Innocent in the Ivory Tower

She was never like this. She didn’t fantasise about men to the point where she got hot and bothered. Her mind just didn’t go there. Mind you, she hadn’t had time to have a rich fantasy life, let alone an active sex life. Not with a baby. She wasn’t even accustomed to air travel. She was the original stay-at-home girl. With the Kulikovs there had been several shuttles to the Paris house, but life with a new baby had pretty much shut down her opportunities to explore further afield than the Île de la Cité.

Her thoughts drifted from blue-eyed, hard-bodied Russian oligarchs to the more prosaic realities of her life. It had been impossible to leave Kostya for more than a few hours, and Anais had insisted no one had Maisy’s ‘way’ with him. The deal had been she would have two days a week to herself, but the reality of a demanding infant had virtually turned Maisy into the mother of a newborn, with all the rigours that involved. The only normal life she had ever had was in those few months before Anais gave birth. Then they’d been girlfriends together, enjoying each other’s company and all the fun opportunities London had to offer.

Leo had been home a lot then too, as Anais grew huge, and settled, hovering over her protectively, acting on her merest whim. Maisy had envied her friend that security, that devotion. Anais in turn had encouraged her to date, pushed her out through the door with a gaggle of Anais’s other girlfriends into nightclubs.

For a few months she had lived like any other twenty-one-year-old girl in London. Those were the days when she’d had time to spend hours trawling clothes shops and dancing until dawn. She had met a couple of boys around her age and been in the awkward position of having to choose. Dan had worked at something in the music industry that apparently involved twiddling knobs, but he had been gentle and self-effacing and would sit up talking to her in little cafes until dawn drew her back to Lantern Square and Anais’s barrage of delighted interrogation.

She had finally gone back to his flat near Earls Court and slept with him. It had seemed the right thing to do, moving the relationship along, except it hadn’t quite turned out that way. She remembered lying there on his hard bed, staring at the pattern of cracks in the ceiling as Dan pushed into her virgin body, feeling self-conscious about their nakedness and wondering if she was doing something wrong. It had been quick and painful and messy, and not something she particularly wanted to repeat with him, and with that thought had came the utter certainty she had made a mistake.

She hadn’t shared this with Anais—she hadn’t told anybody. And a few days later, after an awkward coffee with Dan and an invitation to spend the weekend with him on a working trip, she’d ended it. The fact that he hadn’t seemed too bothered had made her wonder if she was the only girl in his life.

Within weeks Anais had gone into labour, and Maisy’s life as she’d begun to live it had been over. From then on, for two years, she had been the mother of a demanding baby boy.

It would have been impossible to make Alexei Ranaevsky understand the complexities of her relationship with Anais and Kostya last night. He probably would have been even less inclined to take her along. ‘A friend of Anais’s’ sounded insubstantial—and, knowing many of Anais’s girlfriends, she wouldn’t have left a pot plant in their care, let alone a two-year-old.

No, nanny sounded sensible and professional and useful.

He needed a nanny, not a flighty girl with her head in a fashion magazine and her body on a beach in Ibiza. Yet deception did not sit easily with her. She wanted to be herself, not an imitation of whatever was expected of a nanny in this man’s home. She hadn’t even asked him if he had a partner or children. It would be shocking, given his actions last night, but not unheard of. Maisy had lived long enough in Anais’s world to know adultery was a common coin and nobody blinked an eye.

What had happened tonight made no sense to her—from his perspective at least. He must have read signals into her behaviour, and she thought guiltily about the way she had visually eaten him up. She was less irresistible to him. He had been far more in control than she had. It had been he who had stopped it, owned it for a mistake.

He was clearly exhausted. The shadows under those beautiful eyes … the lines carved around his sensual mouth. Running on empty, Leo would say. Maybe she’d been available fuel, a willing female body. And she had been willing—shamingly willing. She had never felt that instant drench of attraction in her life. She still couldn’t look at him without wanting to touch him, feel the solid heat of his body pressed up against hers. It was wicked.

She rolled onto her back, staring up at a ceiling starred with dozens of tiny pinpricks of light. Was this how Anais had felt about Leo? Was this like the wellspring of her friend’s uninhibited passion for her husband, which had manifested itself as a longing for him whenever he was absent and a great deal of time spent in the bedroom, or the library, or on the kitchen table—much to Maisy’s embarrassment as she’d come home unexpectedly one afternoon?

This was what she had been looking for, Maisy realised with a start. This passion. This excitement. This much man.

Except he was the wrong man.

Just as she was the wrong woman. The nanny.

Dawn was breaking over Naples when they hit the tarmac. Maisy had never travelled in a private jet, and the waiting limos were another shock to her system.

Alexei Ranaevsky was seriously loaded.

He was also not coming with them.

In the first limo with Kostya, Maisy gathered the courage to ask Carlo, who was travelling with them, why not.

‘A chopper to Rome,’ he replied briefly. ‘London has held up several important meetings.’

Meaning his visit to Lantern Square. Perversely, Maisy felt a rush of anger towards both Carlo and Alexei. Kostya was not a hold-up. He was a little boy who had lost his parents. Surely Alexei could carve out more than an overnight flit to welcome the child?

Carlo gave her a wry look. ‘Don’t worry, bella, he’ll be back. You’ll see enough of him.’

Maisy stiffened at the familiarity of bella, and its implications. Plain enough words, but all of a sudden Maisy wondered if Alexei had spoken to Carlo, revealed what had occurred. It was too crass to bear thinking about, but Maisy’s hands made fists in her lap and her whole body was on red alert.

She averted her face to the window and didn’t say another word.

So this was where he lived.

The sixteenth-century exterior of Villa Vista Mare had not hinted at its sleek interior: soaring ceilings, glass everywhere, and blinding white surfaces. It was like stepping into the future. Maisy was accustomed to the shabby Georgian chic at Lantern Square and the pretty comfort of the Kulikovs’ other residence on the Île de la Cité in Paris. This sort of cutting-edge modernity and the money it took to fuel it was startling, and also troubling. Kostya’s life was going to be here now. It screamed style and money and glamour. It didn’t hold you in its arms and murmur ‘home’.

Seven days later she was doing her best to install some of Lantern Square into Kostya’s surroundings. She couldn’t fault the nursery. Not unexpectedly, it was over the top. Alexei clearly believed the advent of a child into his life called for lots of stuff. The life-size pony on rockers was perhaps the worst of it. A sleigh for a bed was inspired. Over the week she had shifted the worst out and created a softer space.

Kostya was universally loved by the household; Maria the housekeeper, a handsome woman in her middle fifties, doted on him. But every morning Maisy woke with the expectation that today would be the day Alexei Ranaevsky would put in an appearance, and every morning she was disappointed. She couldn’t make sense of his behaviour. He had spoken of his responsibility for Kostya, yet his actions spoke volumes as to where he saw Kostya in his life.

There was a room for the nanny off the nursery. It was utilitarian, with a view of the courtyard wall. Maisy tried not to spend any time in there other than to sleep, and she slept a lot. Alexei had organised a night nurse to be on duty, which meant she could sleep through the night for the first time since Kostya had been born. Six nights of uninterrupted sleep. She felt a hundred years younger.

Every day she took Kostya down to the beach in the morning, and read books on the terrace during the afternoon whilst he took his nap. In the evenings she would have liked to eat with Maria, but the housekeeper usually left at seven, after providing a solo meal. The rest of the skeleton staff seemed paid to be invisible. It was as if she was living in a palatial hotel all by herself.

On the seventh day she asked Maria if she might have a car to take down into the town. She had noticed a converted stable in the grounds securing seven sleek luxury vehicles.

‘I don’t want anything fancy,’ she hastened to add. ‘Just some beat-up thing I can motor about in.’

Maria laughed at her. ‘You can borrow mine, Maisy. It’s insured, and there’s a child’s seat in the back. I use it for my granddaughter.’

Maisy recognised that she was feeling a wild pleasure at the thought of getting out of the villa out of proportion to the lure of shops and other people. She ran upstairs and shimmied out of her T-shirt and shorts, replacing them with a green-and-pink floral sundress she had bought for her aborted trip to Paris. It was modest in the neckline, protecting her décolletage from the harsh sunshine, and fell just above her knees, but was virtually backless. She whipped her hair out of its ponytail and shook out her curls, solving that problem.

She got Kostya ready and strapped him into the car, giving Maria an enthusiastic wave as she rolled out of the courtyard and took off up the dusty road towards the highway that would take her down the hairpin bends and dips of the road into Ravello.

She had specific chores to undertake: organise funds from her English bank account, purchase a sturdier hat to protect Kostya from the fiery Italian sun, and stock up on trashy paperbacks. But it was impossible not to get sidetracked by the beauty of the old town.

Crossing the road after purchasing gelato for herself and Kostya, she spotted a beauty therapist’s. The warm breeze caressed her bare legs and reminded her she was in desperate need of a wax. With Kostya sucking on his ice and occupied with a box of toys, she was able to deal with her legs and have her hair trimmed and blow-dried. Feeling infinitely more attractive than she had going in, Maisy strapped Kostya back into his pushchair and headed for the gardens she had spotted at the other end of the road.

Several cars slowed down, passing her, and a group of youths called out in Italian to her. She didn’t understand a word but it was fairly clear it was appreciative. Maisy shook her head in disbelief. A pretty dress and ‘new’ hair and suddenly she was on display.

‘Don’t you grow up to be so silly, Kostya,’ she said, ruffling the top of his fair head.

A screeching of tyres made her look up. A low-slung sports car was humming alongside the kerb. Maisy froze.

‘Get in the car.’

Maisy released a deep breath, unaware she had been holding it. Alexei.

He was leaning over the steering wheel, his cobalt eyes hidden behind razor-sharp sunglasses. He looked what he was: cool, ruthless, very male.

She needed to handle this with the same cool. It was important not to appear eager or pleased or even furious that it had taken him seven days—seven days—to put in an appearance. It wasn’t easy when any woman in her right mind would have leapt in that car with him without a second thought.

She glanced ahead at the gardens and then, deciding, put the brake on the pushchair and crossed the few steps to the kerb, leaning in.

‘We’re going to the gardens. I promised Kostya.’

She turned her back on his incredulous face, kicked off the brake and kept moving, making a beeline for the gates.

Alexei slotted the car into a space overlooking the sea and took off after Maisy on foot. When Maria had casually told him Maisy had just walked out of the villa and taken the boy with her he’d been annoyed his security team hadn’t been alerted. The further information that she had taken Maria’s old Audi had infuriated him. Those hairpin bends were suicidal if you didn’t know them. But it was the sight of her in a flowery dress, with her arms and legs bare and all those pre–Raphaelite curls flowing down her back, being cat-called and ogled by Italian males that had sent him over the top.

Maisy wasn’t sure if he would drive away and leave them alone, or come after them. What she didn’t expect was for him to lay a hand on her elbow and wrench her almost off her feet. He whisked her around as if she were a doll. She had forgotten how big he was. The breadth of his shoulders and his musculature were outlined by the expensive weave of an olive T-shirt. Held up against him, Maisy felt warmth sweeping up into her cheeks, his proximity having the same upending effect on her senses it had had in London.

‘What in the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he blistered at her.

The sunglasses meant she couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel them nevertheless—boring into her.

‘Going into the gardens,’ she answered, trying to pull her arm free. But he had a firm grip. ‘For goodness’ sake, let me go. I don’t understand why you’re so angry.’

Alexei took in her wide hazel eyes and soft mouth, the colour in her cheeks. She was a time bomb waiting to go off. He couldn’t have this much woman living under his roof. He’d end up giving her anything she asked for.

She made a soft distressed sound as his hand instinctively tightened and he released her immediately, shocked by his own conduct. He had imagined—imagined—he could deal with her in a short interview at the house. Confront her with his investigator’s report, set out the terms for her remaining with Kostya until he settled, and then ignore her. He was doing a good job of ignoring her. For six days and seven nights. Long nights—except for the sixteen hours he had slept under the effect of a sedative.

He wasn’t unaccustomed to periods of time without a woman in his bed. There was something rejuvenating about the spread of a cool, empty king-size bed. But Maisy Edmonds had been there every night in his waking dreams, with her wild red curls and her lush, eminently squeezable bottom, and the spicy taste of her still tingling in his mouth. He hadn’t misremembered her mouth—it was sweet and pink. The places he had imagined that mouth had been … To see it now, unmarked by lipstick, soft and innocent-looking, he felt like a sex-crazed brute.

‘Leave my Maisy alone!’ stated Kostya, standing up in his pushchair. He had managed to unclip his belt, and this held Maisy’s amazed attention, whilst Alexei, deeply shaken by his reaction, faced her little protector with a tad more subtlety.

He instantly dropped down to Kostya’s height. ‘I didn’t mean to upset Maisy. I’m Maisy’s friend too. I came to bring you both home.’

‘Don’t want to go home. Want to be on holiday.’

‘The villa is holiday,’ explained Maisy, still looking at Alexei uneasily, as if he was liable to spring at her.

Alexei released his breath with a hiss and straightened up, extending his arms to Kostya. ‘Come on, little man. How about I carry you for a bit?’

Kostya looked up at Maisy, and after a hesitation she nodded encouragingly, holding her breath as Alexei lifted the little boy into his arms. For a minute it seemed he might protest, but Alexei held him confidently, and Maisy saw the moment the little body relaxed into the man’s shoulder.

It gave her a chance to observe him more closely. He was wearing jeans and they clung to him like a second skin. They also made him look younger, and it occurred to Maisy for the first time he was really only a few years older than she was. He couldn’t be more than thirty and look at the life he led, the power he wielded, the level of sophistication he wore so casually. Maisy suddenly felt hopelessly out of her depth—and she was—but she had Kostya’s wellbeing to fight for, and that gave her the added push she needed.

And the fact remained he had been gone for an entire week.

‘Where have you been for the last seven days?’ The words were out of her mouth before discretion could check her tongue.

He shrugged. ‘What does it matter? I’m here now.’

He was here now. Maisy simmered on that for a few minutes as they resumed their stroll. She leaned into the pushchair that felt light as a feather now Kostya wasn’t in it.

‘How long will you stay?’ she asked evenly, as if it were not the most important question.

‘I’ve factored in three days.’ He announced it with an air of magnanimity that stole Maisy’s breath away.

Three days! She studied the man beside her. She was aware people were watching them, women were watching him. A couple of beautiful Italian girls perhaps her own age swung past them, sweeping Alexei’s length with unabashed sexual speculation. Maisy blushed for him. Alexei, however, seemed completely unaware of anyone but herself and Kostya. In fact his focus was a little intimidating.

‘Three days isn’t very long,’ she ventured quietly, carefully.

‘It’s all I have.’ His tone was a warning to cease questioning him, to keep her mouth shut. She remembered his statement—’I don’t explain my actions.’ Certainly not to the nanny, she thought wryly.

‘Explain to me why you borrowed Maria’s car and made this very dangerous little trip into town,’ he said in a quiet undertone clearly used to avoid disturbing Kostya.

He had pushed the sunglasses back through his hair revealing those incredible eyes that were every bit as intense as she remembered.

‘It wasn’t dangerous,’ she replied, copying his neutral tone. ‘I’m a good driver and I’m careful.’ Then the truth surfaced and she made a frustrated sound. ‘You try being cooped up in one place for a full seven days.’

He smiled slowly, knowingly. ‘You were bored, dushka?’

Maisy was startled by the smile, the sudden intimacy of his tone. She shook it off with the suspicion he was probably like this with all women under thirty, unthinkingly working them up with throwaway charisma.

‘Not bored, exactly,’ she said uncertainly, wondering how honest she should be.

Your house is full of people who don’t talk to me; Maria and the night nurse have taken over many of the usual calls on my time; I’m only twenty-three and I feel like I’ve been walled up alive some days.

‘I just wanted to look around, get my bearings.’

‘Yes, I saw you getting your bearings on the street. Half the male population of Ravello is going to be on the villa’s doorstep.’

He spoke casually, but there was an edge in his voice.

‘It’s not my fault if Italian men are appreciative of women,’ she replied stiffly. ‘I didn’t invite it.’

‘That dress invites it.’ His tone remained casual, but Maisy heard the censure and stiffened.

‘Are you suggesting I’m trying to pick up?’ she challenged.

Alexei’s expression was taut, hinting at inner tensions she couldn’t guess at. ‘I’m Kostya’s guardian,’ he enunciated plainly. ‘I expect you to behave like a lady and not flaunt yourself.’

Maisy didn’t know what to say. In what way had she flaunted herself? What was wrong with coming into town for the day? What was wrong with her dress? All of a sudden the warmth and freedom of the day dwindled down to a cluster of doubts, and Maisy tugged self-consciously on her skirt. She couldn’t help flashing back to herself in a towel, stunned by his presence in her room. Was that the impression he had of her? A woman who displayed herself to strange men for sex? She cringed at the thought.

The truth wasn’t much better, and it wasn’t fair. It was him. It was because of him she had responded so uninhibitedly. But how could she explain that to him without making even more of a fool of herself?

Kostya had slumped over Alexei’s shoulder, taking in the view from this new height. He looked so comfortable up there Maisy only felt worse.

She had to rid herself of this stupid infatuation. It wasn’t fair to Kostya, and it wasn’t fair to her.

‘You’ve gone very quiet,’ Alexei said in a neutral voice.

‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware I was supposed to entertain you. I wouldn’t want to be accused of flaunting myself.’ Where had that bitter tone come from? She bit her tongue.

Alexei’s eyes swept her body in a way that was disturbingly intimate, met her stormy eyes. ‘You can have a social life here, Maisy. I just don’t want you bringing men back to the villa.’

Maisy almost choked, forced to defend herself. ‘What men? The only men I’ve seen for the past week have been in uniforms, and they barely give me the time of day!’

‘Hence your little day out.’ He spoke so quietly, so reasonably, Maisy could have hit him.

She stopped on the path, aware there were other people around and that Kostya, however young, shouldn’t be overhearing this conversation. ‘I think you’ve made it clear how low your opinion of me can go. I don’t think I should have to defend myself when I’ve done nothing wrong.’

Alexei instantly felt like a jerk. He knew he was being tough on her, but she provoked him. She was so lovely even a sackcloth wouldn’t stop men looking at her, and why it bothered him so much he was struggling to understand.

Because you want her, and if it backfires you’re stuck with her, a cool, cynical voice intervened.

The child heavy in his arms was a reminder of how careful he had to be.

‘I think we should go back,’ he said gruffly. ‘The boy has fallen asleep.’

Maisy didn’t reply. She just jerked the lightweight pushchair around and headed back up the path ahead of him.

It occurred to him she was acting like a girlfriend, not the nanny. And he didn’t have any experience of girlfriends.

Alexei took them back to the villa in his high-speed toy at a reasonable pace, handling the bends with such care and confidence Maisy realised he might have a point about the danger. Maria’s Audi would be returned to her by a despatched member of staff.

There was a taut, tense silence in the car that was tying Maisy’s stomach in knots.

She took a deep breath and examined his hard, uncompromising profile as he negotiated the road. An innocent trip into town had been turned into a man-trawling exercise on her part. He was clearly ready to believe the worst of her because it would make it easier for him to get rid of her when the time came.

Whatever I do, she thought a little desperately, it won’t be enough because he’s decided I’m a party girl. Which was so ludicrous she snorted.

His attention snapped to her. ‘What is it?’

Maisy checked over her shoulder. Kostya’s head was hanging; he was still deeply asleep.

She gave Alexei her best impression of Anais-like insouciance. ‘I was just thinking, if all the men in Ravello are hot for me I’m going to need some evenings off to accommodate them. How about Fridays and Saturdays?’

It was a stupid thing to do, but he was so self-righteous. She wanted to show him how silly all his preconceptions of her actually were. Instead, the moment the words were out of her mouth she knew she had made a mistake.

The car shifted down a gear, slowed, came to a soft standstill on the side of the road. Alexei unsnapped his safety belt, glancing into the backseat at the slumbering infant. Maisy shrank back against the door, suddenly wary of what she’d stirred up.

‘Wh—what are you doing?’ she stammered.

‘I need to make a call,’ he informed her, head averted, scissoring the door open and closed.