Читать книгу Modern Romance January 2017 Books 5 - 8 - Мишель Смарт, Andie Brock - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

HIS MEANING HIT Elizabeth immediately, no initial instant of uncomprehending shock, no moment of bewilderment. ‘Not in a million years.’

‘You’re a matchmaker, Elizabeth,’ he said calmly. ‘You arrange marriages...’

‘For other people,’ she interjected.

‘I want to employ you to rekindle ours. It won’t be for ever, a few months at the most.’

A passing waiter noticed they hadn’t touched their food. ‘Is everything all right? Can I get you anything?’

‘I’d like a cab to the airport,’ Elizabeth said.

Bemusement spread over the waiter’s face. ‘The airport’s closed now.’

She’d completely forgotten flights were forbidden on or off the island after sundown.

‘We’ll have two coffees,’ Xander cut in smoothly while she eyed him furiously.

‘Cappuccino, latte...?’

‘Two filter coffees will be fine.’

As the waiter drifted back inside, Elizabeth leaned forward and glared at Xander. ‘Is that why you brought me here? So I couldn’t escape?’

‘Partly. I had a number of reasons.’

‘Well, guess what? I don’t care what your reasons are. Keeping me here overnight isn’t going to change my mind so you’ve lucked out there. I’m not doing it. Period.’

If he was perturbed by her vehemence, he didn’t show it. Xander was treating the bombshell he’d just thrown at her as dispassionately as if he were conducting a business deal. She could be anyone to him, whereas for Elizabeth...

He had once been her world. Being with him again brought everything back. All of it. The delirious happiness followed by pain so sharp she had never allowed herself to get close to feeling either emotion again. They went hand in glove. If she hadn’t known the joy she would never have suffered so much in the aftermath.

But it hadn’t killed her. It had made her stronger and she would hold on to that strength.

‘You don’t even need a wife,’ she said in a much calmer tone than the explosion her tongue wanted to fire. ‘Your business has been completely unaffected by the Celebrity Spy! scandal...’

‘It has nothing to do with my business.’

The waiter wandered back to them with their coffees, eyeing their still untouched plates with obvious confusion.

Once alone again, Xander stirred a spoonful of brown sugar into his cup and then fixed his eyes on her. ‘My sister-in-law is an alcoholic. She’s recently been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. If she doesn’t stop drinking she will be dead within five years.’

‘You’re talking about Katerina?’ Elizabeth asked, shocked at this revelation.

His brow furrowed. ‘You remember her name?’

Feeling her body heat under his narrow-eyed scrutiny, she took a hasty sip of her coffee.

How embarrassing to remember the name of a woman she’d never met who had probably been mentioned only the once, and in passing at that. But she remembered every conversation between them, had committed to memory the names of his family members. She’d looked forward to meeting them and being a part of their lives.

‘Yes. I’m talking about Katerina,’ Xander continued when Elizabeth didn’t bother to answer his question. ‘I don’t know what will happen to her or if she will be able to stop drinking. I just don’t know. But what happened to her has acted as a wake-up call to my brother. I have been begging him for years to get help for his addictions.’ He gave a small tight smile. ‘Yanis’s poison of choice is cocaine, but he’s not fussy. If it comes in white powder form he’ll snort it. If it comes in liquid form he’ll inject it.’

Now he reached for his coffee and cradled the cup in the same manner Elizabeth was cradling hers.

‘Yanis admitted himself into a specialist lockdown facility in America ten days ago.’

The facility in Arizona was supposed to be one of the best in the world. Xander hoped with all his heart it could help his brother. If not...

He didn’t want to witness his brother’s coffin being lowered into the cold ground. He’d watched Ana’s body be lowered and the grief and guilt had almost sliced him in two. He couldn’t go through the same with his own flesh and blood, the only adult in his family he felt any affection for.

‘That’s good,’ Elizabeth said in a softer tone. The stoniness of her eyes had softened a little too.

‘It is. Very much so. He’ll be in rehab for around two months. As Katerina is unlikely to leave hospital any time soon and will not be in a position to look after their son, Yanis left Loukas in my care.’

‘Loukas is your nephew?’

Xander nodded. ‘He’s eight. Despite all the crap he’s had to put up with, he’s a great kid.’ And now he’d come to the real reason he needed her. ‘My parents have hired a lawyer to go for custody of him.’

Elizabeth’s brows drew together. ‘Custody of Loukas?’

‘Yes. Full custody. They’re saying Yanis and Katerina are unfit parents.’

He could see her brain whirling before she tentatively said, ‘Is giving them custody really a bad thing? What, with the way your brother and Katerina are...?’

‘It is the worst thing,’ he stated flatly. ‘My brother, when he’s not high, is a good father. He’s doing everything he can to straighten himself out so he can care properly for his son. My parents have made this move knowing full well that neither Yanis nor Katerina are in a position to fight it, so I must fight on their behalf.’

‘But...’

‘Elizabeth, I will not allow my parents to take custody of him. I wouldn’t allow it even on a temporary basis.’

‘Where’s Loukas now?’

‘At my home. I have a court order granting me temporary custody for two more weeks and then there will be another hearing. Now they know they’re fighting me, my parents will go for the jugular. They will paint me as an unfit guardian too.’

‘Why?’

‘To stop me from winning. This scandal couldn’t have come at a worse time. It’s painting me as someone debauched and without any morals. The only way I’ll be able to convince the court to let me keep guardianship of Loukas and fight Yanis’s corner is if I can prove I have a stable home for him, and that’s why I need us to rekindle our marriage. Having you as my wife will prove I’m a stable influence and kill my parents’ plans.’

‘It’s that simple?’

‘Sure.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘My country is still inherently conservative with a bias towards female carers. With you as my wife, they will see two people able to care for Loukas until his parents are well enough to take him back. If my parents get custody, they will never give him back.’

Her eyes clouded. ‘Are they really likely to do that?’

‘Without doubt. My family has been at war for years and my parents think they finally have a chance of winning a battle.’

Elizabeth removed her shades from the top of her head and folded the bows, her eyes distant, not looking at him, clearly weighing up everything he’d just shared.

‘It really is quite simple,’ he said. ‘You and I announce our marriage to the world and stay together long enough for Yanis to get straight. With any luck, Katerina will make the road to recovery too.’

‘And what if Yanis gets straight but then relapses?’ she challenged. ‘Will I be expected to act as your wife again?’

He shook his head. ‘As soon as he’s released from his facility, I’ll get the steps put in place that I am to be Loukas’s legal guardian in the absence of his parents. You and I will stay married until this has been done. Yanis will agree. If we’d known our parents would take this action we would have done it before but neither of us imagined even they would stoop so low. They hardly know Loukas.’

They should have imagined it, Xander thought grimly. His parents were a law unto themselves. They treated family life as they treated business: as a sport in which there could only be one winner.

‘As I said, it’s a simple matter of us rekindling our marriage. I appreciate it’s asking a lot of you...’

‘A lot?’ she exclaimed, blinking furiously. ‘My business will be finished. Everything I’ve worked for...gone. It works on discretion, remember? And what about the rest of my life?’

‘What life, Elizabeth? All you do is work.’

At the darkening of her features, he figured he might as well get everything out in the open and deal with it all in one go. ‘I had you investigated. There’s no significant other in your life. You have some friends you socialise with occasionally and you take yoga classes when time allows, but there is nothing else. So tell me, what will you be giving up to help me?’

Now her face was ablaze with outraged colour. ‘You went digging into my life? Well, that explains how you discovered Leviathan Solutions.’

He was unrepentant. ‘I learned about your business when searching for our annulment. I had a deeper search made to be sure you had nothing in your past that could be used to paint you as an unsuitable guardian for Loukas.’

As it was, his investigations hadn’t revealed anything. If she had skeletons in her closet, they were tucked too far out of reach for discovery. If she’d dated anyone unsavoury, that was hidden away too. Indeed, he hadn’t found evidence of a link with anyone, not even a fling, never mind anything approaching a committed relationship. Whatever relationships she’d had in the past decade, they’d been conducted discreetly and that was all that mattered.

‘I don’t care what excuses you make, that’s a gross invasion of my privacy,’ she raged. ‘It’s inexcusable.’

‘If you were in my position you would have done the same.’

‘If I were in your position I wouldn’t need to—your private life is splattered on the front page of every red top for the whole world to see.’

‘I can assure you the vast majority of it is highly exaggerated, the rest of it lies,’ he said icily.

‘Of course it is.’ Her sarcasm was delivered with extra bitterness.

His temper rising, Xander finished his coffee and carefully set the cup on the table before pointing to the beach. ‘Do you see the man with the camera round his neck?’

She followed his gaze.

‘That man is a paparazzo, tipped off by my assistant that we’re here.’

Her face contorted into such anger she looked ready to explode.

‘He has your name. He knows about Leviathan Solutions and the service you provide. He knows we’re married. What the story that accompanies his pictures tells is for you to decide.’

Elizabeth listened to Xander’s words and knew her world was crumbling around her.

He’d set her up.

Whatever happened between them, pictures of one of the Casanovas from the Celebrity Spy! scandal pictured in a Caribbean paradise with a woman purported to be his wife would beam around the world. It would be headline news.

‘I can’t believe you would do this.’ She was so angry she could hardly breathe. ‘You say your parents have stooped low...you are exactly like them.’

He was unrepentant. ‘I regret I’ve had to take these steps but everything I’m doing is for my nephew. If you say no to my proposal I have nothing left to play. I have nothing left to lose. My reputation can’t be damaged any more than it already has been. Say yes and you’ll be financially set for life. Thirty million dollars for you, and I’ll pay off your staff too.’

Elizabeth listened with the feeling of talons being dragged over her skin and her head swimming in cold sludge.

Her business was finished. Her life—everything she’d built for herself—was over.

Once the world learned she was married to this Casanova and her face graced the front pages of all the glossies and all the major Internet search engines, no one would be able to risk using her discreet services any more.

As if on cue, the photographer put the camera to his eye and fired off a ream of shots of them.

She took a long breath and rose from the table, pulling herself to her full height. ‘I would have agreed to do it without the threats and blackmail.’

‘I couldn’t take the risk you would say no. I haven’t seen you in ten years. For all I knew you were holding a grudge against me. I had to consider if you’d deliberately withheld the failure of our annulment as a weapon to use against me when a time came that suited you.’

‘What? How could you think such a thing?’ She shook her head, trying to comprehend it. Ten years ago she’d laid herself bare to him, in all senses, and he thought her capable of something like that?

‘Manipulation is a common thing in my world. I can count the number of people I trust on two fingers.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly mastered the art of manipulation yourself,’ she said bitterly. Where was the man she’d married? That man had been nothing like this.

A pulse throbbed in his jaw. ‘I am trying to protect my nephew.’

‘When adults go to war it’s always the child who suffers the most.’ She knew that better than anyone. ‘I would never stand by and let it happen if there was something I could do about it. You didn’t need to go to such grotesque lengths for my help. You didn’t need to make me hate you more than I already do.’

‘I’m sure the thirty million I’m offering will sweeten the pill.’

‘No amount of money will recompense for the loss of my business and the invasion of my privacy.’

‘You want more money?’

She caught the sneer on his lips, which only fuelled her fury further. ‘Don’t try and make me out to be a money-grabber,’ she snapped. ‘If you hadn’t given Celebrity Spy! so much gossip to shout about, you wouldn’t be in this mess and you wouldn’t need me to get you out of it—your moral fibre wouldn’t even be a matter of discussion. Your parents wouldn’t be able to paint you as an unfit guardian.’

Another flash of anger resonated from his eyes but his lips formed into a taut smile. ‘Your opinion of my character means nothing to me. All I want is your agreement. Do I have it?’

‘I don’t have any damn choice.’

‘I’m pleased you can see that.’

‘But let’s get one thing straight. Our marriage will be as short as possible and strictly platonic.’

The pulse in his jawline throbbed harder. ‘Married couples in my family share adjoining rooms. It’s an arrangement that will suit us.’

‘Good. And any adjoining door will have a lock.’

‘Yes.’ His eyes glinted through the darkness, impossible to read. He got to his feet and pulled some notes from his wallet. ‘It’s time to go—we have a hotel to check into.’

‘We?’

‘Yes, kardia mou,’ he said with a mocking smile. ‘We are setting the seeds for the rekindling of our marriage. We have been pictured dining together. That photographer has been given the name of our hotel. I guarantee you he has a scooter in easy reach for him to rush there and meet us. Come the morning, the world will know we have spent the night together. All that will be left for us to do is make a statement, which I have already prepared.’

‘My God, you’ve planned everything.’

‘You don’t get to my position without forward thinking.’

‘Really? I could have sworn you’d got to your position through a fate of birth.’

It gave fleeting satisfaction to see his face darken at that comment.

‘But really, Xander, is this necessary? Do you really think your parents are going to be fooled by us getting back together when they didn’t even know I existed? Don’t you think they’ll find it convenient?’

When he replied his voice was tightly controlled. ‘It’s not my parents we need to convince, it’s the judge, and, unless you want to forfeit the money, I suggest you make it very convincing.’

* * *

‘You have got to be kidding me.’ Elizabeth’s voice was flat but her amber eyes blasted incredulity and fury right at him.

Xander brought the car to a stop at the front of La Maison Blanc Hotel. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘Why here?’

‘Because it’s fitting. This is where we married and now it’s where we’re rekindling our marriage.’

‘And to hell with my feelings, eh?’ She shook her head with loathing. ‘Just when I didn’t think it was possible to hate you more...’

‘Hate me as much as you want in private, but in public...’ He nodded at the scooter that had come to a screech at the hotel’s entrance.

She sucked in her cheeks and contemplated the photographer, whose camera was still around his neck. ‘This is pointless. No one’s going to believe we’re for real, especially not a judge. I hate you. And you never even mentioned me to your family or...’

‘I never mentioned you to anyone because the topic was too painful,’ he cut in smoothly. ‘We never wanted to part but we were too young at the time and we knew it would never work. You called me when the scandal first erupted to offer your support. My world was falling apart around me and you were there for me.’

He stretched out a hand to touch her face. The soft, almost translucent skin still felt like satin to his touch. Before she could flinch away he wound his fingers round the back of her head and gathered a large mass of her thick hair into his fist. He wondered what had happened to her curls. He’d adored the shaggy mop of hair she’d sported a decade ago.

‘It was in the course of one of our discussions that we realised our annulment had never gone through and we were still married.’ He leaned closer and studied the soft kissable lips that were pressed tightly together sucking in the rounded cheekbones.

Did those lips still taste the same? Would they still fit to his as if they’d been moulded specially?

She’d stopped breathing. Her eyes had widened, her face a frozen mask.

Still gazing at her mouth, resisting the urge to run a finger over it, he continued, ‘It was also through the course of our talks on the phone that I remembered how special you were to me and all my old feelings for you came back. I convinced you to meet me here because I wanted to see if the old magic was still alive. We realised how much we still loved each other and decided that we’d both matured enough to make our marriage work.’

He released his hold on her hair and let his fingers drift down the slender neck he had once kissed every part of, and felt the tiniest of shivers under his fingers.

Her eyes were wide and stark on his.

A long-forgotten memory sluiced him; their first time together, her dreamy pleasure, her soft moans...

The flash of the photographer’s camera cut through the moment and pulled him back to the present.

He removed his hand from her neck.

Elizabeth might have an allure that sang to his senses but this was one relationship he had no intention of taking to the bedroom. Things were going to be difficult enough between them without throwing sex into the mix.

It gave him no pleasure to threaten and blackmail her but he couldn’t afford to give her a way out. Loukas was all he cared about and he would do whatever it took to keep his nephew out of his parents’ clutches, even if it meant destroying the woman he had once thought himself in love with.