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  Or at least, she had been, before Angela died and she lost the only family she had left.

  “Have you considered, Claude, that perhaps Miss Miller’s taste runs to ‘catching’ a woman rather than a man?”

  Until that moment, Gaia hadn’t even been sure that Gregori Markovic was still in the building.

  But having spoken with him earlier, and being totally familiar—spine-tinglingly so—with that hard voice that nonetheless evoked unwanted thoughts of sinful pleasure, she knew she would now recognize it anywhere.

  “Tell me, Miss Miller, do you intend to divest yourself of all your clothes right here in the casino or are you happy with just removing your shoes?”

  “Gregori.” Claude turned to greet the older man with obvious pleasure. “Did you have a good visit to Venice with your sister?”

  “Very good, thank you, Claude.” Gregori answered the Frenchman, but that dark gaze remained fixed enigmatically on Gaia, who had taken advantage of Claude’s distraction—thank you, Claude—to slip her shoes back on.

  It was probably as well that Claude had been the one to answer the other man, otherwise she might have given the sarcastic Russian a reply he would probably have taken exception to.

  But maybe that had been his intention?

  It certainly felt as if he was baiting her.

  She was also a little surprised to learn this man had a sister. A woman as cold and sarcastic as him, perhaps? He certainly—

  “Miss Miller?”

  Too late, Gaia realized she should have taken the conversation between the two men as her chance to slip away rather than wondering what Gregori’s sister was like.

  He, of course, looked as perfectly groomed as he had when he arrived the previous evening, his suit and shirt unwrinkled, as if he had just stepped out of a men’s fashion magazine rather than spent the past nine hours working—or whatever it was he did up there alone in his office.

  She forced a smile to her glossed lips, although she couldn’t quite bring herself to meet that dark and piercing gaze as she stared at his broad shoulders instead. “I’m sure it’s of no real interest to you, Mr. Markovic, but the answer to your first question is that I’m not interested in ‘catching’ anyone, neither a man nor a woman.”

  “Which is no answer at all,” he drawled.

  “And the answer to your second question,” she continued firmly, “is that I only took off my shoes because they have to be man’s idea of instruments of torture.” Had her answer been too sharp, too challenging for a mere employee?

  She hadn’t meant it to be, but this man only had to speak, it seemed, to cause her defensive hackles to rise.

  Gregori easily heard the slight edge beneath Gaia Miller’s attempt to keep her tone light, and found himself inwardly amused by it.

  Apart from Nikolai and Dair Grayson, the man who was now his brother-in-law, he had been surrounded by yes-men all his life. Yes-women too, but that was usually followed by a breathless ‘More, Gregori’.

  A thought that instantly led his mind to turn to Gaia Miller lying naked on dark silk sheets, with those lush breasts and thighs spread out like a feast in front of him.

  An imagined pleasure that instantly caused his cock to swell and throb.

  Something that had been happening on and off all night as he found himself more often than not watching Gaia Miller on the security screen as she sashayed about the casino in those fuck-me shoes, tits bouncing, hips swaying provocatively.

  And Gregori didn’t have time for those sorts of distractions. Not now, not ever.

  But neither had he enjoyed hearing Gaia engaged in teasing conversation with his bar and club manager as he passed through the club on his way to his waiting car. Then, instead of leaving for the night, as had been his intention, he’d made a U-turn and entered the casino.

  His jaw tightened as he looked coldly at the reason for his abrupt change of plans. “If you will excuse us, Claude?” he prompted evenly as his gaze remained firmly fixed on Gaia. “I wish to talk to Miss Miller alone.” He didn’t wait for the Frenchman to answer before taking a firm grasp of Gaia’s arm and pulling her along with him as he returned to his office on the third floor.

  Chapter 3

  Gaia guessed that the past nine hours had merely been the calm before the storm.

  That Gregori Markovic had just been biding his time—getting his money’s worth out of an employee—before he decided to show her the door.

  Except he wasn’t going anywhere near the front or back door of the club, but instead was obviously taking her back upstairs to his private office. The scene of her last humiliation. No doubt with the intent of terminating her employment.

  Fine. She could live with that.

  Even if it was annoying as well as inconvenient.

  The latter because it meant she would now have to find some other way to find out who was responsible for Angela’s death.

  The former because although her behavior may have looked a little odd earlier, if Gregori had checked with Claude—and she was sure that Nikolai would have done that for him—then he would now know that everything she’d told him had been the truth.

  Well, maybe not the bit about cleaning his office specifically, but he certainly had no proof that she had done anything wrong.

  Nor did he have the right to drag her up to his office, tottering about on these uncomfortable heels, and treat her as if she were a naughty schoolgirl about to be reprimanded by the headmaster—

  Maybe she shouldn’t have allowed her thoughts to drift in that direction!

  Because she now had an image of herself bent over the front of that beautiful mahogany desk, her skirt pushed up to her waist, panties around her ankles as Gregori landed smack after smack on the rapidly reddening globes of her bared bottom.

  Where the hell had that come from?

  She had never so much as thought—never in her wildest imaginings had she ever—

  She wasn’t into bottom spanking.

  Wasn’t into violence at all.

  It had to be this man’s fault, with his arrogant aloofness and cold, dark eyes and the power he exuded so effortlessly.

  Then why did just thinking of having her bottom bared, of having this man’s elegant hands on her and the sound of those smacks against her bared flesh, now caused her nipples to harden into painful peaks and the juices to flow between her thighs?

  It was because of him.

  Much as Gaia had tried, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking of being in Gregori Markovic’s office with him the previous evening. About him and Nikolai Volkov, as she kneeled beneath Gregori’s desk and he sat in front of her sporting an obvious erection, with The Wolf standing behind her rubbing his equally hard arousal against her bottom.

  It had been so damned hot.

  And it shouldn’t have been!

  It should have been scary, not arousing, to know she was physically trapped between two such inherently powerful men.

  Anger, with herself as well as with both of them, now caused her to pull her arm out of Gregori’s grasp, and to hell with whether or not it left a bruise. “I’m quite capable of walking unassisted,” she snapped her impatience with his high-handedness as he turned to look down at her with cool enquiry.

  And immediately wobbled precariously on the ridiculous high-heels.

  “It’s been a long night and I’m tired,” she defended resentfully as she came to a halt. She placed the palm of her hand against the wall so that she could remove the offending shoes.

  Which maybe wasn’t such a good idea, because when she straightened to continue walking to Gregori’s office, she realized he now towered over her five feet and five inches in height by a good foot.

  As if he wasn’t already intimidating enough.

  Gregori held back a smile as he glanced down and saw Gaia’s sudden reduction in height had only succeeded in making her look even more irritated than she already was.

  Had her initial irritation been with him specifically
, because he had interrupted her conversation with Rick Turner and Claude le Coeur, or had someone else done something this evening to upset her?

  None of the guests this evening had seemed to behave in an overtly familiar manner towards her. The amount of time Gregori had spent watching her on the security monitor assured that he would have known if someone had.

  What he had noticed, however, was that she was extremely popular with the men who worked here as well as the male members of Utopia. Understandably so.

  Gregori had wondered earlier tonight what on earth had possessed Claude to employ a woman so unlike the other tall and slender female members of the staff, but he had quickly realized exactly why it was he paid Claude such an exorbitant salary, as he watched the preference so many of the men showed toward Gaia Miller.

  Because they found that curvy body in the tight shirt and skirt as fascinating to watch as he did.

  Just as he guessed that those men—without exception—had imagined wrapping that deep red hair around their fingers to hold Gaia in place as they claimed those pouting, red-glossed lips with their own.

  Gaia Miller, whether she realized it or not, was a cock-tease.

  Her complete lack of guile as she moved effortlessly about the casino serving drinks told him she didn’t know.

  Gregori didn’t even want to think of how much time he had spent tonight imagining Gaia beneath his desk again, but this time with those red-glossed lips wrapped about his cock as her wicked little tongue did sinfully wonderful things to that sensitive knot of muscle just beneath his—

  He determinedly dragged his thoughts back above his waistline as his erection began to throb demandingly. “Sit down,” he instructed abruptly once they entered his office and he was able to sit behind the desk.

  Only to give a pained wince as his engorged cock protested at the confining movement.

  “I said sit down, Miss Miller,” he repeated harshly as he realized she had made no move to occupy the chair opposite his own. “I seem to remember you were complaining about the abuse of those shoes to your feet earlier?”

  “I wasn’t complaining as such, merely stating a fact.” Her cheeks became flushed as Gregori turned that remark back on her. “The shoes you expect us to wear are totally unsuited to seven hours of walking around in them!” She sat down on the edge of the seat opposite him and dropped the offending shoes onto the floor beside her.

  His eyebrows rose. “That I expect you to wear?”

  She shrugged. “They appear to be part of the uniform.”

  Gregori gave a tight smile as he sat forward to lean his elbows on the desktop, steepling his fingers together in front of him. “Claude informs me the male customers tend to buy more drinks if they’re served by a beautiful woman wearing fu—high-heeled shoes.”

  “I’m sure they do,” she acknowledged dryly. “And I’m not in the least offended by the phrase ‘fuck-me shoes’.” Mockery now gleamed in those golden, cat-like eyes.

  Gregori wasn’t even sure he would have noticed this woman among his other female employees if their initial meeting hadn’t been so memorable. Now he couldn’t seem to stop noticing everything about her. The perfect arch of auburn brows over those golden-colored eyes. The slight dimple in her right cheeks when she smiled. There was also a light dusting of enticing freckles visible at the tops of her creamy breasts.

  Ripe breasts that he wanted to bare and explore fully with his lips and teeth, listening to her moans of pleasure as he suckled her juicy nipples into the heat of his mouth.

  “Neither am I,” his voice sounded like a husky throb even to his own ears. “And I’m sure some of the female members of Utopia will also have noticed how sexy your legs look above those fuck-me shoes.” He used the phrase deliberately this time, knowing by the sudden rush of blood to Gaia’s cheeks that she wasn’t as blasé about the comment as she pretended to be.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Markovic, but it seems to me that you have a fantasy about watching two women together?” she taunted knowingly.

  If she had hoped to throw him off-guard by the remark then she was going to be disappointed. “Isn’t that every man’s fantasy?” he came back softly.

  She looked puzzled. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “There is something very erotic about seeing a woman’s hands and mouth on another woman as they make love together.”

  Gaia wished she had never started this conversation as it became obvious, from the frankness of Gregori’s observations, that he had already watched two women intimately together and been aroused by it. Not that there was anything wrong with two women making love together, or two men either for that matter, but Gaia didn’t consider it as being any more for public consumption than lovemaking between a man and a woman was.

  It should be a private intimacy between two consenting adults, not a floorshow for an audience.

  She gave a shrug. “I just assumed that most men grew out of that fantasy after puberty,” she derided to cover her embarrassment.

  “Perhaps it’s only that most men claim to have grown out of it?” Laughter at her expense gleamed in those dark eyes, but it wasn’t a humor that Gregori allowed to be reflected in the hard angles of his unsmiling face as he looked across at her challengingly.

  Gaia decided they had gone quite far enough with this particular conversation. “You wanted to talk to me, Mr. Markovic?” she reminded briskly.

  “I do, Miss Miller, yes.” He gave a mocking inclination of his head.

  Gaia’s tension returned with a vengeance as he added nothing to that statement. Deliberately so, it seemed to her.

  This was much worse than standing in the headmaster’s study. Worse than the doctor’s waiting room. Or the dentist’s—

  Worse than her sister lying dead in her cold grave, simply because she may have fallen in love with the wrong man? Maybe even this man?

  Certainly no heartbroken lover had made an appearance at Angela’s funeral, which had only deepened Gaia’s suspicions.

  But having now met and spoken to Gregori Markovic—twice—Gaia didn’t believe he was Angela’s lover.

  Her sister had been as outgoing and bubbly as she was beautiful, and although Angela may never have told Gaia the name of the man she was in love with, she did talk about him. Angela described him as warm and fun to be with, as well as a wonderful lover.

  Gaia could believe the latter was true of the man sitting in front of her—Gregori gave the impression he was a man who would be good, excellent, at anything he did. But warm and fun to be with? No, not so much.

  Besides which, Gaia thought maybe the reason Angela didn’t want to reveal the name of her lover wasn’t just because of that ‘fraternization’ comment, but also because he was already married. Goodness knows it was common enough—her own mother was an example of that—and certainly no one could choose who they fell in love with. But Angela had known that, given the circumstances of Gaia’s birth, she wouldn’t approve.

  Gregori Markovic had never been married.

  Which made Gaia wonder why not?

  The man was only aged in his mid-thirties, rich as Croesus and handsome as sin.

  Maybe that was the problem? Or rather, not a problem exactly, just the reason why he had never bothered to tie himself down to one woman. Why bother, when he could have any woman he wanted by snapping those oh-so-elegant fingers.

  Including Gaia?

  She wasn’t even going there!

  But he really did have the most sensual hands, beautifully shaped, the fingers long and—

  “I wanted to discuss what happened earlier this evening, Miss Miller.”

  Her gaze sharpened warily on that hard and implacable face. “I—” She moistened suddenly dry lips before continuing. “What happened earlier, Mr. Markovic?” Oh God, she was rubbish at this, couldn’t pretend innocent confusion if her life depended on it.

  Or Angela’s.

  “Earlier.” He nodded abruptly, jaw tight. “I am afraid that Nikolai…misund
erstood the situation, and behaved accordingly.”

  What on earth did Nikolai have to do with—

  Ah. Her brow cleared as the penny finally dropped. “You’re referring to the sexual harassment in the workplace?”

  Those dark eyes narrowed. “It was not sexual harassment—”

  “No?” Gaia grimaced. “Well whatever it was, it’s really none of my business if you and Mr. Volkov like to play tag in the bedroom.”

  “Tag?” he repeated harshly.

  “Tag.” She nodded. “One woman, two men,” she explained derisively.

  Gregori knew exactly what it was. Just as he was aware he was guilty of her accusation: he had done a lot of things in the past he wasn’t particularly proud of, and bedding numerous women, singly or in pairs, was just one of them.

  But that just made these past months of not being interested in bedding any woman all the more surprising.

  Until tonight with Gaia Miller.

  For some reason he’d had a completely visceral reaction to her from the moment he saw her bottom wiggling out from beneath his desk. Everything about her. The way she looked, the way she smelled, the way she walked, and especially the way she talked. No woman had ever spoken to him in quite the way Gaia Miller did. As if she didn’t care who he was, how powerful he might be; she was going to talk to him in the same open way she did everyone else. He liked it. In the same way he liked her.

  And he didn’t want to.

  Partly because he didn’t have time for a relationship. But involvement with Gaia Miller also made him uneasy on a completely different level.

  He had read her employee file, and been told what Nikolai had managed to find out about her so far. He knew she was only twenty-four, and her lack of guile gave the impression she had no knowledge of the rules of being involved with a man like him. Gregori would take a woman out to dinner to see and be seen once a week, buy her expensive gifts of clothes and jewelry, always with a guarantee of sexual satisfaction. A fair and open exchange of their time.