LITMIR.BIZ

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act that had rebounded on him many times in the following months when the costs of restoration had risen to outrageous levels.

      Ne...yes, he had been a decent, caring husband, Nik reflected with brooding hostility. He had tried to make his wife happy, had given her everything she had ever wanted with the single exception of that last impossible demand of hers, and he still could barely credit that their marriage had been destroyed by her desire for, of all things, a baby. Her careless dismissal of the idea of having a child had been so convincing before their marriage.

      Lean, strong face tensed by the forbidding tenor of his thoughts, Nik swung round with a frown just as Betsy surged through the kitchen door. She looked harassed, her pale blonde hair tumbling round her delicate, flushed features, making her eyes look more mauve in hue than ever and emphasising the pink, pillowy, luscious shape of her unpainted lips.

      Instantaneous desire lit Nik up inside in a firework burst of startling heat that took his breath away. Without the smallest warning everything he had failed to feel in the limo with Jenna the day before surged through him, tightening every muscle in his body and setting off a fast-beating pulse at his groin that made him want to smash something in sheer frustration.

      ‘Betsy,’ he breathed in growling acknowledgement.

      One glimpse of her visitor and Betsy had frozen in place like someone who had run head first into a solid brick wall. Why on earth hadn’t Edna warned her? His sexy-as-sin voice washed over her like rich vanilla ice cream coated in melted dark chocolate, vibrating down her taut spinal cord... Nik’s voice, the first weapon in his considerable arsenal of attraction. Nik here at the hall where she had never expected to see him again! His sudden appearance was a huge shock and she blinked rapidly and snatched in a stark breath, striving to brace herself for what could only be bad news of some kind.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped strickenly before she could think better of openly revealing her dismay.

      ‘I needed to see you.’

      Unconvinced, Betsy simply stared back at him. His dark grey pinstripe designer suit was faultlessly fitted to every muscular angle of his lean, powerful body. Big and strong, he was a brutal force of nature beneath that sleek, sophisticated façade he wore to the world. In all the months they had lived apart he had made not one single attempt to see her, so why now? Her brain, however, was stuttering to a halt when confronted with Nik in the flesh. Those lean, darkly beautiful features of his drew her in like a fire on a freezing day. She didn’t want to look but she couldn’t help herself. He had the gorgeous face and classic body of a mythical god, eyes shimmering bright as emeralds, awakening a primal attraction that was rooted so deep inside her she didn’t know where it began or how she would ever be free of its sway. Her skin prickled, tiny hairs rising at the nape of her neck as she subdued a responsive shiver. Her heart was racing.

      And then mercifully a voice from outside broke into the smouldering silence. ‘Come back here!’ a man was shouting.

      The pitter-patter of rushing paws and an unforgettably familiar bark made Betsy’s eyes fly wide in recognition and she hurtled to the door to peer out. An ecstatic bundle of wriggling, whining terrier dog leapt up into her arms and covered every part of her he could reach with delighted doggy kisses.

      ‘I’m very sorry, sir. He leapt through the window of the car,’ Nik’s driver confided in breathless pursuit.

      Nik was tempted to remark that that had to be the most life Gizmo had shown in the two months since he had retrieved the dog from Betsy. With a nod of dismissal to his driver, he thrust the front door closed with an impatient hand and studied the tableau before him. Betsy was down on her knees on the tiled floor smiling and laughing and the terrier was bouncing and leaping around her, the pair of them enacting a mutually jubilant reconciliation scene that even Nik could not remain untouched by. He knew he had made the right decision.

      ‘You brought him here to visit me?’ Betsy questioned, glancing up enquiringly, utterly confused by the dog’s sudden appearance.

      ‘No, he’s here to stay,’ Nik informed her wryly. ‘He’s not happy away from you.’

      ‘But he’s your dog,’ she framed uncertainly, gathering Gizmo into her arms and stroking him to calm him down.

      ‘He was only mine until he met you,’ Nik retorted, compressing his mouth into a sardonic line while he noted as she bent over the dog the slight definitive bounce of her small breasts below her sweater, which told him that she was wearing nothing underneath. He became so hard in that split second that he was in literal pain.

      Giving Gizmo back to her was an extraordinarily generous gesture and an astonishing move from a male as cold-blooded and unforgiving as Nik, Betsy reflected in bewilderment while she struggled to understand his reasoning. Unfortunately, Nik might be gorgeous but he was also complicated, impossibly so. She had never had much idea what went on inside his handsome head and once again he had taken her very much by surprise.

      Gizmo was a stray, who had been knocked over by Nik’s limousine months before Betsy even met Nik. He had taken the dog to a veterinary surgery for treatment and when nobody came forward to claim him he had asked the vet to try and find him a home. When that had failed, Nik had baulked at the prospect of putting the little dog into a council home for strays where he would ultimately be put down if he still failed to attract a new owner. Against all the odds, Nik had taken in Gizmo himself, introducing the little animal to a roof garden and a life of luxury food, dog walkers and groomers.

      While Betsy reflected on Gizmo’s humble beginnings as a stray, Nik was wishing he had stayed safe at the office. Watching Betsy shower affection on his dog filled him with conflicting feelings. He wanted to look at her but he didn’t want to be with her or note the way the sunlight flooding through the windows gleamed over her impossibly pale blonde hair, accentuating her porcelain-perfect skin and haunting blue eyes. He especially didn’t want the intensely sexual arousal currently coursing through his big, powerful body like a runaway train.

      ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart,’ Betsy told him with tears in her eyes. ‘I’ve missed him so much.’

      Restored to his proper home, Gizmo trotted off cheerfully to explore his old haunts.

      Nik studied Betsy with smouldering green eyes and her heart gave a sudden jarring thud.

      Betsy knew that look of hunger on Nik’s hard, handsome face and it burned through her like a lightning strike, riveting her to the spot. That light in his stunning gaze told her that he wanted her and she couldn’t stop her body reacting to that lure. An unbearable ache stirred at the apex of her slender thighs and she pressed them tightly together as if she could lock it in and deny it. Her breasts swelled beneath her sweater, making her all too aware of their bareness as her nipples were grazed by the wool.

      ‘Come into the sitting room,’ she urged, scrambling upright to lead the way as if he were a genuine guest visiting an unfamiliar place. ‘Why didn’t Edna tell me it was you?’

      ‘I asked her not to. I wanted to surprise you.’

      ‘Well, you’ve certainly done that,’ Betsy admitted truthfully, struggling to credit that he was actually with her in what had once been the home they shared, even if it did cross her mind that Nik had spent more time in hotel rooms round the globe than he had ever spent with her. But that look he had given her—her thoughts raced back to that, worrying at it like a dog at a bone. Why had he looked at her like that? Surely he could not still find her attractive? Nik had been a less than enthusiastic lover in the last months of their marriage, although, now knowing about the vasectomy as she did, she could finally comprehend his loss of interest. Back then she had only thought of sex in terms of getting pregnant and she had no doubt that he had found her attitude a turn-off. No, don’t think about sex, don’t think about sex, she urged herself feverishly.

      Betsy hovered awkwardly. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ she asked, because she was eager for the chance to escape to the kitchen for a few minutes and pull herself back together again.

      ‘No, thanks, but I’ll take a drink,’ Nik declared, long,

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