I hardly need to go to London and live with you for it!’
Nikolai surveyed her in shock and it took a great deal to shock him. ‘Let me get this straight...you’re offering me a night of sex instead?’
‘Don’t make it sound so sordid!’ Ella lashed back at him.
‘It wasn’t me who made the offer. No, the night of sex wouldn’t meet my...requirements.’ Nikolai selected the word and voiced it smooth as silk. ‘I also assume by that offer that you’re not a virgin?’
‘And why would you think I was at my age?’ But Ella thought better of lying because there was always the hope that the truth would be a total turn-off for him. ‘Actually, I am inexperienced but...’
Distaste at the entire conversation was filling Nikolai. Of course she had assumed he wanted her for sex. What else was she supposed to think? But he wasn’t a ball of sleaze like Cyrus, who treated women like toys he enjoyed breaking. And as it occurred to Nikolai what a challenge making that offer must have been for an innocent like her, he almost swore and had to fight back an angry sense of discomfiture. For the very first time he appreciated that he had recklessly plunged himself into a scenario that was not at all his style.
‘One night won’t work for me,’ Nikolai admitted in a driven undertone.
Ella’s heart was thumping at what felt like a mile a minute behind her breastbone. Relief and dismay assailed her in equal parts. Naturally she was very relieved not to be asked to immediately deliver on the shameless proposition she had just made, but she was taken aback by the speed and power of his repudiation as well. What did he really want? What on earth more could he possibly want or expect from her?
‘Then I only have one other...suggestion to make,’ she murmured tightly. ‘You marry me.’
‘Marry you?’ Nikolai exclaimed after an unnervingly protracted pause while he studied her with incredulous force. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
She had finally got an honest and true reaction out of Nikolai Drakos, Ella realised, and a curious feeling of triumph mingled with her mortification. The idea of getting married had shattered him, scoring colour along those amazing high cheekbones, widening his stunning dark-fringed golden eyes. Evidently he had not been prepared for that idea.
‘IT WAS A purely practical suggestion from my point of view,’ Ella told him curtly.
‘You need to change your point of view,’ Nikolai retorted with sardonic bite.
Her face was burning with embarrassment and her hands had closed into tight little fists of restraint. If he couldn’t be more frank about exactly what he needed from her, then he could take the rough with the smooth and it would be his own fault. ‘I can’t. You would have to marry me to persuade my father that it was acceptable for you to write off his debts. He’s no freeloader.’
‘There is no way that I will marry you to get what I want!’ Nikolai cut in with a raw edge of impatience to his dark deep drawl.
‘Then that concludes our discussion,’ Ella stated without heat, simply desperate to escape the opulent hotel suite and forget that she had ever met him. As her father had said when he had put the family home on the line and lost it, well, at least he knew he had tried. Well, she now knew what it was like to try hard and still fail too.
‘Diavole, Ella!’ Nikolai bit out as she reached the door. ‘There has to be another way!’
Ella spun round. ‘No, there honestly isn’t. My father couldn’t live with the idea that his daughter would move in with some man to clear his debts.’
His melted caramel eyes suddenly flashed as brilliant a gold as sunlight. ‘You have the rare ability to make everything sound sleazy!’
‘No, you just don’t like plain speaking...unless it’s you doing it. And you talk in riddles. You asked me to be your mistress yet you say no to the chance to sleep with me.’
‘Obviously I want more from you than sex. I can get sex anywhere, any time,’ he assured her dismissively.
Frustration roared through Ella. ‘I’m not a secret heiress, am I?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I thought I might be the sixth cousin of some distant relation who’s worth a fortune and that you had found out and that maybe—’
‘Your imagination is more inventive than mine. But in that situation a man would want marriage to secure his share of the inheritance. However, in this instance...’ Nikolai compressed his wide sensual mouth.
Marriage, even a fake marriage, was out of the question. Nikolai had never wanted to get married. From the little he remembered of his irresponsible parents, they had fought continually and spent their money on alcohol and drugs while neglecting their two children. He probably wouldn’t have survived early childhood without the loving care of his older sister, who had had a real live baby to look after instead of a doll. No, Nikolai would be perfectly happy to leave the world without descendants of his own. Nor could he imagine wanting one woman for the rest of his life and shunning all others. He barely repressed a shudder because he set a high value on his freedom of choice.
‘In this instance?’ Ella prompted.
‘I need you with me in London.’
‘But as I’ve already explained, you can’t have me without a wedding ring. You know, I don’t want to marry you either,’ Ella admitted shortly. ‘But if it makes my family happy and secure again, I would do it for their sake.’
‘I wouldn’t even consider it. I will deal with your family,’ Nikolai said flatly.
‘What on earth do you mean?’
What it really came down to was how far he was prepared to go in his efforts to punish Cyrus, Nikolai reflected. A fleeting image of his sister’s gentle smile, brought to the surface by memories of his background, froze him in place. There should be and there would be no limits to his desire for revenge. If others got caught up in the backlash, what was that to him? He could not afford to have a conscience. Ella was a pawn, nothing more.
‘I will tell your family that we’ve been seeing each other and that now we want to be together in London,’ Nikolai explained smoothly. ‘Your father cannot struggle to settle debts that no longer exist. He will not have the luxury of choice.’
‘You think it’s a luxury for me to be able to choose to be your mistress?’ Ella launched at him furiously, rage bubbling up through her slight body like a hot spring at the prospect of that indignity. ‘But I’ve already said no to that option!’
‘Which is wasting my time and your own! You can’t renegotiate the terms just because you don’t like them. I won’t let you. There will be no single night, no marriage either,’ he asserted in a harsh undertone, his lean, darkly handsome features forbidding in cast, his stunning eyes hard as black diamonds. ‘Either you come to London to be with me or I walk away. That’s the only choice you have!’
The raw tension straining the atmosphere sent a wave of dizziness
