“No, no thanks to me,” he confirmed evenly. “Your doctor says you’re recovering well.”
She blinked. “You’ve spoken to him?”
“Yes.” He had spoken to the surgeon every day for the past week too. Several times a day. Sometimes during the night.
Even so, he hadn’t been prepared for how fragile, how vulnerable Daisy appeared, her face almost as pale as the white bedsheets she was lying on. He had noticed she had been thinner at the wedding, but she had lost even more weight this past week, was a barely perceptible shape beneath the bedclothes. Shadows lurked in the dark green depths of her eyes.
Shadows he was responsible for putting there.
As he was responsible for the scar she would carry for the rest of her life. A physical reminder of the brief time she had known “the cold and arrogant” Nikolai Volkov.
She gave a disgusted shake of her head. “Doctor/patient confidentiality isn’t what it used to be.”
That was possibly because doctor/paying-for-the-patient’s-treatment confidentiality superseded that.
Nikolai might not have been with Daisy this past week, but he had ensured that she had the very best treatment and the very best care by demanding and paying for them. Something else Daisy didn’t need to know.
After the shooting, Nikolai was even more convinced that he had made the right decision not to see her again after they came back from New York.
The best thing for Daisy’s future health and welfare was for her to stay well away from him.
He had gone back to New York to ensure that happened. If he’d remained in England, he might not have been able to stay away. Hell, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to.
So why am I here now?
Because he hadn’t been able to stay away from her a minute longer.
Well, now I’ve seen her, and it’s time for me to leave again. Before I say or do something—like kissing her senseless—to totally nullify all my previous efforts to stay away from her.
“Where are you going?” Daisy stared up in alarm as Nikolai stood up and moved the chair back to its place in the corner of the room, obviously with the intention of leaving.
She had waited a week for some sign that Nikolai actually cared what happened to her, and after only a few minutes’ stilted conversation, he was just going to leave again?
Because he didn’t care. How many times did she need Nikolai to tell her that, show her that, to prove it, time and time again, before she believed it?
He shrugged. “My flight back to New York leaves in an hour.”
It was humiliating how much it stung to know that Nikolai had fitted visiting her—paying her a duty call—in between business meetings.
Even more humiliating to realize how hungry she had been just to see him again. How much she enjoyed being with him again. Not just his physical beauty—drinking in the tousled, overlong blond hair, intelligent gray eyes, the sharp edges of his face, his body lithe beneath the dark business suit—but the man inside who had made love to her with such care and gentleness. Oh, Nikolai had made love to her with a wildness bordering on desperation too, but it was his gentleness the day he took her virginity that her body remembered. That her heart ached for.
She moistened the dryness of her lips. “This wasn’t your fault, you know.”
Something that looked like pain—but she knew it couldn’t be; regret maybe, but not pain—flickered in his eyes before as quickly disappearing. “I believe we both know that isn’t true, Daisy,” he drawled.
“What I meant was I don’t blame you for it.”
“I do.” He gave a tight smile. “You seemed to do so too a few minutes ago.”
“That was… It wasn’t your fault, Nikolai.” Was it terribly vain of her to wish she didn’t feel quite so grungy? Her hair needed washing, and she had no idea if she even had any makeup in the bag her mother had packed and brought in for her. She also felt at a distinct disadvantage lying in this bed.
The nurses had helped Daisy to get out of bed and go to the bathroom earlier today, but she had been on the point of collapsing by the time they helped her back beneath the bedclothes. The last thing she wanted to do was humiliate herself by attempting to get out of bed now and collapsing in front of Nikolai.
“Then who’s fault was it?” he challenged grimly. “Gregori’s? Lijah’s? Dair’s—”
“Boris Petrov’s,” she cut in impatiently. “The man was an idiot for not keeping to the deal Gregori offered him.”
Nikolai had no interest in talking about Boris Petrov. The man was dead and had caused enough trouble and heartache while he was alive.
He glanced at the gold watch on his wrist. “I have to go now, Daisy.”
“Of course.” Her voice was flat, unemotional as she watched him walk to the door. “I… Have a good life.”
As if there was any chance of that.
“Stay safe,” she added huskily.
Or that.
“Lijah tells me that you’ve now left Grayson Security?” Now that it was time to go, Nikolai was having difficulty leaving her again.
She grimaced. “Not quite. I believe there’s still a week of my month’s notice to go.”
“Do you have another job to go to?” Nikolai wondered why he was asking these things. What possible interest it was to him where Daisy worked in future. For her sake, he had no intention of ever seeing or talking to her again.
“I’ve had the offer of one, yes.”
“And?”
“And I haven’t yet made my mind up as to whether or not I should take it.”
“Why not?”
Because the job Daisy had been offered meant she would see Nikolai again on a regular basis. Knowing how he felt—didn’t feel—about her, she wasn’t sure that was something she could or should do.
Surely it would be easier for her to get over loving him if she didn’t have to keep seeing him all the time?
Even if the thought of never seeing Nikolai again made her feel ill.
She shrugged. “I’m still thinking about it.”
Nikolai nodded. “I hope you’ll be happy in your new employment, whatever it might be.” He turned on his heel and left the room as abruptly as he had entered it.
So abruptly that, for a moment, Daisy continued to stare at the empty doorway where he had been standing just a second ago.
And then it hit her, what he had said, about where he was going. Where he had been. She had been so thrown by his being here at all, her anger, at his long absence, at war with the pleasure she felt just seeing him again, she hadn’t really listened to what he’d been saying.
Nikolai was flying back to New York. Which meant he had to have flown from there in the first place.
That he was responsible for “dealing with the problem” of Boris Petrov…?
“Nikolai!” She threw back the bedclothes. “Nikolai!” Struggling to sit up was such a major effort that beads of perspiration immediately popped out on her forehead. “Nikolai…!” she called again weakly as she realized she wasn’t going to be able to move quickly enough to stop him.
And that Nikolai, whether he had heard her or not, wasn’t coming back.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Daisy had known this meeting was inevitable since the moment she accepted Gaia Markovic’s offer of employment. Known it was going to happen, but now that the moment had arrived, she realized she wasn’t prepared for it.
Wasn’t prepared for seeing Nikolai again.
Her second week spent in hospital, followed by another three weeks of convalescing at her parents’ home, had all dragged by in slow and tedious motion. There were only so many books she could read, only so much daytime television she could pretend to watch while her thoughts churned over and over, dissecting, analyzing, and all the time knowing that only Nikolai could provide the answers she wanted.
In her madder moments, she had even thought of following him to New York and demanding those answers. Thankfully,
sanity had returned to prevent her from making a complete fool of herself by chasing after a man who had made it perfectly clear he didn’t want her in his life.
So what if Nikolai had dealt personally with the problem of Boris Petrov? All that proved, as he’d admitted that night at the hospital, was he felt responsible for what happened. In true Nikolai fashion, he had taken on the responsibility of dealing with it himself. Nikolai was big on responsibility. It certainly didn’t prove he would have behaved any differently if it had been Lijah or Gregori who had been shot.
She had no doubt Nikolai had paid all her hospital bills for the same reason. Because he felt responsible for her being there in the first place. It didn’t mean anything.
And yet…
Round and round her thoughts had gone, backward and forward. Until her head ached almost as much as her heart.
By the end of her enforced month of rest, Daisy had been climbing the walls. Literally. Desperately needing to get back to living her normal everyday life.
Gaia Markovic had telephoned her every couple of days, enquiring after her health, but also repeating the job offer she had made Daisy just days after the shooting.
The other woman had recently learned she was pregnant, and Gregori had, in Gaia’s words, “gone into protective overload,” demanding his pregnant wife have someone guarding her at all times. His only concession was that Gaia could choose who that guard might be. She had chosen Daisy.
A week ago, Daisy had decided to accept the offer.
The savage expression on Nikolai’s face now, as he glared across his office at her, told her he wasn’t in agreement with Gaia’s choice.
Daisy leaned back against the chair as she returned his challenging glare. “What does it look like I’m doing?” she said dryly.
“Don’t get clever with me, Daisy,” he snapped.
“And I thought I was writing up my report for the day before going off duty.” She raised her eyebrows as Nikolai stepped softly into the room and closed the door behind him. “Is that so we don’t disturb the Markovics when we start shouting at each other?” she added mockingly.
The sarcasm was a defense mechanism, because she had realized she was completely unprepared for the sheer overwhelming power and presence that was Nikolai in the small confines of the office he kept at Gregori’s London home. An office which she had claimed as her own for the past week. Why not? Nikolai wasn’t here.
According to Gaia, Nikolai had finished his work in New York two weeks ago, and after that he had taken a holiday. Unheard of, apparently, which made Daisy wonder what he had been doing for all that time.
Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to have improved his temper. He didn’t have a tan either, so he obviously hadn’t been lying on a beach somewhere soaking up the sun. If anything, Nikolai seemed slightly pale. His hair was also longer and more unkempt than usual, the angles of his face sharper, as if he had lost weight.
“I never shout,” Nikolai clipped now.
No, he didn’t. Because he didn’t need to. Most people quaked the moment they were under the piercing spotlight of those glittering silver eyes, let alone the harshly cold lash of Nikolai’s tongue.
Well, Daisy wasn’t most people. Nor could she guarantee she was going to be able to stop herself from shouting.
Because right now, and for several weeks, she had been royally pissed with Nikolai. One hundred percent furious.
She had realized the night he visited her at the hospital, when it finally registered to her slightly befuddled brain—damn those painkillers—that Nikolai had said he was “going back” to New York. Which meant he had in all probability been there when Boris Petrov died. There was also the possibility he was responsible for what the New York police had apparently decided was the other man’s “accidental death.”
Nikolai may have—deliberately?—chosen to ignore her calling out to him that night, but it hadn’t stopped Daisy from asking questions of everyone else who visited her afterward.
Lijah had told her Nikolai wouldn’t allow anyone else to so much as touch her after she had been shot, that the other man had threatened physical violence to anyone who tried.
Gaia had told her Nikolai had traveled with her to the hospital in the ambulance, and that he had refused to leave her side even when the doctors told him they needed to examine her.
Her parents revealed Nikolai had been the one to telephone and tell them of the shooting, and that he had been pacing the waiting room at the hospital for hours, until the surgeon came to tell them she had come through the surgery successfully and was expected to make a full recovery.
Jonas told her that he’d had to restrain Nikolai at the hospital after he had gone for Gregori like a madman when he tried to reason with him.
Gregori had admitted Nikolai had left for New York that same night.
Her brother had told her Nikolai was picking up all the hospital bills, that he had flatly refused to listen when her family told him that wasn’t necessary.
Daisy had spent the last month thinking of little else but Nikolai’s strange behavior, and while she might not have the answers—not the ones she wanted anyway—she wasn’t about to let that behavior go by unchallenged.
She raised her chin. “I have a perfect right to be here.”
His mouth tightened. “So I understand. Except,” he continued softly as she would have spoken, “I am head of Markovic security, and I did not approve your employment.”
Ah, the clipped accent that appeared only when Nikolai was angry or disturbed. Daisy had no idea which, but she preferred either of those emotions than his coldness. “Then it’s as well I work directly for Gaia, isn’t it, and not Markovic security.”
“I am head of all Markovic security.”
She shrugged. “I suggest you take that up with Gaia, not me.”
He glared his frustration. “Are you well enough to be back at work yet?”
“My doctor says so, yes.”
“You told me you were going to leave security.”
“I believe I also said I wasn’t trained to do anything else.”
He eyed her impatiently. “You…implied you intended taking up less…dangerous employment, so that you could travel and walk on a beach at midnight.”
It seemed that Nikolai had remembered what she said, almost word for word… “Going shopping with Gaia, having lunch with her, and discussing the décor for the nursery is less dangerous employment. It’s pretty much nine till five too.”
At the moment, Nikolai wasn’t sure whether he wanted to strangle Daisy or kiss her. Neither of which was an appropriate—or wise—response to finding her here.
He had promised himself, as he paced at the hospital, waiting to see if she would even survive the operation, that in future he would do everything in his power to ensure nothing he ever said or did—or was—would ever hurt her again.
He had made a bargain to that effect. With God or the devil, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t care either, as long as Daisy lived.
As for kissing her…
If he started, then he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Just seeing her again was enough to cause a physical agony of longing inside him. To kiss her. Touch her. Make love to her.
She looked and smelled so…so Daisy.
Short, spiky blonde hair. Clear green eyes. Smooth alabaster skin. Challenging smile. Lithe athletic body beneath the black trouser suit and a crisp white blouse. The smell of her unique perfume invading his senses.
Clear green eyes…
The shadows Nikolai had seen there a month ago were all gone.
And he, no matter how much he might ache for her, body and soul, had no intention of being the reason for ever putting them back again.
“I’ll talk to Gaia,” he bit out tersely.
Daisy frowned. “About what?”
He moved restlessly. “I happen to be Gregori’s bodyguard—”
“Not recently.”
“Even I am entitled t
o a holiday.”
“Did you go anywhere nice?”
“None of your damned— This is the reason the two of us could never work together.”
“I’m fine with it.”
His nostrils flared. “Don’t make this more difficult than necessary—”
“More difficult than necessary!” Daisy’d had enough as she surged to her feet, eyes snapping angrily, two bright spots of color in her cheeks. “Who’s it difficult for, Nikolai?” she challenged. “As I said, it isn’t bothering me, and I’m sure this can’t be the first time you’ve worked with someone you’ve slept with.”
His lips thinned. “I believe your…enthusiasm was such, I don’t recall there being much sleep involved.”
The color deepened in her cheeks. “You bastard!”
Nikolai gave a hard smile. “You already knew that when you went to bed with me.”
Yes, Daisy had known that.
Or thought she knew that.
Because Nikolai hadn’t been a bastard the night he took her virginity so tenderly, so carefully.
Lijah said Nikolai refused to allow anyone else near her after she’d been shot.
Gaia said Nikolai had traveled in the ambulance with her and refused to leave her side even once they reached the hospital.
Her parents said he had paced endlessly until he knew she had survived the operation.
Whatever Nikolai’s reason for going to New York, Boris Petrov had died within hours of him arriving there.
None of those things equated with the uncaring bastard Nikolai was now trying to convince her he was.
Chapter 17
“What?” Nikolai eyed Daisy warily as the anger faded from her eyes which instead became shrewdly penetrating.
As if she can see past my façade of mocking indifference.
He hadn’t known Daisy was employed as Gaia’s bodyguard, let alone at Gregori’s house, until the other man told him so a few minutes ago.
Nikolai had spoken to both Gaia and Gregori often the past few weeks, and neither of them had once mentioned that Daisy would be working here when he returned.
Deliberately?
He and Gaia might have had a somewhat rocky beginning to their acquaintance, but once he realized how important Gaia was to Gregori, the two of them were able to get past that and become good friends. As his friend, Gaia had made it clear, on numerous occasions, that what Nikolai needed in his life was a wife and family of his own.
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