CHAPTER TWO

      ‘THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE,’ Ella whispered unevenly. ‘It would be too much of a coincidence.’

      ‘Coincidences happen,’ Nikolai countered, for he had no intention of taking her into his confidence and sharing his ultimate plan.

      ‘Not one this unlikely,’ Ella argued, backing away from the desk while her brain endeavoured to regroup to this most surprising change of circumstance.

      ‘You rang the firm who handle my legal work and asked to see me,’ he reminded her levelly. ‘Here I am.’

      ‘I wasn’t prepared for a personal visit, maybe a phone call or an appointment,’ she muttered uncertainly, barely knowing what she was saying because the temper that was often her strength had subsided in fear like a pricked balloon. No, she couldn’t possibly shout at or drive off her father’s main creditor. Even angry, she wasn’t that stupid.

      The silence lay between them as thick and heavy as treacle. She stared at him, incredulous at such a piece of unwelcome happenstance as the combination of events that had brought Nikolai Drakos back into her life again. A man she had naturally assumed she would never see again, a man she had prayed she would never see again! And she had preferred that reality, had needed to know she could bury that silly little episode and wipe it from her mind as an insane moment while she was still grieving for the man she had loved. Being confronted by him again was a real slap in the face and she could feel her face warming and prickling as though she had sunburn.

      ‘As you say...here you are,’ Ella acknowledged woodenly. ‘You can’t be surprised that I’m shocked that my father’s creditor is someone I’ve met before.’

      ‘Would you call it a meeting? A brief encounter in a car park would be more accurate,’ Nikolai murmured with a dry mockery that made her yearn to knock his teeth down his throat, for he made it sound as though they had shared rather more than a kiss.

      And had she been willing, they would have done. She had no doubt of that. He was a player, the kind of male who did what he wanted when he wanted and he had certainly been in the mood for sex. Her face flamed at the awareness that, had she agreed and had it been physically possible, they could well have enjoyed a sordid, sweaty encounter there and then in his car and she would never have made it back to the misleading respectability of the hotel he had suggested. Inwardly she cursed her fair skin as mortification burned her cheeks, while he studied her with a measured attention that warned her he was picking up on her every reaction.

      ‘So, you own Dad’s debts,’ Ella recapped, striving to push onward past the personal aspect and withstand the odd tingling heat that infiltrated her every time she clashed with Nikolai’s stunning dark, black-lashed eyes. It was attraction. What else could it be? And it made her hate herself.

      ‘You wanted the chance to speak to me,’ Nikolai reminded her levelly. ‘I have no idea what you want to say to me...apart from the obvious. If you’re planning to pluck the violin strings, it won’t work on me. Let’s cut to the bottom line: this is business, nothing personal—’

      ‘But it is personal to my family!’

      ‘Your family is no concern of mine,’ Nikolai declared with unapologetic assurance. ‘But I do, as it happens, have another option to offer you.’

      Tension made Ella rise slightly on her toes. ‘Another option?’ she queried breathlessly.

      Nikolai gazed into those luminous green eyes and read the hope writ large there and for some reason it made him feel like a bastard. He crushed that foreign sensation and irritably squashed down his conscience. What was it about her? That air of vulnerability? Her physical delicacy? The shocking naivety that could persuade her to look at a stranger hoping that he was about to play the good Samaritan? How could she still be that trusting at her age? Sadly, he was not a soft touch, never had been, never would be and there was no point in even trying to pretend that he was. He didn’t get close to anyone; he didn’t connect with other people. He had been that way for a very long time and he had no plans to change his basic nature. When you let yourself care about anyone, you got kicked in the teeth and it had happened to him so often when he was a boy that he had learned his lesson fast.

      ‘There is one situation in which I would be prepared to write off your father’s debts,’ he admitted.

      In the unearthly silence that dragged, her tension heightened and her tummy gave a nervous flip. ‘Well, what is that situation?’ she pressed impatiently.

      ‘You move in with me in London for a period of three months,’ Nikolai outlined smoothly.

      Her eyes opened wide and rounded in bewilderment. ‘Move in with you? And exactly what would that entail?’

      ‘What it usually entails when a man and a woman live together,’ Nikolai countered, wondering why he wasn’t just spelling the terms out with his usual directness.

      Possibly he was a little squeamish about the terms. Her reactions, the unmistakeable shyness she couldn’t hide, were persuading him that, unlikely as it seemed, she might indeed be a virgin. He would very much like to take her to bed but he really didn’t want her there on sufferance. He didn’t particularly want to be the man who deflowered her either, although, when he thought about that aspect, he realised that he didn’t want any other man to do it for him.

      All of a sudden his brain was leaping about in directions he hadn’t counted on, throwing up objections to what had seemed perfectly simple and straightforward only an hour before. And all that had changed was that Ella Palmer was now in front of him, and, instead of being merely a step in an ongoing project, was becoming very much a lust object in her own light.

      Nikolai was confounded by that too because she was not his usual type. He went for tall, curvy blondes and Ella was tiny, skinny and almost as bare of curves as a teenaged boy. So, he had no understanding of precisely why he had developed a throbbing hard-on the instant a slight movement made her tiny, unfettered breasts shift below her T-shirt. Now he could see pointed nipples poking through the thin fabric and his body was eager to see a lot more of that slender but highly feminine body of hers. However, that was sex, nothing more, and he had many more convenient options in that line, didn’t he? Diavole, why was he thinking such thoughts? What was the matter with him? He had never allowed himself to be driven by what lay south of his belt.

      ‘You want me to be your girlfriend...?’ Ella mumbled in wonderment, barely crediting that they were truly having such a conversation.

      Nikolai winced. ‘I don’t have girlfriends... I have sex.’

      ‘So, you’re a man whore,’ Ella pronounced before she could think better of it, for in her experience there were only two types of men available. One type was open to the possibility of meeting the one and commitment while the other type only wanted to sleep around with the maximum possible number of women.

      His dark-as-jet eyes flashed like golden flames. ‘Don’t apply that label to me!’

      ‘Oddly enough I wasn’t trying to be insulting. I just meant that you only want sex and I know there are women like that