Nik was a little unsettled by the rush of male primacy he experienced at this news. She hadn’t let on once in those cold blue hours of the morning when he’d been keeping her warm in that creaky, too small double bed that he was the first since her husband.
‘Carino!’
Nik had his attention ripped off Sybella at this crucial moment by the too familiar rasp of what was becoming a weight around his neck.
Sybella was so startled for a moment she couldn’t get past the blaring thought: She’s even more gorgeous in the flesh.
Marla Mendez, trailed by a small entourage of equally happy, shiny people, had just upped the charisma wattage between The Folly Inn’s snug walls and the spotlight was on their table. Which Marla was suddenly all over.
‘Nik, darling, I have travelled into the wilds of rural England to find you. I wanted to see for myself if it was true. You have a house in the English countryside. How utterly Russian of you!’
Sybella watched as Nik lounged back in his chair and regarded Marla with the same cool distance he’d shown her when they’d first met. Only there was no gentlemanly rising from his chair. Even when he’d thought she was an interloper he’d held the door for her. It didn’t dim Marla’s wattage by even a degree.
‘I absolutely want to see it. Have you stocked it with a private zoo? Aloyshia has a zoo—it’s hysterical.’
‘No zoo, Marla.’ Nik surveyed the group of people moving over to the bar. Sybella was watching them too, and also keeping her eye on Marla, who hadn’t looked at her once. He knew he had to introduce them, but something was crouched in the back of his mind, growling, warning him not to let Marla and what she represented anywhere near his time with Sybella.
The noise level from the bar shifted up a notch. Sybella flinched as one of the crowd dropped a glass and there was some laughter.
‘Try and keep the noise level down,’ Nik advised. ‘This isn’t New York. It’s a family pub in a small village.’
‘How quaint.’ Finally Marla’s dark eyes dwelt on her for a moment and Sybella realised she might be coming under the ‘quaint’ umbrella. Well, that was one for the books. Marla Mendez saw her as a threat.
Nik looked unimpressed. ‘Why don’t your people call me when you get back to New York, Marla, and we’ll set something up?’
‘Oh, no, you will have dinner with me, Nikolai Voronov. This is non-negotiable. I need your advice. Besides, I want you to show me this house of yours.’
Nik said something sharply in Spanish. Marla responded and then made a gesture at her that Sybella was pretty sure went along the lines of, Lose the local…come and play with me.
Sybella didn’t know what came over her. But Nik hadn’t introduced them, Ms Mendez was being very rude and Nik not much better, and frankly she wasn’t going to spend another second sitting here like a gooseberry. She plonked her glass out of the way, leaned across the table, took Nik’s face between her hands and kissed him. For a moment as she leaned in she saw his eyes flicker with surprise but he sure as hell kissed her back.
Then she melted back into her seat, straightened her dress and angled up her chin at Marla.
‘Nik can’t have dinner with you,’ she said firmly, and her voice didn’t wobble a bit, ‘because he’s having dinner with me.’
‘Marla Mendez,’ Nik said, amusement lacing his voice, ‘this is Sybella Parminter.’
Nik’s belated introduction was hardly necessary. She had all of Marla’s attention now. ‘Sybella,’ Marla said, those dark brown eyes acknowledging her at last. ‘I am staying at Lark House. Do you know it?’
‘I know of it. It’s an estate several miles from here,’ Sybella said, looking at Nik. ‘The Eastmans own it.’
‘Yes, Benedict and Emma,’ said Marla. ‘They are having a party. You can both come, yes?’ Suddenly she was beaming at Sybella as if they were friends.
‘No party,’ said Nik decisively.
‘I’d love to go to a party at Lark House.’ Sybella found herself staring down a Famous Woman who didn’t have thighs and feeling amazingly good about herself. Certainty was rolling through her and with that came confidence.