Skilled at handling difficult patients, Dottie had come to nurse Trixie at a time when Prudence was struggling to cope. Within weeks, Dottie and her husband had become keen volunteers at the sanctuary. But soon after Trixie’s death, Sam had had a stroke and Dottie had been unable to work. The kindly couple had got into financial difficulty through no fault of their own and that was when Prudence had extended a helping hand. Her generosity had been repaid a hundred times over and Sam’s health had improved steadily but the older man would never recover full mobility. The Trents would be utterly devastated if they lost their home for a second time.
Prudence got back to the farm just in time for the estate agent’s visit. When he told her what he believed the property would fetch on the open market, she was appalled: it was an amount as far out of her reach as the stars. Even so, she made an appointment with her bank for the following day so that she could find out if there was any way she could borrow the money. She was informed that she had no assets to offer as security and that she did not earn enough to meet the payments. The loan officer at the building society she approached was equally deflating.
Her heart sank and her pride cringed as it slowly and painfully dawned on her that the only person she could turn to for help was Nik. Before she could lose her nerve, she rang him.
‘I need to see you…urgently!’ she confided in a rush.
His lean, strong face etched in forbidding lines, Nik surveyed the newspaper spread out on his desk and the grainy photo of his wife holding hands with her very good friend, Leo. ‘In relation to what?’
Prudence worried at her lower lip. ‘I’ve had a bit of a shock. I’m in a serious fix. Would you consider giving me a loan? You’d probably have to stretch the payments over about a hundred years,’ she warned him apprehensively.
‘Explain…’ Interest had sparked like a hot flame in his brooding dark gaze.
‘If I can’t buy Craighill, the sanctuary will have to close and I don’t know where the animals will go…You see, I don’t have the right to live there that I thought I had. Grandfather is selling the farm over my head,’ she told him unevenly.
Nik sprang upright and his smile was colder than ice. Thank you, Theo. Homeless animals-just what he needed as a lever; he was back on track again. He absorbed the remainder of her explanation without interruption. ‘OK. I can fly down tomorrow morning but it’ll be very early.’
Nik’s helicopter landed at seven.
Her heart thumping fast behind her breastbone, Prudence watched him stride towards her. Two sleepless nights in succession had lowered her resistance level to his sensational dark good looks. Lean, bronzed features serious, he didn’t smile, however, and that spooked her. Even had she not been painfully aware of just how much was riding on his response to her request, his demeanour would have warned her that success was by no means a foregone conclusion. A little frisson of apprehension slivered through her tense frame.
‘Would you like coffee?’
‘No, thanks. I can only stay half an hour. I have to be in Athens by early afternoon,’ Nik drawled smoothly, looking at the way her pink top defined the luscious swell of her breasts, remembering, then hastily shutting down on that imagery as his body reacted with extraordinary enthusiasm. He didn’t look back at her until he felt colder than ice.
‘Right…well…you might as well see this…’ Prudence handed the eviction notice to him and started talking very fast about what the solicitor had told her the day before.
‘You explained the situation yesterday.’
‘I don’t understand how my own grandfather can do this to me,’ she confessed unhappily.
‘Theo’s a bad loser…as I fall into the same category, it would be unwise for me to pass comment.’
Prudence collided unwarily with a look from Nik that was as dark and cool as the sky at midnight. ‘But you wouldn’t be callous and cruel like that!’
‘Let’s treat this as a business transaction,’ Nik suggested.
Prudence went pink and accepted the return of the papers she had pressed on him. ‘The bank won’t give me a loan.’
‘Of course they won’t. The very fact that you had to approach them, rather than me, would look bad.’
Prudence heaved a sigh. ‘Yes, I did get that message. My solicitor seemed to assume I would just be able to buy the farm-’
‘Which, of course, you would have been able to do…had you ever accepted the allowance I tried to give you-’
‘But I don’t want you to give me money,’ Prudence pointed out hastily. ‘That would be wrong. I want to borrow it from you-’
‘You said that the property is on the market for seven hundred thousand pounds. Nobody in their right mind would saddle you with a debt you have no current prospect of repaying-’
‘If you gave me a long enough time-’
‘No,’ Nik incised without hesitation. ‘I won’t do it.’
Bemused, for he had so frequently made generous offers of financial assistance over the years, Prudence frowned. ‘Then…what will you do?’
‘This is painful,’ Nik told her drily. ‘Let me be frank. Unless you agree to stay as my wife, I won’t do anything.’
In shock, Prudence stared across the room at him. ‘You don’t mean that…’
‘This is why I refuse to criticise Theo…we are both strong men who like our own way and we don’t do failure well.’
‘Nik…you’re not like my grandfather.’
‘I’m willing to employ pressure and coercion to make you do what I want,’ Nik pointed out drily.
Prudence shook her head slowly, surely. ‘No, you wouldn’t…’
Chilling dark eyes met hers with unflinching challenge. ‘What would you know? You’ve never crossed me before. I told you that I didn’t want a divorce.’
‘I’ve always been able to depend on you,’ Prudence reminded him doggedly.
‘Not this time. Our interests are in conflict-’
‘What about Dottie and Sam?’
Nik executed a tiny fluid shrug and surveyed her steadily.
‘All the animals?’ Prudence asked with shattered incredulity. ‘Many of them are too old or difficult to be rehomed.’
‘I know.’
‘You would sacrifice the animals?’
‘No, you will. There will be no sacrifices if you decide to remain my wife.’
Prudence lifted her hand and raked her fingers through the heavy fall of her chestnut-brown hair. Her hand was not quite steady. She was starting to recall the reality that she had never managed to match Nik’s public image with the male she knew privately. Or the male that she believed that she had known and understood. He was quite correct: she had never crossed him-well, not until she had asked for a divorce that he did not want. His ruthless reputation in business was legendary. He was not exactly a pussycat with the other women in his life either. He might have treated her and the women in his family with indulgence, but beyond that select circle Nik was most famous for being cold and unfeeling.
She clenched her hands tight. ‘I owe Dottie and Sam a lot. I promised them a secure home, and Sam’s health will suffer if he’s subjected to more stress. And although the animals here might not be human beings…if anything was to happen to them I think I would die of guilt and a broken heart…’
‘So stop fighting me and every little problem will vanish,’ Nik advised softly. ‘As long as you are my wife, I will take care of you and your enemies will be mine.’
Gooseflesh prickled at the nape of her neck. His eyes were as dark as windows at night, his dark, rich drawl strikingly detached. She fought off the hollow sensation of fear in her belly. ‘I could put off the divorce-’
‘No, all or nothing-’
‘Well, it wouldn’t matter now whether I divorced you or not, would it?’ Prudence threw back with a bitterness that was new to her experience. ‘I’m certainly not going to be having a child without some degree of financial stability. I hope I have more sense. If I drop the div
orce, will you be satisfied? Will you loan me the money then?’
‘All or nothing,’ Nik reminded her lazily. ‘I want my wife in my bed, where she belongs…’
Her cheeks fired pink. Her hands screwed up into fists. She regarded him with furious disbelief. ‘Rot in hell!’