Bartered to the Sheikh & Rakanti's Indecent Proposition (Clare Connelly Pairs Book 8)

by Clare Connelly

  Ellie had a heart of gold, but she let it get her in trouble too often. And he’d bet all the money he didn’t have that she was doing just that now. And that it was all for him.

  Well, two could play at that game. Elle had shielded him his whole life. And no way would he let those Rakantis use her. His expression was grim but he knew what he had to do.

  And this time it was all for Elle.

  Chapter 6

  Christos stared at the newspaper as though by sheer force of attention he might be able to rearrange the words on the page.

  And to erase the pictures.

  But when he blinked and returned his focus to the frontpage, the headline was still there, screaming out at him. BILLIONAIRE’S HIDDEN LOVE-CHILD.

  The photo of his father had been taken years ago; he was slimmer than he’d been at the end. And Xanthe stood beside him, her smile genuine as she looked up adoringly at the man she’d loved from girlhood.

  He didn’t need to read the full article. There was an insert of Filip Jr, as the papers had decided to call him, staring back at Christos. It was like looking at a mirror from his teenage years.

  He sipped his coffee, but his mind was ticking.

  Xanthe.

  He had to protect her. His mother was a strong woman, but her whole life had revolved around her husband. His death had almost felled her. Discovering now that he had cheated on her would make her question every aspect of their marriage. He had no idea what he’d say to take that pain from her, but he’d have to work out a way to fix this. His father would have expected that of him.

  He stood, making his way to his phone just as Elle appeared at the entrance to the kitchen.

  “Hi.” Her smile was tentative. Shy, even. Odd, given that they’d spent the night making love as though they would never see one another again.

  And perhaps they never would.

  “Why the hell did you do it?”

  Elle froze, her face an excellent approximation of confusion. “Do what?”

  He slammed the paper down on the table. “Go to the press. You got what you wanted. Is that it? Now that the fees are paid in full you figure there’s no reason to keep your gorgeous, talented lips sealed?”

  Her face drained completely of colour as she waited for comprehension to dawn.

  “Do not stand there and play the innocent. God, my father obviously knew what he was doing with you. If only I’d eked the money out to you instead, you would have had to stick to the rules we’d agreed.” He slammed his fist against the marble bench, making her jump. “I should have known better than to expect someone like you to have any kind of moral decency.”

  “What are you talking about?” She wrapped her arms around her waist as she walked slowly towards the paper. “Oh my God.” She pressed her fingertips to her mouth as she studied the picture. The article was in Greek but the pictures told her everything she needed to know. “This …” Her mind, though, was racing, filling in gaps faster than she could speak.

  Only Hannah knew the truth of Filip’s parentage. Bella had been bound by a confidentiality agreement. So too Elle, and she’d held to it because it was the right thing to do, not because it was a legal imperative.

  Had Hannah spilled the beans? Had she done it out of a misplaced need to protect her friend? Or did someone else know? Someone on the Rakanti side?

  “I want you to get out of my house.” His expression was filled with disgust. “I want to begin forgetting that I ever knew you. That I ever touched you.”

  “Christos,” she whispered, her fingers shaking as she ran them over the article. She still saw them as a team; she wanted to work with him to solve this mystery. “Stop for a moment.”

  But Christos had crossed over. They were not partners; there was no deal. “Get out.” He squared his shoulders and crossed his arms. “I’m sending my helicopter to bring my mother here. You are absolutely the last person I would ever subject her to meeting.”

  “I didn’t … Just …”

  “Do not speak to me. Get out.”

  Elle searched for something to say, but until she knew just why Hannah had broken Elle’s confidence she wasn’t sure she could drop her friend in the middle of this mess.

  “I believed you,” he said with disgust. “I actually believed you wouldn’t hurt my mother like this.”

  She swallowed. What the hell had happened? “I would never have hurt her knowingly,” she said truthfully, sticking to the facts she knew to be the case.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Or my brother,” she added, her heart constricting painfully as she saw Filip Jr’s sweet face on the pages of the paper.

  “Do you no longer speak English? Get out.”

  “You’re being completely unreasonable,” she argued unevenly. “What reason do you have to suspect this was my doing?”

  “Who else knew?” He roared.

  She flinched but refused to back down. “No one. But …”

  “Well then, there you have it.”

  “But think about it! I wouldn’t want to hurt your mother. And I definitely don’t want my brother being upset …”

  He turned his back on her. “This is over, Elle. I told you I would tire of you. Well, I have. We had a deal that you would leave without drama when I asked it of you.”

  He was right. That had been their deal.

  “You still want to pretend this is all about a stupid damned deal?” She demanded harshly, her eyes filling with unshed tears.

  “Money. That’s what we were about. You’ve got it, so go.”

  “Christos --,”

  “You make me sick!”

  Elle could no longer argue with him. His vile hatred was like a gun aimed straight at her heart. She spun and ran from the room, her body wracked with silent sobs as she took the stairs two at a time. She packed as quickly as her shaking hands would allow, stuffing her clothes into the bag she’d arrived with. She left the dress he’d bought on the bed. She’d told him, once, that she wouldn’t accept a penny from him.

  And she meant it.

  Beyond Filip’s education, she didn’t want to feel a single inch of debt to this man.

  Especially not now. She carried her suitcase down the steps in a state of shock. How could he be so unreasonable? How could he think so badly of her?

  “A taxi is on its way. Wait outside.”

  He wouldn’t even look at her. It was that which angered her most.

  “Damn you,” she placed the suitcase on the floor and stormed over to him, standing in his line of sight. He looked through her as though she were glass. “You know me,” she said throatily. “Don’t you think I deserve …”

  “Believe me, you don’t want to know what I think you deserve.” His expression was grim as finally he bore his eyes into hers. “In this moment, what I feel, you would struggle to stand if I said what I really feel for you.”

  “Tell me,” she interrupted fiercely. “Say what you’re thinking.”

  He tilted his head back and laughed angrily. “Fine. I’m thinking that you’re exactly what I first thought. You’re a stupid whore, with nothing to offer a man beyond your body. I’m thinking you have some bad karma coming your way and that it will catch up with you and that I look forward to hearing about it once it has. I’m thinking that I regret I ever met you, but that at least I have the satisfaction of knowing you meant nothing to me. That you were nice to sleep with when I was in the mood, but that beyond that you bored me and I’m glad I have a reason to get rid of you without guilt. Shall I go on, with what I think of you?”

  Her heart wasn’t broken. It was dead. It was non-existent. She felt bile rise in her throat and she wondered, distractedly, if she was about to vomit at his feet. There would be a nice sense of karma to that, she thought. “Thank you,” she said quietly, her stoicism, even in the midst of his fury, pushing a begrudging shred of admiration through him.

  “Get. Out.”

  She nodded and walked away, her spine ramrod straight. He di
dn’t watch her once she reached the door. He focussed his attention squarely on the newspaper and wondered just how the hell he could clean this mess up.

  From the absurdly glamorous to the financial strapped in the blink of an eye. By the time Elle had paid the ludicrous cab fare to the airport and booked a last minute ticket to New York, she calculated that she’d have about forty dollars to last her until she could pick up some shifts and get her first pay cheque.

  It was helpful to have something so mundane to worry about as money for it allowed her to push Christos Rakanti to the recesses of her mind.

  Besides. Once she landed, she knew she would need to see Filip. She texted him as soon as her plane touched down, while it was still taxiing. “Filip, are you okay?”

  “Yes.” His text came straight back. “I’m at home.”

  “Good. I’ll be there soon.” She typed impatiently. But there was nothing fast nor efficient about flying. It took almost two hours to clear customs and security and to finally make her way to the small apartment they shared above a sinfully-tempting bakery.

  Not even the thought of the most delicious raisin scones could entice a smile to her face. She was numb.

  Dragging her suitcase up the stairs, she pushed through their front door and made a sound of rich emotion as she barged towards Filip. She pressed a kiss to his cheek and then crouched before him. “Darling. I’m so sorry about all of this. I don’t know how …”

  Hannah emerged from the bathroom, wiping her hands on the front of her jeans. “Filip. Tell her.”

  Elle stared at Hannah, the accusatory question she’d been about to level dying on her lips. “Tell me what?”

  “I did it.” His eyes had a spark of defiance. “I told a friend of mine who’s uncle writes for the Times.”

  Elle stared at him in shock. The words were swirling in a strange way, none of them making a jot of sense. “What do you mean? Why?”

  “Because I knew you were over there for me. Why else would you go and talk to someone like Christos Rakanti?”

  Hearing her brother say Christos’s name made her stomach flop uncomfortably. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” she prompted, hoping he’d speak before she gave too much away.

  “Yes, you do. My father died. Then weeks later you’re snapped with his son. I’m not a rocket scientist Elle, but it was pretty obviously about me.”

  Elle squeezed her eyes shut. “You knew?”

  “That Filip Rakanti was my father? Of course I knew. I’m not an idiot. I look just like him. I have the same name. And mom was hardly discreet when she’d had a few vodkas, which was pretty damn often.”

  “Oh my God.” Elle shook her head and then knelt to his eye level. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  His beautiful dark eyes crinkled with an impatience that was now achingly familiar to her. “Because it was meant to be some big secret. I know he was pressuring mom to keep my very existence a secret. He was furious she’d called me Filip.” His expression was cold, despite the painful admissions he was uttering. “I figured his son was doing the same crap to you. I’m not going to have it. Not anymore.”

  “You did this to protect me?” She whispered, putting her head on his chest and listening to his strong, kind heart.

  “Why else?” He wrapped an arm around her and she let go of the tears that were clogged in her throat. “You’re my sis. I wasn’t going to have you get involved with him for my sake. Stuff it. Now the truth’s out. I’m so tired of all the lies. I can’t be the only kid a rich man didn’t want.”

  “Darling, don’t speak like that. It’s more complicated …”

  “Blood isn’t complicated,” he corrected firmly. “It’s simple. And now he’s dead. And mom’s dead. And I’m sick of pretending not to be who I am because he was ashamed of me. The truth’s out. That’s it. All over.”

  Not quite, Elle thought sadly. Christos would go to his grave believing she’d got what she needed from him and then broken his trust.

  “No one has ever been ashamed of you,” she said falteringly.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I mean it.” She stroked his face lovingly. “Your father cheated on his wife with mom. Acknowledging you would have been very painful and …”

  “Don’t defend him,” he said softly.

  She nodded. He was right. How could he possibly speak in the defense of Christos’s father. “Listen to me. Christos is … he’s proud. And he adored his dad.” She swallowed as Christos’s face swam before her eyes. “He might never want to know you. Not because of who you are, but because of his love and loyalty for his parents.” She took in a deep breath, preparing steeling herself to admit to the possibility of Christos’s involvement in their lives. “But if he does want to reach out to you, you can never, ever, not for all the money or salvation in the world, tell him that it was you who broke this story.”

  “I’m so sick of the lies,” he groaned, seeming much older than his fifteen years.

  “I know, dearest. But he would never forgive you.” She remembered the hatred in his eyes and shuddered. “And he doesn’t need to know, anyway. What’s done is done.”

  “Do you think I care what he thinks of me?”

  Elle’s heart was sore. “It’s not his fault. He knew nothing about you until … until …” her eyes lifted to Hannah’s face. “Until I went to Athens.”

  “So? Not my fault, not my problem.”

  Elle swallowed painfully. “Just … promise me you won’t tell anyone else that you were the one who went to the press.” A desire to protect him from further wrath and admonishment sparkled at the forefront of her mind.

  “I don’t intend to tell anyone anything about them now. The truth’s out. Now we can all just let it go.”

  Elle was hardly concentrating. Hannah’s brother Chip was half-way through the story though; it was too late for Elle to admit she had barely heard a word he was saying. So she laughed when he did and nodded at what she hoped was the appropriate juncture.

  It had been a month.

  A whole month.

  And things had, at least ostensibly, returned to a pattern of normality. Hannah studying, Elle working such long hours she felt like her feet could melt off, and Chip hanging around every spare moment he had, trying to decide what to do with his life.

  Elle didn’t mind though. She’d known him forever, and he was great with Filip. Even though Chip was Elle’s age, they were both baseball mad, and it gave them the common ground necessary to make them as thick as thieves.

  “Can you believe that?”

  She shook her head. Believe what? What had she missed? Chip launched back into his story without missing a beat, and as he talked he reached over and unhooked the groceries from Elle’s arm, as though just realising she was weighed down by a bag of lentils and canned tomatoes.

  “Thanks,” she murmured.

  “No worries.” He put an arm casually around her shoulder, easing her to a stop. “You sure you’re okay? You seem out of it today.”

  “Gee, thanks.” She punched him playfully on his arm. “I’m just tired.”

  “You’re working too hard.”

  “I’m working just hard enough.” She was finally seeing some decent savings growing in her bank account. Oh, nothing that would set the world on fire, but it was enough to offer a little breathing space.

  “Why don’t you let me take you out tonight? Dinner? Movie? You deserve a break.”

  She shook her head. “I’m beat, Chip. I feel like I could sleep a week and I’ve got to be back at work in twelve hours.”

  He squeezed her shoulders and began to walk again. Her apartment was only a block away. “Besides,” she smiled up at him. “Filip would never forgive me if I deprived him of his armchair buddy.”

  Chip laughed. “That’s true. So beers and fries then.”

  “Beer for you,” she reminded him with a laugh. “Filip is only fifteen.”

  “Almost sixteen,” Chip grinned and Ell
e shook her head.

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  She lifted her eyes to his, tempted to call him something far worse when her feet stumbled. If Chip hadn’t already had an arm around her shoulders she might have fallen flat on the pavement.

  It was the shock that did it.

  For four long, miserable weeks she had imagined Christos everywhere she went. And now that he was actually there, standing broodingly at the bottom of her apartment building framed by cream buns on one side and bread the other she felt like all the wind had been knocked out of her lungs.

  “Hey? Earth to Ellie. What’s up?” Chip moved to stand in front of her. “Honey? You right?”

  She shook her head and swallowed compulsively. “It’s him,” she said simply, her eyes darting past Chip’s reassuringly broad frame to Christos.

  Chip threw an assessing glance over his shoulder and then turned back to Elle’s stricken face. “So it is. What do you want me to do?”

  She bit down on her lip. “Would you … would you stay with Filip? Just until I can work out what he’s doing here.”

  “You think he’s come to make trouble?”

  I’m thinking that I wish I’d never met you, but that at least I have the satisfaction of knowing you meant nothing to me. That you were nice to sleep with when I was in the mood, but that beyond that you bored me and I’m glad I have a reason to get rid of you without guilt.

  Pain lanced her anew, as though the words had been freshly issued. “I think he’s not here to make chit-chat,” she said seriously.

  Chip squeezed her shoulder. “Come on.”

  He walked with Elle close to his chest, his eyes pinning Christos the whole way. Christos didn’t notice. He could only stare at Elle. It was as though he had never seen her, yet somehow he felt like he’d only kissed her moments earlier. There was an eerie familiarity that defied logic.

  Dressed all in black with her blonde hair pulled up in a high, voluminous ballerina bun, she looked graceful and enigmatic. She looked fragile too, as though a single gust of wind might lift her far away.