Redemption of a Ruthless Billionaire

by Lucy Ellis

  But, oh.

  Her kitchen was dark and quiet around her, disturbed only by the ticking of the clock and one of the rabbits making scraping noises in his litter tray.

  Nik phoned her first thing in the morning when she was still groggy.

  ‘Sybella, did you see the photos?’

  She sat up, rubbing her eyes still swollen from all her crying. ‘Yes, last night. How is it going? Are you making any progress?’

  He ignored her question about the mine.

  ‘We were in a boardroom, she took off her clothes and I told her to put them on again. I had no idea it was being filmed.’

  Sybella fell forward and touched her forehead to the mattress. Thank you, God.

  She pitched her voice at exactly the right tone, gentle and amused. ‘Nik Voronov, are you explaining yourself to me?’

  There was a pause. ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘It’s fine. I understand. I didn’t think anything of it.’

  There was a lingering silence.

  ‘Nik, are you there?’

  ‘You are one incredible woman.’

  She bit her lip. She’d got this right.

  ‘I try. Now tell me about what’s been going on.’

  They talked for twenty minutes, he promised he’d do his best to be back tomorrow evening to take her to dinner and then he had to go. She stepped under the shower, and if she cried a bit it was because she hadn’t slept much last night and she had to take a tour today of a couple of dozen eight-year-old children, and it was stressful, and she missed him. It had nothing to do with Nik having his face pressed into Marla Mendez’s breasts.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Marla Mendez in Sex Shocker with

  Russian Ice Man!

  SYBELLA STOOD OUTSIDE the Edbury newsagents, her whole attention riveted to the tabloid newspaper front page pinned up alongside other legitimate papers reporting on local and international politics.

  As far as she knew Nik was in the Urals, dealing with some labour-hire problems on site in the wake of the explosion and had been for the last three weeks. He’d phoned a couple of times, sent a few texts, one saying he should be back in the UK this weekend and another asking her to check something in person with Gordon about the roof on the Hall.

  He hadn’t mentioned anything about a sex shocker.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sybella,’ called Leanne Davis, coming outside. ‘Doug insisted we put it up…we’re required to display all the newspapers. It’s not personal, sweetie.’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ murmured Sybella, unable to rip her attention off the image. They appeared to be coming out of a nightclub, Nik in an open-necked shirt looking well…gorgeous, and Marla Mendez in her usual skin-tight handkerchief.

  It didn’t make sense, and Sybella had to resist the urge to buy the paper just to find out what it said.

  Nik had specifically told her he had not seen Marla Mendez socially.

  ‘It’s not true,’ she called after Leanne, but it was too late, she’d gone inside.

  She found herself half an hour later in her car, parked across from The Glue Box, the local arts and crafts supply shop that held art classes for under tens, furtively peering at the tiny screen on her phone as she read the tabloid article. It was the usual ‘friend of a friend’ who said they’d been close for months, that Nik had flown her from Miami, where she was currently working, to his Cape Town compound for a secret tryst. She shut it off in disgust.

  Me, he had a secret tryst with me.

  But the tabloids weren’t interested in single mothers living in the Cotswolds and she could hardly take out a full-page ad in the local paper outing herself as the most recent guest on Nik Voronov’s boat!

  She had just about convinced herself, as she crossed the road and dodged up the steps of The Glue Box, that it wasn’t important and she should rise above it when she was bailed up by two of the mothers, one of whom actually asked, ‘Can we expect more stories to come out about your rich boyfriend and other lingerie models?’

  Mortified, she somehow resisted grabbing Fleur and running. Sybella made herself speak to the art teacher and gather the information flyers amidst a gaggle of other mothers who she was sure were whispering about her. In the car Fleur showed off the picture she’d done.

  ‘This is Jack and this is the Beanstalk, and this is Nik!’

  Sybella studied the drawing, the tiny Jack, the scrawny beanstalk and Nik, taking up half the page and coloured golden as the sun, and she realised what she should have been focused on from the start. Having Nik with them, sleeping under their roof, Fleur saw Nik as an established part of her life.

  Clearly a big, important golden part.

  Sybella started the engine, gave Fleur a reassuring smile. ‘Shall we put it on the fridge when we get home?’

  ‘I want to give it to Nik,’ Fleur said, fussing with her container of fruit pieces.

  Sybella knew then this morning she’d just been embarrassed, now she had a problem.

  *

  Nik found her the next day on her hands and knees in the gatehouse with a handful of other volunteers cleaning up after the builders. There was a flutter of movement and a sudden lull in noise to alert her.

  One of the women gave her a nudge and Sybella sat back on her haunches and looked around.

  Nik stood in the open doorway, arms folded. King of all he surveys, Sybella thought, putting down her brush and pan and rising to her feet. Despite everything that had gone down in the last few days there was a happy girl inside her doing cartwheels because he was back.

  He was back.

  The problem was she kept seeing him coming out of that nightclub. How many nightclubs had he been to in the last week?

  None, Sybella, because he’s been on a mine site. You know that.

  ‘Dushka.’

  In a couple of strides he was lifting her as if she weighed nothing and then kissing her. In front of everyone.

  Sybella pressed her face close to his shirt front as he lowered her until her feet touched the ground, embarrassed but also incredibly pleased.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘I could ask you the same thing.’

  ‘The builders need to be supervised, Nik.’

  ‘This is why I have hired professionals.’

  ‘I know, but the committee want to help. We want to be involved.’

  ‘Cleaning?’

  ‘It’s a start.’

  He stroked her hair back out of her face. ‘Who am I to come between you and a bit of builders’ dust?’

  *

  For dinner Nik took her to a gorgeous little place in Middenwold she hadn’t even known existed, a Tudor dwelling as intimate and charming as she could have wished. Sybella resisted raising the issue about the pictures and tried to enjoy her dinner and the atmosphere and Nik’s company.

  But something of her low mood must have shown through because they left early. He put an arm around her as he led her back to the car, but nothing would lift this feeling. All the pretending nothing was wrong meant something important had shifted between them.

  Nik left her in the car while he went to check on one of the brake lights, which gave her time to check her phone. No messages, but she couldn’t help almost compulsively looking at those images again.

  The little screen filled with the logo of the same popular British online tabloid she’d seared her eyeballs with a few nights ago. Only this time as she looked at it something struck her she hadn’t noticed before.

  It looked like a lingerie ad.

  Sybella was making faces at it when Nik yanked open his door and brought the night and the familiar scent of his faint cologne and him into the cabin of the SUV.

  She breathed him in and it just hurt more.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She held the screen of the phone to her chest, not wanting him to know how vulnerable he’d left her. She felt she had precious few defences remaining against him, she could at lea
st keep this one.

  ‘Sybella, you look like someone died.’

  Her eyes flew to his and he cursed. ‘Sorry, bad use of language. Is this about those photos?’

  ‘I can’t help it. People are sending them to me.’ She looked down. ‘Do you remember when you told me you’d never been personally involved with Marla Mendez?’

  ‘Sybella, nothing happened, she ambushed me. I told her to put her clothes back on and I wasn’t interested.’ He sounded tired, which perversely annoyed her more.

  ‘I know all that, this isn’t about me not believing you—but why did you lie to me?’

  ‘This happened before we were together.’

  He was right, of course. But, ‘My friends, workmates, my family, the whole village are looking at this and I know what they’re thinking.’

  ‘Who cares what they think?’

  ‘Not you, obviously.’ It just slipped out and she stared at her hands in her lap.

  ‘Sybella,’ he said, at least sounding as if he cared, ‘I don’t like it any more than you do but it is what it is.’

  ‘I don’t even understand why you’re investing in her company.’ It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him to pull out, but she felt as if it was her old insecurities at work. A lot of people probably relied on this project going ahead.

  She needed to woman up.

  But she couldn’t help adding, ‘Is this what you like?’

  ‘That’s not what this is.’

  Something in her kicked. ‘I asked you a question,’ she said softly.

  Nik made one of those frustrated male sounds but he didn’t answer her. He was smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut.

  She should have been smart enough to shut hers.

  ‘I guess it’s what most men like. Woman in next to nothing writhing around on your lap.’ She made a wry face at the little screen before turning it off. ‘But the champagne is kind of overkill. No woman I know wants to be thought tacky. Who’s she trying to appeal to, women who can afford her lingerie or teenage boys?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Well, you should probably get up to speed on that, seeing you’re her major investor.’

  Nik grunted, but she could feel him watching her as if he was gauging the right time to say something to her. Only Sybella didn’t want to hear it. She was afraid to hear it. She just wanted to go home.

  *

  ‘I want you to forget those photos,’ he said as he closed her bedroom door. ‘Because I’m not a regular in the tabloid press, Sybella. I leave that to my brother.’

  Sybella slipped off her shoes and lost about three inches in height. ‘Well, that’s one blessing, I guess.’

  ‘Give it a week and they’ll be onto something else.’

  ‘I guess.’

  She was feeling vulnerable, any woman would, but Nik didn’t seem to see it that way. But why would he? He came across as the guy who either pulled the sexiest woman in the world or, in his words, turned her down. She was the girl who had to live in a small village where everyone was going to pity her.

  ‘But how would you feel if that was me in my underwear with another man?’

  He began to chuckle. ‘You?’

  A flash of white-hot shame went through her, immediately followed by a huge rush of anger at the unfairness of it all. Because, no, she would be humiliated to see images of herself like that, and only two men had seen her in her underwear. And he knew that. She’d trusted him in the intimacy of their relationship to let him know how special this was for her. And now he was laughing at her?

  ‘That’s an entirely improbable scenario,’ he said.

  ‘Why? Because I can’t get another man?’

  He frowned. ‘No, because I don’t date women who flash their assets for profit on the Internet.’

  ‘Funny, the world now thinks you do.’

  Nik sighed. ‘If this is about issuing some kind of public statement, you know I can’t do that, Sybella. I don’t play that game.’

  ‘Well, no,’ she said awkwardly, because she agreed with him in principle, ‘but what about me?’ Her voice went small. ‘I’m put in a very difficult position.’

  She hated having to say it, hated more that he didn’t say it first!

  ‘It’s just I have to live here, Nik, and now I’m poor Sybella who can’t hold her man.’

  ‘Do people still think that way? I suspect that’s more in your head than what’s actually going on.’ He sounded exasperated.

  ‘Oh.’ It came out on a little puff of pain.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, coming over and drawing her to him, his hands resting possessively around her shoulders. As hard as his words were sometimes, when he touched her he communicated a kind of tender restraint that never failed to move her. ‘But do you really care what a few locals are saying about you? If I paid attention to the number of people who cursed me out I’d be a pretty poor businessman.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘No buts.’ He began unpinning her hair. She released a shaky sigh and tried to relax and let him do this for her, because she knew her hair was her greatest claim to beauty and he did admire it, but try as she might she kept seeing Marla’s dark tide of glossy designer hair swaying over her perfect, lace-framed behind moving away from the camera.

  She ducked her head. ‘I—I can do that. Just leave it, Nik.’

  Nik let her go and she scooted over to her dressing table and sat down to put some space between them.

  She didn’t know how she was going to climb into that bed with him, because she kept having flashes of those images behind her eyes and everything about her body felt lumpen and unfamiliar to her.

  ‘Sybella, you know there’s nothing in this, don’t you?’

  She shook her head. ‘I trust you, I do, it’s just you told me nothing intimate had happened between the two of you, and now the photos exist. Why didn’t you just tell me then?’

  ‘Because it was tacky. Because I didn’t want you having an excuse to call time on us.’

  Sybella opened her mouth to tell him she wouldn’t have done that, but the truth was it was the sort of thing she might have reacted badly to. It was only now, after more than a couple of months together, falling asleep in his arms and waking up beside him in the morning, that she felt she truly knew something of him.

  ‘Back then, Sybella, I was just the rich guy who made things happen, remember? You would have gone home and never answered my calls.’

  She didn’t respond because he was right.

  ‘There won’t be any more tacky stories, dushka. I’ve always been far more interested in the bottom line than dating models.’

  ‘The bottom line being women’s underwear,’ she said, trying to be funny but failing. ‘Is there that much money in it?’

  ‘Not really. Frankly, I’m more interested in seeing it fail than succeed.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  She met his eyes in the mirror and discovered he was looking at her as if gauging something.

  ‘You want it to fail?’ she pressed.

  He was silent.

  ‘Nik?’

  ‘One of the investors is Galina Voronov.’

  ‘Oh.’ The evil witch in Nik’s story. The woman whose child hated her.

  ‘When I told you she took everything, I didn’t tell you I had a plan to get it back.’

  Sybella suddenly felt as if she’d missed some important facet of this conversation.

  ‘But you have your father’s film archive now—you paid for it.’

  ‘Da, but now she must pay.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NIK HAD FOLDED his arms and, with his height and the breadth of his shoulders, for a moment Fleur’s childish nonsense about a giant in their garden flared once more to life.

  ‘Pay?’ she echoed. ‘How?’

  Nik looked back at her. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth taut and he appeared almost wolfish in this light. ‘For her sins, of which there are many.’ Then he smiled,
although it didn’t reach his eyes, and unfolded his arms to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t look so worried, dushka, I only want the money.’

  Sybella gently dislodged his hand. ‘No, you don’t. You’ve got more money than the Bank of England.’

  ‘You know me too well.’

  Only she was starting to feel she didn’t.

  She jerked the chair around. ‘What’s going on, Nik?’

  ‘Galina has invested all her cash assets in another one of Marla’s projects. It’s how Marla found her way to me. I’m pulling out of Marla Mendez Lingerie and when that happens all Marla’s debt is going to come crashing through like a tsunami and it will swallow up the warehouses Galina’s money paid for and as Marla’s silent partner she will be responsible for those specific debts too. She’ll have to sell the villa on Lake Geneva and the money I gave her will be gone.’

  ‘But what about Ms Mendez?’

  ‘Marla will land on her feet, dushka, and I’m not doing anything to her that she hasn’t already done to herself. I didn’t build that debt.’

  ‘She has a little boy, Nik. This is going to impact on him too.’

  ‘As I said, I didn’t build her debt.’

  ‘No, but haven’t you agreed to sponsor her—surely you entered into a contract?’

  ‘With everything built in I need to withdraw if I feel compromised.’

  Sybella’s face must have shown what she was feeling because he said more gently, ‘It’s business, Sybella. It happens.’

  ‘But—but what about her sister, the one you said is the creative behind the label?’

  ‘She’s a woman with real talent. I’ll make sure she lands on her feet and is given a new opportunity.’

  Sybella couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Nik, you can’t play God with innocent people’s lives!’

  He began unthreading his tie. ‘Short-term pain, Sybella, for long-term satisfaction.’

  ‘Other people’s pain, your satisfaction.’

  She saw the tension rise in his shoulders. ‘None of this satisfies me, Sybella. The only thing that would is if Galina had never come into our lives, but I can’t turn back the clock.’

  ‘But you can turn back now. You can change this, Nik.’ Sybella stumbled to her feet. ‘If you do this thing it makes you as bad as her.’