‘No and no.’ Ellie sighed. ‘I’ve been avoiding the phone. And it’s not just the reporters...it’s everyone at work. I...’ Tears welled up and she hurriedly looked away, stared at her hands on her lap and breathed in deeply. ‘It’s pretty awful,’ she whispered.
* * *
Guilt rammed into him with the force of a runaway train. The look on her face...
He’d got on that plane without any internal debate. He’d read what had been unleashed in the gossip columns on the opposite side of the Atlantic and not getting on a plane and heading back hadn’t been an option. Not when he’d been furious with his ex and even more furious with himself for putting Ellie in the situation in which she had found herself. You made the mess and it was up to you to clear it up.
He raked his fingers through his hair now and had to force himself to remain seated when what he wanted to do was vault upright and stride restlessly through the tiny kitchen, unless he brought his mind back under control.
Naomi. Bloody Naomi. Nothing like a woman scorned. She had taken stock of the situation when she had descended unannounced at the hotel in Barbados. She had seen with her own eyes exactly what was happening, and she had reacted with a vengeance, returning to London and running to the newspapers as fast as she could.
And why? Because her ego had taken a battering and she had known the best way she could get her revenge. He was a commitment-phobe? Then why not dump him in his own worst nightmare, publicly engaged to be married to someone, she must have assumed, who would be the last woman on earth he’d be attracted to long term, given his well-publicised penchant for leggy beauties...
Now Ellie was here. He could see that she could barely keep herself together and he couldn’t blame her. So guarded, so incredibly private, and now thrust into the limelight in ways that she would find horrifying.
He thought of her returning to work, braving those first steps in and knowing that the gossip mill would have been working overtime, and he inwardly winced.
No point dwelling on it, he decided. A self-pity fest wasn’t going to get either of them anywhere.
‘A united front and point-blank denial from both of us will kill this rumour dead,’ he promised. ‘I could have contacted people I know in that field and put the record straight, but I had to find out what was going on over here. I also baulk at having to justify anything to anyone,’ he admitted. ‘I’m assuming you know who is behind this?’
Ellie nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
‘I don’t have to tell you that my ex has chosen to wage war on the wrong man.’ His face hardened. ‘She will find out that my influence extends much further than she could ever expect. I suggest we face the press together and laugh this whole thing off. It will be an easy enough job to put the blame where it rightfully belongs—on the shoulders of an ex with an axe to grind.’
‘It’s...it’s not as simple as that.’
James frowned. What could more complex?
‘Have your family...? Has it reached them over there?’
‘Izzy has a fondness for tabloids and all things gossip.’ He half smiled wryly. ‘She probably knew before the print on the paper had time to dry.’
‘And have you...told them anything? Have they been in touch?’
‘I thought it best to say nothing until I had spoken to you.’
This was why she had crossed that line, Ellie thought. It had nothing to do with how he looked, the reach of his wealth and influence or even the fact that he was far and away the most dynamic, intelligent, forward-thinking, downright fascinating person she had ever met.
It was because he was a decent guy.
She’d somehow managed to convince herself that the sort of man she would eventually go for would be a stereotype, as though decent guys all came wrapped up in the same packaging. But James Stowe, on the surface just the sort she couldn’t possibly fall for, ticked every single box when it came to being one of the good guys. And that, she knew now, was why sleeping with him had felt so right.
He might not love her, or even care about her the way she loved and cared about him, but he had still thought to consider her amidst all of this, to hear what she had to say.
‘My mother has been in touch with me,’ Ellie said flatly. ‘Several times.’ She sipped the wine and felt the rush of alcohol to her head.
He said nothing but his sudden stillness was telling, as was the way he was looking at her, eyes narrowed thoughtfully, head tilted to one side.
‘And?’ he prompted softly when she lapsed into awkward silence.
‘And she’s very excited.’
‘Ah...’
‘I never thought she indulged in gossip mags, but it seems that that’s her secret vice.’ Ellie smiled wanly. ‘It seems that it’s the secret vice of her entire book club.’ She sighed and looked at him steadily. ‘When she phoned me, I honestly had no idea she would have been phoning to tell me how pleased she was for me.’
‘Go on,’ he encouraged quietly.
‘It was the happiest I’d heard her sound in a long time. In fact, just before I flew over to Barbados, I was actually beginning to worry that she was going to give in to her depression again. It’s plagued her over the years and, although the doctor would never confirm in so many words, I think that her depression and all the associated stress had something to do with her strokes. She was pleased that I was going to Barbados... Maybe she doesn’t need me as she once did, but underneath it all I still worry that she could so easily slide back down that hill. She called...she called and she was so pleased for me.’
‘I see.’
Ellie didn’t have to read the expression on his face to know what was going through his head.
He’d banked on a swift explanation to the press, probably a couple of phone calls and a joint statement from them both, shrugging off the whole sorry saga.
Yes, Naomi had exaggerated everything wildly out of context, but a woman scorned, he would doubtless insinuate, would be capable of any number of things from slashing tyres to fabricating ruinous stories.
He rightfully assumed that, if you gave too much airtime to gossip, you breathed life into it.
But now...
Now, behind that carefully guarded expression, he would be livid and she felt terrible about that.
‘I’m afraid that if I laugh it all off my mum will be distraught, even if she did a job of hiding it, and I’m afraid for her health—both mentally and physically.’
‘And for good reason, from what you’ve told me.’
‘I’m very sorry about this,’ she said in as controlled a voice as she could muster. ‘I’ll have to... Of course, things will be sorted and the truth told...’
‘Well, not entirely the truth.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There may have been some colourful exaggeration as to the gravity of our relationship, but we were lovers.’
Ellie reddened. Heat coursed through her body, setting every nerve ending alight and rousing a vivid imagination she had spent the past couple of days trying to extinguish.
She squirmed, the breath catching in her throat, and once again she was helplessly aware of the thoughts leaving her head in a rush while her body kicked in with gusto.
‘Yes, well, I obviously won’t... I mean, that’s all over now, so there would be no point... The fact is that I wanted to go and see Mum so that I could explain everything face to face.’ She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘I know this must be just awful for you,’ she said quietly. ‘If you would wait just a bit before you say anything to the press, then I would be so grateful. Mum would be so confused if she were to be let down by reading another gaudy headline.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t bear to imagine what’s going through her head now. What must she think of me?’
‘Why would she think anything differently of you?’
‘She knows that this...this person who went off and had some fling with her boss on a tropical island isn’t the girl she brought up. If you knew my mother, you’d understand what I’m saying.’
She had never been a risk taker. She had been brought up in a loving and careful way. You could never have a guarantee when it came to matters of the heart, but with James there was only ever going to be one outcome. Sleeping with her boss had been like jumping from an aeroplane without a parachute. In a life where Ellie had had to deal with pain, she had foolishly courted yet more of it without meaning to, and now this horribly contorted situation had come down to this—a situation where it wasn’t just she who was affected.
James looked at that soft, vulnerable face, a face she had always been so careful to conceal, and something twisted painfully inside him.
She would suddenly have found herself besieged by slings and arrows on every front. He marvelled that, not only had she not jumped on the phone and demanded he sort things out, but she was here, clearly upset and yet still trying hard to put a brave face on it.
‘You could be wrong.’
‘I’m not. Trust me.’ She smiled wanly. ‘I was an only child. You wouldn’t believe how protective they were of me, both my parents. They worried all the time when I wasn’t around.’
‘You’re very lucky,’ James heard himself say, to his surprise. ‘My parents were largely noticeable by their absence. Perhaps not with Izzy. She got the best of them because she was so much younger, but certainly Max had no real idea who they were, and neither, to a large extent, did I.’
He shot her a crooked smile, slightly embarrassed at that confession, and even more astonished that he rather liked that she had been the recipient. ‘When you have all the money in the world, and the freedom to do whatever you want with it, without any parental control or discipline or interest, you’d be surprised how pointless it all seems.’ He paused. ‘Your mother has never met me. What she knows about me is what she’s read in those lurid gossip articles...’
‘I know. Again, I’m very sorry this isn’t going to be as straightforward as you’d probably predicted.’
He waved down her apology. ‘Stop telling me how sorry you are. You shouldn’t be. If you’re afraid that your mother will be disillusioned when she finds out what happened, then don’t you think it’s important that she meets me?’
‘Meets you?’ Ellie’s mouth dropped open. Meet James Stowe? She tried to picture her anxious, diminutive mother, thrust into the presence of this over-the-top dynamic guy with the sharp, restless brain and the ridiculous good looks, and she visibly shuddered. ‘Why would that help anything?’
‘Think about it,’ James murmured, one hundred percent of his attention focused on her. ‘If you tell her that it was all a complete fabrication, then chances are she’s not going to believe you. Even if she pretends to. You know what they say about no smoke without fire. Then she’ll wonder why you might be lying and, whatever conclusion she reaches, she’ll be disappointed.’
‘Yes, well...’ Ellie looked at him, a little flustered, because she had no great urge to give him a minute-by-minute rendition of what she intended to say to her mother, largely because the conversation was still a work in progress in her head.
‘If you tell her the truth...that you and I were lovers...then from what she will have read in the gutter press, from what Naomi has managed to convey, she will assume that you were taken advantage of by me. How do you think she will feel about that?’
He didn’t give her time to formulate an opinion on what he had just said, but seamlessly moved on. ‘She’ll either be heartbroken that her baby girl has let herself be seduced by a big, bad wolf, or else she’ll be worried that your taste in men might be heading in the wrong direction. Or both.’
‘I hadn’t actually got as far as considering what...’
‘You don’t want any unintentional stress being put on her shoulders, do you?’
‘Of course not!’ The wretched man had a point, and it wasn’t one she had considered. Her mother worried. Would she end up more worried after a frazzled explanation about what had actually happened? Disappointment that there would be no wedding bells after all was one thing. The fear that she, Ellie, might somehow have decided to abandon the moral code she had always lived by would be something altogether more difficult for her to deal with. Wouldn’t it?
‘Then here’s what I suggest.’
His voice was softly bewitching, lulling and mesmerising her. He’d finished his glass of wine and she realised she had too. She’d barely been aware of drinking it! Part of her knew that she should deal with her mother on her own, that any suggestion that her boss climb into the picture would just be an added layer of complication she could do without, and yet...
She was seduced by his voice, by the certainty he conveyed that somehow everything was going to be all right...that if he came along the business with her mother would be sorted to a far more satisfactory degree. It was in his nature to take charge and he was good at it, and right now she wanted someone to take charge. She had been going out of her mind ever since her private life had been splattered across the tabloids.
‘What’s that?’ She opened the door to whatever he was about to suggest.
‘We both go to see your mother. We can fill her in on what happened, and at least she’ll have a chance to see that I’m not the guy portrayed in those articles—the guy who messes around with women for his own enjoyment and was happy to do the same with you. We had a relationship, but it was consensual and enjoyable, and was our mutual choice to bring it to a close. Meeting me will take the drama out of the situation. And, when we’ve explained that to her, then we can see about filling in the rest of the world...’
CHAPTER EIGHT
WAITING BY THE window, peering out into the still grey light of a dull, rainy morning that hadn’t quite broken, because it wasn’t yet six, Ellie wondered how she had managed to be coaxed into this so easily.
But he had come through that front door behind which she had been hiding, he had taken control and she had been grateful.
She was also guiltily aware of feeling a sense of relief that someone else would be there when she broke the news to her mother that she wouldn’t, after all, be walking down the aisle, followed swiftly by a trip to the hospital to give birth to those long-awaited grandchildren.
Ellie had known that her mum wanted her to settle down. It was almost as if she didn’t think her job as a mother had been done well unless Ellie got married, had kids and lived happily ever after. Or at least, it would seem, had a bit of fun. Maybe that was part of the reason why she had been happy to see her go to Barbados. Maybe, when Ellie had had her back turned, worrying about her mother had changed into her mother worrying about her.
How was she to know that having fun would come at painful cost?
Did it make sense that James come with her? Overnight, she’d managed to justify it to herself. Yes, even though her mother would find out that any hat buying expeditions would have to be put on ice, at least she would see that the love affair had been a lovely time out, with neither one taking advantage of the other. She would see that there had been nothing sordid about it.
She wouldn’t see the pain because Ellie would keep that to herself. She would be relieved that her daughter was finding her feet and stretching her wings, getting ready to fly.
A mature, adult fling. She felt giddy when she thought about her mother finding out that her baby was capable of a meaningless fling, even if it was with a guy she might actually approve of—because when James laid on the charm he was as close to irresistible as any human being could get.
James showed up on time, his sleek, black low-slung Porsche pulling up outside her house just as daylight was tentatively beginning to make an appearance. She watched for a few spellbound seconds as he vaulted smoothly out of the car, dressed entirely in black, and bounded up to
her front door, which she pulled open before he could ring the doorbell.
‘You’re ready,’ he said appreciatively. ‘I wondered whether I’d get here to find you’d bolted your front door because you had a change of mind.’ He bent to sweep up the small overnight bag she had packed and looked at her quizzically. ‘Is this it?’
‘I keep clothes at Mum’s. I’m just taking a few essentials.’ They’d agreed that he would come for one night because the trip was too long to go there and back in a day. She would stay on for a week or more while he returned to work and doused the flames of curiosity that would be blazing on the office floor. By the time she was ready to return, he had assured her with breezy confidence, everything would be entirely back to normal.
She believed him. It was one more nightmare he’d promised to sort out and she was willing to put her faith in that promise. Having always considered herself to be built of very stern stuff, given all the responsibilities she had taken on her shoulders from such a young age, she was amazed at just how pliable she was when it came to leaning on someone else.
‘No nuisance calls overnight? No lurking men with cameras on the pavement this morning?’
They were walking towards his car and she slipped into the low, leather seat as he opened the boot of the car and slung in her bag.
‘Nothing.’ She felt a familiar tingle as he slid into the driver seat and briefly turned to look at her, one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other on his thigh.
In the barely there half-light his eyes glittered, boring straight into her. Since he’d descended on her, taking her by surprise, he had made no move whatsoever to touch her. In no way at all had he shown any interest in picking up where they had abruptly left off.
Yes, he had mentioned their relationship in passing, almost as an afterthought, and of course Ellie told herself that she was profoundly grateful for that closure.
The last thing she wanted was for him to put her in an impossible situation. No way under the sun would she welcome those sexy dark blue eyes on her, assessing, speculating, encouraging thoughts she knew were too close to the surface for her own good.
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