Modern Romance June 2016 Books 1-4. Maisey Yates

he spent money far too freely on her and got embarrassed whenever he gave her anything.

      But to tell her the truth would entail hurting her and he had never dreaded anything more than he dreaded that prospect. If she was too badly hurt would she fall out of love again? Would she walk away? Would she never again see him in the same light? Would he irrevocably damage all that was special between them?

      The more those anxieties infiltrated Nikolai, the more determined he became to clear his conscience. He didn’t want to keep secrets from Ella. How could he expect her to trust him when he had yet to trust her with the truth about himself? Nor would he ever forget Ella insisting that with her he could be his real self. Even so that was still a major challenge for a male who had never before shown a woman his real self...

      Early the following morning, however, everything changed without warning. They were having breakfast when Nikolai dug his phone out to answer a call. Ella watched his lean, darkly handsome face freeze and then saw the colour steadily draining from below his bronzed skin. His eyes cloaked as he put the phone down.

      ‘Cyrus Makris has been arrested and charged for paying two men to set my hotel on fire and for Desmond’s death,’ Nikolai relayed flatly.

      With the air of a sleepwalker, Nikolai rose upright and walked back indoors.

      Cyrus had organised that dreadful fire? Ella was appalled and disbelieving but she did not understand Nikolai’s reaction and she raced after him. ‘Nikolai...what Cyrus did was unspeakable but at least the police have nailed him for it!’

      Nikolai spun back to her, his dark eyes tortured. ‘You don’t understand. How could you? This is my fault... Desmond’s death is down to me, no one else.’

       CHAPTER TEN

      AS NIKOLAI STRODE off to take refuge in the room he used as an office Ella froze in place in the hall, with the dogs wandering restively round her feet. How could the fire or the bar manager’s tragic death be laid at Nikolai’s door? How could he possibly be thinking that way?

      Nikolai turned from the window as Ella appeared in the doorway to study him with frowning bemusement. He knew he wasn’t making sense. He knew she didn’t get it and a great sense of weight bowed down his wide shoulders.

      ‘Cyrus and I have been bitter enemies for a very long time,’ he told her flatly.

      Belatedly Ella was recalling Cyrus’s sister’s comment at their wedding. She had intended to ask Nikolai for further clarification but had not got around to it because at the time it hadn’t seemed that important. ‘Why?’ she asked simply.

      Nikolai’s spectacular bone structure went rigid. ‘He raped my sister...’

      Ella paled and moved forward.

      Nikolai leant back against his desk and raked long, taut fingers through his black hair, expelling his breath in a hiss. ‘It was all in the diary. That’s what I found out five years ago.’

      Ella was filled with horror, recalling Cyrus’s violent assault on her. ‘What a nightmare that must have been for you.’

      ‘Cyrus has been accused of rape before but the accusations tend to be kicked out or withdrawn or they miraculously disappear,’ Nikolai advanced in a harsh undertone. ‘His father is an enormously powerful and wealthy man. I looked into the cases of Cyrus’s previous accusers. One of them dropped the case and now has a seat at the directors’ table. She rose up the ranks at meteoric speed and is now an affluent woman who flatly refuses to discuss the matter.’

      ‘You think she was paid off,’ Ella gathered.

      ‘Police and members of the legal profession have been bribed. A couple of other victims went from poverty to prosperity. I would assume they were compensated. But Sofia died,’ Nikolai emphasised with pained ferocity. ‘She was poor and powerless and she couldn’t bear to tell me what that bastard had done to her.’

      ‘Tell me what happened,’ Ella urged quietly.

      She poured Nikolai a fresh coffee on the veranda. Her hand wasn’t quite steady. She was in shock about what he was telling her about Cyrus. She was remembering the way Cyrus had attacked her and suddenly taking that assault a great deal more seriously. If Nikolai was to be believed it hadn’t been a momentary loss of control, the case of a man losing his temper and barely knowing what he was doing.

      Sofia, Ella learned, had not enjoyed Nikolai’s educational advantages and had worked in a variety of dead-end jobs before equipping herself with secretarial skills at night class. She had then taken a position as a typist in Cyrus’s Athens office and one day when she was on reception he had noticed her.

      Ella scanned the photo that Nikolai removed from his wallet. His sister had been truly beautiful.

      ‘Cyrus goes for virgins. My sister was older than his usual victims but she was innocent,’ Nikolai gritted, perspiration beading his upper lip as he went on to tell her how Cyrus had invited his sister out for coffee a couple of times and once to lunch, while telling her to keep their meetings secret from the people she worked with.

      ‘I suppose that’s when she should’ve got suspicious.’ Ella sighed.

      ‘She was naive; thrilled and flattered that a handsome, successful man was showing an interest in her, and when he asked her to come to his apartment one evening to do some private work for him she went,’ Nikolai completed.

      ‘And that’s when...right.’ Ella nodded in shaken acknowledgement. ‘Did Sofia go to the police afterwards?’

      ‘Only after she had showered but the medical did show that she had been badly bruised. She was told that there wasn’t enough evidence. Cyrus insisted that they had had consensual sex and he was believed and she was more or less told that she was a lonely fantasist. She felt humiliated that the police didn’t believe in or support her. That’s what drove her to take her own life.’

      ‘It must have been terrifying for her,’ Ella acknowledged heavily. ‘I can’t begin to imagine what she must have gone through.’

      Nikolai was very still. ‘I’ve spent the past five years plotting my revenge against Cyrus.’

      Her smooth brow furrowing, Ella gave him a bemused look. ‘Revenge?’

      ‘After what my sister suffered, I couldn’t live with the idea of Cyrus walking around unpunished. I had him investigated and, the more I learned about him, the more disgusted I became that a sexual deviant like him has never been brought to justice,’ Nikolai revealed. ‘To be honest, I became obsessed with my desire to take revenge on Cyrus...’

      Ella strove to look understanding because she really couldn’t blame him for his feelings after hearing the tragic story of his sister’s death. Even so, the concept of revenge was so foreign to her own nature that she really couldn’t grasp it at all.

      ‘And somewhere during that five years I forgot who I was supposed to be and the man my sister had tried to raise me to be,’ Nikolai admitted gravely. ‘I stole business deals off Cyrus—not very satisfying. However, that was really the only damage I was able to do until his sister, Marika, phoned me a couple of months ago and informed me that Cyrus was planning to marry you.’

      ‘The sister he doesn’t even speak to was aware that Cyrus wanted to marry me when even I didn’t suspect it?’ Ella gasped, more than a little disturbed by the bombshell of her own name and connection to Cyrus Makris entering Nikolai’s explanations. ‘How is that possible? And why would Marika go out of her way to contact you and tell you that about me?’

      ‘Cyrus told his father that he was planning to marry his nephew Paul’s former fiancée. His father had been pressuring him to marry for some time and, after Cyrus named you, his father confided in Marika and asked her if she had ever met you. Marika contacted me because she knew that I was her brother’s biggest enemy and she hates him for reasons she has never