An Indecent Proposition, page 12
‘I’m not interested.’
Except he did not want her body. ‘How much for him?’
He told her they were childless, that they were on holiday from the mainland to get over their grief. He told her about the money and education they could give her beautiful boy, that they would move to the neighboring island of Lathira and would raise him as their own. She thought of Alexandros, who was still with that monster, and somehow she had to save him. She thought of the ouzo and the clients she would service tonight and all the terrible things she had done. Surely Nico deserved better.
He wailed in protest as the stranger’s wife lifted him. Just as he had those first awful nights when he had missed little Alexandros so badly. But he would settle, Roula told herself as finally she sat in the lawyer’s waiting
room and signed over one son in the hope of saving the other.
Nico would settle, Roula told herself again as the couple left with her baby. Soon Nico would forget.
She, on the other hand, would spend the rest of her life trying to.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘ZANDER …’
As soon as she had phone reception, she called Zander, though she should have called Nico first.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get there in time … I’m on my way now.’
‘Are you okay?’ She heard his immediate concern. ‘You sound as if you have been crying.’ Only in the taxi had she broken down, but she tried to disguise it from Zander, for surely it was not her place to weep about this to him.
‘I’m okay. I should be there in an hour.’
The reception was terrible and Zander commented on it. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in the hills.’
‘The hills? I thought you were meeting me.’
‘I’m in a taxi and I’m on my way. Nico asked me …’ She faltered, for the mention of Nico’s name seemed to light a flare. ‘I had something to do for Nico.’
‘Something so important that you leave me waiting. You have my signature already, which was what he wanted.’
She looked to her watch. It was long after eight and though she must tell Nico first, it was Zander she loved. ‘Nico had a lead on your mother that he asked me to follow up. Zander, I’ve found her. I’ve just come from speaking with your mother.’
And all she heard was the click of the phone and for a moment thought he had lost the signal, but when she rang again and he didn’t answer, when she tried once more and it just rang, she knew he was leaving, knew that in his eyes it had happened again—that she had chosen against him.
She must ring Nico, must remember where her duty lay. ‘I’ve found her,’ she said when Constantine answered the phone. Unlike Zander, Constantine immediately asked how Roula was. ‘She’s fragile,’ Charlotte said, and told her a little of the story, arranging to meet with them tomorrow, to explain better face to face. ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand, though …’ Charlotte frowned as she spoke with Constantine, for there was one thing she wanted to sort out before she spoke with Zander. ‘Roula had the money when she sold Nico so why didn’t she go back to the lawyer? Why didn’t she use the money to try and get to Zander?’
‘Because the lawyer kept upping his fees. Because the lawyer did not want to work for Roula and have her exposing all that he had done.’
‘How do you know that?’ Charlotte asked.
‘Because that lawyer was my father.’
There was pain all around, Charlotte realised. A pain that ran so deep, perhaps too deep for healing, but surely if Nico and Constantine could work through it, then she and Zander stood a chance. She spent the rest of the journey pleading with the driver to please go faster and flew out of the taxi before it had even come fully to a halt. Dashing into the foyer, she saw luxurious cases on the gold trolley and almost wept with relief that Zander was still there.
‘Zander, please …’ She ran up to him as he walked out to the waiting car. ‘I’m sorry but Nico—’
‘Nico?’ He hated that word and this time it showed. This time he spat it out. ‘Nico snaps his fingers and you run. You had plans with me and yet you drop them for him.’
‘I met your mum!’ Charlotte said. ‘I spoke with your mum. Don’t you even want to know how she is?’
‘No.’ It was that simple to Zander. ‘I care nothing for her. She is a poor excuse for you to use. I asked you to be there tonight, I was going to …’ And he could not say it, for he had been a fool to even think it, think for a moment that they could ever be.
‘Going to what?’ she pushed, because she wanted to know, wanted to believe that love might have been on offer tonight, wanted to remind him of all he was losing.
‘Give you this.’ He handed her a thick velvet box, but it came with no meaning, for even rubies and diamonds shone dull without love.
‘Just this?’ Charlotte said, which seemed strange when the necklace was worth a small mortgage, but she was sure, so sure there had been more to come.
‘What else were you expecting?’ He frowned. ‘Oh, and by the way, I’ve reconsidered the job offer.’
‘Job offer?’
‘We discussed you working for me?’ He twisted the knife. ‘I prefer someone a little more reliable—someone who does not dash off when we have plans. Still …’ he gave a tight shrug ‘… we have had some pleasant times.’ He glanced at the box. ‘Have it.’
‘For services rendered?’
‘Don’t be crass.’
‘That’s how you just made me feel.’ And there was nothing left to dream, for it had always been impossible. ‘I’d say no anyway.’ She looked at the stone of his face, at eyes that refused to warm, at the immutable man that was Zander. ‘Even if it was more than a job, even if it was more than your mistress, no matter what you were going to offer, I’d still say no.’
Was that a smirk on his face, yes, it was, and it incensed her.
‘I would say no.’
‘Liar.’ It was the closest he would come to admitting that the night could have been very different, that had she not chosen Nico, he would have offered it all.
‘Of course I would. You’ve got a mother who loves you. You don’t know what happened, you don’t know what she went through …’
‘She’s had thirty years to come up with her excuses. Whatever she told you—’
‘It’s nothing to do with what your mother told me,’ Charlotte interrupted. ‘It’s to do with you, Zander.
You’ve got a whole family waiting, a whole parade of people who want to get to know you, and all you choose is pain. I would say no to whatever you offer, for it would be like living with my mother—and I’ve done my time with bitter.’ And then she looked straight at him. ‘It would be worse, in fact. My mother has genuinely forgotten her past, whereas you choose not to know. Your brother is grieving tonight but your black heart cares nothing for that.’
‘Nico has what he wants from me—he has the land. Tell him I am selling Xanos. Run to your boss with that bit of information and see if he pays you a bonus for giving him the heads up.’
‘It isn’t Xanos Nico wants!’ Charlotte said pleadingly. ‘Can’t you see that when you hurt Nico, you hurt me?’ Her words came out wrong, her thoughts too jumbled, but she didn’t attempt to explain. ‘I know what I want, so thank you for helping me see it. I know what I want now.’ She held out the box but he did not take it. Neither did he ask her to explain what it was she wanted, but she told him. She looked at him, and he did not flinch as she said it, but she watched his face turn grey, watched his jaw clench just a fraction.
‘I want what your brother’s got.’
She moved her lips closer to his ear and could have sworn she heard the thud of his black heart as she spoke on. ‘I want everything your brother has—a home, babies, love, acceptance and forgiveness, all the things that you can never give.’ How cruelly she taunted him, but better that than not say it, better that than he never see. ‘I want what Nico has.’
‘Well, you’ve made the right choice,’ Zander responded, ‘because you’ll never get it from me.’
He climbed into a car that would take him the short distance to the jetty, and she stood watching the seaplane lift into the sky and it hurt, for she wanted to be on it, wanted so badly to be with him, but not this way, never this way. She walked the streets of Xanos that night and wandered down to the beach. How she longed to ring him, but knew she must not.
She felt rain start to fall, winter rain that came from the north and was cold and driving, but as she sat on the beach and shivered, it did not feel like rain. Zander had left, signed over the land, walked out, not just on her but the truth, and it felt as if right now, this minute, he was washing his hands of Xanos.
Cleansing himself of her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HE TRIED.
Every part of him tried to remove Xanos from his heart. For the first time he ordered his team to respond to the expressions of interest in the hotel, the land, the entire development. He wanted it sold, he simply wanted it gone.
Zander wasn’t baiting Nico, but it came as no surprise that Nico was a serious bidder. There were few who could afford it, fewer still who had a heart in the place, and of course his brother wanted it.
Nico wanted something else too, something Zander could never give.
‘No.’ Zander’s response to his legal team was instant, for it was all done through them, there had been no conversations between the brothers. ‘I’m not interested in a partnership.’ He moved to the window, stared out to what was surely the most beautiful harbour in the world, to glimpses of beaches that should, after all this time, feel like home, so why was his heart in Xanos? ‘He can buy it all or nothing.’
Why did it hurt as his lawyers made calls, as he shed a painful past and moved towards his future? Why did it hurt to listen to his lawyer inform Nico’s team they would be looking at all offers and get back to them soon.
‘She wants to know how soon is soon.’ The lawyer put the phone on mute. ‘Apparently, Nico Eliades does not want to be kept waiting for your decision as he has been in the past. He has another development he is keen on and will be retracting his offer at the end of the week.’
‘Tell Paulo—’
‘It’s not his lawyer on the line, it’s his PA, with a direct message from Eliades.’
It was Nico baiting him this time, Zander realised, for Charlotte was the only thing that had bound them. Were it not for her, he might not even have bothered going to Xanos to confront his brother. It had been the lure of her voice that had changed his plans, had made him go to the island he hated. It had been Charlotte who’d had him stay on those extra days and Nico knew it.
‘Tell her …’ Zander said, but his voice trailed off, because it was late afternoon in Australia and early morning in London, and he wanted her voice and the image of her in bed; he wanted to go back to what they’d had before. Which was impossible of course, and it was impossible too to move forward, for he did not have a heart to give—except it seemed to be beating just now, pounding in his chest and demanding the sound of her voice to soothe it. And there beneath his heart, his soul also demanded, but he shut it down with bile, would not give in to Nico, would not let him use Charlotte as his pawn. ‘Give me the phone,’ Zander said, but did not ask for privacy, for there were few words to be said. ‘My staff will get back to you when I tell them to. Tell your boss that, tell him too that he is the one using you, but I don’t care who calls, I don’t care—’
‘I’ll pass it on.’ The clipped words halted him, the sound of a woman’s voice, but not hers.
‘I thought I was speaking with Eliades’s PA.’
‘You are.’
He did ask for privacy then, flicked his staff out of his office with a brief wave of his hand, before resuming the conversation. ‘I usually deal with Charlotte.’
‘Ms Edwards is no longer working for Mr Eliades.’
‘Since?’
‘I’ll pass on your message to Mr Eliades.’ Nico’s incredibly efficient new PA was not going to waste a moment of her boss’s valuable time discussing her predecessor.
It was she who rang off and Zander stood there as he lost that last link to Charlotte. She was away from Nico. It should bring relief.
But relief was absent.
He had looked forward to their calls far more than he should.
He gazed out at the richest view in Australia, felt a chill in his skin beneath his luxurious suit, for he had everything, yet he had nothing.
When you hurt Nico, you hurt me.
It was as if she were in the room with him.
He picked up the phone and rang what had once been Charlotte’s number and, of course, Nico’s new PA answered. He knew there was only one way to find out about her. ‘Can you arrange a meeting for me?’ He would do it only for Charlotte. ‘With my brother.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘WHY would you want a partnership?’
Zander had been surprised at the choice of venue, sure they would sit in a meeting room at Ravels or perhaps in an office in Athens, but instead Nico had asked him to come to his home. Zander could taste bile as he walked through the stone arch and up the steps of what had once been his grandfather’s house. He had accepted the cool greeting of Nico’s wife and now sat, grateful for the drink she offered him, as he asked his brother a question that burned.
‘Is that not what brothers do?’ Nico answered. ‘I do not like the plans you have for the remaining part of the island, but I cannot deny what you have achieved so far—’
‘At the expense of the people.’
‘You have sorted that,’ Nico said. ‘You have repaid them. There are locals now working at the hotel, in the shops and bars. Xanos is a happier place now. Why would you want to walk away from it, from all you have achieved?’
‘Because …’ Zander said, but did not qualify it, did not tell Nico that achieving prosperity for Xanos had never been his intention. He had wanted it gone, to change the landscape he so hated, as if somehow he could erase the past. But he did not share his thoughts with others, did not confide, well, not usually. He had with Charlotte, but he chose not to go there yet. He wanted to know if Nico had fired her, wanted to know if she was doing okay, and if sitting here meant he found out, he’d do it.
‘I am not going to play games. Your offer is fair and I accept it. I will have my staff move things along.’ He glanced up at the wall behind Nico, to a picture that looked like a jigsaw, and saw that it was the garden he had just walked through. He could see two babies sitting in the grass and he tore his eyes away, would not ask if it was Nicos himself, would not stand and walk over to examine it more closely, he just would not be drawn in. He wanted Xanos gone, wanted distance, he was here for one thing only. ‘I will speak with your PA …’ He tried to do it casually, tried to change the subject naturally. ‘I note that Charlotte is no longer working for you.’
‘That’s right.’ His brother was far too like him, Zander realized, for he gave nothing away uninvited.
‘Did you fire her?’
‘My staff are not your concern.’
‘I am not asking after your staff.’ He felt ridiculously uncomfortable, would have liked to loosen his tie, but refused to. ‘I am asking after Charlotte.’
‘Her personal situation is not for me to discuss.’
‘Is she okay?’
‘Perhaps you should ask her.’
‘I would, had I her number. I assume it was a work phone?’
‘I’ll ring her,’ Nico offered, ‘ask if she is okay with me giving her number to you.’
‘Please, don’t.’ Zander stood. ‘I just want to know that everything is okay. I don’t want to make contact …’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ Zander said, and again did not qualify, for how could he confide, how could he say what he was feeling, and who on God’s earth would understand?
‘Why would you not want to speak with her?’
‘Because it was just …’ He couldn’t even say it, could not relegate it to a one-night stand, so instead he sat in silence and the discomfort became unbearable. There was no relief to be had when Nico changed the subject.
‘I spoke with our mother …’
‘Good for you,’ Zander said, and now he wanted out, he wanted to be gone.
‘She had her reasons …’
‘She’s had many years to get her story straight.’ Zander’s heart was black and he knew it, far, far too black for the light that was Charlotte. A lifetime of hate must have burnt a hole in his soul and he would not taint her. ‘I wish you well.’ He went to shake his brother’s hand and changed his mind. He could hardly stand to look at him, could hardly stand the sight of him, for it felt as if he were looking at himself—a better self, Zander realised, for again it was his brother who had everything, everything he wanted.
He could hear Constantine in the kitchen, could feel the love that filled the home, everything that must be denied him.
‘Do you not want to see your nephew?’ Nico asked.
He did not want to see him, did not want to fuss and admire a baby, did not want to see more of what he could never have, but Nico would have none of it. Nico walked along a hallway, clearly expecting Zander to follow him.
He would glance in and then leave, Zander decided.
Perhaps admire the babe and then ask once more after Charlotte, for he so badly needed to know that she was okay.
It was for her that he walked the corridor, for her he walked to the crib but for himself he stood there.
And he must have a soul, for right there beneath his heart it wanted to howl. Right there beneath his heart it seemed to shatter and destabilize the knees beneath it. He stared at the babe, his little nose pushed up by fingers, his eyes opening to find out what the noise was. And the baby did not know the man he was gazing at was not his father. All he saw were familiar black eyes and he smiled as if it was a face that comforted, smiled as if it was he, Zander, who soothed him. Then he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
