In some twisted way, his inner voice lashed at those thoughts in self-defence.
Better she finds out now what Vladimir is like. What I am like. Because her innocence, her naivety, won’t get her far in this life.
Just like it hadn’t for him or his mother.
But as the words of the priest washed over him, joining them as husband and wife, as the music played to signal the end of the service and he was directed to kiss his bride, Roman lost all thought of revenge, of the separate person who had married Ella Riding, of his promise to leave her untouched. Instead he focused on the soft lips parting beneath his—the gentle, sweet sweep of Ella’s tongue as she opened for him, as she enticed him further into her depths. He lost his head and drew her to him, heedless of the gentle laughter of the few others in the small church, and wished that it could be different.
Reluctantly he pulled back, because it wasn’t different, and he wasn’t. The only gift he could give her on her wedding day would be to leave her unsullied by his touch. Even if it nearly killed him.
CHAPTER THREE
She had stalked his woods and haunted his dreams. She had strayed from the path…and now she was his, to do with as he wished.
The Truth About Little Red Riding Hood
—Roz Fayrer
MARRIED. SHE WAS MARRIED. Ella pressed her fingers to her lips, still thrumming from the kiss that had sealed her fate. There had been kisses between them before—of course there had—but nothing compared to the searing passion she’d felt almost consuming her the moment he’d claimed her before the priest and God. Ever since, her body had been in a constant state of awareness, soaring between hot and cold, both of which produced goose bumps across her skin, prickles of need and want. Heat coiled low within her and nothing would satiate it. Certainly not the hooded glances she felt from Roman when he thought she was not looking.
Barely two hours ago, she had bid her grandmother adieu and been whisked away in Roman’s private jet and now they were en route to Belarus. It seemed impossible to her that she had taken the reverse of this same journey only five weeks ago. Then she had been filled with fear for her grandmother, feeling impossibly lonely and helpless. Yet now her grandmother was safe and happy, and she was about to embark on a new life with a man who filled her days with joy and made her feel…strong? Capable? Even as she thought it, she shushed a very Célia-sounding voice chiding that she shouldn’t need a man to make her feel those things.
‘Can I get you anything?’ asked the perfectly presented male attendant.
She smiled and shook her head, half fearful that she would blurt out that she needed no more than what she now had in her life. All that was left to do before she could truly begin was for Roman to meet Vladimir, and then… She frowned. They hadn’t actually discussed where they would go after that meeting. She’d been so focused on actually getting to the wedding, thoughts and discussions of what would happen next had seemed almost impossible.
Now, sitting on the plane, she realised it was almost silly not to know where she was going. And it both excited her and made her a little uncomfortable. She had placed all of her trust in Roman. He would look after her, she knew it. But as she cast a glance at her husband, who had spent a large portion of the flight so far consumed by whatever he was reading on his tablet, that unease began to grow.
He was unusually quiet, and Dorcas seemed to pick up on this too as she padded between them, back and forth across the aisle of the small cabin. Dorcas hmphed down into a shape the size of a giant boulder at her feet and Ella didn’t have the heart to be worried about her dress. The warmth and physical contact was a balm to her heightened senses.
She caressed the wiry tendrils beneath Dorcas’s jaw and large yellow eyes stared up at her as if in concern. Strangely, she found herself reassuring the animal as much as herself with gently whispered words so as not to disturb Roman’s concentration.
‘Is everything okay?’ she finally ventured after another half an hour of silence.
‘Da.’
It was strange hearing Roman speak Russian. Even though Ella was fluent, they had always reverted to English. But from the moment they’d stepped onto the plane, all of Roman’s directions to the pilot and the staff had been in Russian, even the few sentences he had shared with her. As if he had forgotten the way things had been between them for the last month.
‘Are you nervous?’ she asked, hoping that might be the reason for the strange mood that had descended over her husband.
At this, he finally put aside his phone and looked at her with some confusion. ‘Why would I be nervous?’
‘About meeting my guardian. I know your businesses are in a different area, but Kolikov is a fairly well-known name and I’m aware that he has…a reputation.’
Roman smiled—a smile that Ella had not seen from him before. Predatory. The word ran through her mind before she could stop it.
‘No. In fact, I am relishing it.’
His response did nothing to appease the concern rising within her breast and suddenly she longed to call Célia. To tell her about her marriage, to hear words of reassurance that Ella couldn’t be sure would be forthcoming. Her mind became unaccountably blank, as if choosing to think of nothing rather than the fears that were brewing.
* * *
In a limousine, they travelled stretches of tarmac drawing them away from
