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‘Who are you? What are you doing in here?’ Ella heard herself demand.
Aqua-green eyes challenged her. ‘As I was here first, I could ask you the same thing.’
And, even as Ella parted her lips to speak again, a sick sensation took up residence in her tummy and perspiration beaded her brow. She wondered if she was the only woman in the world stupid enough to ask a beautiful half-naked woman what she was doing in her lover’s bedroom. After all, the answer was so obvious the question didn’t need asking. Striving to save a little dignity in a confrontation that had burst upon her with the abruptness of an earthquake, Ella retreated back to the doorway. She discovered that it was horrendously difficult for her to peel her stunned eyes from the blonde in the towel. A revolting, terrifying curiosity had her staring, and striving not to make bland comparisons. Her mind marched on regardless: she herself was older, less exciting in the curves department and, although her skin was good, she knew it wasn’t quite as flawless. Rejecting those crazy, unsavoury evaluations, she spun on her heel and headed down the sweeping stairs at such a speed that she almost tripped over her own feet.
‘Dr Smithson.’ The housekeeper began speaking anxiously to Ella as she threw open the front door for herself, simply eager to be gone and leave the scene of her humiliation behind her. ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t know you were coming.’
‘It’s okay. I’m fine,’ Ella burbled, not wishing to deal with the woman’s visible embarrassment. It was obvious that the housekeeper had a very good idea of what Ella had found upstairs. She just fled, hurrying down the drive as though a gale-force wind was powering her from behind. Her mind was a total blank. She didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t know where she was going either. Shock had wiped her thoughts out, and fear of the pain of those thoughts was protecting her from them.
Aristandros had another woman. Well, whoopee, Ella—what were you expecting? Did you think he had signed a one-woman-only pledge just because he had taken up with you? It was not as if Aristandros had promised to be faithful. Indeed, he had gone to some trouble to declare that he was promising her no such thing in that wretched agreement. For all she knew he had a stable of other women stashed around the globe at his various properties or, indeed available to come at a call whenever he felt like a little variety.
Aristandros had gone into his Athens headquarters today, finished his day’s work during the afternoon and had then come home with or to the very beautiful blonde and gone to bed with her. The bed had been made again. So the very beautiful blonde was tidy as well as clean! She pictured Ari’s housekeeper telling him what had happened and flinched. Seeing a bus trundling along the road in the distance, she speeded up to reach the stop and flagged it down. It didn’t matter where it was going, just as long as it got her safely away from the vicinity of the villa where she might be seen. Her phone vibrated in her bag and she dug it out and, refusing to even look at the message, she switched it off. She wasn’t in any fit state to deal with Aristandros.
It was a warm, humid evening. Ella felt hot and her skin felt clammy, though her teeth kept on threatening to chatter in shock. She got on the bus and sat down at the back, her body lurching and swaying as the vehicle swung round corners. Why was she so shocked when Aristandros had only done what had always come naturally to him? Such a very beautiful girl, as well. If a man had always wanted the diversity and excitement of other sexual partners, he was unlikely to change. And no doubt, if she asked him, he would be honest with her about it.
Her mind went into free fall at the thought of him being that honest with her. Any admission of infidelity would cut like a knife and leave scars, haunting her for ever. But the images already tormenting her were no more comforting, she acknowledged wretchedly, for the idea of Ari in another woman’s arms was her worst nightmare and always had been. Now it had finally happened, she was reeling from the pain she was experiencing.
But wasn’t the extent of that pain her own fault, a self-induced punishment? What woman in her right mind would have fallen in love with Aristandros Xenakis and hoped for a happy ending? Countless women had tried and failed with him. Yet she was still crazy about him. She had held nothing back. In fact, a week ago, when she had watched Ari building a sandcastle with Callie—a real boy-toy skyscraper version of a sandcastle—she had wondered if she had made an appalling mistake when she’d turned his marriage proposal down seven years back. She had wondered if, against the odds, they might have found happiness together. She had known that although she loved her career and lived for its challenges it had never brought her the sheer, soaring happiness, excitement and contentment that he could just with his presence.
