LITMIR.BIZ

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she pressed.

      Halfway through unbuttoning his shirt, he looked at her, dark deep-set eyes semi-closed with no lightening flare of gold. ‘Yes. I was at the hospital before I came back. Three of my staff are injured. One has...’ his voice roughened ‘...life-changing injuries.’

      ‘I’m sorry, Nikolai. You knew him personally?’ she prompted sickly.

      As the shirt fell to the floor he nodded in silence. ‘I worked with the kitchen and bar staff as a student. The fire started behind the hotel. There was an explosion. Two assistant chefs were hurt. The bar manager has severe burns and he’s facing years of surgery,’ he completed gruffly.

      ‘I’m so very sorry,’ she said again, because she could see by the fierce tightness of his facial muscles that it had all been almost more than he could bear. He was literally fighting to stay in control and, shamefully, the tears glimmering in his dark eyes fascinated her.

      ‘It could’ve been worse,’ he said as if he was reminding himself of that reality in an effort to stave off too much negativity. ‘The guests all got out in time. The hotel’s wrecked but bricks and mortar can be rebuilt. It’s lives that can’t.’

      He toed off his shoes, yanked off his socks and peeled off his trousers in his determined path to the shower. She could see that he wasn’t even conscious that he was stripping naked in front of her. The lithe bronzed perfection of his lean, powerful body was revealed and she strove to respect his lack of awareness by not staring. He was drained and devastated and in a state she had never expected to see him in.

      ‘Can I get you anything?’

      ‘Max met me on the way in. He’s bringing up breakfast...not sure I’ll be able to eat,’ he mumbled thickly.

      Ella became braver. She moved into the bathroom doorway. ‘It’s not your fault this happened, Nikolai.’

      ‘It’s someone’s fault!’ he ground out rawly. ‘The police suspect arson. An accelerant was used. Plastic bins shoved up against the oil tanks caused the explosion. It was no accident.’

      ‘Oh, my word,’ she whispered, moving back to the bedroom.

      Max brought a covered tray and told her that he had included her in the food order. Butch pranced round her feet with Rory, both of them wanting to stay, but she asked Max to take the dogs back downstairs.

      ‘He’s shattered. He needs to rest,’ Max agreed. ‘Sleep makes everything look less dire.’

      Nikolai reappeared, a towel wrapped round his narrow waist, damp black hair flopping untidily over his brow. Ella poured coffee and thrust a knife and fork at him as he sank down in one of the chairs by the table at the window.

      ‘Eat,’ she urged. ‘You need fuel for energy.’

      His wide, sensual mouth quirked as he met anxious green eyes. She was all warmth and softness but her sympathy unnerved him. He had learned to get by without leaning on anyone and it had protected him over and over again from making dangerous mistakes. If he didn’t give his trust, it couldn’t be broken. If he didn’t open up to other people, he couldn’t get hurt. Well, OK, he was hurting now, but that couldn’t be helped because that was the kind of damage that life threw at everybody. Only this time, someone had personally choreographed that damage, he reminded himself grimly. Who hated him enough to target a packed hotel with an arson attack? Nikolai knew how fortunate it was that so many people had escaped the fire unscathed.

      He drank the coffee and ate some bacon but admitted that he had no appetite. Ella wanted to ask him more about the fire but reckoned that a tactful silence was more welcome.

      ‘I’ll go to bed. I have to go back to the police station later,’ Nikolai told her wearily, walking back to the bathroom.

      She heard drawers open and close and when he reappeared he had disposed of the towel and donned a pair of tight-fitting white cotton boxers. For an instant she stared because he was so beautifully built, from his well-defined pectorals to the inverted V of muscle above his hips. She was surprised to see an elaborate tattoo adorning one masculine shoulder. It depicted a winged goddess...and a tiny unicorn? What was that all about? Her mouth drying, she swallowed hard and snatched up the book she had abandoned beside the bed the night before.

      ‘I’ll see you later,’ she said breathlessly as she scooped up the big tray to take it downstairs in the lift.

      Fatigue overwhelmed Nikolai. There were things he had wanted to say to Ella but he couldn’t remember what they were. Instead he found himself recalling the tenderness, the caring in her shimmering green eyes while she tried to nag him into eating. It had reminded him of the way his sister had looked at him when he was sick as a little boy. With a savage curse he blocked out the disturbing image of both.

      * * *

      Ella settled at the kitchen table while Max baked a cake and talked about his army days. The dogs trotted in and out of the back garden. When the doorbell buzzed, she followed him out to the hall and then hovered, unsure why she had done so. When she saw Cyrus smiling on the doorstep she stiffened in dismay, but then he saw her and smiled warmly at her and she discovered that she couldn’t hold spite against the man over bruises that were already fading from her wrist.

      ‘Cyrus...’ she said, moving forward.

      ‘I hoped that I’d find you home today,’ Cyrus remarked, extending a huge bouquet of flowers, which Ella passed uneasily to Max.

      The whole situation felt wrong to her and she was very uncomfortable. Cyrus and Nikolai thoroughly disliked each other and she knew without even being told that Nikolai would be furious that Cyrus had entered his home. Yet Cyrus’s calm manner and friendly smile were far more familiar to her than the angry man he had been the night before.

      ‘Come in,’ she said, struggling to feel more welcoming.

      ‘I’ll make you some tea before I leave to do the shopping,’ Max promised.

      ‘I knew you wouldn’t be expecting me.’ Cyrus followed her into the dark drawing room where he glanced around and rolled his eyes without comment. ‘But I couldn’t leave things the way they were when we parted last night.’

      ‘It was awkward,’ she conceded.

      Cyrus took a seat and asked her about her family. She was very careful about what she said, fearful that he would ask difficult questions about her father’s failed business because she had promised Nikolai that she would not discuss the matter. In actuality Cyrus made no reference to the debts or of the fact that the shop had closed and she realised that it was perfectly possible that he had no idea of the financial mess her family had been in.

      ‘I have a question to ask you and it may surprise you,’ Cyrus warned her as Max brought in a tray.

      Taken aback, Ella studied him uncertainly. ‘Is it likely to upset me?’

      ‘I hope not.’ Cyrus smiled again while she poured the tea. ‘I’ve known you over four years, Ella. Recently, however, it’s become a challenge for me to be the friend you want and if I’ve seen less of you that is why.’

      Ella was becoming increasingly tense but she said nothing.

      ‘You’re worth much more than some tawdry affair with Drakos. I want to take you away from here today,’ he told her emphatically. ‘I want you to marry me. I’m asking you to be my wife.’

      Her tummy gave a queasy lurch at the mere concept of that but she was careful to keep her face composed because, no matter how outlandish and inappropriate she found his proposal, she was still reluctant to hurt him. ‘I’m afraid I’ve never seen you in that light, Cyrus. I think of you as Paul’s uncle and a good friend.’

      ‘Clearly I’ve played the waiting game too long and too well,’ Cyrus said drily. ‘I didn’t want to make our relationship uncomfortable.’

      Ella had never felt more uncomfortable with Cyrus than she did at that moment. She didn’t like the way

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