‘Oh…’
‘And then Yannis phoned after you had left the hospital to rave about how wonderful you had been with his daughter, and I began to understand what had happened. But you never arrived at Drakon’s house because he checked.’
‘Drakon’s house? Why would I have arrived there?’ Ella questioned uncertainly.
‘That’s where you sent your dress.’
‘Ianthe organised that.’ Ella hesitated. ‘I assumed it had been sent to the villa outside Athens.’
‘Ianthe knew I had a bunch of guests staying there this week, so she wouldn’t have sent it there.’
‘Guests?’ Ella echoed weakly.
‘I understand that you may have met one of them,’ Aristandros pointed out with laden emphasis.
Suddenly the atmosphere was so thick it could have been cut with a knife.
Ella was very still and she stood very straight. ‘Is that what you call the young woman I met—a guest?’
‘So you did rise—or should I say sink—to the worst possible conclusion,’ Aristandros gathered, his sensual mouth compressed into a grim line of disapproval. ‘Eda is my niece, the daughter of my father’s youngest sister.’
Her stress level rising as his explanation gathered pace, Ella’s brow had indented. ‘Are you saying Eda was the girl I ran into? And that she’s a relative of yours? If that’s true, why was she in the master-bedroom en suite?’
‘I have no idea. Her parents left her at the villa while they attended the opera because she refused to go. She’s something of a handful, and fairly spoilt. Maybe she was trying out the facilities or just exploring while she had the house to herself. How should I know?’
Ella was mentally running through the explanation to see if it could fit what she had seen.
‘You can ask her when you meet her tomorrow.’
‘I’m going to meet her?’ Ella framed uncertainly.
‘I’m throwing a party on the island for my relatives tomorrow.’
As Ella began to hope that she had totally misinterpreted the girl’s presence at the villa, her legs seemed to go hollow, and her head swam. That physical weakness was her body’s response to the powerful rush of relief assailing her. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she framed. ‘I thought…’
Aristandros reached for her hands and pulled her closer. His dark-golden eyes were raw with reproach. ‘Yes, you immediately assumed that I was shagging a sixteen-year-old behind your back!’
‘She’s only sixteen?’ Ella mumbled, clinging to his hands to stay upright while she acknowledged that the girl had indeed looked very young.
‘I prefer rather more mature specimens of womanhood, khriso mou,’ Aristandros spelt out levelly. ‘Although that does make me wonder why I’m with you, because sometimes you seem to react more like an impulsive airhead of a teenager than the intelligent adult I know you to be.’
A flood of hot moisture engulfed her eyes in a tide, and she blinked repeatedly while staring down at their still-linked hands. ‘Her underwear was lying on the bedroom floor. She was only wearing a towel. I did think you must have been with her…’
‘No.’ His handsome jaw clenched. ‘For that matter, I haven’t been with anyone else since you came back into my life.’
Ella was so relieved by that admission that a sob escaped her. ‘But that agreement said—’
‘That was just me acting like a gorilla and beating my chest to ensure you had some healthy respect for me,’ Aristandros admitted, gripping her hands so tightly in his that she was convinced they would go entirely numb. ‘I’d like to go home now. I appreciate that it’s late, but the helicopter is standing by at the airport, and I very much want to get back to the island tonight.’
‘Okay.’ Ella’s voice was small and breathless, and she nodded in confirmation; the terrible, frightening tension and the fear of an unknown impossible future was leaving her piece by piece. There was no other woman in his life. He hadn’t been with anyone but her since they’d got back together again. She had misunderstood, deemed him guilty when he was innocent. Her world had horizons and possibilities again, but she was almost afraid of accepting that fact.
‘You’re really shaken up,’ Aristandros remarked, draping her bag over her shoulder and guiding her out of the room. ‘I should be shouting at you for thinking the worst of me and putting me through a hellish evening of frustration and worry. I don’t even like opera at the best of times, but tonight I felt trapped.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered in the lift, and she wanted to lean up against him and cling but wouldn’t let herself act that weak and feminine.
‘You’re never going to trust me, are you? Why do I get the feeling that I’m paying for your stepfather’s sins?’
Ella ducked her head as he tucked her into the limo waiting outside. She had made a hash of things again. A sniff escaped her and then another. Aristandros wrapped both arms round her and almost squeezed the life’s breath out of her. ‘Don’t be silly. You have nothing to cry about.’
‘Maybe it was stupid, and I know I misunderstood, but I honestly thought you must have slept with her I was devastated!’ Ella gasped out strickenly. ‘And I didn’t know what I was going to do because I couldn’t give up Callie to walk away from you—I couldn’t!’
Aristandros held her back from him. ‘That’s one worry you don’t have to have ever again.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I care too much about Callie to use her to control you. You were right. I shouldn’t have involved her in our arrangement. That was inexcusable.’ His darkly handsome features were taut and grim as he made that statement. ‘Whatever happens between us, I will share custody of Callie with you. You love her and she loves you, and I have watched her blossom in your care. I will never try to separate you from her and you will both always enjoy my financial support.’
Ella was astonished by that far-reaching promise and the conviction with which he spoke. ‘Why are you saying this now? Why have you changed your mind after forcing that iniquitous agreement on me?’
‘I recognise that what I did was wrong from start to finish: using Callie as bait to trap you, forcing such an unscrupulous contract on you. Drakon was right in what he said, and he didn’t know the half of what I imposed on you. Worst of all, I knew that what I was doing to you was wrong even as I did it. Yet I still went ahead with it,’ Aristandros recounted heavily, his handsome head turned in profile to her, his mouth harshly compressed.
‘Why, though? Was it all about revenge?’ she pressed, desperate to understand what had motivated him
The silence lay like a blanket and the tension in his big, powerful frame was so fierce she could feel it even though they were no longer touching. The limousine was already pulling in at the airport.
‘Ari…?’ she prompted. ‘I need to know.’
‘I told myself it was purely an act of revenge, but it wasn’t. The truth is usually the most simple answer—and the simple answer is that I just wanted you, and that agreement bound you hand and foot to ensure you couldn’t walk away again. I needed that protection before I could let myself get involved with you again,’ he breathed in a driven undertone. ‘But now I realise that I don’t want to keep you only because I’ve got legal custody of your daughter.’
‘So, if I want to leave and return to my life in London,’ Ella whispered unevenly, ‘You’ll let me go and allow me to take Callie with me?’
‘Letting you both go would kill me, but I won’t go back on my word to you,’ Aristandros declared with raw emphasis as the door beside her was whipped open by his driver.
Surrounded by his security team, they walked through the airport in silence. I just wanted you. Four little words that made a heck of a difference to Ella, and that kept on rhyming back and forth through her head, providing a much-needed mantra of hope. In spite of all the other options he must have had, he had returned to his past and blackmailed her back into a relationship with him. For the first time she registered that she had been and still evidently was much more important to Aristandros Xenakis than he had ever been willing to admit. He didn’t want to lose either her or Callie, but he was willing to let them go free if that was what she decided she wanted.
As they waited in a VIP lounge, Ella was conscious of his scrutiny. She knew he was desperate to know what she intended to do next. He had removed the one threat that could have forced her to take whatever he threw at her. No longer did she need to stay with him purely for Callie’s sake. His ferocious pride couldn’t live with that concept. Blackmail, he had finally discovered, did have its drawbacks.
They were walking towards the helicopter with a neat, respectful space between them when Ella reached abruptly for a lean, brown hand across that divide. ‘I want to stay with you,’ she told him tautly.
Right there and then, Aristandros turned round and swept her straight into his arms, plunging his mouth down urgently on hers with a passion that blew her away. He had to practically carry her on board the helicopter after that. She was stunned by the level of his relief at her announcement, and could not have doubted his level of ongoing satisfaction over that news when he gave her a heart-stopping smile and retained a hold on her hand throughout the flight. The engine was so noisy that there was no chance of any further conversation until they arrived back on Lykos.