The Only Woman to Defy Him

CHAPTER THIRTEEN


HE NEITHER NAGGED nor begged.

Alina wanted him to, though, but it was all over by ten past nine on Monday.

‘Well done!’ Elizabeth said. ‘Demyan called and said how well you’d done and he’s forwarded a very glowing reference.’ Alina closed her eyes. ‘You’ll go places now, Alina.’

Places that she didn’t want to go, yet in his black way, with his glowing reference behind her, Demyan was pushing her towards her vision of safe, rather than towards being the woman she really wanted to be.

‘I’ve got a very nice position in the CBD,’ Elizabeth went on. ‘It’s for three months and it’s a full-time position.’

‘I’ll get back to you.’ Alina said, when usually she’d have jumped at the chance of three months’ full time work.

She should have stood her ground with Demyan, Alina knew that. She knew she should have had a little more faith in them.

But, simply, she didn’t.

When the doorbell rang her heart leapt in foolish hope. She peered out of the window and saw the silver of Demyan’s car.

She almost wept in relief as she opened the door but instead of Demyan it was Boris with a leather-bound folder.

‘Mr Zukov has asked for the return of any keys and also the elevator pass.’

‘Of course.’ She got them from her bag and signed them over.

‘He’ll organise the leased paintings to be returned once the property sale has been confirmed.’

‘Leased?’

He handed her a contract.

When it was over with Demyan it was completely over.

‘That’s not necessary.’

Alina took the paper, and stared at it for a moment.

‘Could you pass on a message?’ Alina asked.

‘Of course.’

‘Remind him that the seemingly worst PA in living memory had his home sold in just over a week.’

She closed the door but less than twelve hours after she’d denied him she was calling his phone—she didn’t need Boris to pass on her messages, she would tell him herself.

Of course Demyan had blocked her number and it hurt, it hurt like hell, it hurt way more than it had when her father had done the same.

He had severed every avenue.

* * *

Over the next couple of weeks Alina became almost as superstitious as Demyan.

If she turned off her phone and didn’t check it for an hour, with no cheating, he’d call her.

He didn’t.

If she was cheerful and happy at the restaurant, maybe she’d turn around and find him watching her.

It never happened.

She turned down another job offer from Elizabeth but, the golden PA she was now, Elizabeth persisted.

‘Two months’ work in London?’ Elizabeth offered. ‘It’s an amazing package, actually...’ And Alina listened as she heard she’d be flown there and her rent would be paid, because with Demyan’s reference behind her there was nothing she could not achieve.

‘No, thank you.’

‘We have had a call though that you might be able to deal with. Apparently he left a jacket at a property in the Blue Mountains.’ Alina frowned. As far as she could remember, his jacket had been in the car. ‘Normally you’d tell people to post it, but given it’s Demyan I’m sure he’d expect the golden gloves. It will add up to four hours’ work for you. If you want to drive over and get it I can ask where to forward it.’

‘I could drop it into the hotel.’ Alina’s voice was a husk. Finally there was an almost legitimate reason to see him.

‘Oh, no,’ Elizabeth said. ‘He’s back in Russia.’

Stupid to expect or hope for anything else really.

No goodbye, no kiss, nothing.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known how it would end from the start, Alina told herself. After all, her first introduction to Demyan had been that teary trio leaving.

Why should she be different?

Why should she think that what they’d had had been any more?

Because it had been more, she tried to tell herself, but wavered, because in Demyan’s arms she felt beautiful and sexy and wanton, but out of them she was well above her ideal weight and as bumbling and shy as ever before.


‘Oh...’ Elizabeth continued. ‘And the real estate agent called. The painting in the bedroom—the prospective buyer wants to know the artist...’

Alina felt her heart squeeze and then stopped herself. It was Demyan, just trying to boost her confidence, trying to buy her the career that she wanted.

‘I can’t remember,’ she answered.

* * *

It was a beautiful drive, even if her heart was heavy. She remembered each bend in the road from the last time she’d been here.

And it hurt to remember,

Hurt even more to drive into the farm where she had spent that glorious afternoon with Demyan, to look over to the creek and see the green trails of the willow dipping into the water, to remember the balmy shade and the cool green light in the place he had taken her and made her his lover.

‘Alina.’ Ross looked a lot younger and a whole lot more relaxed than the last time she had seen him. ‘Thank you so much for coming. We tried ringing but we couldn’t get through.’ He led her into the house. ‘It’s a very expensive jacket.’

He probably had five hundred of them, Alina thought, but she just gave them a smile and thanked them.

‘Would you like to stay for lunch?’ Mary offered.

‘No, thank you.’ Alina forced that smile. If she stayed she’d end up breaking down.

‘Do stay,’ Mary insisted. ‘We want to pick your brains. Are you in touch with Demyan?’

‘Not really.’

‘Only we’re trying to work out how to thank him.’ Mary shook her head. ‘How do you thank someone for that, though?’

‘For...?’ Alina frowned.

‘Giving us the farm!’

Alina blinked. They clearly thought she already knew as Mary continued. ‘I got the shock of my life when I opened the door and there he was with all the paperwork handing over the farm to us—I thought it must be a mistake, but...’ Mary started crying and Ross continued.

‘Never for a moment did I expect him to do that. I remember him as a teenager, a right sullen young man he was. “There’s trouble,” I said to Mary, but how wrong I was. He’s saved us twice.’

Alina did stay for lunch. Ross and Mary wanted to reminisce and Alina so badly wanted to hear, she wanted to know everything about Demyan. She wanted to gather every little piece of information that she could and just take it out piece by piece and, no, she was nowhere near over him.

Soon she would be over him, Alina said to herself, but she knew she was lying.

‘He used to steal food when he first lived here,’ Mary reminisced. ‘Katia couldn’t understand where it all went then she found it stashed in his bedroom.’ Mary smiled. ‘I guess none of us have ever been truly hungry before.’

‘Were they close?’ Alina asked. ‘Demyan and his aunt?’

‘Eventually,’ Mary said. ‘She was ever so proud of him. I remember his wedding...’ Her voice trailed off. ‘It was hard, Katia had just been diagnosed.’

They spoke for hours and at the end of it Alina felt drained, just not quite drained enough to leave him behind for ever.

‘I was wondering...’ She felt awkward, standing at their door, holding onto his jacket and making such a request, but Alina knew it was her only chance. ‘Could I take a walk?’

‘Of course you can.’ Mary smiled. ‘You must miss the country, it stays in your blood.’

‘I’ll say goodbye here,’ Alina said. ‘It’s been lovely, talking.’

She walked down to the river and slipped under the tree. Yes, she could take photos and try to capture it in her art, but photos weren’t the same. She could feel it, she would remember it for ever, lying here, being made love to by him.

Alina buried her head in the silk lining of his jacket and wept till there were no tears left, wept as she never had before and hoped she never would again, because she felt so sick after.

It was just hard and a shock, such a shock that he’d sold the house.

The silk of his jacket was cool on her hot, swollen cheeks as Alina got to the gulping stage.

She parted the branches and looked over to the farmhouse where a young Demyan had once lived. The same house he’d hoped to raise his child in but Nadia had had other ideas.

Alina didn’t.

She’d dared to dream, she’d been foolish enough to let her mind wander, but this was where the dream ended.

She’d imagined them here in this house with their baby and now that too had been taken away from her.

‘We’ll find somewhere,’ Alina said to her late period and very sore breasts.

She was still too scared to confirm it.

She was, though.

She knew it.

She’d had her cry.

Alina threw the jacket on the back seat of her car.

Now she just had to get on with things.