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eyes weren’t cold like she expected—they were hot, boring beneath her skin.
    “Then I apologize,” he said after what seemed an eternity of them staring at each other in silence. “I would never want to hurt you.”
    The door swung open and she realized they were at the hotel, that a valet waited for her to exit. But everything in the car was surreal, and she found it hard to break away. The next time she saw this man, it would be at a meeting of corporate bigwigs. He would not notice her—nor did she want him to.
    If Chad knew she’d spent the night with Prince Alexei Voronov, even though it was innocent, he’d go through the roof.
    And she’d definitely be out of a job.
    “Thank you for your help,” she said again. She felt like a broken recording, but what else could she say? Paige tried her best to smile as if she wasn’t still raw inside. “I suppose this is goodbye then.”
    Alexei’s smile was wolfish. “Ah, but this is not goodbye,is it? We will see each other again, Paige Barnes. We will see a lot of each other, I promise you.”
    Paige hurried from the car and dashed inside the hotel lobby without looking back. Her skin was hot, in spite of the frigid weather, and she stripped off her coat in the elevator as it sped to her floor.
    Why did Alexei Voronov rattle her so much? Yes, they’d skipped a few steps with that meeting in Red Square, but a kiss was a kiss. Wasn’t it?
    Paige’s ears were hot. No, it definitely wasn’t. That kiss had been molten hot, and so had the kisses later, in his apartment.
    That didn’t make the kisses extraordinary, however. And, really, how would she know? She had very little to base it on.
    Paige fished her key from her coat and slipped into the room she shared with Emma. A pang of feeling pierced her heart, but she pushed it aside. So what if Emma was with Chad? Paige was so over it.
    “Oh my God, where have you been? I’ve been so worried!”
    Paige stopped dead in the midst of trying to close the door silently, in case Emma was in bed after all, and turned very slowly to face her sister.
    Emma’s pretty face was lined with worry. Paige’s heart squeezed in her chest.
    “I’m sorry, Emma. I couldn’t sleep and went for a walk.” The lie slipped from her tongue with ease, but guilt followed in its wake. She didn’t like lying to her sister, but it was easier than explaining what had really happened.
    And safer, too, since Emma could be a chatterbox. She would innocently let slip the information that Paige had been with the evil head of Voronov Exploration, and that would be the end of Paige Barnes’s career at Russell Tech. She’d beon the next plane home with her tail tucked between her legs and no reference to find a new job.
    She couldn’t even think about the potential repercussions to Emma and her budding romance, if that’s what it was, with Chad.
    Emma tossed her glorious blond hair, her face shifting into a pout that Paige knew only too well. “You could have left a note.”
    “Why would I do that?” Paige asked. “You never wake up before eight anyway.”
    Emma had the grace to look sheepish. “Well, I did today. And you weren’t here. I was about to call Chad to help me find you.”
    Déjà vu. Paige casually laid her coat over the back of the couch in their suite, thanking her lucky stars she’d returned when she did. The last thing she needed was Chad trying to find
her.
    “I’m here now, so you can stop worrying.”
    “You’re wearing the same clothes as yesterday,” Emma pointed out.
    Paige felt her face grow hot. “I put them back on when I woke up. Now I’m going to shower and get ready for the meeting.” She was almost to the bedroom door when she stopped and turned back. “You didn’t come home last night, Emma. Where were
you?
”
    Emma’s face split into a grin. Typical of her sister that she wouldn’t see a parallel between her actions and Paige’s. It simply didn’t occur to her that Paige might have panicked