the time she had finished speaking, Nikolai had embarked on a conversation with two men and with a whisper Ella headed off to find the cloakroom.
And that was the moment when she finally saw Cyrus. He crossed the foyer to intercept her. He was smaller, slighter than Nikolai, blond and blue-eyed with wings of grey at the temples. ‘Ella... I couldn’t believe it was you. What on earth are you doing here?’
Ella reddened, uneasy with the intensity of his stare and the angry flush on his cheeks. ‘I was planning to ring you but we haven’t spoken since you left.’
‘Your grandmother told me you were in London but said she didn’t have your address.’
‘I haven’t had the chance to give it to her yet. I only arrived here today,’ she told him uncomfortably, forced to come to a halt when he closed a hand round her wrist, his grip painfully tight. ‘I’ve met someone, Cyrus.’
‘How is that possible? You hardly go out.’
‘You were always telling me to go out,’ she reminded him.
‘Not to find another man!’ he disclaimed angrily. ‘Who is he?’
‘Nikolai Drakos...he’s a—’
Cyrus’s grip on her went limp and then fell away altogether. He frowned in disbelief. ‘You’re here in London with Drakos?’
Ella nodded slowly, watching a further flush of colour redden Cyrus’s face while his mouth flattened into a livid line. ‘We have to talk about this. Drakos is a complete bastard with women! He’s notorious. How the hell did this happen?’
‘Ella...’
The voice was cold as ice but she already knew it as well as she knew her own. A shiver of cold ran down her spine as she turned her head slowly and saw Nikolai glowering at her from several feet away.
‘Cloakroom,’ she mumbled and fled.
Cyrus simply walked away as fast as he could. He had never stood up to Nikolai, never allowed the younger man the opportunity to confront him. He was a little weasel, brutal with those physically weaker but a complete coward with other men.
‘Well, that was a very special viewing. Cyrus is devastated,’ an older woman paused by Nikolai’s elbow to remark. ‘It’s only been a couple of weeks since I sent you that email. You certainly don’t let the grass grow under your feet.’
‘No, I got the girl,’ Nikolai conceded. ‘Does that make you happy, Marika?’
‘Seeing my brother suffer always makes me happy,’ she admitted, her dark eyes even colder than Nikolai’s. ‘And you’re a hero. Pat yourself on the back. You’ve saved the girl from whatever disgusting plans he had for her. I don’t think there’s enough money in the world to compensate a woman for what life with Cyrus would entail.’
As Nikolai hovered awaiting Ella’s reappearance, he acknowledged that the very last thing he felt just then was heroic. Naked rage had stormed through him when he saw Cyrus touching Ella, fondling her wrist like the dirty old man he was. He had almost forgotten where he was and his innate aggression had almost spilled over into violence. And that reality deeply disturbed him.
Why had he got so worked up? On the rare occasions that he saw Cyrus, he was accustomed to blanking him and Cyrus made it easier still by avoiding him. But somehow seeing Ella that close to Cyrus had outraged and revolted him. Hadn’t he warned her not to speak to him? Didn’t she ever listen? Had she no sense of self-preservation? Nostrils flaring, Nikolai gritted his teeth on a fierce surge of temper.
He knew he was no hero. A real hero would have saved his sister. His abject failure in that department had devastated him. He knew that, accepted that, was aware he had never really felt anything emotional since Sofia’s death. Nor did he want to feel anything because feeling love was a weakness and it made you a target.
ELLA FRESHENED UP in the cloakroom.
Her hands were shaking and her wrist ached where Cyrus had held it too tight. The instant she had seen his anger Gramma’s warning had come back to haunt her. An old friend might have been annoyed by being left out of the loop about her move to London but Cyrus had been enraged, incredulous. In the past he had repeatedly urged her to socialise more but apparently not to find another man, he had angrily declared.
Suddenly everything Ella had believed she knew about Cyrus had been thrown into turmoil. Surely she was wrong, surely she had to be wrong?
Troubled, she looked back on the history of their relationship. Before Paul’s illness was diagnosed he had applied to Cyrus for a working placement in one of the older man’s businesses.
‘Yes, I’m trying to pull strings because he’s my uncle but why shouldn’t I?’ Paul had said defensively. ‘My mother was the daughter of a very rich Greek but she was thrown out of the family for marrying my father because he was British and poor by their standards. Cyrus is her brother. I’ll have to hope that he’s not as prejudiced as his father.’
Ella had been with Paul the first time he’d met his uncle and Cyrus had given him the placement. Later he had invited them both to his country house and had pledged his support while Paul was ill. He had not let them down either, Ella recalled unhappily. Yes, Cyrus had been different with her tonight but wasn’t there some excuse for his anger? He was a friend but she certainly hadn’t treated him like a friend. She could’ve told him she was coming to London with Nikolai, but she hadn’t because Nikolai had insisted that no one other than her family and Rosie was allowed to know that she was leaving home.
* * *
Ella glided back to Nikolai’s side and within minutes they were being seated at their table. There was no opportunity for any private conversation but Nikolai’s grim profile and clipped speech spoke for him. Nikolai was angry with her and what remained of the evening passed in an uncomfortable blur. He had told her to cut Cyrus dead and she had disobeyed. But how could she cut dead the man who had found Paul an apartment close to the hospital where he had been receiving treatment? The man who had housed him and hired a nurse to care for him while he was dying? The man who had been by her side when Paul had breathed his last? Tears burned at the backs of Ella’s eyes.
Cyrus had said that Nikolai was a complete bastard with women, and notorious. And wasn’t his treatment of Ella the living proof of that? Was that immoral choice he had given her to be his get-out clause? Her body in return for her family’s security and happiness? But she had agreed and, what was more, had sworn she would not make a big drama over it. So where did that leave her? Up the creek without a paddle, she reckoned wretchedly.
‘You’re furious with me,’ she breathed to break the intolerable silence in the limousine returning them to the apartment.
‘We’ll discuss it when we get back to the house,’ Nikolai breathed darkly, lounging back in his corner of the limo and splaying his lean, powerful thighs as he surveyed her.
She had defied him in spite of his instructions. Mutiny was etched in the set of her delicate jawline, obstinacy in the jut of her determined little chin. And damn her but it made him want her more than ever! How was that possible when she was crossing him at every turn? It was irrational and he was not an irrational
