Casting aside the envelope, he turned to Ella and slowly, and most definitely deliberately, tore the papers in two.
And all Ella could do was hope upon hope that he wouldn’t do the same with her heart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Cast your clothes into the fire, Red Riding Hood, for there is no need for them any more, said the wolf. Neither clothes nor lies will separate us. I will be all that you could ever need.’
The Truth About Little Red Riding Hood
—Roz Fayrer
AS ROMAN MANOEUVRED the sleek car that had been waiting for him on the tarmac of the private airstrip just outside of Toulouse around the small winding roads that sadly did not take up enough of his concentration he wanted to curse. Ever since Ella had demanded that he give up his plans to dismantle Vladimir’s business it had thrown everything into disarray. For what felt like his entire life he’d had but one goal. Even his grandfather’s death hadn’t prevented him from wanting to ensure that the company that had meant more to Vladimir than his own daughter was wiped from the face of the planet.
But now? He was going to be a father. A husband. A true husband.
He’d meant what he’d said to Ella. He would do anything to protect—to keep—his child. But a lifetime’s pursuit of vengeance didn’t stop on a dime. Nor did a lifetime of being a lone wolf. Which was why he was in the middle of this latest argument with his wife.
‘You just bought it?’ she demanded from the passenger seat beside him. ‘Without giving me the opportunity of seeing it, of making my own decision?’
She was working herself into quite a state and he couldn’t really see what the problem was.
‘What if I’d just gone out and bought a house?’
‘Then we’d simply have two houses which we could either keep or sell. And, either way, it’s moot because you didn’t go out and buy a house.’
‘No, you did. Without me knowing.’
‘Ella, if you don’t like it then we’ll sell it. It’s not a big thing.’
‘It’s a house. Of course it’s a big thing! It’s completely wasteful.’
‘You haven’t even seen it yet.’
This was why he preferred being alone. There was no one to question, to interrogate, second-guess or disagree with his decisions. He simply did what he wanted. It had been that way ever since he had escaped the clutches of his fourth foster home at the age of sixteen. None of the foster parents had been able to deal with a determinedly independent child who refused to listen to their rules. Even worse had been their attempts to break through the armour he had created around his heart. Nor had they been able to tackle a mind so quick and so intelligent they could barely keep up with his train of thought.
Looking back, he’d almost preferred the last couple, who had made their intentions clear. They didn’t want to see or hear from him, only to accept the maintenance cheque they’d collected at the end of each month. It was certainly better than the first couple, who had seemed to want him and professed to take him into their hearts, but had persistently turned a blind eye to the fact their natural son had hated him with such a passion that Roman had been lucky to only suffer a bloody nose and black eye.
If it hadn’t been for one of his teachers, sensing the fierce intelligence hidden behind a fair amount of bluster and anger—Roman ruefully admitted to himself—he might never have found his way into the invaluable scholarship programme that had led him to America. Ilyasov had been the first person, aside from his mother, who had seemed to genuinely want nothing from him. Because while his grandfather had seemed to want nothing from him, Roman knew that he had been the stick Vladimir had used to beat his daughter.
And the moment Roman had realised that he’d understood true power. True desire. To be able to identify or, better, create that which someone felt they wanted most in the world and to be the provider of that want…that was true control.
And while Roman hadn’t been able or desirous of creating such a want in his wife, not yet at least, he knew from his time spent as her fiancé—the other him—what she wanted from a home. At the time he’d entertained it without really realising that it had struck a chord in him. It was as if she had focused her future as much on her imaginary house as he had on his path of vengeance. And as much as she might protest, he knew, with a certainty that had driven him to pay almost twice the asking price, that she would love the house he had found for her. For them. A them that would, in six months’ time, include a small baby. A tiny, living, breathing part of him, of Ella, who would only have them to protect it, to put it first. A tiny baby whose equally tiny fist had already grasped his heart in its clutches.
* * *
Ella knew she was being unreasonable…to a point. She would love to have excused it as hormones from the pregnancy, but she knew she couldn’t. Neither could she fault Roman’s efficiency. Within three weeks he had apparently wrapped up enough of his business to take the time to find a property for them to share. And what had she done? Buried herself in her fledging business. Choosing to ignore the way Roman and her future with him seemed to loom over her. Instead attempting to reach out to more international business contacts who might want to offset some of their income and guilt by aligning
