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?’
‘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