by Lucy Ellis
He reached out and gently smoothed the drying ringlets back from her face.
‘I would have visited earlier,’ he said, ‘if I’d had any idea something so beautiful was here.’
Then his gaze dropped to her mouth.
She relived that moment in the snow and realised it hadn’t been her imagination. There was a very strong attraction between them.
Only she didn’t do things like this.
Given the last man to kiss her existed now only in her memory of him.
She wasn’t even sure what she would do if he…
His mouth covered hers. He gave her no opportunity to back out, or overthink it, he just made it happen. One hand sliding around the back of her head to cradle her, the other at the small of her back. His hand was so broad he could span her waist from behind.
In a flurry of sense impressions, Sybella had never felt so delicate, so utterly aware she was a feeling, sensate woman and, as exciting and dangerous as this was, she felt completely safe in his arms.
Where he had been so rough with her out in the snow he was now showing due care and acknowledgement of her as a female, which put to bed his remark about mistaking her for a man and engendered a fluttery feeling inside her. It bloomed high in her chest and a swirling warmth gathered down below.
He brought her in close to his body and she felt the full hard, muscular strength of him and it was enough.
She gave way, her mouth softening under his, the entire lost art of kissing returning to her with some subtle but much appreciated changes.
His tongue touched, grazed, tasted, seduced and the feel of him was so completely male and so overwhelming in the certainty of his approach Sybella took what he gave her instinctively and with an utter disregard to where this might be leading.
Until all her doubts came rushing back in and she ducked her head.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked gruffly.
Apart from he was a stranger, and they didn’t know one another, and she suspected given her activities in his house only trouble could come from this?
‘I don’t know.’ She did know—she was feeling a bit too much and it had been so long and she no longer had any certainty in her ability to meet him as a sexually confident woman. But had she ever?
She wasn’t ready for this.
Meg would say whatever sense of herself as a desirable woman had been shoved into the back of her wardrobe in a box along with her preserved wedding bouquet and all the plans she and Simon had made for the future. But it had happened before that. It had happened when Simon had briefly dated another girl and slept with her.
It was a little disconcerting to say the least to discover, gazing up at this intense, beautiful man, she had no idea where to go from here with him. But she did know one thing. She had to let him know what was going on in his house.
‘I have to tell you something,’ she blurted out. ‘Edbury Hall is open to the public on weekends.’
*
Nik didn’t immediately let her go. His hand was still curled around her sweet waist gloved in soft cashmere wool that made the most of her glorious curves above and below.
He could pinpoint the moment he’d stopped thinking clearly. It was when he’d seen her bending down by the fire, the most female-looking woman. She was the proverbial hourglass, and if there was a little more sand than was standard in that glass his libido didn’t make that distinction. She had ample breasts and long, shapely legs, deliciously plump around her thighs and bottom, and in his arms she’d felt like both comfort and sin.
Which explained why his brain took a little longer to catch up, because his body was happy where it was, Sybella’s curves giving him a full body press.
‘Why is the house open to the public?’ He forced himself to set her back. ‘On whose authorisation?’
‘Mr Voronov senior’s, and—and yours.’ Sybella’s voice gave out, so the ‘yours’ wasn’t much more than a whisper.
‘Mine?’ he growled, any trace of the man who had begun to kiss her and rouse such passionate feelings in her evaporating like the last patch of sunshine on a cold winter’s day.
‘You were sent the paperwork. I didn’t just go ahead only on your grandfather’s say-so,’ she protested.
‘I received no paperwork.’
No. She gnawed on the inside of her lip. Now she would have to explain about the letters. But she didn’t want to be responsible for a further breach between grandfather and grandson. Family was important.
No one understood that better than someone who for a long time didn’t have any.
No, it would be better if his grandfather confessed.
And what if Nik Voronov decided to blame her anyway?
Blood was blood, and old Mr Voronov might easily side with his grandson.
Sybella knew she had nobody to blame but herself and for a spinning moment she just started babbling. ‘I don’t see who has been hurt by any of this. Mr Voronov is a lonely man and he enjoys having people into the house…’
‘And you have taken advantage of that.’
‘No!’ Sybella closed her eyes and took a breath. Arguing with him wasn’t going to accomplish anything. ‘I understand you don’t know me,’ she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could, given the escalating tension, ‘and you say you’re worried about your grandfather—’
‘I am worried about him.’
‘Well, I don’t see any evidence of that given you’re never here!’
Oh, she should have kept that to herself. And now he was looking down at her without a shred of give in him.
‘I suspect you’ve taken my grandfather for a ride, and, if I find out that’s the case, you really don’t want me for an enemy Mrs Parminter.’
It was difficult not to take a step back.
She swallowed hard. ‘Do you go through life mistrusting people?’
‘When it comes to my family I don’t allow anything past the keeper.’
Those words took the indignant air out of her because she guarded her little family too. His grandfather had become of late an honorary member of that family and for a moment she wondered if she’d got it wrong. Nik Voronov might genuinely care about his grandfather. If the shoe were on the other foot she would be suspicious too.
She tried again. ‘Honestly, Nik, it’s not what you think.’
‘I think we can probably go back to Mr Voronov.’
He was making her feel as if she’d done something wrong.
Which was when she noticed he was getting out his phone.
‘Are you calling the police again?’ She tried not to sound despairing because, really, what were they going to arrest her on? Impersonating a married lady? Kissing a man she’d just met?
‘I’m arranging a car for you. I take it you live in the village?’
It was no more than a ten-minute walk if she took the lane, but Sybella didn’t intend to argue with him about the lift.
‘If this is your organisation’s way of drumming up support you can let them know that honey traps went out in the nineteen seventies.’
Honey trap?
He turned away and spoke rapidly into his phone in Russian.
Sybella wondered if being shaken about like a child’s toy earlier had affected her hearing. It had certainly loosened some of her native intelligence.
What did he think, she was Mata Hari kissing men for state secrets?
Oh, boy, she definitely needed to get out of here.
Cursing her own stupidity, she pulled on her damp jeans and then bent down to reattach her boots. Everything was cold and unpleasant and would chafe but there was no helping that.
‘I want you back here nice and early, let’s say eight o’clock for breakfast,’ he said from behind her. ‘You have some explaining to do, and it will be in the presence of my grandfather.’
Sybella became aware he was probably getting a really good look at her wide womanly behind at this moment. But everything was such a shambles—what was one more humiliati
on?
‘Eight o’clock is too early.’
‘Tough. Get an alarm clock.’
She straightened up. ‘For your information I’ll be awake at six, but I have a great deal to organise myself. You’re not the only busy person in the world, Mr Voronov.’
He looked unimpressed.
‘I am running a billion-dollar business, Mrs Parminter. What’s your excuse?’
A five-year-old girl, Sybella thought, eyeing him narrowly, but he looked like one of those unreconstructed dinosaurs who thought raising children happened by magic. Besides, she was not bringing her daughter into this hostile conversation.
‘The fact is I’m out of here tomorrow,’ he informed her. ‘Let’s call this your window of opportunity.’
‘To do what?’
‘To convince me not to involve my lawyers.’
All the fight went out of Sybella. She couldn’t quite believe this was happening. But she told herself surely old Mr Voronov would clear the air tomorrow.
‘Fine. I’ll be here.’
To her surprise he took his wool coat and handed it to her with a less antagonistic, ‘You’ll need this.’
Sybella looked at her Climb and Ski jacket she’d been unable to bring herself to put back on and self-consciously drew his coat around her shoulders.
The gesture reminded her of how kind he’d been drying her hair, how he’d made her feel cared for if only for a brief time. It was enough to make her want to cry, and she hated crying. It didn’t change anything.
She turned away from him, his scent surrounding her inside the coat.
She spotted the bottle of brandy and on a whim picked it up. After the events of this evening she needed it more than he did.
He didn’t say anything and when she went downstairs to climb into the waiting car she was holding it to her like a safety blanket.
Stupid really, when she didn’t drink. Stupid being in this car, when it would take only ten minutes or five minutes if she’d legged it. She brought her fingertips to her mouth. It still felt a little swollen and sensitive from all the attention. Stupid, probably, to have kissed him.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘MUMMY, THERE’S A GIANT standing in our garden. What do you think about that?’
Given yesterday it had been an elephant under the stairs, Sybella didn’t rush to call the fire brigade or police station or even Jack the giant killer.
When she did put away the bath towels she was folding and came into her bedroom, she found her five-year-old daughter was kneeling at the dormer window in her pyjamas, her big violet-blue eyes full of innocent curiosity for a world that produced fairy-tale characters in human guise.
Joining Fleur at the glass, she obligingly looked out. Her pulse hit a thousand and she stepped back and said a silent prayer. Then she leaned forward again to get a better look.
She became aware of Fleur watching her, waiting for a cue as to how to respond to this stranger at their door. Sybella shook off her astonishment.
‘That’s not a giant, darling, that’s a Viking god.’
He was facing their door and in a minute he’d work out the old-fashioned bell-pull was indeed the bell—but it was broken.
Then he’d probably pound on the door until he broke it down.
‘Mummy will go down and speak to him. Why don’t you stay here with Dodge? You know how nervous he gets around boys.’
‘Because they’re noisy.’ Fleur picked up her toy bricks and returned to fitting pieces together. Sybella wasn’t fooled. Her daughter would wait until the coast was clear and make her way to the top of the stairs and peer down through the bannisters.
Sybella wouldn’t have minded that option herself. Instead she took the stairs by twos, then stopped in front of the hall mirror and checked her face was clean. Clean but her eyes were shadowed with lack of sleep.
She’d been on the Internet late last night checking up on Nik Voronov and how much damage he could possibly do her. Given he was on the Forbes list, probably a lot.
At least she was wearing her work clothes: a white silk blouse, a knee-length caramel-coloured suede skirt and boots. Pretty respectable. She ran a hand through her yet-to-be-braided hair and went to open the door.
Then hesitated and looked at herself in the glass again, this time undoing her top two buttons.
There, just a hint of cleavage. It had nothing to do with making herself more attractive for the man who had called her a honey trap last night. It was about her own self-confidence as a woman.
She opened the door, and her self-confidence did a wobble and promptly fell over.
He was wearing a tailored suit and tie. He might as well have been wearing a surcoat and carrying a broadsword. She knew he’d come to take prisoners.
His eyes flared over her as if he were dropping a net and Sybella instinctively dug her heels into her shoes to keep herself from being dragged in towards him.
And just like last night in the snow it was his mouth she was drawn to. The wide lower lip, the slight curve at the ends that could go either way, like Nero’s thumb, up or down, and decide your fate. She’d been kissed by that mouth last night and it had definitely been going her way for a little bit. But in the end it had all been a ruse to make her look as foolish as possible.
‘Enjoy the brandy?’
The brandy? She hadn’t known what to do with the bottle when she’d got home so she’d stashed it in the linen closet.
It had occurred to her that Catherine, her mother-in-law, was regularly in and out of that cupboard when she babysat Fleur.
Sybella was forever coming home to freshly changed sheets, which she appreciated even as it drove her crazy.
Hiding spirits behind the bathroom towels, Sybella, dear?
A little devil she didn’t know was in her made her say, ‘Yes, thank you, I drank the lot.’
‘Careful,’ he said, his deep voice wiping away any comparisons with her mother-in-law, ‘excessive drinking is a slippery slope to all kinds of illness in later life.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
What did he want? Why was he looking at her in that way, his eyes trained on her, cool and watchful and somehow taking her clothes off?
‘So,’ she said, swallowing. ‘How can I help you today?’
Nik eyed the two undone buttons.
‘It’s nine o’clock.’
‘I told you my mornings were busy.’ She made a gesture with her hand, wriggling her fingers. ‘Serene on the surface, duck legs churning underneath.’
Nik’s attention had drifted to her hair because it seemed to have grown more abundant overnight like some Victorian-era maiden. He suddenly found himself right back where he was last night. Wanting her.
He cleared his throat. ‘My grandfather tells me you take tours of the house.’
She stood a little straighter. ‘The third Thursday of every month, we have school groups in. Only in the west wing.’
‘You bring people into my house?’
‘I don’t think your grandfather considers the house yours,’ she said, her fan of lashes flickering nervously. ‘Really the house belongs to everyone in Edbury in a manner of speaking. There has been a manor house on this spot since the time of the Normans—’
‘Fascinating.’
‘It is fascinating!’ She firmed her mouth. ‘Your grandfather understands we’re only caretakers of a place like this. That’s why he agreed to open up the estate again to the public.’
Nik tried not to notice how her blouse hugged her breasts or her skirt flared over those rounded hips. ‘I am more interested in discovering exactly why my property is being treated like a theme park.’
Sybella’s heart sank. If this was his attitude there was no win for her here.
Only she noticed his gaze was roaming a little too far south of her face again and she could feel her body responding, the warmth rising up into her cheeks, the backs of her knees tingling.
‘I’m not a theme park either,’ she s
aid flatly.
To her surprise a streak of colour rose over his high, flat cheekbones.
‘And no one is treating Edbury Hall that way,’ she hastened on, wanting to put the sexual awareness behind them where it belonged. ‘It’s more of an educational facility.’
He folded his arms. ‘Who is paying your salary?’
‘No one. Everyone volunteers.’
‘Right.’
‘No one’s ever been paid at Edbury. All takings are funnelled back into other projects in the area.’
His gaze zeroed in on her. ‘You’re not an employee?’
She shook her head.
‘Good, that makes this less ambiguous.’
‘What do you mean “ambiguous”? What’s ambiguous?’ Sybella didn’t like the sound of that.
He looked up at the lintel above her head and over the local stone that walled her house.
‘You’re also my tenant,’ he spelt out, cool gaze dropping to hers once more. ‘The lease on the Hall includes these weavers’ cottages.’
‘Yes,’ she said feeling hunted, ‘and I’ve never missed a rental payment.’
‘Nobody said you had. But just as a hypothetical example, how would you like it if I turned this row into a tourist attraction on the weekends?’
‘They are a tourist attraction.’
‘Prostit?’
‘People come from all over the world to photograph our cottages. Several film crews have been on site in this street in the past four years.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘I’m beginning to think you know nothing of Edbury at all.’
‘You’d be right. I own the Hall for tax purposes.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’m required to own a certain amount of property in the UK for tax reasons.’
She stared at him as if he’d announced he’d stolen the Crown Jewels and was currently storing them in the Kremlin.
‘You must be joking? You’ve caused all this upset in the village because you want to cheat on your tax?’ Her voice had risen exponentially.
Nik shifted on his size fifteens. ‘I do not engage in illegal activities, Mrs Parminter, and I would be careful about what you say to me.’