The evening passed slowly, enlivened only by a call from Leo, who asked her to view a couple of properties with him later in the week. It was after midnight when Nik finally phoned to say that he would be working right into the early hours and staying at the apartment. Listening to the low voices and the bustle she could hear in the background, Prudence swallowed her disappointment and tried to act as if nothing was wrong. Maybe it was a good idea to let the dust settle, she told herself unhappily.
Nik was away for two days, and on the third evening, when he did return to Oakmere, it was Prudence who was absent from home and hearth. Nik went all over the habitable rooms, looking for a note. Then he went down to the stable yard and checked the sheds and the fields but there was no sign of his wife anywhere. When there was no other choice he rang her on her mobile phone.
‘Where are you?’ Nik enquired a shade tersely when she answered.
‘I’m viewing an apartment in London with Leo…’
Nik breathed in very deep and slow.
‘Are you still working?’
‘No. I came home to spend time with you.’
‘And I’m out…what a shame,’ Prudence lamented with all the seeming regret that any man could wish to hear. ‘I didn’t think you’d be back tonight.’
Nik found that confession far from comforting. What if handsome, attentive Leo wasn’t just a friend? How could he know for sure? Leo did nothing without consulting Prudence first. He rang Prudence continually and Prudence was attached to him. In comparison, Nik was conscious that he himself was at a severe disadvantage. He had coerced Prudence into living with him. She didn’t love him. Taking into account what she had said about his character, his wife didn’t like him very much either, he reflected heavily. But she still couldn’t keep her hands off him. Sexually he was very much in demand. Or had that been an act, too? A matter of good, clean fun? Prudence was a deeply sensual woman. And a deeply sensual woman, who had waited so long to explore that side of her nature, might well want to experiment…
‘Nik?’ Prudence pressed in the humming silence. ‘Look, I have to go. I’ll see you later.’
It was very much later by the time that Prudence finally walked wearily through the ancient front door of the abbey. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep for a month. Her desire to hurry home had been frustrated at every turn. Nik greeted her at the foot of the stairs. The minute she saw him butterflies flew loose in her tummy. He looked so achingly handsome that she couldn’t drag her eyes from his lean, dark face.
‘Where have you been?’ Nik demanded. ‘I tried to ring you again. You didn’t answer your phone.’
‘It’s dead. I forgot to charge it,’ she sighed. ‘You wouldn’t believe the trouble I’ve had getting home-’
‘Try me,’ Nik invited.
‘Leo spent ages talking to the vendor at the property we viewed. When I got back to my car it had a flat tyre…Leo changed it but he had a dreadful time with the wheel nuts.’ Prudence threaded her hair off her damp brow with limp fingers and wished she could just sit down and slump.
‘Wheel nuts,’ Nik repeated with glittering dark golden eyes. ‘Is that the best you can do for an excuse?’
Blinking in bewilderment, she paused on her passage up the massive staircase. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It’s after midnight-’
‘I’m not Cinderella-’
‘And I’m not stupid. You’ve been with another man for hours on end.’
‘Another man?’ Prudence frowned, not immediately able to identify Leo as falling within that category.
‘You don’t answer your phone…you’ve been gone all evening. Naturally I’m suspicious.’
When Prudence realised what Nik was driving at she could not hide her astonishment. ‘Suspicious of Leo and me? But he’s madly in love with Stella and has been for years-’
‘Isn’t it strange that you never mentioned a Stella before?’
His persistence disconcerted her. The charged tension etched in his bronzed features was very real. Only then did she recall her silence when he had questioned her friendship with Leo after that misleading photo had appeared in the newspaper. She felt horribly guilty because she had made no attempt to settle his suspicions then and there. In fact she had actually quite enjoyed the idea that he was no longer so sure that her affections were firmly centred on him.
‘Leo and I are mates and that’s all. I should have made that clear from the start. The trouble is…I quite liked you being a bit jealous,’ Prudence confided shamefacedly, wincing at an odd little shooting pain low in her tummy.
‘I don’t do jealous,’ Nik asserted between gritted white teeth.
Fighting off a sick wave of dizziness, Prudence acknowledged that she really wasn’t feeling very well and she gripped the balustrade hard. Her complexion was paper white.
‘Theos mou…What’s wrong?’ Nik exclaimed.
Prudence swayed as her knees began to buckle and the darkness folded in. Nik threw himself forward and caught her in his arms as she fainted.
Prudence swam back to consciousness. She was lying on a sofa in the drawing room. ‘What happened?’
Nik was bending over her. His brilliant, beautiful dark eyes were full of concern. ‘You passed out and almost fell down the stairs. I think you need to see a doctor-’
‘Don’t be daft. There’s nothing the matter with me. I just think I overdid things today. I haven’t had anything to eat and I’m tired,’ she muttered ruefully.
‘Leo really looks after you, pethi mou,’ Nik derided.
‘A woman doesn’t need a man to look after her.’
‘It’s a pleasure for me to look after you…to see that you eat and rest and have no worries,’ Nik responded without hesitation. ‘I like doing it.’
It was true and he did it so well. She remembered his solicitous behaviour in Tuscany. It had encompassed everything from ensuring she didn’t sit too long in the sun to letting her lie in bed longer than he did in the morning. They had dined at her favourite restaurants, visited the places she most wanted to see. He had spoilt her rotten and made her feel as precious as solid gold. Without thinking about it, she reached for his hand and pushed her cheek into his palm in a helpless gesture of affection.
The tension etched in his lean, hard features eased. Long brown fingers stroked her face. ‘I still want a doctor to check you out tomorrow. You look too fragile.’
With his help she got into bed. He brought her an omelette which he swore he had cooked himself and while she ate he invited her to tell him about Leo and Stella. He laughed a couple of times. He said Leo was mucking about and acting like a wimp. Arguing with that macho judgement, Prudence began to relax and feel happy again. She had missed Nik so much. The giant hole in her life had felt unendurable. So what if he didn’t want children? she asked herself wryly. She could learn to live with that. Nothing was perfect. At some time in the future he might change his mind. If she had him, if she had the guy she loved, shouldn’t that be enough for her?
‘I should’ve told you about the pills,’ she whispered in drowsy apology.
‘No…you were right. I let myself forget how our marriage started out.’ Dark golden eyes sombre, Nik watched her slide into sleep. Earlier that day he had put Oakmere Abbey in her name so that whatever happened she and the sanctuary would be secure. The estate would be self-sufficient. If he wasn’t careful he would lose her as well as everything else. Somehow, some way, he had to address the image problem, he reflected grimly, fighting off his exhaustion. Subscribing to charity and pioneering business-enterprise awards for the young weren’t enough to impress Prudence. He had to do something compassionate in the animal line.
In the early hours, Prudence woke up and smiled sleepily at the familiar feel of Nik’s lean, hot, powerful body against hers. She lifted her lashes to study him. He was wide awake and watching her, too, golden eyes steady. He looked so serious and she wondered why, but only briefly, for the blue-black stubble shadowing h
is classic chiselled features only added to his smouldering sex appeal. Shifting closer, she gave an encouraging little wriggle. Surprised by his failure to take immediate advantage, she smoothed a provocative hand down over his hard, bronzed torso. He caught her fingers in his. ‘You were ill last night…we shouldn’t-’
‘Refusal will offend. You said it was your pleasure to look after me,’ Prudence reminded him with dancing eyes.
An appreciative grin slashed his handsome mouth. ‘It is…a very great pleasure, thespinis mou,’ he asserted, tugging her up against him with easy strength and taking her mouth with passionate fervour.
A couple of hours later she hurried downstairs to join Nik for breakfast. She was crossing the hall when without the slightest warning a spasm of sharp pain gripped her pelvis and doubled her up. ‘Nik!’ she gasped in shock and fear.