LITMIR.BIZ

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dent or scratch it,’ she traded drily. ‘I can’t believe you’re still complaining about it. Nobody got hurt and no real damage was done.’

      Nikolai was very tempted to tell her how much that ‘rubbing’ mark had cost to remove. She had scraped the car past a bush when she’d accelerated too fast. His teeth ground together. It was healthy to be reminded just how very annoying she could be, he told himself warningly. Complaining? He had never complained in his life, not when his father beat him up, not when he was bullied at school, not even when his sister and only living relative had died. He had learnt at a very young age that basically nobody cared what happened to him and nobody was interested enough to listen to what he had endured. Nothing in life had ever come easy to Nikolai.

      Ella couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was so physically large in both height and breadth that he ate up every inch of space in Rosie’s little office and made it feel crowded and suffocating. Tension held her rigid while she watched him like a rabbit mesmerised by a hawk ready to swoop down on her. Nikolai Drakos—the ultimate female fantasy with olive skin, black hair and spectacular dark eyes. His tailored charcoal-grey business suit couldn’t hide the reality that he was built with an athlete’s lean, muscular power and he moved with long-legged easy grace, she registered, struggling to pinpoint exactly what continually drew her attention to him. He was very, very good-looking but it wasn’t just the looks. He had amazing bone structure though and would probably still be turning heads in his sixties. Maybe it was the electrifying quality of the raw, masculine sex appeal he exuded. Twelve months earlier his sheer charisma had struck her like a thunderbolt and utterly humiliated her.

      ‘I’m not here about the car,’ Nikolai said very drily. ‘I’m here because you asked to see me...’

      Ella was thoroughly disconcerted by that statement. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. How could I ask to see you when I have no way of contacting you? And why would I contact you when I haven’t had the slightest desire to see you again?’ she enquired tartly, her whole bearing suggesting that such a belief could only have come from an intolerable egotist.

      A sardonic smile curved Nikolai’s wide sensual mouth as he gazed down at her with scantily leashed satisfaction. She had approached him. She had come looking for him first and that felt very much like the helpful hand of fate working on his behalf.

      ‘You did request my attention,’ he told her again.

      Bewilderment gripped Ella but it was swiftly followed by a surge of frustrated fury. So far she had been having a very bad day and she was not in the mood for big arrogant male surprises and particularly not one who had offended her by offering her a one-night stand before he had even enquired what her name was! Yes, act first, think afterwards, that was how Nikolai Drakos functioned around women, she reflected scornfully. He had made her feel bad about herself and she allowed no man to do that to her. Yet when she gazed back at him and rated the uncompromising light in his eyes and the hard resolution etched in his strong-boned features, she could suddenly see that he was not the weak, frivolous and impulsive male she had first assumed him to be and that threw her off balance...badly.

      ‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense!’ she told him bluntly. ‘I want you to leave.’

      Nikolai compounded his sins by slowly raising a beautifully drawn ebony brow. ‘I don’t think so.’

      The rage that Ella always struggled to control broke through her cracking composure because she hated bullies and it seemed to her that he was trying to intimidate her. ‘I know so!’ she slammed back at him, half an octave higher. ‘And if you’re not out of here by the time I count to ten, I’m calling the police!’

      ‘Go right ahead,’ Nikolai advised, lodging his wide-shouldered frame back against the door and folding his arms with the infuriatingly cool poise of a male who had no intention of going anywhere. As she almost bounced in fury, she reminded him of a hummingbird dive-bombing a flower. Tiny but also colourful, intense and vibrant.

      An unholy flash of hostility lit up Ella’s emerald-green eyes. ‘I mean it!’

      Nikolai sighed. ‘You only think you mean it. Be aware that that temper of yours is a major weakness.’

      Incensed by that crack, Ella said, ‘One—’

      ‘When you allow yourself to lose your head, you surrender control.’

      ‘Two—’

      ‘And you’re not thinking rationally either,’ Nikolai told her smoothly.

      ‘Three!’

      ‘How could you be?’ Nikolai continued. ‘Right now I can read your face like a map. You want to jump on me and thump me but you’re not physically up to that challenge, so you’re stuck acting illogical and childish—’

      ‘Four! And shut up while I’m counting! Five!’ Ella added jerkily, her throat muscles so tight, she could barely get the words out.

      ‘The performance you’re putting on for me now is why I never allow myself to lose my temper,’ Nikolai told her, thoroughly enjoying himself for the first time in a long time because she was that easy to rile. He would be able to wind her up like a clockwork toy and control her...so easily.

      ‘Of course, you could try asking yourself why you’re being this unreasonable. As far as I’m aware I did nothing worthy of this reception,’ Nikolai murmured smooth as glass, his wide, expressive mouth quirking round the edges.

      ‘Six!’ But that fast she remembered his mouth on hers, hard and demanding and passionate, rather than playful and shy and sweet. He was the only man apart from Paul to ever kiss her. The core of steel deep inside her reached a furnace heat of hatred and temper and shame but her body still betrayed her. Her nipples pinched into tight little buttons that stung, and lower down in a place she didn’t even want to think about she felt that almost forgotten liquid, hot, sliding sensation. It made her teeth grind together in vexation.

      ‘Seven!’ she launched and reached for the phone on the desk, almost desperate to see him go, her brain a morass of angry, tumbling impressions and images.

      ‘We’re going to get on like a house on fire...literally,’ Nikolai told her with sardonic bite. ‘Because while I may control my temper, I am demanding, stubborn and impatient and if you cross me you’ll know about it.’

      ‘Out!’ she spat at him furiously, outraged by the fact that she couldn’t get him to react to her threat in even the smallest way. ‘Get out of here!’

      ‘Eight...maybe even nine,’ Nikolai pronounced for her. ‘When you know why I’m here, you’ll beg me to stay.’

      ‘In your dreams...ten!’ Ella countered in a ringing tone of finality as she lifted the phone with a flourish.

      ‘I’m the man who bought your father’s debts,’ Nikolai admitted and watched her freeze and lose all her animated angry colour while her arm slowly lowered the phone back on its rest and her hand fell back from it in dismay.

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE,’ Ella whispered unevenly. ‘It would be too much of a coincidence.’

      ‘Coincidences happen,’ Nikolai countered, for he had no intention of taking her into his confidence and sharing his ultimate plan.

      ‘Not one this unlikely,’ Ella argued, backing away from the desk while her brain endeavoured to regroup to this most surprising change of circumstance.

      ‘You rang the firm who handle my legal work and asked to see me,’ he reminded her levelly. ‘Here I am.’

      ‘I wasn’t prepared for a personal visit, maybe a phone call or an appointment,’ she muttered uncertainly, barely knowing what she was saying because the temper that was often her strength had subsided in fear like a pricked balloon. No, she couldn’t possibly shout at or drive off her father’s main creditor.

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