ruefully, marvelling that she had for a while felt quite warm towards the young woman, for it was obvious to her now that Lara could never have honestly returned that friendliness. Had Lara been jealous of Kat’s relationship with her boss? Was Lara in love with Mikhail?
Her cases having already been collected, Kat climbed the glass staircase for the very last time. She wouldn’t miss the fancy stairs, she thought glumly. They were a colourfully confusing nightmare to use safely at night. From above her she could hear the calls of the crew as they made preparations for the helicopter to take off. As she emerged into the bright sunlight of a beautiful day Mikhail appeared, shocking her, for she had honestly believed that she would not see him again before she left. Sheathed in a lightweight designer beige suit teamed with a silk tie the colour of bronze, he looked incredibly handsome and incredibly assured. Certainly he bore no resemblance to a man who had endured a disturbed night, she conceded unhappily.
Mikhail stared at her, black diamond eyes narrowed and intense, a tiny muscle pulling taut at the corner of his unsmiling mouth. ‘Kat …’
‘Goodbye,’ Kat told him briskly, baring her teeth in a resolute smile
‘I don’t want to say goodbye …’ The words might have been physically wrenched from Mikhail because he clamped his handsome mouth shut again as if an involuntary admission had been dragged from him.
‘But we must,’ Kat countered with quiet dignity, nodding an acknowledgement at Stas, who was stationed tensely by the rail about ten feet away.
‘You’re wrong … there is no must.’
Kat blinked and frowned and focused her attention on the helicopter and all the fuss taking place around it that suggested that the craft was ready for an imminent departure.
‘Stay …’ Mikhail ground out with staggering abruptness.
Her head swivelled back to him, green eyes wide with disbelief. ‘What on earth are you saying?’
His face was taut with self-discipline. ‘I want you to stay with me.’
‘But it’s all organised that I’m leaving … You organised it, for goodness’ sake!’ she reminded him in angry bewilderment.
The pilot came to a halt six feet away and informed Mikhail that the helicopter was good to go.
Mikhail ignored him, but as Kat took a step in the pilot’s direction a hand like an iron vice closed round her forearm to prevent her. ‘Stay!’ he ground out again between visibly clenched even white teeth.
‘I can’t!’ Kat gasped strickenly, baffled by his behaviour and appalled to feel a giant wash of tears welling up at the backs of her eyes as if all the stress, all the unhappiness she had undergone over the previous twenty-four hours was finally set to overflow.
Mikhail closed his free hand over her other forearm, holding her captive in front of him. Thickly lashed black eyes clashed with hers and there was an urgency there that she had never seen before. ‘I need you to stay,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘I need you to stay because I can’t let you go.’
And that plea moved her and made her listen and look as nothing else could have done. For the space of an impossibly stressful minute she had thought she was dealing with a male whim voiced on impulse and most probably motivated by sexual desire. But, ‘I need you,’ from a male as incredibly self-sufficient and reserved as Mikhail carried serious weight with her. ‘You’re hurting my arms,’ she framed shakily, because his grip was too tight.
He gave a muffled curse as his long brown fingers sprang open to free her, and he shot something in Russian at Stas before bending to scoop Kat up into his strong arms and stride back indoors with her again.
‘This can’t be happening—this isn’t right!’ Kat protested vehemently.
‘It is the first right thing I have done this week,’ Mikhail informed her with immoveable conviction as he carted her into the salon and out to the private deck, where he sank down on a sofa with her still clasped firmly in his arms. ‘You are staying with me, moyo zolotse—’
Kat was thoroughly bemused by his forceful behaviour. ‘But you can’t simply change your mind like that at the last minute.’
Shrewd black eyes gazed down in challenge at her. ‘If I recognise a wrong decision, should I not put it right? Kat—have you any idea how rarely I admit to being in the wrong?’
Kat had an excellent idea, but he had plunged her into turmoil. She had hyped herself up to leave him and it had taken every ounce of her strength to retain her composure in the face of that challenge. His sudden change of heart, however, had steamrollered over her defensive barriers as nothing else could have done. ‘I can’t just stay with you,’ she said again, her voice shaky and lacking its usual energy. ‘I’ve got a life and a family to get back to, Mikhail.’
Her lips parted again. ‘You were finished with me. It was over … that’s what you wanted—’
‘If it was genuinely over, I’d have let you leave. Keeping you was a gut instinct,’ Mikhail confessed harshly.
A gut instinct? Where did that leave her? One minute he was getting rid of her, the next he was snatching her back from the brink. ‘But what happens now?’ she whispered unsteadily, suddenly cold and shivering even in the protective circle of his arms.
His powerful chest expanded as he breathed in deep. ‘I take you home with me.’
Her brows climbed. ‘You take me home with you? Am I a pet all of a sudden?’
‘I’m asking you to move in with me. I’ve never asked a woman to do that before,’ Mikhail revealed quietly.
Kat examined the idea, taken aback by it and then alarmed by how much she liked the images springing to mind. But it was a commitment, far more of a commitment than acting as a man’s companion and lover on board a yacht for a month. Yes, it was definitely a commitment, she registered dizzily, and suddenly her eyes were overflowing with the tears she had held back with such tenacity.
‘What’s wrong?’ Mikhail demanded, a long forefinger skimming the glistening trail of moisture marking her cheek.
‘Nothing! I’m just leaking!’ Kat gasped defensively, dashing the tears away with an impatient hand. ‘But I can’t just move in with you. I have commitments too—’
‘Your sisters? I will look after them as if they were my own flesh and blood,’ Mikhail told her with a sudden expansive smile.
‘But I’ve to sort out the farmhouse, make arrangements—’
‘You will leave all such responsibilities to me. You will move in with me, take care of me and my home and that is all you need to worry about in the future. Is that understood?’
Kat closed her eyes tight because the tears were still welling up and she was biting back a sob and loving and hating him simultaneously: loving him for recognising that they had found something special, hating him for springing it on her in such a last minute way that she couldn’t be fully convinced by it. ‘What if you change your mind again?’ she asked in a wobbly undertone. ‘What if this isn’t what you want in a few weeks’ time?’
‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take. I will always be honest with you and I don’t want to lose you.’
Kat swallowed back the thickness in her throat and struggled to breathe at a regular rate again. She supposed she couldn’t expect him to say much more, for they would both be on the same learning curve together. He didn’t want to lose her yet he had very nearly let her go. How very close he had come to doing that would probably always haunt her. If she had left on that helicopter, would he have come after her?
‘I own a country house that I believe you will like,’ Mikhail volunteered. ‘You can invite your sisters there, treat it as though it was your own home and next week you can attend Luka’s wedding with