His lips were soft, warm, eager. They slanted over hers with practiced precision while his hands slid down her hack. He tasted of after-dinner mints. Her body fit well against his.

And she felt nothing, nothing but an empty inner rage. Then a chill that was both fear and despair.

"You're not trying, darling," he whispered. "You know I won't hurt you."

No, he wouldn't. There was nothing at all to fear from Channing. Miserable, she let him deepen the kiss, ordered herself to feel and respond. She felt his withdrawal even before his lips left hers. The twinges of annoyance and puzzlement.

"Sydney, dear, I'm not sure what the problem is." He smoothed down his crinkled lapels. Marginally frustrated, he lifted his eyes. "That was like kissing my sister."

"I'm tired, Channing," she said to the air between them. "I should go in and get ready to go."

Twenty minutes later, the driver turned the car toward Manhattan. In the back seat Sydney sat ramrod straight well over in her comer, while Mikhail sprawled in his. They didn't bother to speak, not even the polite nonentities of two people who had attended the same function.

He was boiling with rage.

She was frigid with disdain.

She'd done it to annoy him, Mikhail decided. She'd let that silk-suited jerk all but swallow her whole just to make him suffer.

Why was he suffering? he asked himself. She was nothing to him.

No, she was something, he corrected, and brooded into the dark. His only problem was figuring out exactly what that something was.

Obviously, Sydney reflected, the man had no ethics, no morals, no shame. Here he was, just sitting there; all innocence and quiet reflection, after his disgraceful behavior. She frowned at the pale image of her own face in the window glass and tried to listen to the Chopin prelude on the stereo. Flirting so blatantly with a woman twenty years older. Sneering, yes positively sneering down from the rooftop.

And she'd hired him. Sydney let out a quiet, hissing breath from between her teeth. Oh, that was something she regretted. She'd let her concern, her determination to do the right thing, blind her into hiring some oversexed, amoral Russian carpenter.

Well, if he thought he was going to start playing pattycake with her mother, he was very much mistaken.

She drew a breath, turned and aimed one steady glare. Mikhail would have sworn the temperature in, the car dropped fifty degrees in a snap.

"You stay away from my mother."

He slanted her a look from under his lashes and gracefully crossed his legs. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, Boris. If you think I'm going to stand by and watch you put the moves on my mother, think again. She's lonely and vulnerable. Her last divorce upset her and she isn't over it."

He said something short and sharp in his native tongue and closed his eyes.

Temper had Sydney sliding across the seat until she could poke his arm. "What the hell does that mean?"

"You want translation? The simplest is bullshit. Now shut up. I'm going to sleep."

"You're not going anywhere until we settle this. You keep your big, grimy hands off my mother, or I'll turn that building you're so fond of into a parking lot."

His eyes slitted open. She found the glitter of angry eyes immensely satisfying. "A big threat from a small woman," he said in a deceptively lazy voice. She was entirely too close for his comfort, and her scent was swimming in his senses, tangling his temper with something more basic. "You should concentrate on the suit, and let your mother handle her own."

"Suit? What suit?"

"The banker who spent the evening sniffing your ankles."

Her face flooded with color. "He certainly was not. He's entirely too well mannered to sniff at my ankles or anything else. And Channing is my business."

"So. You have your business, and I have mine. Now, let's see what we have together." One moment he was stretched out, and the next he had her twisted over his lap. Stunned, Sydney pressed her hands against his chest and tried to struggle out of his hold. He tightened it. "As you see, I have no manners."

"Oh, I know it." She tossed her head back, chin jutting. "What do you think you're doing?"

He wished to hell he knew. She was rigid as an ice floe, but there was something incredible, and Lord, inevitable, ' about the way she fit into his arms. Though he was cursing himself, he held her close, close enough that he felt the uneven rise and fall of her br**sts against his chest, tasted the sweet, wine-tipped flavor of her breath on his lips.

There was a lesson here, he thought grimly, and she was going to learn it.

"I've decided to teach you how to kiss. From what I saw from the roof, you did a poor job of it with the polo player."

Shock and fury had her going still. She would not squirm or scream or give him the satisfaction of frightening her. His eyes were close and challenging. She thought she understood exactly how Lucifer would have looked as he walked through the gates of his own dark paradise.

"You conceited jerk." Because she wanted to slug him, badly, she fisted her hands closed and looked haughtily down her small, straight nose. "There's nothing you can teach me."

"No?" He wondered if he'd be better off just strangling her and having done with it. "Let's see then. Your Channing put his hands here. Yes?" He slid them over her shoulders. The quick, involuntary shudder chilled her skin. "You afraid of me, milaya?"

"Don't be ridiculous." But she was, suddenly and deeply. She swallowed the fear as his thumbs caressed her bare skin.

"Tremble is good. It makes a man feel strong. I don't think you trembled for this Channing."

She said nothing and wondered if he knew his accent had thickened. It sounded exotic, erotic. He wondered he could speak at all with her watching him and waiting.

"His way isn't mine," he muttered. "I'll show you."

His fingers clamped around the back of her neck, pulled her face toward his. He heard her breath catch then shudder out when he paused only a fraction before their lips touched. Her eyes filled his vision, that wide, wary blue. Ignoring the twist in his gut, he smiled, turned his head just an inch and skimmed his lips over her jawline.

She bit back only part of the moan. Instinctively she tipped her head back, giving him access to the long, sensitive column of her throat.