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She had no right to be angry or hurt or reproach him with it.
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.
