Rumours Behind The Greek's Wedding (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Pippa Roscoe

  Despite outward appearances, Célia was worried. It was only when she took her seat behind the table where Loukis and his lawyers faced the judge that she allowed her mask to slip a little. She knew that Loukis needed her assurance, her faith so she had given it freely. But she hadn’t missed the way that Loukis had almost unfurled in the time spent on the island, relaxed into the strange unspoken forward step their relationship had taken.

  The night after her conversation with her mother had been like the last burst of a dam, the water punching through its final barrier. They had spoken for a long time, and Célia had tried to explain what she’d been feeling then, why she’d reacted the way she had. And her mother had told her how she might have disagreed with her husband but was trying to love them both in her own way. And Célia had finally accepted that love. And with that had come the realisation that she loved Loukis. She had felt it, she had wanted to tell him then that she had fallen for him. For the wonderful, incredible man she saw when she looked at him. But he had prevented her words and at the time she had understood. But in the days that followed, his excitement, the eager anticipation for the forthcoming custody hearing, the little verbal slips he made in suggesting plans that reached beyond this point, beyond their allotted few months of engagement, had made her hope.

  And it was that hope that scared her. Because she knew that she would have to tell him. Tell him the truth of what her designs had been used for. Only then would she be truly free to love and be loved. She had to trust that he would accept her. All of her, including her imperfections. She wanted it so much, she ached.

  ‘All rise.’

  After all the carefully orchestrated publicity stunts, the engagement party, the perfectly cultivated relationship between them, the court hearing seemed oddly mundane. The introductions by the judge and each of the lawyers held a patterned rhythm of formal decorum that swept away the early morning hours and all the while, Célia couldn’t help but think of what Annabelle would be doing with her friend Leya. They had planned to visit the park and then the zoo, Annabelle now fixated on a future as a vet.

  As Loukis took the stand Célia cast a look towards Meredith and Byron, the latter catching her gaze and producing a smile full of warmth, completely at odds with the antagonism palpable between Meredith and her son. Haltingly she smiled back, Meredith catching the shared glance and frowning before something passed across her features. Something almost victorious.

  Nervously she focused her attention back to the answers Loukis was giving to his own lawyers. He outlined the existing housing and care he was providing for Annabelle, letting them guide his answers to how difficult and traumatic it had been for her to be abandoned by her mother. The raw pain he expressed at his initial feelings of helplessness at his sister’s misery was felt by all. To her credit, a pale Meredith seemed contrite and distraught to hear of it. His lawyers didn’t miss a single thing that would give them an edge over the opposing counsel.

  It was Meredith’s lawyers’ turn next, probing gently at his own feelings towards Meredith, suggesting that perhaps it was his own abandonment that had coloured his feelings over the situation. Célia’s heart pounded in her chest to see him so exposed, but to her surprise they seemed sympathetic towards him. Not even touching on his own reputation. Something that even Loukis seemed surprised by.

  By the time they indicated that they had no further questions, Loukis, his lawyers and Célia were confused. All of their attention had been so focused on defending assumed attack from that quarter, the sheer fact that they hadn’t gone down that path made it seem as if they didn’t even want to win the case.

  ‘Ms d’Argent? If you would?’

  Célia took a deep breath, gratefully received a supportive smile from Loukis and made her way towards the chair to the right of the judge. Focusing on answering Loukis’s lawyers’ questions helped some of the nerves Célia felt rising within her, ebbing and flowing, sometimes jerking at the spike of adrenaline when she had to pause and consider her words and how they might be interpreted by the opposition. But she answered them truthfully. Yes, she had met Loukis through work, but that relationship had developed. Yes, she had met Annabelle and taken the lovely little girl into her heart. No, she didn’t have personal experience in parenting, but understood what it would mean for her future with Loukis if he were to become guardian of Annabelle and was one hundred per cent in support of it and was looking forward to being in her life. Yes, she had relocated to Greece to be with him, and most definitely yes thought that Loukis would be a wonderful parent.

  With their thanks for her time, Loukis’s lawyers sat down and Meredith’s stood.

  ‘Ms d’Argent, you have not always been CEO of Chariton Endeavours, have you?’

  ‘No, the company was formed three years ago with Ella Black, a school friend.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘Before Chariton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Célia shrugged. ‘I was at university in Paris.’

  ‘And what did you study there?’

  ‘A degree in Humanities and—’

  ‘But you started out with a different degree, no?’

  Célia frowned, her heart beginning to pound in her chest. She cast a glance towards Meredith, to see a vindictive edge to her gaze. She knew. She turned to Loukis, wanting him to make it stop, needing him to. Because if he didn’t, Loukis would lose everything and it would be her fault. A cold sweat broke out across her shoulder blades, sending shivers along her skin.

  ‘Ms d’Argent? Please answer the question.’

  ‘I... My university education began with a degree in mathematics and computer sciences.’

  ‘And it was that which led you to an internship with Paquet Industries.’

  Although Célia was looking at the lawyer, she saw Loukis lean to the man next to him, a frown marking his features, and confusion emanating from their table.

  I’m so sorry, Loukis.

  Fear and rage welled within her, for him, for herself. She knew she should have told him. Told him the true extent of what her father had done with her plans. But she’d thought those records were sealed. That no one would ever find out.

  ‘Yes,’ she said meekly.

  ‘And while you were there, you had worked on technical specifications for a missile guidance system.’

  ‘No.’

  The lawyer’s eyes blazed with the same intensity as Meredith’s had, as if sensing victory.

  ‘Need I remind you that even though this is a custody hearing, anything you say must be the truth, or it will be seen as perjury?’

  ‘You do not. The specifications I was working on were for drone guidance systems for agricultural use in developing countries,’ she said shakily.

  ‘There is no record of that.’

  ‘Those records are sealed.’

  ‘Which might have been the case five years ago, but six months ago, François Paquet licensed the patent for his missile technology under IEPRA guidelines and as such they became a matter of public record.’

  All Célia could hear was the roar of her own pulse. She felt as if her chest were about to explode.

  ‘So. Do you deny that you developed technical specifications for a drone missile system that has been sold by Paquet Industries—an international defence contractor—and used to take the lives of nearly four thousand people across the globe?’

  Noise filled the room. Objections and cries of shock from Loukis’s legal team, the judge’s gavel pounding on the wood behind her in time with the raging of her own heart, and above all Meredith’s shrill voice, proclaiming she would not allow a murderer to care for her daughter.

  Célia’s field of vision narrowed to her hands, shaking and suddenly frigidly cold. Her breaths were coming in short sharp pants and nausea gripped her stomach in a fierce hold.

  She vaguely found herself pulled from the chai
r, Loukis’s concerned face hazy, snatching glances at people who were staring at her, imagining their faces twisted in horror, as she was led from the room and back to the small office where they had started this day.

  Murderer.

  What the hell was going on? Loukis fisted his hands, wanting to lash out at something. Anything. Célia was hunched over in the chair he had poured her into. His legal team filled the room looking as concerned as he was. But in all likelihood their concern was focused on the custody case now completely hijacked from the last source he had ever expected it to come from.

  But his mind fractured. He had seen Célia begin to tremble, still sitting by the judge. The way her skin had paled and he’d known. Known something awful was about to happen and he’d not been able to do a damn thing to stop it.

  Snippets of conversations filtered through his mind.

  ‘It was taken from me...’

  ‘Very good at “the computer science thing”...’

  ‘Used in a very different way from what I had intended...’

  ‘I will not allow a murderer to care for my daughter...’

  Someone was telling Célia to breathe and a distant part of him recognised that it should have been him. Him making sure she was okay. But he was held in a vortex of shock and fear. They should have known something was wrong when Meredith’s legal team didn’t go after him for all the things they had suspected they would. They didn’t need to. Because they had Célia. His mother had used Célia to bring him to his knees.

  At that precise moment, Célia finally looked up at him. Her eyes glistening with unshed tears, her breath finally coming back to some semblance of normality.

  ‘Leave us,’ he demanded of the lawyers. As if sensing the storm brewing, they filed out of the room leaving Célia and Loukis alone.

  ‘Loukis—’

  ‘Explain what just happened to me.’

  ‘I...’

  ‘I can’t do this for you, Célia. I have no idea what just happened. So just...tell me.’

  ‘My father took the technical specifications from me and used them to bolster the designs for Paquet’s combat drone. One that has since been sold around the world as one of the top ten UAVs available—’

  ‘UAV?’ he interrupted.

  ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.’

  ‘So they were right?’

  ‘Loukis, I didn’t do it,’ she pleaded. ‘My designs were never intended for combat or the defence industry. I had no idea—’

  ‘But they are right.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’ he roared, unable to hold himself back. Everything he’d done, all of it, to protect his sister, it was slipping through his fingers like sand.

  ‘Because I thought the records were sealed. Because I thought my father left my name off the designs.’

  ‘Just how naïve are you? It’s a legal patent. Of course he would have had to put your name down on the paperwork.’

  He was half convinced that he was now shaking as much as Célia. Only he was furious. And she was scared, he realised, desperately attempting to pull back on the leash that had been lifted from his anger. He was going to lose. He was going to lose Annabelle. And Célia...

  ‘I didn’t tell you because I was ashamed. Because I know what those drones have done and will continue to do. Why do you think I was so determined to counter that with the charity work I do?’

  ‘Well, it’s not like I would have been able to guess that with you keeping so many damn secrets.’ The line was petty and he hated himself for it, but couldn’t stop it.

  ‘I didn’t tell you,’ she said finally, in the softest of voices, ‘because you wanted the perfect fiancée. You didn’t, in fact, want someone whose reputation is worse than your own.’

  He couldn’t deny her words. He knew she was telling the truth. That she had believed no one would find out. And he could see that she was destroyed by the revelation in court, by the knowledge of what her designs had been put to use for. But did it matter? Right now, to the granting of guardianship over Annabelle?

  He turned away from her then, unable to bear the weight of her watery eyes. Each glint cut against him, burying into his heart, exposing a raw pain, a deeper truth. One that could not be denied. All this time he’d roared and railed against the pain of being abandoned, rejected in favour of money. His father left a broken shell by the divorce and never quite fully recovering. And Loukis, himself, left horrified and damaged by the knowledge of his worth in his mother’s eyes.

  But now this time, it was he who was being forced to make the choice. It felt as if he were being torn in two, a painful wrenching that he feared he might never soothe. Neither option would provide enough to compensate for what he would lose.

  His mind worked furiously, trying to forecast the outcome of whatever his next move was, until he was dizzy with an infinite number of futures, all of which left him sacrificing something vital to him.

  Fury raged within him as he realised that the price he would have to pay for Annabelle was Célia. This beautiful, impassioned, kind, supportive woman who had snuck beneath every single defence he had. And he couldn’t have her. Not if he wanted to protect Annabelle from their mother.

  Célia could see it. The moment that he realised what she, herself, had come to realise as soon as Meredith had cried out the word murderer. There was no way that she could stay. She was now the greatest threat to his guardianship over Annabelle. A far worse threat than any that Loukis could have represented, or even foreseen.

  Loukis’s chance at being granted custody had hung by a gossamer thread already. And she had effectively severed that thread. If she stayed.

  ‘Don’t,’ he commanded as if hearing her thoughts.

  ‘It’s the only way.’

  He didn’t speak, but he was shaking his head as if refusing to listen. Refusing to do the only thing left to do.

  She took a deep breath that trembled within her lungs. Oh, it hurt. So, so much. In her mind rose Loukis’s words from the first night they had made love. Speaking them now, with her tongue, the words on her lips, she felt them down to her very soul.

  ‘I am not capable of giving you what you deserve. Not now. Not ever.’

  ‘That is not fair.’

  ‘None of it is fair Loukis.’

  She looked at him, his hair a chaotic mess, his eyes blazing, torn, but she could tell he knew, could tell that he would not stop her. And even in that, he looked glorious to her. The man who had given her strength, the man who had returned her sense of self to her. The man she had come to love. The man she was now destroying.

  The horror she felt rising within her at the sheer fact that she had accidentally brought this down on him was acute. That she was the one who had unconsciously betrayed him... She knew that precise poison betrayal could be, the self-recrimination, anger and helplessness when wishes, plans and hopes for the future were taken away and smashed against the floor. She knew the devastating anguish that would reap for Loukis and she wouldn’t, couldn’t, do that to him.

  ‘You will return to the court, be as outraged as you like. You didn’t know. You would never have allowed me any contact with Annabelle had you known. And you have severed our...connection. I will not be an impediment to your guardianship over Annabelle.’

  He said nothing, staring at her so intently she had to break their gaze. Had to because she simply couldn’t bear it.

  ‘I’ll go straight to the airport. You can send my things on and I’ll give you the money—’

  ‘Stop,’ he commanded.

  ‘No. Because I’m right and you know it. It’s the only way.’

  ‘Célia,’ he begged, and she couldn’t stand it. ‘I can’t—’

  ‘I know,’ she said, shaking her head, hoping to prevent more excruciating words. ‘I understand, Loukis. Truly.’<
br />
  She got up from the chair, her legs still a little shaky, but forcing the strength that he had given her into her body, heart and soul. She reached for her bag. ‘I think you might have been right,’ she said with a sad smile. ‘Everything does have a price. And, Loukis, this is the one that I am willing to pay. For you. For Annabelle.

  She turned to walk away, but a hand caught her wrist, pulling her back round to him, causing her to crash against his chest. His lips were on hers in an instant, demanding, punishing, as if trying to bend her to his will. His hands came around her face as if trying to anchor her to him, to keep her with him. And it hurt. The agony of what she was doing nearly buckled her. This one last time, this one last kiss, it was too much.

  Weak as she was, she reached for him too. Her hands fisting in his shirt, clinging to him, to this moment as if wanting it all and knowing that it would never be enough. At first, she had flinched from his touch, then she had borne it and now she craved it with every fibre of her being. The only way she could find the strength to walk away from him was knowing that to stay would damage him irrevocably.

  His thumb swept away a tear she hadn’t even realised she’d shed. The bittersweet taste of his kiss haunted her and would continue to haunt her, she knew, for many, many days to come. She broke the kiss and gazed up into his rich dark eyes, but the sea of emotions storming within them was too much.

  She left his embrace, turned and left the room, left the court building and blindly hailed a cab. All the while absolutely sure that she had left behind her heart.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BY THE TIME his lawyers came to find him in the court’s small office, where Célia had left him, some unfathomable amount of time later, he could barely speak. They explained that a recess had been granted, but that it would be at least another five days before the case could be resumed. According to them, Meredith had not been pleased by the news and had nearly been admonished by the judge for her outburst. Even some minor victory over Meredith hadn’t been able to shake him. They had put him in his car, and he’d even been blind to the concerned looks they shared between themselves as they sent him off to his estate in Athens.