‘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.’