Mission To Seduce

‘Yes, that’s right.’

It was far from being a helpful answer, so she had to come right out and ask, ‘What sort of business is it?’

‘Banking,’ Drake replied shortly.

So he was nothing but a glorified bank clerk. Dull stuff, and he certainly couldn’t have any influence that would be helpful. He had probably already done the most that he could in introducing her to Sergei.

Turning, they left the Kremlin to walk back to her hotel. Allie had travelled a lot in the past, on holidays and with her job, so she was used to new countries. But Russia was somehow different. Perhaps the first thing she noticed was the road and street signs; they were completely impossible to decipher because Russia used the Cyrillic alphabet where some of the letters looked the same as the ordinary alphabet but had different meanings. An H for an N, for example. And then there was the beauty and colour of the splendid churches and the Kremlin, compared with the ring of concrete apartment blocks that surrounded the city.

‘Is it safe to walk around alone here?’ she asked idly.

She got a reaction she certainly hadn’t expected. Drake stopped and spun round. ‘What do you mean?’ he demanded sharply.

Blinking in surprise, Allie said, ‘Well...just what I asked; is it OK for me to walk around alone?’

Slowly his taut face relaxed and Drake ran a hand through his hair, but his voice sounded strained as he said, ‘In the daytime, yes, but I would certainly advise against it at night. In fact, I insist that you don’t.’

She gave a small gasp at his vehemence. Was the place that dangerous, then? Allie frowned, puzzled, but said nothing more. When they got to her hotel, she turned to Drake and held out her hand. ‘Well, thank you very much for meeting me and everything. It was very good of you to take the time.’

‘Not at all.’ He shook her hand but didn’t go, instead saying, ‘You said you’d been in contact with Professor Martos. When do you intend to see him?’

‘Some time tomorrow. I’m going to call him now to arrange a time.’

‘Does he speak English?’

‘Yes, I believe so.’

‘Are you sure? Would you like me to help you make the call?’

God give me patience, Allie thought, but said with some irony, ‘I think I might just be able to manage to make a phone call by myself.’

The sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. Drake raised an eyebrow, but only said, ‘Very well. I’ll pick you up at eight to take you out to dinner.’

‘That’s very kind of you, but I really don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ Allie said hastily.

‘It’s no trouble.’

‘But what about...?’ She had been going to say ‘your family’, but intuitively knew that he didn’t have anyone here, so changed it to, ‘I’m sure you’re terribly busy; I don’t want to take up all your time.’

Drake frowned for a moment, then said curtly, ‘I’ll meet you in the lobby at eight.’

He walked to where he’d parked his car and Allie watched him drive away with great misgivings. Trust her to get landed with a chauvinist, and an autocratic one at that. When he’d gone, she made her call to Professor Martos from the phone in the lobby, then quickly strode back to the Gum department store.

The building reminded her strongly of a huge French château with its white façade and sloping green roofs, but inside it was a delight of galleried arcades linked by bridges, ornate iron railings, and stuccoed archways. Allie searched the shopping arcades for a store that sold maps in English and bought a road atlas covering western Russia, from Moscow north to St Petersburg. Only then did she take time to stop and admire the magnificent glass roof that spanned the store like some immense spider’s web, the sun casting shadows that elongated the strands of the web and seemed to reach out to trap the shoppers as they passed below.

The shops were starting to close but Allie browsed through them, looking for typical Russian goods, but the up-market western companies seemed to have hijacked the place and if it hadn’t been for the wonderful architecture she could have been in any shopping mall in any part of the world.

When she got back to her hotel Allie locked the road atlas inside her suitcase. It was unlikely that Drake would ever come up to her room again, but she didn’t want to run any chance of him seeing the book and starting to ask questions. She changed into a beige lace dress that left her shoulders bare and, rather than have Drake call up to her room, went down to the lobby to meet him.

She reached it just as Drake was coming into the hotel. Allie caused quite a stir as she came out of the lift; most of the people glanced round and let their eyes linger. But then, it was a designer dress, and she knew she looked good in it, the colour and the style perfect for her slim figure.

Drake stood still for a moment and then walked forward to meet her. ‘You’re exactly on time,’ he remarked, letting his gaze run over her.

‘I don’t usually keep people waiting for three hours,’ Allie told him, referring to the wait at the airport.

He smiled, his grey eyes creasing with amusement. ‘You’re never going to forget that, are you?’

‘Could anyone?’

‘Don’t let it put you off the country.’ He put a hand under her elbow to lead her to the door.

‘Oh, I won’t.’ She raised her hand to her hair, making him let go of her arm, and then strode ahead of him out into the open.

His car was waiting at the kerb and Drake opened the door for her. She wasn’t sure whether or not he had got the message, but he made no further attempt to touch her.

‘Where are we going?’ Allie asked as he began to drive away from the city centre.

‘To a restaurant where they do typical Russian food. I thought you might prefer that on your first night here.’

‘How thoughtful of you.’

He gave her a somewhat sardonic look, one level eyebrow rising. ‘Most people seem to.’

Which put her in her place, Allie thought, smiling inwardly. ‘Do you live in a hotel?’

‘No, I have an apartment, for the moment.’

‘You intend to move?’

‘No, but my job here is over. I shall be going back to England shortly.’

‘Shortly?’ Allie fastened on the word, wondering if it represented an easier way to get rid of him. ‘I hope you’re not staying on here in Moscow just because of me.’

Drake didn’t answer directly, merely saying, ‘I’m due some leave.’

Turning to look at him, Allie said, ‘Good heavens, how embarrassing. I wouldn’t for the world want to keep you from going home, from being with your family. In the circumstances it was wrong of Bob to ask you to—’

‘I’m happy to do it,’ Drake interrupted rather brusquely.

He said it in a tone that was meant to stop all argument, all further protestations, but Allie tried once more, saying with a little sigh, ‘Bob really is a dear. He worries about me, and I appreciate it. But he never seems to get it into his head that I’m quite capable of looking after myself, even in a foreign country. I can just imagine the list of instructions he gave you.’ She deepened her voice into a playful imitation of her boss’s bass tone. ‘Don’t let her get too friendly with the natives. Make sure she knuckles down to work. Don’t let her go off sightseeing—this isn’t a damn holiday. And don’t let her go on the Metro in case she gets lost. And don’t let her loose in the shops or she’ll spend a fortune.’

Pulling up outside the restaurant, Drake turned to her and laughed. ‘How did you know what he said?’

‘Because I got the very same lecture before I left, of course. Whenever he sends me on an assignment he always worries himself silly in case something happens to me.’

‘I’m surprised he lets you go, then.’

Her voice becoming serious, Allie said pointedly, ‘He has to. I’m good at my job and he knows it. And when it comes down to it, it’s my expertise he wants and is paying for. Oh, he might put on the act of being paternal and worrying about my welfare, but maybe that’s to compensate for the fact that he can’t do the job himself and has to send me instead.’

Drake had turned to look at her and was studying her face, taking in the seriousness of her blue eyes, the tilt of confidence and determination to her chin. Slowly he said, ‘I can understand his concern. You give off an aura of—’ he sought for the right word ‘—of fragility. You remind me of one of those modern figurines. Dressed in the latest fashion but with a delicacy that is becoming lost in the contemporary world. You look as if you might easily break.’

Allie sighed, knowing exactly what he meant; her lack of height and her fine bone structure were the bane of her life—of her professional and working life, at least; in her social life they were definite assets. Firmly, she said, ‘That impression is entirely wrong. It’s an anachronism. I’m a professional career woman and I can handle any situation I come up against. I don’t need a nursemaid, and I certainly don’t need a chaperon—of either sex.’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘That was a very definite statement.’

‘It was meant to be.’

‘And what exactly does not needing a chaperon mean?’

Steadily, her eyes holding his, she said, ‘It means that I’m not a girl. I’m an experienced woman, and if I want to get friendly with someone, then I’ll go ahead and do it, whether—my boss likes it or not.’ She had almost said ‘whether you like it or not’, but stopped herself in time. She wanted to keep this as impersonal as possible.

But Drake had guessed and his face hardened. ‘I’m beginning to think Bob is right about you,’ he said shortly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘“The lady doth protest too much”,’ he quoted. Opening the car door, he said, ‘Come on, let’s go and eat.’

The restaurant was already quite full. It was almost impossible to tell the nationality of the customers from their dress because all looked smart; it was only as you walked by and listened to the language in which they spoke that you could tell. And everyone seemed to be talking as they ate and drank. On a small raised platform behind an equally small dance floor there was a gypsy band which was doing its best to drown out the noise of the voices.

Allie looked back over her shoulder as she turned a laughing face to Drake. ‘Is it always like this?’

He seemed to draw in his breath and gazed at her for a moment before he blinked and bent nearer to hear. She repeated her question and he nodded. ‘Wherever there are Russians you have noise.’

They sat down at a table for two at the rear of the room where an open window gave a welcome coolness. A waiter handed them menus but Drake didn’t look at his for a few minutes. His eyes were still on Allie but there was a frowning, abstracted look in them, as if he was thinking of something quite different.

‘A rouble for them,’ Allie said, her eyebrows rising.

He blinked, looked disconcerted for a moment, then said hastily, ‘What would you like to drink?’

They settled for vodka on the rocks and drank it while Drake explained the menu to her. ‘Everyone has zakuski,’ he told her. ‘That’s the same as hors d’oeuvres. And the Russians can make them last for a couple of hours. That’s mostly why westerners complain about the slow service here; they eat the zakuski and expect the main course to be served straight away, but you have to prolong the experience.’

‘Make a meal of it, you mean,’ Allie said, tongue in cheek.

Drake groaned, laughed. ‘I asked for that one, didn’t I?’

‘You didn’t take up my offer,’ Allie told him.

‘Offer?’

‘A rouble for your thoughts,’ she reminded him. ‘You were miles away just now.’

He gave a short laugh, said, ‘Was I?’ in a terse, ‘leave it’ kind of voice.

But Allie wasn’t to be put down. ‘So where were you?’ she demanded.

Picking up his glass, Drake looked down at it as he gave a small shrug. ‘It was nothing. For a second you reminded me of someone, that’s all.’

‘Oh? Who?’

‘No one you’d know,’ he said dismissively. ‘Now, have you decided what you would like to eat?’

‘Well, as I’m in Russia, I’ll guess I’ll go for something really authentic and have the beef stroganoff.’

That made him grin. ‘Very adventurous!’ he mocked.

Allie smiled back at him, wondering who it was she’d reminded him of. What woman could it have been, and what must she have meant to him to drag his mind away from the present and bring such a frown of memory to his face? ‘I take it you didn’t bring your family with you to Moscow,’ she said lightly.

‘My family?’ He gave her an assessing look at the question, probably wondering if it meant she was interested in him. ‘I have no family. I’m not married,’ he said, his tone a little abrupt.

She nodded. ‘That figures. Companies tend to send single people on foreign assignments. It’s cheaper.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

He looked slightly amused for a moment but turned to give the waiter his attention. He ordered in fluent Russian that produced the hors d’oeuvres and a bottle of Russian champagne. The gypsy band was playing away with great vigour and soon people got up to dance. Allie watched the different interpretations of the music with amusement; some tried to waltz, others to do a Highland fling, while other dancers just jigged around. The dancers were more entertaining than the band, but everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Watching her, Drake said, ‘Want to try?’

‘To that?’ She gave him a horrified look. ‘No way; I haven’t had nearly enough to drink to let my hair down to that extent.’

‘A slower one, then.’ He beckoned a waiter over and gave him some money which was taken over to the band leader, a man with dark hair and a luxuriant moustache who obviously thought he was the bee’s knees in his flamboyant costume.

The money had the desired effect and the band began to play a slow, haunting melody that could only have been a love song in any language. Drake stood and offered his hand. Hiding her reluctance, Allie let him help her to her feet and went into his arms to dance. As they moved around the room she thought how strange it was that you could be with a virtual stranger and never want or expect to be close to him, but with just the excuse of some music he could hold you as close as this, your bodies touching almost intimately, your faces, your mouths just a few inches apart. He could put his arm low on your waist, bend his head to take in the scent of your perfume, could look into your eyes and give a slow smile of awareness. An awareness that you were man and woman, that the business connection was just a superficial nonsense, a masquerade when set against the deeper, primitive sexual consciousness.

She found the thought disturbing, just as she found Drake’s nearness getting to her. He moved well and held her firmly; she could feel the muscle in his arm beneath her hand, and could only guess at his strength. He was too tall for her, of course, but her high heels had lifted her close enough for Allie to get the tang of his aftershave, to be able to study the strong line of his jaw and the firmness of his lips. There was nothing full or heavy about his features and there never would be; he was all lean planes and angles, western handsomeness personified.

She began to wonder if he was very experienced with women. He didn’t give off an obvious aura of knowledge, hadn’t looked her over stripping her as he did so, as some men did, wondering what she would be like in bed and how much effort might have to be put into getting her there. But there was a certain class of man who was so self-confident, so assured in his own masculinity, that he didn’t have to flaunt his experience. And that type of man was far more attractive to a woman than the more obvious kind.

Was Drake that kind of man? Allie wondered. A rather boisterous pair of dancers pushed towards them and Drake pulled her close and swung her out of the way. She followed him effortlessly, their steps perfectly matched, then laughed up at him. ‘That was close.’

‘Mmm.’ He looked down at her musingly for a moment and she wondered if he could guess what she was thinking about him.

Mischievously, she said, ‘You’re miles away again. Where are you this time?’

She wasn’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t for him to say, completely out of the blue, ‘I know you have an ulterior motive in coming to Russia.’

She came to a precipitate stop, too disconcerted to be able to prevent her face filling with horrified dismay as she stared at him in appalled consternation. How could he know? How could he possibly have found out?

CHAPTER TWO

SOMEBODY bumped into her and Allie hastily moved out of the way, lowering her face, trying to hide her consternation. But her mind was screaming in mingled fright and anger. Who had told him? How could he possibly know? The two, oh, so vital questions burned into her brain. With a supreme effort she somehow lifted her head to look at Drake, forcing an amused smile to her mouth. Her voice sounding odd even to her own ears, she managed to say lightly, ‘What on earth gives you that idea?’

She hadn’t fooled him for a minute. Drake was gazing down at her with a frown of incredulous surprise in his grey eyes, and she could almost hear his brain computing her reaction, trying to work out why such a simple remark had disconcerted her so much. ‘It was something Bob said.’

It was such a deliberately ambiguous reply that she felt a spurt of anger but managed to fight it down, aware that he was watching her, studying her face. But she couldn’t understand how Bob could possibly know; she’d told no one, it was a secret she’d shared with only one person in the world—and she had been dead for years now. Fighting for normality, for lightness, Allie said, ‘Really? I can’t think what it was. What did he say, exactly?’

The direct question had pushed him into a corner and Allie knew that he would have to give her a direct answer, but the wretched man side-stepped again by saying, ‘He mentioned that you had an—outside interest in Russia.’

At any other time she might have enjoyed this verbal fencing, but this issue was much too important, made her too anxious to want to prolong it. And it was such dangerous ground. She gave a small shrug, pretending indifference. ‘I can’t think what he means.’

It left the opening up to Drake; he could come right out with it or he could go on playing cat and mouse with her. Allie kept her expression casual, as if nothing was the matter, even looking round the room and humming to the music.

She didn’t know whether she’d managed to deceive him or not, but she felt his eyes still fixed on her when he said, ‘Bob told me that you’ve already written a couple of books for children and would probably use this visit to get background for another.’

So that was it! Allie felt a huge wave of intense relief run through her, her legs felt as if they wanted to sag and her shoulders sank as the tightness left them. But she did her best to hide it by giving an embarrassed laugh. ‘Oh, that!’

‘What else could he have meant?’ The question showed that Drake hadn’t been taken in for a minute. He was holding her quite close and must have felt the sudden loss of tension.

Ignoring the question, she glanced up at him from under her lashes, still pretending to be embarrassed. ‘I’d hoped Bob had forgotten all about my writing. He teased me about it unmercifully when he first found out. Called me the future Enid Blyton of the twenty-first century. Thought it was a great joke. You know what he’s like.’

‘Does that worry you?’

The music came to an end and Allie stepped away from him, lifted an arm to push her hair off her forehead as they walked back to their table. ‘Here I am, busy projecting myself as a successful career woman, a go-ahead jet-setter with the lifestyle to go with it. Writing stories for young children hardly fits the image.’

His voice dry, Drake said, ‘And is your image that important to you?’

Of course it darn well mattered, she thought in annoyance. Where the hell had he been if he thought that the image a person projected wasn’t all-important in their career, their chances of promotion? ‘Isn’t yours?’ she countered.

‘What one does is surely more important than the way one looks while you’re doing it.’

‘Actions speak louder than appearances, in other words,’ Allie said wryly.

His eyebrows rising at her tone, Drake said, ‘You sound as if you don’t believe it.’

‘I can’t afford to. You may not have noticed, but I’m a woman.’

Drake had been about to take a drink but stopped at that, his eyes widening. With a sudden and rather surprising smile, he said, ‘Er—yes, I had noticed, as a matter of fact.’

‘Women have to be far more image-conscious than men.’

‘Isn’t that attitude rather dated?’ he asked on a cautious note.

He was right to be cautious; Allie could easily have snapped his head off. What could he, a jumped-up bank clerk, possibly know about the fight that women with any ambition had on their hands the minute they entered the business world? To succeed they not only had to be as good as men but better, and they had to look good, too. Power-dressing was exactly what it implied—a physical projection of where they wanted to be, the path they wanted to tread.

A man could turn up for work in yesterday’s shirt, his suit crumpled, and his contemporaries immediately thought that he’d had a night on the tiles and admired him for it. If a woman turned up looking at all unkempt her male colleagues would think she was sleeping around and treat her accordingly, while her female workmates would probably think she had given up the uneven struggle and was letting herself go.

Inwardly at zero tolerance level, Allie just gave Drake a sweet smile and said, ‘No—but yours is.’

He looked taken aback and his eyes narrowed. Leaning forward, he looked as if he was going to argue, but thankfully the cabaret started, dancers dressed in vivid, exotic costumes springing onto the dance floor. The music became high and heated and it was impossible to talk. Allie turned her chair slightly to watch, her face averted, presenting only the fine line of her profile to Drake’s gaze. When the sweating dancers finished their performance, the waiter hurried to bring their main course, and when he had gone Allie made sure to turn the conversation into safer channels.

It was a prolonged meal and she didn’t enjoy it. She realised that her reaction to Drake’s remark about her having an ulterior motive in coming to Russia, which he’d made in all innocence, had aroused his curiosity. He was watchful now, scenting a mystery he couldn’t fathom. As soon as he got home he would probably be on the phone to her boss, trying to solve it, she thought with chagrin, angry at herself for having given so much away. But the remark had taken her completely by surprise, there had been no warning, no few precious moments in which to prepare herself for it.

‘Tell me how you came to write the story books,’ he invited.

‘I have a little god-daughter. I was baby-sitting one night when she couldn’t sleep, so I made up a story. But she’s a very modern child, everything has to be visual, so I had to draw pictures of the characters for her. Her father saw them and suggested I try to get it published.’ She shrugged. ‘No big deal at all, really.’

‘Did they sell well?’

‘Quite well,’ Allie admitted, with an inner surge of pleasure at the thought of her success. ‘But not well enough to give up the day job,’ she added firmly, in case he passed that piece of information on to her boss.

But Drake disarmed her by grinning as he said, ‘I’m sure Bob would be pleased to hear you say that. He told me that you’re a great asset to his company.’

‘He did?’ Allie’s eyes widened. Her boss wasn’t exactly generous with praise and compliments. The most she usually got from him was, ‘Not bad. Not bad, considering.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t want to lose you,’ Drake said in some amusement, as if reading her mind.

She didn’t like it when his mouth twisted into that amused smile; it was condescending, as if she were just some dumb female, not to be taken seriously. It put her back up.