A Deal for Her Innocence

by Williams Cathy

  Which, in turn, had made him stubbornly remain out of the country for longer than originally intended.

  But now he was back. In the end, he’d had no choice. Need, desire and much, much more had won an unequal fight. He’d stayed away for as long as humanly possible but then, two days ago, details of the campaign had been emailed to him and he’d buckled under the force of his memories.

  Every sentence, every picture, every poetic description had been the story of their romance. Because a romance was what it had been, even if he hadn’t seen it at the time. He’d flicked through her draft and had seen her lovely face, heard her infectious laugh, felt himself long to touch her slender body. He’d immersed himself in what she had written as thoughts for the brochure he had mentioned, and he had been taken back in time to something he should never, ever have let go.

  Now here he was but where the heck was she? He felt sick with a surge of sudden apprehension.

  ‘She...er...’ Marta, one of his execs, glanced over to the guy in charge of marketing in the little team set up to handle the venture.

  ‘Well?’ Niccolo growled impatiently. ‘Spit it out!’ He’d barely touched down a few hours ago but his body was suddenly revving up, as though suddenly put onto high alert.

  ‘Well after all the business of...of...’

  Thick silence descended and Niccolo frowned. ‘Business of what?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Marta said, tiptoeing around the subject with agonising delicateness, ‘After the...er...situation between you two... I guess... I mean, it’s only a guess...’

  ‘She no longer works for the firm,’ Paul interjected abruptly. ‘But, sir, all the information has been handed over to her colleague and that’s all that matters.’

  ‘No. It’s not.’

  She’d been kicked out of the partnership. He’d had his fling with her and she’d paid the ultimate price—and the guilt that had been sitting on his shoulders attacked with full force. His sister had told him that it had been in the gossip column, but he had made sure to avoid reading any of it, so he had no idea what, exactly, had been written.

  ‘I’ll deal with this later.’ He was already heading for the door, contacting his PA for Ellie’s address, and for the first time in weeks feeling a certain amount of peace.

  He hit the ground running. From office to car and car to street was accomplished in under five minutes, and then he was on his way to find out what the heck was going on.

  * * *

  Ellie heard the sharp buzz of the doorbell with a groan of despair. She was on her way out! She’d endured an uncomfortable week of intrusive reporters popping up in all sorts of places to ask questions but that had died off. The world was full of scandal, and after a short while there were more pressing ones to write about. Married celebrities caught with their clothes off in bed with their wife’s best friend had more mileage than a single guy, however rich, having a fling with a single girl, however poor.

  The few friends she had made over the years had been far more curious, but now Ellie thought that there was nothing left to be said on the subject of her folly and she had no idea who could have their inconsiderate finger glued to her doorbell.

  She opened the door hesitantly, keeping the chain on, and then fell back, heart pounding.

  The last person she expected was Niccolo but there he was, as impossibly handsome as she remembered, without a suit jacket or tie and with the sleeves of his shirt cuffed to the elbows.

  Dark, dangerous and still so painfully irresistible that all Ellie wanted to do was reach out and touch.

  Instead, she remained where she was without unfastening the chain and stared at him. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked eventually, when it looked as though the silence was going to last for ever.

  ‘You’re no longer a partner at the agency,’ Niccolo said gruffly. He raked his fingers through his hair, glanced away, then back to her, his body vibrating with restless energy.

  Ellie looked down. ‘No. It seemed best,’ she muttered.

  ‘Did they ask you to step down? Because of us? If that’s the case, then they can say goodbye to my account, and goodbye to any future in London, because I’ll make sure they become lepers of the advertising industry. They may not know who they’re dealing with. I will remind them.’

  Ellie sighed. ‘Maybe you should come in,’ she offered reluctantly. She didn’t want this. How was she supposed to get over him if he was in her house? She remembered her confession to him, her proud declaration that she had broken all the rules he’d laid down and fallen for him, and inwardly she cringed.

  She could deal with that humiliating memory when she was on her own but, now that he was here, it resurfaced like a bad dream.

  She knew that he was staring at her as she led the way into her small sitting room, before turning awkwardly to offer him something to drink. Tea, coffee...

  ‘I can’t be long,’ she said stiltedly, when both had been refused. ‘I’m leaving London for a while.’

  ‘What happened?’ Niccolo demanded.

  Leaving London? To go where? London was her comfort zone, her security blanket. Where was she taking herself off to?

  Guilt struck him with the force of a sledgehammer. He had been able to brush off pesky rumours because things like that had no effect on him. At the top of the food chain, Niccolo Rossi could do as he liked. But it wasn’t the same for her. He thought of her vulnerability and wanted to groan out loud.

  She’d told him that she had feelings for him and he’d run faster than a speeding bullet. In fact, he’d run so fast and so far, he’d ended up on the other side of the world. He’d left her wounded and to her own devices to face the consequences of an affair he had instigated.

  If she had feelings for him then, she would hate him now, because his behaviour had been appalling.

  A sense of urgency gripped him, along with a dreadful fear that he’d left everything way too late.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked tersely, and Ellie folded her arms and looked at him, cool and composed, because she’d had her moment of opening up to him once upon a time and she wasn’t going to be going down that road again.

  ‘To stay with my parents,’ she said bluntly. ‘Not that it’s any of your business, Niccolo. And, if you’ve come because you somehow feel responsible for the fact that I no longer have a job, then there really is no need. What happened between us, happened. Yes, there was fallout for me, but nothing I can’t deal with.’

  ‘This is my fault.’ Niccolo didn’t know where to begin. Guilt was not something he had ever had use for. For once in his life he was at a loss as to how to find the right words for what he knew he had to say.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Ellie said coolly. ‘We both did what we did with our eyes wide open. I’m not about to take the coward’s way out and start playing a blame game.’

  ‘Did they ask you to leave?’

  Ellie flushed. ‘They didn’t,’ she said heavily, ‘Because you’re so important that it doesn’t matter what you did. If I’d made the mistake of sleeping with someone in middle management, then I’m sure things might have been different. Yes, I was a partner, so I wouldn’t have been kicked out, but I would have felt compelled to hand in my resignation. I dissolved the partnership of my own free volition. Happy now? They were generous in buying me out. I will have enough for life to carry on until I find something else. Somewhere else.’

  ‘Tell me what happened. Leave nothing out.’

  ‘Niccolo,’ Ellie groaned, angry with him for showing up and angry with herself for not having got over him half as much as she’d thought she had. ‘What’s the point? I don’t want you here!’

  ‘Please, Ellie. I...’ He raked his fingers through his hair and shuffled his feet.

  He looked hesitant, and she was so astounded by that that she lost some of her fire. In its place was a dreadful exhaustion at the direction her life had gone in. And yet, she knew, she would have it no other way, because her life before, so w
ell ordered and so well worked out, seemed like an empty shell in retrospect.

  ‘You what? Feel sorry for me? Think you should at least offer me a consoling pat on the back because I’m out of a job? Feel guilty? Want to placate your conscience by making sure I’m not about to jump off the nearest bridge?’

  ‘None of those things.’

  ‘Then what?’ she muttered with simmering hostility.

  ‘I’ve been...’ Niccolo hesitated, on the brink of revealing his vulnerability, which was just the sort of pathetic weakness he had never had time for. ‘I’ve been out of sorts,’ he conceded awkwardly. ‘Since we broke up.’

  ‘Poor old you.’

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he told her in a roughened undertone.

  Ellie looked down and clenched her teeth because there was no way she was going to be dragged back into something that was bad for her because of any stupid seeds of hope that might spring into existence on the back of honeyed words.

  ‘Tough,’ she gritted, with a conviction she was far from feeling.

  ‘If I’ve blown it...’ Niccolo breathed heavily ‘...then tell me right now. I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again if that’s the case.’

  ‘Blown what?’

  ‘My chances with you.’

  ‘You don’t have any chances with me. I’m not going to be hopping back into your bed because you’ve missed having sex with me.’

  ‘I would never ask you to do that.’

  ‘Then do you mind telling me what it is you’re asking?’ Ellie was so tense that her body was on the brink of breaking into pieces. She forced her leaden legs to take her to the sofa where she collapsed in a grateful heap, tucking her legs under her and keeping her arms folded as she did her utmost to outstare him.

  ‘You miss the sex,’ she muttered, ‘But you could have sex with any woman you wanted. I could see from that other woman’s hungry expression that she wanted to eat you up. You threw her aside and she’s still so desperate that she followed you all the way out to that island so that she could try and reconnect with you. So if you’re missing the sex now, then give it a few weeks and you’ll soon find a suitable replacement.’

  She felt the same painful tug of searing jealousy that had fired her up at the villa and sent him fleeing to the other side of the world in panic. She had become the proverbial possessive nag and she was being one now. It was in her voice.

  Although, he wasn’t running. In fact, he wasn’t breaking eye contact, and she glared at him resentfully.

  ‘I missed more than the sex,’ Niccolo finally confessed. He’d found his way to the sofa and was sitting right next to her, leaning in to her, his big, powerful body doing all sorts of things to her equilibrium.

  ‘No, Niccolo,’ Ellie sighed wearily, ‘You don’t. Sex is what you do, and it’s all you do, and if I hadn’t got the message loud and clear then I certainly had it rammed home to me when you fled the scene of the crime after I told you how I felt about you. I’ve never seen anyone run so fast in the opposite direction.’

  ‘I know I ran,’ Niccolo admitted quietly. ‘But what did you expect?’

  ‘Nothing more.’ Ellie gritted her teeth. She wished he would just back away because she was pressed up hard against the arm of the sofa with nowhere left to go unless she stood up but she feared her wobbly legs might just give the game away.

  ‘And I know why. Amy showed up out of the blue, and when you reacted the way you did I panicked.’ He flushed darkly. ‘My life had become complicated the minute I jettisoned all my self-control and gave in to the temptation to have you. It didn’t make sense, and it wasn’t like me, but I couldn’t stop myself. Something about you appealed to me from the very second I saw you and I couldn’t get what it was. It was...frightening.’

  Ellie looked at him from lowered eyes, not wanting to listen and start believing anything he said, but unable to resist the pull of his words. She thought back to the range of sensations that had assailed her when she had first seen him in the gym, and reluctantly understood what he was trying to say, because it had been the same for her.

  Against all odds and everything she believed in, she had been attracted to him from the start, and had been as helpless against the force of that raw, chemical attraction as a lone swimmer trying to fight the drag of a raging undertow.

  ‘So?’ she threw at him.

  ‘You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?’

  ‘Make what easy?’

  ‘The fact that I’m doing my best to tell you that I was an idiot.’

  ‘For running away when you weren’t through with me?’

  ‘Don’t, Ellie,’ Niccolo said roughly. When he ran his fingers through his hair, he was startled to find that they were shaking. He never got nervous, but he was nervous now. Thing was, he couldn’t blame her for attacking him. At least she hadn’t frogmarched him to the door, and that was a blessing he had every intention of taking advantage of.

  ‘For not realising that, instead of running away, I should have been hanging on to you for dear life because it just so happened that you were the best thing to ever happen to me.’

  Ellie breathed in sharply. Now it was her turn to say, ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘Say things you don’t mean.’

  ‘I’ve never been more serious in my life.’ Niccolo was heartened by the flicker of emotion in her eyes, an instinctive reaction which she had not quite been able to conceal. ‘I’ve never talked to anyone the way I talked to you. No one has ever made me laugh the way you did and I’ve never missed any woman the way I’ve missed you.’

  ‘You didn’t get in touch!’ Ellie said accusingly.

  ‘Every day was a struggle to stop myself from dialling your number.’ He shot her a crooked smile. ‘I kept telling myself that my life had to remain just the way it was. Straightforward and uncomplicated. My brief, from way back when, was to be the financial powerhouse that ensured the stability of my family unit—my mother, my sisters. I kept telling myself that I’d had a shot at a relationship and that particular arrow had spectacularly backfired—except, deep down, I wasn’t convinced.’

  He sighed and looked at her with open honesty. ‘I almost had to stay at the opposite end of the world to safeguard the way of life I’d spent a lifetime building up, but of course that was never going to last. When I read your campaign, the longing to be with you was so overwhelming I found it hard to breathe. But even if I’d never read the pitch, never seen those pictures that reminded me of our time together, I would still have had to get in touch with you, Ellie. I had to come here. And not because I want to persuade you back into bed with me—although, naturally, that’s part of the package. I would have had to come here because you wriggled your way into my heart and into my soul and became part of me without me even realising.’

  ‘I did? Niccolo...don’t tease. What package?’

  ‘Oh.’ His voice shook with the nerves of someone peering into the deep well of an abyss. ‘The whole love and marriage package.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Ellie’s eyes widened. Her heart skipped a beat.

  ‘I love you, Ellie, and I want to marry you. I never thought I’d say those words to anyone but I can’t imagine a life without you in it. I had three weeks of that and it was hell.’

  ‘You love me?’ The hope she had been trying her best to stifle blossomed, swelled and filled her and she smiled, tremulously at first, and then with absolute joy. ‘I love you too,’ she whispered. ‘But then you knew that.’ She wriggled towards him and then linked her arms behind his neck and nestled into him, hearing the steady beat of his heart and placing her small hand over it with a wave of love and tenderness.

  ‘I’ve been miserable,’ she confessed, tilting her face to his and then reaching up to kiss him on his lips. ‘I didn’t even care that my job had gone, even though it was the most important thing in my life. Nothing mattered any more. I was rudderless for the first time. That’s why I was heading back home. I
spent my whole life wishing that I had normal parents who did normal things but I knew that, if anyone was going to understand what I was going through, it would be them.

  ‘I always thought that their lives were chaotic and disorganised and filled with people who didn’t seem to have any ties, who kept coming and going. I didn’t see beyond that to the fact that, among all that chaos, they loved one another. I thought that if I didn’t exercise control and get things just right I would end up falling into a life of chaos and I’d somehow be lost. I didn’t see that love can’t be controlled, and that what looks as though it promises chaos can be the one thing that makes the most sense. I love you so much, Niccolo.’

  Her voice trembled and he held her close against him.

  ‘However much we travel,’ he murmured, ‘whatever oceans we cross, my darling, I will always be your rock and your point of reference. I’ve discovered that that’s all I want to do. You’re the centre of my life, and I will give you all the stability you wanted as a child. Just as you have given me the confidence to trust in a future where there’s love and to let go all the fears that were cemented in me as a child, that love and duty could never join hands. I adore you, Ellie, and if I could take back one thing it would be my bull-headed stubbornness that made me let you go. So will you, Ms Eleanor Wilson of the late and not lamented starchy navy suits, be my lawfully wedded wife and promise to be by my side for the rest of our days?’

  Ellie smiled and beamed at him. ‘Just try and stop me...’

  * * * * *

  Coming next month

  IMPRISONED BY THE GREEK’S RING

  Caitlin Crews

  Atlas was a primitive man, when all was said and done. And whatever else happened in this dirty game, Lexi was his.

  Entirely his, to do with as he wished.

  He kissed her and he kissed her. He indulged himself. He toyed with her. He tasted her. He was unapologetic and thorough at once.