“I want you off my property.”

But what Nik Voronov really wants is Sybella—in his bed!

Nik’s not a Voronov by blood, but he’s ferociously protective of his adoptive family. So when he believes single mother Sybella Parminter is taking advantage of his grandfather, he ruthlessly strips her of her job! But when unexpected desire threatens to consume them both, sweet Sybella might just be the redemption this brooding billionaire needs...

LUCY ELLIS creates over-the-top couples who spar and canoodle in glamorous places. If it doesn’t read like a cross between a dozen old fairy tales you half-know and a 1930s romantic comedy, it’s not a Lucy Ellis story. Come and read rambling exposition on her books at lucy-ellis.com and drop her a line.

Also by Lucy Ellis

Innocent in the Ivory Tower

Untouched by His Diamonds

The Man She Shouldn’t Crave

Pride After Her Fall

A Dangerous Solace

Caught in His Gilded World

Kept at the Argentine’s Command

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Redemption of a Ruthless Billionaire

Lucy Ellis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07175-8

REDEMPTION OF A RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE

© 2018 Lucy Ellis

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the memory of my dear dad—Robert ‘Jim’ Giblett—who didn’t get to see this one finished after many hours on the phone listening to me making up these stories, laughing in the right places and telling me I could do it when I thought I couldn’t.

Life isn’t the same without you, Dad.

You were everything to me, your Lucy/Kareena.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Extract

CHAPTER ONE

‘I’VE FOUND YOU a girl,’ was the unexpected news his grandfather greeted Nik Voronov with cheerfully. ‘She’s local, so you’ll have to come down.’

The key words, Nik suspected, were, You’ll have to come down.

His conscience pricked. He hadn’t set out ten years ago, when he’d founded his company, to work twelve-hour days and seven-day weeks, but he did. He had the world on his shoulders, and his grandfather more of late on his conscience, and balancing the two was hard.

Nik lowered his head as a gust of wind buffeted him on the approach to the complex of site buildings where he had an office.

Around him was the site where his company, Voroncor, were sinking down exploratory equipment and mining kimberlite deposits from the rich Siberian earth. Work went on all year round, and because it was January everything was white except in patches where the ashy black earth showed through.

At least the wind had died down and he could see what he was looking at. Three years’ hard work to pull this reserve into the Voroncor fold.

‘Is that right, Deda?’

‘Her name is Sybella and she has everything a man could want. She cooks and cleans and she’s wonderful with children!’

The triumvirate of qualities guaranteed to ensure a man a good life, according to his seventy-nine-year-old grandfather.

Nik was well aware he could remind the old man he had a chef on the payroll, cleaning staff for all four of his international residences and no children to speak of. Moreover, no woman in the twenty-first century would view cooking, cleaning and raising children her sole responsibility.

But he’d be wasting his breath and it wasn’t the point.

Tactfully he rolled out the line he’d been using since his grandfather became actively interested in his personal life, which had—not mysteriously—coincided with the loss of his own wife, Nik’s adored grandmother.

‘When and if I do meet the right woman, you’ll be the first to know, Deda.’

His grandfather harrumphed. ‘I’ve seen you on the Internet with that model.’

The Internet? The last time they’d spoken the old man was using the tablet he’d got him as a tea tray.

But he knew who his grandfather was referring to.

Voroncor’s sister company Voroncor Holdings had bought out a retail corporation and Nik found himself in possession of some premium retail brands, including the fashion house Spanish model/actress and ‘it’ girl Marla Mendez was currently spruiking for.

The lady had pursued him around the world seeking his investment in her personal project, a lingerie line, not exactly his field but he had a personal reason for stumping up the funds that had nothing to do with Ms Mendez herself. A few photographs of them together at events had been enough for the tabloids to seize on the idea they were personally involved. He saw no reason to set his grandfather straight.

‘That woman is not right for you, Nikolka. There is something hard about her. She would not be good with little children.’

Nik considered reminding his grandfather he had no children, but he suspected that was Deda’s point.

‘Sybella works with children,’ his grandfather added helpfully.

No surprises there.

‘I think you should come and see her at work. I think you would be impressed, moy mal’chik.’

There was a long pause as Nik shouldered his way down the corridor and into his office, signalling for a coffee as he passed one of his admin assistants.

‘Did you hear me, Nikolka?’

‘I’m here, Deda. How did you meet her?’

Nik began pulling off his gloves, idly glancing at the information he’d asked for on the screen of a laptop another assistant silently opened in front of him.

‘She lives down the lane from the Hall, in the village. She’s a tenant. I believe she pays you rent.’

Vaguely Nik remembered some old English custom of the squire having first rights to local virgins. He held fire on mentioning it to his grandfather.

When he’d bought Edbury Hall a year ago he’d flown over in a helicopter. The village below had been merely a small sea of roofs swallowed up by the encroaching forest. His attention had been on the magnificent Elizabethan ‘E’, its outbuildings and the undulating pastureland around it.

His lawyer had done the groundwork and put everything in place. The purchase was a good investment, and it currently housed his grandfather while he was in the UK undergoing tests and treatment for a variety of complaints set off by his diabetes.

Nik hadn’t paid much attention to a lane, or the village, or the fact he had tenants. His admin dealt with that.

‘What are you doing consorting with the tenants? That’s not your problem, Deda. You’re supposed to be relaxing.’

‘Sybella comes to the house to keep me company and help me out with a few secretarial things.’

‘You have staff for that.’

‘I prefer Sybella. She is genuine.’

‘She sounds great,’ Nik said mildly enough, making a mental note to ask a few questions of the house staff. He didn’t want his grandfather’s kindly nature being taken advantage of.

‘We have a busload of children from all over the county once a month, up to thirty at a time, and Sybella is unflappable.’

‘Unflappable, good to know.’ Nik indicated he had what he needed. Then his head shot up. ‘Busloads of—what? Hang on, Deda, where is this?’

‘At the Hall. The children who come to see the house.’

Nik stopped finding this amusing. ‘Why are busloads of children coming to the house?’ But he already knew.

‘The Heritage Trust show them around,’ Deda said cheerfully.

The Heritage Trust. The local historic buildings preservation group, who had kept the Hall open to the public since the nineteen seventies.

His purchase a year ago had shut all commercial activities at the Hall down. There had been a picket at the end of the drive for a week in protest until he’d called in the police.

‘This is not what we agreed, Deda.’

‘I know what you’re about to say,’ his grandfather blustered, ‘but I changed my mind. Besides, no final decision was made.’

‘No, we talked about it when you moved in and we decided to leave the matter in my hands.’

‘And now it’s in Sybella’s,’ his grandfather said smugly.

Sybella.

Nik couldn’t help picturing one of the matronly women who had picketed the drive, in her husband’s oversized hunting jacket and wellington boots, face like the back of a shovel, shouting about British heritage and marching a troop of equally appalling kids through his grandfather’s home. When she wasn’t going through Deda’s papers and possibly siphoning his bank account.

This was not what he wanted to hear. He had a new pipe starting up in Archangelsk, which would keep him in the north for much of this year. Business was expanding and he needed to be on site.

But now he had a new problem: a white elephant of a property sitting up in the English Cotswolds he’d been ignoring for too long, currently housing his grandfather and apparently the local historical group.

Nik didn’t have time for this, but he knew he was going to have to make time.

‘And what does this Sybella have to do with the Heritage Trust when she’s not cooking and cleaning and herding children?’ he asked tightly.

His grandfather chuckled and delivered the coup de grâce. ‘She runs it.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE PRESIDENT OF the local branch of the Heritage Trust stood up, removed her glasses and announced somewhat dolefully to the committee members assembled that a legal document had been lodged this morning at the trust’s London office suspending any further activity of the trust in the Hall.

‘Does that mean we can’t use the empty gatehouse as a visitors’ centre?’ Mrs Merrywether wanted to know. ‘Because Sybella said we could.’

A dozen grey heads turned and Sybella found herself sinking a little lower in her chair, because she had indeed waved a letter around last month claiming they had the right.

But dodging responsibility wasn’t her way.

‘I can’t understand why this has happened,’ she told the meeting, feeling very guilty and responsible for the confusion that had gripped the room. ‘I’ll look into it and sort it out. I promise.’

Seated beside her Mr Williams, the retired local accountant, patted her arm. ‘We know you will, Sybella, we trust your judgement. You haven’t led us wrong once.’

There was a hum of agreement, which only made Sybella feel worse as she packed up her notes and made her usual early departure.

She had worked hard for twelve months to make Edbury Hall a place of life and activity for its new incumbent, Mr Voronov, and continue to earn its keep for the village. While this house might personally remind her of some grim stage set for a horror film starring Christopher Lee, the Hall also brought in its share of the tourist trade and kept the local shops turning over.

If this all collapsed it would affect everybody. And she would be responsible.

Rugging herself up in the boot room for her dash home, Sybella fished her phone out of her jeans back pocket and rang her sister-in-law.

Meg lived in a jaunty little semi-detached house on a busy road in Oxford, where she taught art to people with no real aptitude for painting and belly danced at a local Egyptian restaurant. She took off and travelled at the drop of a hat. Her life was possibly the one Sybella would have gravitated towards if life in all its infinite twists of fate hadn’t set her on another course, with much more responsibility and less room to move. Sybella considered Meg her best friend.

‘It’s the letters. I should have known,’ she groaned after a brief rundown on tonight’s meeting. ‘Nobody writes letters any more.’

‘Unless you’re a lonely seventy-nine-year-old man rattling around in a big empty house, trying to fill it with people,’ said Meg.

Sybella sighed. Every time something new occurred at the Hall Mr Voronov gave the same advice.

‘Just write to my grandson and let him know. I’m sure there will be no problems.’

So she had. She’d written just as she’d been writing every month for the past year detailing events at Edbury Hall.

Because she’d been too damn timid to face him on the phone.

She’d let her native shyness trip her up—again—and this was the tip, Sybella suspected, of a huge iceberg that was going to take her little ship out. She said as much, leaving out the bit about being a timid mouse. Meg didn’t cut you slack for being a mouse.

‘My ship, Meg. My ship of fools, me being the captain!’

Meg was silent and Sybella already knew what was coming.

‘You know what this is a result of? That weird life you lead in the village.’

‘Please, Meg, not now.’ Sybella shouldered her way out of the boot room. The corridor was dark and faintly menacing, although she suspected anyone coming across her would probably run the other way. She was wearing her Climb and Ski gear that was packed with a substance that was supposed to keep you warm and dry in the Arctic. It wasn’t particularly flattering to a woman’s figure and it also inhibited natural movement. She was aware she currently resembled a yeti.

Meg was persistent. ‘You hang around with all those oldies...’

‘You know why I volunteer with the Heritage Trust. It’s going to get me a job in the end.’

Sybella made her way to the servants’ entrance, from which she could slip unnoticed out of the house, cross the courtyard and disappear through a space in the hedge that led to the lane that wound down the hill to the top of her road.

‘Really? You’ve been doing unpaid work for them for over a year. When does it pay off for you?’

‘It’s work experience in my field. Do you know how difficult it is to get a job with just a degree?’

‘I don’t know why you won’t move down to Oxford with me. It’s bristling with opportunities.’

‘Your parents are here,’ she said firmly. She was always firm when it came to her daughter’s well-being. ‘And I’m not removing Fleur from her home.’

‘It’s a two-hour drive. They can see her on weekends.’

‘Who is going to look after her while I’m at work? Think of the practicalities, Meg.’ God knew she had to. If she hadn’t been so busy juggling all the balls life had thrown at her she might have thought through those practicalities with a little more precision at the Hall.

‘Fair enough,’ conceded Meg. ‘But you’ve put a lot of eggs in that house of horrors basket.’

‘Yes, because I have a growing daughter who has her roots in this village—a village with no other job opportunities in my chosen field. I’ve tried Stansfield Castle, Belfort Castle and Lark House. None are interested in someone with lots of education but no on-the-ground experience. Without Edbury Hall, Meg, I’m stuck!’

‘So in the meantime you’re writing letters to a man you’re never going to meet. Should I ask about your love life?’

‘What has my love life got to do with the letters?’

‘I think if you had a boyfriend you wouldn’t have all this extra time to sit around writing letters and sealing envelopes. You’d be like the rest of us and use freaking email.’

‘It wasn’t extra time. It was extra effort. Besides, I do use email. And I’m not looking for a romantic relationship, Meg Parminter.’

‘I don’t know why not. My brother’s been gone six years. You can’t keep hiding away in Mouldering Manor with those oldies, Syb. Seize the day!’

Given her days were quite long, what with her part-time archivist job at the town hall, her volunteer work with the Heritage Trust and sole responsibility for her home-schooled five-year-old daughter, Sybella wasn’t quite sure which part of the day she wasn’t seizing.

Besides, the idea of taking off her clothes in front of a man after six years of not having to endure that specific kind of embarrassment with Simon was not an encouraging one.

‘You know that film you love, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir?’ Meg asked. ‘Do you remember at the end when her daughter comes home all grown up with the fiancé? One day that will be Fleur, feeling guilty because she’s got a life and you haven’t!’

‘I will have a life,’ Sybella shot back, confident at least on this point. ‘I’ll be in the midst of a brilliant career as a curator and very fulfilled in my life’s ambition, thank you very much.’

‘Okay, maybe that analogy doesn’t work in the twenty-first century,’ Meg grudgingly allowed. ‘But are you really going to wait another twenty years before you pull the “take a detour” sign down off your bed?’

Sybella pushed open the heavy wooden door and made her way outside. She blew out a breath and watched it take shape in the air.

Blast, it was cold.

‘It’s not a priority for me, Meg.’

‘Well, it should be!’

Sybella looked around to make sure no one was lurking in the bushes to overhear this.

‘I really don’t want to discuss my sex life, or lack of. I’m just not interested,’ she said firmly. ‘There, I’ve said it. Not. Interested. In. Sex. I am, however, very interested in what I’m going to say to Mr Voronov’s grandson when he prosecutes us!’

Which was when she noticed a pricey-looking off-road vehicle coming up the drive, followed by another and another.

Mr Voronov hadn’t mentioned guests. She was familiar with his schedule, given she came and gave him a hand with a few things he refused to entrust to the personal assistant his grandson had engaged for him.

She told Meg she’d call her tomorrow and stowed her phone, pulled the ski mask down over her chin to repel the cold and headed out across the drive to see what they wanted.

* * *

Nik parked in the courtyard, slammed the door behind him and crunched through the snow to open the boot and retrieve his overnight bag.

He’d never seen England’s little tourist Mecca from this vantage point. Driving in, he thought it looked very much as if he’d stumbled onto the film set of the dramatisation of an Agatha Christie novel. Or maybe it was a recreation of Shakespeare’s youth because if he wasn’t mistaken, as the road had opened out into the town square, there had been a maypole.

Sticking up like a needle without a thread.

Everything else was under a ton of snow and ice.

He glanced up at the looming walls of Edbury Hall, with its multifaceted windows and grey stone. Snow drifts had made clumps of the carefully tended hedges and topiary.

It was a picture postcard of Ye Olde England.

No wonder those crackpots and loonies from Edbury’s branch of the Heritage Trust were bombarding his offices in London every time something got raised or lowered on the property.

He sensed rather than heard movement coming up behind him.

Good. Someone around this place was doing their job.

‘Here.’ He bundled the luggage at the rugged-up figure hovering at his shoulder. Then he slammed the back of the vehicle closed and hit the lock device on his keys.

He turned around to find the help was staggering under its weight. Which didn’t last long because the next thing he knew the guy was lying flat on his back in the snow.

He waited. The man wasn’t getting up. He did, however, stick a gloved hand in the air and wave it around. He also made a noise that sounded like a cat being drowned in a barrel. Nik liked animals; he didn’t much like incompetence in people.

Which was when he noticed the black ski mask under the hood of the guy’s coat and Nik lost his easy stance, because in Russia personal security was often a matter of life and death, and right now instinct was telling him this guy was not one of the people he had authorised to work for his grandfather.

He grabbed the interloper by the scruff of his coat and heaved him to his feet.

Sybella tried to cry out but her voice box was currently lodged somewhere in the snow after the impact of hitting the ground.

She found herself being lifted by the scruff of her neck until she was almost hanging, her parka cutting up under her arms, the toes of her new boots scrambling for purchase.

‘Give me your name and your reason for being out here.’

Her assailant had a deep, growly baritone that corresponded with his size. His rich Russian accent meant he probably had something to do with the current owner of this property. Given his size and strength he was possibly a bodyguard.

He was also clearly a bear.

‘Imya?’ he barked out when she didn’t immediately respond.

‘There’s been a mistake,’ Sybella gasped through the fine wool barrier formed by the ski mask over her mouth.

‘What are you, journalist, protester, what?’ He gave her another shake. ‘I’m losing patience.’

‘Put me down,’ she pleaded. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening.’

But even to her ears her plea was muffled into incoherence by all the wool and the wind.

Nevertheless, he dropped her and she landed heavily on the soles of her boots. Before she could react he whipped back the hood of her parka and gathered up a handful of her ski mask, yanking on her hair in the process. The ski mask came away and with it her long heavy flaxen curls. Freed, they began whipping around her face in the frigid wind.

His arms dropped to his sides.

‘You’re a woman,’ he said in English as if this was entirely improbable. His voice was deep and firm and weirdly—given the circumstances—reassuring.

Sybella pushed the wildly flapping hair from her eyes and, finally able to be understood, choked out a little desperately, ‘I was the last time I looked!’

He stepped in front of her, and if she didn’t suspect a little brain damage from all the pushing and shoving, she’d think it was to shield her from the wind and elements.

‘Did I hurt you?’ he demanded, his head bent to hers.

‘N-no.’ Scared the life out of her, but she was in one piece.

At least she no longer felt in danger of ending up on her bottom again. She was also staring, because you didn’t see men like this every day in Edbury.

He was a good head taller than her and she couldn’t see around his shoulders and up close he had slightly slanted grey eyes, thick golden lashes, high flat cheekbones and a strong jaw stubbled in gold. He was gorgeous. His mouth was wide and firm and she found her attention constantly returning to it.

‘What are you doing out here?’ he demanded.

She could have asked him the same question.

Trying to gather her wits, Sybella took her time checking the seams on the arms of her parka. They appeared intact. Seams, that was. Apparently the fabric could withstand being dangled by a bear, but not the ingress of water. She was soaked through.

And cold.

‘I asked you a question,’ he repeated. He really was very rude.

‘Minding my own business,’ she said pointedly, making a show of brushing the snow off her cords to cover the fact her hands were shaking.

‘Never show them you’re rattled’ was one of the few useful lessons a draconian English public boarding school education had taught her. Also, ‘be the one asking the questions’—it made you look as if you knew what you were doing.

‘Maybe the better question is what are you doing here?’ Pity her voice shook a bit.

‘I own this house.’

Her head shot up. ‘No, you don’t. Mr Voronov does.’

‘I am Voronov,’ he said. ‘Nikolai Aleksandrovich Voronov. You are talking about my grandfather.’

Sybella’s knees turned to jelly and a funny buzzing sound began to ring in her ears.

‘Kolya?’ she said a little faintly.

His eyes narrowed and Sybella felt as if she’d been knocked over in the snow for the second time tonight. Somehow, some way, she’d got this all wrong.

He looked her up and down.

‘Who did you say you were?’

CHAPTER THREE

IN TROUBLE, THAT was who she was.

‘I asked you a question,’ he repeated.

Yes, he had, and he expected an answer, she interpreted from the way he just stood there, arms folded, on closer inspection less like a bear and more like some angry Norse god.

‘Speak,’ he commanded.

She literally jumped but then her training kicked in. She handled tour groups of small children regularly and knew one had to establish rules and boundaries if chaos wasn’t to ensue.

‘I think you need to calm down,’ she said shakily, aware her heart was beating so fast she should probably take her own advice.

He took out his phone.

‘Wh-what are you doing?’

‘Ringing the police.’

Oh, that wasn’t good.

Sybella didn’t think, she just made a snatch for his phone. It wasn’t the cleverest thing she could have done, but once the area’s constabulary were involved this would be around the village in a flash. Her parents-in-law already thought she wasn’t handling her life to their satisfaction. It would be another reason why she and Fleur should move in with them.

He held the phone just out of her reach, which was easy for him, given he appeared to be a god stepped down from Asgard. Sybella wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d grabbed a stake of lightning while he was at it. Only he was looking down at her as if she were a puppy with muddy paws that had suddenly decided to jump on him.

It was beyond frustrating.

‘Please,’ she tried again, ‘this is just a misunderstanding.’

‘Nyet, this is trespass. I want you off my property.’

Sybella shook her head in disbelief. ‘Are you going to let me explain?’

‘Nyet.’

She stepped up to him and laid her hand on his forearm. ‘Please, you have to listen. I’m not a trespasser.’

He frowned.

‘I’ve never trespassed in my life. Not knowingly.’

Which was when the committee members of the Heritage Trust appeared out of the side entrance of Edbury Hall, humming like a hive of wasps.

Sybella’s heart began to beat so fast she seriously thought she might pass out.

‘Who in the hell are they?’ he demanded, because clearly nothing was getting past this guy.

‘The Heritage Trust committee,’ she croaked. This was a disaster! She had to go and warn them.

Turning quickly, she didn’t notice the bag at her feet until her boot caught on it and Sybella found herself for the second time tonight arms extended, launched head first for the snow.

Strong hands caught her around the waist and literally lifted her, this time bringing her into contact with his big, hard body. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around his neck. It was the wrong move. Sensation zipped through her body like an electrical charge and it dipped right between her legs.

Sybella panicked and tried to pull away but he had her held tight.

‘Stop wriggling,’ he ordered gruffly and she stopped. Mainly because her face was dangerously close to his and a part of her was finding the physical contact thrilling.

‘Can you—just—look, stop holding me!’ She was mumbling this into his bare neck, because apparently he thought hugging her to him was a good idea.

It wasn’t. Even with the layers of fabric between them she’d been a man-free zone for so long it was like landing on planet Mars and discovering there wasn’t enough gravity to hold you down. Worse, he smelt awfully good, manly in a way she had forgotten, and, combined with his warm solidity, she was beginning to enjoy all the contact.

Not interested in sex? She’d clearly sent a message out into the universe and the sneaky gods had sent down one of their own to make a liar of her.

‘Please,’ she begged, turning her face to meet his eyes, which was a mistake because he was looking back at her and they were dangerously close.

She could see how thick his golden eyelashes were, and his eyes had seemingly soaked up the colours around them like the Northern Lights she’d seen on a documentary about the Arctic. She could have sworn a moment ago they were icy grey.

Her panicked breath caught and everything telescoped down to his amazing eyes before his gaze swooped to her mouth. He looked as if he was going to kiss her or was that just her idea?

Panic renewed, Sybella began to thrash about in earnest. ‘Please let me go before this all gets out of hand!’

* * *

On the contrary, Nik was confident he had it all in hand.

He would deal with the small tide of humanity edging towards them, and then he would find out why there appeared to be no security at all in operation at his grandfather’s home.

But first he needed to deal with what he had in his arms, the problem being he wasn’t sure what that was. He’d turned his head to find something other than what he’d first imagined. She had a vivid face, eyes that seemed to be searching his and the kind of sensuous full mouth that gave men creative thoughts. She also smelt of flowers, which was distracting him. He set her down in the snow.

‘Do not move,’ he told her.

He went around to the cab of the SUV and turned on the headlights to high beam, capturing the dozen rugged-up intruders like a spotlight on a stage.

‘I’m Nikolai Aleksandrovich Voronov,’ he said in a deep voice that didn’t need to be raised. On its own it carried across the front façade of the house and possibly beyond. ‘If you’re not off the estate in the next two minutes, I’ll have you all arrested for trespass.’

He didn’t wait to see what they would do. He knew what they would do. Scatter and run.

Nik hoisted his bag over his shoulder and gave his attention to the unhappy girl, standing there encased in what looked like cladding. In the dark she no longer looked like the sensual siren he’d imagined a moment ago and was back to being the abominable snowman.

‘You can go with your friends,’ he said with a curt nod, before turning his back on her.

Sleet was falling more heavily as he approached the house.

He used the side entrance lit by lamp posts that glowed through the snowy gloom like something out of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, a book his Anglophile grandfather had given to him when he was a boy. No wonder the old man loved the place. Nik saw only an investment and right now a heavy oak door he pushed open with his shoulder.

He was aware he’d been followed, alerted by his companion’s crunching footsteps over the stones and her hitching breath, because clearly the woman was out of shape with all that extra weight she was carrying.

He waited for Rapunzel because he wasn’t in the habit of closing doors in women’s faces. Another glance reinforced what he already knew. She was tall, abetted by a pair of what looked like hiking boots, and the parka and trousers gave her a square look not identifiable as female in the dark.

‘What do you want?’

She had planted herself just inside the threshold.

‘To explain.’

‘I’m not interested.’

She stepped towards him, clearly reluctant, the light falling full on her.

She was wearing the ski mask now as a beanie, most of her astonishing hair caught up inside it. She had full cheeks pink from the cold and her hazel eyes he’d already established were bright, but it was her lush pink mouth that drew the eye.

‘Actually, about that...you probably do want to talk to me.’

Nik had it on the tip of his tongue to tell her while she looked like a Christmas angel he wouldn’t be changing his mind.

Instead he gave her a moment to clarify.

‘I work here.’

She was staff? Why in hell hadn’t she said so?

‘I’m Sybella,’ she said. ‘Sybella Parminter.’

Nik took a moment to reconcile the girl standing in front of him with the woman with the wellington boots and the face like a shovel. He’d underestimated his grandfather. The old man had rigged a honey trap.

Nik crossed the floor to her in a few strides and, before she could react, reached behind her head and yanked off the ski mask.

Her hair tumbled out.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, lifting her bemittened hands to her head in a protective gesture, as if he might start pulling at her hair again.

It was exactly as it had looked in the snow, heavy and flaxen blonde almost all the way down to her waist. The electric light made it shimmer, or maybe he was just tired and even ordinary women were beginning to look like goddesses.

That fast a picture took shape of a golden angel ministering to his grandfather and putting ideas in his head about English heritage and great-grandchildren while she eyed the title deeds to the house.

‘You can’t just manhandle me,’ she said, pushing back her hair self-consciously and eyeing him as if he were a wolf about to leap at her. He also saw the feminine awareness kindling in her eyes and knew exactly how he was going to handle this.

‘Call me Nik.’

‘Nik,’ she said warily, taking a big step back. ‘Well, I would like the opportunity to explain. If I could come back tomorrow?’

‘I think you will stay where you are.’

‘But you just told me to go.’

‘Glad you’re keeping up.’

She blinked.

‘What were you doing outside?’

Sybella didn’t know whether to run for her life or stand her ground. His pulling and pushing, not to mention the way he’d looked at her hair as if it were some kind of man snare, had left her unnerved. But she had people relying on her. She couldn’t let them down.

‘The Heritage Trust meet here on Thursday nights. I’m secretary. Assistant secretary.’ She took a breath. Honesty was the best policy. ‘I’m the only one who can do shorthand. We don’t use a recording device.’

‘You don’t run it?’

‘Well, no.’

He was shrugging out of his coat, looking around the entrance hall as if expecting minions to appear and help him. ‘So you don’t run it, you’re the secretary. How long has this been going on?’ he asked.

‘A little under a year. Mr Voronov was kind enough—’

‘For you to take advantage.’

‘No, that’s not—’

Sybella promptly lost her train of thought as the tailored wool slid down his arms and she discovered what had felt so solid outside when she’d been holding onto him. An expensive-looking charcoal sweater clung to broad shoulders and a long, hard, lean waist, apparently packed with bricks. Narrow muscled hips and long powerful legs filled out his dark jeans. By the time she reached his big, got-to-be-size-fifteen hand-tooled boots the tour had effectively rendered Sybella slightly dazzled and a whole lot mute.

She realised she’d just checked him out.

It was either her silence or the raptness of her regard that had him look up from shaking out his coat and give her that once-over thing men did, the subtle up and down assessment as to whether or not he’d consider sleeping with her...and Sybella had the humiliating thought he’d caught her staring and assumed she was doing the same thing.

Which she was. Unintentionally. Not because she was considering sleeping with him. Goodness, no. She hadn’t meant to ogle him. It had just happened. But he didn’t know that.

What made it worse was the Climb and Ski gear had currently turned her perfectly nice woman’s body into a flotation device and the likelihood of him finding anything attractive about her was zilch.

‘Care to tell me what you were really doing jumping out at me in the dark?’ His eyes held a new awareness now that she’d pretty much flagged she found him attractive. Sybella could feel her cheeks hot as coals. He made her feel like a teenage girl with a boy she liked. It was ridiculous at her advanced age of twenty-eight.

‘I didn’t jump out at you. You threw luggage at me!’ He had moved across to the open boot-room door to hang up his coat. Sybella followed him, a tiny tug boat to his tanker.

‘I expected to be greeted by staff,’ he said.

She guessed that put her in her place. Sybella surreptitiously admired his rear, which like the rest of him appeared to be pure muscle, which was when he just tossed the grenade in.

‘I also thought you were a man.’

And there went what was left of her self-image tonight.

‘Wh-what?’ she bleated, like a stupid lamb for slaughter.

‘I mean, obviously you’re not,’ he said, frowning at her as if he’d just noticed her stricken expression and was assessing what it meant.

‘No,’ she choked, ‘not a man. Thanks.’

‘It was dark and you’re wearing unisex clothing.’ He was hanging up his coat, drawing attention to the flex of muscles along his back.

‘This isn’t unisex.’ Sybella looked down at her considerable padded bulk. ‘It’s oyster-pink.’

His expression told her he didn’t make the connection.

‘Pink is traditionally a female colour,’ she spelt out.

He continued to look doubtful.

She huffed out a breath. ‘Look, this parka was clearly marked “Women Size L” on the rack,’ she insisted. Then stopped.

Had she just informed him she was size large?

Yes—yes, she had.

‘It was dark,’ he repeated, and the frown was back.

He closed the door behind him, crowding her back out into the corridor.

When she picked up her bruised and bloodied self-esteem from the floor, Sybella would remind herself she was tall, wearing layers and a ski mask, and he was right—it was dark. Her throat felt tight, because it wasn’t that dark.

Sybella only felt worse when he took the main stairs with an effortless stride that left her labouring as best she could in his wake, because by now she was not only wet through, the all-weather gear was making it difficult to move freely.

It begged the question how people climbed mountains in these things when she was finding a staircase hard going.

She was a little out of breath at the top.

‘You need to get a bit more exercise,’ he said, stopping to look down at her. ‘You’re out of shape.’

Really? That was what he had to say to her? The only time she ever got to sit down was on a quiet afternoon at the records office where she worked.

‘Shouldn’t you be on your way up to see your grandfather?’ she said instead, no longer at all keen to explain anything to him. She just wanted to go home. Preferably to a hot bath where she could enjoy a little cry.

‘He’ll keep.’

He’ll keep? What sort of grandson was he? Well, she knew the answer to that. The absent kind. She scowled at his back. If he hadn’t been absent she wouldn’t be in this fix.

Sybella followed him down the Long Gallery. She regularly conducted tours of this room, pointing out the features, recounting the history of the house. She suspected Mr I-thought-you-were-a-man wouldn’t be very happy if he knew.

There were six Jacobean chairs piled up in the middle of the room, awaiting a home.

‘What in the hell?’ he said, circling them.

She opted for a cheerful, ‘Don’t you love these? Your grandfather had them brought down from storage in the attics. We haven’t worked out where to put them.’

‘We?’ He rounded on her. ‘You’re interested in the contents of the house?’

As if she were some kind of criminal. Sybella found herself backing up a bit. ‘No, I’m interested in the past.’

‘Why?’

A little flustered by the way he was looking at her, all suspicious and hard-eyed but making her feel very much a woman despite what he’d said, she found herself struggling for an answer. ‘I don’t know. I just am.’

He looked unimpressed.

She had to do better. She rummaged around for something he’d believe. ‘If you grew up like I did in a very modern house in a relentlessly upmarket housing estate you’d see the beauty in old things too.’

He looked skeptical.

‘It was the most soulless place on this green earth. I knew from an early age there had to be something better. More meaningful.’

Sybella took a breath, realising she’d told him a little more than she had meant to.

‘Why does furniture have more meaning if it’s old?’

‘Because old things have stories attached to them, and the furniture that’s survived tends to have been made by craftsmen and women. Artists.’

‘You’re a romantic,’ he said, again as if this were a crime.

‘No, I’m practical.’ She’d had to be. ‘Although I guess as a child I read books about other children who lived in old houses and fantasised that might be me one day.’

‘Is that so?’

Nik was tempted to ask her if she could see herself in this house.

‘It’s not unusual,’ she said defensively. ‘Lots of children have thoughts like that, and I had a good reason to.’

Nik suspected he was about to hear a sob story. He was also aware if he gave her enough rope she’d probably happily hang herself. She was nervous around him and it was making her talk.

‘I’m more curious about your interest in this house,’ he growled.

‘No, you asked me why I was interested in the past.’

He added pedantic to overweight and possibly a con-artist.

‘Old houses, miserable childhood, check.’

‘I didn’t say I had a miserable childhood.’ She looked affronted. ‘I said the house was soulless,’ she said firmly. ‘We were the only people who had ever lived there. Which was ironic.’

‘I’ll bite—why?’

She tried to fold her arms, which was rendered difficult by the bulk of her clothing. ‘Because the woman who raised me was obsessed with genealogy. Her genealogy, not mine, as it turned out.’

‘You were adopted?’

She nodded, for the first time looking less communicative. Her pretty face was closed up like a fist.

He’d been fifteen when he was told his father was not his father, and Nik had always looked at his life in terms of before and after.

‘When did you find out?’

She looked up at him as if gauging whether to tell him. ‘I was twelve. It was when my parents separated.’

‘Must have been difficult.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was more difficult when they handed me back.’

‘They handed you back?’

She was radiating tension now. ‘Dumped me in a very nice boarding school and left me there for six years.’

He almost laughed. That was her complaint?

Spoilt upper-class girl still bemoaning her school years at what—going by her elocution—was an upmarket school. He wondered what else she had to complain about. And here he was, actually feeling sorry for her.

She was good, he had to give her that.

‘Have you ever considered they were giving you a good education?’

‘They gave me a very good education,’ she said tonelessly, looking down at her clasped hands. She probably understood her bid for sympathy was going nowhere. ‘But I saw them very rarely in the term breaks and now not at all. It was as good as handing me back.’

Sybella was pleased with her command of herself and that she could talk about her adoptive parents in a forthright way. He’d asked the questions; she’d merely answered them. No external emotion needed.

Only for all her firmness on the subject she could feel the cold running like a tap inside her and she would have trouble turning it off tonight.

‘That is a sad little story,’ he said, something in his tone making her think he didn’t quite believe her.

She suddenly felt self-conscious and slightly annoyed. ‘I guess it is. I don’t know why I told you all that. I’m sure it’s not at all interesting to a man like yourself.’

‘You’d be surprised what interests me.’

Sybella discovered she didn’t have anything smart to say in answer to that. But she couldn’t help running her gaze over his broad shoulders, remembering how strong and sure he’d felt holding her.

His eyes caught hers and something flared between them. ‘And what exactly interests you, Miss Parminter?’

Sybella knew what interested her, and it wasn’t going to happen.

She could feel her face filling up with heat.

‘It’s Mrs,’ she stated baldly in a desperate attempt to deflect whatever he might say next. ‘Mrs Parminter.’

‘You’re married?’

There had been a current of awareness zipping between them from the time she’d been grappling with him in the snow, only Sybella didn’t know that until this very second as it was sucked back to nothingness and what was left was a tense, awkward silence.

Sybella didn’t know what to say.

But he did.

‘Does your husband know you’re out at night running around with other men?’

CHAPTER FOUR

WITH TOO MANY bad memories still beating around in her head something snapped inside Sybella, enough to have her hand arcing through the air.

Fortunately his reflexes were quicker than hers and he gripped her wrist, holding her immobile.

There was a fraught silence in which all she could hear was her pulse drumming in her ears. Then he said quietly, ‘That was out of line,’ releasing her arm so that Sybella could slowly lower it to her side.

‘It’s none of my business,’ he added. Which was when she realised he wasn’t talking about her trying to hit him. He was apologising for what he’d said.

The fight went out of Sybella, and with it flooded in the knowledge she’d almost hit another person.

Last year Fleur had pushed over a little boy in her social group and Sybella had sat down and had the talk with her. Physically hurting someone was wrong. Whatever the provocation, she must use her words, not her fists. And here she was, mother of the year, trying to slug a perfect stranger!

She’d had provocation all right, but that wasn’t an excuse.

She needed to apologise to him but Sybella found herself struggling because he’d implied something, and he hadn’t taken that back. Which was very different from saying it was none of his business.

‘Six years ago my husband kissed me and climbed into his van and drove it out to the Pentwistle Farm,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and on the road between the farm and the turn-off he was struck by another car coming over the rise.’

Nik was looking at her with an expression she hadn’t seen before in this man.

As if he were taking her seriously.

‘So no, Mr Voronov, my husband has no idea what I’m doing nowadays—but I do. I wish I hadn’t tried to hit you. I can’t take that back. But you don’t get to say things like that to me. I don’t deserve your contempt, or do you just have a problem with women in general? I suspect you do.’

Sybella had no idea where all those words had come from or her ability to say them or even if they were true. But nothing had just ‘happened’ here tonight. It had been building since he’d held her in his arms outside in the snow and all the sensuality latent in her body had woken up.

She resented it, and she resented him. But none of that was his fault.

‘I suspect I have a problem with you, Mrs Parminter,’ he said slowly. ‘But I am sorry for what I said.’

‘You should be.’ She held his gaze. She could see her words had affected him and she could also see some grudging respect in his eyes and that gave her the grace to say, ‘I’m sorry too.’

She forced the apology out, because as wrong as her actions were she couldn’t yet let go of them, or the feelings that had provoked them. None of this had made her feel better; she felt worse. She wrapped arms around her waist as best she could in her ridiculous parka.

He was looking at her as if she deserved some compassion. He was wrong. She deserved a good talking-to for all the mistakes she’d made in dealing with this house.

‘You’re cold,’ he said. ‘You need to take off your wet things.’

‘I don’t—’

‘You can dry them in front of the fire, or I can have them laundered.’

‘Please don’t bother.’ She passed a hand over her face. ‘I’m going to take them back to Climb and Ski tomorrow for a full refund.’

‘Are you all right?’

She blinked, taking her hand away from her face to find him watching her as if she might keel over. ‘I guess so.’

Which was when her eyes filled with tears. Oh, blast.

Tired, wet, in some serious trouble over her activities in this house, and yet troublingly aware of Nik Voronov as a man and her own deficiencies in that area, Sybella wanted nothing more than to wriggle out of her wet things and cast herself down in front of the fire and sleep for a hundred years.

But she didn’t get the fairy-tale option. She should be practising a better apology.

There was a rattle and clatter as Gordon, who ran the household, entered from a side door, wheeling the drinks trolley.

Saved by the man with the alcohol!

A long-time bachelor, Gordon was her ally in the house, having worked here for almost thirty years under the previous owner. He gave her a guarded look of surprise but didn’t say anything. He was too good at his job.

Her host meanwhile had signalled to Gordon he could deal with the drinks.

Sybella wondered if she could just slip out with the trolley. But the fire lured her and she turned away to deal with her wet things, surreptitiously sniffing and wiping at her eyes with her wrist. She stripped off her parka and then her cords, feeling self-conscious in her tights but not exposed. They were of a durable denier and thick enough to act as leggings. Frankly, it was a relief to be able to move her body freely again.

She laid out her jeans before the fire and had just straightened up when a towel dropped over her head.

She gave a start but with a gruff, ‘Hold still,’ her host began to vigorously but not roughly rub dry her damp hair.

After an initial protest of, ‘I can do this,’ she gave in, because really he was impossible to argue with.

But this was her role. For five years she’d been the caregiver. It was disconcerting to find herself the one being cared for. And as his strokes became more rhythmic Sybella found herself going quiescent, some of the tension of the crazy evening leaving her.

It had been so long since her needs were seen to by someone else. She’d forgotten it could be like this. Even when Simon had been alive he’d been so busy with his new veterinary practice in the few months they were married they had seemed only to bump into each other at night in bed, and Sybella could feel her skin suffusing with heat because another man’s hands were on her, if only drying her hair. But when she looked up and clashed with his grey eyes she was shocked into feelings so raw and insistent she barely recognised them as the gentle, awkward finding their way she’d had with Simon...

‘That’s enough,’ she said, her voice a little rough with the sudden upsurge of feeling beating around in her.

He paused but then continued to dry her even more vigorously.

‘If you collapse from pneumonia in a few days’ time—’ he said gruffly.

‘You don’t want it on your conscience?’

‘I don’t want a lawsuit.’

Sybella snorted, she couldn’t help it, and she felt rather than saw him smile.

‘I’m not a lawyer,’ she said, ‘and I don’t have the money for a lawyer.’

‘What do you do,’ he asked, removing the towel so that her head came back and she could see him, ‘besides haunt this house?’

She didn’t miss a beat. ‘I could give you a list?’

A slow grudging smile curled up his mouth, taking Sybella’s entire attention with it. ‘Why don’t you do that?’

As if he had all the time in the world to listen to her life story. As if like before she’d spill her guts.

Instead she asked, ‘Why don’t you visit your grandfather more often?’ It was the one thing that really bothered her, and it was more important than anything to do with the open house and how much trouble she would be in.

He reached out and gently smoothed the drying ringlets back from her face.

‘I would have visited earlier,’ he said, ‘if I’d had any idea something so beautiful was here.’

Then his gaze dropped to her mouth.

She relived that moment in the snow and realised it hadn’t been her imagination. There was a very strong attraction between them.

Only she didn’t do things like this.

Given the last man to kiss her existed now only in her memory of him.

She wasn’t even sure what she would do if he...

His mouth covered hers. He gave her no opportunity to back out, or overthink it, he just made it happen. One hand sliding around the back of her head to cradle her, the other at the small of her back. His hand was so broad he could span her waist from behind.

In a flurry of sense impressions, Sybella had never felt so delicate, so utterly aware she was a feeling, sensate woman and, as exciting and dangerous as this was, she felt completely safe in his arms.

Where he had been so rough with her out in the snow he was now showing due care and acknowledgement of her as a female, which put to bed his remark about mistaking her for a man and engendered a fluttery feeling inside her. It bloomed high in her chest and a swirling warmth gathered down below.

He brought her in close to his body and she felt the full hard, muscular strength of him and it was enough.

She gave way, her mouth softening under his, the entire lost art of kissing returning to her with some subtle but much appreciated changes.

His tongue touched, grazed, tasted, seduced and the feel of him was so completely male and so overwhelming in the certainty of his approach Sybella took what he gave her instinctively and with an utter disregard to where this might be leading.

Until all her doubts came rushing back in and she ducked her head.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked gruffly.

Apart from he was a stranger, and they didn’t know one another, and she suspected given her activities in his house only trouble could come from this?

‘I don’t know.’ She did know—she was feeling a bit too much and it had been so long and she no longer had any certainty in her ability to meet him as a sexually confident woman. But had she ever?

She wasn’t ready for this.

Meg would say whatever sense of herself as a desirable woman had been shoved into the back of her wardrobe in a box along with her preserved wedding bouquet and all the plans she and Simon had made for the future. But it had happened before that. It had happened when Simon had briefly dated another girl and slept with her.

It was a little disconcerting to say the least to discover, gazing up at this intense, beautiful man, she had no idea where to go from here with him. But she did know one thing. She had to let him know what was going on in his house.

‘I have to tell you something,’ she blurted out. ‘Edbury Hall is open to the public on weekends.’

* * *

Nik didn’t immediately let her go. His hand was still curled around her sweet waist gloved in soft cashmere wool that made the most of her glorious curves above and below.

He could pinpoint the moment he’d stopped thinking clearly. It was when he’d seen her bending down by the fire, the most female-looking woman. She was the proverbial hourglass, and if there was a little more sand than was standard in that glass his libido didn’t make that distinction. She had ample breasts and long, shapely legs, deliciously plump around her thighs and bottom, and in his arms she’d felt like both comfort and sin.

Which explained why his brain took a little longer to catch up, because his body was happy where it was, Sybella’s curves giving him a full body press.

‘Why is the house open to the public?’ He forced himself to set her back. ‘On whose authorisation?’

‘Mr Voronov senior’s, and—and yours.’ Sybella’s voice gave out, so the ‘yours’ wasn’t much more than a whisper.

‘Mine?’ he growled, any trace of the man who had begun to kiss her and rouse such passionate feelings in her evaporating like the last patch of sunshine on a cold winter’s day.

‘You were sent the paperwork. I didn’t just go ahead only on your grandfather’s say-so,’ she protested.

‘I received no paperwork.’

No. She gnawed on the inside of her lip. Now she would have to explain about the letters. But she didn’t want to be responsible for a further breach between grandfather and grandson. Family was important.

No one understood that better than someone who for a long time didn’t have any.

No, it would be better if his grandfather confessed.

And what if Nik Voronov decided to blame her anyway?

Blood was blood, and old Mr Voronov might easily side with his grandson.

Sybella knew she had nobody to blame but herself and for a spinning moment she just started babbling. ‘I don’t see who has been hurt by any of this. Mr Voronov is a lonely man and he enjoys having people into the house...’

‘And you have taken advantage of that.’

‘No!’ Sybella closed her eyes and took a breath. Arguing with him wasn’t going to accomplish anything. ‘I understand you don’t know me,’ she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could, given the escalating tension, ‘and you say you’re worried about your grandfather—’

‘I am worried about him.’

‘Well, I don’t see any evidence of that given you’re never here!’

Oh, she should have kept that to herself. And now he was looking down at her without a shred of give in him.

‘I suspect you’ve taken my grandfather for a ride, and, if I find out that’s the case, you really don’t want me for an enemy Mrs Parminter.’

It was difficult not to take a step back.

She swallowed hard. ‘Do you go through life mistrusting people?’

‘When it comes to my family I don’t allow anything past the keeper.’

Those words took the indignant air out of her because she guarded her little family too. His grandfather had become of late an honorary member of that family and for a moment she wondered if she’d got it wrong. Nik Voronov might genuinely care about his grandfather. If the shoe were on the other foot she would be suspicious too.

She tried again. ‘Honestly, Nik, it’s not what you think.’

‘I think we can probably go back to Mr Voronov.’

He was making her feel as if she’d done something wrong.

Which was when she noticed he was getting out his phone.

‘Are you calling the police again?’ She tried not to sound despairing because, really, what were they going to arrest her on? Impersonating a married lady? Kissing a man she’d just met?

‘I’m arranging a car for you. I take it you live in the village?’

It was no more than a ten-minute walk if she took the lane, but Sybella didn’t intend to argue with him about the lift.

‘If this is your organisation’s way of drumming up support you can let them know that honey traps went out in the nineteen seventies.’

Honey trap?

He turned away and spoke rapidly into his phone in Russian.

Sybella wondered if being shaken about like a child’s toy earlier had affected her hearing. It had certainly loosened some of her native intelligence.

What did he think, she was Mata Hari kissing men for state secrets?

Oh, boy, she definitely needed to get out of here.

Cursing her own stupidity, she pulled on her damp jeans and then bent down to reattach her boots. Everything was cold and unpleasant and would chafe but there was no helping that.

‘I want you back here nice and early, let’s say eight o’clock for breakfast,’ he said from behind her. ‘You have some explaining to do, and it will be in the presence of my grandfather.’

Sybella became aware he was probably getting a really good look at her wide womanly behind at this moment. But everything was such a shambles—what was one more humiliation?

‘Eight o’clock is too early.’

‘Tough. Get an alarm clock.’

She straightened up. ‘For your information I’ll be awake at six, but I have a great deal to organise myself. You’re not the only busy person in the world, Mr Voronov.’

He looked unimpressed.

‘I am running a billion-dollar business, Mrs Parminter. What’s your excuse?’

A five-year-old girl, Sybella thought, eyeing him narrowly, but he looked like one of those unreconstructed dinosaurs who thought raising children happened by magic. Besides, she was not bringing her daughter into this hostile conversation.

‘The fact is I’m out of here tomorrow,’ he informed her. ‘Let’s call this your window of opportunity.’

‘To do what?’

‘To convince me not to involve my lawyers.’

All the fight went out of Sybella. She couldn’t quite believe this was happening. But she told herself surely old Mr Voronov would clear the air tomorrow.

‘Fine. I’ll be here.’

To her surprise he took his wool coat and handed it to her with a less antagonistic, ‘You’ll need this.’

Sybella looked at her Climb and Ski jacket she’d been unable to bring herself to put back on and self-consciously drew his coat around her shoulders.

The gesture reminded her of how kind he’d been drying her hair, how he’d made her feel cared for if only for a brief time. It was enough to make her want to cry, and she hated crying. It didn’t change anything.

She turned away from him, his scent surrounding her inside the coat.

She spotted the bottle of brandy and on a whim picked it up. After the events of this evening she needed it more than he did.

He didn’t say anything and when she went downstairs to climb into the waiting car she was holding it to her like a safety blanket.

Stupid really, when she didn’t drink. Stupid being in this car, when it would take only ten minutes or five minutes if she’d legged it. She brought her fingertips to her mouth. It still felt a little swollen and sensitive from all the attention. Stupid, probably, to have kissed him.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘MUMMY, THERE’S A GIANT standing in our garden. What do you think about that?’

Given yesterday it had been an elephant under the stairs, Sybella didn’t rush to call the fire brigade or police station or even Jack the giant killer.

When she did put away the bath towels she was folding and came into her bedroom, she found her five-year-old daughter was kneeling at the dormer window in her pyjamas, her big violet-blue eyes full of innocent curiosity for a world that produced fairy-tale characters in human guise.

Joining Fleur at the glass, she obligingly looked out. Her pulse hit a thousand and she stepped back and said a silent prayer. Then she leaned forward again to get a better look.

She became aware of Fleur watching her, waiting for a cue as to how to respond to this stranger at their door. Sybella shook off her astonishment.

‘That’s not a giant, darling, that’s a Viking god.’

He was facing their door and in a minute he’d work out the old-fashioned bell-pull was indeed the bell—but it was broken.

Then he’d probably pound on the door until he broke it down.

‘Mummy will go down and speak to him. Why don’t you stay here with Dodge? You know how nervous he gets around boys.’

‘Because they’re noisy.’ Fleur picked up her toy bricks and returned to fitting pieces together. Sybella wasn’t fooled. Her daughter would wait until the coast was clear and make her way to the top of the stairs and peer down through the bannisters.

Sybella wouldn’t have minded that option herself. Instead she took the stairs by twos, then stopped in front of the hall mirror and checked her face was clean. Clean but her eyes were shadowed with lack of sleep.

She’d been on the Internet late last night checking up on Nik Voronov and how much damage he could possibly do her. Given he was on the Forbes list, probably a lot.

At least she was wearing her work clothes: a white silk blouse, a knee-length caramel-coloured suede skirt and boots. Pretty respectable. She ran a hand through her yet-to-be-braided hair and went to open the door.

Then hesitated and looked at herself in the glass again, this time undoing her top two buttons.

There, just a hint of cleavage. It had nothing to do with making herself more attractive for the man who had called her a honey trap last night. It was about her own self-confidence as a woman.

She opened the door, and her self-confidence did a wobble and promptly fell over.

He was wearing a tailored suit and tie. He might as well have been wearing a surcoat and carrying a broadsword. She knew he’d come to take prisoners.

His eyes flared over her as if he were dropping a net and Sybella instinctively dug her heels into her shoes to keep herself from being dragged in towards him.

And just like last night in the snow it was his mouth she was drawn to. The wide lower lip, the slight curve at the ends that could go either way, like Nero’s thumb, up or down, and decide your fate. She’d been kissed by that mouth last night and it had definitely been going her way for a little bit. But in the end it had all been a ruse to make her look as foolish as possible.

‘Enjoy the brandy?’

The brandy? She hadn’t known what to do with the bottle when she’d got home so she’d stashed it in the linen closet.

It had occurred to her that Catherine, her mother-in-law, was regularly in and out of that cupboard when she babysat Fleur.

Sybella was forever coming home to freshly changed sheets, which she appreciated even as it drove her crazy.

Hiding spirits behind the bathroom towels, Sybella, dear?

A little devil she didn’t know was in her made her say, ‘Yes, thank you, I drank the lot.’

‘Careful,’ he said, his deep voice wiping away any comparisons with her mother-in-law, ‘excessive drinking is a slippery slope to all kinds of illness in later life.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

What did he want? Why was he looking at her in that way, his eyes trained on her, cool and watchful and somehow taking her clothes off?

‘So,’ she said, swallowing. ‘How can I help you today?’

Nik eyed the two undone buttons.

‘It’s nine o’clock.’

‘I told you my mornings were busy.’ She made a gesture with her hand, wriggling her fingers. ‘Serene on the surface, duck legs churning underneath.’

Nik’s attention had drifted to her hair because it seemed to have grown more abundant overnight like some Victorian-era maiden. He suddenly found himself right back where he was last night. Wanting her.

He cleared his throat. ‘My grandfather tells me you take tours of the house.’

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