again. ‘You were finished with me. It was over … that’s what you wanted—’
‘If it was genuinely over, I’d have let you leave. Keeping you was a gut instinct,’ Mikhail confessed harshly.
A gut instinct? Where did that leave her? One minute he was getting rid of her, the next he was snatching her back from the brink. ‘But what happens now?’ she whispered unsteadily, suddenly cold and shivering even in the protective circle of his arms.
His powerful chest expanded as he breathed in deep. ‘I take you home with me.’
Her brows climbed. ‘You take me home with you? Am I a pet all of a sudden?’
‘I’m asking you to move in with me. I’ve never asked a woman to do that before,’ Mikhail revealed quietly.
Kat examined the idea, taken aback by it and then alarmed by how much she liked the images springing to mind. But it was a commitment, far more of a commitment than acting as a man’s companion and lover on board a yacht for a month. Yes, it was definitely a commitment, she registered dizzily, and suddenly her eyes were overflowing with the tears she had held back with such tenacity.
‘What’s wrong?’ Mikhail demanded, a long forefinger skimming the glistening trail of moisture marking her cheek.
‘Nothing! I’m just leaking!’ Kat gasped defensively, dashing the tears away with an impatient hand. ‘But I can’t just move in with you. I have commitments too—’
‘Your sisters? I will look after them as if they were my own flesh and blood,’ Mikhail told her with a sudden expansive smile.
‘But I’ve to sort out the farmhouse, make arrangements—’
‘You will leave all such responsibilities to me. You will move in with me, take care of me and my home and that is all you need to worry about in the future. Is that understood?’
Kat closed her eyes tight because the tears were still welling up and she was biting back a sob and loving and hating him simultaneously: loving him for recognising that they had found something special, hating him for springing it on her in such a last minute way that she couldn’t be fully convinced by it. ‘What if you change your mind again?’ she asked in a wobbly undertone. ‘What if this isn’t what you want in a few weeks’ time?’
‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take. I will always be honest with you and I don’t want to lose you.’
Kat swallowed back the thickness in her throat and struggled to breathe at a regular rate again. She supposed she couldn’t expect him to say much more, for they would both be on the same learning curve together. He didn’t want to lose her yet he had very nearly let her go. How very close he had come to doing that would probably always haunt her. If she had left on that helicopter, would he have come after her?
‘I own a country house that I believe you will like,’ Mikhail volunteered. ‘You can invite your sisters there, treat it as though it was your own home and next week you can attend Luka’s wedding with me as my partner.’
Her restive fingers clenched on the edge of his silk-and-linen-mix jacket, wet clogged eye lashes lifting on drenched green eyes as she stared up into his handsome face, her heart pounding like a piston engine.
His forefinger gently traced the generous curve of her lower lip. ‘It will work beautifully … you’ll see,’ Mikhail forecast with his usual invincible confidence, and then he kissed her with passionate urgency and thought took a hike from her head.
At the end of that day she lay in his bed, her body weak and sated from the hungry demands of his, and she wondered if she had been foolish to agree to stay with him. Was she merely putting off the heartbreak that awaited her? Extending her suffering? She loved him like crazy, but was very much afraid that he was simply in lust with her and not yet ready to give that pleasure up.
CHAPTER TEN
MIKHAIL LISTENED TO the lawyer’s advice only because he paid generously for all advice that offered him greater financial protection. But he was immoveable when it came to the issue of presenting Kat with another legal agreement, on this occasion one relating to her status as his live-in lover. No way was he making that mistake again! He had still to hear the last from her lips regarding the previous agreement, and in any case he was convinced that Kat didn’t have a mercenary bone in her body. Time and time again she had spurned the chance to enrich herself at his expense. Even though she had been desperate for money to settle her debts when they first met, her bill for that one night of accommodation in her former home had been ridiculously modest.