Ruthless Revenge: Ultimate Satisfaction: Bought for the Greek's Revenge / Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed / At the Count's Bidding

Max arrived with coffee and biscuits. Max, Nikolai ruminated, knowing that that was a problem still to be dealt with: Max had ushered Cyrus into Nikolai’s house. The dogs came up the stairs to investigate. At least Butch tried but he was unable to climb the stairs with his three legs and in the end, when he sat whining pitifully on the bottom step, Nikolai took pity on the little animal and went down to lift him and carry him up.

‘He’ll learn. He’s taught himself to go downstairs safely,’ Ella commented, but even so she was hugely impressed by his kindness.

‘We all learn from our mistakes.’ Nikolai lounged back in his chair and rested an ankle across one knee, the fabric of his well-cut trousers pulling taut to delineate the powerful muscles in his thighs. ‘For instance, I made a mistake specifying three months with you...’

‘Oh...’ Ella stilled, her facial muscles locking as if she was in shock. ‘Did you?’

‘Three months is nothing. I don’t want a time limit. I want to keep you,’ he advanced levelly, speaking as though what he was saying were not at all personal but simply a matter of business to be taken out and discussed.

‘I’m not Butch. I don’t think you can just keep me,’ Ella countered in a slightly wobbly voice, caused by the shock of thinking he wanted to end their arrangement early and then being shot fast in the other direction, only to fail to understand what he was talking about.

‘I hope I can if I ask you to marry me,’ Nikolai breathed very quietly, assessing dark eyes fringed with black lashes trained to her intently.

‘Marry me?’ Ella parroted as she straightened up, her shoulders stiffening. ‘I asked you to marry me first and you said that marriage was out of the question.’

‘You were right... I was wrong. Do we have to make a production out of it?’ Nikolai asked in the most suspiciously reasonable tone.

Ella was knocked right off balance. In her experience all men found it a challenge to admit to being in the wrong but the admission had just tripped effortlessly off Nikolai’s tongue. ‘You’re asking me to marry you...now?’

‘Yes. I think we fit together well,’ Nikolai declared.

Her wide green eyes couldn’t have got any wider. ‘In what way?’ And her voice lowered. ‘In bed?’

‘No, I wasn’t even thinking about that,’ Nikolai lied.

In fascination Ella watched the faintest hint of colour line his sculpted cheekbones and she was tickled pink by the discovery that he could blush. From his point of view the sex genuinely must have been as amazing as he said it was, was all she could initially think. Why else would he be talking about marriage when he had previously been so against the idea?

‘So, you want to marry me and keep me,’ Ella recounted, thinking that a marriage proposal could not get much more basic and medieval in tone than that.

‘Your family will be pleased... I think.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ Ella conceded, knowing that a wedding ring would make all the difference to her family’s concerns because it was a promise of commitment that they trusted.

Nikolai leant forward and closed a hand round hers. ‘I intend to do everything within my power to make you happy.’

‘That’s quite an aspiration.’

‘I like to aim high.’

‘But I haven’t agreed yet.’ Ella stared down nervously at the lean tanned hand that had engulfed hers. She glanced up involuntarily and fell into his melted-caramel eyes. Those eyes were as dangerous as a weed-infested pond to a lone swimmer, she thought crazily. She looked into his eyes and butterflies went crazy in her tummy and reasoned thought became too much of a challenge. She was falling for him, she recognised in dismay, falling fast and falling hard for a deeply unscrupulous male, who broke rules and ignored all her boundaries.

‘But I’m hoping you will...’ His black lashes swept down on his expressive eyes.

Nikolai didn’t do fake humility very well, Ella thought in sudden amusement. She wasn’t convinced for a moment. He was rich and gorgeous and successful and she was convinced that he had traversed a school of hard knocks to reach his current level. Cyrus had claimed that Nikolai’s parents were a drug dealer and a whore and Ella knew no polite or gentle way of asking if that was the truth. What she did know was that sometimes Nikolai made her just want to hug him, and when he wasn’t around it was a little like the sun vanishing without warning. She didn’t understand how he could possibly have come to mean so much to her so quickly but there it was: Nikolai Drakos was already of enormous importance to her.

‘I would want children,’ Ella declared abruptly.

His dark head whipped up, caramel eyes flashing with surprise.

‘And why are you looking surprised?’ Ella enquired. ‘Most women want children. I’m not talking this year or next year because I have to finish my training first, but eventually I would want children... I believe in being honest.’

Eventually.

‘I’ve never wanted children,’ Nikolai confessed.

‘Well, it’s children and me or no me, I’m afraid. Plus you’d also probably have to share your home with a selection of stray dogs and cats. That’s probably not negotiable either,’ Ella volunteered, determined to give him all the bad news at once before she lost her nerve and started trying to be someone she wasn’t.

None of those life-changing possibilities was going to happen overnight, Nikolai reminded himself. She was trampling all over his most cherished convictions because she assumed that they would stay married for ever. But, of course, it wouldn’t be that way, he reflected wryly. She would return to uni and meet some animal-loving younger man in muddy wellington boots and realise that Nikolai wasn’t, after all, what she wanted. And he would let her go. A hollow sensation formed inside him. He pictured her in a country house awash with dogs and children. Home and family would come first with her...always. He understood that about her without even thinking about it. He couldn’t give those things to her because he didn’t form attachments, but she still deserved to have those things as well as the love of a man who deserved her.

‘Are kids really a deal-breaker?’ Ella demanded, troubled by the shadowed look on his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘What are you thinking about?’

Nikolai sprang upright, bent down and scooped her off her seat to hold in his lap. ‘Private matters.’

‘If you marry me, you won’t get to be private,’ she warned him.

‘Children aren’t a deal-breaker if you’re talking a couple of years down the road,’ Nikolai conceded.

‘And what if we have an accident?’

‘I’m careful.’

Ella rested back in the cradle of his arms, drinking in the scent of his expensive cologne and the unique aroma that was purely, sexily his own. ‘You really want to keep me?’

Nikolai screened his eyes. He knew that if a younger man in wellington boots had presented himself at that moment, he would have kicked him down the stairs and jumped on his corpse. He wanted her. He wanted her far more than he was comfortable with but he was equally aware of his guilt and of what he ought to be feeling. He had to be unselfish for her sake. ‘I’ll make you happy, glikia mou,’ he swore doggedly and he meant every word of it.

He would make her happy, whatever it took and regardless of what it cost him. He would walk away from the pursuit of revenge that had consumed his life for the past five years. He would turn his back on Cyrus and his crimes for ever. Ella would become his first, his only priority.

‘I believe you could,’ Ella admitted in a softer tone than usual.

She wanted more time with him. She wanted to be with him because her heart stuttered and almost stopped at the thought of being without Nikolai. It was a visceral feeling, a scarily powerful feeling and not something she understood. She only understood that she needed to be with Nikolai. And there was a lot to be said in favour of a man who simply wanted to get married quickly, she reflected ruefully. Ella, after all, had been engaged for years to a man who had always found an excuse for not setting a wedding date. Paul had liked to talk about getting married but talking was as far as they had got.

‘Yes, I’ll marry you,’ Ella declared with a sudden radiant smile.

Nikolai kissed her and a sizzle of naked longing snaked through her, leaving her limp and breathless. He settled her back down into her chair and produced a ring box while she looked on in astonishment.

‘You have a ring?’

‘Can’t propose without a ring,’ Nikolai quipped, sliding a diamond cluster onto her finger.

‘It’s dazzling,’ she whispered as the diamonds flashed with iridescence in the sunshine. ‘Thank you...’

‘I’ll stay in my apartment until the wedding,’ Nikolai told her.

Ella gave him a bemused appraisal. ‘But why?’

‘I want to draw a strong line between where we started out and how we will continue,’ Nikolai admitted smoothly. ‘Everything will be different when we’re married.’

* * *

‘Nik’s arranging for me to meet an interior designer here at the house next week,’ Ella told Max when he served her breakfast two days later. ‘I want the family things like photographs and papers put away somewhere safe first so that none of it ends up accidentally binned. I do think that at some stage Nik will want to look through it all. Where do you think we should start?’

‘The late Mr Drakos’s desk in the library. He kept a lot of stuff where he worked,’ he volunteered. ‘I’ll try to get round every room before I leave.’

Ella frowned. ‘Leave?’ she queried. ‘Where are you going? Are you off on holiday or something?’

Max’s thin face stiffened. ‘I’m being replaced, Miss Palmer. Quite understandably your future husband has little faith in the man who allowed Cyrus Makris to enter his home.’

Max had been sacked over that? Ella was aghast at the news and furious that Nikolai had not told her about that decision. ‘But that wasn’t your fault... I mean, what happened.’

‘What happened happened,’ the older man pointed out with wry emphasis. ‘I made a bad decision and you got hurt. Let’s not discuss this, Miss Palmer. I not only let the man in but also went out leaving you alone with him.’

Angry words and defences bubbled in Ella’s chest but she swallowed them back, recognising that further comment would only embarrass the older man. No, this was a matter she needed to take up directly with Nikolai. ‘Could you give me directions to Nikolai’s office?’ she asked without hesitation. ‘And perhaps while I’m out you could make a start on boxing up the Drakos family things I mentioned. If there are any particular pieces of furniture or other items that you feel should be considered an heirloom, please show them to me.’

Having lost the appetite to eat any more, Ella stood up. ‘I’ll fetch my bag.’

‘Your driver will be waiting outside for you.’

‘My...driver?’

‘Mr Drakos has put a car and driver at your disposal...as well as a bodyguard,’ Max completed. ‘He wants to be assured of your safety twenty-four-seven.’

Ella shook her head in wonderment and compressed her lips. A driver? A bodyguard? Had Nikolai lost his wits? She was an ordinary woman and she did not require anyone to either drive her or guard her. He should have discussed those arrangements with her long before he made them.

Nikolai’s offices were in a towering glass and steel office building that bore a fancy Drakos logo that appeared to be a dragon. Or was it a winged goddess like Nikolai’s tattoo? She hadn’t had the opportunity to get a closer look at it. To do that she would have to get his shirt off again. A rueful light entered her green eyes and her face warmed as she stood in the lift flanked by her silent monolith of a bodyguard, John. John was quiet to the extent that had he not cast such a big shadow she might almost have been able to forget he was there.

In Reception she asked to see Nikolai and was told he was in a meeting. Ignoring the fact, she sat down to wait and sent him a text warning him that she had to speak to him. Thirty minutes passed slowly and then a svelte older woman approached her to take her to him.

‘You can wait for me here,’ she told her bodyguard.

She smoothed down her fine wool trousers and the cashmere jacket that, in concert with her stiletto-heeled boots, gave her a fashionable air. Now that she wore Nikolai’s ring she had no qualms about wearing the clothes he had bought her. It felt right, just as it had felt right to call Gramma and her father and share her wedding news and smile at their happiness on her behalf. Yet below the smile lurked a deep well of insecurity, for there were certain facts she could not ignore. She hadn’t known Nikolai for very long and she knew very little about him because he was not the kind of male who shared personal details. Yet here she was, preparing to confront him over what she deemed to be a very bad decision.

‘I have a bone to pick with you,’ she murmured the instant she stepped into his office.

Without visible reaction, Nikolai studied her with shrewd dark eyes. ‘That doesn’t sound promising. I like the boots though.’

‘Of course you do,’ Ella groaned. ‘Men always like sexy boots. You’re being predictable. But when you sacked Max, you were being a complete tyrant... I don’t want to marry a tyrant, Nikolai!’

An angry frown slowly drew together his black brows. ‘He complained to you?’

‘No, he didn’t. I found out...quite by accident actually,’ she assured him defensively. ‘Can’t you see that you’re being unjust? Did you ever tell Max not to let Cyrus into your home?’

‘No,’ Nikolai conceded grudgingly.

‘Well, then, how can you blame Max for what happened? I greeted Cyrus. Max knew that he was my visitor and thought nothing of it,’ Ella protested.

‘Max put you at risk. I can’t close my eyes to that and whether I hire or fire anyone I employ is not your business,’ he completed in a tone of cold finality.

Ella was undaunted, her eyes gleaming like polished emeralds. ‘Oh, I would think that the hiring or firing of staff in the marital home would be very much my business as your wife.’

‘But at present it is not our marital home and you are not my wife as yet,’ Nikolai pointed out in stubborn challenge. ‘The responsibility remains mine.’

‘If you want it to be our marital home and you want me to be your wife you will listen to me,’ Ella told him in raw frustration. ‘You’re being unfair to Max. I hadn’t the faintest idea that Cyrus was liable to turn violent like that, so how was Max supposed to know? How were any of us supposed to know that?’

And that was the crux of the matter, Nikolai reflected with bitter acceptance. Everything that had happened was his fault. Only he had known that Cyrus could be dangerous. He had never dreamt, though, that Cyrus would dare to approach Ella when she was staying with Nikolai. But then very probably Cyrus had heard about the hotel fire and had assumed that that particular morning Nikolai would be otherwise engaged. Nikolai knew that he should have warned Max never to let Cyrus Makris into his home but that possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind. When he had realised that Cyrus was there, when he had found Cyrus attacking Ella, the world had turned blood red for Nikolai. He knew that if Ella had not intervened, he would have kept on hitting Cyrus and in the aftermath he had been looking for someone to blame for an untenable situation. Someone, anyone other than his own self, he acknowledged with a fierce regret that he could never have expressed.

In the smouldering silence, Ella studied Nikolai. She knew he was thinking hard and fast and deep but typically he was not sharing a single thought. ‘You said you wanted to make me happy. I like Max. You were exhausted that day after the fire. That ghastly episode with Cyrus upset you more. Don’t make Max carry the can for something that wasn’t his fault.’

‘If I’m in the wrong I will change my decision,’ Nikolai declared in a driven undertone.

‘And why have I suddenly got a driver and a bodyguard the size of a mountain?’

Nikolai breathed in slow and deep and wondered if this was what marriage promised to be like. Would Ella challenge his every decision? He made his own choices and he always stood by them but suddenly he was being faced with the need to compromise, the need to defend or reconsider his black-and-white thinking processes. It would be a steep challenge to become less rigid and more flexible for her sake.

Making Ella happy and keeping her happy would be no cake walk.

‘I won’t apologise for hiring a bodyguard for your benefit. It is my responsibility to keep you safe and I take it very seriously,’ Nikolai assured her confidently. ‘I will not take the risk of Cyrus approaching you again.’

‘Do you really think that is likely?’ Ella pressed in astonishment.

‘He was off his head with rage that day. I don’t think that we can afford to assume that he will keep his distance. I prefer to ensure that you are protected when I’m not around.’

Ella searched his lean, hard features and the lack of compromise etched in his strong bone structure. She suppressed a sigh.

‘I will consider retaining Max but I will not reconsider my decision to hire a driver and a bodyguard,’ Nikolai admitted with flat emphasis. ‘Quit while you’re ahead, Ella.’

‘We still have so much to learn about each other,’ Ella whispered ruefully. ‘Am I stressing you out?’

His dark golden eyes glittered. ‘I have strong shoulders.’

Nikolai was all male as he stood there straight and tall and tough. He wasn’t about to admit that he had made a mistake with Max but she knew she had won because Nikolai had a strong streak of fairness. But in pushing that issue, she had crossed a line with Nikolai and she recognised that as well. She had forced him to acknowledge her as an equal, not as a weak or lesser person, and he wouldn’t forget that.

Nikolai surveyed her, his wide sensual lips set in a hard line. He would take no risks with her safety and he didn’t care if that infringed her freedom. If anything happened to her he would never forgive himself. She was his to look after. Only a couple of weeks back he hadn’t recognised the level of responsibility he was taking on by bringing her into his life but he did now.

Ella first, second and third...by the time she met a nice young man in welly boots he would probably be relieved to graciously step back and hand her over. At least that was supposed to be his real goal, Nikolai conceded with brooding ferocity. Familiarity was supposed to lead to contempt. Responsibility was supposed to make a man long for freedom. If she met another man, would he then return to normal?

He was grimly conscious that in some peculiar way he had changed from the moment he saw Ella again. His legendary cool control was under attack. His mind was no longer his own. Ella sneaked into his thoughts far more often than was reasonable and he was already regretting having loftily declared that they would live apart until the wedding.

Indeed, so disturbing were the changes that he recognised in himself that he felt almost at the mercy of reactions and thoughts and anxieties that he had suppressed for years. That slight hint of instability totally unnerved him and made him feel like a man on the edge of a precipice. Even worse, the threat of seeing Ella with another man clenched every muscle in his body with aggression. Right at this very moment he knew he couldn’t face that possibility, but surely with time those responses would fade?

It would be so simple. He would get used to having her around. He would get bored; she would get bored. She would want her freedom back and he would let her go...wouldn’t he?

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘SO, ARE YOU putting in a replacement now?’ Ella prompted the nurse who was engaged in removing the old contraceptive implant from her arm.

‘Dr Jenks only asked me to remove this one,’ the older woman responded cagily.

Perhaps her doctor thought she was suffering side effects from the implant, Ella reasoned wryly. That would mean looking at other contraceptive methods. Hopefully one without side effects, she thought ruefully, because she had only come to see the doctor in the first place because she wasn’t feeling herself. Not ill exactly, just not right. Her appetite had changed, her taste buds had gone awry and she was suddenly so blasted tired all the time! He had sent her for a battery of tests the day before and made a second appointment for her.

Ella was grateful she had come home, which had enabled her to see her usual doctor rather than having to find a new one in London. She had persuaded Nikolai that she wanted to be married from home, so that family and friends could easily attend, and tomorrow was the big day. She still couldn’t quite believe it but there was something that felt very right about the reality that she literally couldn’t wait to get down the aisle to become Nikolai’s wife.

‘It’s called love,’ Gramma had told her cheerfully. ‘I’d have been worried if you weren’t excited about getting married to him.’

Resisting the urge to rub her slightly sore arm with its neat little plaster, Ella returned to the doctor’s surgery. She was thinking about her wedding dress, which she adored, when one of the doctor’s measured words finally penetrated her wandering concentration. Conceived...conceived? Her mind went blank as though the word were foreign because the very unexpectedness of it threw rationality out of the window.

‘But I had the implant!’ she bleated, hands abruptly closing very tightly together on her lap.

‘As I pointed out, the implant is only effective for three years and you missed your follow-up appointment and failed to respond to the letter that was sent out.’

‘But it is only three years since—’ she began heatedly.

Dr Jenks went through the dates with her. In fact, it turned out to be over four years since she had got the implant and she had the vaguest recollection of the reminder letter he mentioned. After Paul had passed away, contraception had been very low on the list of her priorities. But Ella was still stunned to appreciate that when she had lost her virginity with Nikolai she had not been protected as she had naively assumed. Her main mistake had been the assumption that the implant lasted for four years when in fact it only worked for three. And she had conceived. Nikolai was going to be shattered...but Ella was equally convinced that she would never recover from the shock either.

Until that moment Ella had believed that total honesty between partners was the only way to go. And then without the smallest warning, she found herself changing her mind. Floating down the aisle to Nikolai and announcing almost simultaneously that she was pregnant would absolutely ruin the day. He would be taken aback, unprepared, stressed out by the news because Nikolai was a planner, who liked everything in its place, everything clean and tidy. And there was nothing clean or tidy about an unplanned pregnancy when they would be only newly married and looking forward to the unfettered joys of coupledom. In addition he had been quite blunt about only wanting to become a parent in a few years’ time.

They were flying to Crete after the wedding to stay at the house Nikolai owned there. She would tell him on the island, when he was relaxed and better able to handle an unforeseen development. Pregnant! Ella drove back home and reflected that her own mother must have suffered a similar shock when she realised that she was pregnant. Ella, after all, had not been a planned baby either and her arrival had threatened to derail her mother’s career plans. Soon after her birth, however, her mother had flown off to take up her top job, leaving her infant daughter behind with her father and grandmother. To walk away had been her choice. What if Nikolai felt so strongly about not starting a family that he chose to walk away too? No, that was the absolute worst-case scenario, Ella told herself firmly. He had said that he was willing to have a family eventually and there was nothing wrong with holding back on telling him her news. It wasn’t as though she would be telling him any lies, she was simply delaying telling him, she reasoned defensively.