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‘I’ll try to phone you.’ Jane flung the promise over a thin shoulder.
‘Any time, and for any reason. I’ll always be here for you.’ Ella returned that assurance with a slight wobble in her strained voice. Until she had seen her mother again, she had not allowed herself to acknowledge how much she had missed the older woman’s presence in her life.
Ella settled Callie for her nap, and left the nursery to return to the female guests milling round the terrace and the spacious drawing-room. She discovered that she was very much the centre of attention, and was reminded of how curious people always were about Aristandros—his lifestyle, his possessions, his women, his family and background, all of which had supplied years of gossip fodder for newspaper and magazine articles. Tactfully sidestepping the more intrusive questions, she moved from one knot of women to the next.
The men filtered back in little groups to their partners, and the guests began to go home. Drakon Xenakis made a point of bidding Ella goodbye before his departure. She was filled with consternation, however, when she saw her stepfather halt on the threshold of the room and simply jerk his head in her mother’s direction in a peremptory signal that he wanted to leave. Even at a glance she could tell that the older man was incensed with anger, the colour high on his fleshy face, his mouth compressed into an aggressive whitened line. As she watched her stepfather, her brothers and her mother trooped out without a further word to anyone.
Ella tracked Aristandros down to the office that connected with the conference room.
‘What the heck did you say to my stepfather?’ she demanded curtly.
His personal assistants froze in incredulity, and she flushed, wishing she had exercised greater self-control, and waited until she could speak to him alone.
Face impassive, Aristandros lounged back against the edge of the desk behind him and viewed her with hard, dark eyes. ‘Don’t address me in that tone,’ he told her with a chilling bite.
Ella was mortified when only then did he dismiss his staff with a meaningful shift of one authoritative hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I should have waited a moment.’
‘All that I ask is that you remember your manners,’ Aristandros responded grimly.
‘I was concerned—I saw Theo stomping out in a complete rage. What happened?’ she pressed, anxiously pacing the carpet in front of him.
‘I informed Sardelos and your brothers that they are not welcome here if they cannot treat you with respect.’
Ella shot him an appalled look. ‘I don’t need you to fight my battles for me!’
‘I invited them, and this is my house. Their behaviour was unacceptable. What I say goes, khriso mou.’ Aristandros spelt out that reminder without a second of hesitation
‘I’ve never seen my stepfather so angry, and no wonder! You humiliated him in front of his sons, and he’ll blame me for that as well!’ Ella lamented. ‘I could kill you for interfering in something that has nothing to do with you.’
‘I defended you and you’re behaving as if I did something wrong?’ Aristandros growled, his eyes smouldering dark gold with angry disbelief. ‘You’ve let your stepfather bully you for so long that you can’t see the wood for the trees. He needs to be shown his boundaries by someone he can’t influence or control.’
Ella spun away from Aristandros, her thoughts heavily preoccupied with the likely fallout from the comeuppance which Theo had been given. Her stepfather set great store on his association with the Xenakis family; the sudden loss of that favourable social standing would not only humble him but also harm his business prospects. She wanted to yell and shout at Aristandros for acting with a heavy hand, but knew he had no comprehension of the likelihood that her mother would ultimately pay for her husband’s sins.
‘You interfered by inviting them here when you knew there was a serious rift between us,’ she accused tautly.
‘For goodness’ sake, my mother phoned me in Paris to tell me that they thought I was acting like a whore with you!’
Aristandros went rigid. ‘A whore?’
‘Nobody suffers from the illusion that I’m the one paying for the designer dresses and the jewellery!’ Ella slashed back bitterly. ‘How do you expect people to view me?’
His brilliant gaze semi-screened by his lush, black lashes, Aristandros stared broodingly back at her, his eloquent mouth clenching hard. ‘It’s not a question I paused to consider—’
Ella raised a dubious brow. ‘You didn’t? Well, my goodness, you considered everything else that related to image. Why else was I repackaged as a dress-up doll?’
