by Lynne Graham
Not such a bad thing, she often told herself bracingly at times when it seemed that her desire to work as an animal doctor was continually destined to collapse in the face of other people’s needs. She had gained a lot of experience working at the rescue centre and was using the skills she had acquired during her training by functioning as an unofficial veterinary nurse. To think any other way when her presence at home had achieved so much good would be unforgivably selfish, she told herself firmly. Gramma and her dad had badly needed her assistance during that testing time. And she was painfully aware of all the advantages that their loving support had given her.
Her boss, Rosie, a generous-hearted woman in her forties with frizzy blonde curls, surged out to the car park to greet Ella. ‘You’ll never believe it... Samson’s got a home!’ she gasped excitedly.
Ella started to smile. ‘You’re kidding—’
‘Well, I haven’t done the home visit yet to check them out but they did seem very genuine people. Just lost their own dog to old age, so I didn’t think they’d want another oldie but they’re afraid that a young dog could be too much for them to handle,’ Rosie told her.
‘Samson really deserves a good home,’ Ella said fondly, for the thirteen-year-old terrier had been repeatedly passed over because of his age by other prospective owners.
‘He’s a very loving little chap...’ Rosie paused, her warm smile dwindling. ‘I heard your father’s shop closed down last week. I’m so sorry for your dad—’
‘Well, can’t be helped,’ Ella responded, hoping to forestall further comment because she couldn’t discuss her family’s financial affairs with Rosie, who was a hopeless gossip.
While Rosie talked about the rise of the big furniture chain stores working to the detriment of smaller businesses, Ella made polite sounds of agreement while she checked that the kennel staff had completed their early morning cleaning routine. That done, Ella put on overalls and concentrated on sorting out an emaciated stray with matted hair brought to them by the council dog warden. When she had finished she peeled off the overalls, washed and fed the poodle mix and settled her down in a run.
She heard a car and assumed that Rosie had set off to do her home visit to check out Samson’s new potential owners. She went into the office where she worked between times, being better at paperwork than Rosie, who was more driven by her need to rescue animals and rehome them than by the equally important requirement of meeting all of a recognised charity’s medical, legal and financial obligations. As a team, however, she and Rosie were efficient because their abilities fitted neatly together. Rosie was fantastic at dealing with the public and fundraising while Ella preferred to work with the animals in the background.
Indeed Ella had been very uncomfortable at the fancy charity auction that Cyrus had persuaded her to attend with him only a month earlier. Champagne, high heels and evening dresses were really not her thing. But how could she have said no when Cyrus had been so very good to Paul while he was ill? Acting as Cyrus’s partner at a couple of social occasions was little enough to be asked to do in return, she ruminated wryly, wondering as she often had why Cyrus had never married. He was forty-five years old, presentable, successful and single. Once or twice she had wondered if he was gay but Paul had got very annoyed at her for trying to make something out of what he insisted was nothing.
Rosie entered the office, rudely springing Ella from her momentary loss of concentration. The older woman looked flustered. ‘You have a visitor,’ she announced.
Her smooth brow furrowing, Ella stood up and moved round the desk. ‘A visitor?’ she prompted in surprise.
‘He’s a foreigner,’ Rosie stage-whispered as if that fact were terribly mysterious and unusual.
‘But he went to school in the UK and speaks excellent English,’ a very masculine voice commented from the door that still stood open on the small outer hall, where he had evidently been left to hover.
Ella’s lower limbs succumbed to nervous paralysis as she froze where she stood, a tiny disbelieving quiver running down her spine because, incredibly, she recognised that voice even though she had only heard it on one previous occasion almost a year earlier. It couldn’t be but it was...it was him, the gorgeous guy with the fancy car and the very short temper and the eyes that reminded her of melted caramel. What on earth was he doing visiting her at Animal Companions? Had he tracked her down?
‘I’ll just leave you in...er...privacy,’ Rosie pronounced awkwardly, backing out of the office again as the very tall, dark man behind her strode forward without taking any apparent note of her still-lingering presence.
Rosie arched a pale brow. ‘Do we need privacy?’ she asked doubtfully.
Nikolai studied her fixedly. She was incredibly tiny and delicate in build. He remembered that. He remembered the long curling tangle of her bronze-coloured hair as well because the shade was unusual, neither brown nor red but a metallic shade somewhere between the two. She bore a ridiculously close resemblance to a pixie he had once seen in a fairy-story book, he thought, feeling oddly numb, oddly dry-mouthed as his keen dark gaze roved over her, reluctant to miss out on a single detail of that petite, pixeish perfection. No, of course she wasn’t perfect, no woman was, he reasoned, striving to be more lucid, but that flawless porcelain skin, those glorious green eyes and that lush mouth in that beautiful face were quite unforgettable. Memory hadn’t exaggerated her beauty, but his brain had persuaded him he had to prevent himself from chasing after her, he decided in exasperation.
‘We do,’ Nikolai confirmed, firmly shutting the door in Rosie’s wake. ‘We weren’t introduced at our last meeting.’
‘No, you were far too busy shouting at me,’ Ella reminded him doggedly.
‘My name is Nikolai Drakos and you are?’
As he extended a hand Gramma’s strict upbringing brought Ella’s own hand out to grip his. ‘Prunella Palmer. Most people call me Ella. What are you doing here, Mr Drakos? Or are you here about that stupid car?’ she asked witheringly.
‘You pranged that stupid car,’ Nikolai pointed out, unamused.
‘I inflicted a minuscule rubbing mark on one wing. I didn’t dent or scratch it,’ she traded drily. ‘I can’t believe you’re still complaining about it. Nobody got hurt and no real damage was done.’
Nikolai was very tempted to tell her how much that ‘rubbing’ mark had cost to remove. She had scraped the car past a bush when she’d accelerated too fast. His teeth ground together. It was healthy to be reminded just how very annoying she could be, he told himself warningly. Complaining? He had never complained in his life, not when his father beat him up, not when he was bullied at school, not even when his sister and only living relative had died. He had learnt at a very young age that basically nobody cared what happened to him and nobody was interested enough to listen to what he had endured. Nothing in life had ever come easy to Nikolai.
Ella couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was so physically large in both height and breadth that he ate up every inch of space in Rosie’s little office and made it feel crowded and suffocating. Tension held her rigid while she watched him like a rabbit mesmerised by a hawk ready to swoop down on her. Nikolai Drakos—the ultimate female fantasy with olive skin, black hair and spectacular dark eyes. His tailored charcoal-grey business suit couldn’t hide the reality that he was built with an athlete’s lean, muscular power and he moved with long-legged easy grace, she registered, struggling to pinpoint exactly what continually drew her attention to him. He was very, very good-looking but it wasn’t just the looks. He had amazing bone structure though and would probably still be turning heads in his sixties. Maybe it was the electrifying quality of the raw, masculine sex appeal he exuded. Twelve months earlier his sheer charisma had struck her like a thunderbolt and utterly humiliated her.
‘I’m not here about the car,’ Nikolai said very drily. ‘I’m here because you asked to se
e me...’
Ella was thoroughly disconcerted by that statement. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. How could I ask to see you when I have no way of contacting you? And why would I contact you when I haven’t had the slightest desire to see you again?’ she enquired tartly, her whole bearing suggesting that such a belief could only have come from an intolerable egotist.
A sardonic smile curved Nikolai’s wide sensual mouth as he gazed down at her with scantily leashed satisfaction. She had approached him. She had come looking for him first and that felt very much like the helpful hand of fate working on his behalf.
‘You did request my attention,’ he told her again.
Bewilderment gripped Ella but it was swiftly followed by a surge of frustrated fury. So far she had been having a very bad day and she was not in the mood for big arrogant male surprises and particularly not one who had offended her by offering her a one-night stand before he had even enquired what her name was! Yes, act first, think afterwards, that was how Nikolai Drakos functioned around women, she reflected scornfully. He had made her feel bad about herself and she allowed no man to do that to her. Yet when she gazed back at him and rated the uncompromising light in his eyes and the hard resolution etched in his strong-boned features, she could suddenly see that he was not the weak, frivolous and impulsive male she had first assumed him to be and that threw her off balance...badly.
‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense!’ she told him bluntly. ‘I want you to leave.’
Nikolai compounded his sins by slowly raising a beautifully drawn ebony brow. ‘I don’t think so.’
The rage that Ella always struggled to control broke through her cracking composure because she hated bullies and it seemed to her that he was trying to intimidate her. ‘I know so!’ she slammed back at him, half an octave higher. ‘And if you’re not out of here by the time I count to ten, I’m calling the police!’
‘Go right ahead,’ Nikolai advised, lodging his wide-shouldered frame back against the door and folding his arms with the infuriatingly cool poise of a male who had no intention of going anywhere. As she almost bounced in fury, she reminded him of a hummingbird dive-bombing a flower. Tiny but also colourful, intense and vibrant.
An unholy flash of hostility lit up Ella’s emerald-green eyes. ‘I mean it!’
Nikolai sighed. ‘You only think you mean it. Be aware that that temper of yours is a major weakness.’
Incensed by that crack, Ella said, ‘One—’
‘When you allow yourself to lose your head, you surrender control.’
‘Two—’
‘And you’re not thinking rationally either,’ Nikolai told her smoothly.
‘Three!’
‘How could you be?’ Nikolai continued. ‘Right now I can read your face like a map. You want to jump on me and thump me but you’re not physically up to that challenge, so you’re stuck acting illogical and childish—’
‘Four! And shut up while I’m counting! Five!’ Ella added jerkily, her throat muscles so tight, she could barely get the words out.
‘The performance you’re putting on for me now is why I never allow myself to lose my temper,’ Nikolai told her, thoroughly enjoying himself for the first time in a long time because she was that easy to rile. He would be able to wind her up like a clockwork toy and control her...so easily.
‘Of course, you could try asking yourself why you’re being this unreasonable. As far as I’m aware I did nothing worthy of this reception,’ Nikolai murmured smooth as glass, his wide, expressive mouth quirking round the edges.
‘Six!’ But that fast she remembered his mouth on hers, hard and demanding and passionate, rather than playful and shy and sweet. He was the only man apart from Paul to ever kiss her. The core of steel deep inside her reached a furnace heat of hatred and temper and shame but her body still betrayed her. Her nipples pinched into tight little buttons that stung, and lower down in a place she didn’t even want to think about she felt that almost forgotten liquid, hot, sliding sensation. It made her teeth grind together in vexation.
‘Seven!’ she launched and reached for the phone on the desk, almost desperate to see him go, her brain a morass of angry, tumbling impressions and images.
‘We’re going to get on like a house on fire...literally,’ Nikolai told her with sardonic bite. ‘Because while I may control my temper, I am demanding, stubborn and impatient and if you cross me you’ll know about it.’
‘Out!’ she spat at him furiously, outraged by the fact that she couldn’t get him to react to her threat in even the smallest way. ‘Get out of here!’
‘Eight...maybe even nine,’ Nikolai pronounced for her. ‘When you know why I’m here, you’ll beg me to stay.’
‘In your dreams...ten!’ Ella countered in a ringing tone of finality as she lifted the phone with a flourish.
‘I’m the man who bought your father’s debts,’ Nikolai admitted and watched her freeze and lose all her animated angry colour while her arm slowly lowered the phone back on its rest and her hand fell back from it in dismay.
CHAPTER TWO
‘THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE,’ Ella whispered unevenly. ‘It would be too much of a coincidence.’
‘Coincidences happen,’ Nikolai countered, for he had no intention of taking her into his confidence and sharing his ultimate plan.
‘Not one this unlikely,’ Ella argued, backing away from the desk while her brain endeavoured to regroup to this most surprising change of circumstance.
‘You rang the firm who handle my legal work and asked to see me,’ he reminded her levelly. ‘Here I am.’
‘I wasn’t prepared for a personal visit, maybe a phone call or an appointment,’ she muttered uncertainly, barely knowing what she was saying because the temper that was often her strength had subsided in fear like a pricked balloon. No, she couldn’t possibly shout at or drive off her father’s main creditor. Even angry, she wasn’t that stupid.
The silence lay between them as thick and heavy as treacle. She stared at him, incredulous at such a piece of unwelcome happenstance as the combination of events that had brought Nikolai Drakos back into her life again. A man she had naturally assumed she would never see again, a man she had prayed she would never see again! And she had preferred that reality, had needed to know she could bury that silly little episode and wipe it from her mind as an insane moment while she was still grieving for the man she had loved. Being confronted by him again was a real slap in the face and she could feel her face warming and prickling as though she had sunburn.
‘As you say...here you are,’ Ella acknowledged woodenly. ‘You can’t be surprised that I’m shocked that my father’s creditor is someone I’ve met before.’
‘Would you call it a meeting? A brief encounter in a car park would be more accurate,’ Nikolai murmured with a dry mockery that made her yearn to knock his teeth down his throat, for he made it sound as though they had shared rather more than a kiss.
And had she been willing, they would have done. She had no doubt of that. He was a player, the kind of male who did what he wanted when he wanted and he had certainly been in the mood for sex. Her face flamed at the awareness that, had she agreed and had it been physically possible, they could well have enjoyed a sordid, sweaty encounter there and then in his car and she would never have made it back to the misleading respectability of the hotel he had suggested. Inwardly she cursed her fair skin as mortification burned her cheeks, while he studied her with a measured attention that warned her he was picking up on her every reaction.
‘So, you own Dad’s debts,’ Ella recapped, striving to push onward past the personal aspect and withstand the odd tingling heat that infiltrated her every time she clashed with Nikolai’s stunning dark, black-lashed eyes. It was attraction. What else could it be? And it made her hate herself.
‘You wanted the c
hance to speak to me,’ Nikolai reminded her levelly. ‘I have no idea what you want to say to me...apart from the obvious. If you’re planning to pluck the violin strings, it won’t work on me. Let’s cut to the bottom line: this is business, nothing personal—’
‘But it is personal to my family!’
‘Your family is no concern of mine,’ Nikolai declared with unapologetic assurance. ‘But I do, as it happens, have another option to offer you.’
Tension made Ella rise slightly on her toes. ‘Another option?’ she queried breathlessly.
Nikolai gazed into those luminous green eyes and read the hope writ large there and for some reason it made him feel like a bastard. He crushed that foreign sensation and irritably squashed down his conscience. What was it about her? That air of vulnerability? Her physical delicacy? The shocking naivety that could persuade her to look at a stranger hoping that he was about to play the good Samaritan? How could she still be that trusting at her age? Sadly, he was not a soft touch, never had been, never would be and there was no point in even trying to pretend that he was. He didn’t get close to anyone; he didn’t connect with other people. He had been that way for a very long time and he had no plans to change his basic nature. When you let yourself care about anyone, you got kicked in the teeth and it had happened to him so often when he was a boy that he had learned his lesson fast.
‘There is one situation in which I would be prepared to write off your father’s debts,’ he admitted.
In the unearthly silence that dragged, her tension heightened and her tummy gave a nervous flip. ‘Well, what is that situation?’ she pressed impatiently.
‘You move in with me in London for a period of three months,’ Nikolai outlined smoothly.