Читать книгу The Revenge Collection 2018 - Кейт Хьюит, Эль Кеннеди - Страница 20
ОглавлениеAS NIKOLAI STRODE off to take refuge in the room he used as an office Ella froze in place in the hall, with the dogs wandering restively round her feet. How could the fire or the bar manager’s tragic death be laid at Nikolai’s door? How could he possibly be thinking that way?
Nikolai turned from the window as Ella appeared in the doorway to study him with frowning bemusement. He knew he wasn’t making sense. He knew she didn’t get it and a great sense of weight bowed down his wide shoulders.
‘Cyrus and I have been bitter enemies for a very long time,’ he told her flatly.
Belatedly Ella was recalling Cyrus’s sister’s comment at their wedding. She had intended to ask Nikolai for further clarification but had not got around to it because at the time it hadn’t seemed that important. ‘Why?’ she asked simply.
Nikolai’s spectacular bone structure went rigid. ‘He raped my sister...’
Ella paled and moved forward.
Nikolai leant back against his desk and raked long, taut fingers through his black hair, expelling his breath in a hiss. ‘It was all in the diary. That’s what I found out five years ago.’
Ella was filled with horror, recalling Cyrus’s violent assault on her. ‘What a nightmare that must have been for you.’
‘Cyrus has been accused of rape before but the accusations tend to be kicked out or withdrawn or they miraculously disappear,’ Nikolai advanced in a harsh undertone. ‘His father is an enormously powerful and wealthy man. I looked into the cases of Cyrus’s previous accusers. One of them dropped the case and now has a seat at the directors’ table. She rose up the ranks at meteoric speed and is now an affluent woman who flatly refuses to discuss the matter.’
‘You think she was paid off,’ Ella gathered.
‘Police and members of the legal profession have been bribed. A couple of other victims went from poverty to prosperity. I would assume they were compensated. But Sofia died,’ Nikolai emphasised with pained ferocity. ‘She was poor and powerless and she couldn’t bear to tell me what that bastard had done to her.’
‘Tell me what happened,’ Ella urged quietly.
She poured Nikolai a fresh coffee on the veranda. Her hand wasn’t quite steady. She was in shock about what he was telling her about Cyrus. She was remembering the way Cyrus had attacked her and suddenly taking that assault a great deal more seriously. If Nikolai was to be believed it hadn’t been a momentary loss of control, the case of a man losing his temper and barely knowing what he was doing.
Sofia, Ella learned, had not enjoyed Nikolai’s educational advantages and had worked in a variety of dead-end jobs before equipping herself with secretarial skills at night class. She had then taken a position as a typist in Cyrus’s Athens office and one day when she was on reception he had noticed her.
Ella scanned the photo that Nikolai removed from his wallet. His sister had been truly beautiful.
‘Cyrus goes for virgins. My sister was older than his usual victims but she was innocent,’ Nikolai gritted, perspiration beading his upper lip as he went on to tell her how Cyrus had invited his sister out for coffee a couple of times and once to lunch, while telling her to keep their meetings secret from the people she worked with.
‘I suppose that’s when she should’ve got suspicious.’ Ella sighed.
‘She was naive; thrilled and flattered that a handsome, successful man was showing an interest in her, and when he asked her to come to his apartment one evening to do some private work for him she went,’ Nikolai completed.
‘And that’s when...right.’ Ella nodded in shaken acknowledgement. ‘Did Sofia go to the police afterwards?’
‘Only after she had showered but the medical did show that she had been badly bruised. She was told that there wasn’t enough evidence. Cyrus insisted that they had had consensual sex and he was believed and she was more or less told that she was a lonely fantasist. She felt humiliated that the police didn’t believe in or support her. That’s what drove her to take her own life.’
‘It must have been terrifying for her,’ Ella acknowledged heavily. ‘I can’t begin to imagine what she must have gone through.’
Nikolai was very still. ‘I’ve spent the past five years plotting my revenge against Cyrus.’
Her smooth brow furrowing, Ella gave him a bemused look. ‘Revenge?’
‘After what my sister suffered, I couldn’t live with the idea of Cyrus walking around unpunished. I had him investigated and, the more I learned about him, the more disgusted I became that a sexual deviant like him has never been brought to justice,’ Nikolai revealed. ‘To be honest, I became obsessed with my desire to take revenge on Cyrus...’
Ella strove to look understanding because she really couldn’t blame him for his feelings after hearing the tragic story of his sister’s death. Even so, the concept of revenge was so foreign to her own nature that she really couldn’t grasp it at all.
‘And somewhere during that five years I forgot who I was supposed to be and the man my sister had tried to raise me to be,’ Nikolai admitted gravely. ‘I stole business deals off Cyrus—not very satisfying. However, that was really the only damage I was able to do until his sister, Marika, phoned me a couple of months ago and informed me that Cyrus was planning to marry you.’
‘The sister he doesn’t even speak to was aware that Cyrus wanted to marry me when even I didn’t suspect it?’ Ella gasped, more than a little disturbed by the bombshell of her own name and connection to Cyrus Makris entering Nikolai’s explanations. ‘How is that possible? And why would Marika go out of her way to contact you and tell you that about me?’
‘Cyrus told his father that he was planning to marry his nephew Paul’s former fiancée. His father had been pressuring him to marry for some time and, after Cyrus named you, his father confided in Marika and asked her if she had ever met you. Marika contacted me because she knew that I was her brother’s biggest enemy and she hates him for reasons she has never shared with me.’
Ella shook her head dully. She was getting lost in the story while sixth sense was warning her that there was something very important for her to learn from what Nikolai was telling her. Unfortunately her brain was refusing to join up the dots and pick up the clues she needed.
‘When I saw your photo I couldn’t believe you were the same girl I met in that car park last year,’ Nikolai told her tautly.
‘When did you see my photo?’ Ella pressed, frowning as she moved restively against the wooden support post she had braced a hand on, her simple turquoise sundress swirling round her slim legs.
‘As soon as I had your name I had you checked out.’
Again Ella shook her head. ‘But why would you do that? What could Cyrus’s crazy belief that he could get me to marry him possibly have to do with you?’
‘I wanted to hurt him, Ella!’ Nikolai bit out in frustration. ‘I wanted to ensure that his plans for you came to nothing and that meant I had to get to you first and make you mine instead! I knew that my taking you from him would hit him hardest.’
Ella could feel the blood below her skin draining away as she finally grasped the connection he was making. Wheels within wheels and secret plotting going on behind the scenes. She could never, ever have dreamt that she owed Nikolai’s keen pursuit to such a cold, merciless motivation. Indeed his pursuit had been nothing to do with her at all, nothing personal, she thought sickly, nothing personal when she so badly needed it all to have been personal for him.
Nikolai could hear his own heart thumping out his tension in his ears as he watched her like a hawk. She looked sick, shocked. ‘I had to tell you. You have the right to know the worst about me. You need to know what and who I am and what I’m capable of.’
‘Not sure I want to know,’ Ella forced out between teeth that suddenly wanted to chatter. Her brain was in a fog. She couldn’t think. She was scared to think that the male she loved could have seen her merely as a means of revenge and a weapon with which to taunt Cyrus. Was that what Nikolai was saying? Or was she picking him up wrong? Oh, dear heaven, why couldn’t she think and put it all together properly?
‘You married me...’ she whispered shakily. ‘Why did you marry me?’
‘I wanted to make you happy. After what I’d done...the blackmail, the way I treated you...the very fact that rage pushed Cyrus into attacking you. I’m the one to blame for that... I owed you.’
Of all the sentiments a woman madly in love didn’t want to hear, Ella thought numbly, those three little words had to be at the top of the least popular list. I owed you! What was she? A debt he had to pay off? A helpless child he had to comfort and compensate? Or was the light in which he saw her even worse?
Had he guessed even before she married him how she felt about him? Had he worked out that his weapon of choice was so stupid that she had fallen in love with the blackmailing, ruthless, seven-letter-word of a man who had used her to strike a blow against his enemy?
Ella cleared her dry throat with difficulty. ‘So, you had second thoughts about what you had done.’
‘I felt bloody guilty!’ Nikolai fired back at her in a forceful rush. ‘Of course, I did. It may have taken me a while but I did eventually come to my senses and appreciate that what I had done to you was absolutely wrong on every level.’
Ella was unimpressed by those strong words.
‘And is that why you made the biggest sacrifice you could think of and married me?’ she prompted, her distress threatening to break through the false composure of shock. ‘Because you were way too smart for your own good! Presumably you never planned for this marriage to last either. Well, you shot yourself in the foot bedding a virgin, Nikolai!’
‘What are you talking about?’ It was Nikolai’s turn to look bewildered.
‘A virgin has to be more likely to make a mistake concerning the efficiency of her birth control,’ Ella contended, her chin tilted at an aggressive angle because she definitely didn’t want to him to get the impression that she was ashamed or embarrassed or even slightly apologetic. ‘I made a mistake and I’m pregnant...so sorry that doesn’t fit in with your cruel, nasty, callous plans!’
His luxuriant black lashes dipped and then slowly rose again, revealing the sudden glitter in his dark eyes. ‘Pregnant?’ Nikolai breathed in a driven undertone, a sudden inner tide of relief making him feel almost dizzy.
If she was pregnant, he had a whole new line of reasons to argue why she should stay with him. Pregnant, he thought again, only dimly recognising the level of his own astonishment. A baby. His baby. After all the hints his great-aunts had dropped and he had studiously ignored, Dido and Dorkas would be ecstatic at that information.
‘And the good news is,’ Ella suddenly spat at him without warning, while his brain was still wandering all over the place in a most unfamiliar way, ‘you don’t owe me anything! The way I see it, you married me under false pretences, so we’re not married!’
Ella wrenched at the rings on her wedding finger and flung them at his feet with bitter satisfaction. Turning on her heel, she sped off. She could feel herself coming apart like wet shredded paper inside herself and she had no intention of coming apart in front of him. She wasn’t a victim; she refused to be a victim; she was strong. There was nothing Nikolai Drakos could throw at her that she couldn’t handle, she told herself staunchly as she walked fast down the hill towards the beach.
Nikolai crouched down and lifted up her wedding and engagement rings. He was taken aback to register that his hand was shaking. He dug the rings into the pocket of his tight faded jeans. His baby. His baby needed her the same way he needed her. But would she be better off without him? That was a deeply wounding thought for him and he shook it off. He could be what she wanted him to be; he could deliver what she wanted him to deliver for both her and the baby. He would fight to keep her but he just didn’t know what to say to her. He genuinely didn’t know how to persuade her to stay. Ironically Nikolai had much more experience at ditching women. After all, he had never wanted to keep one for ever before.
And unhappily for him, Ella had scruples and standards and he had stomped roughly over all of them. He didn’t deserve a second chance. He knew that, but admitting that he didn’t deserve a second chance to her would only reinforce the wrong, negative image, he reasoned painfully. The apology front didn’t look very promising either because sorry could never begin to cover the damage he had done.
Ella kicked off her shoes when she reached the shore and sank her toes into the hot sand. But her soles burned and she took off in haste for the cooler sand at the water’s edge. There the sea looked so temptingly cool that she walked out into it until the lapping water was right up to her knees. She was breathing as fast as a marathon runner and her heart was pounding like mad. Calm down, she urged herself, you’re pregnant.
But there was a giant ball of pain ready to explode inside Ella. Nikolai had taken her dreams and torn them apart. Once again she had placed her faith and her hopes in the wrong man. What was it about her? Was she more naive than other women? Fatally attracted to the wrong types? And yet there was not an iota of similarity between Paul and Nikolai, so how could she have known?
Well, of course she should have known, another, more negative voice told her. She had gone for the fairy-tale version, hadn’t she? This idea that she was so irresistible to Nikolai Drakos that he would track her down after that single meeting in the car park and settle her father’s debts simply to get her into his bed? As if! And what sort of woman fell for the kind of guy that would blackmail a woman into his bed? And how on earth had she fallen for him?
By the time, Ella reached that point in her attack of self-loathing she was sobbing and the tears of heartbreak were coursing down her cheeks. Where had the love come from? He had been so distraught, so devastated by that fire, and everything warm and caring in her had loved that in him. She had suddenly seen that the cool, detached male he pretended to be existed no place except inside his own head and the façade he wore to the world.
Only, sadly, it had not occurred to her that behind his grief for the bar manager’s death at his hotel lurked a male willing to break every rule of decency and wreck a perfectly innocent woman’s life in an effort to destroy an admittedly very nasty man. And he had wrecked it, Ella reasoned bitterly. He had allowed her to think that she was special to him, that he cared about her even if he hadn’t given her the actual words. Didn’t everyone know that most men were wary of saying the fatal words that could lead to permanent commitment?
Even so, leave it to Nikolai to find a novel slant... I want to keep you.
I owed you. Dear heaven, the pain of hearing that sentiment would haunt her to her dying day. So, his guilty conscience had made him offer her a wedding, a ring and the luxury of his wealth. And now here she was standing out in the sea like an idiot, she thought with another sob. It was her moment of truth, she dimly recognised. Once again she wasn’t going to get the fairy-tale happy ending. Had Nikolai faked absolutely everything?
Well, he hadn’t faked the sex or the insatiability factor on that front but what was that worth? He had got cuddlier too. He was actually hugging now without prompting, reaching for her hand, touching her, always touching her just like a besotted new husband could be expected to do. Was that all a lie as well? Some sort of a convincing act? She wiped her face with trembling hands, suddenly cold in the sunlight. He didn’t love her. He hadn’t moved heaven and earth to find her again or to make her his and only his. He had pursued and entrapped her only to punish Cyrus. That was always going to be her bottom line.
Nikolai saw her standing in the sea and sheer panic controlled him. Later he didn’t remember running down the hill, racing through the orange groves and taking a flying leap down onto the beach instead of following the path. He waded out into the water and snatched her up into his arms just as the sound of his splashing approach began to turn her head.
Bronze-coloured hair fell down over his arm. Slightly pink-edged green eyes gazed up at him in astonishment. ‘What are you doing?’
Nikolai couldn’t find his voice. He strode up the beach and sank down on the steep edge of the path with Ella still tightly cradled in his arms.
‘Let me go!’ she exclaimed.
‘Not until I know for sure you’re all right.’
Against her cheek she could feel his heart thumping very fast and he was breathing heavily. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You were standing out in the sea. It scared me,’ he acknowledged gruffly.
‘You think I’d do something silly to myself and my baby over what you’ve done?’ Ella pelted back at him, going from tearful acquiescence to rage in the space of seconds as she finally understood his concern. ‘Are you out of your mind? I spent years watching Paul struggle and fight to live. Life is a very precious thing!’
Nikolai breathed again but he still didn’t want to let go of her. ‘The baby...how long have you known?’
Ella stopped struggling to escape. ‘The day before the wedding I discovered that my implant was old and inactive by the time we...had sex,’ she framed with cold precision.
‘It wasn’t only sex. It was something rather more meaningful.’
‘Says the man who wouldn’t know meaningful from a slap in the face!’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?’ Nikolai persisted, hitting her on her weakest flank. ‘Why, in fact, did you come very close to lying in an effort to deflect my questions about why you weren’t drinking alcohol?’
‘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...
