by Lynne Graham
As Max departed Ella got up and went into the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and ran a brush through her tangled hair before peering into the units she had assumed Nikolai used. A line of female clothing hung there above racks of shoes and the drawers below were filled with separates and fancy lingerie. She sighed and padded back into the bedroom to pull on the robe and slide her feet into the sleek mules.
Rory and Butch awaited her and accompanied her into the conservatory, which had been restored but which was still sadly empty of plants. She walked out onto the deck, which was drenched in sunlight and overlooked the very private garden below. Max had set a tray on the table and she poured herself tea and buttered a piece of toast. She wasn’t accustomed to leisure or luxury and what was for her the equivalent of breakfast in bed felt ridiculously decadent and frivolous. The dogs got bored and negotiated the steep spiral staircase that led down to the garden.
Ella sipped her tea and thought about Nikolai. He had probably stayed at his apartment the night before while she had stayed up late wondering when he would return. That had been a mistake and no doubt not the last she would make if she went on trying to squeeze their relationship into a normal frame with potential and boundaries. Sadly it could never be normal; it was a purely temporary arrangement, wasn’t it? Nikolai buying her clothes and jewellery would never feel right in such circumstances but she could handle it, couldn’t she?
Her family were safe and content and that was what really mattered, she told herself firmly. In three months’ time when she was done with Nikolai, she would still have a whole life stretching ahead of her. She shifted in her wrought-iron garden seat, wincing at the soreness at the heart of her, the reminder that she was not quite the same woman she had been yesterday.
Nikolai was amazing in bed. And that was it. It had been good for her because he had known how to make it good. It was sex, only sex, just as her relationship with Paul had been more or less only friendship, she acknowledged uncomfortably. Maybe she was destined to have odd one-sided relationships with men, but she was determined that she would protect herself from being hurt again. She was learning from Nikolai, possibly even growing up a little, she reflected ruefully. A year ago she had hated Nikolai for making her want him when she had felt she should still be mourning Paul, but how could anyone impose a time frame on either the pain and duration of loss or the heat of desire? From the very first Nikolai had lit her up like a firestorm. Her response had been immediate, basic, and utterly instinctive. Trying to prevent it, trying to stamp out the fire, would have been like trying to turn the tide back from the shore.
And Nikolai hadn’t tried to turn the tide back either, she ruminated with an abstracted little smile. No, Nikolai had come back for her and had fought to get her into his life and his bed. It gave her the most disturbing guilty kick to be so desired by Nikolai, because with Paul she had always been the one left wanting and feeling inadequate.
Steps rang on the conservatory tiles and she lifted her head.
‘Ella...’ Nikolai murmured, striding out into the sunlight.
Garbed in a charcoal-grey suit that was exquisitely tailored to his lean, powerful frame, Nikolai took her breath away. He was no longer clean-shaven and the dark stubble demarcating his strong jaw and wide mobile mouth merely added a rougher, more potent edge to his aggressive masculinity. Brilliant dark golden eyes fringed by ebony lashes inspected her.
Mouth running dry, Ella sucked in a sudden breath. He could plunge her into a sea of drowning sexual awareness simply with a look. Her nipples tightened, her body clenched, her slender thighs pressing together tightly. As always he looked spectacular but she did notice that a slightly haggard quality had dulled his usual healthy glow of vigour.
Nikolai stared down at Ella, enchanted by the picture she made. The floaty thing she was wearing was sea green and it pooled around her like a mermaid’s tail. In the bright light her perfect skin glowed against her rich bronze hair. Feeling a little less like a man caged and about to hand over the key to his freedom, he dropped down into a seat. Thee mou, she was exquisite.
Max arrived with coffee and biscuits. Max, Nikolai ruminated, knowing that that was a problem still to be dealt with: Max had ushered Cyrus into Nikolai’s house. The dogs came up the stairs to investigate. At least Butch tried but he was unable to climb the stairs with his three legs and in the end, when he sat whining pitifully on the bottom step, Nikolai took pity on the little animal and went down to lift him and carry him up.
‘He’ll learn. He’s taught himself to go downstairs safely,’ Ella commented, but even so she was hugely impressed by his kindness.
‘We all learn from our mistakes.’ Nikolai lounged back in his chair and rested an ankle across one knee, the fabric of his well-cut trousers pulling taut to delineate the powerful muscles in his thighs. ‘For instance, I made a mistake specifying three months with you...’
‘Oh...’ Ella stilled, her facial muscles locking as if she was in shock. ‘Did you?’
‘Three months is nothing. I don’t want a time limit. I want to keep you,’ he advanced levelly, speaking as though what he was saying were not at all personal but simply a matter of business to be taken out and discussed.
‘I’m not Butch. I don’t think you can just keep me,’ Ella countered in a slightly wobbly voice, caused by the shock of thinking he wanted to end their arrangement early and then being shot fast in the other direction, only to fail to understand what he was talking about.
‘I hope I can if I ask you to marry me,’ Nikolai breathed very quietly, assessing dark eyes fringed with black lashes trained to her intently.
‘Marry me?’ Ella parroted as she straightened up, her shoulders stiffening. ‘I asked you to marry me first and you said that marriage was out of the question.’
‘You were right... I was wrong. Do we have to make a production out of it?’ Nikolai asked in the most suspiciously reasonable tone.
Ella was knocked right off balance. In her experience all men found it a challenge to admit to being in the wrong but the admission had just tripped effortlessly off Nikolai’s tongue. ‘You’re asking me to marry you...now?’
‘Yes. I think we fit together well,’ Nikolai declared.
Her wide green eyes couldn’t have got any wider. ‘In what way?’ And her voice lowered. ‘In bed?’
‘No, I wasn’t even thinking about that,’ Nikolai lied.
In fascination Ella watched the faintest hint of colour line his sculpted cheekbones and she was tickled pink by the discovery that he could blush. From his point of view the sex genuinely must have been as amazing as he said it was, was all she could initially think. Why else would he be talking about marriage when he had previously been so against the idea?
‘So, you want to marry me and keep me,’ Ella recounted, thinking that a marriage proposal could not get much more basic and medieval in tone than that.
‘Your family will be pleased... I think.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Ella conceded, knowing that a wedding ring would make all the difference to her family’s concerns because it was a promise of commitment that they trusted.
Nikolai leant forward and closed a hand round hers. ‘I intend to do everything within my power to make you happy.’
‘That’s quite an aspiration.’
‘I like to aim high.’
‘But I haven’t agreed yet.’ Ella stared down nervously at the lean tanned hand that had engulfed hers. She glanced up involuntarily and fell into his melted-caramel eyes. Those eyes were as dangerous as a weed-infested pond to a lone swimmer, she thought crazily. She looked into his eyes and butterflies went crazy in her tummy and reasoned thought became too much of a challenge. She was falling for him, she recognised in dismay, falling fast and falling hard for a deeply unscrupulous male, who broke rules and ignored all her boundaries.
‘But I’m
hoping you will...’ His black lashes swept down on his expressive eyes.
Nikolai didn’t do fake humility very well, Ella thought in sudden amusement. She wasn’t convinced for a moment. He was rich and gorgeous and successful and she was convinced that he had traversed a school of hard knocks to reach his current level. Cyrus had claimed that Nikolai’s parents were a drug dealer and a whore and Ella knew no polite or gentle way of asking if that was the truth. What she did know was that sometimes Nikolai made her just want to hug him, and when he wasn’t around it was a little like the sun vanishing without warning. She didn’t understand how he could possibly have come to mean so much to her so quickly but there it was: Nikolai Drakos was already of enormous importance to her.
‘I would want children,’ Ella declared abruptly.
His dark head whipped up, caramel eyes flashing with surprise.
‘And why are you looking surprised?’ Ella enquired. ‘Most women want children. I’m not talking this year or next year because I have to finish my training first, but eventually I would want children... I believe in being honest.’
Eventually.
‘I’ve never wanted children,’ Nikolai confessed.
‘Well, it’s children and me or no me, I’m afraid. Plus you’d also probably have to share your home with a selection of stray dogs and cats. That’s probably not negotiable either,’ Ella volunteered, determined to give him all the bad news at once before she lost her nerve and started trying to be someone she wasn’t.
None of those life-changing possibilities was going to happen overnight, Nikolai reminded himself. She was trampling all over his most cherished convictions because she assumed that they would stay married for ever. But, of course, it wouldn’t be that way, he reflected wryly. She would return to uni and meet some animal-loving younger man in muddy wellington boots and realise that Nikolai wasn’t, after all, what she wanted. And he would let her go. A hollow sensation formed inside him. He pictured her in a country house awash with dogs and children. Home and family would come first with her...always. He understood that about her without even thinking about it. He couldn’t give those things to her because he didn’t form attachments, but she still deserved to have those things as well as the love of a man who deserved her.
‘Are kids really a deal-breaker?’ Ella demanded, troubled by the shadowed look on his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘What are you thinking about?’
Nikolai sprang upright, bent down and scooped her off her seat to hold in his lap. ‘Private matters.’
‘If you marry me, you won’t get to be private,’ she warned him.
‘Children aren’t a deal-breaker if you’re talking a couple of years down the road,’ Nikolai conceded.
‘And what if we have an accident?’
‘I’m careful.’
Ella rested back in the cradle of his arms, drinking in the scent of his expensive cologne and the unique aroma that was purely, sexily his own. ‘You really want to keep me?’
Nikolai screened his eyes. He knew that if a younger man in wellington boots had presented himself at that moment, he would have kicked him down the stairs and jumped on his corpse. He wanted her. He wanted her far more than he was comfortable with but he was equally aware of his guilt and of what he ought to be feeling. He had to be unselfish for her sake. ‘I’ll make you happy, glikia mou,’ he swore doggedly and he meant every word of it.
He would make her happy, whatever it took and regardless of what it cost him. He would walk away from the pursuit of revenge that had consumed his life for the past five years. He would turn his back on Cyrus and his crimes for ever. Ella would become his first, his only priority.
‘I believe you could,’ Ella admitted in a softer tone than usual.
She wanted more time with him. She wanted to be with him because her heart stuttered and almost stopped at the thought of being without Nikolai. It was a visceral feeling, a scarily powerful feeling and not something she understood. She only understood that she needed to be with Nikolai. And there was a lot to be said in favour of a man who simply wanted to get married quickly, she reflected ruefully. Ella, after all, had been engaged for years to a man who had always found an excuse for not setting a wedding date. Paul had liked to talk about getting married but talking was as far as they had got.
‘Yes, I’ll marry you,’ Ella declared with a sudden radiant smile.
Nikolai kissed her and a sizzle of naked longing snaked through her, leaving her limp and breathless. He settled her back down into her chair and produced a ring box while she looked on in astonishment.
‘You have a ring?’
‘Can’t propose without a ring,’ Nikolai quipped, sliding a diamond cluster onto her finger.
‘It’s dazzling,’ she whispered as the diamonds flashed with iridescence in the sunshine. ‘Thank you...’
‘I’ll stay in my apartment until the wedding,’ Nikolai told her.
Ella gave him a bemused appraisal. ‘But why?’
‘I want to draw a strong line between where we started out and how we will continue,’ Nikolai admitted smoothly. ‘Everything will be different when we’re married.’
* * *
‘Nik’s arranging for me to meet an interior designer here at the house next week,’ Ella told Max when he served her breakfast two days later. ‘I want the family things like photographs and papers put away somewhere safe first so that none of it ends up accidentally binned. I do think that at some stage Nik will want to look through it all. Where do you think we should start?’
‘The late Mr Drakos’s desk in the library. He kept a lot of stuff where he worked,’ he volunteered. ‘I’ll try to get round every room before I leave.’
Ella frowned. ‘Leave?’ she queried. ‘Where are you going? Are you off on holiday or something?’
Max’s thin face stiffened. ‘I’m being replaced, Miss Palmer. Quite understandably your future husband has little faith in the man who allowed Cyrus Makris to enter his home.’
Max had been sacked over that? Ella was aghast at the news and furious that Nikolai had not told her about that decision. ‘But that wasn’t your fault... I mean, what happened.’
‘What happened happened,’ the older man pointed out with wry emphasis. ‘I made a bad decision and you got hurt. Let’s not discuss this, Miss Palmer. I not only let the man in but also went out leaving you alone with him.’
Angry words and defences bubbled in Ella’s chest but she swallowed them back, recognising that further comment would only embarrass the older man. No, this was a matter she needed to take up directly with Nikolai. ‘Could you give me directions to Nikolai’s office?’ she asked without hesitation. ‘And perhaps while I’m out you could make a start on boxing up the Drakos family things I mentioned. If there are any particular pieces of furniture or other items that you feel should be considered an heirloom, please show them to me.’
Having lost the appetite to eat any more, Ella stood up. ‘I’ll fetch my bag.’
‘Your driver will be waiting outside for you.’
‘My...driver?’
‘Mr Drakos has put a car and driver at your disposal...as well as a bodyguard,’ Max completed. ‘He wants to be assured of your safety twenty-four-seven.’
Ella shook her head in wonderment and compressed her lips. A driver? A bodyguard? Had Nikolai lost his wits? She was an ordinary woman and she did not require anyone to either drive her or guard her. He should have discussed those arrangements with her long before he made them.
Nikolai’s offices were in a towering glass and steel office building that bore a fancy Drakos logo that appeared to be a dragon. Or was it a winged goddess like Nikolai’s tattoo? She hadn’t had the opportunity to get a closer look at it. To do that she would have to get his shirt off again. A rueful light entered her green eyes and her face warmed as she stood
in the lift flanked by her silent monolith of a bodyguard, John. John was quiet to the extent that had he not cast such a big shadow she might almost have been able to forget he was there.
In Reception she asked to see Nikolai and was told he was in a meeting. Ignoring the fact, she sat down to wait and sent him a text warning him that she had to speak to him. Thirty minutes passed slowly and then a svelte older woman approached her to take her to him.
‘You can wait for me here,’ she told her bodyguard.
She smoothed down her fine wool trousers and the cashmere jacket that, in concert with her stiletto-heeled boots, gave her a fashionable air. Now that she wore Nikolai’s ring she had no qualms about wearing the clothes he had bought her. It felt right, just as it had felt right to call Gramma and her father and share her wedding news and smile at their happiness on her behalf. Yet below the smile lurked a deep well of insecurity, for there were certain facts she could not ignore. She hadn’t known Nikolai for very long and she knew very little about him because he was not the kind of male who shared personal details. Yet here she was, preparing to confront him over what she deemed to be a very bad decision.
‘I have a bone to pick with you,’ she murmured the instant she stepped into his office.
Without visible reaction, Nikolai studied her with shrewd dark eyes. ‘That doesn’t sound promising. I like the boots though.’
‘Of course you do,’ Ella groaned. ‘Men always like sexy boots. You’re being predictable. But when you sacked Max, you were being a complete tyrant... I don’t want to marry a tyrant, Nikolai!’
An angry frown slowly drew together his black brows. ‘He complained to you?’
‘No, he didn’t. I found out...quite by accident actually,’ she assured him defensively. ‘Can’t you see that you’re being unjust? Did you ever tell Max not to let Cyrus into your home?’
‘No,’ Nikolai conceded grudgingly.
‘Well, then, how can you blame Max for what happened? I greeted Cyrus. Max knew that he was my visitor and thought nothing of it,’ Ella protested.