located south of the river—staying at a charming little bijou hotel in Chelsea, not far from the Kings Road, funded by the cable TV company that had hired her to do a week-long special on the troubled teenage offspring of some B-list celebrities.
She could have done without this particular obligation. The small counselling practice she had set up in Hackney was growing, and what with her commitments at the centre for the homeless she needed to be back where she could do the most good—doing the ‘real’ work she’d studied so hard for. But the money for this particular stint was too good to turn down. The profile she’d unwittingly earned was at least helping Ellie to plough some money back into the centre, and she would continue to do whatever she could to help increase the meagre funding the project struggled to get by on.
Back at the hotel, after Ellie had done the show, she was waylaid by the young receptionist, with her perfect plum-coloured crop and smoothly ironed uniform, as she stepped through the revolving door into the foyer.
‘There’s someone waiting to see you, Dr Lyons. I’ve shown him into one of the meeting rooms along the corridor, so that you can have a little privacy. Room number one.’
Immediately wary, Ellie frowned. She couldn’t be too careful in her line of work, she’d found. Because of its nature, people sometimes got angry, and occasionally even tried to seek her out to give her a piece of their mind. It was the last thing she felt like doing—placating some irate viewer, or a relative of someone she’d tried to help or advise.
‘Who is he?’ Ellie enquired. ‘Did he leave a name?’
She tried to stifle a yawn as the young receptionist swept her with a curious, interested glance. Unspoken was her realisation that this was someone seriously impressive— and what had he to do with someone like Ellie?
‘Mr Nikolai Golitsyn,’ she announced, with some authority.
‘Are you sure?’
Ellie’s legs had turned into a river, sucking all her strength down, deep down, into its surging, heaving depths. Her head started to swim and for a moment her gaze went out of focus. Nikolai Golitsyn… It was a name that haunted her dreams and belonged to a man who had caused her more tumult than even her wayward father had done. Although she dreaded seeing him again, underneath that dread was a longing that had not lessened in its emotional intensity over the passage of time.
‘I’m perfectly sure, Dr Lyons!’ The receptionist took umbrage at the mere suggestion she might have got her facts wrong.
No longer tired, but acutely awake and alert as if she dangled off a cliff edge with bloody fingernails and a thousand feet drop below her onto treacherous sharp rocks, Ellie chewed down anxiously on her lip. How had he found her after all this time? Her father had covered their tracks so carefully—even suggesting she take up her mother’s maiden name and shorten Elizabeth to ‘Ellie’. But her reluctant recent high profile had presented the very real possibility that her previous employer would at last discover her whereabouts, and from time to time she had nervously contemplated that.
Touching the tips of her fingers to her neatly tied back wheat-blonde hair, Ellie wasn’t surprised to feel them tremble. The sheer dread that surged through her blood made her feel dangerously weak for a second.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured to the girl behind the desk.
‘You’re welcome!’
All offence at Ellie’s possible doubt in her competence banished—the girl’s answering smile was as bright as a May full moon. It was the smile of someone who’d been raised within the warmth and comfort of loving family, with friends around her to cushion life’s blows. Someone who had yet to learn that life could be hard.
Unable to prevent the wave of envy that washed over her, Ellie patted down some stray fair hairs she’d dislodged from her ponytail, then smoothed down the trousers of her smart black trouser-suit. Trying hard not to feel like a condemned prisoner, she headed down the thickly carpeted corridor to the designated meeting room.
‘Hello.’
The everyday greeting that she automatically offered sounded incongruous even to Ellie’s own hearing.
The man seated at the long, highly polished meeting table—drumming his fingers as though his patience had already been stretched to extreme limits—rose slowly to his feet. At the very first glance he exuded the kind of electricity and energy that made the air feel charged and potent. He was tall and—although lean— clearly packed the kind of toned, ruthlessly honed muscle beneath his clothes that could easily intimidate. In fact that was an understatement. Those broad, iron- hard shoulders nestling beneath the finest bespoke tailoring would surely give an attacking army pause?
The personal emotional threat he represented to Ellie was like a hovering menace that rattled her peace of mind and all that she had worked so hard for, and she sucked in a steadying breath. Seeing his military-cut fair hair and still-chiselled features, her initial assessment of his appearance was that the intervening years had been kind to Nikolai Golitsyn…but the bitterness edging his mouth and the cheekbones that slanted like cruel gashes in his face told a different story.
‘Elizabeth.’
The ice-blue eyes narrowed searchingly, and Ellie sensed the piercing, laser-like quality of them, feeling a helpless shiver of disquiet and fear down her back.
‘I prefer to be called Ellie these days.’ She sounded defensive, and more than a little scared, and she couldn’t help but despise herself for it. Where was her training when she needed it?
‘I am sure you do.’ The Russian’s lip curled cynically. ‘I am sure you would have preferred to remain anonymous for the rest of your life as far as I am concerned— but you should have known that was never going to be remotely possible. And you have helped my case considerably by putting yourself in the public eye. I confess my surprise that you did so, but perhaps you grew too confident that I would have given up my search for you a long time ago? If that it is true then you have only yourself to blame for your arrogance!’
The compelling face before her hardened like a glacier, and Ellie’s stomach plunged like a stone. By now she had hoped to be enjoying a long hot bath in her suite, mulling over the day and the two new clients she had acquired for the programme. Not coming face to face for the first time in five years with the man who had caused her to flee the city she’d grown up in because he’d blamed her for causing his brother’s death!
Her throat felt dry as scorched earth, and Ellie longed for a glass of cool water to ease the discomfort. ‘I have nothing to either hide or run away from any more!’ she declared. ‘The only reason I left like I did was because my father was concerned about me. He wanted to take me to a place where I could properly recover from my injuries and recuperate!’
‘I do not believe that was the only reason you disappeared as you did. Otherwise why the change of name—Dr Lyons?’ Stating her name—her new name—with ironic disdain, Nikolai walked towards her.
Ellie froze, no longer wishing for a cool drink but instead for some benevolent divine force to intercede and suddenly make her invisible. But disappearing was only ever going to be a temporary reprieve. She’d always known that. Much better to stand and confront her demons no matter how intimidating they were!
Garnering all her courage, she schooled herself not to show fear—but it wasn’t easy. Even five years ago—his hair fashionably longer,
