by Lynne Graham
The silence lay there like a giant chasm, yawning suddenly below her feet. She could feel herself falling from a terrifying height and drowning in that horrendous silence. She always said the wrong thing with him. Like I love you—and he had left the country, never mind her, behind. Her fingernails scored crescents that hurt into her palms. She wanted to wring her own throat, tie a knot in her tongue, for she didn’t have to look at him to work out the answer. The atmospheric vibes were full of warning flares. He was such a player, such a diplomat. She could feel him wincing at her lack of cool. This was a guy who could barely cross a room without getting a female come-on…
‘This is not the moment to get into that.’ Alexandros was sincerely appalled by such reckless in-your-face candour. He surveyed her downbent copper head. She looked so vulnerable. Why did she always make him feel such a bastard?
‘You shouldn’t have touched me—’
‘You wanted to be touched.’ He tossed a slim package down on the bed. ‘This is for you. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.’
It was the latest phone—very thin, very small, and in her favourite colour. The door shut fast on his exit. Dazed, she blinked. Maybe he was scared she still fancied herself in love with him. She swallowed the great fat lump in her throat. He was gone. The room felt emptier than empty, sucked bare of life. She wanted to throw herself up against the door and sob like a baby. She didn’t like him, and she knew he was bad for her. But that didn’t mean that she had learned how to stop loving him, or craving what was bad for her…
Alexandros got back in the limo and received a call from a close friend—the titled owner of a well-known tabloid newspaper. ‘I thought I should warn you that there’s a rumour the Globe may run with a big story on you this week…very hush-hush stuff.’
Alexandros tensed. The paparazzi were always on his trail. They could not get enough photos of him, the women he entertained, the lifestyle he enjoyed. He refused to credit that word about Katie and the twins could already have leaked into the public domain. But he contacted his press officer to check whether or not he had been asked for comment. There had been no such approach. An uneasy feeling persisted when he recalled Katie angrily telling him after he’d spoken to her on the phone at the bank that he would not be able to say that she hadn’t given him a chance.
He called her on the mobile he had given her.
It took Katie a second or two to identify the source of the ringing, and she snatched the phone up, fearful that the twins would be disturbed. ‘Er…hello?’
‘Have you talked to any journalists about us?’ Alexandros enquired, in the most casual of tones.
Katie reddened with instantaneous guilt. ‘No…’
‘Are you certain?’ Alexandros murmured, with a lethal cool that trickled down her spine like an executioner’s warning. ‘If I was to find out that you had lied about this, I would be seriously ticked-off.’
‘I’m not lying…but I was approached by a reporter,’ she confided, and hastily furnished the details of that encounter.
‘But you told him nothing?’ Alexandros checked.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ she confirmed.
‘I don’t tolerate press intrusion into my life.’
‘I don’t know why you’re telling me this—’
‘You’re now a part of that life, and I would be very displeased if any revelations of even the most innocent kind involving either myself or the children were to appear in print. As far as the Christakis family is concerned, all publicity is bad publicity.’
‘Right—I’ll consider myself duly warned…okay?’ But, feisty though that response was, Katie was secretly cherishing the assurance that he already considered her a part of his life.
‘Okay.’ Alexandros ended the call.
His grandparents would have to be carefully prepared for what he had to tell them about Katie and the twins. He was not in a hurry to tackle that challenge, so he would await the official DNA results. He would have to fly out to Greece to break the news personally, and in as gentle a manner as possible. But, even so, the old couple would be distressed. His lean, strong face clenched hard. He sincerely hoped there would be no reference to old history, no reminder of his own less then satisfactory start in life. He had every intention of doing what he knew to be his duty. Hadn’t he done so all his life to date? Since when had he put his own needs first?
Alexandros was wakened soon after dawn by an urgent call from Pelias Christakis.
‘Is it true? Is it true that you are the father of a pair of baby boys?’ his grandfather demanded in a quavering voice of disbelief. ‘Or is it a shocking calumny?’
Alexandros thrust back the duvet and vaulted out of bed, stark naked.
‘I have friends in the publishing world,’ Pelias shared. ‘But if this startling story is genuine, I would have preferred to have heard it from your lips.’
While volcanic fury was taking hold of Alexandros, Katie was suffering an equally rude awakening to events. Someone was hammering on the door, and when she opened it a man stuck a microphone in her face.
‘Katie? Would you like to comment on today’s spread in the Daily Globe? Is Alexandros Christakis the father of your kids?’
‘What spread?’ she gasped.
With a cheerful grin, she was passed a newspaper. Thrusting the door shut, she bolted it and unfolded the paper.
Billionaire’s Secret Babies of Shame ran the headline on the front page. Below was a photo of Alexandros giving a speech under a world trade banner, juxtaposed with a photo of a drab jean-clad young girl wheeling a buggy. Her mouth fell inelegantly wide when she realised that the girl was herself, and that the picture had been taken on the street outside without her knowledge.
Someone was banging on the door again and shouting her name, and the mobile phone beside the bed was ringing. Her tummy in apprehensive knots, Katie ignored those demands for her attention to tear open the paper and find the rest of the story. The Banker and the Maid shouted the sub-heading. She shuddered. She had not been the maid! But hadn’t Alexandros once awarded her that lowly label? In disbelief she saw a recent picture of herself and her children in a local park, with Toby and Connor’s faces carefully obscured. Leanne had taken that picture. How had the Globe got hold of that? And the one precious stolen photo she had of Alexandros? There he was, working at a laptop, black hair flopping over his brow, lashes so long they were silhouetted against the light along with his classic profile. That had been kept in a box she had left to be stored at Leanne’s apartment. Had she been burgled?
Her mind shied away from the possibility that her closest friend could have betrayed her.
Stretching out a reluctant hand, Katie answered the phone. ‘Please don’t blame me for this….’
Alexandros was much too clever to risk frightening her into flight. ‘I believe your accommodation is under siege by the press?’
‘There’s even people at my door,’ she confided nervously.
‘Don’t worry about packing anything, and don’t open that door to speak to anyone. My security team will get you and the children out of there within the hour. When my security chief is ready, you’ll be alerted on this number.’
It had now gone silent in the corridor outside. She surmised that her neighbours had complained about the noise and the hotel manager had made her unwanted callers leave the premises. She washed and dressed in a frantic panic, and did the same for Toby and Connor. Having given them a drink and some baby rice, she filled a bag. Alexandros could not be expected to understand how impossible it was to go anywhere with young children without certain necessities. That done, she made herself lift the Daily Globe again, and read the inside story.
In actuality she only read the first line and got no further.
Alexandros Christakis, who married shipping heiress Ianthe Kalakos at the age of twenty, may have a secret family…
Married? He was married? Alexandros was a married man? He had a wife? He had had a wife when he’d slept with her?
Now he was offering to come to her rescue, no doubt determined to swiftly spirit her away from any contact with the press. Ought she to allow him to do that? She drew in a quivering breath. Even if he was married, she still needed his help to give the boys a decent upbringing, and the twins were entitled to that support. But what a louse she had picked to get involved with!
Her phone rang again. She lifted it. A man who introduced himself as Cyrus announced that he was waiting in the corridor to escort her out of the building. She recognised the big thickset chauffeur from her first trip in Alexandros’s limo. He shook his head at the buggy and lifted Toby out of his seat. She hooked her baby bag on her shoulder and grabbed Connor. In silence they descended the back stairs and left by the fire exit. A limo was waiting at the end of the alley.
Alexandros had a wife. That awful awareness slunk up on Katie afresh, and she bit the soft underside of her lower lip hard in punishment. Desperate to give her thoughts another direction, she dug out her mobile phone and punched in Leanne’s number. Her friend answered almost immediately.
‘It’s Katie—’
The brunette burst straight into speech. ‘What do you want me to say? The money was there for the asking and I went for it. I’ve got debts…all right? I needed the cash. I’m sorry, but survival of the fittest and all that…’
‘You went through my personal belongings to get those photos. They were private and they were mine—’
‘Your personal belongings are cluttering up my bedroom! Maybe Christakis will pay his dues for the twins now. Maybe you’ll find out that I’ve done you a favour!’
‘I’ll pick up my stuff as soon as I can.’ Hurt, because she had been very fond of Leanne, Katie finished the call. She had trusted the other girl one hundred per cent. But how close had their friendship really been? She had not known that Leanne was in debt. Survival of the fittest?
A married man. Alexandros belonged to another woman, who was probably gutted by the tale that that newspaper had printed. Katie’s conscience went into convulsions. A further apprehension assailed her. What if that sordid story somehow stretched as far as New Zealand, where her mother now lived in happy ignorance of the fact that she was the grandmother of two illegitimate kids? Katie paled at that prospect. Maura would be distraught at the secret that her daughter had kept from her. As the ramifications of the Daily Globe’s revelations began to sink in, angry bitterness began to gain the edge over the guilt Katie felt at Leanne’s role in her plight.
Toby and Connor were sound asleep in their car seats when the limousine finally pulled up outside a vast country house. Katie climbed out very slowly, for she had not been prepared for such an imposing destination.
‘There are staff here at Dove Hall to take care of the little boys,’ Cyrus told her when she hovered, her green eyes huge as she studied the great sandstone historic pile in front of her. ‘Mr Christakis is waiting to see you.’
Rosy colour warmed Katie’s triangular face. She straightened her slender back and lifted her chin. ‘Good…’
A housekeeper was waiting in the wide elegant hall, and Katie was shown straight into a pale blue drawing room with a spectacular painted ceiling. The grandeur of her surroundings made her feel more nervous than ever.
A door at the other end of the big room swung back on its hinges beneath an impatient hand. Katie spun round. Alexandros was framed in the ornate doorway. He looked exceptionally tall and austere, and his darkly handsome features were set like granite in a blizzard.
‘So…’ Green eyes raw with angry pain, Katie was determined to get what she had to say in first. ‘Exactly when were you planning to tell me that you have a wife?’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘AS A red herring, that won’t cut it,’ Alexandros told her forbiddingly.
‘Evading the question won’t win you any points with me either,’ Katie fielded, squaring up to him, equally set on confrontation. ‘You know very well that you didn’t tell me that you were married, and that’s inexcusable—’
‘I’m not married,’ Alexandros cut in.
‘You’re divorced?’ Involuntarily Katie hesitated as she made that deduction. Some of her anger dissipated, curiosity sparking, so that it was an effort to fire the next phase of attack. ‘But you must still have been married when you came over to Ireland!’
‘No.’
Katie waited for him to add some form of explanation, but that one bald word seemed to be all that was coming her way. ‘I don’t think I can believe you…’
Alexandros shrugged a broad shoulder.
‘I have a right to know—’
‘You don’t have a right to know anything about my marriage,’ Alexandros delivered, regarding her with a punishing degree of disdain.
Katie went very pale.
‘You don’t have good reason to doubt my word either.’
Katie found her voice again. ‘Oh, yes, I do!’
Alexandros shifted a lean brown hand in a silencing motion. ‘I have no time for this. If you did not have those little boys, you would not be here in this house now.’
‘Did you imagine I might think otherwise?’ Katie was rigid with tension. ‘You didn’t exactly overwhelm me with a welcome at the bank, did you?’
‘You know what I’m saying to you. Last night you listened to my warning and you swore that you hadn’t talked to the press. I find it hard to credit that you had the nerve, but you lied to me—’
‘I didn’t!’
‘Keep quiet,’ Alexandros countered with icy emphasis. ‘I didn’t trust you fully last night, but I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I will not make that mistake again. How could you be so stupid as to alienate me when you’re dependent on me?’
Off-balanced by that attack, and with her pride smarting beyond belief, Katie sucked in a stark breath. ‘I am not and I never will be dependent on you! I’m a lot more independent than that—’
‘Is that how you describe selling tacky stories about me to a tabloid? Independence?’ Alexandros derided.
Her heart-shaped face flamed and her hands balled into fists.
‘Don’t you dare even think about throwing something at me,’ Alexandros told her softly.
Angry embarrassment consumed Katie, for she considered that taunt to be a very low blow. ‘I wasn’t going to.’
A level ebony brow climbed. ‘No? I was under the impression that you always throw things when you’re losing an argument.’
‘You’re not arguing with me, you’re sneering at me, and I can rise above it—’
‘You’ll need a hell of a long ladder to rise above the vulgarity of your current status,’ he slotted in with offensive cool.
Katie lifted a hand in a furious motion. ‘Of course it doesn’t occur to you that I might not have been the one to sell that story to the Globe!’
Alexandros vented a sardonic laugh. ‘Hey…is that a unicorn outside the window?’
‘Right now, you’re just reminding me of all the things I really hate about you!’ Katie launched.
Alexandros dealt her a look of burning contempt, and rage rose inside her with explosive ease. His bone-deep arrogance, his inbred conviction of his superiority, and that quality of insolence he exuded literally made her feel light-headed with temper. But she struggled to control her annoyance, because she knew how much he cherished his privacy and it had been violated by the Globe. Furthermore, she might not have been the one to profit, but she did feel responsible for what her friend had done.
‘When I spoke to you last night I was telling the truth when I said I hadn’t talked to that newspaper guy. I can understand that you are angry—’
‘Why would I be angry?’ Alexandros drawled silkily.
‘And I’m sorry about what’s happened—’
‘Sorry is a waste of your breath. It will be a very long time before I forget this episode.’
‘It wasn’t me who sold that story…it was my friend, Leanne,’ Katie told him heavily.
‘There’s a herd of unicorns out on the lawn,’ Alexandros murmured with biting clarity. ‘Why are you feeding me this nonsense?’
Katie gritted her teeth together. ‘I will say it just one more time. It wasn’t me.’
‘You took photos of me in Ireland without my knowledge,’ Alexandros condemned. ‘Their appearance today in the Globe confirms your guilt.’
‘Cameraphone…stupid.’ Her nose wrinkled, her throat muscles tightening as she thought of how desperately she had once wanted a picture of him.
‘Stolen photos—’
‘Oh, shut up!’ Rage and pain coalesced and mushroomed up inside Katie like a pressure cooker, venting steam without warning. ‘You’re the most incredible control freak! So I was infatuated with you, and I went sneaking around like a silly kid, so that I could snatch some idiotic photos of you with my phone…get over it!’
A faint hint of colour now scored his fabulous cheekbones. ‘And those photos appeared in that filthy article—’
‘Aren’t you lucky that I didn’t take any revealing ones? Your problem is that you don’t know what a real problem is, so you make a fuss over trivial things—’
‘Trivial?’ Alexandros dealt her a searing look of charged disbelief. ‘According to that tabloid rag, I pour vintage champagne over my women and then I shag them in hot tubs…that’s when I’m not making them dress up as French maids for a dirty thrill!’
‘You’re joking…’ For a moment, Katie studied him aghast, because she had not read the article in the Globe beyond that enervating first line relating to his marital status. But her horror was entirely on her own behalf as she imagined rumours of such shocking shenanigans reaching her mother and her stepfather in New Zealand. ‘What are you complaining about?’ she asked fiercely. ‘So all the guys think you’re a heck of a lad? But I get labelled as a slut who plays sex games for your benefit! That is just so typical of the world we live in—’
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