THE island of Lykos had undergone some changes since Ella’s last visit seven years earlier. Aristandros had made the harbour much bigger and deeper to accommodate his yachts. The fishing boats looked like colourful children’s toys beside Hellenic Lady. The island’s little town, composed of lime-washed white houses adorned with traditional blue paintwork, stretched up the hill in neat tiers behind the harbour. The wedding-cake church with its ornamental bell tower sat in the shade of the plane trees edging the main square, and a windmill, long defunct but nonetheless charming, punctuated the winding road that led down to the far end of the island and the Xenakis house. Beyond the town stretched lush green hills studded with cypresses and olive groves and rather more buildings than she recalled.
‘The last time we were here you told me that you wanted to get married in a church exactly like that,’ Aristandros murmured.
‘Did I…really?’ Standing by the rail as the yacht docked, Ella was still suffering from the loss of the previous night’s sleep. That reminder almost made her choke on the coffee she was drinking to wake herself up, and she secretly cringed over the knowledge that she could ever have been that gauche. ‘I don’t remember that.’
‘I liked the fact that you didn’t watch your every word around me. My parents got married here in the church of Ayia Sophia. My mother thought it was cute as well.’
‘Lykos originally belonged to her family, didn’t it?’ ‘Yes. She was an only child and a great disappointment to a shipping family, who longed for a son.’
‘I just remember the portrait of her in the house. She was absolutely gorgeous.’
‘She still holds the trophy for being the vainest woman I ever knew,’ Aristandros remarked with a cynical shake of his proud dark head. ‘In many ways she was lucky to die young. She could never have handled growing old.’
Ella thought it was sad that he could be so detached from the memory of his mother, a habit he had probably acquired for self-protection when he was a boy, cursed by not one but two wildly irresponsible parents who had refused to grow up and behave like adults. Too alike to stand each other for long, the warring pair had divorced by the time he was five years old.
Although Doria Xenakis had grown up with great beauty and wealth, both attributes had only been a means to an end for a young woman obsessed by her dream of becoming a famous actress. While his mother had chased endless drama-classes and roles, and thrown constant parties to entertain influential celebrities, Aristandros had been seriously neglected. He had twice been removed from her home by social workers for his own safety. Doria had finally died of a drug overdose at the age of thirty, and was only remembered in the film world for having starred in some of the worst movies ever made. Ari’s father, Achilles Xenakis, an inveterate gambler, womaniser and drunk, had worked his way through multiple partners and repeated visits to rehabilitation centres after an unending succession of financial and sexual scandals. Achilles had died when he crashed his speedboat. Orphaned, Aristandros had moved in with Drakon at the age of fourteen.
Ella, Callie and Aristandros climbed into one of the cars waiting by the harbour while their luggage was stowed in another. Ella gazed out at the turquoise-blue sea washing the inviting white strand that circled more than half the island and, appreciating its emptiness, said, ‘Are you still trying to keep the tourists out?’
‘Why would I want to share paradise?’
‘It would be the easiest way of revitalising the economy and persuading the younger people to stay on. A small, exclusive development near the town wouldn’t interfere with your privacy.’
‘Remind me to keep you well away from the town council. They’d elect you immediately,’ Aristandros asserted. ‘In recent years, I’ve brought in several businesses to provide employment, and the population is currently thriving—without the tourist trade and its attendant problems.’
Ella gave him a sunny smile. ‘I’m sure you know what works best in your own personal little kingdom.’
‘I do not regard the island as my kingdom,’ Aristandros growled.
‘I didn’t mean to be controversial,’ Ella declared unconvincingly.
Aristandros skated a long, reproving forefinger along one slender thigh clad in coffee-coloured linen trousers. ‘Liar. You always liked getting under my skin, moli mou.’
‘Constant agreement and admiration is bad for you. Too many people behave as if your every decision is an act of sheer brilliance.’
‘It usually is,’ Aristandros fielded. ‘That’s how I make so much money.’
Involuntarily, Ella grinned, for his self-assurance was immense and always bold as brass. She studied the big house perched like a land-locked ship on the cypress-studded hillside. The villa, designed by his late mother, overlooked a secluded cove where the clear waters reflected the sky.
‘I have a project for you while you’re here,’ he said, greeting the staff assembled in the hall while Ella retrieved Callie from surging towards the stairs as fast as her little feet could carry her. ‘Revamp the house and drag it out of the eighties. It always reminds me of a film set.’
The big screen was undoubtedly what had inspired his mother’s opulent choice of décor, and the vast sunken living-area, marble floors and theatrical Greek columns. Ella was amazed that he had still not had the house renovated, and it made her wonder if he was more sentimental than he would ever be willing to admit. Doria’s portrait still adorned one wall, along with many photographs of her taken with famous people.
Aristandros bore not the slightest resemblance to his blonde, brown-eyed mother. He did, however, look very like his handsome father. In terms of attractiveness, though, he easily outshone both his parents, Ella decided, shooting him a keen appraisal. While he had Achilles’ looks, he had inherited his grandfather’s sharp intelligence and business acumen. Daily exposure to Aristandros had simply made her more aware than ever that he was an extravagantly beautiful, intriguingly clever and challenging man. On paper he ticked all her boxes.
Turning pink as he intercepted her lingering scrutiny, Ella walked out hurriedly on to the sweeping terrace and wondered if Lily was right: was it possible that she had never got over loving Aristandros? Had she never moved on properly after that first disillusionment? The suspicion appalled her, for she liked to see herself as being sensible. The sort of woman who could continue to harbour a strong, secret preference for a notorious womaniser struck Ella as being silly, weak in resolution and certifiably insane.
‘In three weeks’ time we’ll be attending a major charity performance at the opera in aid of the Xenakis Foundation. Dress formal,’ Aristandros announced.
Ella suppressed a sigh. ‘Where’s it being held?’ ‘Athens.’
Ella saw Callie installed in the nursery, which the little girl clearly saw as home. Callie toddled over to a basket of toys and smiled as she dug out familiar favourites, her satisfaction at rediscovering them unhidden. Later, when Callie was in bed and Ella was dining out on the terrace with Aristandros, she breathed in deep. ‘You know, I’ve barely been with you two weeks and this will be the sixth different bed I’ve slept in.’
Aristandros shifted a broad shoulder with nonchalant cool. ‘Change is stimulating.’
‘I know you don’t want to hear this…’ Aristandros shifted a fluid brown hand in a silencing gesture. ‘Then don’t say it,’ he advised drily.
‘It’s not fair to Callie. She needs a more settled home.’ ‘I don’t normally trail her round the world with me as I have done recently,’ Aristandros finally admitted. ‘She’s usually based here on the island.’
Guilt assailed Ella as she grasped the heart of the dilemma. ‘She’s travelling because I’m in the picture now and you know I want to be with her,’ she guessed ruefully.
‘While I want you to be with me. We’re the perfect threesome,’ he quipped. ‘Be practical.’
Ella toyed with her delicious, light seafood starter, her appetite ebbing. Be practical—remember the agreement you signed, remember who calls the shots around here, remember who says what goes as far as Callie’s concerned. But his lifestyle was unsustainable for a toddler, Ella reflected. More than anything Callie needed stability and routine to thrive, not to mention the same people around her.
Dark eyes reflective, Aristandros sipped his wine. ‘I have a business trip next week. I’ll leave you here.’
‘Great.’ Ella knew she was being thrown a consolation prize, but ironically she just as quickly found herself wondering whether his sudden willingness to leave her behind could relate to the fact that he was getting a little bored with her. Why not? she asked herself. Two weeks was a sizeable length of time for Aristandros to stay committed to one woman. And, if he was losing interest, how would she handle it?
Extinguishing that incendiary thought from her mind, for she saw no advantage in borrowing trouble in advance, she phoned her mother, who was still in hospital, after dinner. Jane was in reasonable spirits. Stavros and Dmitri were visiting her and had passed on the news that their father had been arrested and charged. Freed from the fear of her husband’s violence, Jane had decided to go for counselling.
‘Mum’s dealing with this better than I thought she would,’ Ella commented to Aristandros when he wandered out of the bathroom, only a towel linked round his lean hips and drops of water still sparkling on his hair-roughened chest. She would never have dreamt of adding that her mother thought she had misjudged him seven years earlier and had underestimated his potential for reliability. In her mother’s eyes, Aristandros had suddenly become a knight in shining armour worthy of the highest praise.
‘Hopefully it will give her a new lease of life. Sardelos had sucked all the energy out of her,’ he pronounced grimly.
A slender figure in a shimmering emerald-green nightdress edged with lace, Ella shivered. ‘I was only a child when they married, but I still remember how different she was before she met him—lively and outgoing. He turned her into a doormat.’
‘Not something anyone could accuse you of.’
Her blood sang in her veins as she studied him. He made her feel like a teenager—a hopelessly infatuated teenager, who got a thrill every time he looked at her. ‘Sometimes you make me very angry.’
A wicked grin slashed his handsome mouth, and her heart hammered as if he had pressed a switch. ‘You make me hot in a very different way, khriso mou.’
For the first time Ella took the initiative, crossing the room to slide up against his hard, masculine body, revelling in every point of physical connection with an earthy streak she hadn’t known she possessed until he’d brought it out in her. The very boldness of his arousal thrilled her. He parted her lips and let his tongue delve hungrily, deeply, and her bones seemed to melt beneath her skin while languorous heat and heaviness slowly uncoiled between her thighs. She detached the towel and looked up at him while she traced the impressive length of his erection.
‘There’s no hope for you in the wanton stakes,’ Aristandros husked. ‘You’re still blushing.’
‘Of course I’m going to blush if you’re planning to offer a running commentary!’
‘So, take my breath away, moli mou.’
And she did, kneeling down gracefully at his feet to deploy her slim hands and her full, sensual mouth to the task she had set herself. She used her knowledge of the male physique and her infinitely more intimate awareness of what he liked to pleasure him. Ella was always a high achiever at anything she set out to do. Ripples of helpless response began shuddering through his powerful frame. He withstood her provocative attention for a very short time. His breathing audibly fractured, and then suddenly he was pulling her up and backing her down on the bed with scant ceremony.
‘You excite the hell out of me!’ he groaned, coming down on top of her and ravaging her luscious pink mouth until her senses swam.
He made love to her with mind-blowing power. Afterwards she lay shell-shocked with the intensity of the pleasure in his arms, her willowy body magically indolent and peaceful after her explosive release. He smoothed her hair gently back off her warm face. She kissed a smooth, muscular shoulder, catching the faint scent of cologne mingled with his own male scent, and drank in the smell of him like an addict. Right and wrong, she registered, no longer seemed so well-defined.
On some level she couldn’t hold back what she was feeling any longer, and wasn’t even sure that there was a point in such restraint while she lived with him and Callie. Sexually she found him irresistible, but his hold on her went much deeper than that. She was possessive of him and she cared about him as she had never yet cared for any other man. Yet he wasn’t the young man she had fallen in love with any more. Those seven years apart had altered him. He was harder, more cynical and self-contained, and willing to go to any lengths to get what he wanted. Was it terribly wrong of her to feel special because he had gone to such extremes to get her back into his life again? And what was he doing to her once-firm moral compass?
In the early hours of the following morning she wakened and frowned at the familiar little cramping pains low in her stomach. A moment later she got out of bed and went into the bathroom to check out her suspicions. No, as she had thought, she wasn’t pregnant, and it was time to start her contraceptive pill. The necessities taken care of, she returned to bed.
Aristandros was still fast asleep in a careless sprawl which took up more than his fair share of the bed, outsized though it was. With his jet-dark lashes almost long enough to hit his hard cheekbones, blue-black stubble outlining his angular jaw and sculpted mouth, and with his classic, aquiline profile relaxed, he looked gorgeous. Her insides chilled at the thought of how he might have reacted to an inconvenient pregnancy. He liked to control everything, and she couldn’t have allowed him to exert control or influence in that field. She was grateful that the situation hadn’t arisen.
‘Hmm…’ He shifted position and found her, a hand splaying across her stomach and then rising to cup a small, firm breast with a drowsy sound of masculine contentment. ‘Ella…’
‘I’m not pregnant!’ Ella just blurted it out, keen to get the news out, mortified by the idea that he was secretly dreading the possibility that she might have conceived.
Spiky black lashes lifted on startled dark-golden eyes. He was as instantly awake as if she had doused him with a bucket of cold water. ‘Are you sure?’
‘One hundred percent,’ she declared.
His lean, strong face clenched. ‘I would have taken care of you. You needn’t have worried on that score.’
‘We have enough problems without that particular one.’ ‘You still don’t want children?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Just not children with me?’ His expression sardonic, Aristandros released her and vaulted out of bed. ‘I need a shower.’
Ella was bewildered by his behaviour. ‘I assumed you would regard a pregnancy as a disaster and that you’d ask me to have a termination. You did tell me you didn’t want a child.’
A bronzed vision of pagan masculinity, he surveyed her with brooding force from the bathroom doorway, and shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘Then I thought about it and I reckoned I could live with it. Callie would probably enjoy having a playmate,’ he murmured lazily. ‘I wouldn’t have suggested a termination. The main reason my father divorced my mother was that she tried to have me aborted—he stopped her on the way to the clinic. That kind of knowledge gives you a different take on an accidental pregnancy.’
Shocked by the content of that entire speech, Ella nodded slowly. ‘I suppose it would.’
She tried to get her thoughts in order. Every time she thought she had Ari pigeon-holed, he confounded her expectations again. Think of him casually commenting that Callie would enjoy a playmate, admitting that, at the very least, he was uncomfortable with the idea of terminating a pregnancy that was merely inconvenient! I reckoned I could live with it—he could live with her having his baby. Well, she was still relieved that she wasn’t about to face that challenge. He would have needed to be a good deal more enthusiastic and they would have had to have discussed the idea in advance before she could have allowed herself to regret the fact that she hadn’t conceived.
Swallowing hard, she got back into bed. She had on several occasions in recent years gone through the experience of feeling broody, when the very sight of a baby or tiny clothes brought a lump to her throat and a powerful craving, but she would never have admitted anything so personal to him. Indeed her longing to see and hold her biological daughter had almost broken her heart for eighteen months. But, now fully aware of how incredibly lucky she was to have a loving healthy child like Callie in her life, she expected nothing more from Mother Nature.
Ella prowled round the modern building housing the doctor’s surgery and emergency facilities which Aristandros had funded on the outskirts of town. It was a rural doctor’s dream, but apparently two doctors had already come and gone, bored with the lack of a social life on a small island and the inconvenience of having to step on a ferry to visit friends and family. Currently the position was vacant. Having checked out the patient numbers, Ella reckoned there was really only enough work for a part-time doctor, and she very much would have liked to put her name forward.
‘We would be honoured to have you here,’ the town mayor, Yannis Mitropoulos, assured her, having intercepted her and offered her a tour after she had been seen peering wistfully through a window.
‘Unfortunately, I’m not looking for a job at present,’ Ella advanced uncomfortably.
Had she been, she was convinced she would have been in harness within five minutes of accepting the job. Aristandros had devoted two days to showing her round the island, and had introduced her to many of the locals. But he had not, offered her an inspection of the unoccupied state-of-the-art medical building he had built, or admitted that Lykos lacked a doctor’s services. Ella had only found out those facts for herself when she’d taken Callie into town. Whilst enjoying cold drinks at the taverna overlooking the picturesque harbour, she had found herself slowly and steadily being surrounded by hopeful people in search of off-the-cuff medical advice. Aristandros, however, appeared to have no conscience about keeping the only doctor on the island confined to home, hearth and bedroom.
In spite of that truth, over the past three weeks Ella had settled happily into life on Lykos. Aristandros had twice flown off on business trips without her, and she had been dismayed by the discovery that she missed him when he was out of reach. He was, however, surprisingly sexy and amazingly addictive during late-night phone conversations, she conceded with a covert smile.
She had come to terms with the fact that she loved him, and that she probably loved him a great deal more than she had seven years ago, which struck her as especially ironic when he had behaved so badly this time round. Back then she had expected perfection, a soulmate who shared her every thought and conviction and made no awkward demands of her. Now her expectations were rather more human-sized and, in any case, she knew that she and Aristandros were diametrically opposed by the simple fact that she was a modern female and he was very old-style macho male. Although she felt that Aristandros was being totally selfish and unreasonable in refusing to allow her to pursue her medical vocation, she was beginning to suspect that his being the centre of her world, the only other person she really had to think about besides Callie, was something he prized above everything else in their relationship. He was as possessive as she was, and seemingly unwilling to share her.
Ella had managed to adopt two homeless dogs since her arrival on Lykos. One, Whistler, a fluffy mongrel of indeterminate breed, had been injured by a fish hook and brought to her for attention for there was no vet on the island either. Ella had dealt with the little animal’s lacerations and had offered to keep her while she healed. The second dog had arrived on the slender strength of the assurance that ‘everybody knows the English are mad about dogs’. Bunny, inappropriately named by Callie, was a boisterous Great Dane pup with paws the size of dinner plates, and he was accused of having sneaked off the ferry unattended. Both dogs were brilliant with Callie.
Aristandros had been taken aback by the sudden addition of two animals to the household, but had adapted wonderfully well after a lot of cool brow-raising over their antics, and had admitted that his mother had hated dogs and that he had never been allowed a pet. Ella thought his heart had been touched by Callie’s enthusiasm for the dogs: the sight of the trio gambolling on the beach was quite something.
Of course Aristandros was learning to love Callie which was very entertaining to watch. For instance, he tried to teach Callie to say ‘toes’ and she continually came up with ‘socks’ or ‘shoes’. She saw his pleasure when her daughter rushed to greet him and hug his knees. The child’s innocent affection and playfulness drew him out of his cynical shell and made him patient and much less driven. When his mobile phone had been found in a vase of flowers, he’d insisted he had somehow dropped it in there, when everyone in the house knew that Callie was always trying to get her hands on his phone because the colours it flashed attracted her like a magnet.
It no longer mattered to Ella that Aristandros had fenced her in with an outrageous legal agreement. She had signed up for the long haul and was beginning to dare to hope that he might have as well. She was happier with him than she had ever dreamt she could be. The gift of a grand piano had been his most well-received present to date, and she was able to play her music every day on a superb instrument with wonderful tone, and she was already looking forward to teaching Callie. But the piano was only one of a number of fabulous presents with which he had surprised her. She had acquired designer handbags, perfume, sundry outfits and a fantastic sculpture of a sylph-like dancer that he had said reminded him of her. As she did not have endless legs and a large bosom quite out of proportion to the rest of her body, she had decided to be flattered by the unlikely comparison.
Aristandros was now accustomed to seeing her without make-up or a fancy hair-do, but dressed instead in casual beach-wear or jeans, and none of it had put a single dent in her apparent desirability. Her mother and her twin siblings had visited, and he had taken her brothers—who were not the world’s most entertaining guys, out fishing and sailing without even being asked. She had been grateful, for her family now accepted their relationship, which made life a great deal smoother.
He had proved surprisingly understanding when she had been overjoyed after receiving a letter forwarded by Lily from Alister Marlow. As asked, Alister had notified the cleaner about the photo Ella had mislaid, and the small, faded snapshot of her late father had been found behind a piece of furniture. Ari had been sympathetic when he’d grasped that Ella had no memory of her father, who had died when she was only a baby. He, too, had been a doctor.
‘Is that why you went in for medicine?’ Aristandros had asked.
‘No, I wanted to be a doctor from quite a young age, and as I got older it appealed more and more. I loved the idea of being able to fix people’s bodies and solve their problems, but of course it’s only occasionally that straightforward.’
But, when it came to the lack of commitment in relationships that Ella saw as Ari’s most pressing problem, she convinced herself that she had the solution. If their sex life was good, Ari would surely have no reason to stray—but she despised herself for thinking that way and for being willing to accept those boundaries. Her pride told her she deserved more, but her brain told her that she already had as much as she could reasonably expect from Aristandros Xenakis in terms of attraction, attention and time. Even the newspapers were talking about what a quiet life he was leading of late.
In honour of the charity opera performance she was to attend that very evening, she had shopped for hours in Athens for a gorgeous dress and had promised to wear the sapphires with it. Aristandros had flown out the night before on a helicopter, and she was being picked up early evening. The beautician who worked on Hellenic Lady came to the house to do the honours, and Ella was admiring how well her hair looked when Ianthe, the housekeeper, came to her bedroom to tell her that Yannis Mitropoulos had phoned to ask if she would come and see his daughter who was pregnant and unwell.
Ella wasted no time in driving into the town to the surgery, with Ianthe in tow. Grigoria was a young first-time mother-to-be who was almost eight months’ pregnant with twins. Her husband was in the army and away from home. Grigoria was very nearly hysterical, and clung so tightly to Ella that she had to prise herself free to examine her patient. What she learned was not good. Grigoria’s blood pressure was sky high, and her hands and feet were swollen. Her condition was made more complex by the fact that she was a diabetic. Ella told Yannis that they needed the air ambulance, for she was convinced that his daughter was suffering from preeclampsia and needed urgent hospital treatment. It was a dangerous condition which would most likely only be cured by the delivery of the babies. She checked the records and rang the relevant hospital to forewarn them and get the advice of the gynaecologist on duty.
‘You’ll come with me?’ Grigoria pleaded, clutching at Ella’s arm frantically.
‘I would be very grateful if you would,’ Yannis added jerkily, tears in his eyes as he took her to one side and began to tell the very sad story of how his late wife had once gone on the same journey and, for possibly the same reason, and had died shortly after Grigoria’s birth.
His daughter’s state of mind was not helped by that inopportune recollection of her mother’s demise. Ianthe ventured to remind Ella of the opera engagement, and the reminder cleared Ella’s frown away; she was quick to work out how she could be in virtually two places at once, for both destinations were in the city. Determined to stay with Grigoria, Ella instructed the housekeeper to have her evening dress and jewellery delivered to Ari’s house in Athens where she would be able to change for the evening, having left the hospital.
The flight in the air ambulance to Athens was fraught and tense; Grigoria was suffering increasing pain, and was seriously ill. It was a great relief to reach the hospital. Ella, preoccupied with her patient’s condition, spared not a thought for her disrupted social arrangements until Grigoria’s twins, two little girls, were safely delivered by Caesarean section. Her anxiety about Grigoria soothed by the knowledge that the young woman was receiving the best possible treatment, Ella only then registered that she had not even tried to contact Aristandros to tell him where she was. In a passion of dismay that she had been so thoughtless in relation to an engagement which he had made clear was an important event, she texted fervent humble apologies to him. She wasted no time trying to explain what had happened, but instead promised to join him by the time of the intermission.
More precious time was wasted while she found a taxi willing to take her out of the city. She contacted Ianthe to check that the dress had been delivered. Reassured on that score, Ella began worrying about how Aristandros would react to her appearance just before the end of the evening. Her heart sank. He hadn’t responded to her text, which suggested to her that he was furious. Furthermore, she didn’t feel she could blame him, since he had always been meticulous about contacting her well in advance in similar situations. Also, telling him that she had simply forgotten about him and the opera date because of a medical emergency was scarcely likely to prove a comfort to a male accustomed to the very best treatment when it came to the female sex.
By the time the taxi trundled up the long driveway to the imposing villa, Ella was very tense, because she was running against the clock and not doing very well. She rang the bell and, after a few moments, the housekeeper appeared, and her look of consternation was sufficient to warn Ella that her arrival was unexpected. Ella hastened past the older woman with a muttered explanation and apology. She sped upstairs, where she assumed her evening gown awaited her. There was no sign of it in the master bedroom, but she stilled in surprise on the threshold when she saw the scattered pieces of female clothing littering the floor. She frowned at the sight of the frilly black-and-turquoise bra and matching knickers, and wondered who on earth they could belong to. Unfortunately, she did not have to wonder for long.
The mystery was immediately solved when the bathroom door opened and a breathtakingly lovely blonde appeared, wearing only a towel. It was difficult to say which of them was the most discomposed by the unexpected meeting.
‘Who are you? What are you doing in here?’ Ella heard herself demand.
Aqua-green eyes challenged her. ‘As I was here first, I could ask you the same thing.’
And, even as Ella parted her lips to speak again, a sick sensation took up residence in her tummy and perspiration beaded her brow. She wondered if she was the only woman in the world stupid enough to ask a beautiful half-naked woman what she was doing in her lover’s bedroom. After all, the answer was so obvious the question didn’t need asking. Striving to save a little dignity in a confrontation that had burst upon her with the abruptness of an earthquake, Ella retreated back to the doorway. She discovered that it was horrendously difficult for her to peel her stunned eyes from the blonde in the towel. A revolting, terrifying curiosity had her staring, and striving not to make bland comparisons. Her mind marched on regardless: she herself was older, less exciting in the curves department and, although her skin was good, she knew it wasn’t quite as flawless. Rejecting those crazy, unsavoury evaluations, she spun on her heel and headed down the sweeping stairs at such a speed that she almost tripped over her own feet.
‘Dr Smithson.’ The housekeeper began speaking anxiously to Ella as she threw open the front door for herself, simply eager to be gone and leave the scene of her humiliation behind her. ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t know you were coming.’
‘It’s okay. I’m fine,’ Ella burbled, not wishing to deal with the woman’s visible embarrassment. It was obvious that the housekeeper had a very good idea of what Ella had found upstairs. She just fled, hurrying down the drive as though a gale-force wind was powering her from behind. Her mind was a total blank. She didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t know where she was going either. Shock had wiped her thoughts out, and fear of the pain of those thoughts was protecting her from them.
Aristandros had another woman. Well, whoopee, Ella—what were you expecting? Did you think he had signed a one-woman-only pledge just because he had taken up with you? It was not as if Aristandros had promised to be faithful. Indeed, he had gone to some trouble to declare that he was promising her no such thing in that wretched agreement. For all she knew he had a stable of other women stashed around the globe at his various properties or, indeed available to come at a call whenever he felt like a little variety.
Aristandros had gone into his Athens headquarters today, finished his day’s work during the afternoon and had then come home with or to the very beautiful blonde and gone to bed with her. The bed had been made again. So the very beautiful blonde was tidy as well as clean! She pictured Ari’s housekeeper telling him what had happened and flinched. Seeing a bus trundling along the road in the distance, she speeded up to reach the stop and flagged it down. It didn’t matter where it was going, just as long as it got her safely away from the vicinity of the villa where she might be seen. Her phone vibrated in her bag and she dug it out and, refusing to even look at the message, she switched it off. She wasn’t in any fit state to deal with Aristandros.
It was a warm, humid evening. Ella felt hot and her skin felt clammy, though her teeth kept on threatening to chatter in shock. She got on the bus and sat down at the back, her body lurching and swaying as the vehicle swung round corners. Why was she so shocked when Aristandros had only done what had always come naturally to him? Such a very beautiful girl, as well. If a man had always wanted the diversity and excitement of other sexual partners, he was unlikely to change. And no doubt, if she asked him, he would be honest with her about it.
Her mind went into free fall at the thought of him being that honest with her. Any admission of infidelity would cut like a knife and leave scars, haunting her for ever. But the images already tormenting her were no more comforting, she acknowledged wretchedly, for the idea of Ari in another woman’s arms was her worst nightmare and always had been. Now it had finally happened, she was reeling from the pain she was experiencing.
But wasn’t the extent of that pain her own fault, a self-induced punishment? What woman in her right mind would have fallen in love with Aristandros Xenakis and hoped for a happy ending? Countless women had tried and failed with him. Yet she was still crazy about him. She had held nothing back. In fact, a week ago, when she had watched Ari building a sandcastle with Callie—a real boy-toy skyscraper version of a sandcastle—she had wondered if she had made an appalling mistake when she’d turned his marriage proposal down seven years back. She had wondered if, against the odds, they might have found happiness together. She had known that although she loved her career and lived for its challenges it had never brought her the sheer, soaring happiness, excitement and contentment that he could just with his presence.
Her cheeks were wet with tears when she climbed off the bus at the terminal. What was she planning to do—run away and leave Callie behind? That option was absolutely out of the question. Hadn’t Ari already accused her of running away when anything upset her? Ella bristled at that recollection. But exactly what was she doing now? She couldn’t give up on Callie; she just couldn’t! Whatever happened, whatever else she had to bear, there was no way she could give up on the little girl she loved. At the same time, however, she needed a few hours’ grace to pull herself back together before she had to face Aristandros again. She decided that the wisest option was to find a hotel for the night.
She walked for ages before she came on a small establishment sited in a quiet street. Checking in, she was conscious of the receptionist’s swiftly veiled curiosity, and when she saw her reflection in the mirror in the en suite bathroom of her hotel room she grimaced in horrified embarrassment at the state of her face. Her mascara had run, and her eye shadow had smudged where she’d wiped her eyes, and her hair was all messy. She freshened up and then made herself switch her phone back on. She couldn’t stage a vanishing act for very long. She had also left Aristandros standing at the opera. Although that was the very least of what he deserved, it would have gone down like a lead balloon.
Her phone rang within seconds of being switched on. ‘Where the hell are you?’ Aristandros growled. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t make it, but I need some space tonight.’
‘No!’ It was thunderous. ‘No space allowed. Where are you?’
‘In a hotel, a little place, not one you’d know. I really do need to be alone for a while,’ Ella breathed flatly, wondering how she could possibly stand to be with him ever again, how she could ever contrive to live with him and the knowledge of his infidelity.
‘You’re not allowed to walk out on me under any circumstances,’ Aristandros intoned in a fierce undertone. ‘I will not tolerate it.’
‘I’m not walking out on you.’ Ella framed those words with a sob trapped in her throat.
‘Ella…’ he breathed huskily.
Ella cut the call before she could let her turbulent emotional mood betray her into revealing more than she should. But he would soon find out through his staff that she had met his trollop. No; where did she get off calling another woman a trollop just because she had slept with Ari? After all, she wasn’t married to him. He was still a free agent in the eyes of the world.
Tears choking her, Ella, her slender body trembling, sank down on the end of the bed. As she always feared, her love for Aristandros was tearing her apart at the seams, destroying her strength and self-esteem, when really the only person she ought to be thinking about was Callie, who was safely asleep in her cot and blissfully ignorant of the messes adults could make of their relationships. But Ella recognised at that moment that she had to find a way to sort this mess out, because it was unlikely that she could trust Aristandros to make that effort.
More than an hour later, she jumped in surprise when a knock sounded at her door. Glancing out through the peephole, she could see nothing but a large probably male shape and she opened the door on the chain.