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And that experience haunted her. She hadn’t realised how much until she’d met Serge. It hung over her like Damocles’ sword. She was frightened of giving too much of herself to him, of opening herself up and having Serge reduce it to something sordid.
She thought she knew him—he was sweet and generous and attentive—but waking up alone now, as she had on that first morning, brought it back to her. How they had met, where they were now—in a swish hotel, with him continuing on with his working life, her life on hiatus.
Sitting up, she looked dismally around the room.
She never got over the luxury. But it felt empty without him, and worse, it made her feel uneasy. After all, it wasn’t as if they actually had a proper relationship.
The half-open door came wide and Serge wandered in with two coffee mugs, his eyes settling on her. ‘You’re awake, dushka.’
‘Serge.’ She couldn’t hide her pleasure at seeing him.
‘Cover yourself up, or I won’t be responsible for my actions. And we have to move. I’m taking you to the Hamptons for the weekend.’
‘Now?’
His gaze settled on her naked body. ‘You’re purposefully making this difficult. Da—now.’
Clementine leapt out of bed and ran for the door.
Serge watched her bottom wobble tantalisingly out of view. He liked waking up in the morning with Clementine warm and sweet, draped across him, and he wasn’t about to pretend even to himself that he didn’t; he even got a kick out of phoning her during the day and hearing that breathless ‘Serge’, as if she couldn’t believe he had called her and would drop everything to fly to his side. Which she never did. Not Miss Independent. For all her demonstrative shows of affection he had a sense of her hovering like a butterfly, not quite sure of her perch. The analogy was apt—delicate, whimsical, difficult to hold. Her elusiveness remained, despite the week they had spent together.
It probably explained her hold over him.
It was clearer to him than ever that being a girl on call to a rich man was not a scenario Clementine truly understood. He was beginning to suspect he was her first foray into this world. If her wide-eyed reaction to the penthouse suite hadn’t told him that, her refusal to wear the diamond necklace confirmed it.
He was beginning to suspect she had no idea what any of this was about—and that made two of them.
The helicopter ride out was thrilling. The view of the city below was like a movie. As they came in over the Atlantic coast Clementine leaned down to take in the curling breakers on the beach below.
‘You have no fear, kisa,’ Serge shouted above the roar of the rotorblade.
‘I have a few, Slugger—just not of heights,’ she sang back. ‘Tell me that is not where we’re staying?’
A beautiful large white house, set down beside dunes falling away to the beach.
On the helipad he took her hand in a casual gesture and led her towards the house. ‘Welcome home, Clementine.’
‘You live here?’
‘I’m thinking about buying it. I’m leasing at the moment.’
‘What about St Petersburg?’
‘Winter. When I can.’
For the first time she realised it made sense for him to have a base in the US. It hadn’t occurred to her before. His business interests in the main were here. He wouldn’t be living out of hotels.
He was just living in a hotel with her.
Unease slid through her but she pushed it aside. She was here now. He’d brought her here now.
‘Can you take me on a tour of the house?’
He gave her that flashing grin that told her he enjoyed surprising her.
‘It will be my pleasure,’ he said, with a note of formality that shouldn’t have surprised her. He’d pulled out this traditional Russian male several times since she’d been with him and it always got to her.
It made her trust him a little more—made her want things from him she couldn’t have.
Which was dangerous thinking. Just looking around this huge, airy house she couldn’t help but be conscious of the gulf between them. He took this level of luxury for granted. She wondered what he would say if he saw her shared flat, with its two bedrooms and a showerhead over the bathtub? Picturing Serge in her tiny bolthole brought a wry smile to her lips. Picturing him in her bath made her laugh out loud, and he angled her a curious but amused look.
‘What is funny, kisa?’
‘I was thinking—what’s a middle-class girl from Melbourne doing in a Russian billionaire’s summer house in East Hampton?’ she replied cheekily.
‘Enjoying the amenities,’ he shot back. ‘It’s all at your disposal, Clementine. The tennis court, pool, games room, theatre, and of course the Atlantic Ocean.’
