by Lynne Graham
Callie began crying at the airport. Over-tired and rudely awakened from her rest, the little girl was in no mood to find herself in strange places surrounded by unfamiliar faces and voices. By the time the Xenakis private jet took off, Callie was fully wound up and screaming at the top of her lusty lungs. Without a word, Ella went to assist Kasma, who was looking distinctly frazzled round the edges when Callie continued to sob in spite of all her efforts to the contrary.
‘This is a nightmare. Mr Xenakis is being disturbed,’ the young nursemaid said guiltily to Ella. ‘That should never happen.’
Ella soon discovered that there was no magic solution capable of quickly settling an exhausted and very cross toddler who was merely expressing her distress at having her settled routine destroyed. Although Callie could be distracted for a few minutes, she would soon start grizzling again. Ella took her into the sleeping compartment, sat down on the bed and rocked and sang to the little girl. Miraculously that seemed to calm Callie down, but she then objected vociferously to Ella’s every attempt to put her down again. Ella took charge of her for the flight.
‘Give her back to her nurse,’ Aristandros instructed when they were about to board the waiting pair of limousines in Paris.
Callie tried to cling and had to be prised off Ella, a process which caused sobs to break out again. Ella found it very hard to walk away.
‘Well, I don’t think we need to worry about the bonding process,’ Aristandros remarked with an outstanding lack of tact and sympathy. ‘You’re clearly a whiz in the maternal stakes. It’s only day one and Callie’s already doing a great impression of a limpet.’
‘She’s upset,’ Ella fielded tightly.
‘One of life’s lessons is that she can’t always have you when she wants you,’ Aristandros countered. ‘For what is left of the afternoon you will be fully occupied.’
Indeed, Ella barely had time to catch her breath at his magnificent Paris townhouse before a parade of breathtaking evening gowns arrived for her perusal. A phalanx of beauticians followed to groom her for the party. This time Ella was less tolerant of the beauty regime imposed on her. Indeed, because she would have much preferred to spend time with Callie, she fretted through every step of having her nails, hair and make-up brought to a glossy standard of perfection that she could never have achieved for herself. A maid helped her into the rich blue dress she had picked to wear, and she surveyed her reflection. Her silvery-fair hair fell in a sleek curtain round her shoulders, the designer dress a wonderful frame for her tall, slender figure. Acknowledging that she had never looked so good in her life before, however, had no impact on her frustration at the prospect of having to go through the same prolonged beauty routine every time she went out in public.
Aristandros strode through the door. ‘I want you to wear this set.’
Hugely conscious of his appraisal, Ella lifted the large jewel-case he had tossed down on the bed. As she lifted the lid on a magnificent sapphire-and-diamond necklace and earrings, she gasped. ‘My goodness…I’m impressed.’
‘So you should be. It’s a family set.’
Ella tensed. ‘Then I shouldn’t be wearing it.’
‘They’ve been mouldering in a safe for decades. Someone might as well wear them,’ Aristandros decreed in a bored tone that strangled the further protest on her tongue.
Feeling more than ever like a doll being decked out in decorative trappings, Ella put on the jewels. ‘I want to check on Callie before we leave,’ she told him then, barely glancing in the mirror to see how the superb necklace and earrings became her.
‘You have five minutes.’
Ella was dismayed to discover that her niece was still awake and crying intermittently. She had also pushed away the food that Kasma had tried to give her. Ella lifted the little girl out of her cot and examined her. She soon discovered that Callie was running a temperature and had swollen lymph-glands in her neck.
‘What’s wrong?’ Aristandros demanded from behind her a few minutes later.
‘I think Callie has tonsillitis. It’s probably viral, so antibiotics won’t do any good.’
Aristandros turned to the PA hovering at his elbow and instructed him to arrange for a doctor to call. Ella worried at her lower lip. Callie was miserable, and Ella didn’t want to leave her. Aristandros flashed her a sardonic look, and her chin came up at what she recognised as a direct challenge. She sped over to Kasma and hastily wrote down her mobile-phone number so that the nurse could keep her in touch with developments. She squeezed Callie’s hot little hand and walked away with guilty tears burning her own eyes.
‘She’s not seriously ill, is she?’ Aristandros breathed.
‘No, of course she isn’t. She’ll be fine.’
‘So, remember that you’re a doctor and stop over-reacting,’ Aristandros urged. ‘We’re going to a party.’
‘I’d rather stay here,’ Ella admitted, wondering how he was contriving to make her feel guilty as well. Her desire to comfort Callie had nothing whatsoever to do with her being a doctor.
‘But another doctor will be checking her out. She is in the best of hands. If there is further cause for concern, we will be informed,’ Aristandros pointed out levelly.
Feeling that she was making an unnecessary fuss, Ella breathed in slow and deep, and caught her reflection in a giant mirror as they descended the sweeping staircase into the hall. She barely recognised herself with the spectacular jewels glittering at her throat and ears, and the glorious dress shimmering in the soft lights.
Aristandros closed a hand over hers. ‘You look gorgeous, moli mou.’
CHAPTER SIX
THE PARTY WAS BEING thrown by Thierry Ferrand, an international banker and one of Aristandros’s closest friends. Thierry and his wife, Gabrielle, lived on the exclusive Avenue Montaigne near the Champs-Elysées, where a huge crowd of paparazzi was waiting on the street to catch photos of the guests arriving. This time round, Ella copied Aristandros, held her head high and acted as if the members of the press were invisible.
The Ferrand apartment had been transformed with jaw-dropping extravagance into a Moroccan backdrop for the party. The colourful tented walls, hanging lanterns and the hall fountain scattered with aromatic rose petals made Ella’s eyes widen. Aristandros anchored her to his side and introduced her to their hosts. She took an immediate liking to Gabrielle, a lively brunette with a contagious smile.
‘I believe you’re a doctor?’ Thierry Ferrand remarked.
‘Yes, but I’m no longer practising,’ Ella replied, a touch flatly.
Gabrielle studied her in surprise. ‘But why not?’
‘Ella plans to devote herself to my ward and her niece, Callie,’ Aristandros advanced.
‘It’s not easy to settle into being a lady of leisure,’ Gabrielle remarked. ‘I’m a corporate lawyer, Ella, and by the time my maternity leave was over I was ready to run back to work!’
‘You have a child?’ Ella asked.
Gabrielle needed no further encouragement to part Ella from Aristandros and take her upstairs to show off her adorable ten-month-old daughter who was fast asleep in her cot. The two women chatted.
‘You’re so normal and natural, not Ari’s usual style of companion,’ Gabrielle commented, her curiosity unhidden. ‘Several of his exes are here tonight, and the usual squad of man-hungry singles. I shouldn’t have dragged you away from him. You can’t afford to leave Ari alone for a moment. Women really do go mad for him.’
Ella shrugged, still bone-deep furious with Aristandros at his stony-hearted response to Callie’s illness and his determination that Ella should leave her to attend the party. As far as Ella was concerned, at that moment any woman was welcome to him. ‘Ari is very well able to look after himself,’ she said lightly.
Her mobile phone rang before she rejoined Aristandros, and she stayed out in the hall where it was quieter to talk to Kasma. Callie was still miserable, thirsty, but refusing to drink because of her sore throat. Furthermore, her high tempe
rature remained a source of concern. When Ella put her phone away she registered that Aristandros was watching her. He beckoned her with in an imperious gesture that brooked no refusal. Her full lips compressed; she felt like a disobedient dog having her choke-chain yanked.
Impervious to her mood, Aristandros ran an appreciative forefinger below the pouting line of her lower lip. ‘You look like a queen tonight.’
Her bright-blue eyes gleamed. ‘Worthy of your investment?’
‘Only time will tell,’ Aristandros traded in a typically oblique response. ‘But you’re definitely a trophy. Every man in the room has noticed you.’
‘I’m thrilled,’ Ella fenced in a bored monotone.
An appreciative glint lit his shrewd dark eyes, and smouldering sensuality curved his expressive mouth. ‘Not now, but you will be later. I intend to make the most of the fact that you’re mine to take home, khriso mou.’
With his security team acting as a protective filter, a constant flow of people tried to approach Aristandros. A few were friends, most were interested in talking business opportunities, but an equal number were chancers eager to take advantage of an opportunity to meet one of the richest men in the world. Ella, engaged in watching how other women reacted to him, was constantly amazed by how much blatant encouragement and flirtation came his way, even while she stood there right beside him. He introduced her to only a handful of people.
‘Let’s dance,’ Aristandros urged, predictably getting bored with the social chitchat, and closing his hand over hers to extract her from the crush surrounding him at speed.
It was the first time in over an hour that he had even acknowledged her existence. They had barely reached the edge of the floor when Ella’s mobile phone vibrated its call signal in her clutch bag. ing it in spite of Aristandros’s exasperated scrutiny, she left him and returned to the hall to speak to Kasma.
She learned that the doctor had visited and confirmed Ella’s diagnosis of tonsillitis and the treatment she had advised. The medication was finally kicking in to reduce Callie’s fever and ease the pain of her sore throat. Lighter of heart, Ella went off in search of Aristandros, wondering whether he deserved to hear the good news or not.
Gabrielle intercepted her for a chat, and it was just after parting from her that Ella’s phone rang yet again. Ella was astonished when she put the phone back to her ear and heard a voice she had truly believed she might never hear again.
‘Ella…is that you?’ Jane Sardelos was demanding. ‘That friend of yours, Lily, gave me your number.’
‘Mum?’ Ella framed, dry-mouthed with shock, wandering restlessly over to a window and staring out sight-lessly at the lights of Paris.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in Paris.’
‘With him? I understand that there was a picture of you in a British newspaper with Aristandros Xenakis. I couldn’t believe it was you, until it was confirmed. What are you doing with him?’ her mother pressed feverishly.
‘I’m living with him and helping to look after Callie,’ Ella admitted with pronounced reluctance.
‘Are you out of your mind? You wouldn’t marry him when he asked you, but seven years on you’re happy to be his whore?’
As that horrible word struck Ella like a physical blow, perspiration dampened her upper lip. ‘It’s not like that, Mum—’
‘Of course it is. It couldn’t be any other way with a Xenakis in a leading role. We’re all disgusted and embarrassed by your behaviour. What do you think this does to our standing in the eyes of family and friends? How could you be so selfish? How could you shame us like this?’
‘Morals have moved on for women since the Middle Ages,’ Ella protested. ‘I’m in a relationship with Aristandros. It doesn’t mean I’ve become a whore.’
‘Your stepfather says that, because of you, we won’t be able to visit Callie now!’ Jane Sardelos complained with a sob. ‘He says that if we do it will look like we’re condoning the situation.’
Ella was pale. ‘That’s untrue and unreasonable. You’re Callie’s grandmother, and your right to see her should not be influenced in any way by my relationship with Ari.’
‘Every picture tells a story, Ella,’ her mother interrupted bitterly. ‘Only last month, Ari Xenakis was with another woman, one of a very long line of other women. Now, all of a sudden, you’re wearing a designer dress and a fortune in diamonds round your throat that you could never have afforded to buy for yourself. So, tell me—if that doesn’t make you a whore, what does?’
The phone went dead with wounding emphasis, denying Ella the chance to defend herself further. A little voice asked her wryly what more she could possibly have said when it was so clear that her parent wouldn’t have been prepared to listen. Numb and sick inside, and with her mother’s angry accusations still ringing in her ears, Ella replaced the phone in her clutch bag. A whore: it was not a word she had ever heard on her rather prim mother’s lips before. But she knew who would have voiced that abusive word in the first instance: her stepfather. Theo would have stormed and shouted until his wife was upset enough to call her daughter and pass on the official family opinion personally. It would not have been the first time that Theo had used her mother as his mouthpiece.
Gabrielle Ferrand approached and addressed Ella with a strained look on her lovely face. ‘I think you’d better go and rescue Ari before a catfight breaks out over him.’
Frowning and totally distracted after her upsetting phone call, Ella followed the brunette and saw Aristandros seated in a lazy sprawl across a sofa. Three gorgeous women literally had him surrounded. They were all over him like a rash, laughing and chattering and giving him looks, little touches and signals that were blatant sexual invitations. Ella felt nauseous just watching the scene, and she waited for Aristandros to take back his own space. If ever a guy had been born to look after himself without any help from anyone else, it was Aristandros. But he made no move to rebut the advances coming his way, and when one of the women sprang up he accompanied her on to the dance floor.
‘He’s been on his own almost all evening,’ Gabrielle muttered frantically. ‘He’s not used to being neglected.’
‘You’re saying I’ve neglected him?’ Ella queried while she watched Aristandros and a sexy redhead salsa-dancing with considerable dexterity and enjoyment. She hadn’t even known he could move like that. Seeing him smile and allow his body to connect intimately with another woman’s hurt like a knife cutting through tender skin. There was an enormous amount of flirtation going on. She was glued to the spot, trapped by ghoulish curiosity and tormented by more pain than she could have believed possible.
‘I didn’t mean to sound critical,’ her companion retorted uncomfortably.
‘Don’t worry about it. Ari has more than his fair share of charisma. Women always make excuses for him when he behaves badly,’ Ella commented, having met with that female reaction to Aristandros on many occasions seven years earlier. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t.’
Unfortunately, Aristandros was simply being himself—an unapologetic womaniser set on amusement. Ella, however, could not bear to have that fact paraded right under her nose, particularly when her mother’s condemnation of their affair was stuck like a giant immoveable rock in the middle of her every thought and reaction. Surely only a woman worthy of the label ‘whore’ would stand by and just accept Ari’s behaviour?
‘I can’t stay, Gabrielle. Will you tell Ari I’ve left? But don’t rush to do it,’ Ella advised, turning on her heel to move towards the front door.
‘Don’t do it, Ella. I really like you, and he’ll be furious if you walk out on him,’ the other woman protested. ‘I’m sure you’re right. He’s only flirting…it means absolutely nothing to him. Women of that sort come onto him every day. But you’re different, not least because you happen to be wearing the Xenakis sapphires and possess a brain.’
Ella glanced back at Aristandros and the redhead. She felt sick with rage and hurt, and the depth of her reactio
n terrified her. The hand she employed to push her hair off her hot, damp brow was trembling. She travelled down in the lift to the ground floor where the concierge called a taxi for her. Cameras flared as she departed alone and in considerably less state than she had arrived. By then she was willing to acknowledge that she was running away from her own feelings as much as she was turning her back on a scene of public humiliation. But she was horrified by her over-sensitivity and the powerful emotions churning around inside her. Why should it matter to her so much what Aristandros did? Wasn’t she capable of switching off her emotional responses to him? Just then she didn’t care about the agreement she had signed. She refused to act like some whore he owned and to do as he expected regardless of how he himself behaved. A dignified departure from the party was truly the only option she could live with.
Back at the townhouse she headed straight for the nursery. Callie was slumbering peacefully, while Kasma was also asleep in her bed in the next-door bedroom with the door ajar. Ella gazed down at the little girl with a volcanic mixture of relief, love and pain rocketing through her. She reminded herself that Callie had managed fine before she was around, and would scarcely miss her, and that while she stayed her mother would refuse to visit her granddaughter. How could she allow that to happen?
Her maid helped her remove the dress and the sapphires and brought her a case when she asked. Ella put on jeans and a T-shirt and packed the few personal items she had brought from London. Then the heavy thud of the front door reverberated through the whole house, and she went rigid.
‘Ella!’
Ella gulped at the harsh sound of her name on Aristandros’s lips. ‘I’m up here…’
Aristandros filled the doorway, strong features taut, eyes blazing a challenge. ‘What in hell are you playing at?’
Ella settled bright-blue eyes on him, her chin at a defiant angle. ‘What were you playing at? If you think I’m going to stand around while you carry on with other women in front of me, you have another thought coming!’