Caitlin did not bother to look up as the men entered the villa. She was busy painting her toenails with considerable difficulty. As her pregnancy bump stopped her from leaning forwards adequately, her attention was fully concentrated on getting each stroke of polish perfect.
“I think it’s time we stopped dancing around each other and laid our cards on the table,” Xander announced as he sat down on the sofa opposite her, glaring severely, after pouring a large measure of whisky into a glass tumbler. He placed it on the wooden coffee table in front of him.
Caitlin looked up at him nonchalantly, smiling her usual, fake sweet smile. “I didn’t realise we hadn’t been.”
The frustration of the last couple of days raged through him as he banged his clenched fist on the table, causing the amber liquid within the glass to slosh upwards with the force of the blow. “I said no more games, Caitlin.” His voice was thunderous and imposing, causing the woman to flinch; he had her full attention at last.
“Xander, I don’t appreciate you shouting at me. Think of our child!” she replied.
“The child is exactly what I’m thinking about. You know as well as I that there isn’t a hell’s chance it is mine.”
“Have you forgotten my visit to your tour bus in Sydney?” she asked, mockingly.
“You know you spent ninety-nine percent of that visit on the supporting band’s bus, snorting whatever the latest powder is up your nose. You may well have flaked out on my bed afterwards, but I certainly didn’t make you pregnant.”
“I’m hurt! You don’t remember our lovemaking?” Caitlin goaded, raising a perfectly plucked brow.
“You are delusional. I would as sooner be celibate for the rest of my life than put my cock inside your dirty cunt ever. And just in case you haven’t grasped my meaning, whatever plan my father and you concocted isn’t going to work on me. In fact, you can tell him from me that the agreement is off. There will be no marriage.” He leant forward to grab his glass from the table and took a large gulp of its contents.
Caitlin huffed, “You can’t just rescind on our deal.”
“I can and I am.”
“I’ll sue you for alimony,” she blurted, her voice becoming more indignant with each exchange as she touched her protruding belly.
“I think you’re mixing me up with the wrong Keats. You would be better off suing the right father or you’re going to look mighty stupid in court when the DNA results show your child is actually my half sibling rather than my offspring.” The enormity of finally saying that aloud made him feel so better.
The colour drained from her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Xander took a last swig of the remnants of whisky from his glass and stood up from his chair, anger flashing in his eyes as he strode purposefully over to her until his face was just inches from hers. “Yeah, sure you don’t. I think you will find out though, as of now you’re frozen out by your lover. Some romantic pictures of you two together landed on his desk some time ago, so I’m sure he won’t be taking your calls anymore if he wants to adhere to my demands.”
“Damn you! What have you done to me?” she cried out in anguish. Placing her perfectly manicured hands on his chest, she pushed him backwards, increasing the distance from his menacing stance looming over her.
“Nothing more than you deserve,” Xander countered. There was a satisfied smile on his face as he walked away, slamming the door to his room behind him.
***
The next morning, Xander had risen early to avoid seeing Caitlin before leaving the villa. He now sat in the back of his car, with Adam and Hayden in the front, heading towards the airport. Taking out his mobile, he rung Livvie and started relaying the events of Caitlin’s pathetic pregnancy ruse. He told her that he would be going to Warwickshire as soon as his plane landed. They were to get the rest of the family together before confronting John Keats once and for all.
Chapter Eleven: Unravelling II
Indi
Indi entered the small, but bustling airport with only a little time to spare to check in before the three-hour flight to Gatwick Airport. She had been on tenterhooks that Xander might appear and try to make her talk to him. Accepting that she would probably have to answer one of his calls or texts eventually, she was not ready for it today.
After handing over her luggage at the check-in desk, Indi made her way to the large departure hall. Scanning the sea of people to see if Xander might be there, she felt a lessening of her anxiety when she failed to spot him. Sitting down next to a pillar to obscure any view of her from the main entrance, Indi pulled out her tablet computer from her oversized handbag and tried to distract herself by answering some emails until boarding was announced.
Indi opened an email from her other sister, Sadie. She was close enough to her, but it was not the same camaraderie as she shared with Angel.
Hi Indi,
Angel said she was picking you up today. So much has happened while you have been gone. I’ll see you later as I’m bringing someone for you all to meet. His name is Nathan and he’s drop-dead gorgeous. Although I hear you’ve landed a man of your own while you were away, he probably isn’t as wonderful as my Nathan!
Sadie x
Indi rolled her eyes at the last comment. Presumptuous, as always, that she had something better than anyone else. Sadie had always been viewed as the perfect one, and she had let the pedestal treatment rub off on her, to the extent that all the things she did or had became all about being better than her sisters.
Indi did not know what made her look up at the entrance as she sifted through the remaining list of unread emails, but as she did so her worst fear was realised: Xander was standing no more than thirty feet away. Despite his impeccable clothing, he looked crumpled and tired, with dark creases starting to form under his eyes as he stood talking casually to an airline rep.
Not wanting to draw any attention, Indi got up quietly from the seating area while Xander was still facing the rep and moved as far behind the pillar as she could manage, allowing herself a viewpoint of him without him being able to catch sight of her. All the while her heart was beating so fast and loud that she was sure all the people around her could hear it.
She just prayed Xander was not on the same flight as her, as there would be no hiding her presence from him then. Indi tried to reason with herself that she was sure the uniform of the check-in rep of her flight was in a very different colour scheme to the one in front of her.
To her relief, Indi only had to linger by the pillar for a few more moments before Xander walked off with the uniformed female, who seemed too overly friendly for her liking. Indi tutted to herself as she watched the rep place a hand on Xander’s suited arm as she guided him towards another part of the airport. Probably going to some exclusive VIP lounge! In spite of the fact that she was hiding from Xander, she still felt a surge of raging jealousy that the woman had dared to touch him.
It wasn’t too much longer before the passengers on her flight were called to the boarding gate. As she took her seat on the planet, Indi felt an overwhelming wave of relief wash over her that she was heading home, fresh in the knowledge that she could finally relax, knowing that Xander would not be popping up unexpectedly wherever she happened to be.
The flight and task of retrieving her luggage went quickly. Angel was already waiting in the arrivals area when Indi walked through from Customs. Her sister rushed forward through the swell of the crowd to embrace her tightly. To any passersby, they looked almost identical: same height and weight with long, swirling locks of dark blonde curls.
“I’ve missed you so,” Angel exclaimed.
Now that Indi was back in England, feeling safe in the company of her sister, all the turmoil of her bottled-up emotions burst the dam that she had put in place since seeing Xander’s pregnant wife. Tears began to fall as she buried her face against Angel’s shoulder.
“Oh my goodness, what is wrong?”
“Everything,” Indi wailed de
jectedly through her quiet sobs.
Angel sighed, unsure of what could have distressed the normally composed Indi. “Come on – let me get you into the car, so you can tell me all about it.”
Indi nodded slightly as she raised her fingers to her cheeks to brush away the tear streaks. Grabbing one of her sister’s hands in hers and taking her case with the other, Angel guided her out of the terminal building and into the car park. With the luggage in the boot, Angel slid behind the wheel of her car and turned to Indi with a worried expression on her face.
“So, do you want to tell me what had you so distressed?”
Indi solemnly began to detail how she had met Xander, realised who he was, and let her admiration override her better judgment by agreeing to a no-strings fling.
Angel shook her head in disbelief that Indi had gotten involved with such a well-known womaniser. “I don’t understand how you could put yourself in that position. You must have known you were going to get hurt when it came to an end.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but it was as if we were in our own little bubble; we became a couple in every way. He took me to Florence and horse-riding up Mount Etna. I even went to a vineyard, which he was talking to the owner about purchasing. He immersed me in his life, so it was easy to get swept up in every single moment.”
Despite her incredulity at Indi’s out-of-character behaviour, Angel couldn’t help but soften as her gaze rested on her sister’s forlorn expression. “You seemed blissfully happy when we spoke while you were in Florence. What changed?”
“This woman arrived at his villa the night we came back from Florence. He remained adamant that she was just someone who worked for his father, but the next day I saw her in his neighbouring villa and she had the most prominent pregnancy bump. I overheard her saying it was his.”
“You’re joking?! What a loser to hide something like that from you. As much as it hurts at the moment, at least you’re found out before you got involved even deeper.”
Indi knew Angel was talking sense, but it did not make it any easier to swallow. How naïve she had been to fall for Xander’s charm, simply because he was her idol so soon after all the shit she’d been through. She was going to have to steer clear of getting close to any man until she could learn to trust her instincts again.
Chapter Twelve: Reality Check
Xander
“I hope to see you again very soon, Mr Keats.” The first-class flight attendant offered him a knowing smile and a suggestive tone to her words as he was about to exit the plane.
Exhausted from lack of sleep, Xander frowned in irritation. Turning to the woman, ready to tear a strip off her for being so over-familiar, he felt a tug of mortification as realisation hit him, and he sighed. He had been so preoccupied with thoughts of how quickly he could clear up his family problems, so that he could concentrate on repairing his damaged relationship with Indi, that he had not recognised the flight attendant.
The woman was someone he had hooked up with a couple of times when he had flown back and forth between London and Sicily. Normally, it wouldn’t have bothered him to come across a previous conquest, but so soon after Indi’s rejection, he couldn’t help feeling distaste for the person he had been before meeting her.
“I have a feeling that won’t be happening,” he responded tightly.
Concealing his embarrassment, he continued out of the exit door and down the airstairs to the tarmac. Xander made a mental note to request the flight attendant be transferred to another route, so that he did not have to endure being reminded of his promiscuous past every time he flew in future. He spent thousands on flights each year with the airline when it was not feasible to use his private jet. As he had attended various private functions with their management, he knew it would be easy to pull strings.
At the bottom of the stairs, Xander was greeted by another member of staff who fast-tracked him through arrivals and onwards to Customs using the airport’s passenger buggy service he had requested. As he was being shuttled through the airport, he slipped his smartphone out of his pocket and switched it back on, knowing he would probably have an endless stream of voicemails and texts awaiting him. He would read them during the car journey home.
Slipping his phone back in his pocket, Xander glanced casually at the other departing passengers whom he was whizzing past when his gaze fell upon one moving person in particular. Doing a double-take, his heart began to race as he shouted for the driver to stop; the pitch of his voice increasing as the man’s reflexes failed to react to his request fast enough.
“Is something wrong?” the driver asked, giving him a bewildered stare.
“Sorry, I think I just saw someone I need to speak with. Could you wait here for two minutes?” Xander blathered ten-to-the-dozen as he jumped off the passenger buggy. His head moved wildly from side to side as he did a 360-degree spin in an attempt to catch sight of the familiar figure amongst the throng of people surrounding him.
He strode purposefully forward as he finally caught sight of her after doing several spins. She was embracing another woman who appeared to look very similar to her in height and outer appearance. Angel, he wondered, recalling that Indi had mentioned she would be collecting her from the airport.
Just as his mouth started to form her name with his tongue, his phone started to ring. Xander tried to ignore it, but the ringtone continued to escalate in volume, causing a few of the surrounding group of people to stare in his direction until he pulled it from his pocket and pressed it to his ear, feeling cross.
“Keats,” he spoke tersely as he watched the two women walk further away from him, towards the lifts leading to the airport car park.
“He’s dead!” cried a sobbing female voice over the speaker.
“Freya?” Hearing his sister in such distress distracted Xander from following the women any further. “What are you talking about? Who is dead?”
“Daddy.”
“Freya, are you high?” Xander questioned, feeling his patience coming close to snapping. He did not have time for one of her hallucinations when he needed to catch up with Indi before she left the airport.
“No, of course not,” Freya replied. “We were talking in his office this morning and he seemed to become distressed when he opened a package he received yesterday. He started struggling for breath and holding his chest, and then he just collapsed on the floor unconscious. The paramedics came and took him to hospital, but t-they couldn’t revive h-him.”
Xander could only presume that the package to which she referred was the envelope of compromising pictures he had specifically asked to be delivered. Although he had expected his father to have a bad reaction to being discovered, not in his wildest dreams did he think it would cause him a heart attack.
“Where exactly are you now?” Xander asked as Freya’s words captured his full attention this time.
“Warwick Hospital.”
“Is anyone else with you?”
“Noah is on his way. I can’t get hold of Milo or Livvie.”
“Okay, I will be there as soon as I can. You keep trying Milo and I will try Livvie.”
“Please hurry,” Freya’s fragile voice begged.
Ending the call and cursing under his breath, Xander sprinted back to the waiting passenger buggy and encouraged the driver to get him to his waiting car as soon as humanly possible. His brain was on fire as he stared at his mobile phone. Anxious that he had missed an opportunity to talk to Indi, but also feeling numb that the bane of his existence since childhood was now dead, it took Xander several attempts to compose himself before he started dialling. He knew he should feel some kind of sadness, but it was the furthest emotion from his mind. All he felt was regret that he had to deal with this rather than his mess-up with Indi.
As the well-known figurehead of a massive corporation of international companies, John Keats’ unexpected death would attract the attention of a lot of news channels from all over the world. He had been a man that not many liked, but his m
any lucrative commercial deals had earned him a begrudging amount of respect from other businessman in his circle.
Xander expected speculation to turn on the family immediately regarding who would step up to run the corporation. As the oldest of John Keats’ five children, the expectation would fall on him to take up the position of chairman of the governing board of trustees of the family’s holding company in the first instance, at least temporarily, while a long-term solution was found.
Before Xander rebelled and started up Fusion at twenty-one, his father had made him learn everything about running a company from the ground up. Despite dropping out of university to start the band, he had still managed to complete his business degree while on his first tour.
Despite the plan already in place to convince the rest of the board to nominate Livvie once John Keats resigned, now that he was dead, plus the suddenness of it all, Xander was not so sure the other members would readily agree. Taking over after their father’s resignation, as opposed to his death, was a whole different perspective. The man’s overpowering presence when he was alive, even from a distance, would have put many people off putting their names forward, but now he was gone, Xander had an inkling that someone would push to take over. Not that he wanted the job himself, but he did not want his sister to lose her opportunity.
Livvie lived and breathed the company, but she sometimes lacked the self-belief to make a stand in order to be heard. First with their father, and now he feared that someone else would shout louder than her and get the necessary votes. If he could get hold of Livvie now, they could decide their next step.
The rest of the journey from Gatwick to Warwick became a blur of passing trees and cars as Xander’s chauffeur-driven car whizzed him up the motorway to the hospital. Meanwhile, he spoke on the phone to various relatives to relay the bad news before his publicist sent a press release to the wider public.
Finally, as the car pulled into the hospital grounds, Livvie’s name popped up on his phone screen. “At last, have you heard the news?” he asked calmly. He did not expect any of his siblings to be overly distressed by their father’s demise, except perhaps Freya. Their father’s dismissive and manipulative attitude towards each of them had seen to that.
Starstruck (Fusion #1) Page 10
