‘Now, I would still like to continue to work together very much and will happily put this down to a misunderstanding. But if you plan to sever ties with me, then I need to know now. I have other things riding on this, and will not risk a single one of them.’
Part of Ella wanted to rail against the dark commanding tone she encountered now from a man who had been seen as more playboy than billionaire, but she couldn’t. Because she was lost in her own confusion.
‘No, Mr Liordis. That won’t be necessary. My apologies.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ he said, his tone instantly turning back to his usual charm. ‘I shall look forward to seeing you in two months at the first gala.’
Ella cancelled the call and the phone fell from slightly shaking hands. Liordis had no reason to lie. Well, that was not actually true. There had very much been a sense in his response that had strongly indicated how important their business deal was to him. But his surprise at the question about the money had seemed genuine.
More genuine in some ways than Roman had sounded when he had claimed it had all been about the money. Because Roman had never been obsessed with money and the keeping of it. No, instead, money seemed to be something he was barely even aware of.
She forced herself to think back to that day in the restaurant. The divorce papers. The trust fund. Now that had been an obscene amount of… Of…
She almost tripped over Dorcas, trying to get back into the kitchen where she had thrown both sets of papers the moment she had returned from Paris, not daring to look at them since.
She gave herself a paper cut trying to get into the envelope and pulled out the thick bundle, still with the sticky yellow tab affixed. Instead of turning to that page, she started with the first, scanning and flipping through the pages until somewhere about the fifth page she stopped.
Looking at the inconceivable number of millions on the page outlined by little black print, she didn’t have to wonder long at where all that money must have come from. It could only have been the total amount of the sale of Kolikov Holdings, give or take an extra five million.
Her husband had lied to her. Again. She howled out loud in frustration. What on earth was he doing? Because if it wasn’t about the money, if he had given it all in trust to their child, then what was it really about? He had pushed her away. Telling her the only thing that would make her leave. Now she remembered all the bits and pieces he’d shared with her about his childhood. The machinations of a truly awful grandparent, the insecurities of having foster parents who’d never really wanted him. Now she remembered how sincere he’d been about asking her to rethink the sale of her shares. He’d almost pleaded with her not to do it. Now she remembered how he had claimed to be a monster made in his grandfather’s image. But he hadn’t been. She’d seen him. The day he’d discovered he was going to be a father…the pain and desperation as he’d told her about his mother…the night he’d said that he could only hope to be the man she deserved to have by her side.
And she’d said, ‘Trust me.’ She’d asked him to trust her to know that he was better. And she had been the one to break that trust. She had been the one, despite knowing that the man demanding a divorce didn’t seem like her husband, didn’t seem the man she’d fallen in love with, who had broken that trust.
Oh, God, she thought, a shaking hand to her mouth. For all her words of assurance, her apparent faith in him…she had believed the one lie he’d truly told her, the one that had fed her fears rather than her faith. And she’d done exactly what he’d expected her to do. Think the worst. To leave. Just like everyone else in his life had done.
* * *
Roman strode through the tables of the club in Russia, ignoring the slightly worried looks of his staff and oblivious to the gazes of his patrons. At first, after returning from Paris, he’d thought a numbness had descended, wrapping around him and protecting him. But then he’d realised. It wasn’t numbness, but silence.
No more little tapping noises as Dorcas trotted behind him, her toes clipping along the hard wooden floors of his apartment. The little yips of joy or pleading whines, specifically designed to incite guilt or attention. No more warm weight on his thigh as she would lean into him. How on earth had a damned dog come to mean so much to the Great Wolf? he wondered ruefully.
And that had only been the beginning. Because as soon as he realised the absence of Dorcas, he knew it was masking the absence of her. Ella. His wife. Mother of his child. And suddenly he realised all the sounds that he would miss in the future. His child’s first cry, first laugh, first word. He realised all the sounds he was already missing. His child’s heartbeat. His wife’s cry of pleasure, her gentle, teasing laugh, the sounds she made in her sleep unconsciously, the way her hand sounded as it swept towards him across the bedsheets.
All these noises that were consumed by the silence of his life. And even as a part of him wished he’d never met her, the other, the part of his heart still beating, still hoping, knew that he would be thankful for it for ever.
He knew what he’d done that day. Still held to the decision he’d made. Ella was better off without him. He had told her lies and she’d believed them. His mind taunted him with evil thoughts.
She never loved you. If she had, she wouldn’t have believed you. She only ever loved
