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‘I read about them in magazines,’ she answered truthfully. ‘It’s okay, Alexei, everyone has a past. I’m not going to go postal.’
‘I don’t appreciate you researching me, Maisy. If you want to know about my life, you only have to ask me.’ He spoke in a perfectly reasonable tone, but his eyes were as cold as flints of ice.
She had crossed a line, Maisy realised with a sharp twinge of reaction. These were the limits to their relationship. She dressed for him, waited for him, slept with him, but she didn’t ask him personal questions. Whatever he said.
‘I seem to remember you had an investigation done into me,’ she replied jerkily.
‘Yes, because you were looking after my godson.’
Maisy squeezed the silk under her fingers as she made fists in her lap. ‘And I read up about you because I am having sex with you every night.’ And morning, and sometimes in the afternoon …
‘I would rather you didn’t look for information about me in the tabloids.’
‘Fair enough,’ she conceded. ‘So, if you didn’t dress them, why do you dress me?’
‘I imagined it would make things easier for you.’
Yeah, right. This was about him being ashamed of her. ‘I think I need to buy my own clothes,’ she said, her voice amazingly calm given how shaken she was feeling. ‘Buying me a wardrobe isn’t a gift. It’s … impersonal.’
‘Impersonal?’ He sounded as if he was trying out the word.
Maisy took a step into the abyss. ‘It’s kind of like you’re buying me.’
Then he said absolutely the wrong thing. ‘I’ve never paid for sex in my life.’
The aggression coming off him kept Maisy seated. ‘I—I was talking about our relationship,’ she faltered. All the while another voice was saying, What relationship, Maisy? It’s sex. He’s always said it’s sex. He just said it’s sex.
‘I live a semi-public life.’ He paced out, as tense as she had ever seen him. ‘You need to be dressed for it if you’re going to be with me.’
If. If you’re going to be with me. Maisy’s eyes were starfish-wide as she cottoned on to what he was saying. Struggling to catch up, she recognised it for what it was. An ultimatum.
‘You can’t wear that—’ he made a dismissive gesture at the pink silk puddled in her lap ‘—whatever it is. To dinner tonight.’
She hadn’t been planning to. It was a dress for the daytime. But after all he’d said she was starting to feel completely surplus to his needs—had been feeling that way since they’d started travelling. And it was making her both terrified and very, very angry.
‘There’s nothing wrong with this dress,’ she stated between her teeth.
‘I want you in the champagne silk you wore in Rome.’
‘No.’
‘Fine.’
He turned away from her, removing his watch, his cufflinks. She watched him tumble them onto the bedside table. He headed for the walk-in wardrobe.
‘Where are you going?’
He didn’t answer, but a minute later he reappeared, naked. ‘Shower,’ he said briefly.
‘I’m going to wear what I want to wear,’ she defended herself. Why didn’t he say anything?
‘Do what you want,’ he replied. ‘The invitation is withdrawn.’
Maisy just gaped after him. What did he mean, the invitation was withdrawn? They weren’t going to dinner? She couldn’t believe what had just happened. Was he angry with her because she had bought her own clothes and refused his?
She heard the shower go on. Fine. She stood up too quickly and the room shifted slightly, so she sat down again. It had been such a long day—but, damn him, she wasn’t going to be a pushover. Giving herself a few minutes to calm down, she fetched her brush and toiletries and marched into the bathroom. He was towelling himself dry and seemed a bit thrown to see her. But Maisy ignored him, shaking her hair out of its pins and pulling the brush through it with rough strokes.
‘I’d like some space, Maisy.’
‘Tough,’ she replied, grabbing her spray conditioner and letting fly.
He wrapped the towel around his hips and left her to it. Maisy pushed down the pain and kept going, taming her curls into a neat chignon and then making up her eyes and mouth. When she emerged into the bedroom Alexei was dressed in trousers and was buttoning up a tailored white shirt. It clung faithfully to the wide expanse of his shoulders and chest like a sleeve, making him seem both overwhelmingly male and yet elegant at the same time. He was going out, she registered. Without her.
‘Where are you going?’
