wouldn’t mind being greeted with a bouquet of flowers,’ Jenny commented enviously as they walked through the arrivals gate and spotted a courier clutching a huge arrangement of red roses.
Ella watched the courier talking to one of the orchestra members up ahead, and she gave Jenny a puzzled glance when he walked purposefully in their direction.
‘Eleanor Stafford? These are for you.’
Struggling to hold her violin and suitcase, as well as the bouquet that had been thrust into her arms, Ella was nonplussed. ‘There must be a mistake…’
‘Open the card. Here…’ Jenny rescued the violin, and with fumbling fingers Ella ripped open the envelope and read the note inside.
Welcome home, Ella. Dinner tonight, 7 p.m. I’ll pick you up from Kingfisher House.
It was signed ‘Vadim’, and the sight of the bold black scrawl filled Ella with a mixture of annoyance and jittery excitement that she swiftly quashed. ‘He hasn’t even left a phone number so that I can cancel,’ she noted irritably.
Jenny gave her a look that told Ella she was seriously questioning her sanity. ‘Why would you want to? He’s incredibly good-looking, mega-rich and as sexy as sin,’ she listed. ‘And he’s sent you two dozen red roses. What more do you want? This guy is clearly keen.’
‘I don’t want anything from him,’ Ella snapped. ‘And all he wants is to take me to bed.’
‘So, what’s wrong with that?’ Jenny stopped dead on the way out of the airport terminal and stared at Ella. ‘You’ve always said—right back from when we were pig-tailed first-years at boarding school—that you never wanted to get married.’
‘I don’t.’ Ella frowned, wondering where the conversation was leading.
‘But you’re saying you don’t want an affair either? What are you going to do—live like a nun for the rest of your life?’
‘Yes—no—I don’t know,’ Ella muttered. They had been friends for over a decade, and Jenny knew her better than anyone, but she couldn’t explain her violent reaction to Vadim when she didn’t understand it herself. ‘Are you advocating that I should become Vadim Aleksandrov’s plaything?’she demanded tersely.
‘I can think of worse fates,’ Jenny said cheerfully. ‘Seriously, Ella…’ Her smile faded. ‘I know you didn’t get on with your dad, and that he treated your mum badly, but you can’t cut yourself off from the world, from men and relationships, because your parents’ marriage didn’t work out.’
‘I haven’t.’ Ella defended herself tersely, but she knew deep down that she was lying. Jenny didn’t understand. How could she, when her parents had been married for thirty years and her father was a gentle, kindly man who patently adored his wife and four children. Ella had spent many happy school holidays with Jenny and her family, and would have gladly swapped the lonely grandeur of Stafford Hall for the Marches’ cramped bungalow in Milton Keynes, which was full of love and laughter. Jenny had no idea what it had been like to witness her father destroy her mother with his mental and sometimes physical cruelty, but the emotional scars ran deep in Ella’s mind, and she had promised herself she would never put herself in a position where a man had any kind of hold over her.
‘When was the last time you went on a date?’ Jenny demanded.
Ella shrugged. ‘A couple of months ago, actually. I had dinner with the flautist Michail Danowski when the Polish orchestra visited.’
Jenny gave her a look of mingled pity and exasperation. ‘He’s gay, so he doesn’t count.’
Ella was saved from answering when a taxi drew up, and they spent the next few minutes stowing violins and luggage in the boot. ‘You can’t put those in here; they’ll get crushed,’ Jenny said when Ella crammed Vadim’s flowers on top of her case. The roses were beautiful, she conceded when the taxi finally pulled away, and she stared at the bouquet on her lap. The velvety petals were a rich ruby-red, filling the car with their sensual perfume.
Red roses were for lovers; the thought stole into her mind together with Jenny’s taunt about spending the rest of her life as a nun. Of course she wasn’t going to do that, she assured herself. It was just that music and her career, both with the RLO and as a soloist, took up all her time, and she couldn’t fit in a relationship right now. Not that Vadim was offering a relationship—he had admitted as much when he had kissed her at Amesbury House. All he wanted was an affair, and she refused to be another notch on his overcrowded bedpost.
The sight of Kingfisher House and the weeping cherry trees that lined the drive, bathed in spring sunshine, lifted Ella’s spirits, and she couldn’t wait to throw open the French doors at the back of the house and walk down the lawn to the private jetty beside the majestic River Thames. But first there was the usual pile of mail to deal with, and a message on the answermachine drained all the pleasure from her homecoming.
‘Ella, Uncle Rex here. I’ve found a new tenant for Kingfisher House. He’s interested in buying the place, but he wants to rent it for six months to see whether it’s suitable for him. There’s no rush for you to move out. He’s happy for you to stay on in the caretaker flat until he decides what he’s going to do. I’ll give you another call to arrange a time when you can meet him—hopefully some time this weekend.’
Ella’s heart sank. She’d known that her uncle had been thinking of selling Kingfisher House, now that the high-end property market was improving after the downturn of the previous couple of years, but she’d put it out of her mind. Now it seemed likely that she would have to move within the next few months, and the problem of finding somewhere to live with rooms big enough to fit a concert grand piano would not make flat-hunting easy.
Life suddenly seemed full of uncertainty, and the prospect of seeing Vadim again added to her tension. She spent the rest of the day in a state of nervous apprehension, which grew worse as seven o’clock drew nearer. She was sure he had deliberately not included his phone number on his dinner invitation to prevent her from cancelling, but if he thought she was the type of woman who would meekly allow herself to be dominated by him, he’d better think again. No man was ever going to boss her around, she resolved fiercely, ignoring the twinge of her conscience that pointed out that it had been good of him to drive her home when she’d been in agony with a migraine. Colour flared on her cheeks when she recalled how he had removed her dress. But, far from taking advantage of her in her vulnerable state, Vadim had behaved like a gentleman and tucked her into bed.
Damn it, why couldn’t he get the message that she wanted nothing to do with him? she brooded irritably as she arranged the mass of red roses in a vase. She didn’t want him to send her flowers, but they were so beautiful that she couldn’t bring herself to throw them in the bin. Most women would be delighted to receive roses from a gorgeous billionaire, she acknowledged ruefully, thinking of her conversation with Jenny. But she was not most women, and although she had denied it to Jenny, she knew that the fear and hatred she’d felt for her father continued to influence the way she felt about all men.
As usual when she felt tense, music was her salvation. She was building a successful career as a violinist, but she still played the piano purely for pleasure, and she was soon lost in another world as she moved her fingers over the smooth ivory keys, finding a release for her pent-up emotions in her favourite pieces by Chopin and Tchaikovsky.
Vadim was met by the haunting melody of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata as he climbed out of
