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Sidonie would take her aunt’s face in her hands and say firmly, but lovingly, ‘We don’t need him, Jojo, we have each other. We’re a team and we’re invincible. I won’t let anything happen to us, okay?’
Her aunt would sigh and then quickly get distracted by something—usually talk of the baby. She’d already decided that if it was a boy it would be called Sebastian and if it was a girl Belle, after a favourite cartoon character.
As Sidonie lay in the bath now, after a punishing day of work, she felt helpless tears spring into her eyes. Immediately she cut off the emotion ruthlessly, as she’d been doing for four months. Anger rose and she welcomed it. She cultivated it. It was the only thing that kept her sane, kept her going. And now the baby.
She would never contact him and she had to stop thinking about him. For a man who had accused her of being a gold-digger on the basis of conducting an investigation into her private life and overhearing an admittedly unfortunate conversation, news of a baby would consign her to the hell of his condemnation for good—and she would not give him the satisfaction.
Her anger rose, swift and bright, washing away those dangerous tender feelings that hovered on the periphery and had no place after what he’d done to her.
* * *
Alexio returned to the villa feeling more disgruntled than ever. After sleeping for almost eight hours on a lounger on the terrace he’d gone to the club.
Elettra, encouraged by the fact that he was alone, had twined herself around him like a clinging vine, making him feel nothing but claustrophobia.
In a fit of darkness he’d taken the same booth as last time and had been bombarded with images and memories: Sidonie’s dress, the way the silk had clung and moved with her body. How it had felt to dance close to her, sliding his hand under her dress to touch her naked back. The insistent throb of the music, with the same beat as the desire rushing through his blood. The way she’d looked at him, hungry and innocent.
Innocent.
Except she’d never been innocent. She’d been scheming the whole time, just reeling him in, waiting for an opportunity to secure her future, debt-free.
Bile had risen up inside Alexio after all these months, just as it had that awful day. Immediately he’d had to get out of there.
And now here he was, looking over the inky blackness of the sea. Thoroughly disgusted with himself, Alexio felt the lure of work—even though he meant to be avoiding it. But he knew he wouldn’t sleep, and especially not in that bed. It had been a terrible idea to come here. He should have gone to the farthest corner of the world and he vowed to do so the next day. He’d wanted to check out the potential of setting up in South East Asia anyway...
When he went into the office and sat down heavily on the chair he saw an unexpected white envelope sitting squarely on the blotter. Saw the writing in a feminine scrawl.
It was never about the money.
Feeling something in his belly swoop and his skin prickle, Alexio picked up the envelope. As he did so something fluttered out. The torn pieces of the cheque he’d left for Sidonie in a fit of tumultuous anger and disgust. If she wanted the money so badly then he’d give her some. But now he felt dizzy. Disorientated. He opened the envelope and more and more pieces fell out. Nothing else.
It was never about the money.
He hadn’t even checked to see if or when she’d cashed it. He’d just assumed that she had. He hadn’t wanted to know. But she hadn’t. She’d left that day and taken a torturous eleven-hour ferry to Piraeus. His last contact from her had been via a message relayed to him by one of his Greek assistants whom he’d instructed to meet her at the port with a plane ticket for a flight to Dublin.
She’d not taken the ticket and had said succinctly, ‘Tell Alexio Christakos he can go to hell.’
The message had been relayed with great trepidation by the employee after Alexio had instructed him to tell him her words exactly.
Alexio had put it down to anger that he’d thwarted her plans. He’d felt vindicated. But now he felt sick. Why hadn’t she just taken the cheque?
Holding the jagged remains made a conflicting mix of things rush through him. Not least of which was the poisonous suspicion that this was a desperate ruse to pique his interest—make him go after her to find out why. So that ultimately she might get even more money.
Even now Alexio could feel anticipation spiking in his blood just at the thought of seeing her again, but...damn her...had she counted on this?
He felt something underneath him then, and shifted slightly to find that he was sitting on Sidonie’s tatty university sweatshirt. She must have left it behind that day. Her pale face and wide, stricken eyes came back to him—the way she’d flatly agreed with him that, yes, she’d set out to seduce him on the plane. Something about that felt off now. His gut twisted...
She had protested her innocence. But he’d been so incensed he’d been unable to feel anything but the bitter sting of betrayal and anger at his own weakness for her.
Emotion, hot and impossible to push down, made his chest go tight. Without even thinking about what he was doing he brought the sweatshirt up to his nose and breathed deeply. Her scent, still faint but there, hit him like a steam train, that intriguing mix between floral and something spiky.
Galvanised by something that felt like a combination of panic and desperation, Alexio stood up and went into the bedroom. He hadn’t opened the closet doors yet but now he did. All of the clothes were still hanging there. The clothes that he had ordered to be delivered for Sidonie before they’d arrived. She’d taken nothing. Not even the dress she’d worn to the club that night.
He could hear her voice as if she was there right now: ‘Well, at least I won’t have to worry about washing my knickers out in the sink. I’m sure your housekeeper would be horrified.’ This time Alexio heard and recognised the over-brightness of her voice and his sense of discomfort grew.
* * *
‘You’ll have to do it again. It’s not good enough.’
