The Ruthless Virgin Mistress ✔️ (completed)

Three

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Dedicated to @11drac11

*****

"I wasn't aware that I had been guilty of making any assumption, so your attack is somewhat premature and excessive," Nikolai imparted very drily.

Claire stabbed the air between them with an emphatic finger. "I agreed to dine with you this evening -- that's all! Perhaps you feel that you're entitled to more for a charitable donation of half a million, but my body was never on the table..."

Steady dark eyes rested on her. "The table would be a little hard on both of us," he murmured with sardonic amusement. "Where did you get the impression that I have to buy women into my bed?"

"You held your donation to Futures over my head!" Claire condemned hotly. "You told me that you would use any angle to get what you want, didn't you?"

"But I don't pay for sex," Nikolai spelt out cool as ice. "I don't ever under any circumstances pay for sex."

Claire lost colour, her freckles standing out against her pallor. His conviction washed over her like a bucket of chilling water, dousing her anger and leaving her uncertain of her position. "What about the dress, the shoes and the jewellery?"

"I'm a generous guy. The women I meet enjoy and expect that sort of gesture from me."

"You meet the wrong kind of women."

"Perhaps. But it is offensive to suggest that I need to use my money to persuade a woman into my bed."

"Let's not get bogged down in the irrelevant!" Claire broke in. "I heard you dismiss your driver for the evening."

"Perhaps I was planning to drive you home later myself," Nikolai murmured silkily, although the faintest tinge of dark color demarcated his high cheekbones, for her assumption about his expectations had been one hundred-per-cent accurate. He had assumed that she would share his bed that night. Her absolute lack of sophistication and tact on that score amazed him. He had never in his life endured such a clumsy scene with a woman. But then, sex had never, ever been something withheld or denied to him. His healthy libido was unaccustomed to the practice of patience. He thought that she was remarkably naive for a married woman who might have been expected to know how to handle sexual matters a little more smoothly and without this odd undertone of prudent hysteria.

Claire went pink at that easy explanation, which should have occurred to he was a possibility but which for some reason had not. "It's just... I hardly know you..."

Nikolai was amused by her embarrassment. Suddenly she seemed much younger than her twenty-five years and almost as awkwardly as a leggy schoolgirl. His stunning dark eyes unusually warm work amusement and his annoyance evaporating fast, he extended a shapely brown hand. "Let's eat, milaya," he suggested.

After tonight, Claire promised herself that she would never see him again. She didn't like what he made her feel. She still recalled her first glimpse of Jeremy at the age of fifteen. Her father had brought him home for dinner one evening and she had been so mesmerized by Jeremy's classic blond good looks that she had barely eaten a mouthful. In retrospect she was ashamed of herself -- how superficial she had been in those days! That same year Andrew had got engaged to Catherine and set a wedding date, so Jeremy and his parents had become a regular feature at family events.

Claire had fallen head over heels for the handsome barrister in her father's chambers, impressed as much by Jeremy's keen intelligence and the rumour that his success and reputation in court had already ensured that he was earmarked to became a judge. She had been content to love him from afar and console herself with occasional brief conversations. He had never seemed anything more than polite and pleasant to her until the day he asked her out to dinner, surprising her with that invitation as much s his move seemed to surprise everyone else in their respective families. How many weeks had it been before Jeremy even kissed her goodnight? There could be no comparison between the two men: Jeremy, who had genuinely loved and respected he, and Nikolai Smolov Cheryshev to what she was simply another potential sexual conquest. How could she have responded to such a man? Where was her pride and self-respect?