‘I’ve told them we want privacy. They won’t come unless we call them.’
He’d done the same when they’d married, ensuring the utmost privacy for them. Back then she had rejoiced in it.
The villa had a large kitchen in the corner of the main living area.
Xander peered into the huge American fridge and pulled out a bottle of white wine. ‘Drink?’
‘No.’ She nearly followed it with a thank you but stopped herself in time. She didn’t owe him anything, least of all good manners. ‘I’m going to bed. You’re welcome to the master bedroom.’
She would rather swim with piranhas than sleep in that room. The second bedroom was every bit as nice and came with the added bonus of not being seeped in memories of them being together.
‘We’ve only just got here.’
‘The sooner I get to sleep, the sooner I’ll wake up and can go back to New York.’ She didn’t want to think any more. Her head hurt too much to handle anything else. All she wanted now was a few hours of oblivion.
‘We’ll be flying directly to Athens.’
‘You can. I need to go home. I have work.’
‘Elizabeth, your home is with me now.’ As he spoke he put the wine back in the fridge and took out a bottle of beer as replacement.
‘I can’t come with you yet. I have things to do, arrangements to make...’
‘You’ll have to do it remotely.’ He opened a drawer.
‘That’s impossible.’
He rooted through another drawer and pulled out a bottle opener. ‘I need to get back to Loukas. I promised him I wouldn’t be longer than two days.’ He fixed her with a stare. ‘Or do you think I should break a promise to an eight-year-old boy?’
‘That’s not fair,’ she protested. ‘I didn’t know you’d promised him that. Of course you must keep it, but your promise doesn’t involve me. You go ahead and I’ll fly over when my affairs are straight.’
‘You will fly with me in the morning. The rekindling of our marriage starts immediately. The longer we’re together before the court hearing, the more established and stronger we will look as a couple.’
‘My staff deserve better than to be laid off by email.’
‘The money I’ll transfer into their bank accounts will make up for it. Give me their details and I’ll do it now. I’ll also transfer a quarter of a million dollars into your account—call it a retainer. You’ll get the balance when we go our separate ways.’
‘And if we fail?’ Was there a chance she could walk out of this nightmare and still lose everything?
His eyes narrowed.
‘What happens to me if the judge gives your parents custody?’ she persisted.
Xander’s voice was like ice as he said, ‘It will only come to that over my cold dead body.’
* * *
Elizabeth sat in the lotus position on the floor of her locked bedroom, eyes closed, willing her mind to clear and for tranquillity to seep into her consciousness.
It wasn’t happening.
How could she find any peace of mind with Xander situated on the other side of the wall?
God, that was all that separated them. After ten years apart they now had nothing but a wall of bricks dividing them.
An hour after she’d left him swigging moodily from his beer bottle, she’d heard the faint sound of a shower running from the next room.
She hadn’t heard anything from him since. That didn’t stop her ears straining for any movement.
It was a struggle to take in everything that had happened over the past few hours. How could she not have realised the annulment was never finalised and they were still married? It defied credulity. But back then she’d had so many other things to deal with and she had never dreamt their annulment would be denied. How could any judge fail to give an annulment with the facts before them?
Turned out a judge could, and if she’d only taken the effort to make one phone call she wouldn’t be in the mess she was in now.
Her life as she knew it was over, at least for the foreseeable future.
This time tomorrow, her business would be over permanently.
She’d dealt with major upheaval before. She’d left the path she’d originally chosen and taken a completely different route and not only survived but thrived. She could thrive again. When all this was over she would pick herself up and start again, just as she had before.
All she had to do to get out of this mess without being left flat broke was convince a Greek judge that she and Xander were a stable couple in love.
It would be easier to feign love with a rattlesnake and, she suspected, safer.
Her thighs aching and her brain still refusing to switch off, Elizabeth gave up her attempts at meditation and took a shower.
Just as wired after her shower as she’d been before, she accepted she could kiss any sleep goodbye. The walls of the room seemed to be compressing in on her, squeezing the air from her lungs. She needed to get out. She wished she could take a long walk.
Throwing on the robe provided by the hotel, she went to the door and turned the handle. She strained her ears but the only sound to be heard was her own heart pumping.
She took a deep breath and stepped out onto the ceramic tiles, cautiously checking Xander’s door. It was shut.
Ghostly moonlight poured in through the high windows and patio doors where the shutters hadn’t been closed.
After a moment’s indecision she crossed to the patio doors and stared out.
Cut into the mountains, the villa had the perfect view of St Francis Bay, which rippled gently in the near distance, matchstick figures walking hand in hand along the shore. She swallowed back the ache that formed to remember her and Xander doing that same moonlit walk.
Sliding the patio door open, she stepped outside and was immediately enveloped in the rich, balmy Caribbean night. The moon loomed huge in the sky, bathing everything in light.
The heady sweet scent of butterfly jasmine, always at its strongest in the midnight hours, filled the air. As she breathed it in, a lancing pain shot through her, so strong she flattened a hand against her stomach to counteract it. It was the scent that had sat the strongest in her memories of her time at St Francis and a scent she had actively avoided since because it always carried her back to the time before he’d rejected her, when she’d thought she’d found her soulmate.
Elizabeth had never felt as if she belonged to anyone as anything other than a possession to be fought over, but for two glorious weeks with Xander she had felt as precious and invaluable as any jewel.
And then he’d dumped her as if she were worthless and broken her heart as easily as if it had been made from glass.
Hearing movement behind her, she sighed and swallowed back a lump in her throat.
‘Beautiful night, isn’t it?’ he said quietly, coming to stand beside her at the balustrade. He sounded different from earlier. Less edgy.
‘It was.’
He laughed, a low rumbly sound that carried through the still air. It was the first sign of the old humour she had adored. ‘Don’t hate me, Elizabeth.’
She turned her head a fraction to look at him and immediately wished she hadn’t. Xander was wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung black shorts. She could smell the citrusy scent of his shower gel. She could smell him, and closed her eyes tightly along with her breath.
In their time apart it wasn’t just his shoulders that had filled out, it was all of him. The fit, lithe young man who could have been mistaken for a surfer dude was now a toned, muscular thirty-year-old. The years had hardened him but they’d also added a whole new testosterone-filled dimension.
An ache formed low in her belly, a liquid tightness that turned into a throb...
She turned her attention back to the beach. ‘You could have just told me about Loukas from the start. It didn’t have to be like this.’
‘To guarantee your agreement, it did. I wasn’t prepared to hear you say no and I didn’t have the time to
sweet-talk you into it.’
‘I don’t want your sweet talk.’
‘I’ve figured that out for myself,’ he said drily.
‘Then you’re smart enough to figure out that it’s impossible for me not to hate you.’
‘That is regrettable.’ He rested his hands on the balustrade next to hers.
She looked down at them, so close to her own, and experienced another pang. His muscular arms were tanned and covered in sun-bleached fine hair that stopped at the wrists. The long, strong hands...how could she have remembered them in such detail, right down to the silvery scar on the left one? Was there not a single thing she’d forgotten even though she’d spent the last decade determinedly not thinking of him except in the most unguarded of moments?
At least her private thoughts weren’t something his spies could have discovered.
Her body heated with the rise of humiliation at what they would have learned and relayed to Xander. While he was busy enjoying life to the full, bedding as many beautiful women as he could get his greedy hands on, she’d spent the intervening years alone. Not even a brief fling or two to even things out between them and stop her feeling like an English spinster in an old-fashioned novel.
God, she’d never even thought this way before. She’d been happy in her solitary life. She’d had her business. She’d employed some great people who were fun to be around and had some great friends. She had enough money not to worry about starving and was able to splash out on the odd pair of her favourite designer’s shoes whenever the mood took her.
But prying eyes wouldn’t see this. All prying eyes would see was her retiring to bed alone every night.
She took a step back and jutted her chin. ‘The only regrettable thing is that I ever met you in the first place.’
Without wishing him a good night—for she absolutely did not wish him anything other than a sleep full of bad dreams—Elizabeth went back into the villa and locked her bedroom door behind her.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE NEXT DAY Xander sipped at his strong coffee, watching Elizabeth work. As soon as his plane had taken off, she’d taken herself to the furthest point away from him, to the large oak desk in his study area. There she had spent the past three hours making calls and working on her laptop.
She’d dressed in a short black skirt topped with an oversized monochrome top, her long hair sleek and glossy and falling over her shoulders. Last night, when he’d found her on the balcony, her hair had been wet. When she’d stormed away from him he’d noticed little curls springing up where it was starting to dry.
He remembered her curls so clearly and his heart throbbed to know they were still there even if they were straightened to within an inch of their life. She must have risen before the sun to get ready.
As polished as she appeared, carefully applied make-up could not disguise the dark rings under her eyes.
Done with her call, she put her cell phone on the desk.
He rose and walked over to her. ‘You should take a break.’
She didn’t look at him, turning her attention back to the screen in front of her and tapping out a few words on the keyboard. ‘When I’m finished.’
‘Lunch will be served soon.’ She hadn’t eaten anything since she’d landed in St Francis, her tuna tartare from the night before left untouched.
‘I’ll eat while I work.’
Her cell phone rang out. She snatched it up and put it to her ear.
‘Hey,’ she said in a much softer tone than she used with him.
Seating himself on the rounded sofa, nonchalantly hooking an ankle on his thigh, Xander listened to her one-sided conversation.
‘I’ll get it finished within the next hour,’ she was saying. Then she smiled. ‘Really? That’s great. I’d be lost without you.’ More silence, then, ‘I’ll call you later, when I’m settled.’
‘Who was that?’ he asked when she’d ended the call.
‘My PA.’
‘How’s she taking things?’ He thought of the large wedge of money he’d transferred into her four members of staff’s bank accounts.
‘He’s taking things fine.’
‘You have a male assistant?’
‘Yes. I call him my PA but, really, he’s my right-hand man. Not only is he an excellent organiser but he’s a whizz with technical stuff and can fix any of the gremlins our computer systems get with his eyes closed. Not that any of that matters any more.’ She sighed.
‘You work closely with him?’
‘More than anyone else, yes. Steve’s been with me pretty much from the beginning. He keeps the office running smoothly, which is just what I need as I travel so much. I couldn’t have done it without him.’
‘And is your relationship strictly professional?’ Her tone with ‘Steve’ had been tender. Now he knew it was a male she’d directed that tone at he felt an inexplicable urge to crush something.
Her face darkened. ‘Not that it’s any of your business but that’s a totally crass thing to ask.’
‘It is my business and it’s a natural thing to wonder about. You sounded very cosy speaking to him.’ Had their relationship been so obvious, so right there in front of them that his investigators had missed it?
‘Do not put me on the same level as you—not everything’s about sex. Steve’s my friend. I care about him. I care about all my employees. They’re all waking up to find they’ve lost their jobs but, rather than taking the money and running, they’re doing their best to help me wind the company up seeing as I’m going to be stuck in Greece for the foreseeable future and unable to do it myself, and they’re fielding calls from panicking clients who are all suddenly terrified their relationships are about to be exposed. So don’t even think of questioning my relationship with any of them. They’re the best bunch of people I know.’
As Xander had promised, pictures of the pair of them together had flooded the Internet, every gossip blog headlining with them. The photographer had got a good one of them in the car outside the hotel, when Xander’s hand had been buried in her hair. They were gazing into each other’s eyes.
Elizabeth had to admit, this picture would go a long way into making people believe they were in love. There was an intensity to their gazes that made her stomach do a funny turn.
It looked as if they were about to kiss.
She’d studied that picture for far too long, holding her breath as warmth spread through her veins until she’d clicked away from it with the tap of a shaking finger.
Two members of the cabin staff bustled through carrying trays of food.
‘I’ll eat here, thanks.’ Elizabeth pushed her laptop to one side to make room for hers. Xander indicated for his to be placed there too and sat himself on the leather seat opposite her.
She didn’t say anything, diving a fork into her salad and turning her attention back to her screen, determined to tune him out. It proved impossible.
Not wanting him to think he was affecting her appetite, she forced herself to eat. She was quite sure her Niçoise salad was the best salad she’d ever eaten but she couldn’t taste any of it.
Another message hit her inbox. She read it with a sigh.
‘A problem?’
She looked at the man responsible for this entire mess. ‘Nearly all my clients have terminated their contracts with me.’
Thanks to Xander tipping the paparazzo off, the whole world now knew about Leviathan Solutions. A member of his staff had released a statement that was practically word for word as he’d recited it in the car.
‘You knew that would happen,’ he reminded her.
‘Yes, but I wanted to tell my current clients personally. They deserve that much.’
At least the other Casanovas from the Celebrity Spy! scandal were matched already. She was confident Benjamin and Julianna would work out. They might have been playing cat and mouse with each other but, along with all the other things that made them perfectly suited to each other, there was real chemistry between them.
As for Zayn...the ladies she’d matched him with had turned out to be surplus to requirements as the beautiful Amalia, a PA, had unexpectedly been given the role. From the whispers Elizabeth had heard, blackmail was involved in this marriage. Whatever the truth, having seen Zayn and Amalia together she’d decided that, unlike Dante and Piper, they were a couple she would have matched.
She closed her eyes and fought back bitter tears.
She’d known yesterday that agreeing to rekindle their marriage would mean the end of her business. She hadn’t realised how swift its destruction would be.
‘Have you transferred the quarter-million you promised me?’ She didn’t have her pass key to access her bank via the Internet; Steve had promised to get it couriered to her in Diadonus.
She hated how Xander’s eyes narrowed at her question.
‘My current clients have paid for a service I can no longer provide,’ she explained hotly. ‘I have to refund them. There’s not enough in my account to pay it without that money.’
‘It’s been transferred.’
She sighed her relief and almost said thank you.
‘What will you do with the rest of the money I give you?’ he asked.
‘I’ll be earning that money. It won’t be a gift.’ By the time this was done, she would have earned every cent.
He quelled her with a stare. ‘Thirty million dollars is more than you’ve earned in your career. I’d say it’s a handsome pay-off for a few months’ work.’
‘Money isn’t everything.’
‘Tell that to the person who has nothing.’
Which was what she would have if they didn’t pull this off.
‘And if money means nothing to you, you would have turned it down.’
‘Just because I’m not that materialistic doesn’t mean I’m a fool. Once this is over I’ll still have to eat. I’ll still have a mortgage to pay.’ She just wouldn’t have her business. Her baby.
They’d talked of having babies, she remembered. They’d even chosen names. Imogen and Rebecca for the girls, Samuel and Giannis for the boys.
Leviathan Solutions was the closest thing to a baby she would have.
Married for the Greek's Convenience Page 5