ELLIE was drawing a bath when there was a knock at the door. Cursing softly, she turned off the taps. Raising her arms to stretch out the kinks in her back, she realised the day had taken far more out of her than she’d estimated it would. Her first day as a member of the Golitsyn family—moving in, going shopping, eating blinis with chocolate sauce at the Russian tearooms, followed later by a family dinner prepared and cooked by the housekeeper. It would not normally make a body so tired, she was certain. But trying to control her emotions, always too close to the surface, and retain her composure when she seemed to be constantly under Nikolai’s intimidating scrutiny had drained her right down to the marrow.
It simply wasn’t possible to have any kind of conversation or contact with her formidable husband-to-be without fearing she was digging herself into an even bigger hole than she was in already. Regularly Ellie found herself wondering what other skeletons he would convince himself he’d found in her closet to trap her with.
‘You are getting ready for bed?’
Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she found the subject of her nervous musing on the other side of the door. It was an innocent enough question, seeing as she was standing there dressed only in a light cotton wrap, but the way Nikolai’s eyes tracked slowly and deliberately down her body made it seem much more provocative.
‘I was just running a bath before I turned in…yes,’ she answered, wishing her voice didn’t sound so strained and anxious.
‘There is something I wanted to ask you, and with Arina present at dinner I did not get the chance. Can I come in?’
Not seeing how she could possibly refuse him, Ellie reluctantly stepped to the side. The boxes full of books she’d planned to sort earlier remained mostly unopened on the carpet, and various pieces of clothing she had attempted to arrange into some kind of order before hanging them in the wardrobe or folding them onto the scented shelves in the armoire were scattered in a riot of colour over the sumptuous silk bedspread. Seeing Nikolai glance towards the various piles, and noticing that the one in the foremost position in his eyeline was a little stack of lacy underwear she had folded, Ellie felt her limbs suddenly become as fluid as water.
‘What is it that you wanted to ask me?’ Her fingers fumbled with the loosely tied knot in the belt of her robe, and she prayed it was more secure than it felt.
‘The same question that I asked you in the tearooms.’ He took a couple of steps towards her, then came to a standstill, dropping his hands casually either side of the straight lean hips encased in softly napped denim. A frown appeared between his dark blond brows. ‘Why was it that your father did not raise you and Jackie, Ellie? I would like to know.’
Not knowing why it could possibly matter to him, Ellie sighed heavily. Psychologist or not, she was always fairly reluctant to revisit her own past—preferring to concentrate on the present as much as she possibly could. She frequently schooled her clients that they were much more than their personal histories or stories—that life could be created afresh at any chosen moment…
‘When my mother died, for a long time my father blamed me for her death. She was weak after my birth, and a chest infection turned into pneumonia. He loved her so much, and couldn’t get over it when he lost her. He struggled with being a single parent and then he decided he couldn’t look after me and Jackie any longer. So he contacted Social Services to look for a foster-home for us both. They found me somewhere straight away, but Jackie—who was a couple of years older—was installed in a children’s home. I was about three when I went to a new set of foster-carers—a young couple who had been trying for a baby for a couple of years without success. A year later they did have a baby of their own, and decided an active four-year-old was too difficult to manage as well, so I too was installed in the children’s home. I spent the next few years until I was sixteen going from foster-carer to foster-carer, and sometimes back to the home. A large chunk of that time Jackie and I spent apart. Does that answer your question?’
‘So when did your father come back on the scene?’
‘Just before my sixteenth birthday. He’d kept in touch with Social Services, and from time to time sent money for me and Jackie. Over the years I think he really regretted giving us up. He had a change of heart, you see. He’d had a couple of failed relationships, and no doubt saw a lonely old age staring him in the face if he didn’t make contact with his family again.’
Ellie’s smile was thin, she knew…perhaps not quite as convincing as she wanted it to be to show Nikolai that it was all ancient history, and she was shocked by the hurt she heard in her own tone—a hurt she really thought she’d dealt with and long buried. Especially since her father had become ill. Ellie could only conclude that the anxieties of the day had undermined her.
‘And you forgave him? Just like that?’
‘Yes.’ It hadn’t been easy. There had been times when Ellie had wanted to punish her father for his desertion—as he had punished her and her sister—and cut him off for ever. But she just hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. Not when he had literally begged her to give him another chance. Besides…hadn’t they both endured enough heartache and pain?
‘I can’t believe I did not know this. Jackie and you never really spoke of your past, but that was a tough beginning you had…by anyone’s standards.’
‘Maybe so.’ She shrugged. ‘I certainly learned some valuable lessons about how to survive. Jackie didn’t like to look back, but it’s helped me in many ways. It’s helped me realise that I want to help others who’ve had similar experiences to me. Anyway…nobody escapes life’s challenges—no matter what their upbringing or circumstances.’
For a moment or two Nikolai seemed to be considering that, then he folded his arms over his chest and sighed.
‘In the light of what you have just explained I think I can understand why you were tempted to have an affair with Sasha. The promise of an easier time instead of perpetual struggle must have seemed very appealing. Not that I am about to condone the affair…or the stealing of the necklace!’
After being inadvertently led to reveal some of the pain behind her upbringing, Ellie felt Nikolai’s cynical assumption of her having an affair with his brother as well as being complicit in the theft of a valuable necklace like a kick in the teeth. Once again she was sick with misery. Silently she cursed the memory that eluded her, which she was certain would attest to her innocence.
‘Well, I’ve told you what you wanted to know. I’d like to take my bath now and then go to bed. It’s been a long day.’
Weary of conflict, all Ellie wanted now was for Nikolai to leave her alone and let her be for a while. But he didn’t do that. Instead he moved even closer to her, and shockingly placed his hands on her upper arms.
‘You would not have had an easier time with my brother. That is the truth. He would only have added to your heartache.’
His words took Ellie aback even more than the touch that burned like flame through the flimsy cotton of her wrap. She had never heard Nikolai speak ill of Sasha before, even when it had become obvious to all the members of the Golitsyn household that the younger man had driven him to distraction with his constant demands for money, his irresponsible, lackadaisical attitude and his complete lack of concern for his baby daughter.
‘What makes you so sure I wanted to be with him in the first place?’
Ellie was trembling as she asked the question, because Nikolai’s hands seemed to firm against her arms rather than withdraw. Up close, he had a clean fresh smell that reminded her of newly laundered clothing spritzed with lemon. But underlying that evocative scent were darker more earthier tones, suggestive of elements much more disturbing to the senses.
Why couldn’t she seem to move all of a sudden? It was almost as if she didn’t want to be free of his touch, or the sizzling cerulean gaze that seared her soul and shook her violently awake. More awake than she had been in years…
‘Perhaps you were lonely, Ellie?’ His tone was husky, and suddenly the pad of his thumb was following the soft vulnerable curve of her tender lower lip, pressing her flesh with provocative intent, and wisps of his not quite steady breath were skimming over her skin like the lightest strokes from a feather.
‘Loneliness would never have driven me into his arms…or made me steal for him!’ Her eyes swam with tears. She had been beyond lonely for so long—but nothing, she was sure, would have made her want to try and soothe that forlorn ache with a man as unstable as Sasha. However charming he had sometimes been.
‘And what about my arms, Ellie?’
‘What?’
‘Have you forgotten the evening before the accident as well?’
In shock, Ellie met Nikolai’s brooding steady gaze. The scene that for the past five years she had striven hard to keep at bay played out again in her mind. What good would it have done her to recall such things when all had ended in pain and disaster? But what had transpired between them returned to her now, in a rich, full-blooded tapestry of spine-tingling memory. Nikolai had kissed her. Yes, kissed her as though his life depended on it. His erotically velvet mouth had plundered hers with passionately hungry demand, and Ellie had been swept away by the urgent sexual hunger that had deluged her too. His heat and hardness had burned through her clothing wherever he had touched her, and she had responded like a woman starving for breath as shock-waves of lust and rapture never before imagined or experienced had assailed her.
The only thing that had prevented the inevitable heart-pounding, pulse-racing outcome of that hot wild embrace had been the disturbing sudden peal of the telephone on Nikolai’s desk. Like a scythe cutting through their stunned senses, it had brought them violently back down to earth and Ellie had fled to her room—stunned to the core by the realisation that she had been about to surrender herself to the powerful, charismatic married man she worked for without so much as a thought to the consequences.
With satisfaction Nikolai saw that Ellie did indeed remember what had happened between them that night. The longing and desire that had been inexorably building in his blood ever since she had opened the door and allowed him into her room increased with stunning force. Exhaling softly, he moved the pad of his thumb from her bewitchingly full lower lip to trace her fine-boned jawline, until finally he cupped it in his hand. Pleasure and need drowned him. The extremely erotic scent she exuded, and the warmth from her soft, sweetly curvaceous body had him all but hypnotised. And it only added to the agony of pleasure inside him when he hazarded a guess that underneath her insubstantial robe she was naked.
For a long moment Nikolai’s will was locked in a battle for supremacy over his desire. Primal instinct vied with a logic he really did not want to entertain, and logic was losing fast. The living, breathing reality of this woman was simply too much temptation for one mortal man.
‘I’m not looking for a cure for loneliness!’ Her mouth working to contain her distress, Ellie stepped abruptly away from Nikolai and put herself firmly out of his reach. Suddenly the decision to take things further was no longer his. Her lush green eyes glowed like malachite in the lamplit room. ‘And if I was, it certainly wouldn’t be with you!’
‘But you will share my bed when we are married, Ellie! We have an agreement, remember? Do not imagine for one moment that I have changed my mind about that part of it, because I fully intend to hold you to your word!’
‘You don’t have to worry that I won’t keep my promise, but it won’t happen until we are married…and then only under duress!’
A throaty chuckle escaped Nikolai’s lips. Maybe it was arrogant of him, but he already knew that the heat between them that had erupted in that never-to-be-forgotten evening before the accident was easily going to flare up again, and would undoubtedly conclude with Ellie being in his arms and in his bed before much more time elapsed. To try and deny the kind of combustible chemistry they had would be as impossible as trying to stop a raging river from flowing downstream. No matter how much will-power or determination you applied to the task, in the end the outcome was inevitable.
‘You may fool yourself that it will be under duress when you finally share my bed, Ellie…But I know you are not immune to my touch, and clearly you have needs just as I have needs. Do not trouble to try and deny it!’
‘So that gives you the right to just demand that I sleep with you? Listen…I may have had no choice but to make this arrangement with you, but that doesn’t mean that you own me! Why don’t you just forget about the idea of sleeping with me and find some other more willing woman to accommodate you in that area?’
‘Like a mistress, you mean?’ Both irked and amused, Nikolai slowly shook his head. ‘Why should I bother with a mistress when I will have a beautiful wife to keep me warm at night? Besides, I want to set a good example for my daughter. I want nothing to make her doubt that her father and mother are absolutely dedicated to her care and well-being, and that means that we have to present a united front. Intimacy between us will go a long way to helping us achieve that, I am certain. Now, go and have your bath and I will see you in the morning.’
It was only as he shut the door behind him, wincing in frustration at the desire that still held him in its taunting grip, that Nikolai recalled what Ellie had said to him at one of their earlier recent meetings. ‘I was hurt and traumatised from the accident and for the first time in my life I let my father take charge and look after me.’ For a girl who had been raised the way she had—shunted from children’s home to foster-home and back again—her father finally waking up to his responsibility and taking care of her when she had been hurt definitely struck a reluctantly sympathetic chord within Nikolai.
Arina could have suffered a similar fate if he had not been around to take her in when his brother had to all intents and purposes abandoned her after her mother’s death. Nikolai knew Sasha had been traumatised by what had happened to Jackie, but why could he not have pulled himself together sufficiently to see that his daughter needed him? The thought that Arina could have suffered like Ellie must have suffered was like a knife score across his heart.
Returning to his room in a contemplative mood, he recalled how Ellie had flinched when Arina had asked if she had ever had shiny red shoes when she was small. The question must have speared deep into the heart of the child inside her who had been so cruelly and thoughtlessly abandoned by the very person who was supposed to love and protect her. But, no matter how much Nikolai might sympathetically regret Ellie’s difficult upbringing, it didn’t help to tamp down the wave of desire that flooded him every time he thought about her being naked under that thin little robe she’d been wearing…
The next morning, Ellie overslept. She didn’t mean to, but as soon as her head had touched the pillow the night before, sheer emotional exhaustion had claimed her and she had yielded to it without so much as a whimper. That almost never happened.
Usually her mind was full of thoughts about her day—her clients’ problems, and the kids at the shelter whose every day was a fight for survival and rarely anything anticipated with joy or pleasure—and Ellie would lie awake for at least an hour or two, sometimes even longer, mulling over them all, praying for ways in which she could do the most good and help them even more. To enjoy a deep, dreamless sleep was a gift she hadn’t expected. And to anticipate a Sunday where she wouldn’t have to work because she had moved house was another blessing.
Her thoughts turned to Arina and what the two of them could do that day. Maybe she could ask Miriam to make them up a picnic and they could spend the afternoon in Regents Park? It would be lovely to have some time to bond with the child on her own. The park was so close by, and they could walk there rather than get Nikolai’s driver to transport them. The idea of a walk and a picnic galvanised Ellie into action.
Outside her window the day looked blustery and autumnal, and already the leaves on the giant oak were turning from a rich forest-green to a much lighter, burnished brown hue. Just perfect for the outing she had in mind! She dressed in jeans and a crisp white cotton shirt with a navy-blue sweater draped over her shoulders, and was almost at the door when her thoughts were suddenly ensnared by something else. Something she’d been trying so desperately hard not to dwell on. Nikolai…
As the tape of her memory anxiously played back what had happened between them last night, every muscle in her body locked almost excruciatingly tight. ‘You will share my bed,’ he’d promised her and her mind and body had gone into meltdown at the mere idea. Frankly, it terrified Ellie that she was so acutely receptive to his touch. It seemed he only had to look at her a little longer than was necessary and she knew a frightening yearning for his hands to be on her body, her skin bare to his devastating attentions and her mouth plundered by his hot velvet kisses…
The needs he had accused her of having were obviously real—but apart from the fear in Ellie’s mind that Nikolai would probably respect her even less, not more, if she easily succumbed to fulfilling them with him, there was something else that made her afraid to finally let down her guard. Something that filled her with the most tremendous anxiety and fear every time she thought about it…
She was innocent…untouched…had never experienced the ultimate intimacy with a man before…