‘I am not the girl I once was,’ she said. He gave her credit for managing to keep the tremors of her body from her voice.
‘And I am not the man you married.’
‘So, who are you then?’ she demanded.
‘The man who is trying to show you that, should you choose to go down that path, you would only get yourself into more trouble than you are in now.’
The lift arrived and the doors parted to reveal his penthouse apartment. But Ella saw none of the incredible views of Moscow from the expansive floor-to-ceiling windows that took up the entire length and width of the side wall. She saw nothing of the expensively decorated room, the fireplace and sprawling leather sofa that could have easily seated six people. Instead, the sheer dismissal of Roman’s reaction to her threat had fired outrage within her breast. An outrage that contained a hint of the hurt that her husband had refused to touch her, that the Great Wolf, as the newspapers had reported him to be, the ‘errant seducer’, had chosen to leave her innocent.
And that wall of heat, that fire within her wanted it all to burn. Every last shred of a connection between her and this man.
‘Oh, how very kind of you to look after my innocence now. After you took everything I knew and tore it down.’
‘Everything you knew? Really? You met and married a man within five weeks. I did not force you into it.’
His words taunted her, scratched at wounds not yet healed. ‘You lied to me.’
‘It was a kindness. I didn’t have the luxury of lies growing up.’
‘A kindness?’
‘Yes. Would you rather I’d kidnapped you and forced you?’
She wanted to growl, to scream her rage. ‘You present two equally awful options and ask me which is better?’
‘I did not blackmail you, nor abuse your body. Your innocence is no defence against your own actions, and ignorance is no excuse.’
‘Who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself?’ she demanded.
‘Don’t you think it is better to know the truth about Vladimir? He used you as bait for me. Does that not outrage you?’
‘You think it worse to be used by him than you?’
‘Yes. Trust in that. If not me, then there would have been worse options out there.’
‘You think there is worse out there than what you did to me?’ Ella said, unable to wrap her head around the fact that her husband clearly thought himself a saviour of sorts.
‘Yes. Believe it or not, there are. Ones who wouldn’t have stopped themselves from taking everything you had on offer, including your innocence and much more.’
‘Don’t you dare paint yourself in some heroic light, rescuing me from a fate worse than you.’
‘I didn’t come after your money or your body.’
‘I hate you,’ she growled, finally letting loose all the pent-up energy and hurt accrued over the last eight months.
‘Good. Now you might just understand a fraction of what I felt for my grandfather.’
* * *
Roman turned away in frustration, stalking towards the window and passing a hand through his hair rather than reaching for her and shaking her as he wanted to do—shake some sense into the woman his wife had become. But he hadn’t brought her to his apartment to talk about the past. No. Now he was working towards damage limitation for her and himself. He had to persuade her from her ridiculous plan. Had to show her the dangerous fire she was playing with.
Spinning back to her, he pressed on. ‘Tell me. What would you do once you found the unsuspecting key to your revenge against me, Ella? Would you be able to do what I did? Would you be able to seduce? To bend another to your will?’
He snared her with his gaze and took slow deliberate steps towards her, the unconsciously lithe movements catching her attention and widening her eyes.
‘Because true seduction involves the chase.’ This he could do. This he could give her. A final lesson to teach her the error of her plans. ‘It’s about timing. When to make your move. Not when you are ready, but when they are.’
As if conjuring the very thing he wanted to warn her against, he watched as her body turned to him, in tune with his every movement, and cursed both her and himself to hell and damnation.
‘It is the appreciation of what your prey is feeling,’ he said as her eyes flared as much as his own arousal, no longer able to ignore the way that his body had reacted to hers. The way her nipples had pebbled beneath the tight confines of her dress, the way her breath hitched, caught in her throat, as if equally under the sensual spell he was weaving between them.
‘The heady sense of anticipation when they know what’s coming and no longer fight it but actively want it. When every nerve, every cell of their body is on fire with need, with desire, an intensity that becomes almost undeniable. It’s the moment when your prey is most alive, ready and willing to succumb to their own desire.’
He was bare inches from her now, no longer sure who was the seducer or the seduced, his breath just as ragged as her own.
* * *
‘You talk of seduction and power as if you didn’t already know that you had all the power all along?’ Ella threw at the man mere inches from her, crowding her in the most delicious of ways. She hated what her body wanted, the yearning that almost choked her. The need. Her only
