One Stolen Kiss (6 page)

“
It’s sarcasm,” Christie replied. “It means you won’t have any luck.”

“
But supposing your friend is starting a new job, and you say to him ‘Good luck with that’ – are you also implying that he is doomed to failure?”

“
Depends on the job,” Christie shrugged, and seemed to suppress a smile, hiding it behind her coffee-cup. “Depends on the friend. So – you want to undermine me, then?”

“
I had to work very, very hard for my inheritance,” he remarked. “Since my father decided I could not be trusted to keep an eye on a few valuables. I had to earn the business empire from scratch. From sizing nuts and bolts, up to works foreman. Had I put those diamonds in the bank as scheduled, I might have got away with a little desk work, seeing a few accounting spreadsheets, and shaking hands with new clients occasionally. But instead, I ran into you. And I was distracted. Goodbye diamonds, hello shipyards.”

Christie’s cup shook a little as she put it down, uneasily.

“So that’s how come…” She drew a vaguely descriptive outline in the air as her eyes skittered briefly down his chest, and then swallowed down whatever she had been about to say. “Never mind.”

“
Never mind what?”

She didn’t answer, and he grinned again, stretching, knowing that she was trying not to look at him.

“Hard work,” he said, and folded his arms, tapping his fingers on his biceps. “So you owe me.”

“
How much do you want?” she asked. “And before you ask, I
can
afford you.”

“
Good to know,” the waiter announced, as he returned with their food. “But you should wait for the bill first. And I always appreciate big tippers.”

They thanked him, and waited for him to disappear again.

“I’ll write you a cheque,” Christie continued, drizzling hot blueberries in syrup over her waffles. “I made plenty on that Malibu portrait last month.”

“
Not what I had in mind.” Adrik did likewise, and hesitated as they both reached for the cream at the same time, allowing her to go first. “I need a very public favour.”

Christie’s spoon stopped halfway to her plate, whipped cream in danger of sliding avalanche-style onto the tablecloth.

“Our engagement,” he clarified, still finding her responses amusing, and reached across to nudge her hand closer to the air above her plate. “It needs to be in the public eye. No holds barred, being seen out together, attending lots of events. And you’ll have to live with me. I don’t want to trip over any new baggage on my doorstep.”

“
In the public eye…” Christie repeated. Her expression was dumbfounded, as if nowhere in her range of comprehension did ‘public’ and ‘engagement’ have any correlation. “Um…”

“
I don’t want anyone to see through it. If anyone can spot a crack, they will try to jam their stiletto heels into it. I have even found cameras planted in my bedroom in the past.”

* * * *

Christie felt herself turning pale.

It was the kind of thing Derek had said to her previously – about people potentially hacking his home security CCTV, or his laptop and tablet webcams. But for him, that was a reason to keep her at a distance, to conceal their relationship.

What Adrik was suggesting now meant the opposite was expected of her.

The sudden sour-sweet tang of blueberry on her tongue made her aware that she had taken her first bite of breakfast without realising, and it was hot.

She took a gulp of cold orange juice.

“
You’re the shipyard welder,” she managed to say. “Sealing up cracks should be your area of expertise.”

Adrik nearly choked on his coffee, and she wondered if she had very badly insulted him. She had been aiming for a mild insult, but remembered too late that the ‘New Yorker’ attitude somewhat magnified everything in translation to his Russian mind-set.

“Don’t look so scared,” he said to her at last, and to her further concern he appeared to be laughing into his napkin. “That was a compliment. Maybe not in New York.”

“
No, we just sue each other over unfilled cracks in New York,” she said coldly, and at his repressed snigger, realised too late that she had not offended him at all, but instead had inadvertently made a
double entendre.
Reddening, she chewed another bite of fluffy waffle, and her stomach added its own insult to her injury by growling in appreciation of the anticipated feast. “I’m a little concerned about what you’re implying.”

“
Of course, what I’m implying is that we should do it on a webcam under a big sign saying ‘Just Married’ and post it online,” he replied sarkily, and dug his fork into his own breakfast. “Don’t be so paranoid…”

“
I’m not paranoid!”

“…
I’m just saying we act like a normal couple.” He paused, his loaded fork only midway from his plate. “You do know how to act normal, I hope?”

Christie took a breath and parted her lips to retort, and it struck her that in fact, she had absolutely no idea what ‘normal’ entailed. Normal for a famous PR consultant expertly concealing his private life, maybe. Normal for a small Manhattan gallery owner hiding the fact that she was the most notorious artist recently courting the critics. And maybe normal for a former finishing school graduate who had never once confided in another soul about that damned debutantes’ ball eleven years ago…

But normal for a normal couple? She was clueless…

“
I’ll wing it,” she shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

Adrik looked for a second as though he had a witty answer for that too, and then changed his mind against voicing it aloud, shaking his head and muttering something to himself wryly in Russian.

“What are you saying?” She frowned at him.

“
Reminding myself that this is business,” he replied, and the sudden switch to seriousness in his voice immediately made her regret asking. “If I can role-play as your artist, you can role-play as my fiancée. We will both be winging it.”

Good point
. Christie swallowed a mouthful too soon, put aside her fork and reached for the juice to help it down. How confident was he going to be if questioned about the paintings?

“
And if your role-play is convincing enough…” His voice lowered as he continued digging through his plate of food. With barely a glance, he reached for her hand across the table with his free one, ceasing the nervous drumming of her fingers on the crumpled napkin. “I won’t have to start pestering you too soon about what happened to my diamonds.”

It starts here
, Christie thought, looking at his fingers entwined with her own, while new sensations snaked up her arm and coiled in her solar plexus, settling even lower down her body.
He means now. We’re not negotiating. It’s already happening.

“
Is everything okay with you two?” The waiter checked in on them, and beamed as they both nodded their thanks. He indicated their hands clasped across the table, in a warm gesture of appreciation, before turning away with a sigh. “Such a cute couple…”

* * * *

Adrik still had hold of her hand as they strolled through JFK International, as if they were magnetised by each other. Inwardly cursing the high heels she still wore, Christie was grateful.

“
Do we have time to shop?” she asked. “I need at least a change of footwear.”

“
Sure.” He glanced around. “There’s a Hermès, Ferragamo – a Victoria’s Secret somewhere too…”

“
You wish.”

“
I’ll be at the news stand.” He grinned. “Do you want a paper?”

“
No thanks.”

A newspaper was the last thing she wanted to see right now, as she headed for the stores, snapping up a practical pair of leather trainers and black suede ballet pumps, some Marc Jacobs cargo-style jeans, a bomber jacket, a couple of plain tanks and tees, a baseball hat, a new pair of Police sunshades, and a handful of extra underwear. Imitating Adrik’s travel-light style, she also replaced the Bloomingdale’s paper holdall with a new sports bag.

“Short-notice trip?” the Victoria’s Secret salesgirl said brightly, as she took payment for the underwear and two sets of the most unsexy pyjamas the store could provide.

“
I don’t do packing,” Christie remarked, tucking her purchases into the sports bag. “Always grab stuff en route. Saves on clothes shopping the rest of the year.”

“
Tax free too,” the salesgirl nodded. “Cool.”

This is where I’m supposed to run for a different plane
, Christie mused.
I slip unnoticed into a different terminal, and tell myself that none of the last eleven years matters and I could probably get a job in a bar somewhere and no-one would recognise me…

“
Oh my God,” she overheard the salesgirl hissing to a colleague as she stood in the store’s entrance, weighing up her chances. “I just served Christie Harding – Adrik Maksimov’s fiancée…”

…
Crap.

“
And look – look! There he is!”

“
Caught you,” Adrik greeted Christie. “Shopping in Victoria’s Secret. Is it my lucky day?”

“
Huh.” She moved the sports bag abruptly out of his reach as he pretended to peek inside.

He reached around as if to grab it, his other arm snaked around her waist, and he surprised her with a kiss on the neck. Christie gasped, all the more alarmed by the inner molten lava feelings that immediately ran amok from his touch.

“People are staring,” she whispered.

“
Yeah, let’s head out of here,” he said, straightening up. “Before I start to enjoy that part too much.”

“
Can I change first?”

“
Of course. I’ll even look the other way. But I think the other people might still be staring.”

“
I mean, go to the Ladies’ room.” She pushed him irritably on the shoulder while he grinned down at her.

“
Why would I want to go there, with you taking your clothes off out here?”

God, he’s so infuriating.
Christie changed in a second washroom for the second time already that morning, feeling like a recidivist fugitive on the run, but glad to be out of Derek’s Goldman-Digger dumpster clothes. She was sorely tempted to stuff them in the bathroom trash bin, but knew that nothing would interest airport security more on a quiet morning than a heap of abandoned high-end clothing and the sales tickets from a bunch of new ones. It could all go in a charity shop in London tomorrow instead.

Seeing herself in new gear definitely helped. She tugged down the hem of the pale pink tee a little further over her hips in the Marc Jacobs jeans. She didn’t want to see anyone who resembled one of Derek’s alleged ex-girlfriends gazing mournfully back at her from the mirror. Or out of some cheap gossipy magazine cover.

Her cell buzzed as she shrugged on the bomber jacket. She opened the notifications, wondering if Derek had finally sensed her thoughts and was about to admit his mistake in the nick of time, tell her she wasn’t like any of the other women he’d dated in the past and whatever she was going through, they would deal with it together…

Text message from
ADRIK: What’s taking so long? Don’t make me come in there. I mean it – women’s washrooms smell weird. X.

“
And what exactly would you know about women’s washrooms?” she demanded as she emerged, smirking a little in spite of herself.

“
Maybe one day you’ll find out,” he suggested, taking her hand again as they headed for their private charter check-in. The warmth ran up her arm, and it wasn’t just the new sneakers that made her feel as though she was gliding on air beside him. “I was corrupted by a very naughty Swiss finishing school debutante eleven years ago. It seems I acquired a taste for risk afterwards.”

All Christie could summon in response, through the pulse racing around her body at the reminder of why she was even with him now, was the thought
Oooer…

* * * *

“Do you want to see the paper?” Adrik asked her, sensing that she might need distracting during take-off.

If her mood had turned any darker in the last few minutes… She was staring numbly out of the windows, her face the perfect representation of someone leaving behind a meticulously-crafted life – before she had a chance to live it. As if she was unable to complete the building of a dream house at the very last hurdle, and had been forced to give it up to the clutches of some faceless bank.

“No, thank you,” she muttered.

“
It’s not bad. Take a look.”

She dragged her gaze from the window as he held the page in front of her.

Someone – he didn’t know who, maybe Eddie or Doug – had snapped a picture of them standing together at the mic in
Harding’s
last night. It must have been taken right after he said that only she knew the truth about him, prompting her to look up into his eyes.