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‘How gracious of you,’ she hissed, the ire taking over her heart and mind now flowing fully in her veins.
‘And you will have full custody—’
‘I would never let my child near you,’ she spat.
‘Da. It is probably for the best.’
She rose jerkily to her feet and stared in confusion at the arm Roman had offered to steady her. Confusion and disdain. She flinched away from it, knocking back the chair, and blindly wound through the tables that now seemed like obstacles to her. Her eyes brimming with tears, some escaping, falling to the floor from her cheeks, felt sore and her heart ached in a way she had never felt before.
It was so much worse than before. So much. Because she had really loved him. She’d been sure of it. Of him. He had asked her to trust him and she had. She had given herself to him and now felt oddly disconnected from everything. Her feelings, her confidence, herself.
His betrayal slashed through her a thousand times as she passed through the iron gates of the restaurant and out onto the bright sunlit Parisian street, as if emerging from some dark horror. She caught the frown of the waiting driver, the stares of passers-by as they took in the sight of what must look like a hysterical woman on the verge of...on the verge of...
‘Ella...’
She refused to turn to look at the man who had hurt her more than anyone else had ever done, she refused to see the stranger staring back at her with nothing more than cold dead eyes, uncaring and unfeeling. She didn’t want to, couldn’t, let that be the last thing she saw of him.
‘Ella,’ he said again, and she felt his hand on her arm, turning her back to him. She closed her eyes, hoping that the next words from his mouth would somehow contradict everything that had just happened. Would somehow explain what had just happened, and take it away. Beg for forgiveness, plead with her.
But when she opened her eyes, all she could see were the two envelopes in his other hand. He pressed them towards her as he looked over her head and told the driver to take her wherever she needed to go.
He finally turned his gaze on her, that cold, painful look in his eyes doing more to damage the fragile threads of any kind of hope in her heart, and said, ‘It was all about the shares, the company, the money. All this time. From the very beginning to the very end, you were only a means to give me what I wanted.’
And as Ella fled from his grasp, into the back of the limousine, Roman realised that he had been wrong. He’d thought he’d known pain. He though
t he’d survived the worst that life could throw at him. But he hadn’t and he sure as hell didn’t deserve to this time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Red Riding Hood had always thought her grandmother’s tales were to teach her the difference between a hero and a villain or good and evil. But, she wondered, what if the only difference came down to who it was that told the story?
The Truth About Little Red Riding Hood
—Roz Fayrer
LOOKING OUT FROM the patio, down the sloping green garden towards the silvery thread of the lake winding across the border of her land, Ella saw the copper dome of the gazebo glinting in the morning sun. Since returning from Paris five days ago, she hadn’t been back there.
And she hated Roman for that. It had been her favourite place in the grounds of her home. He’d promised that it would always be hers. But it didn’t feel that way. Everywhere she turned, she saw him. She smelled him on the sheets that she had washed twice now, but it hadn’t worked. It was as if his scent clung to the very air she breathed, and she had been driven outside by the memories that crashed through her relentlessly.
Ella hated the way her mind seemed incapable of creating walls around her heart and mind, instead opening her to everything she had experienced over the last few months, and before. All the different variations of the man she had married competing and contradicting everything she thought she knew.
Dorcas lifted her head as a flock of swallows soared above them on their long migration towards South Africa before the winter months, but didn’t move from where she had taken up her almost constant guardianship. One eye on Ella at all times, and the other on the door as if waiting for her master to return.
She was glad Roman had left Dorcas with her. She didn’t think she could have been here alone. Célia had offered to come and stay, but Ella had said no. There was too much going on with the company and too much breaking in her heart. She didn’t want her friend to see her like this. It was something she needed to bear alone. Because she had done this to herself. She had been so stupid.
And, of all the things, that was what turned her stomach, fired the ache in her heart. He had fooled her once and the shame had been his. But this second time? And just as those insidious thoughts crept into her mind, her baby kicked and turned, and kicked again. As if reminding her that she’d had her reasons. That she’d wanted, so, so much, to give their child a better chance. A chance for something more than they had each had. And that she would never regret. But then the pain that Roman had taken that away from them began again.
Her first instinct had been to sever ties with Liordis. She was still very much struggling with the desire to do it now. She hated to think that he had been in on it with Roman. That he had been part of her manipulation. That he had professed his interest in her business not because of what they could do, or how good they were, but because he too was using her for her husband’s ends. That Roman’s interference had infected the one part of her life she felt completely her own had been devastating.
Célia had tried to reassure her, to insist that she would follow whatever Ella wanted to do with regards to the Greek billionaire. Let him go, keep him, whatever Ella wanted. No matter the effect on their business. But, despite how Ella felt personally about the man, she couldn’t deny the damage that would be done should they choose to sever ties with their first client.
Yet that didn’t mean she was willing to let it go.
As she dialled the contact number for Loukas, she took a fortifying breath. She could still do this. She was still the co-founder of the business. She was still capable—even if she had made terrible mistakes in the past, it didn’t mean she would carry on that way. No. Unlike the men in her life, she would refuse to make decisions about her business for personal reasons.
‘Naí?’
‘Mr Liordis? It’s Ella Riding.’
