by Lynne Graham
‘No comment.’ Ella buttoned her lips together.
‘We can just sit here,’ Nikolai conceded in a remarkably level voice.
‘I’m all wet now—and you’re even more wet!’ she cried.
Silence fell, backed by the soft rush and retreat of the surf on the beach.
‘I can’t bear to lose you,’ Nikolai volunteered gruffly. ‘I’ll do anything it takes to keep you.’
‘My goodness, the sex must be stupendous,’ Ella told him acidly, her attention involuntarily on his lean, dark, utterly gorgeous face while she scolded herself for even noticing.
He was beautiful but deceptive like a crisp, glossy apple with a rotten core, she told herself doggedly.
‘It is,’ Nikolai agreed. ‘But we’ve got a lot more than that between us. You know we have.’
‘I don’t know anything about you any more.’
‘I believe that if you stop and really think about it you’ll realise that you know much more than you’re prepared to admit right now. Obviously you know I’m not perfect.’
‘Do you want a slow hand clap or a rousing cheer for that remarkably shrewd deduction?’
Glittering dark eyes assailed hers without warning. ‘Do you want to be dropped back into the sea from a height?’ Nikolai asked, his arms tightening suggestively round her slight body.
Ella closed her eyes tight, feeling a flush sting her tear-stung face and gritting her teeth. He had said he would do anything to keep her but he wasn’t prepared to lie down and be kicked, which was all she wanted to do to him at that moment. She wasn’t feeling forgiving or constructive or even like talking, she was simply feeling hurt. ‘I want to go back up to the house if you won’t leave me alone down here.’
Nikolai expelled his breath and slowly set her down on her own feet, almost as if he was afraid that without his support she might fall over. As he swept up the sandals she had abandoned earlier and painstakingly put them on for her an embittered laugh bubbled in Ella’s throat. She held it in though, thinking she had to support herself, go forward, face the future as it was, not as she had wished and dreamt it might be. As she walked silently back to the house, she was conscious of her exhaustion and knew she needed to lie down. All that emotional turmoil had extracted a high cost in terms of her energy levels.
Nikolai followed Ella upstairs.
‘Going to bed for a while,’ she muttered limply, trying to slam the door in his face.
‘Let me help you...’
Ella swallowed back the bitter comment that nothing he could do or say would help her state of mind. Some pain went too deep to be soothed by even the kindest gesture. He felt guilty and she knew that, recognised that, but she didn’t want to have to deal with his guilt. That was his problem and she had enough to cope with. She pulled off her dress, letting it lie where it fell, shimmied out of her underwear and clambered into the bed naked.
‘Do you want some tea?’ Nikolai suggested, rearranging the duvet over her quite unnecessarily. ‘I can make tea.’
Ella shut her eyes, fatigue dragging her down like a strong current in the sea. She wanted to sleep, she wanted to forget and she couldn’t forget while he was around. ‘No, thanks.’
Nikolai sank down silently on a chair in the corner of the bedroom. She was as white as a sheet and her eyes looked haunted, bruised, hurt. It was what he had most feared and it felt even worse than he had expected because he felt helpless and he wasn’t used to being helpless. But he had had to tell her, he reminded himself heavily; she had deserved the truth rather than some fanciful fiction. It occurred to him that she hadn’t yet heard the whole truth, but then she probably wouldn’t believe him, would she?
Ella wakened to find Nikolai standing over her. ‘You have to put these on.’
She surfaced from sleep and instantly remembered all that had happened but she had no idea why Nikolai was trying to induce her to put on a pair of winter pyjamas. ‘Why?’
‘The doctor is waiting downstairs to come up and check you over.’
‘The doctor?’ she gasped, sitting up and reaching for the ridiculous pyjamas in a rush. ‘Why have you called a doctor?’
‘Because you’ve had a major emotional upset and you’re pregnant and you need to be careful,’ Nikolai told her stubbornly. ‘I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I’m trying to look after you.’
‘Yeah, push me down, walk over me, drag me up again,’ Ella framed bitterly. ‘That’s great looking after on your part.’
‘Mr Theodopoulos is the leading gynaecologist on the island. Dorkas and Dido recommended him.’
‘So now they know I’m carrying a baby as well,’ Ella mumbled resentfully.
‘I’m proud that you are,’ Nikolai declared, startling her as he plumped up the pillows behind her and twitched the duvet even higher. ‘The doctor is young for his position. Perhaps you would prefer an older man or...even a woman?’ he extended almost hopefully.
It was no surprise to Ella then that the gynaecologist who appeared enjoyed movie-star good looks and the kind of warm, soothing bedside manner that put a woman instantly at her ease while at the same time riling a possessive husband. Nikolai behaved like a dog with a juicy bone under threat. He insisted on staying and then paced grim-faced at the back of the room with folded arms, monitoring every smile the doctor won from his wife.
Of course, there was nothing to worry about where her health was concerned. Early pregnancy was tiring and that was all that was the matter with her.
Ella was in the shower when Nikolai came back upstairs after seeing the doctor off. She towelled herself dry in the cubicle and then stepped out, refusing to act self-conscious even though it no longer felt right to be naked around him.
‘You don’t look pregnant,’ Nikolai observed.
‘Of course I don’t. I’m only a few weeks along. There won’t be much sign of anything for a month or so yet. Don’t you know that?’ she asked, pulling clothing out of the closet while studiously ignoring him in the hope that he would recognise that his presence was inappropriate.
‘No. I know absolutely nothing about pregnancy,’ Nikolai admitted. ‘But I can find out.’
‘Don’t push yourself on my account,’ Ella flipped back drily.
‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ he pressed while she stood at the vanity combing through her wet hair.
‘I was shocked. When we discussed us starting a family you weren’t exactly enthusiastic about the concept of becoming a father,’ Ella reminded him flatly. ‘I assumed it would upset you and I didn’t want that this early in our marriage. Of course, I didn’t know that there was an even bigger elephant hiding in the room!’
Nikolai settled her rings down on the counter at her elbow. ‘Please put your rings back on...’
‘No,’ Ella countered flatly, her lips compressed.
‘After I first met you in that car park and you turned me down I ran like hell away from you,’ Nikolai breathed, startling her. ‘I think on some level I knew that if I got involved with you it was going to turn into something I wasn’t ready for.’
‘You have some imagination, Nikolai. Telling me that you ran like hell isn’t exactly a compliment,’ Ella pointed out.
‘But it’s the truth.’
‘The truth is that you only looked me up again because Cyrus took a strange fancy to me,’ Ella reminded him as she walked out of the bathroom back into the bedroom.
‘I was obsessed by my need for revenge. I took no account of anything else. For five years I lived, breathed and slept revenge. I was very angry and bitter about Sofia and I think it was like poison in my brain.’
‘And together we’re toxic,’ Ella slotted in, refusing to be persuaded.
‘Max has lunch ready for us downstairs.’ Nikolai pulled open the bedroom door.
The
table on the veranda was beautifully set. The honeymoon couple’s dream lunch served on exquisite china amid flowers and crystal. She breathed in deep, the dogs nudging a welcome against her ankles, and she paused for a moment to give them some attention.
Nikolai saw that having three or four legs, a shaggy coat and a tail bought advantages he couldn’t dream of acquiring. He breathed in deep and slow, reminding himself of the positives. She hadn’t gone for the suitcases yet, hadn’t mentioned flying anywhere. He was terrified that she would want to leave Crete and him behind.
‘We’re not toxic,’ he declared, pouring some water for her. ‘And I wouldn’t have got “upset” about the baby. Like you, I’m very practical. That’s something we have in common. It is what it is and we can both adapt to suit a new situation.’
‘I loved you!’ Ella slung at him without the smallest warning.
Nikolai shrank from the past tense. ‘The dynamic changed between us very fast. I had no plans beyond taking you to that charity function and moving you into the town house. Somewhere about there I lost control of everything...’
‘Are you trying to excuse yourself for having sex with me?’ Ella enquired in a glacial voice.
His dark deep-set eyes flashed gold. ‘No. I’d be a complete liar if I said I had regrets about that. In fact you pretty much owned me from that day on.’
‘Owned you?’ Ella repeated emphatically. ‘Because of the sex?’
Nikolai sank an entire glass of wine. It was so difficult. He had never done anything so difficult as trying to talk to Ella in the mood she was currently in. ‘Hardly,’ he deflected. ‘I suspect that’s when I fell in love with you. You snuggled up to me in bed and, although I didn’t admit it to myself, I liked it. I still really like it when you do that and it’s so peculiar for me to like something like that...’
Ella almost dropped the glass in her hand. She stared at him, colour rising in her cheeks. ‘You’re lying, of course you’re lying. You’re still in guilty-conscience mode and you know I love you, so you’re telling me what you think I want to hear.’
‘But you don’t want to hear it,’ Nikolai pointed out helplessly. ‘You only want to sit there judging me and deciding that I am a total bastard in every way. And I was a bastard before I met you.’
‘And when you first met me and when you met me a second time,’ Ella reminded him.
‘But I changed. You changed me. Don’t ask me how. It happened and here I am and I’m as obsessed with you now as I once was with Cyrus,’ Nikolai completed fiercely. ‘I don’t do or plan anything without thinking about you. You’re always inside my head.’
Ella was finally starting to listen. Even the dogs were listening because Nikolai had a piece of baguette in his hand and he was waving his hands around as he spoke and the dogs were very hopeful that that piece of bread would fall in their direction. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really,’ Nikolai derided. ‘I’m crazy about you.’
‘You have a funny way of showing it.’
‘I couldn’t love you and not tell you the truth. That wouldn’t have been fair.’
Ella studied him, slowly, almost painfully registering his sincerity, his certainty. He really believed that he loved her now. He really, truly believed that. ‘When I told you that I loved you, you said nothing,’ she reminded him.
‘I had to tell you the truth first but I was... I was...’
‘What?’ she broke in impatiently.
‘Scared... OK? Satisfied now?’ Nikolai raked back at her angrily. ‘I was scared I would lose you but I couldn’t live with keeping a secret like that from you.’
Ella went pink and dropped her head. ‘Oh,’ she almost whispered, wondering why she was being so hard on him.
Yes, he had hurt her but she appreciated his respect for the truth, his inability to stay quiet and pretend that everything was all right when it wasn’t. She breathed in slow and deep. Nikolai Drakos loved her... Nikolai loved her. A tiny ping of happiness cut through her grey cloud of heartbroken misery and regret. She was scared to feel happy, scared to trust him. But Nikolai had pretty much felt the same way, she reasoned wryly. Love didn’t come with guarantees any more than people did. And yes, he was far from perfect, but then she wasn’t perfect either and she loved him so very much it hurt to have a table separating them. Slowly she rose to her feet.
Sensing a change in the atmosphere, Nikolai surveyed her warily. ‘I can make this up to you. I do know I messed up really badly—’
‘Shut up,’ Ella told him, tipping herself down into his lap. ‘It’s done and dusted and when I told you that I loved you I meant it. I love you even when you mess things up. I may get angry and shout and throw my rings at you...but at the end of it all I will still love you very, very much. As long as the mess up doesn’t involve another woman,’ she qualified hastily, lest he think he could be forgiven for any sin.
Nikolai wrapped both arms round her very tightly and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘No other women,’ he said gruffly, because he could hardly get breath into his deflated lungs. ‘I need all my energy for you.’
Ella gazed up at him with a smile that was like the sun breaking through the clouds. ‘So... I own you?’
His eyes were melted caramel. ‘That’s what it feels like sometimes.’
‘No, that’s being part of a couple,’ she argued, hugging him back with all her strength, tears prickling in her eyes because she was experiencing the most enormous sense of relief. He had given her the fairy tale by falling in love with her and he didn’t understand how it had happened any better than she did, but that didn’t matter, did it?
‘Are we hoping for a boy or a girl?’ Nikolai asked, long fingers splaying across her defiantly flat stomach.
‘We don’t get to choose. I don’t mind either way,’ she muttered abstractedly as she brushed her lips back and forth very gently across his.
‘Neither do I...’ Nikolai growled, rising from the chair with her still gripped in his arms. ‘You can have a dozen kids if I get to keep you.’
‘Not thinking in terms of that many,’ Ella declared, succumbing to a passionate kiss that sent tingles all the way to her toes. ‘Are we going to bed?’
‘Can’t wait to make you mine again, latria mou,’ Nikolai husked against her reddened lips. ‘You gave me such a scare today. I need to know you’re still my wife. You have to put your rings back on.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she teased, revelling in the sense of power he was giving her because it was wonderful to know and accept that she was so wanted, so loved, so valued.
‘When I married you my only wish was to make you happy,’ he admitted. ‘And then today—’
‘That’s behind us now,’ Ella interrupted. ‘And you’re about to make me incredibly happy by telling me that you love me again.’
‘Do I really have to keep on saying it?’ Nikolai groaned.
‘Yes, that’s your penance...’ Ella whispered as he laid her down on their bed and stared down at her with a fierce appreciation she could feel right down to the marrow of her bones. Yes, he loved her. She could see it, she could feel it and it felt amazing...
EPILOGUE
TOBIAS DRAKOS, FIVE years old and a bundle of lively energy who was rarely still, raced downstairs in advance of his mother. Taking note that the front door of the country house, Tayford Hall, already stood wide with Max at the ready to greet his employer, Tobias crowed. ‘I told you it was the helicopter, Mummy... I told you it was Daddy!’
Ella studied her son, the very image of his father with his above-average height, dark eyes and dark hair, and suppressed a groan because she knew that she would never get him to bed early now. That would have been acceptable any other night but it was Christmas Eve and she had loads of things she wanted to do while Tobias was upstairs and out of sight. Even so, he
hadn’t seen his father in a full week, which was a good enough excuse to loosen up on routine.
Ella knew that if she had a fault it was her tendency to stick too close to routine. But she and Nikolai led very busy lives, and without a routine someone or something got short-changed. Rory and Butch were already racing across the lawn in pursuit of their offspring, Maxie, the only one of Rory’s litter of puppies they had kept. Maxie was an indiscriminate mixture of doggy genes and she had grown into a much leggier and larger dog than her diminutive parents. Before Ella could say a word, her son had raced out across the lawn in his pyjamas just as the helicopter landed.
Ella stayed circumspectly on the top step, although to tell the truth she would have been much happier pelting across the lawn with dogs and child because Nikolai rarely travelled these days and when he did she missed him terribly. And there he was, her for-ever-and-ever guy, tall and dark and handsome, striding towards her with over-excited dogs bouncing in his path and a son talking a mile a minute to him.
As Nikolai hitched Tobias up and hugged him, her heart constricted because she loved to see them together like that. Nikolai had had so many insecurities about becoming a parent but, like many goal-driven men, he had exceeded her expectations in that role. He tried to ensure that his son received everything he himself had been denied by neglectful parents. He gave Tobias his time, showed an interest and supported the little boy at every step of his development.
Ella smoothed down her scarlet knee-length dress and shifted in her very high-heeled shoe-boots, slender legs braced as Nikolai drew closer and his lean, darkly handsome features came into focus. Her whole body lit up like a firework display because just seeing Nikolai made her that happy and she had news to share that made her even happier.
Nikolai studied the picture Ella made at the front door and thought that he was an incredibly lucky man. Behind her the welcome of the house and the edge of the sparkling Christmas tree in the hall with its roaring log fire made him smile. He had bought the hall when Ella was pregnant and she adored country life. Once she had qualified as a veterinary surgeon, she had taken a job nearby and had become very popular in the local community. If he didn’t watch over her she worked too hard, and now that she had her career and Tobias had started school if he went away on business he had to travel alone, which he disliked.