LYNNE GRAHAM: The Greek Tycoon's Blackmailed Mistress

Lily, however, remained suspicious of that explanation. ‘I’m trying so hard to understand all this. Do you really want Callie so much that you’re happily giving up everything that matters to you?’ She demanded that night over the restaurant meal they had organised for their last evening together. ‘If it’s just that you’re getting broody, you could easily have a child of your own.’

‘But I want to be with Callie—’

‘ And the oversexed billionaire?’

Reddening, Ella pushed her plate away. ‘Aristandros happens to be Callie’s guardian and a non-negotiable part of her life.’

‘But you do have a thing for him, don’t you?’ the brunette said suddenly.

‘I don’t know where you got that idea,’ Ella countered with a laugh that sounded more brittle than amused.

‘Oh, maybe it was when I noticed you only bought tacky newspapers and magazines so that you could read about him and his exploits.’

‘Why not? I was curious because I met him years ago and Susie was married to his cousin!’ Ella protested.

Her friend was still watching her closely. ‘That last Christmas you spent in Greece before your family started treating you like a pariah—that was when you met Aristandros Xenakis, wasn’t it?’

More defensive than ever, for she preferred to hold on tight to her secrets, Ella shrugged a slim shoulder. ‘My stepfather made sure we never missed a chance to rub shoulders with the super-rich Xenakis family. I suspect we first met as kids but I don’t remember it. Aristandros is four years older than I am.’

‘I just feel there’s a history there that you’re not telling me about,’ Lily confessed. ‘At the time, I thought you’d had your heart broken.’

Ella rolled her eyes while trying to suppress the memory of the nights she had cried herself to sleep and the days when only work had got her through the intense sense of loneliness and loss. But she had chosen and accepted those consequences when she’d realised that she couldn’t marry the man she had fallen in love with. In any case, he had not made the smallest effort to change her mind on that score, had he? In truth her heart had got broken over a much longer term than most. A chip had been gouged out of her heart with every woman that had followed her in Ari’s life. But all that was water under the bridge now, Ella reminded herself thankfully. She had lived to see her worst misgivings about Aristandros vindicated; she had made the right decision and had never doubted the fact.

Tomorrow morning, however, she would be picked up at nine, and she had no idea what happened next for Aristandros had not deigned to inform her. Would they be staying in London for long? Would she meet Callie tomorrow? Lying sleepless in bed that night, watching shadows fall on the bare walls, she recalled that Christmas vacation in Athens midway through her medical studies. Time rolled back and plunged her into the past…

Susie had collected her at the airport. Her sister had been single then, and in a very good mood as she’d chattered about the exclusive club she was taking Ella to that evening.

‘I’ve just finished exams and I’m really tired, Susie,’ Ella had confided ‘I might just go to bed and give the socialising a miss.’

‘You can’t do that!’ Susie had gasped. ‘I wangled a special guest-pass for you, so you can’t let me down. Ari Xenakis and his friends will be there.’

Susie, with her determination only to mix with the most fashionable crowd, and her strenuous efforts to ensure that her name appeared regularly in the gossip columns, was the apple of their stepfather’s eye. Theo Sardelos expected women to be ornamental and frivolous. Ella’s serious nature, her championship of her mother and dislike of pretension were all traits that made him feel uncomfortable.

For the sake of peace that evening, Ella accompanied Susie. The club was noisy and very crowded. Surrounded by Susie and her pals, who had nothing more on their minds but the hottest party or man on offer, Ella was bored. She listened dutifully to tales of how outrageous Ari Xenakis was. He had dumped his last girlfriend by text and her parents had had to pack her off abroad to stop her stalking him. As the stories of his wildness, fabled riches and volatility were traded round the table, Ella registered in amazement that there still wasn’t a girl present who wouldn’t give her right arm to date him—in spite of his evident obnoxiousness. When he was pointed out to her across the dance floor, she registered another reason why he was so disproportionately popular: he was breathtakingly good-looking with black hair, brooding golden-brown eyes and the fit body of an athlete.

If one of their party hadn’t collapsed, Ella was convinced that Aristandros would never have noticed her. Lethia, the teenaged friend of one of Susie’s mates, suffered a seizure. Ella was shocked by the way everyone abandoned the girl as she lay twitching and jerking at the side of the dance floor. When Ella went to her assistance, Susie was furious. ‘Don’t get involved!’ she hissed, trying to drag her sibling back to their table. ‘We hardly know her!’

Ignoring Susie’s frantic instructions that she keep her distance, Ella placed Lethia in the recovery position and made her as comfortable as possible while the seizure ran its course. The other girls disclaimed any knowledge of Lethia’s health. Ella had to turn out the girl’s handbag to learn that Lethia appeared to be an epileptic and to be taking prescribed medication.

‘Do you need some help with her?’ someone asked her in English. Turning her head, she found Aristandros hunkered down by her side, his lean, handsome face surprisingly serious.

‘She’s an epileptic, and she needs to go to hospital because she’s been unconscious more than five minutes,’ Ella told him.

Aristandros organised an ambulance, his cool in a crisis welcome in the overexcited atmosphere surrounding them. He also contacted Lethia’s family, who confirmed that she was a recently diagnosed epileptic.

‘Why wouldn’t anyone else help?’ Ella sighed while they waited for the ambulance.

‘I suspect that most people assumed that her collapse was drug-related and they didn’t want to be associated with her,’ Aristandros explained.

‘Nobody seemed to know that she suffers from epilepsy. I suppose she didn’t want people to find out,’ Ella guessed, her blue eyes compassionate. ‘You spoke to me in English. How did you know I was English?’

Dark eyes glinting with amusement, Aristandros gave her a sardonic smile that made it extraordinarily hard for her to breath. ‘I had already asked who you were before Lethia collapsed.’

Ella flushed, self-consciousness assailing her, because she was convinced he could only have noticed her because she didn’t fit in. The other girls were like exotic birds in their skimpy designer outfits, while she was wearing a simple black skirt with a turquoise top. ‘Why did you come over?’

‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you,’ Aristandros confided. ‘Lethia was just an excuse.’

‘You dump women by text and then call them stalkers. I’m not interested,’ Ella told him drily, switching to Greek, which she spoke fluently.

‘There’s nothing hotter than a challenge, glikia mou ,’ Aristandros husked, black lashes as long as fly-swats lowering on his dark, golden gaze…

CHAPTER THREE

AT NINE the following morning, Ella slid into a silver limousine and watched her cases being loaded. Her hair anchored in a knot at the nape of her neck, she was dressed with care in a narrow grey skirt and a pinstripe shirt. She was well aware that she didn’t look like mistress material, but was proud of that fact. If Aristandros wanted to waste his time trying to turn a level-headed unfashionable woman into a seductive bedroom hottie who dressed to impress, then he’d one of those challenges that he so professed to love on his hands.