by Lucy Monroe
Sandor agreed and between the two of them, he and his mother managed to convince Ellie to go to the waiting room and sit. They took a place on either side of her on the small sofa against one wall. There was no one else there and Ellie was glad. She never fell apart like this. She’d hate to have strangers witness her weakened state.
Sandor had his arm around her shoulder and she leaned against him, drawing on his strength.
Hera held Ellie’s hand with one of hers and patted it with her other one. “You have had a difficult day, no?”
Ellie gave a shaky sigh. “Yes.”
“Sandor told me all about it.”
Ellie’s head came up at that and she looked from mother to son. “All of it?”
Hera’s dark eyes so like her son’s, were filled with compassion. “Yes. All. My son, he was very stupid, but you must give him some credit. He did not know of your sister any more than you did.”
“Did he tell you about the business merger?”
Hera’s expression turned infinitely sad. “Yes. He and your father, they do not understand a woman’s heart, do they?”
“No. I don’t think they do.”
“I am sitting right here,” Sandor complained.
“And you are lucky to be so. Do not push it, my son.”
Ellie choked out a laugh. “He’s been watching out for me. He came to get me. I wasn’t answering my phone.”
“I know. He called me from his car on the way to your apartment.”
“I might not have known.” Tears threatened again. “What if Dad had died and I didn’t know it?”
“Do not think this way. All will be well.”
Ellie nodded, choking back tears.
The doctor came into the room. “Miss Wentworth?”
Ellie looked up at him. “Yes?”
“We’ve sedated your father. He needs rest right now.”
“What happened?”
“You’ve heard the phrase, ‘His heart couldn’t take it’?”
“Yes.”
“That’s exactly what happened. It’s actually very rare, but the shock of learning your sister was alive and apparently combined with some painful personal inner revelations, it was all simply too much for him. The good news is that tests show minimal damage to his heart and he should enjoy a full recovery, but he needs rest and relief from stress.”
“He runs a multinational company…I think he lives on the stress.”
“He’ll have to learn to live on something else for a while.”
Ellie looked up at Sandor. “How?” That’s all she asked, but she knew he knew what she meant.
“I will work with his executive officers and keep the company running smoothly. Hawk will find your sister and all will be well. Believe me,pethi mou .”
“I want to, but I’m scared.”
“You have to have faith,” Hera said, squeezing her hand. “Sandor will help you.”
“But…”
“Despite his ignorant handling of his courtship with you, he is a smart and capable man. He will protect your father from further business stress until he is well again.”
“That is good to hear,” the doctor said. “You can go home, Miss Wentworth. Your father will not wake for several hours.”
“I promised I wouldn’t leave.”
“So, you will stay.” Hera patted her hand again. “And I will stay with you. Sandor, you must go home and rest. You have much to take care of tomorrow caring for two big companies.”
Sandor tried arguing, but it did him no good. Hera Christofides was more than a match for her son when it came to being stubborn. Sandor arranged with the doctor for the two women to share a room near her father. Wealth brought with it certain privileges, especially in a private hospital.
Ellie slept fitfully and was beside her father’s bed before breakfast the next morning.
His eyes opened and he searched the room with his gaze, stopping when he saw her on the far side of his bed away from the door. He smiled, his expression filled with gratitude. “You’re here.”
“Where else would I be?”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d gone home and refused to come back to see me.”
“Ellie would never do such a thing,” Hera said from the doorway.
“Mrs. Christofides, I did not realize you were here.”
“Ellie needs me right now.”
Those words were so sweet to Ellie’s ears. No one had ever “been there” for her like Hera was insisting on doing, or even Sandor had done the day before, or with his phone call just after 6:00 a.m. that morning. He’d somehow known she wasn’t sleeping and had called to make sure she was okay.
He had offered to come to the hospital, but she’d known he had enough to keep him busy with his company and her father’s so she’d told him not to come.
“Thank you for being such a good friend to my daughter.”
Hera waved her hand dismissively. “It is my pleasure. She would be my daughter-by-marriage soon if you and my son had not messed up so spectacularly.”
George winced. “Point taken.”
“Ne…yes, I can see that it is.”
Ellie reached out to take her dad’s hand. “We don’t have to think about that right now.”
He squeezed her hand convulsively, as if he was afraid she’d pull away. “I would like to talk about it, though…if you don’t mind.”
Ellie chewed her lip nervously. “I don’t want you upset again.”
Hera pulled a chair near his bedside and sat down. “I’ve spoken with the nurse in charge. Breakfast will be delivered in twenty minutes.”
It was such a mundane sentence, but it broke the tension starting to permeate the room.
Ellie’s dad nodded. “Honey?”
“Promise you won’t get overwrought again.”
He smiled at her use of the old-fashioned term. “I promise.”
“What do you want to say?”
He sighed and smoothed his blanket before he began to speak. The uncharacteristic hesitancy caught at Ellie’s heart. “I approached Sandor with the merger idea after the way I saw he looked at you.”
“What are you talking about?” Sandor had looked at her?
Her dad met her gaze, his own unflinching. She could tell he was determined to be fully honest. “I won’t pretend it was all altruism on my part. I’d realized long ago you had no interest in running the company. Taking on a partner who could give me grandchildren to inherit the company made sense.”
“He could hardly make those grandchildren without my cooperation.”
“Exactly.”
“So you offered him half your company if he would marry me?”
“Yes, but Ellie, I knew he wanted you, too. Personally.”
That was something she was still very much uncertain of, but she didn’t deny her dad’s take on it. She saw no point in doing so. Apparently he had believed Sandor wanted her and that’s really all the was relevant to this conversation.
The thing was, he’d overlooked something pretty major in her estimation. “Is that supposed to make it all better? What about whatI wanted?”
“You looked at Sandor Christofides the way your mother looked at me when we first met.”
“Like what?” Ellie asked, more because she was hungry to hear about her parents and what it had been like between them than because she wanted to know how her dad thought she saw Sandor.
“Your mother looked at me like a hungry hunter. She was an adventurous woman, your mother. So, her sweet eyes, the same color as yours, they were filled with both wariness and attraction. She wanted to tame the lion, but wasn’t sure I could be tamed.”
“You were a playboy?”
“No. Like Sandor, I was a businessman. A shark. I’d inherited wealth, unlike your young man, but it wasn’t enough for me. I was only twenty-eight, when I met your mother, but though we worked side by side for years, I’d already almost doubled my father’s business holdings.”
�
�Did you love her?”
“Very much.”
Something inside Ellie cracked at that assurance. He had loved once.
“How did she die?” She’d always known her mother died after giving birth, but there’d been an accident, too. She’d never asked for details because, well…that wasn’t the kind of thing she asked her dad and there’d been no one else.
“She was in a car accident. It was bad. She went into premature labor…she delivered you girls and then slipped into a coma. She never came out and died less than a week after giving birth.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I am, too. She was a wonderful woman and she would have been so good for you. I didn’t raise you the way she would have wanted me to. I failed her and you both…just like I failed your sister. I fight for every business concession I want, but I was too weak to fight past the pain of her loss.”
“Failure is not a terminal disease unless you allow it to be,” Hera said from her chair beside the bed, sounding comfortingly practical.
George’s head snapped up and he met her gaze. “I’m not going to let myself die. I’m going to make it up to my girls. Somehow. Someway.”
Hera nodded. “That is an admirable sentiment, but it will not be easy.”
“I know.”
“If it becomes too difficult and you retreat to your work again, you will not get another chance. Your daughter is very self-sufficient.”
“Too independent.”
“You would rather she was weak?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Ellie didn’t mind the conversation that did not require her participation. She had a lot to assimilate and as much as she wanted to trust her dad again, she just didn’t know if she could. He’d hurt her so many times both as a child and then as a woman. And she’d been hurt by others, too…she was discovering that past pain could be a huge barrier to present acceptance of things like love and affection.
CHAPTER TEN
BREAKFAST ARRIVED ANDthey ate together, setting the pattern for days to come. Ellie came to the hospital each morning and ate breakfast with her father before going on to work. She knew that Hera spent a couple of hours every afternoon with him and Ellie returned in the evenings to spend time with him before bed. Sandor spoke to him daily.
Sandor called Ellie two or three times a day, too, but they didn’t see each other. He was working twenty hour days covering for her dad and taking care of his own business.
In a way, Ellie was grateful for the respite from his company. She knew that since he’d decided she was trustworthy, he still wanted to marry her. She just was not up to arguing with him about it right now.
Hawk was still looking for her sister, but the man she’d been seen with had disappeared from sight and Hawk’s agents were having difficulty locating the tycoon. The investigator had learned what the tabloid reporters had…no one else seemed to know who Menendez’s mystery woman was.
In the meantime, Ellie was getting to know her dad like she never had. He told her things about her mom, her grandparents…himselfthat she’d never known. And each day, she got a little closer to believing the change in him was a permanent one. That maybe he really did love her.
But part of her acknowledged that until he was back to work and in his old world andstill interested in her life and spending time with her, she wasn’t going to trust that change completely.
He went home from the hospital the following Friday afternoon. It was the longest break from work Ellie had ever known him to take. Even though the following day was Saturday, he went into the office for a few hours. Sandor made sure those hours were short, escorting him back home before lunchtime.
He’d arranged with Ellie to be there to share the meal with her father. She waited for them, butterflies playing volleyball in her stomach. She hadn’t seen Sandor since the Saturday before.
When she did see him, she had to fight the urge to take him into her arms. He looked exhausted, but then running two multinational companies would be enough to drive most men into the ground. Not Sandor. He looked tired yes, but still so strong and masculine that Ellie’s knees had weakened at the sight of him ushering her father into the room.
She’d set up fruit juice spritzers on a tray before their arrival and served both men as soon as they seated themselves.
Her dad had taken an armchair kitty-corner to where she sat. He reached for the drink. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
“You’re welcome. How did it go at work?”
“Sandor did an excellent job keeping everything running smooth. There wasn’t much for me to do.”
“There was enough to keep you there four hours,” she said with a wry smile as she offered Sandor his drink.
He’d folded his six-foot-four-inch frame onto the cushion beside her. He took the drink and winked. “He had to check everything I had done to make sure I had not messed anything up too badly.”
“Baloney. I knew you’d handled everything fine, Sandor, but there are always things that simply cannot be delegated. No matter how savvy the delegate.”
Ellie sat back down, keeping as much distance as she could between her and Sandor. “How are you feeling,” she couldn’t help asking him.
“Surely that is a question for your father.”
“Dad looks healthier than I’ve seen him in a long time, you on the other hand are almost gray with fatigue.”
“It has been a long week, but I survived it.”
“You need more rest, Sandor.”
He merely shrugged.
She frowned. “You aren’t going back to the office after lunch, are you?”
“There are things I could take care of.”
“Let them wait.”
His dark eyes widened.
Her dad laughed. “She’s getting bossy. That’s got to be a good sign. With her mother it indicated she felt possessive of me.”
Heat climbed into Ellie’s cheeks. “Even if we are no longer dating, I still consider Sandor a friend. I don’t feel possessive of him, but I care about him. As a friend.”
It was a huge understatement, not to mention a lie. She did feel possessive toward him, but to admit it would imply he had rights over her and that she would not do. She loved him and one thing she’d realized over the last week was that love, no matter how battered took a lot to die. Hers was bruised and maybe even bleeding, but still very much alive inside her.
For both of the men now looking at her so speculatively.
“I would be happy to stay out of my office if you would agree to spend the afternoon and evening with me,” Sandor said.
“I have things to do this afternoon.”
“Like what?” her dad asked.
“I’m expecting a call from Hawk on the search for my sister. And I need to do some laundry and clean my apartment. I haven’t been home much lately.”
“I would be happy to help you do your laundry.”
That made her laugh out loud. “I can just see that.”
Sandor shrugged. “My mother and I had very little disposable income when we arrived in America. I can sort and fold clothing with professional efficiency, I assure you.”
The thought of having him in her small apartment with her for several hours was nothing short of terrifying. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Sandor laid his hand on her thigh. “We need to talk, Ellie.”
“I don’t want to talk,” she admitted in a low voice, wishing her dad was not there with them, overhearing their conversation.
“Please, Ellie…”
She closed her eyes against the appeal in his but nothing could stop the warm, rich tone repeating in her head. “I don’t want to be hurt anymore, Sandor. Please don’t push me.”
She hated saying the words in front of her dad, but both men knew they’d hurt her. She wondered if they realized how much. She was working toward a relationship with her dad again, but she didn’t know if she could ever give Sandor another chance. Not afte
r learning she was nothing more than a business pawn for him.
Sandor sighed. “I won’t push younow, pethi mou .”
He wondered if she noticed the emphasis he put on the word, now. He knew she couldn’t be aware of how damned fragile she looked. She needed rest as much as she claimed he did. So, he would not push her today, but soon, he and his Ellie were going to talk out their relationship. And she was going to give him another chance. She was too damned gentle and kind not to.
