Free The Only Woman to Defy Him by Carol Marinelli Page B

declined.
    ‘Have one.’
    ‘I’d better not, I’m working,’ Alina said, and he laughed.
    Yes, he’d offended her. Not arriving with him, shouldn’t have, of course, this was high-end stuff and naturally he needed staff around him.
    The royals arrived and Demyan turned his back at the first opportunity. He did not want to think of them in his home, did not want that picture in his mind.
    ‘Let’s go through.’
    They were seated at a circular table and a terribly beautiful, very jittery blonde called Livia—‘Not Olivia, Livia,’ she corrected before anyone could make a mistake—visibly sagged when she saw Alina. Still, she perked up considerably when Alina was introduced as his PA.
    ‘You’re working late,’ Livia said, and then got straight back to flirting with Demyan.
    All through the meal she persisted, dismissing Alina as if she wasn’t there, and again Demyan was very conscious that Alina was next to him. If it had been Marianna, even though they slept together at times, he’d be flirting back with Livia.
    ‘I recognise her,’ Alina said, when Livia excused herself to go to the loo.
    Demyan recognised her too. Oh, not for her acting skills, he’d recognised the offer that had just been delivered—the slight tilt to Livia’s head as she’d stood.
    ‘I don’t,’ Demyan said, and turned and gave Alina a smile as the lights dimmed. ‘Wake me up when it’s my turn to speak.’
    God, they droned on, Demyan thought. He loathed speeches and how everyone had to be thanked five hundred times when surely an email would suffice. Livia was back, more jittery than ever, and Demyan was just about to doze off when the voice on the stage reached him.
    ‘I remember going to a friend’s house for dinner and not wanting to leave. My friend and I fell out a few weeks later because I never asked her back to mine. I couldn’t. I never knew what I might find and I also didn’t want anyone else to see what went on at home.’
    Demyan felt as if the spotlight was on him as this woman, this stranger, described, almost to the letter, his childhood.
    He glanced at Alina, who was listening, with no idea of the chaos taking place in the head beside hers. He half expected a flash mob to stand and dance around him, because surely this was a set-up, surely this was his hell that was being so eloquently described.
    Alina felt the tension beside her and turned and saw Demyan’s intent expression as he took in the words.
    ‘I did everything she told me, I did everything right, while knowing that I was setting myself up for disaster. If it worked, if we survived the night by tapping the bed four times before I got in, as well as taping the curtains together, as well as...’ She gave a smile. ‘I’m sure you get the message, but if it worked it meant we had to do it again the next time and the next and the next. The rituals became more complicated...’
    Whatever Olivia was offering was becoming increasingly tempting.
    Livia.
    He was about to get up to walk off but he felt the calm of Alina beside him, laughing at a joke the speaker made. Then he found out that it wasn’t his life being described, because the speaker’s mother had got better at times and when she’d got worse, carers had stepped in.
    He glanced at Olivia and didn’t even correct her name to himself as she gave him a bored eye-roll. Demyan didn’t give one back; instead, he listened.
    He was truly shaken to his core.
    ‘Her speech...’ Demyan said to Alina as the applause started, then halted. He wasn’t going to discuss this with his PA, he didn’t need to explain things to Alina.
    ‘Good luck,’ Alina said, as Demyan got up to speak.
    She watched intently. It was bliss to be able to examine him from a distance.
    She watched as he went for his jacket and then changed his mind.
    Demyan thanked everyone, very nicely.
    The little barb about Nadia remained on the notes in his pocket and instead he spoke about how he rarely attended fundraisers,