The Russian's Ultimatum by Michelle Smart

away.
    ‘I know.’ She turned her face back to the window before he could read what was written on it.
    After brushing his teeth, he poured himself a glass of water and padded around the shelter turning off all the lights bar the small lamp near where Emily sat curled like a cat.
    Her concentration was firmly focussed on the storm outside, yet he could feel her awareness of him as keenly as he felt his own awareness of her.
    Did she realise she’d been twirling that same curl round her finger for the past hour?
    He stripped to his boxers and slid under the covers. Usually he slept nude but tonight he felt it more appropriate to wear something. He didn’t want her feeling uncomfortable with him. ‘Goodnight, Emily.’
    She didn’t look at him. ‘Night.’
    His eyes wouldn’t close. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop his mind drifting into what would happen if she
did
join him in the bed. He didn’t think he’d ever felt the blood running through his veins so keenly, a thick desire that, if he’d been alone, he’d be able to do something about. If he’d been with any other woman, he’d have been able to do something about it too. Since making his fortune, he’d never been rebuffed by a woman. But he’d never felt a woman’s disinterest in his money as keenly as he did with Emily. His wealth meant nothing to her.
    She was only here on Aliana Island with him, in a storm shelter, out of sufferance.
    No, he corrected himself. She was here out of love. Love for her father.
    She was also a thief, he reminded himself. However good her intentions, she’d stolen her father’s pass key, incited someone into giving her the code—he would find out who as soon as he returned to the UK—and had intended to steal every scrap of data from his hard drive. If he hadn’t returned earlier from Milan than intended, she would have got away with it.
    And yet...
    Her actions had been born out of desperation. Born out of love.
    As sleep continued to elude him, he cursed that he hadn’t sent her to the staff shelter. Forget all his good reasons not to have done; for the amount he paid them, his staff could have put up with Emily for one night. Sleep was an essential function of his life. He’d never forgotten the words of his doctors when he’d been a child.
Sleep will help you get better,
they’d told him. And he
had
got better. He’d recovered. He’d beaten the odds and he’d survived.
    He heard movement—Emily quietly making herself a hot drink before settling back on the armchair.
    Pascha willed sleep to come quickly.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    S LEEP DIDN ’ T COME . Time dragged ever more slowly. But Pascha must have drifted off at some point, for one minute Emily was there and the next she was gone.
    Rubbing his eyes, he sat up. The armchair she’d been sitting in was empty. The small lamp still glowed.
    He checked his watch and saw it was three a.m.
    He looked through the porthole. It appeared the worst of the storm was over. The trees still swayed but the rain had stopped.
    Stopping only to pull on a pair of shorts, he turned the handle. The door was unlocked. Stepping outside, he found her huddled up in the fleece blanket on the bench in front of the shelter.
    The chill of the breeze hit him immediately. Not all the storm clouds had disappeared but right above Aliana Island they had cleared enough to reveal a black night sky alight with stars.
    She turned her face to him. Under the glow of the outside light he could see her desolation.
    ‘It’s three o’clock,’ he said gently, crouching down to her height, noting that she’d taken the padded mats off the dining table chairs and placed them along the bench to sit on.
    She nodded, blinking rapidly. She cleared her throat. ‘I needed some air. I’ll come back in if the wind picks up any more.’
    She isn’t a child,
he reminded himself. If she wanted to sit out in the cold wind, then that was her business. But the look on her face reminded him of a child. Emily