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But now? He was going to be a father. A husband. A true husband.
He’d meant what he’d said to Ella. He would do anything to protect—to keep—his child. But a lifetime’s pursuit of vengeance didn’t stop on a dime. Nor did a lifetime of being a lone wolf. Which was why he was in the middle of this latest argument with his wife.
‘You just bought it?’ she demanded from the passenger seat beside him. ‘Without giving me the opportunity of seeing it, of making my own decision?’
She was working herself into quite a state and he couldn’t really see what the problem was.
‘What if I’d just gone out and bought a house?’
‘Then we’d simply have two houses which we could either keep or sell. And, either way, it’s moot because you didn’t go out and buy a house.’
‘No, you did. Without me knowing.’
‘Ella, if you don’t like it then we’ll sell it. It’s not a big thing.’
‘It’s a house. Of course it’s a big thing! It’s completely wasteful.’
‘You haven’t even seen it yet.’
This was why he preferred being alone. There was no one to question, to interrogate, second-guess or disagree with his decisions. He simply did what he wanted. It had been that way ever since he had escaped the clutches of his fourth foster home at the age of sixteen. None of the foster parents had been able to deal with a determinedly independent child who refused to listen to their rules. Even worse had been their attempts to break through the armour he had created around his heart. Nor had they been able to tackle a mind so quick and so intelligent they could barely keep up with his train of thought.
Looking back, he’d almost preferred the last couple, who had made their intentions clear. They didn’t want to see or hear from him, only to accept the maintenance cheque they’d collected at the end of each month. It was certainly better than the first couple, who had seemed to want him and professed to take him into their hearts, but had persistently turned a blind eye to the fact their natural son had hated him with such a passion that Roman had been lucky to only suffer a bloody nose and black eye.
If it hadn’t been for one of his teachers, sensing the fierce intelligence hidden behind a fair amount of bluster and anger—Roman ruefully admitted to himself—he might never have found his way into the invaluable scholarship programme that had led him to America. Ilyasov had been the first person, aside from his mother, who had seemed to genuinely want nothing from him. Because while his grandfather had seemed to want nothing from him, Roman knew that he had been the stick Vladimir had used to beat his daughter.
And the moment Roman had realised that he’d understood true power. True desire. To be able to identify or, better, create that which someone felt they wanted most in the world and to be the provider of that want...that was true control.
And while Roman hadn’t been able or desirous of creating such a want in his wife, not yet at least, he knew from his time spent as her fiancé—the other him—what she wanted from a home. At the time he’d entertained it without really realising that it had struck a chord in him. It was as if she had focused her future as much on her imaginary house as he had on his path of vengeance. And as much as she might protest, he knew, with a certainty that had driven him to pay almost twice the asking price, that she would love the house he had found for her. For them. A them that would, in six months’ time, include a small baby. A tiny, living, breathing part of him, of Ella, who would only have them to protect it, to put it first. A tiny baby whose equally tiny fist had already grasped his heart in its clutches.
* * *
Ella knew she was being unreasonable...to a point. She would love to have excused it as hormones from the pregnancy, but she knew she couldn’t. Neither could she fault Roman’s efficiency. Within three weeks he had apparently wrapped up enough of his business to take the time to find a property for them to share. And what had she done? Buried herself in her fledging business. Choosing to ignore the way Roman and her future with him seemed to loom over her. Instead attempting to reach out to more international business contacts who might want to offset some of their income and guilt by aligning with the charities that Célia had already brought to the table.
It might have struck her as a little strange that Célia, who seemed to positively shrink at the prospect of interacting with billionaires and businesspeople, was happy to reveal her inner core of strength and persuasiveness with the other half of their intent. Célia seemed to know everything and anything about the international charities she drew to their company, and planned to entwine them with Ella’s contacts, which was why the Venn diagram symbol on their business cards worked so well.
But in the short time since she’d last seen Roman, all Ella had been able to do was get Ivan Mozorov vaguely interested in a potential meeting. And she hated that her husband’s apparent efficiency seemed to make her feel...inadequate. As if she was failing. Had already failed.
She’d gone to his club the night of the funeral to ensure her freedom and only succeeded in tying herself to Roman in the most fundamental of ways. And as much as she’d hoped for a different future for them both, the fact that she was being driven to see a house he had already bought, already planned for them to share, proved to her that once again Roman was doing things without her knowledge. That, no matter what he said, he hadn’t changed at all. And the fierce wave of uncertainty caused by that realisation made her feel awkward and a little panicky. And guilty. Most awfully guilty, because she hated herself for the fact that all she’d wanted was to be free and now she felt trapped by him.
Roman guided the car down a dirt track in between sprawling, undulating fields. On one side an industrious farmer was hard at work slicing down the wheat, leaving tracks behind him that reminded Ella oddly of Van Gogh’s paintings. On the other side dark green cloudlike trees gathered between brief glimpses of a small terracotta-coloured town in the distance sitting against the pale outline of the looming Pyrenees.
It was the sight of the mountains slashed against the horizon, as if painted in watercolours, that poked and prodded at her memory. Of before. Before she’d known the truth of him. And once again Ella felt the loss of that man. Her fiancé. The one she had trusted implicitly before he’d revealed himself to be false. The one who had drawn from her unconscious the very things that she had wanted most. A child, a husband, a family. She was then struck with the painful irony that she now, in fact, had those things.
But she had not wanted them this way. Not with this man and not under these circumstances.
Resentm
ent roared within her, but was it really her husband that was directed towards or her own naivety? She honestly couldn’t say any more.
Ella was about to launch into another verbal attack when they rounded an old stone wall and slowed before a set of wrought-iron gates. Even Dorcas poked her head up from the back seat, as if knowing that something of great interest lay beyond. The gates slowly inched open, as if purposely teasing the car’s occupants before revealing the treasures that lay ahead.
The gravel driveway flicked up stones and crunched beneath the wheels of the car and she felt, with some not so small satisfaction, Roman flinch each time his precious paintwork came under attack. Then she caught sight of the sprawling converted farmhouse that sat at the top of the driveway.
And in the same way she had taken one look at the man to whom she was married and known that he would break her heart, she knew, knew, that this beautiful creamy-stoned estate was everything she’d ever wanted. Everything she’d once told Roman she wanted.
And for some inexplicable reason that made her want to cry.
Dorcas whined in the back seat of the car as if sensing the conclusion of their journey, scratching against the leather and causing Roman to wince again. Good dog, she mentally praised her as she blinked away the gathering tears pressing against her eyelids.
