‘Stamates…that is enough,’ Aristandros bit out icily.
‘I hate you…even your grandfather thinks you’re treating me badly…Yes—not content with having lousy manners, I listen outside doors as well!’ Ella threw wildly at him, tears burning her eyes, and rage swelling like a giant balloon inside her to restrict her breathing. ‘I’m definitely not the perfect woman you think is your due. You’d better pray that I’m not fertile!’
And with that final parting shot, which was as low as she could think to sink, Ella fled out past the clutch of his staff in the hall who were trying to act like everything was normal and avoid looking at her. She took the stairs two at a time, with a huge sob locked halfway up her throat, and raced into the master bedroom—her fourth since she had moved in with him.
Ella very rarely cried. A sad film or a book could make the moisture well up, but it took a great deal to make her cry. Now she flung herself across the bed and sobbed her heart out. She was worried about her mother having to go home alone with an enraged and violent man who liked to use her as a punch bag. But, most of all, she was distraught over the row she had just had with Aristandros. It had started out a small argument and just grown and grown until it had torn apart the fragile fabric of the peace they had established, and destroyed the bonds they had somehow contrived to build. Now there could be no hiding from ugly but revealing truths, such as his fear that she might conceive a child he didn’t want.
Why was she getting upset over being at odds with him? At least she had spoken her mind on the trust issue. She had trusted him once seven years back and look where that had got her—dumped, heartbroken and rejected by her family. Aristandros, however, had picked himself up in time-honoured Xenakis style from the debacle of the engagement that had only lasted five minutes with a widely reported cruise round the Mediterranean, where he had stopped off at various ports to booze and carouse non-stop with promiscuous women. Ella struck the mattress with a clenched fist. She was still so angry she wanted to scream. She hated him; she truly hated him!
But it was almost time for Callie to have her evening meal, and Ella cherished her bedtime routine with the toddler. She hauled herself off the bed and groaned out loud when she saw her swollen eyes and ruined make-up. No longer having access to the beautician’s tools, and in possession of very few cosmetics of her own, Ella did her best to conceal the ravages of her uncontrolled crying-jag.
Callie was a delight and a consolation that evening. Ella played with her in her bath, dried her little wriggling body and cuddled the little girl while she read her a story.
Callie was happily making quacking sounds when Aristandros appeared on the nursery threshold. ‘I fancy eating out tonight,’ he announced.
‘I don’t care if I never eat again,’ Ella lied, for in truth she was starving, but could not have borne letting him get away with pretending that nothing had happened—even if she did suspect that that might be a wiser approach than running the risk of a post mortem about the row.
Callie slid off her knee and padded barefoot over to him, holding her arms up and demanding to be lifted. Possibly relieved that someone appeared to appreciate his presence, Aristandros crouched down and swept her up into his arms as if he’d been doing it for years. But in fact he had never done it before, and Ella watched slyly from beneath her lashes as Callie explored his hair, smothered him in wet kisses and yanked at his tie before settling down happily, trying to steal one of his shiny gold cuff-links.
‘Quack,’ Callie told him importantly, and then she stuck out a foot. ‘Socks,’ she added.
‘You’re not wearing any,’ Aristandros pointed out.
Callie pouted. ‘Shoos.’
‘You’re not wearing shoes either.’
‘She’s trying to dazzle you with her new words, not have a conversation,’ Ella explained.
‘It’s more appealing than conversation,’ Aristandros remarked, shrewd dark eyes skimming from Callie’s smiling little face to Ella’s frozen expression. ‘You’re sulking again.’
‘I’m not sulking,’ Ella pronounced through gritted teeth. ‘I’m just can’t think of anything to say to you.’
‘Is there a difference?’ Aristandros strolled across the room to lower Callie gently back down on to Ella’s lap. As their eyes connected in an unexpected encounter, she was shockingly aware of the raw charge of his masculinity, and her mouth ran dry.
‘I’m going out,’ he said casually.
Ella almost called him back to say that she would go out after all. Watching him go out alone had no appeal whatsoever. Her contentment at her relaxing session with Callie ebbed fast. No woman in their right mind would encourage Aristandros to go out by himself—but no woman with any pride would accompany him after the day that had just passed and the words that had been exchanged, Ella reasoned with spirit. When Callie was safely asleep she went downstairs and ate a light meal without appetite, while she watched the clock and wondered how long he would stay out and who he was with. Athens was a lively, cosmopolitan city with many clubs.
Having decided on an early night, she went for a bath, then phoned Lily and finally told her friend everything she had previously withheld.
‘He’s a total bastard!’ Lily hissed in disgust.
Ella winced, finding that opinion not as much to her taste as she might have hoped. ‘Occasionally he’s…very challenging.’
‘I don’t believe what I’m hearing. You’re making excuses for him?’
‘That wasn’t an excuse,’ Ella protested uncomfortably.
‘Ella…in all the years of our friendship I have never understood your essential indifference to men. Now, finally, I do. You’re insanely in love with Ari Xenakis—and I do mean insane, because by the sound of it he’s already running rings round you!’
‘Of course I’m not in love with him,’ Ella retorted crisply. ‘We have absolutely nothing in common. He’s cold, selfish and arrogant, and I could never care about a man like that!’
‘On the other hand,’ Aristandros added lazily, striding into the bedroom without warning and startling her into dropping the phone, ‘I’m very rich, very clever and very good in bed—a combination of traits which seems to keep you very well entertained, khriso mou.’
Ella fumbled clumsily for the phone again.
‘It’s okay…I heard,’ Lily admitted. ‘I think you’ve just met your match, Ella.’
Ella replaced the phone and stared at Aristandros. Her nipples stirred and peaked below her nightdress, becoming uncomfortably sensitive. His scrutiny burned like molten gold over her upturned face, and pink colour warmed her cheeks while her tummy performed a wicked little somersault of response. The atmosphere sizzled. She closed her eyes tight and snuggled down beneath the sheet, awesomely conscious of his presence, and tensing to the rigidity of an iron bar when the mattress gave under his weight
‘Se thelo…I want you,’ Aristandros breathed thickly as he eased her back into his arms.
‘I thought you’d be out half the night,’ she framed flatly, staying stiff and unresponsive against the hard, muscular heat of him.
‘Not when you’re in my bed waiting for me, moli mou.’
‘I wasn’t waiting for you!’ she yelped.
Brushing back her tumbled silvery-blonde hair, he pressed his sensual mouth to the slender column of her neck, and she quivered beneath the erotic brush of his lips across her skin. ‘Of course you were. Do you think I don’t know when a woman wants me?’
‘Quack,’ Ella pronounced flatly.
Aristandros vented a husky laugh above her head. ‘Meaning?’
‘That normal dialogue is a waste of breath with a guy as vain and arrogant as you are.’
Aristandros extracted her from her nightdress without receiving or even appearing to need the smallest assistance from her. He proved that he was more than capable of rolling with the punches of that negative character-assessment. He nibbled at the tender skin below her ear, while his hands roved from the urgent jut of her swollen nipples to the slick, wet flesh between her thighs. She clenched her teeth and gasped, striving to resist temptation until he teased the tiny nub of arousal below her feminine mound, and suddenly resistance was more than she could bear. She twisted round in a violent movement and found his tormenting mouth for herself, burning for him and burning with shame simultaneously. He held her to him with strong hands and plundered her parted lips until she was breathless with desire. Then he lifted her over him and pushed up into her slick, tight depths with a long, guttural groan of pleasure.
‘As long as you know that I still hate you,’ Ella mumbled shakily, struggling not to lose herself entirely in the pleasure he had unleashed.
‘I love the way you hate me,’ Aristandros husked, long, brown fingers on her hips controlling her rhythm, and then rising to cup her swaying breasts and roll the sensitive crests.
She was dizzy with excitement and beyond thought. The waves of pulsating pleasure began low in her pelvis and slowly spread out in ever-increasing circles in a white-hot surge of shattering pleasure. She cried out, and her head fell back on her shoulders as the wild convulsions of ecstasy engulfed her.