CHAPTER FIVE
ELLA was so taut with anticipation that her heart almost leapt out of her chest when she first saw Callie in the reception salon of the Xenakis yacht.
At a glance she recognised how much her biological child resembled her, with that silvery-blonde cap of hair and those almond-shaped blue eyes. She wondered with painful regret if ironically that pronounced similarity had unleashed Susie’s insecurity over her role as Callie’s mother. The little girl straightened up to turn away from the toy she was playing with and focused not on Ella but on Aristandros. But, instead of toddling forward to greet the tall Greek as Ella expected, Callie waved at him and smiled. Aristandros waved back.
‘She always smiles when she sees me,’ Aristandros commented, evidently content with the style of his greeting.
Ella went over to meet her niece and got down on her knees, her heart lurching as she studied the child, whose very blue eyes were curious. A shy little hand reached out to touch Ella’s equally pale hair and then hastily withdrew again. Recognising Callie’s fear of the unfamiliar, Ella began talking to introduce herself, and within minutes totally forgot the presence of Aristandros and the Greek nursemaid stationed on the other side of the vast salon. When she recalled their presence she looked back over there but Aristandros had gone.
She soon discovered that Callie lit up when she heard music and loved to dance. The little girl giggled in delight when Ella joined in, and the atmosphere became much more relaxed. When refreshments were served, Ella sat down to get acquainted with her niece’s youthful nurse, Kasma, and find out about the child’s routine. While the two women talked, Ella made a hat out of a napkin to amuse Callie, who was becoming fractious. Callie finally consented to sit on Ella’s lap to enjoy a fruit snack. Momentarily the warm, solid baby weight of the toddler resting trustingly against her made happy tears wash the back of Ella’s eyes; this was a moment that she had truly believed she would never know in reality. Just then, every sacrifice she had made seemed more than worthwhile.
Kasma had a good deal to tell her that was of interest. The young woman stood in too much awe of Aristandros even to imply criticism of her employer. Even so, what Ella learned from subtle questions soon convinced Ella that Aristandros had zero parenting skills and, quite possibly, no interest in rectifying that deficiency. By then Callie was fast asleep in her arms, and Ella followed Kasma down to the lower-deck cabin which was set up as a nursery and put her niece in her cot for a nap.
Keen to freshen up—something Ella hadn’t had a chance to do earlier that day after their rushed late departure from the London penthouse—she returned to the main cabin suite, where she took a shower in the superb marble wet-room. She couldn’t stop smiling as she relived the afternoon that had just passed. The hours had just melted away while she’d been with Callie. A stewardess came to tell her that Aristandros was waiting for her in the salon. Ella finished drying her hair, her body tingling in outrageous tune with her thoughts, because she could not forget the pure, erotic excitement of Aristandros’s love-making at the outset of the day, or the blissful release she had once again experienced in his arms.
‘A change of plan—we’re flying to Paris in an hour,’ Aristandros announced when she joined him.
‘Paris?’ Her eyes homed in on him straight away and involuntarily clung to his compellingly handsome features. Even in the formal garb of a black pinstripe business-suit and dark silk tie, he emanated a charge of raw sexuality and animal energy that made her mouth run dry as a bone. ‘Why?’
‘Some friends are having a party, and I’m looking forward to showing you off.’
‘But Callie’s in bed and exhausted. She’s just flown in from Greece,’ Ella reminded him uncomfortably.
‘She can sleep during the flight.’ Aristandros shrugged, instantly dismissing her protest. ‘Children are very resilient. I must have travelled round the world with my parents a score of times by her age. How did you get on with her?’
‘We got on great, but it’ll take time for her to bond with me.’
‘You’ll still be a better mother than Susie ever was,’ Aristandros forecast with a hint of derision.
Astonishment and annoyance at that criticism flared through Ella in defence of her late sister. ‘What on earth makes you say that?’
Engaged in flicking through a business file, Aristandros raised a sleek ebony brow and glanced up again. ‘I’m not afraid of the truth, and death doesn’t purchase sainthood. You should never have agreed to your sister’s request that you donate eggs to enable her to become pregnant. Susie couldn’t handle it. An anonymous donor would have been a safer bet.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Ella demanded angrily.
Aristandros dealt her an impatient look. ‘Don’t tell me that you never realised that as far as Susie was concerned you were the kid sister from hell? You outshone her in looks and intelligence, and compounded your sins by attracting my interest.’
‘That’s complete nonsense!’
‘It’s not. Susie tried to lure me long before she ever looked at Timon, but I didn’t bite.’
Ella was shattered by a piece of information that had never come her way before. Susie had been attracted to Aristandros? That possibility, that very private and dangerous little fact, had never once occurred to her. ‘Is that honestly the truth?’
Aristandros frowned. ‘Why would I lie about it? I wasn’t pleased when Susie started dating Timon, but he fell hook, line and sinker for her.’
Ella had lost colour, the fine bones of her profile prominent below her creamy skin. All of a sudden things that she had not understood but which had given her an uneasy feeling were being explained—her sister’s constant, tactless carping about Ari’s inability to stay faithful throughout the period when Ella had been seeing him; her repeated angry accusations that Ella didn’t appreciate just how lucky she was.
‘No matter what your sister did, Timon forgave her because he loved her. But, when you made it possible for them to have a child together and Susie turned her back on that child, Timon couldn’t accept it.’
Ella gave him a stricken appraisal. ‘Susie turned her back on Callie? How?’
‘She left their staff to take care of her. Having got the baby she insisted she could not live without, she rejected her. Timon was at his wit’s end. He consulted doctors on her behalf. Susie refused to see them, and finally Timon began to talk about divorcing Susie and applying for sole custody of Callie. Their marriage was very much on the rocks when they died.’
Her consternation and sadness at that news palpable, Ella sank heavily down on a chair. ‘I had no idea that the situation was so serious. If only I had known, if only Susie had been willing to see me and talk to me after Callie’s birth, maybe I could have—’
‘You were the last person who could have helped her. She was too jealous of you.’
‘It’s perfectly possible that Susie was suffering from severe post-natal depression. Didn’t my family try to help her?’ Ella prompted feverishly.
‘I don’t think they recognised the extent of the problem, or that they wanted to get involved once they realised that Susie’s marriage was in grave trouble,’ Aristandros said flatly.
Ella knew that in such circumstances her domineering stepfather would have urged her mother to mind her own business, and that her mother would not have had the backbone to stand up to him even if she’d disagreed. She felt unbearably sad. Had Susie been suffering from depression? Evidently, however, even Timon had been unable to persuade her sibling to seek professional help. Poor Callie had had a troubled and insecure life right from the moment of her birth. Ella thought that it was hardly surprising that the little girl was quiet and somewhat behind in her development.
‘How much time have you spent with Callie?’ Ella asked Aristandros.
His well-defined black brows pleated, as if he suspected a trick question. ‘I see her every day that we’re under the same roof.’
‘But do you play with her? Talk to her? Hold her?’
Aristandros winced at those blunt questions. ‘I’m not a touchy-feely guy. That’s what you’re here for.’
Ella breathed in deep and stood up. ‘I don’t want to offend you, but I have to be frank. At the moment, all you seem to do is wave at her from the doorway of her nursery once or twice a day.’
Aristandros frowned and threw up his hands in objection at her censorious tone. ‘It’s a little game we play. What harm does it do?’
Ella was hanging on to her temper only by a hair’s breadth. He was not that obtuse. He could hardly believe that he was playing father of the year with a long-distance wave. ‘Callie needs to be touched and talked to and played with. The reason she didn’t rush to greet you today is because you’ve got her accustomed to only seeing you at a distance—and that’s how you like it, isn’t it? Hands-off parenting? But she needs real contact with you—’
‘What am I supposed to do with a baby?’ Lean, strong face hard with impatience and hauteur, Aristandros ground out that demand, clearly offended by her criticism. ‘I’m a very busy man and I’m doing my best.’