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

He eased out of her and drove in again and the burn intensified and then vanished. She blinked, expecting pain because she had always expected pain, but the pain didn’t arrive. ‘It’s OK now,’ she whispered in surprise.

‘It’s got to be better than OK for you the first time,’ Nikolai told her.

‘No expectations here,’ she told him bravely and wrapped her arms round him because she recognised his patience, his care and concern and knew it could have been a much less pleasurable experience with someone else.

Her body sang with his every movement, madly stimulated by excitement. Within the space of a minute and a half she travelled from the aftershocks of satiated pleasure to heart-stopping, racing excitement. She angled up to receive him, hips rocking, body thrumming joyfully to the age-old beat of passion. It was good, it was better than good, it was truly amazing to slot helplessly into that fierce hypnotic climb to pleasure again. A kind of frenzy gripped her muscles and she shook, feeling ecstasy within her grasp and snatching at it. And it ran over and through her, a rolling white-hot wave of convulsive delight and fulfilment that left her drained and limp.

Ella was convinced that she would never move again, and then Nikolai moved when she didn’t want him to and she rolled over and rested her head on his chest instead, her arm wrapping round his narrow waist.

He dropped a kiss on her damp brow. ‘Thank you,’ he rasped breathlessly. ‘That was amazing.’

She wanted to thank him but she was tongue-tied, everything she had thought she knew about herself, everything she had ever believed, thrown into turmoil. And, quite literally, she couldn’t think straight and he felt like the only stable being in an unstable world. A deep sense of peace washed over her in waves of emotional and physical exhaustion.

Nikolai lay still and ever so slightly stiff. Ella was snuggling up to him. He had never snuggled before, was usually straight into the shower, clothes back on, goodbyes said within minutes. Well, isn’t this a new experience to be savoured? a sardonic voice sniped inside his head. She deserves more, that same little voice added. What sort of more? Nikolai lay there until the even sound of her breathing let him know that she had fallen asleep. Only then did he gently and carefully slide out of the bed.

More as in flowers? He almost smacked his head against the shower wall in frustration. He had never done flowers before. But then he had never had sex with a virgin before. He had never coerced a woman into his bed either while pretending that he was giving her a choice. That final blunt acknowledgement sliced through him as painfully as a knife in the gut. Nausea rising, he got out of the shower and dressed. He would call by his apartment to change into a suit on his way to see Desmond’s family and the police. And then what?

Nikolai looked at Ella sleeping in the bed, bronze hair in a mad tangle, a narrow white shoulder and a loosely unfurled tiny hand lying on top of the bedding. She looked so small, so defenceless and he had taken advantage of her. His heart sank. And then what? The question tolled in his conscience like a giant bell and he felt sick again. He had to deal, had no choice really: he had gone too far to turn back.

He sent her a text to explain where he was, which was a serious break from his usual habits. Never apologise, never explain was his usual mantra with women. He sent flowers for the first time in his life. He was almost desperate enough to throw in a cuddly toy as well. By the time he had commiserated with the dead bar manager’s family and spent several hours in the police station telling them that, no, he had no idea why anyone would risk the life of so many people by setting his hotel on fire, he was shattered. Of course, he had had to pass on the names of anyone he might deem to have a grudge against him and he had had to mention Cyrus’s name in that context. He had been frank with the police, but he had also had to admit that he had not uncovered any actual physical evidence of Cyrus breaking the law and that arson didn’t quite run true to form for the man whose sole focus had always been innocent women.

Nikolai returned to his apartment. It was silent and he stood in the low-lit lounge and marvelled at the undeniable truth that in his desire for revenge he had veered badly off course and injured innocents. How had that happened? What had happened to his sense of right and wrong? When had his once pure motivation become twisted? He poured himself a whiskey and sat down in his shirtsleeves, struggling to work out how Ella could ever have struck him as a pawn and as mere collateral damage to be written off.

How could he ever have been that arrogant? That selfish? That wrong? And failed to recognise it? At some stage he had developed a dangerous form of tunnel vision and, seeing only Cyrus in his sights, he had taken aim and fired. Ella was the fallout and, even worse, he might as well have painted a target on her back because Cyrus’s violent rage at the town house had been deliberately provoked by Nikolai. He had set her up for that scene and she had been hurt and he was painfully aware that she could have been hurt a lot more.

But how much more would the whole ugly truth hurt Ella? Ella, who was soft enough to sacrifice everything for her family? Ella, who had been unjustly damaged by his pursuit of revenge? He couldn’t tell her the truth because that would humiliate and hurt her, inflicting more harm. Another glass of whiskey went down Nikolai’s throat as he ran uneasily through all the wounding, shocking blows that Ella had already suffered. The father who had had a stroke, the fiancé who had died, the veterinary career that had had to be put on ice. She had kept on picking herself up and bravely soldiering on and then Nikolai had come along and suddenly everything had taken a turn very much for the worse. He had taken her from her home and her family and her life and then he had taken her to bed. Wrong heaped on wrong heaped on wrong. He raked a trembling hand through his black hair.

How could he possibly tell her that he had set her up and used her as a weapon? What woman’s self-esteem could overcome a truth like that? Particularly one who had already had a fiancé who might or might not have had a gay affair?

He owed her.

Somehow, he had to make it up to her. He would give her what he should have given her from the start. Trust, support, stability, respect. Could he fake love? He knew she’d want it, he just didn’t know if he could deliver what he’d never felt. He could try though, couldn’t he? How hard could it be to say, ‘I love you’?

His mobile phone pinged and he looked in consternation at the text she had sent. A black brow slowly lifted in wonderment. She was asking if he was still at the police station and there was a nosy bunny rabbit emoji attached to it.

Thee mou, he was planning to marry a woman who used emoticons...

CHAPTER SEVEN (#uba36afab-71bd-56e0-9144-9dd0c1ba1beb)

ELLA WAKENED WITH the sense that something was not quite right in her world. Her hand slid across the empty space beside her and she suppressed a groan because Nikolai had not returned as she had hoped.

One swallow did not a summer make, one of Gramma’s favourite sayings. She was not in a relationship with rules where she could develop expectations and act accordingly. No, there were no rules and she felt frighteningly lost without them.

Yet Nikolai had been so different with her the day before. Shorn of his icy, controlled detachment he was a different man. Yesterday he had simmered with passion and emotion. She loved that he had that depth, that capacity for feeling, even though he assiduously hid it from the world. He had been protective, tender and a wonderful lover. In every respect he had been everything she could have wanted, so why was she fretting?

Nobody got to know what tomorrow would bring. She wasn’t alone in that situation. Possibly it was Cyrus’s revelations about Paul that had left her feeling so unsure of everything. She needed to put what Cyrus had told her away and tuck it back in the past where it belonged. She had genuinely loved and grieved for Paul and nothing could change that. Deep ties of friendship and caring had bound them. And that was the best way to remember him and what they had shared. How he lived before they met was irrelevant and it would be foolish to doubt her own judgment over past events.

As a knock sounded on the door she pushed herself up against the pillows, smiling when Max came in with the dogs trailing in his wake. ‘I’ve set your breakfast out on the deck. It’s through the conservatory on the other side of the corridor,’ he told her, vanishing into the annexe off the bathroom and emerging with a flowing aqua dressing gown almost too fancy for the description and a pair of slippers.

‘Those aren’t mine,’ she said blankly.

‘The closets on the left-hand side in the annexe are packed with your new clothes,’ Max explained, snipping off the labels still attached to the garment and settling it down at the foot of the bed for her use.

As Max departed Ella got up and went into the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and ran a brush through her tangled hair before peering into the units she had assumed Nikolai used. A line of female clothing hung there above racks of shoes and the drawers below were filled with separates and fancy lingerie. She sighed and padded back into the bedroom to pull on the robe and slide her feet into the sleek mules.

Rory and Butch awaited her and accompanied her into the conservatory, which had been restored but which was still sadly empty of plants. She walked out onto the deck, which was drenched in sunlight and overlooked the very private garden below. Max had set a tray on the table and she poured herself tea and buttered a piece of toast. She wasn’t accustomed to leisure or luxury and what was for her the equivalent of breakfast in bed felt ridiculously decadent and frivolous. The dogs got bored and negotiated the steep spiral staircase that led down to the garden.

Ella sipped her tea and thought about Nikolai. He had probably stayed at his apartment the night before while she had stayed up late wondering when he would return. That had been a mistake and no doubt not the last she would make if she went on trying to squeeze their relationship into a normal frame with potential and boundaries. Sadly it could never be normal; it was a purely temporary arrangement, wasn’t it? Nikolai buying her clothes and jewellery would never feel right in such circumstances but she could handle it, couldn’t she?

Her family were safe and content and that was what really mattered, she told herself firmly. In three months’ time when she was done with Nikolai, she would still have a whole life stretching ahead of her. She shifted in her wrought-iron garden seat, wincing at the soreness at the heart of her, the reminder that she was not quite the same woman she had been yesterday.

Nikolai was amazing in bed. And that was it. It had been good for her because he had known how to make it good. It was sex, only sex, just as her relationship with Paul had been more or less only friendship, she acknowledged uncomfortably. Maybe she was destined to have odd one-sided relationships with men, but she was determined that she would protect herself from being hurt again. She was learning from Nikolai, possibly even growing up a little, she reflected ruefully. A year ago she had hated Nikolai for making her want him when she had felt she should still be mourning Paul, but how could anyone impose a time frame on either the pain and duration of loss or the heat of desire? From the very first Nikolai had lit her up like a firestorm. Her response had been immediate, basic, and utterly instinctive. Trying to prevent it, trying to stamp out the fire, would have been like trying to turn the tide back from the shore.

And Nikolai hadn’t tried to turn the tide back either, she ruminated with an abstracted little smile. No, Nikolai had come back for her and had fought to get her into his life and his bed. It gave her the most disturbing guilty kick to be so desired by Nikolai, because with Paul she had always been the one left wanting and feeling inadequate.

Steps rang on the conservatory tiles and she lifted her head.

‘Ella...’ Nikolai murmured, striding out into the sunlight.

Garbed in a charcoal-grey suit that was exquisitely tailored to his lean, powerful frame, Nikolai took her breath away. He was no longer clean-shaven and the dark stubble demarcating his strong jaw and wide mobile mouth merely added a rougher, more potent edge to his aggressive masculinity. Brilliant dark golden eyes fringed by ebony lashes inspected her.

Mouth running dry, Ella sucked in a sudden breath. He could plunge her into a sea of drowning sexual awareness simply with a look. Her nipples tightened, her body clenched, her slender thighs pressing together tightly. As always he looked spectacular but she did notice that a slightly haggard quality had dulled his usual healthy glow of vigour.

Nikolai stared down at Ella, enchanted by the picture she made. The floaty thing she was wearing was sea green and it pooled around her like a mermaid’s tail. In the bright light her perfect skin glowed against her rich bronze hair. Feeling a little less like a man caged and about to hand over the key to his freedom, he dropped down into a seat. Thee mou, she was exquisite.

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?’