Not Just The Boss's Plaything. Caitlin Crews
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CAITLIN CREWS discovered her first romance novel at the age of twelve and has since began her life-long love affair with romance novels, many of which she insists on keeping near her at all times. She currently lives in California, with her animator/comic book artist husband and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.
Not Just the Boss’s Plaything
Caitlin Crews
ISBN: 978-1-472-00271-6
NOT JUST THE BOSS’S PLAYTHING
© 2013 Caitlin Crews
Published in Great Britain 2020
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
To the fabulous Sharon Kendrick, who sorted out what was wrong with an early draft of this book on a long, rainy, Irish drive to and from Sligo town (and an atmospheric tour of Yeats country)—both of which amounted to a Master Class in writing Harlequin Presents.
And to Abby Green, Heidi Rice, Fiona Harper and Chantelle Shaw, for our inspiring days in Delphi.
And to all the readers who wrote me to ask for Nikolai’s story. This is for you most of all!
TORTURE WOULD BE preferable to this.
Nikolai Korovin moved through the crowd ruthlessly, with a deep distaste for his surroundings he made no effort to hide. The club was one of London’s sleekest and hottest, according to his assistants, and was therefore teeming with the famous, the trendy and the stylish.
All of whom appeared to have turned up tonight. In their slick, hectic glory, such as it was. It meant Veronika, with all her aspirations to grandeur, couldn’t be far behind.
“Fancy a drink?” a blank-eyed creature with masses of shiny black hair and plumped-up lips lisped at him, slumping against him in a manner he imagined was designed to entice him. It failed. “Or anything else? Anything at all?”
Nikolai waited impatiently for her to stop that insipid giggling, to look away from his chest and find her way to his face—and when she did, as expected, she paled. As if she’d grabbed hold of the devil himself.
She had.
He didn’t have to say a word. She dropped her hold on him immediately, and he forgot her the moment she slunk from his sight.
After a circuit