Ruthless Russian, Lost Innocence - Shaw Chantelle - Страница 33
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He didn’t understand why he suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to confide in Ella. All he knew was that somehow she had crept beneath his guard, so that for the first time in a decade he found himself contemplating a relationship that encompassed more than mindless sex.
Ella looked ethereal and achingly fragile, with her silver-grey gown fluttering gently in the breeze and her pale gold hair streaming like a river of silk down her back. But her loveliness was more than skin-deep. He had discovered that she was funny, witty, fiercely intelligent, and she possessed a depth of compassion that he had never found in any other woman. He admired her strength of will as she fought her nerves to pursue her career as a soloist, and he recognised the vulnerability she tried so hard to disguise. She needed-deserved-more than he could give her. He had failed in one relationship, and that failure had resulted in unimaginable pain. He could never risk failing again.
‘If you want the truth, Irina was in Rumsk because she had walked out on our marriage,’ he told her savagely, the familiar feeling of self-loathing rushing over him. ‘I had been away on yet another business trip, and on my return I found a note from her explaining that she felt I didn’t love her, and that she was taking Klara to stay with her parents. I knew Irina had been upset that I spent so much time at work,’ he admitted heavily. ‘I was determined to reassure her that she and Klara were more important to me than anything, and I raced after them, but I reached Rumsk after the avalanche had hit.’
‘Oh, Vadim.’ It was a cry from the heart, torn from Ella when she glimpsed the agony in his eyes. There was no thought in her head to judge him. She flew across the terrace, uncaring that she was in danger of revealing how she felt about him, intent only on trying to comfort him.
He had risen to his feet, and stiffened when she flung her arms around his waist. ‘You have to understand I was not a good husband,’ he said roughly. ‘I was obsessed with work and establishing my company, and I did not spend enough time at home-even when Irina pleaded with me to devote more time to her and Klara.’ His jaw tightened as he fought to control the emotions surging through him. ‘Irina accused me of not loving her. She was wrong; I did love her-but I didn’t value what I had until she had left me, and she and Klara were killed before I had the chance to tell them both what they meant to me.’ He drew a ragged breath. ‘I should not have married. I was selfish and driven by my determination to succeed. I put my interests first, and in that respect perhaps I am not so dissimilar to your father,’ he finished grimly.
‘You are nothing like my father.’ Ella fiercely refuted the suggestion. When she had first met Vadim she had believed he was a man like her father, a heartless playboy who only cared about himself. But since they had become lovers he had treated her with kindness and respect, as if he valued her as a person and did not regard her merely as a form of entertainment in his bed.
But thoughts like those were dangerous, she conceded bleakly. Vadim might have a depth to him that she would not have believed in the early days of their relationship, but he had made it clear that an affair was all he would ever want from her. Lena Tarasov had stated that he would never fall in love again, and now she knew why. He was still in love with his dead wife, and consumed with guilt that he had somehow failed Irina and his little daughter. Falling in love with him would be emotional suicide, warned a voice in her head. But in her heart she knew the warning was too late. She loved him, and learning about the tragedy of his past made her love him more.
‘The avalanche that killed Irina and Klara was a terrible accident, but you were not to blame for their deaths,’ she told him gently. ‘You say you feel guilty that you devoted all your time to your business, but I imagine your determination to succeed was so that you could give your wife and daughter a better life.’
‘I wanted to buy a house with a garden for Klara to play in-give her the things I’d never had as a child.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘She loved music, and wanted to learn to play an instrument, but it was impossible in our cramped apartment.’ He shook his head. ‘Ironically, most of the children from the village survived. They had gone on a school trip and returned to find their school buried and many of their parents dead. I set up an orphanage and paid to have the village rebuilt, but no amount of money can rebuild shattered lives. I go back every year, but the new Rumsk is a strangely quiet place, shrouded in sadness.’
He expelled a ragged breath and gave in to the temptation to slide his arms around Ella’s waist and hold her close. Her hair smelled of lemons, and he could feel the thud of her heart beneath her ribs, its steady beat strangely comforting. He turned his head and felt a curious tugging sensation in his chest when she brushed her lips over his cheek, his jaw, and finally across his mouth, in a feather-light caress that soothed his ravaged soul.
He needed her tonight; he needed her in a way he had never needed any woman-although he refused to assimilate the emotions churning inside him. Her mouth moved over his in a tentative kiss that made his stomach muscles clench, desire and some other indefinable feeling surging through him, so that with a groan he swept her up into his arms and strode back across the terrace.
She was the most generous lover he had ever known, and the sweetness of her response when he laid her on the bed and claimed her mouth with his evoked an ache around his heart. He knew every inch of her body, but he revelled in exploring every dip and curve again as he opened her robe and stroked his hands over her satin-soft skin. Her firm breasts filled his palms, and he heard her swiftly indrawn breath when he bent his head and closed his lips around her nipple, laving it with his tongue until she clutched his shoulders and twisted her hips in a mute plea for him to slide his hand between her legs.
Ella gasped at the first brush of his thumb across the ultra-sensitive nub of her clitoris, and molten heat pooled between her thighs as her body prepared for Vadim’s possession. He gently parted her, slid a finger in deep to work his magic, and in response she traced her hand through the crisp dark hairs that arrowed down to his hips. She heard his low groan as she caressed the throbbing length of his arousal.
She loved him, and tonight she sensed that he needed to lose himself in the passion that, as always, had swiftly built between them. When he moved over her she arched her hips to meet him, and held his gaze as he entered her with one deep thrust that joined their bodies as one. He was haunted by his past, but if he was able to forget the pain of his loss in these moments when they soared to the heights of sexual pleasure then she was glad, and she matched his rhythm, urging him to find solace in the explosive ecstasy of their mutual climax and holding him close against her heart when they slowly came back down to earth.
For long moments afterwards he lay lax on top of her, his face buried in her throat. Ella’s heart contracted when she felt wetness on her skin, and with shaking fingers she touched his cheek, wanting to weep at the evidence of his grief. How could she ever have thought him heartless? Despite his unhappy childhood, and the brutal years he had spent in the Russian army, he had loved his wife and child. But losing them had been a shattering blow; it was little wonder that he had built a wall around his heart, and if Lena Tarasov was right he would never allow any woman to break through his defences.
When Ella opened her eyes the following morning she was alone, the faint indentation on the pillow the only evidence that Vadim had slept beside her. She rolled onto his side of the bed and breathed in the evocative scent of his cologne that lingered on the sheets. Last night, his decision to confide the details of his marriage to her had given her confidence that they had passed a cornerstone in their relationship. But in the clear light of day she could not escape the stark realisation that he was still in love with his dead wife.
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