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 didn’t do fake humility very well, Ella thought in sudden amusement. She wasn’t convinced for a moment. He was rich and gorgeous and successful and she was convinced that he had traversed a school of hard knocks to reach his current level. Cyrus had claimed that Nikolai’s parents were a drug dealer and a whore and Ella knew no polite or gentle way of asking if that was the truth. What she did know was that sometimes Nikolai made her just want to hug him, and when he wasn’t around it was a little like the sun vanishing without warning. She didn’t understand how he could possibly have come to mean so much to her so quickly but there it was: Nikolai Drakos was already of enormous importance to her.
‘I would want children,’ Ella declared abruptly.
His dark head whipped up, caramel eyes flashing with surprise.
‘And why are you looking surprised?’ Ella enquired. ‘Most women want children. I’m not talking this year or next year because I have to finish my training first, but eventually I would want children... I believe in being honest.’
Eventually.
‘I’ve never wanted children,’ Nikolai confessed.
‘Well, it’s children and me or no me, I’m afraid. Plus you’d also probably have to share your home with a selection of stray dogs and cats. That’s probably not negotiable either,’ Ella volunteered, determined to give him all the bad news at once before she lost her nerve and started trying to be someone she wasn’t.
None of those life-changing possibilities was going to happen overnight, Nikolai reminded himself. She was trampling all over his most cherished convictions because she assumed that they would stay married for ever. But, of course, it wouldn’t be that way, he reflected wryly. She would return to uni and meet some animal-loving younger man in muddy wellington boots and realise that Nikolai wasn’t, after all, what she wanted. And he would let her go. A hollow sensation formed inside him. He pictured her in a country house awash with dogs and children. Home and family would come first with her...always. He understood that about her without even thinking about it. He couldn’t give those things to her because he didn’t form attachments, but she still deserved to have those things as well as the love of a man who deserved her.
‘Are kids really a deal-breaker?’ Ella demanded, troubled by the shadowed look on his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘What are you thinking about?’
Nikolai sprang upright, bent down and scooped her off her seat to hold in his lap. ‘Private matters.’
‘If you marry me, you won’t get to be private,’ she warned him.
‘Children aren’t a deal-breaker if you’re talking a couple of years down the road,’ Nikolai conceded.
‘And what if we have an accident?’
‘I’m careful.’
Ella rested back in the cradle of his arms, drinking in the scent of his expensive cologne and the unique aroma that was purely, sexily his own. ‘You really want to keep me?’
Nikolai screened his eyes. He knew that if a younger man in wellington boots had presented himself at that moment, he would have kicked him down the stairs and jumped on his corpse. He wanted her. He wanted her far more than he was comfortable with but he was equally aware of his guilt and of what he ought to be feeling. He had to be unselfish for her sake. ‘I’ll make you happy, glikia mou,’ he swore doggedly and he meant every word of it.
He would make her happy, whatever it took and regardless of what it cost him. He would walk away from the pursuit of revenge that had consumed his life for the past five years. He would turn his back on Cyrus and his crimes for ever. Ella would become his first, his only priority.
‘I believe you could,’ Ella admitted in a softer tone than usual.
She wanted more time with him. She wanted to be with him because her heart stuttered and almost stopped at the thought of being without Nikolai. It was a visceral feeling, a scarily powerful feeling and not something she understood. She only understood that she needed to be with Nikolai. And there was a lot to be said in favour of a man who simply wanted to get married quickly, she reflected ruefully. Ella, after all, had been engaged for years to a man who had always found an excuse for not setting a wedding date. Paul had liked to talk about getting married but talking was as far as they had got.
‘Yes, I’ll marry you,’ Ella declared with a sudden radiant smile.
Nikolai kissed her and a sizzle of naked longing snaked through her, leaving her limp and breathless. He settled her back down into her chair and produced a ring box while she looked on in astonishment.
‘You have a ring?’
‘Can’t propose without a ring,’ Nikolai quipped, sliding a diamond cluster onto her finger.
‘It’s dazzling,’ she whispered as the diamonds flashed with iridescence in the sunshine. ‘Thank you...’
‘I’ll stay in my apartment until the wedding,’ Nikolai told her.
Ella gave him a bemused appraisal. ‘But why?’
‘I want to draw a strong line between where we started out and how we will continue,’ Nikolai admitted smoothly. ‘Everything will be different when we’re married.’
* * *
‘Nik’s arranging for me to meet an interior designer here at the house next week,’ Ella told Max when he served her breakfast two days later. ‘I want the family things like photographs and papers put away somewhere safe first so that none of it ends up accidentally binned. I do think that at some stage Nik will want to look through it all. Where do you think we should start?’
‘The late Mr Drakos’s desk in the library. He kept a lot of stuff where he worked,’ he volunteered. ‘I’ll try to get round every room before I leave.’
Ella frowned. ‘Leave?’ she queried. ‘Where are you going? Are you off on holiday or something?’
Max’s thin face stiffened. ‘I’m being replaced, Miss Palmer. Quite understandably your future husband has little faith in the man who allowed Cyrus Makris to enter his home.’
Max had been sacked over that? Ella was aghast at the news and furious that Nikolai had not told her about that decision. ‘But that wasn’t your fault... I mean, what happened.’
‘What happened happened,’ the older man pointed out with wry emphasis. ‘I made a bad decision and you got hurt. Let’s not discuss this, Miss Palmer. I not only
