by Lucy Ellis
Irritably she wiped the screen of Nik Voronov and tapped the more prosaic ‘blocked kitchen sink’ into the search engine. The reality of her life restored.
She began rifling through the bottom odds-and-ends drawer, pulling out the shiny spanner her father-in-law had given her for just these emergencies.
Why pay a plumber you couldn’t afford when you had videos on the Internet?
Inserting herself under the sink, she focused on fitting the head of the spanner to the grip on the pipe joint.
No, she certainly wouldn’t be using those numbers he’d programmed into her phone again.
Frankly she didn’t need a man in her life. She was a confident, independent woman. Able to clear drains with just a spanner and a bucket.
She repositioned the bucket.
But she didn’t have the upper-body strength to turn the wrench.
‘Mummy! Mummy!’ Fleur’s high, sweet voice came floating into the kitchen.
Sybella adjusted her face into something approximating calm and stuck her head up over the bench.
‘What is it, sweetheart?’
‘Mummy, the giant is standing in our garden again.’
I wish.
‘Is he really? What do you think he wants?’
‘Come and see!’ Fleur urged.
Another time Sybella would have indulged her and played the game, but the man on the screen had moved on to unclogging your bath in the next video, she still hadn’t loosened the pipe grip, and she had to meet Catherine in forty minutes.
‘It’s very cold outside. I think you’d be warmer in your jeans.’
Fleur hitched up her skirt to reveal she was, indeed, wearing her jeans.
Sybella’s tension dissolved into a big smile. ‘Excellent fashion choice. Now, I need you to go upstairs and make up your backpack. Do you know what you’re taking to Gran’s?’
‘Ebby.’
Ebby was her much sucked-upon cloth doll.
‘We’re making a dress for her and fixing her eyes.’
Bless Catherine. ‘Pack your jumper—the green one. Do you remember which one that is?’
Fleur nodded confidently, which meant anything could end up in there.
‘Off you go. I’ll be up in a minute to help. Mummy needs to beat a pipe into submission.’
Sybella crawled forward, angling the wrench at a better angle. She could hear the guy on the online instructional video telling her that sometimes a simple plunger would do the job.
She knew where she wanted to stick that plunger…
‘You’ll break it,’ said a deep voice, testosterone wrapped in velvet, that had Sybella’s head snapping back and hitting the top of the sink cavity.
‘Ouch!’
She crawled out, her heart pounding in an attempt to escape through her chest, and angled a look up…and up.
Oh, blast.
Fleur had been right. There was a giant. Only he’d migrated into her kitchen.
CHAPTER TEN
SYBELLA WAS HOLDING a spanner, dressed much as she had been when he’d come here the last time, casually but this time in jeans and a jumper.
But the spanner in her hand, the brown water in her sink, the harried expression on her face gave him the feeling he was seeing Sybella as she really was, those little duck legs she’d spoken about churning around.
He took in the mess and began shedding his jacket.
‘What are you doing?’
He took the spanner out of her hand and tossed his jacket onto a chair. ‘I’ll fix this. You go fix yourself up.’
Sybella just stood there. Had she missed something? Some lost text where he explained why he’d made no contact for a week? Although the ground shifted under her there, because she could surely have texted him something better than a line about the Hall.
And she was so glad to see him.
Then she realised she was standing in front of him in an oversized jumper with the neck and head of a giraffe appliqued on its front.
Yes, she would fix herself up. Immediately.
*
Nik had retrieved the culprit in the pipe, a plastic figurine about an inch in diameter, had the water draining away and had put through a call to a cleaning service when he realised he wasn’t alone.
He turned around. A small dark head was bobbing around the edge of the doorway.
‘Hello,’ he said.
The head vanished. He waited. Gradually it inched forward again and a pair of big violet-blue eyes in a sweet squarish little face presented itself. The winter-dark hair that had fallen around her face the last time he’d seen her was tied up in bunches.
She was cute as a button.
‘Do you remember me?’ he said, keeping absolutely still and feeling completely out of his depth. He had no problem facing down angry mining bosses but confronted with a little girl he discovered he had nothing. ‘I’m Nik. I’m a friend of your mama’s.’
She didn’t vanish this time; instead she edged her way into the kitchen, shy as a mouse. She was dressed in a long green skirt that didn’t look entirely legit and some sort of long-sleeved yellow top with an appliqued picture of a horse on it. Apparently the fashion had caught on.
Nik was struck by how little she was, and also that he was a strange man in her house. He reached for something to say that wouldn’t scare her.
She beat him to it. ‘You’re not a real giant, are you? Because you can fit in a house.’
This was said in a piping voice with a great deal more confidence than he’d expected from her entrance.
‘No, I’m not a giant,’ he said slowly, trying not to smile.
‘Mummy said you were an angry giant and a north god.’
A north what?
‘I wasn’t really angry with your mama. I got some things wrong. I’m sorry if I upset her.’
She lifted and dropped her small shoulders. ‘That’s okay.’
Nik remembered what he had in his hand and held it out to her. ‘I think this might belong to you.’
The little girl trotted forward and put up her hand to take it. Nik didn’t have much experience with kids—in his circle of friends only one had offspring and it was still a baby. He was struck by how tiny her hand was, how perfect her grubby little chewed-down nails. Her eyes were full of curiosity and liveliness and if she was shy it was leaving her fast.
She studied the figurine with the same interest she’d given to him and now seemed to forget he was there.
Nik heard the truck pull up.
He headed for the front door, yanked it open. Excellent. Edbury village might be full of crackpots and run on its own Brigadoon-style timescale, but money talked in London and one of the city’s premier furnishing companies had delivered.
Which was when Nik became aware of a rabbit loping past him and out into the garden.
Hadn’t Sybella referred to them as house rabbits?
He managed to corral the other one, closing the front door behind him. It took off in a flash into the sitting room.
Which was when her little girl appeared, said dramatically, ‘You’ve done it now,’ and disappeared after the fleeing rabbit. Then he heard Sybella shouting from an upstairs window.
*
One of the famous trucks from Newman and Sons with its distinctive gold lettering was pulled up in front of her house.
Sybella watched on in astonishment as the two men flung open the back doors of the truck.
As the pieces of a bed frame and then a mattress appeared and were carried piece by piece up her garden path she threw open the window and stuck her head out.
‘I think you’ve got the wrong house!’ she called down to them.
When the men ignored her and kept coming she leaned further out.
‘Excuse me, lady of the house up here! This isn’t my delivery!’
‘It’s the replacement for your bed.’
Sybella jumped as Nik’s deep voice was suddenly right behind her in her bedroom, narrowly missing knocking her head
on the window frame.
The scene of their crime.
She clutched her hand towel to her chest like a maiden in a pulp novel, her shower-damp hair hanging over her shoulders, the rest of her encased in a thick bath sheet, anchored under one arm.
‘Nik.’ It came out with a load of longing she’d rather he didn’t hear. She swallowed, revised her plan. The plan she was trying to formulate as he stood there looking more gorgeous than she even remembered. The best she could come up with was, ‘I didn’t invite you up here!’
‘Bit late for that.’ He was looking at the bed. ‘We’ll get that shifted. You might want to get dressed and come down and supervise Fleur. She’s trying to catch those damn rabbits. I think I let one out.’
‘Oh, Lord!’ Sybella dropped the towel—the hand towel, not the bath sheet—and went to hurry past him but he caught her around the waist with those big hands of his.
‘One more thing,’ he said as she looked up in astonishment, her body instantly melting like an ice cream in the sun under his touch, and he bent his head and kissed her.
A brief but comprehensive exploration of her mouth and then he let her go.
Sybella stuttered for a moment on her feet, not sure whether to tell him off or ask him to do it again, but that was all taken out of her hands when she heard a high-pitched cry from Fleur and she was down those stairs in a flash. Vaguely she was aware Nik wasn’t far behind her.
Fleur was standing in the hall, holding Dodge in her arms, his head pushed comfortingly under her chin as Sybella had taught her.
‘Mummy, Daisy got out.’ She extended an accusatory finger at the man standing behind her mother. ‘He let her out. She’ll be squashed!’
Nik deftly set Sybella aside with the timely utterance, ‘Go and put some clothes on,’ and strode down the hall, clearly a man with a purpose.
Sybella sent Fleur into the kitchen to put Dodge in his hutch, grabbed her raincoat, shoved her feet into her galoshes and ran outside, doubting Nik was going to have much luck. She passed the two men carrying a quilted bed end. They stared at her with her bath sheet clearly visible under the semi-transparent plastic. She looked at the bed end, a little baffled by what she was supposed to do. She didn’t want Nik buying her a new bed! But at the same time she was currently sleeping on a mattress on the floor and she had a frightened female rabbit to corral.
Sure enough, Daisy had hopped into the compost, long brown ears quivering.
Good girl, thought Sybella, making sure the bath sheet was secure with one arm, scooping Daisy out with the other. At least one of the females around here had some sense.
She carried her back to the kitchen and made sure the hutch was firmly latched. She could hear thumping overhead, which meant someone was in her bedroom. Just what she needed. A man-free zone since they’d arrived here six years ago and now she had them coming down the drainpipe.
She shivered in her towel and plastic raincoat. She really needed to put some clothes on!
Fleur was jumping up and down excitedly in the doorway. ‘They’ve taken away the old mattress, Mummy!’
Sybella tried to access her own hallway but there were three men and Nik and a new mattress wrapped in plastic.
Which was when Nik came up beside her, put a hand to her waist and angled her out of the way.
‘Do you think you can get dressed?’ he growled.
‘I’d like to. I am aware the delivery men don’t know where to look.’
‘I think they know exactly where to look. Go and put some clothes on.’
‘I would but they’re in my bedroom! Nik, listen, I can’t accept this.’
‘Let me do this for you,’ he said for her ears only in that quiet, sexy Russian drawl of his. ‘I did break it.’
She found herself a little transfixed by the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes. For a single moment she forgot the fact there were strange men in her house, she was wearing a towel under a raincoat and she had to meet Catherine in twenty minutes…
‘Sybella! What on earth?’
Then she remembered, Catherine was meeting them, and it had just got worse.
‘My mother-in-law,’ she bleated. Then more plaintively, ‘I have to get all this cleaned up.’
‘I’ve called a cleaning service,’ Nik said, observing the well-groomed older lady standing on the doorstep at the end of the hall.
Sybella blinked. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Cleaners are coming. Go and dry your hair, whatever it is you need to do. I’m taking you and your daughter to lunch.’
‘What about Grandma?’ asked Fleur, looking up at her mother for guidance.
Sybella put a hand to her own temple. ‘Catherine’s spending the day with us,’ she said, looking a little harassed. He could see what was coming. Maybe this isn’t a good idea.
Nik didn’t hesitate at this mere stumbling block. ‘Catherine too, then.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘I BELIEVE YOU were seen having sexual relations with my daughter-in-law up against a car at the Hall.’
Sybella had taken Fleur off to the facilities, or ‘loo’ as she called it, leaving him alone with the real Mrs Parminter in the low-beamed, snug confines of The Folly Inn, a pub in Edbury with Civil War origins, according to Sybella, and an impressive wine list that spoke of Edbury’s prominence on the Cotswolds tourist trail.
Nik cleared his throat. ‘That didn’t happen.’
The older woman lifted her wine glass with a faint smile.
‘I didn’t think it did. Sybella is too tightly wrapped up in the memory of my son.’
Great. He really didn’t want to hear about the sainted Simon, who’d given Sybella some ridiculous but deeply felt anxieties about her body and left her with a baby, although he guessed the guy couldn’t be blamed for that—he hadn’t known a truck was coming for him. But he had brought her to a village with so few career prospects she’d been forced to invade his home. Although, Nik was no longer exercised over that little tweak in fate given it had brought Sybella into his life.
‘I wish to God it had though,’ Catherine added and tipped back the rest of her wine.
Okay, she now had his full attention.
He waited. He figured the stylish older woman was leading up to something and his input wasn’t really needed.
‘Why don’t you take her away somewhere? Marcus and I can look after Fleur for a week, and you seem rather smitten.’
Smitten? Not a word anyone had ever used about him. He usually got ruthless bastard or ice man.
However, Catherine Parminter had just earned her lunch. Taking Sybella away somewhere—alone—had begun to look like an impossible task from the moment he’d clapped eyes on Fleur in the kitchen, and up until this moment he hadn’t fancied his chances separating mother from daughter.
He caught sight of Sybella leading Fleur across the room. Male heads were turning. She looked sensational in a green jersey dress made sexy by the simple act of cinching a fabric belt around her waist. Not that she appeared to be thinking about herself and how she presented; she was obviously too busy keeping an eye on her small daughter.
‘I believe I will,’ he said, not paying much attention to the smug look that now settled on Catherine Parminter’s face.
He stood up as Sybella approached.
‘Everything takes double the time,’ she said with a smile, ‘but we get there eventually.’
Fleur wasn’t interested in taking her seat. Nik didn’t know much about kids but even he could see she was overexcited by the day’s events and actively resisting her mother’s attempts to get her seated back at the table.
‘I might take Fleur for a ramble along the river,’ said Catherine, pushing back her chair noisily. ‘Why don’t you finish that bottle of Merlot, Syb?’
Sybella gave her mother-in-law a look of outright surprise but Catherine was already moving her granddaughter off and there was nothing else for Sybella to do but sit down.
Nik seated himself and picked
up the bottle but she shook her head.
‘I don’t know what’s got into Catherine. She doesn’t usually like it when I drink.’
‘She thinks it might loosen you up.’
‘Sorry—what?’
Nik decided to just put it out there.
‘She wants you to get laid.’
‘What do you mean?’ Then her eyes widened. ‘No! She didn’t?’
‘Apparently you’re missing out.’
‘I’m not! I mean, that’s not true.’
‘Obviously,’ he drawled complacently.
She flushed and looked away, clearly flustered.
‘Although it has been seven days,’ he added.
‘Try six years,’ she said, then her eyes flew to his in dismay; she was clearly aware she’d given far too much away.
Nik was a little unsettled by the rush of male primacy he experienced at this news. She hadn’t let on once in those cold blue hours of the morning when he’d been keeping her warm in that creaky, too small double bed that he was the first since her husband.
‘Carino!’
Nik had his attention ripped off Sybella at this crucial moment by the too familiar rasp of what was becoming a weight around his neck.
Sybella was so startled for a moment she couldn’t get past the blaring thought: She’s even more gorgeous in the flesh.
Marla Mendez, trailed by a small entourage of equally happy, shiny people, had just upped the charisma wattage between The Folly Inn’s snug walls and the spotlight was on their table. Which Marla was suddenly all over.
‘Nik, darling, I have travelled into the wilds of rural England to find you. I wanted to see for myself if it was true. You have a house in the English countryside. How utterly Russian of you!’
Sybella watched as Nik lounged back in his chair and regarded Marla with the same cool distance he’d shown her when they’d first met. Only there was no gentlemanly rising from his chair. Even when he’d thought she was an interloper he’d held the door for her. It didn’t dim Marla’s wattage by even a degree.
‘I absolutely want to see it. Have you stocked it with a private zoo? Aloyshia has a zoo—it’s hysterical.’
‘No zoo, Marla.’ Nik surveyed the group of people moving over to the bar. Sybella was watching them too, and also keeping her eye on Marla, who hadn’t looked at her once. He knew he had to introduce them, but something was crouched in the back of his mind, growling, warning him not to let Marla and what she represented anywhere near his time with Sybella.