Christakis's Rebellious Wife(34)

                Sky-blue eyes opening very wide, Betsy watched Nik striding through the shrubbery that concealed the helipad and her blood ran cold as she worried again about what might have prompted him to make yet another personal visit. He delegated responsibility whenever he could to free himself up for the much more stimulating arena of the business world.

                She concentrated on guiltily trying not to notice how amazing Nik looked in his charcoal-grey designer suit, how exotically, wonderfully handsome with that luxuriant black hair and those stunning light eyes of his that were so striking against his bronzed skin. Her colour fluctuated, her chilled blood started heating up dangerously in her veins and she wanted to slap herself for reacting to his compelling sexual charisma even after all he had done to her. It was just stupid chemistry, she told herself in exasperation. That was why, in a nutshell, she had kissed him back that night; it was a sad fact of life but she found him utterly irresistible.

                She was surprised when Nik paused at the rear of the removals van to address the hovering work crew and wondered what he was saying to them. At least as a male with very little patience for inefficiency and other people’s mistakes, he would soon send them about their business.

                ‘Betsy...’ Nik purred, mounting the steps in a couple of graceful strides of his long, powerful legs, his jewelled gaze locking to hers like a guided missile trained on a target, she thought dimly, little hot and cold tremors winging through her in an unnerving wave of response.

                ‘What are you doing here?’ Betsy asked, striving this time around to be cool and sensible in her reaction to his arrival. ‘Couldn’t you at least have called to say that you were coming?’

                A hairy mop of dog provided an interruption by hurling himself cheerfully against Nik’s legs in welcome.

                ‘Gizmo...’ Betsy scolded.

                ‘He must like having us both in the same place again,’ Nik pronounced, actually laughing and reaching down to pet a flyaway doggy ear.

                ‘Well, he’ll be disappointed then when you leave again,’ Betsy remarked tightly. ‘Honestly, Nik, you should’ve phoned to at least mention that you would be visiting—’

                Nik frowned. ‘Could we have a word in private?’ he was careful to enquire.

                Glancing behind him, her brow furrowing in bemusement when she registered that the removal men were actually opening up the back of their lumbering behemoth of a truck, Betsy murmured, ‘Of course. Has something happened?’

                ‘Nothing you need to worry about,’ Nik asserted, a lean brown hand settling into the indent of her slender spine as he urged her in the direction of the drawing room and, having got her there, he prudently closed the door.

                ‘So, something has happened,’ Betsy assumed, searching his lean, darkly beautiful features, recognising his tension and constraint in growing dismay.

                Nik breathed in slow and deep. Moving back in had seemed so simple a solution when he had thought of it but, faced with Betsy’s sheer bewilderment at his appearance, it suddenly seemed rather more complicated than that. Cristo had urged him to go and talk to her first but Nik had wanted to avoid drama and the unthinkable possibility of rejection. Presenting Betsy with a fait accompli and checking out his legal position in advance had impressed him as a more workable and efficient approach. After all, he didn’t warn a company that he was about to take over what he was planning to do in advance, did he?

                ‘Why aren’t you saying anything? You’re scaring me... What’s wrong?’ Betsy gasped, her nervous tension reaching an unbelievable high. ‘Are Cristo and Belle all right?’