The Ruthless Virgin Mistress ✔️ (completed)

One

    Catherine's face shadoweud. "No. He was still at the office when I called."

    Claire felt Catherine's disappointment and wondered what her brother was playing at. Nobody had worked harder than Catherine to get this show on the road and she deserved for her husband to take respectful notice of her achievement. But, then, the family concierge business, Support Systems, had recently moved to upmarket premises in Downingtown and hired more staff, substantially increasing overheads. As a result, all of them were working long hours and dealing with more clients. Claire adored the business and variety of her job. Customers hired them to take care of everything they could not find the time to do for themselves -- wide-ranging task that ran from walking the dog and picking up dry cleanings to booking holidays, shopping for present and finding domestic staff and repairmen.

    It was all a far cry from the life her snobbish sexiest father would have chosen for her. He had refused to allow her to go to the university or to train for a profession. Claire remained painfully aware that, next to her brother she had been a nobody in her father's eyes. The older man had often treated his only daughter as an irritation and a disappointment. In fact only on the day Claire married Jeremy had her father looked at her with approval and pride as if marriage to a successful man was her biggest achievement.

    "You look like the Queen in Snow White," her niece, Angel, whispered, big eyes fixed in fascination to her aunt's face.

    "The baddie who thought she was gorgeous and cracked the magic mirror she was always talking to?" Claire groaned.

    "She may have been bad but she was really beautiful," Angel lisped.

    "Watch your face," Elizabeth warned when Claire bent down to hug the seven-year-old with easy affection. Across the room, Angel's twin brother, Junior, was as usual fully engrossed in a book. Claire was very close to her brother's children. After the car accident she had moved in with the family to help out while Catherine was undergoing an intensive physiotherapy programme. She had soon discovered that the children's needs and her own unrelenting grief bad been met by keeping busy for as many hours of the day as possible.

    Nerves were making Claire as tense as an overstretched piece of plastic. Elizabeth removed the protective cape she wore and Claire got up to go and peer out at the audience from behind the curtains that shielded the catwalk from the dressing area. "I don't know why I agreed to do this," she muttered.

    "Because it's for a good cause," Catherine piped up cheerfully at her elbow. "And all our lucky stars came out tonight. Guess who's out there?"

    "One of the A-list celebrities you invited?" Claire guessed.

    "Nikolai Smolov Cheryshev."

    "Who?"

    "For goodness'sake, Claire. You've got to know who he is! Only a Russian billionaire --"

    "The one whose vigorous sex life is always giving the tabloids headlines and centre spreads?" As Catherine gave a reluctant nod of confirmation Claire grimaced. "The guys only one step removed from a barnyard animal. He's sleaze personified."

    "His donation will still be welcomed. Don't be so judgemental, Claire," her brother's wife scolded. "Rich single men always have loads of girlfriends --"

    "He always pick sluts willing to spill all their bedroom secrets in print for a hefty payment. It tells you all you need to know about him --"

    "That poor guy is a target for the greediest and most unscrupulous gold-diggers in town?"

    "Are you talking about Nikolai Smolov?" Elizabeth chimed in. "He's been on his mobile phone ever since he arrived. He is absolutely gorgeous. If I got the chance to sleep with him I'd want to kiss and tell as well!"