Innocent in the Ivory Tower Read Online Free PDF Page A

nanny.
    No, cancel that last appellation. The red-haired sex kitten, curled up in her chair and pretending to sleep whilst he endeavoured to make sense of the figures being pumped into his email from New York. No sleep, the altitude, and now the unexpected introduction of his libido into the equation meant he was in danger of making a mistake that could cost a great many people their jobs.
    He gestured to one of the attendants—a young guy named Leroy. Alexei didn’t hire attractive female staff any more for his private jet. They tended to lose focus on their job.
    ‘Leroy,’ he said. ‘Miss Edmonds. Move her. I don’t want her in my eyeline.’
    Leroy looked from the sleeping bundle that was Maisy back to his boss. Alexei knew what the man was thinking but would never say, so he added tiredly, ‘She’s not asleep. She’s faking it.’
    Maisy gritted her teeth. She had heard every word Alexei Ranaevsky had uttered since he’d sat down over an hour ago. Usually in Russian, usually brief and to the point. He hadn’t addressed a single syllable to her. It was as if she had simply ceased to be. But apparently she was distracting to his eyeline.
    She lifted her head as Leroy approached her. He bent down and said in a soft voice, ‘Miss Edmonds—’
    ‘I know.’ Maisy gave him a resigned smile, then yawned, ruining it. She stretched and gathered up her angora travellingblanket, and climbed out of the luxurious seat. She looked pointedly at Alexei, who had removed his jacket and was propped with his feet up, scrolling through the information on the state-of-the-art laptop positioned in front of him. He didn’t even acknowledge her, his amazing bone structure taut under this artificial light. He looked more tired than she felt, which was saying something.
    ‘Put Miss Edmonds in a bed,’ he said as she passed by him.
    Alexei heard a faint, ‘Thank you,’ in that sweet, tangy voice of hers, and felt his whole body shift instinctively in her direction.
    Down boy.
He growled. This wasn’t the time or the place to indulge his sudden craving for soft-eyed redheads. He’d had six long months of not particularly satisfying sex with Tara. Five months and twenty-nine days too long, in his opinion. Although not in Tara’s. She was telling the press they were still ‘good friends’ two days after he broke up with her. Ironic, as he’d never had a female friend—and if he did he wouldn’t choose Tara.
    It was complicated. Maisy Edmonds was in his household, for now. Although she was no nanny. She’d lied to him straight up—another element to keep in mind. He had a fair idea who she was: one of Anais’s crew of hangers-on. Somehow she’d inveigled her way into the house and into Kostya’s life. If Leo was alive he might have vouched for her—a single word would have sufficed. But if Leo had been alive Alexei would never have met her in such fraught circumstances, leading to such a stupid indiscretion.
    Which was bound to happen again.
    The fierceness of her sexual response had taken even him off guard. It had turned blind need into something more exciting, edgier. It had been he who was out of control, he recognised. Whilst she had met him every inch of the way, she had also backed down fast. Meeting that resistance had saved him from a very big mistake, and possibly a costly one. Because there were always consequences.
    He didn’t do casual sex. And he didn’t do sex full stop without a condom—which he wasn’t carrying. He could only have her word on where she’d been. He wondered if Leo … Then he closed down that thought, because it suddenly made him very angry. An image of Maisy Edmonds in a towel, rubbing herself against a series of men, flashed through his tired brain, firing his temper, and he swore.
    It wasn’t going to happen—not in the coming days and weeks anyway. The dust still had to settle on Leo’s portfolio, and more importantly there was his child.
    Kostya had been unexpectedly lively