LITMIR.BIZ

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have a funny way of showing it.’

      ‘I couldn’t love you and not tell you the truth. That wouldn’t have been fair.’

      Ella studied him, slowly, almost painfully registering his sincerity, his certainty. He really believed that he loved her now. He really, truly believed that. ‘When I told you that I loved you, you said nothing,’ she reminded him.

      ‘I had to tell you the truth first but I was... I was...’

      ‘What?’ she broke in impatiently.

      ‘Scared... OK? Satisfied now?’ Nikolai raked back at her angrily. ‘I was scared I would lose you but I couldn’t live with keeping a secret like that from you.’

      Ella went pink and dropped her head. ‘Oh,’ she almost whispered, wondering why she was being so hard on him.

      Yes, he had hurt her but she appreciated his respect for the truth, his inability to stay quiet and pretend that everything was all right when it wasn’t. She breathed in slow and deep. Nikolai Drakos loved her... Nikolai loved her. A tiny ping of happiness cut through her grey cloud of heartbroken misery and regret. She was scared to feel happy, scared to trust him. But Nikolai had pretty much felt the same way, she reasoned wryly. Love didn’t come with guarantees any more than people did. And yes, he was far from perfect, but then she wasn’t perfect either and she loved him so very much it hurt to have a table separating them. Slowly she rose to her feet.

      Sensing a change in the atmosphere, Nikolai surveyed her warily. ‘I can make this up to you. I do know I messed up really badly—’

      ‘Shut up,’ Ella told him, tipping herself down into his lap. ‘It’s done and dusted and when I told you that I loved you I meant it. I love you even when you mess things up. I may get angry and shout and throw my rings at you...but at the end of it all I will still love you very, very much. As long as the mess up doesn’t involve another woman,’ she qualified hastily, lest he think he could be forgiven for any sin.

      Nikolai wrapped both arms round her very tightly and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘No other women,’ he said gruffly, because he could hardly get breath into his deflated lungs. ‘I need all my energy for you.’

      Ella gazed up at him with a smile that was like the sun breaking through the clouds. ‘So... I own you?’

      His eyes were melted caramel. ‘That’s what it feels like sometimes.’

      ‘No, that’s being part of a couple,’ she argued, hugging him back with all her strength, tears prickling in her eyes because she was experiencing the most enormous sense of relief. He had given her the fairy tale by falling in love with her and he didn’t understand how it had happened any better than she did, but that didn’t matter, did it?

      ‘Are we hoping for a boy or a girl?’ Nikolai asked, long fingers splaying across her defiantly flat stomach.

      ‘We don’t get to choose. I don’t mind either way,’ she muttered abstractedly as she brushed her lips back and forth very gently across his.

      ‘Neither do I...’ Nikolai growled, rising from the chair with her still gripped in his arms. ‘You can have a dozen kids if I get to keep you.’

      ‘Not thinking in terms of that many,’ Ella declared, succumbing to a passionate kiss that sent tingles all the way to her toes. ‘Are we going to bed?’

      ‘Can’t wait to make you mine again, latria mou,’ Nikolai husked against her reddened lips. ‘You gave me such a scare today. I need to know you’re still my wife. You have to put your rings back on.’

      ‘I’ll think about it,’ she teased, revelling in the sense of power he was giving her because it was wonderful to know and accept that she was so wanted, so loved, so valued.

      ‘When I married you my only wish was to make you happy,’ he admitted. ‘And then today—’

      ‘That’s behind us now,’ Ella interrupted. ‘And you’re about to make me incredibly happy by telling me that you love me again.’

      ‘Do I really have to keep on saying it?’ Nikolai groaned.

      ‘Yes, that’s your penance...’ Ella whispered as he laid her down on their bed and stared down at her with a fierce appreciation she could feel right down to the marrow of her bones. Yes, he loved her. She could see it, she could feel it and it felt amazing...

       EPILOGUE

      TOBIAS DRAKOS, FIVE years old and a bundle of lively energy who was rarely still, raced downstairs in advance of his mother. Taking note that the front door of the country house, Tayford Hall, already stood wide with Max at the ready to greet his employer, Tobias crowed. ‘I told you it was the helicopter, Mummy... I told you it was Daddy!’

      Ella studied her son, the very image of his father with his above-average height, dark eyes and dark hair, and suppressed a groan because she knew that she would never get him to bed early now. That would have been acceptable any other night but it was Christmas Eve and she had loads of things she wanted to do while Tobias was upstairs and out of sight. Even so, he hadn’t seen his father in a full week, which was a good enough excuse to loosen up on routine.

      Ella knew that if she had a fault it was her tendency to stick too close to routine. But she and Nikolai led very busy lives, and without a routine someone or something got short-changed. Rory and Butch were already racing across the lawn in pursuit of their offspring, Maxie, the only one of Rory’s litter of puppies they had kept. Maxie was an indiscriminate mixture of doggy genes and she had grown into a much leggier and larger dog than her diminutive parents. Before Ella could say a word, her son had raced out across the lawn in his pyjamas just as the helicopter landed.

      Ella stayed circumspectly on the top step, although to tell the truth she would have been much happier pelting across the lawn with dogs and child because Nikolai rarely travelled these days and when he did she missed him terribly. And there he was, her for-ever-and-ever guy, tall and dark and handsome, striding towards her with over-excited dogs bouncing in his path and a son talking a mile a minute to him.

      As Nikolai hitched Tobias up and hugged him, her heart constricted because she loved to see them together like that. Nikolai had had so many insecurities about becoming a parent but, like many goal-driven men, he had exceeded her expectations in that role. He tried to ensure that his son received everything he himself had been denied by neglectful parents. He gave Tobias his time, showed an interest and supported the little boy at every step of his development.

      Ella smoothed down her scarlet knee-length dress and shifted in her very high-heeled shoe-boots, slender legs braced as Nikolai drew closer and his lean, darkly handsome features came into focus. Her whole body lit up like a firework display because just seeing Nikolai made her that happy and she had news to share that made her even happier.

      Nikolai studied the picture Ella made at the front door and thought that he was an incredibly lucky man. Behind her the welcome of the house and the edge of the sparkling Christmas tree in the hall with its roaring log fire made him smile. He had bought the hall when Ella was pregnant and she adored country life. Once she had qualified as a veterinary surgeon, she had taken a job nearby and had become very popular in the local community. If he didn’t watch over her she worked too hard, and now that she had her career and Tobias had started school if he went away on business he had to travel alone, which he disliked.

      Nikolai swept Ella theatrically into his arms, melted-caramel eyes brimming with amusement. ‘What have you done with my wife?’ he teased. ‘The last time I saw you, your hair was a mess, you were wearing a lab coat and wellies and now you look like a model.’

      ‘And it took hours so appreciate it while you can,’ Ella advised him while quietly revelling in the familiar scent of him and the feel of his lean, powerful body even briefly in contact with her own. A familiar burn sparked deep inside her, a burn and an ache that

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