As she prepared to leave the cottage to return to the hospital, she wondered at meeting Roman—who she had thought of a lot in the last two days. At the peculiarity of meeting a Russian in the deepest part of the South of France. Perhaps that was why she felt there was something slightly similar between her guardian and her rescuer, as she had come to think of him.
And once again she felt the painful blush of embarrassment sting her cheeks. Roman must have thought her completely incompetent. A woman who allowed a stranger into her home, watched in silence as he built a fire, made sure there was food in the fridge and went so far as to set out the makings of a cup of tea. A woman who wanted...things she should not, she concluded to herself as she grabbed her bag and opened the front door.
It was then that she saw the small parcel on the top of the steps. Casting a glance out into the woods, she saw nothing but swathes of trees with windswept leaves, enticingly cool shadowed pathways and long stretches of bluebells.
Returning her attention to the lavender-coloured tissue paper bound with brown string, she picked it up and saw a small cream tag with small, neat writing in English.
To replace what was lost.
Frowning, she picked the bow of the string apart and carefully unwrapped the package in case it might have somehow come by accident to the wrong house. The paper parted to reveal a swathe of burgundy, the softest cashmere she had ever touched. She drew out the present and marvelled at the floor-length hooded cape, by far superior to the one that had been all but destroyed by her journey through the woods two days ago.
It was exquisite and could only have come from one person. Her fingers ran down the stunning material and she was overwhelmed by the gift. Felt a heady combination of joy, surprise and excitement that Roman had thought of her and given her such a gift. Wearing it, she knew, would make her feel beautiful...but also strangely guilty. A guilty pleasure that was only surpassed by the hope that she would see him again. Soon.
Roman reluctantly turned away from the sight of Ella on the doorstep to her grandmother’s cottage. Even as everything in him wanted to consume whatever sight of her he could, he ruthlessly thrust aside his base desires in favour of his true intention. He felt every inch the predator he had been forced to become to reach his desired goal. It was imprinted on his soul—it had shaped him, directed him for so many years and now vengeance was within his grasp.
He had been shocked by her innocence. Truly. Expecting to find Vladimir’s ward hardened, sharp with angles by her time spent with such an evil man, instead he’d wondered at the untouched quality of her. She had, two days ago, seemed like a fairy-tale creature. It had made him forget his purpose. As if she had some magical power that had made him almost forget everything. He’d not missed how she had looked at him in the cottage. When the cashmere cloak had half slipped from her shoulder, revealing the curve of pale skin, he’d struggled with the urge to draw her near. He hadn’t missed the way her pupils had dilated, casting her inky blue eyes in an unfathomable dark hue that spoke of desire and want.
Nor had he missed the blush of embarrassment as if she did not know what she was wanting. And it had been that which had broken the spell.
Her beauty was undeniable and he acknowledged, reluctantly, the small part of him that wished perhaps that things were different. But they were not. He had set about this path the moment Vladimir had signed his mother’s death warrant eighteen years ago.
Searing pain gripped him hard and fast, taking him by surprise and shocking him with its intensity. A thick, heavy grief-laden nausea swirled in his gut as if he felt that terrible blow for the first time. The horrifying blankness that had descended once he’d felt the bewildering impossibility of moving forward, of surviving without the one person in his life who had anchored him, who had loved him. It had crashed over him like a wave he hadn’t already surfed. Roman struggled to breathe and forced the pressure in his chest to morph from grief to fury in a years-old practised technique.
Fury at the memory of his grandfather refusing the pleas of a thirteen-year-old boy, begging for help, for finances that would pay for the medical treatment his mother so desperately needed. Vladimir had slammed the door on him. And the consequences had been devastating.
Now Kolikov would know that same feeling. Roman wanted Vladimir to beg and plead as he had once done. Ella Riding was the only way he could take revenge against his grandfather. And he would take it by any means necessary.
Copyright © 2020 by Pippa Roscoe
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ISBN: 9781488059582
Expecting His Billion-Dollar Scandal
Copyright © 2020 by Cathy Williams
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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