CHAPTER ONE

      DAMN! Allie thought angrily, and exclaimed, ‘But I won’t need an interpreter.’

      ‘Do you speak Russian?’

      ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do,’ she said triumphantly. But then, as she looked into her boss’s sceptical eyes, reluctantly added, ‘A little.’

      ‘How little?’

      She gave him one of her sudden smiles, her blue eyes lighting with mischief. ‘Enough to say no if I’m propositioned.’

      He laughed, wanting to be serious but unable to resist her smile. ‘But do you speak enough Russian to recognise a proposition if you hear one?’

      ‘One could be deaf and dumb and still recognise that!’

      He shook his head at her and said, ‘I know you’re a capable career woman and all the rest of it, but I’m not going to risk letting you loose in Russia without someone to keep an eye on you.’

      Allie hated the sound of that; she had reasons—important and secret reasons—of her own for going to Russia that had nothing to do with the assignment she’d been given, and to have someone looking over her shoulder would be inconvenient to say the least. But it was important not to jeopardise the trip so, to keep the boss sweet, she smiled and said, ‘OK, leave it with me. I’ll find someone out there.’

      ‘No need,’ he said on a pleased note. ‘I already know of someone based in Moscow. A family friend, I suppose you could call him. His name is Drake Marsden and he works for a bank that’s opening up a branch over there. He speaks the language and will give you all the help you need. I’ll have him meet you when you arrive.’

      ‘Wonderful,’ Allie enthused, while inwardly cursing, and she determined to get rid of this extremely unwanted man at the very first opportunity.

      She thought that opportunity would present itself at Moscow airport. Surely in the bustle of a huge international concourse it would be possible to lose herself in the crowd, slip into a taxi and so free herself of her boss’s pal right at the start. There was bustle, all right. Take the crowd outside Harrods on the first day of the January sale, double the amount of shoving and pushing, and even then it would only give a small idea of what it was like at Moscow airport. There was complete chaos, and that was before Allie even got through to the concourse. Everybody seemed to be flying in to Moscow that August day, and they were all herded into a great crowd that gradually developed into long queues of passengers waiting to have their visas and passports checked, the officials achingly slow and letting only one person through at a time.

      Allie stood in the queue for over two hours, weighed down by her expensive camera equipment that she didn’t dare rest on the ground in case it got kicked by the people pressing all around her. A large man stood on her foot, and a fat woman with elbows made of steel tried to push in front of her, thinking Allie a soft touch because she was so petite, but received a blazing look from angry blue eyes that stopped her in her tracks.

      The only compensation in all this, Allie decided, was that Drake Marsden would certainly have given up on her and gone home long before she got through. Once past this barrier she had to join another queue to change some money into roubles, retrieve her suitcase, and wait in yet another line to go through the baggage check, so that it was over three hours before Allie eventually emerged, tired, hot, and thirsty, into the main concourse.

      She didn’t even bother to look for some middle-aged man with a very fed-up expression holding up a board with her name on it, but just headed for the welcome open air and a taxi. There were a lot of taxis, all looking equally old and unreliable, but, before Allie could get a hand free to hail one, a modern silver-grey Mercedes, large and sleek, pulled up at the kerb beside her. A man got out, quite young, tall and lean, and with thick dark hair. Allie gave him a glance, made a mental note that Russian men were much better-looking than she’d expected, then dismissed him as she tried to attract the attention of a taxi-driver by standing on tiptoe to look over the roof of the Merc and wave.

      ‘Miss Hayden?’

      Allie blinked, and slowly turned. The man from the Mercedes, in his immaculate dark suit, was looking at her expectantly. She thought of denying her identity but there was no way this man could be a buddy of her boss, who was not only well into his fifties but had the middle-aged spread to go with it. ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged guardedly.

      He held out a hand. ‘I’m Drake Marsden. Welcome to Russia.’

      Slowly, with inner chagrin, she put her hand in his and had it briskly shaken.

      He was very businesslike, opening the passenger door for her, putting her case and camera equipment in the boot, ignoring the blare of an impatient taxi horn, getting in and driving away, all within a minute.

      ‘How did you know it was me?’ she asked, looking at the lean planes of his profile with very mixed feelings.

      ‘I was given a description—and then there was all the photography stuff.’

      Fleetingly Allie wondered how her boss had described her. Short, blonde, and sexy, probably, knowing him. She had been given no description of the man beside her, and as she had no intention of using him hadn’t asked for one. But maybe it would have been helpful to know in advance that Drake Marsden was both good-looking and—judging by his clothes, the gold Rolex