Читать книгу Rising Stars Collection 2015 - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 13

SHE lay curled up and wounded on the bed, too mortified to go out, dreading Nico’s wrath, but far more than that she was beyond hurt by what Zander had done.

The contempt, the disregard, how he had used her.

A knock at the door a short while later did not see Charlotte moving. She did not care who it might be: Nico to fire her or Zander, for what?

An apology wasn’t going to fix this.

Instead, when the knock came again, she closed her eyes at the sound of a woman’s voice.

‘Charlotte, it’s me—Constantine.’

She could not be rude to Nico’s wife. She had met her a few times and Constantine had always been nice. Beyond ashamed, Charlotte opened the door, and burst into tears when the other woman wrapped her arms around her.

‘Nico told me what happened.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Charlotte wept. ‘I’m so ashamed …’

‘For what?’

‘For what I did.’ Everything that had been so beautiful had been turned around and it all seemed sullied and sordid now. ‘I thought … I never thought he hated Nico. It was not about being disloyal.’

‘Charlotte.’ Constantine was kind. ‘What happened between you and Zander is not Nico’s business, or mine.’

‘It has become that though,’ Charlotte wept. ‘I really thought …’ But she could not divulge her dreams because they seemed so pathetic now, that with one look, with one kiss, he had whisked her away, had let her glimpse a world she did not know and now wished she never had.

‘Is Nico going to fire me?’

‘He wants to speak with you, he wants to know what was said, what Zander revealed. I doubt he could fire you for sleeping with someone.’ Constantine gave a wry smile. ‘My husband is many things, but he is never a hypocrite. He is cross,’ she admitted, ‘furious, but I think that is more aimed at his brother. As I pointed out to him when he told me what had happened, we were together the night we met—it was, in fact, my wedding night and Nico was not the groom …’ Charlotte blinked at the admission from Nico’s wife. ‘I know how devastating they can be, how irresistible Nico was to me. I am not here to judge you, I just want to know you are okay.’

‘I will be,’ Charlotte said, for she was certainly not okay now. She tried to scan her future for a time when this would not hurt so much, but Zander had changed it for ever. ‘If I had thought, for even a second, that he was not looking forward to meeting Nico … Why would he hate him? It’s not as if Nico was raised by his parents. Nico was the one that was sold …’

‘Roula, their mother, she was not stable …’ Constantine paused. Charlotte could see the other woman was uncomfortable discussing this, for though Charlotte had been privy to certain information, emotion had always been left out, only names and facts had been given by Nico. ‘Or that is what we have been told. She left the father and worked the streets … The Eliadeses desperately wanted a baby …’ Constantine screwed her eyes closed, and it was clear that she hated discussing this. ‘Alexandros, I mean Zander, was raised by his father. It would seem …’ Charlotte closed her eyes as Constantine spoke on and she recalled Zander telling her that his time in Xanos had not all been happy. ‘He was not a good man, he was a cruel man, in fact.’

‘If that was the case, why would she leave Zander with him?’

‘That is what we are trying to find out. There are so many questions, which is why we are searching for her. But Zander has run true to form, it would seem—like father, like son.’

Charlotte’s eyes opened at the rare bitterness in Constantine’s voice and though she was hurting, bleeding inside, even though she had nothing to base it on, something within her rose to defend him. ‘You can’t say that.’

‘Oh, but I can,’ Constantine flared. ‘He has done nothing to prove otherwise. Cruel seems a very good word to describe him to me. He has bought up the homes on the island for a pittance and now, till he is ready to bulldoze them, he rents them out for a small fortune, at least it is a fortune to the locals. He’s building a nightclub and there is talk of a casino, yet he does not give the locals the work. He wants my husband and son to leave Xanos, and will do anything to engineer it, even ruin the rest of the island just to get his way.’

‘It’s business,’ Charlotte attempted. ‘Maybe when he has calmed down … It must have been unnerving to finally meet his twin.’

‘He has no nerves to unnerve’ was Constantine’s swift response. Was that pity in her eyes as she looked at Charlotte? ‘How can you defend him after what he just did to you? If it is only in business that he is cruel, what does that make you?’

Her words were like a slap and Charlotte retracted as if hit.

‘I don’t want him to hurt you further, Charlotte, but he will if you let him.’

‘I won’t give him the opportunity.’ Of that she was sure, but still she knew her own mind, would not be silenced because it suited Constantine. ‘But you’re wrong, Constantine. If it comes down to like father like son, what does that make Nico?’

‘He was not raised by him.’

‘No, he was raised by a man who bought him, who lied even when confronted with the truth.’ This much at least Charlotte knew and she watched Constantine’s flushed, angry cheeks pale a little. ‘Zander is not all bad,’ Charlotte said. He couldn’t be. He simply could not be, for she remembered them walking on the beach. He was the only man to touch her soul. She remembered their day and she remembered his smile and the rare sound of his laughter. In a second, as she sat on the bed wounded with hurt, her heart forced recall, told her that despite evidence to the contrary, their time together, their day, their night had surely not all been contrived, had not all been a lie. Her heart told her so.

‘You need to be careful when dealing with him,’ Constantine warned.

‘I’m having no dealings with him,’ Charlotte replied, and then realised what Constantine was saying. ‘I still have a job?’ She thought of her mother, of all the balls she was juggling back home, and when Constantine hesitated, the surge of hope faded, but Constantine took her hands.

‘You have to do it, though. Nico needs you to stay here for a few days to go through his itinerary. He is heading back to the hospital soon to spend some time with his father, but though Zander has made things difficult, some things just can’t be put on hold. He wants to see you downstairs in the restaurant for a meeting. He wants to up the search for his mother and, no matter what, he wants that land.’

‘I can’t face Zander.’ Charlotte could not go out there—she simply could not go out there.

‘But face him you must.’ Constantine was resolute. It was her little family under attack from Zander after all and, as kind as she had been to Charlotte, on this there was no compromise. ‘You work for Nico—don’t forget that again.’