Bought: For His Convenience or Pleasure?

CHAPTER TWO

THE change in her was subtle, but nevertheless arresting. After his encounter with Elizabeth, Nikolai had for the first time in years sat through a business meeting and not been able to give the matter in hand his full and utmost attention. His usually meticulous and organised mind had been completely hijacked by thoughts about Arina’s aunt and former nanny.

Now, as he entered the lift of the same hotel she was staying in, to go up to his suite—he had made the reservation as soon as his sources had informed him that she would be staying there—he reflected on the meeting they had had, his mind and body in turmoil. For so long Elizabeth Barnes’s whereabouts had consumed him, and he had begun to believe that disturbing memories of her would be all he’d ever have. Then he had chanced to catch a glimpse of her on television being interviewed—and discovered that she was Dr Ellie Lyons now.

Nikolai had barely been able to think straight, he had been so shocked and furious. But beneath his rage and tumult were feelings that were not so easily explained or quantified. He seemed to be gripped by something unnameable and compelling that existed just below the surface of his everyday thoughts about her.

A wave of memory submerged him. When he had seen her last she had been almost coltishly lean. Now, five years had developed those youthful angles into the most arresting curves. Her face, which had always verged on being breathtaking—with those luminously clear rain-washed eyes and that soft curving mouth—had become even more so. And the lustrous corn-coloured hair tied back in that businesslike ponytail was the perfect setting to showcase such beauty. She was an absolute gift to the world of television. Not only was she a practising psychologist at a time when the world seemed fascinated by other people’s relationship problems and wanted to hear them discussed on a regular basis, but she looked like a flaxen-haired angel too!

Torn and angered by the troubling direction of his thoughts, Nikolai flexed his fingers and willed the lift to reach his floor. The last thing he wanted to do was admit that Elizabeth’s beauty disturbed him! There was far too much at stake here for him to become sidetracked or distracted by her undoubted physical appeal…especially when the lady had categorically proved she absolutely could not be trusted.

Once inside the plush hotel suite, his body brimming with the kind of restless energy that could not be contained, Nikolai opted to go back downstairs to the gym. Starting to disrobe on his way to the bedroom, he discarded his jacket and tie and then started on the buttons of his Savile Row shirt. Lifting some weights and running on the treadmill would help pass the time until dinner, when he and his reluctant companion would meet up once again.

He grimaced bitterly at the thought, at that moment feeling nothing but resentment and a desire to punish where she was concerned. Kicking off his handmade leather shoes, he arrived in the bedroom, but barely registered its fine furnishings and understated elegance. Having inherited an oil business from his father at just twenty-four, to him hotel rooms—however opulent and well appointed—were merely a necessary convenience, that was all. He much preferred to return home after meetings whenever possible, and as he owned several houses all over the world home could be any place he chose.

When he was in London, he and Arina resided at the house in Park Lane from where, on that fateful day five years ago, Elizabeth had driven his brother Sasha to some unknown destination…

For months after her aunt’s disappearance Arina had sobbed herself to sleep most nights, unable to be soothed by either Nikolai or the first of what had turned out to be a stream of hopeful replacement nannies. None of them had forged the almost maternal bond Elizabeth had. How could they? Undoubtedly the blood-ties the infant shared with her aunt had helped her form a strong attachment to her, and Arina had clearly been disturbed by the fact she was no longer in her life.

What Nikolai could not forgive was that, knowing such a bond existed between them, Elizabeth had still callously deserted them without so much as a hint that she planned to leave so suddenly. Add to that the shocking discoveries that had been brought to light after the accident—a family heirloom found in the car after it had crashed, clearly stolen, plus his increasing belief that Elizabeth must have been having an affair with Sasha for her to commit such a reckless act as to drive the car for him—Nikolai had barely known how to subdue the rage that had consumed him.

When she had absconded after the inquest he had utilised a lot of time, money and expert help in trying to locate her whereabouts, and her disappearance had caused him no end of sleepless nights and stress-filled days. What had really happened on the day of the accident? He burned to know. Elizabeth’s sudden flight had screamed her guilt to the rooftops, and it had definitely fuelled Nikolai’s desire to somehow make her pay. Whatever else transpired, that terrible day had robbed him of his brother and Arina of her father—and she had definitely played her part in the tragedy that had taken place.

Now that she eluded him no longer she would quickly see that the perfect little life she had fashioned for herself for the past five years was definitely going to undergo some radical changes—one way or another…

***

Ellie chose a simply designed black cocktail dress to wear to dinner. The irony of the colour was not lost on her. Ever since she’d set eyes on Nikolai Golitsyn again it was as though a violent darkening storm had threatened the pleasant meadow she’d been walking in, and truth to tell she was frightened. It hadn’t sat well with her all these years that she’d agreed to fall in with her father’s advice to simply disappear and then get herself a whole new identity, but at the time she’d been far too traumatised to argue. Recent events had prompted even more painful reflection.

Her father had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and although his illness had undoubtedly forged a closer bond between them, and she perfectly understood why he had taken her away, Ellie wished she’d fought her ground and stayed to talk to Nikolai. Maybe if she’d stayed he would have eventually stopped blaming her for Sasha’s death, realised that somehow his brother must have had a major part in events given his proclivity to be both reckless and intoxicated? In time he might even have come to accept that Ellie really couldn’t recall what had happened that day and forgiven her at last.

If all that had transpired then she would still be looking after her niece now, and wouldn’t be burdened by the most dreadful guilt that she had indeed abandoned her sister’s child in her hour of need. But, even though she had a deep and abiding regret about leaving so suddenly, Ellie believed her father had acted with the best of intentions too. By being there in her hour of need she knew he had somehow hoped to make it up to her for all his years of emotional and physical neglect of her and Jackie when they were younger.

Fear of the consequences if her fate should be left to Nikolai had also inspired his actions. A man who had such enormous wealth and power at his fingertips could never be trusted, her father had warned. It would be like living with a time-bomb! If he chose to bring a private case against Ellie she would have little defence, considering that she had lost her memory. There was no telling how he and his fancy lawyers might twist things to their advantage! Yes…it was better that she had moved right away from him, until the sorrows and mistakes of the past were a little less raw and blunted by the passing of time…

Staring at her reflection now in the full-length mirror, Ellie touched a trembling hand to the balconette bodice of her dress, with its simple shoestring straps. God! She looked as pale as sugar frosting! What she wouldn’t give for a little sun in some warmer climes, to bronze her skin and brighten her up! But that was going to be impossible, given her schedule at both the practice and the centre. Add to that this recent bout of television work, and she’d be lucky to grab a moment she could call her own…let alone have a holiday!

But her disappointment about not being able to look forward to a break paled into insignificance when Ellie thought about meeting up with Nikolai again. Her stomach lurched. It was unlikely she’d be able to swallow even a morsel of food all evening, confronted with his glowering accusing face across the table! He had looked even more frighteningly fit and intimidating then she’d remembered, and Ellie knew he had meant every word of that threat he’d left her with earlier… There would be were consequences for what he saw as her cold-hearted desertion…

‘I took the liberty of getting us a table where we would have privacy.’

I’ll bet you did! Ellie thought nervously as she sat in the padded velvet chair the smartly suited maître d’ had pulled out for her. Tucked away in the most secluded corner of the hotel’s elegant dining room, with its artistic silk panelling on the walls and its brass chandeliers fashioned in intricate Celtic knotwork hanging from the ceiling, they would have privacy in plenty.

In more ways than one their location couldn’t be faulted. Their position overlooked a charming stone patio with a plethora of terracotta tubs filled with still abundant trailing pink and white blossoms, glinting in the pale light of late summer evening. It was breathtakingly pretty. The blooms surrounded a pretty fountain commanded by a modern sculpture.

Reluctantly withdrawing her admiring gaze from the appealing view, Ellie attempted to focus on the wine list the waiter had left them to peruse. Absently stroking the fine white linen napkin that had been draped on her lap, she fought hard against another intense desire to flee. And again she knew she would do no such thing. Whatever the consequences Nikolai intended, she would stay and face them.

If nothing else, Ellie was desperate to see Arina again. She was, after all, the closest link she had to her much loved sister, and now that her father’s health was cause for concern she longed for the chance to somehow make amends and be part of her niece’s life again. Ellie also wanted Nikolai to know that she wasn’t about to follow the same escapist route she’d taken five years ago.

‘Are you happy for me to select the wine?’ he asked, civil-voiced and Ellie glanced back at him in surprise, not trusting the polite veneer.

‘Go ahead,’ she replied. ‘I’m certainly no expert!’

‘Maybe not with wine,’ Nikolai commented smoothly. ‘But clearly you have become an expert in psychology.’

‘I may have got the necessary qualifications, but it takes a lifetime to be really expert at anything. And even then I’ll still be learning! I mostly think of myself as an enabler…somebody who can help a person in trouble take the next step towards healing and hopefully give them some useful tools to help themselves.’

‘Your humility is commendable…although your current high profile in the media is somewhat at odds with that, wouldn’t you say?’

Having expected his derision at some point, Ellie wasn’t disappointed now. Her whole body tensed. ‘I’m not interested in having any sort of media profile, for your information! It only happened that I appeared on television because a local reporter where I worked got wind of a case I’d worked on and the client’s father was well known.’

Nikolai named the politician concerned, with his trademark ice-cool equanimity, and Ellie grimaced. She might have known he would have all the information he needed at his fingertips.

‘I have that reporter to thank for helping me locate you, so I cannot regret his interest!’ he continued, with a faint ironic lift at the edges of his disturbingly sensuous mouth. ‘A bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild will fit the bill perfectly to celebrate our timely little reunion, I think. The wine was named after a French politician, so perhaps it is fitting, yes?’

Knowing very little about wine, but silently concerned that it sounded frighteningly expensive, whatever it was, Ellie stayed mute.

‘You need not look so overwhelmed!’ her companion remarked in mock amusement. ‘Naturally I will insist on footing the bill, so do not fret. The cost makes no difference to me. I have already expended too much time, money and concern over your whereabouts over the years as it is! I am only relieved that in the end my searching was not in vain! Tell me…why Scotland? Who did you know there? My informants certainly did not discover any extended family in that location, or anywhere else in the UK!’

His comments made Ellie revisit afresh the gravity of the horrific event that had changed her life for ever, and the devastation she had undoubtedly left behind her. As well as that came the disturbing realisation that Nikolai had not resumed his life in the way she’d hoped he would, forgetting all about her. For long moments she struggled to give voice to her racing thoughts.

‘I don’t know why. It’s just a place like any other…a place where nobody knew us…where we could make a fresh start. My father was worried about me. That was why he took me away,’ she finally explained.

‘What was he worried about? That I would hold you in some way responsible for what happened to my brother despite the verdict reached by the courts?’

The cold slash of Nikolai’s chilling voice immobilised Ellie in her seat. Nervously she met the burning blue of his fiercely focused gaze, and it was like glancing into a frosted lake in deep midwinter.

‘Well, he was right!’ he spat out, laying down the wine list just as the soft-footed waiter returned to take their order.

Ordering the wine in a calmly controlled tone that was miraculously devoid of the rage he had just expressed, he told the man to give them a few extra minutes so that they could deliberate over the menu.

In the ensuing stomach-churning silence Ellie stared hard at the printed words in front of her in the leather-bound book, but they might have been written in Sanskrit for all the sense they made to her distracted gaze.

‘Have you decided?’ her stern-faced companion asked after less than a minute, the question sounding more like an impatient demand.

‘A Caesar salad will be fine,’ Ellie answered, hardly caring what she ate.

At a nod from Nikolai, another waiter peeled away from a nearby table and took their order. When they were alone again, Ellie set the menu aside and reached for the jug of water that was on the table, offering it to Nikolai first. He responded with a curt nod.

The barely contained animosity he emitted locked every muscle in her body with fear. Any threats this man made would not be empty ones, she knew. He had both the means and the will to make her suffer. As if she had not suffered enough—and in ways he probably couldn’t even begin to imagine…

‘How is—how is Arina?’ Finally plucking up the courage to enquire about the one thing she was desperate to know most of all, Ellie knew her voice was barely above a whisper.

Nikolai’s frozen glance did not thaw for even a second. ‘Do you not think you relinquished the right to know that five years ago?’

‘I never stopped caring about her…no matter what you might think!’

‘But you obviously did not care enough, or you would not have deserted her like you did!’

‘I didn’t mean to just leave her like that. You make it sound like it was a pre-meditated decision, and it wasn’t! I was hurt and traumatised from the accident, and for the first time in my life I let my father take charge and look after me. Was that so terrible? If you had seemed less closed-off and unapproachable, I would have talked to you about it… But—’

‘What?’

‘I knew you were hurting badly yourself…emotionally, I mean. You’d lost your brother…why wouldn’t you be? I know what a loss like that is like. The last thing I expected was that you would want me to stay on and take care of Arina. How could we possibly coexist under the same roof when it was clear that you hated me after what happened? Besides, I thought your wife might want to play more of a part in Arina’s upbringing when I left.’

‘Veronika and I are no longer married. We divorced not long after you disappeared.’

All the muscles in Nikolai’s face seemed to freeze for a moment, and Ellie felt genuine shock ripple through her at his news.

‘However I might have appeared,’ he continued gravely, ‘you should have put Arina’s welfare first…not your own! You simply ran away—like the coward I now know you to be!’

The comment was like a sharp-bladed dagger plunged into Ellie’s chest, and the pain that ensued took her breath away.

‘I’m not a coward!’ She slammed her hand down hard on the table and the glassware and crockery rattled. It felt as if every pair of eyes in the room was on her, but she was sick with misery and hurt at the unfairness of Nikolai’s cruel remark.

She understood his need to vent—he must have been storing up resentment over the years, desperately needing someone to blame. But Ellie had suffered too.

‘Is there no understanding or forgiveness in your heart at all?’ she appealed. ‘It’s been five years, Nikolai! Do you honestly think it will help you come to terms with your grief any better by holding onto blame?’

It was the first time she had used his name, and she saw the flicker of surprise in his eyes.

‘The answer to the first part of your question is no. There is no forgiveness in my heart where you are concerned, Elizabeth! I trusted you and you paid me back with nothing but deceit! You abandoned us…not caring what happened and clearly thinking only of your own position!’

Her stomach clamped in a vice of pain, Ellie glanced forlornly round at the other diners in the chic hotel restaurant, imagining she saw only pleasure and happiness reflected on their faces—states of mind that were a million miles away from what she was currently experiencing.

Inhaling deeply, she turned back to Nikolai. ‘How did I deceive you? I only left because I was hurt and in shock. Since when has that become a crime? And you’re wrong if you think I didn’t care about what you and Arina were going through. Especially Arina! There’s not a day that’s gone by when I haven’t wondered how she is! I’m so, so sorry if I added to her suffering and yours by going away. What more can I say?’

‘You ask how you deceived me?’ Nikolai drawled, the low-pitched timbre of his arresting voice sending an explosion of hot little shivers down Ellie’s spine. ‘Well…I will tell you. It is my belief that at the time of the accident you were having an affair with my brother.’

‘What?’

‘Not only were you having an affair, but you were also planning to elope with him—taking the baby with you! It is my belief that is why you were in the car together that day!’

‘That’s ludicrous!’

‘Is it, Ellie?’

His unexpected use of the shortened version of her name made Ellie stare at him for a suspended moment. Then the adrenaline flooding her body after his unbelievable words kicked in, and she felt quite ill at the implications that crowded in on her.

‘How do you know?’ Nikolai suggested with deadly softness, his gaze making a dazed prisoner of hers. ‘When you say you cannot remember anything? You two always seemed pretty close, and what other reason would you have had for agreeing to drive him that day? If he had wanted to go somewhere alone he would have rung for a cab…not taken you with him!’

A small helpless groan left Ellie’s throat, and she shook her head in frustration and misery at the yawning space in her mind where her memory should be. ‘Look…I know I can’t remember what happened that day, why I should have been in the car with him and Arina, but I’d swear on my life that your conclusion is a million miles away from the truth!’

The returning dark, condemning gaze on her companion’s face said he didn’t believe her, and Ellie’s spirits sank even lower. No wonder he was furious with her if he thought that she’d been having an intimate relationship with his brother and planning to run away with him, taking the baby with them!

‘And you’re wrong about us being close. I offered Sasha comfort and support after my sister died, that’s all! And after you suggested that I move into the Park Lane house and look after Arina full-time you know how infrequent his visits were. Sometimes he could be gone for weeks on end!’

‘There is something else.’

Ellie hardly dared breathe.

‘A valuable jewel was found in the wreckage of the car after the accident—a diamond necklace belonging to my mother that I kept in a locked casket in my bedroom. You must have heard Sasha arguing with me about money before I left to go to the office. Obviously it was stolen to help fund your new life together! Did the two of you plan the theft together, or was that something you decided on all by yourself?’

Laying her palms down on the fine linen tablecloth, Ellie desperately needed something to anchor her. All of a sudden her world felt like a wild storm-tossed sea, and she was drowning in it. Breathing out a harsh breath, she made herself look Nikolai straight in the eyes.

‘Haven’t you been listening to me at all? Sasha and I weren’t having an affair, and I know nothing about any necklace being stolen! I know you won’t believe me, because I can’t prove it, but I do know my own nature—and I would cut off my hand before I took anything that wasn’t mine from anybody!’

Nikolai shrugged. ‘Unfortunately, Ellie, all the evidence seems to suggest that you are indeed guilty. It is not just the necklace. Other things went missing from the house around that time too. And the fact that you disappeared so suddenly after the inquest would make anyone suspicious! Your father must have known what you had planned, and he took you away so that you would escape punishment! Who knows? Perhaps he even helped you steal the necklace and those other things?’