Читать книгу The Greek Bachelors Collection - Rebecca Winters - Страница 20

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IT WAS NOT a successful honeymoon.

Yes, Lucca was completely gorgeous, and, with her brand-new sun hat crammed down over her hair, Ellie accompanied Alek to every iconic destination the beautiful city had to offer. She saw the tower with the trees growing from the top and drank cappuccino in the famous oval piazza. They visited so many churches that she lost count, and ate their meals in leafy squares and hidden courtyards. There were marble statues in beautiful gardens, where roses grew beside lemon trees. And when the sun became too fierce there were shady streets to walk down, with the rich smell of leather purses and handbags wafting out from the tiny shops which lined them.

But a new froideur had settled over Alek. It didn’t seem to matter that her first instincts on meeting him had been correct—and that on some level they were kindred spirits. They’d both known pretty awful childhoods but had just chosen to deal with them in different ways. And yes, she’d managed at last to extract the truth about his past. She now knew him better...but at what price? It hadn’t made them closer, or brought them together in some magical kind of way.

It was as if the confidences she’d forced him to share had ruptured the tentative truce which had existed between them. As if he’d closed right down and shut her out—only this time she sensed there was no going back. No chink of light coming from behind the steely door he had retreated behind. The anger had gone and in its place was a consideration and cool courtesy which made him seem even further away. He spoke to her as if he were her doctor. Was she too hot? Too tired? A little hungry, perhaps? And she would assure him that she felt absolutely fine, because what was the alternative?

But she didn’t feel fine. She felt headachey and out of sorts—with a kind of heaviness which seemed to have entered her limbs and which she put down to the new tension which had sprung up between them. She understood now why he was emotionally distant, but she still didn’t know how to solve it.

Vasos called several times from London but instead of saying something like, sorry, but I’m on my honeymoon—Alek took every call and spent as much time as possible on it. Or so it seemed to Ellie. She would be left sitting on the terrace, her book stuck on the same page while he spoke in a torrent of Greek she couldn’t understand.

She stared at the unread pages of her novel. Had she thought this was going to be easy? Had she been naive enough to think that extracting information about his painful childhood might make him warm and open towards her? If she’d known that the opposite would be true, she might have thought twice before quizzing him about the mother who had deserted him. She slammed the book shut. No wonder he was so closed off. So lacklustre about their baby.

Feeling queasy, she glanced up to see him standing framed by the miniature orange trees which grew on their leafy terrace and frowning as he slid his cell phone back into his pocket.

‘That was Vasos,’ he said.

‘Again?’

‘The new deal on the Rafael building seems to be nearing completion earlier than planned and the architect is flying into London later this evening.’

‘And let me guess.’ Her voice was light. ‘You need to get back?’

‘I’m afraid I do. My business in Pisa will have to wait.’ His frown deepened as he seemed to look at her properly for the first time. ‘You’re sweating, Ellie. Are you okay?’

No, she was not okay. She felt hot and dizzy and disillusioned. Maybe it was time to stop grabbing at rainbows and settle for reality.

‘I’m fine,’ she said tightly. ‘I’d better go and pack.’

Something dark and unwanted rose up inside him as Alek watched her go, her shoulders tight with tension. Something which clutched at his heart and made it twist with pain. Damn her, he thought. Why hadn’t he slapped her down? Why hadn’t he refused to answer all those intrusive questions which had done nothing but open up a dark can of worms?

And yet now that he had pushed her away, the sense of relief he’d been anticipating hadn’t happened. They’d been doing that thing of sleeping on opposite sides of the bed—their breathing sounding unnaturally loud in the darkness of the night—each knowing the other was awake and yet not speaking. Because they had nothing left to say.

Was it some cruel twist of fate which had left him feeling so lost without the softness of her arms around him? A taunting reminder of just how empty and alone rejection could make you feel. And yet wasn’t it better this way? For him to do the rejecting rather than risk being pushed away for a second time?

When she returned from packing, he thought her face looked almost translucent beneath the brim of her straw hat, which she had worn during most of the trip. The Italian sun had barely touched her skin and her grey eyes seemed shadowed, and even though he knew he ought to say something he could think of nothing which would fall easily into the empty silence. She was quiet all during the journey back to London and the moment their plane touched down and he turned on his phone, it began to vibrate with a flurry of calls. And deep down, wasn’t he glad to have the opportunity to lose himself in the infinitely more straightforward problems of work? Far better than having to confront the silent reproach or the lip she kept biting as if she was trying to hold back tears. He had the car drop her off at the apartment while he went straight to the office.

‘You don’t mind?’ he questioned.

She gave an unconvincing laugh, as if she recognised the question for what it was—a meaningless platitude. ‘And if I do? Would you be prepared to put your precious work aside and spend the afternoon with me, if I asked you to?’

‘Ellie—’

‘I’ll take that as a no,’ she said with another brittle smile. ‘Anyway, I want to have a lie-down. I’m tired.’

After he’d gone she closed the bedroom curtains and, switching her phone to Silent, left it in her handbag on the far side of the room. But she could hear it vibrating like a persistent fly as she lay on the bed drifting in and out of an uncomfortable doze—too lazy to get up and switch it off completely.

By five o’clock she forced herself to get up and saw there were three missed calls from a number she didn’t recognise. Muzzily, she took a shower but her mood was still flat as she pulled on a pair of linen trousers and a T-shirt. She was drinking a glass of water when the doorbell rang.

Touching her fingertips to her belly, she went to answer the door to find a blonde woman standing on the step—someone she didn’t recognise but who looked oddly familiar.

‘Can I help you?’ questioned Ellie.

‘You don’t remember me?’

Ellie shook her head. ‘Should I?’

‘Probably. I knew you before you were married. I was staying at The Hog when you were working there. Remember now?’

And suddenly the mist cleared. Of course. It was the journalist. The sneaky blonde who had asked those questions which Ellie had stupidly answered, and which had ended up with her getting the sack. She looked into the woman’s glacial eyes.

‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ said Ellie.

‘Maybe not. But you might be interested in what I have to say to you.’

‘I don’t think so.’ She started to close the door. ‘My husband doesn’t like journalists and neither do I.’

‘Does your husband realise he has a brother?’

Sweat broke out on her forehead as Ellie leant against the door. She thought about what Alek had told her about his childhood. And amid all the pain and the heartbreak of his upbringing, he hadn’t mentioned his father having any more children. But maybe his mother had gone on to have more children. If he’d never met her, he wouldn’t actually know, would he? ‘You’re lying,’ she croaked.

‘Why would I lie? Actually, he has a twin brother. Yeah, I thought you’d be interested.’

Yes, she was interested but that didn’t stop Ellie from shaking her head, because the dramatic words seemed to make no sense. ‘But if what you say is true, how come you know and he doesn’t?’

The woman shrugged. ‘His brother asked me to track him down and speak to him. He wanted to know whether Alek would be receptive to a meeting. The first part wasn’t difficult but the second part was, because I could never get close enough to ask him. Men like Alek Sarantos are never easy to get close to. He doesn’t do interviews and he’s not the kind of man who drinks alone in bars, so trying to pick him up was never going to work. And as you say, he doesn’t like journalists.’

‘Are you surprised?’

‘Nothing surprises me any more,’ said the woman cynically. ‘That’s why I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw him with you that night. A waitress who was way out of his league and you were making out like two teenagers at a school disco! I thought I had the perfect opportunity to smoke him out, and I was right.’

‘Smoke him out?’ echoed Ellie in horror.

‘Sure. Put a woman into a man’s life and immediately you’ve got another way in.’

‘You’re disgusting.’

‘No, honey. I’m just doing my job.’ The journalist leant forward and tucked a business card into Ellie’s free hand. ‘Why don’t you tell him to call me?’

After she’d gone, Ellie shut the door, leaning back against it and trying very hard to steady her breathing.

A brother.

A twin brother.

How could that be? Did Alek know about this explosive fact and was this just one more thing he had deliberately omitted to tell her? She felt so spaced out that she couldn’t seem to take it in. Had the journalist being doing what journalists did so well...inventing a story to try to get some sort of reaction? Her heart was pounding and a weird kind of pain was spearing through her and she wasn’t sure how long she stood there, only that she couldn’t stay there. She couldn’t let Alek come home from work and find her slumped there like a zombie.

She forced herself to dress, but the silky tea dress seemed only to mock her. She remembered the day she’d gone shopping, when she’d felt so proud of herself. So stupidly proud. As if managing to run up a massive bill on a man’s credit card all by herself was some sort of mega achievement. She remembered how easy she’d found it to spend his money. For all her feisty words, was she really any different from the other women who adored his wealth? He hated gold-diggers. He seemed to hate women in general and now she could understand why.

Never had that famous saying seemed more appropriate.

Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.

Wasn’t that just the truth?

Alek had spent the first years of his life deserted by his mother and left alone with a cruel father. Was it any wonder that he’d locked his emotions away and thrown away the key?

She got more and more nervy as time wore on but when eventually Alek arrived home and walked into the sitting room, she thought how weary he looked. She’d been intending to break it to him gently but maybe something in her expression alerted him, because he frowned the minute he saw her.

‘What’s wrong?’

She’d been racking her brain to come up with the right way of telling him, but maybe there was no right way. There were only facts. She couldn’t protect him from what she was about to tell him, no matter how much she wanted to.

‘You remember that journalist who wrote the diary piece about us?’

He tensed. ‘I’m not likely to forget her.’

‘Well, she was here today.’

He scowled. ‘How the hell did she find out where I lived?’

‘I don’t think that’s really the issue here.’

‘No?’ His mouth twisted. ‘Well, my privacy is an issue, something which I thought you might have realised by now. What did you tell her this time?’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Did you give her a blow-by-blow account of your husband’s tragic childhood?’

‘I would never—’

‘Or maybe you thought you’d announce the baby news.’ His words cut over hers. ‘Even though we agreed not to say anything before the twelve weeks is up?’

‘Actually, she was the one with the news.’ She hesitated and then drew a deep breath. ‘She told me that you’ve got a brother.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Actually, a twin brother.’ She licked her lips. ‘You didn’t know?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said coldly.

‘He asked her to contact you, to see if you’d be receptive to a meeting.’

‘I do not have a brother!’ he thundered.

‘Alek...’ But her words were forgotten as her body was racked by the most piercing pain Ellie had ever felt. Hot knives were chasing through her belly and stabbing deeper and deeper. All the strength was draining from her legs. Shakily, she reached out to grab the edge of the window seat as Alek strode across the room, his face criss-crossed with concern as he caught hold of her.

But she didn’t want his concern. She just wanted something to stop the pain. Not just the one in her belly—but the one in her heart.

‘Go away!’ she mumbled, lashing out at him ineffectively—but she could see something else in his eyes now. Something which scared her. Why was he looking like that? And why had his face gone so white? Following the direction of his gaze, she saw the shocking scarlet contrast of blood as it began to drip onto the polished gleam of the wooden floorboards.

And that must have been when she passed out.