Ruthless Russian, Lost Innocence. Chantelle Shaw

she couldn’t fit in a relationship right now. Not that Vadim was offering a relationship—he had admitted as much when he had kissed her at Amesbury House. All he wanted was an affair, and she refused to be another notch on his overcrowded bedpost.

      The sight of Kingfisher House and the weeping cherry trees that lined the drive, bathed in spring sunshine, lifted Ella’s spirits, and she couldn’t wait to throw open the French doors at the back of the house and walk down the lawn to the private jetty beside the majestic River Thames. But first there was the usual pile of mail to deal with, and a message on the answermachine drained all the pleasure from her homecoming.

       ‘Ella, Uncle Rex here. I’ve found a new tenant for Kingfisher House. He’s interested in buying the place, but he wants to rent it for six months to see whether it’s suitable for him. There’s no rush for you to move out. He’s happy for you to stay on in the caretaker flat until he decides what he’s going to do. I’ll give you another call to arrange a time when you can meet him—hopefully some time this weekend.’

      Ella’s heart sank. She’d known that her uncle had been thinking of selling Kingfisher House, now that the high-end property market was improving after the downturn of the previous couple of years, but she’d put it out of her mind. Now it seemed likely that she would have to move within the next few months, and the problem of finding somewhere to live with rooms big enough to fit a concert grand piano would not make flat-hunting easy.

      Life suddenly seemed full of uncertainty, and the prospect of seeing Vadim again added to her tension. She spent the rest of the day in a state of nervous apprehension, which grew worse as seven o’clock drew nearer. She was sure he had deliberately not included his phone number on his dinner invitation to prevent her from cancelling, but if he thought she was the type of woman who would meekly allow herself to be dominated by him, he’d better think again. No man was ever going to boss her around, she resolved fiercely, ignoring the twinge of her conscience that pointed out that it had been good of him to drive her home when she’d been in agony with a migraine. Colour flared on her cheeks when she recalled how he had removed her dress. But, far from taking advantage of her in her vulnerable state, Vadim had behaved like a gentleman and tucked her into bed.

      Damn it, why couldn’t he get the message that she wanted nothing to do with him? she brooded irritably as she arranged the mass of red roses in a vase. She didn’t want him to send her flowers, but they were so beautiful that she couldn’t bring herself to throw them in the bin. Most women would be delighted to receive roses from a gorgeous billionaire, she acknowledged ruefully, thinking of her conversation with Jenny. But she was not most women, and although she had denied it to Jenny, she knew that the fear and hatred she’d felt for her father continued to influence the way she felt about all men.

      As usual when she felt tense, music was her salvation. She was building a successful career as a violinist, but she still played the piano purely for pleasure, and she was soon lost in another world as she moved her fingers over the smooth ivory keys, finding a release for her pent-up emotions in her favourite pieces by Chopin and Tchaikovsky.

      Vadim was met by the haunting melody of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata as he climbed out of his car and strode up the drive of Kingfisher House. He paused to listen, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Ella possessed a truly remarkable gift, and her brilliance as a musician fascinated him as much as her delicate beauty stirred his desire. Loath to disturb her by knocking on the front door, he walked around to the back of the house, where the French windows were thrown wide open and the lilting notes drifted on the air.

      She was totally absorbed, and did not look up as he lowered himself onto one of the patio chairs, leaned back and closed his eyes, shutting out everything but the music. He had never played an instrument in his life; luxuries such as music lessons had not been affordable during his childhood, growing up in what had at that time been the USSR. His father’s job as a factory worker had barely brought in enough money to pay the rent on the tiny apartment they had shared with Vadim’s grandmother, and life had been dominated by the struggle to buy enough to eat during the frequent food shortages. He knew little about the great composers, or of musical techniques, but for some reason music had the power to soothe his restless soul, to reach deep inside him and force a chink in the granite wall around his heart.

      As the last lingering notes of the melody faded Ella flexed her fingers, suddenly aware that the room was no longer flooded with afternoon sunlight, but shadowed with the onset of dusk.

      ‘You play like an angel.’

      The familiar, toe-curlingly sexy accent caused her to jerk her head towards the French windows, and her heart thudded beneath her ribs as she jumped to her feet and stared at Vadim.

      ‘How long have you been there?’ Shock at his appearance sharpened her voice. Playing the piano was an intensely personal experience, a special link with her mother, and she had poured her soul into the music. She had been unaware that she had an audience, and she felt as though she had unwittingly exposed her private emotions to Vadim.

      He shrugged and stepped into the room. ‘Twenty minutes or so.’ His brilliant blue gaze skimmed over her tee shirt and faded jeans, and moved up to her hair, falling in a curtain of pale gold silk around her shoulders. This was the Ella Stafford the world did not see. Over the past few years she had been expertly marketed as a violin virtuoso; much had been made of her aristocratic pedigree, and she was portrayed on the covers of her numerous CD albums as a sophisticated artiste. The woman staring at him across the grand piano looked younger than her public image, and her intense awareness of him that flared, undisguised, in her stormy grey eyes made her seem painfully vulnerable.

      A kinder man would not take his pursuit of her any further, Vadim knew. Beneath her ice-cool image he sensed an emotional fragility that warned him not to get involved. He liked his affairs to be uncomplicated, and he ensured that the women he bedded always knew the score: mutually satisfying sex with no strings attached. Ella seemed curiously innocent, although in reality that was unlikely for a modern and successful woman in her mid-twenties, he reminded himself. Seeing her like this, in jeans that moulded her slender hips like a second skin, her face bare of make-up and her hair falling loose to halfway down her back, only intensified his desire for her.

      The sexual chemistry between them was white-hot, and kindness was not an attribute he possessed—he had learned that of himself many years ago, Vadim acknowledged grimly. He was hard; undoubtedly he was selfish, and he took what he wanted without compunction or compassion. He would take Ella because he found her pale, elfin beauty irresistible, but he would accept no responsibility for her emotions once he had slaked his hunger to possess her body.

      ‘I had no idea you could play the piano with the same skill with which you play the violin.’