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Her cheeks were wet with tears when she climbed off the bus at the terminal. What was she planning to do—run away and leave Callie behind? That option was absolutely out of the question. Hadn’t Ari already accused her of running away when anything upset her? Ella bristled at that recollection. But exactly what was she doing now? She couldn’t give up on Callie; she just couldn’t! Whatever happened, whatever else she had to bear, there was no way she could give up on the little girl she loved. At the same time, however, she needed a few hours’ grace to pull herself back together before she had to face Aristandros again. She decided that the wisest option was to find a hotel for the night.
She walked for ages before she came on a small establishment sited in a quiet street. Checking in, she was conscious of the receptionist’s swiftly veiled curiosity, and when she saw her reflection in the mirror in the en suite bathroom of her hotel room she grimaced in horrified embarrassment at the state of her face. Her mascara had run, and her eye shadow had smudged where she’d wiped her eyes, and her hair was all messy. She freshened up and then made herself switch her phone back on. She couldn’t stage a vanishing act for very long. She had also left Aristandros standing at the opera. Although that was the very least of what he deserved, it would have gone down like a lead balloon.
Her phone rang within seconds of being switched on.
‘Where the hell are you?’ Aristandros growled.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t make it, but I need some space tonight.’
‘No!’ It was thunderous. ‘No space allowed. Where are you?’
‘In a hotel, a little place, not one you’d know. I really do need to be alone for a while,’ Ella breathed flatly, wondering how she could possibly stand to be with him ever again, how she could ever contrive to live with him and the knowledge of his infidelity.
‘You’re not allowed to walk out on me under any circumstances,’ Aristandros intoned in a fierce undertone. ‘I will not tolerate it.’
‘I’m not walking out on you.’ Ella framed those words with a sob trapped in her throat.
‘Ella…’ he breathed huskily.
Ella cut the call before she could let her turbulent emotional mood betray her into revealing more than she should. But he would soon find out through his staff that she had met his trollop. No; where did she get off calling another woman a trollop just because she had slept with Ari? After all, she wasn’t married to him. He was still a free agent in the eyes of the world.
Tears choking her, Ella, her slender body trembling, sank down on the end of the bed. As she always feared, her love for Aristandros was tearing her apart at the seams, destroying her strength and self-esteem, when really the only person she ought to be thinking about was Callie, who was safely asleep in her cot and blissfully ignorant of the messes adults could make of their relationships. But Ella recognised at that moment that she had to find a way to sort this mess out, because it was unlikely that she could trust Aristandros to make that effort.
More than an hour later, she jumped in surprise when a knock sounded at her door. Glancing out through the peephole, she could see nothing but a large probably male shape and she opened the door on the chain.
CHAPTER TEN
‘OPEN the door, Ella,’ Aristandros instructed harshly.
Ella was shattered that he had found her so quickly. She shut the door, undid the chain and opened the door again. ‘How on earth did you know where I was?’
His tension palpable, Aristandros was staring at her, his brilliant dark gaze roving from the crown of her head down to her feet and swiftly back up again. ‘I have tracking devices in your mobile phone and your watch, so it was just a matter of switching on the surveillance equipment to locate you—’
Ella gaped at him aghast. ‘Tracking devices?’ she parrotted.
‘A precaution in case you were kidnapped, a standard security procedure,’ Aristandros proclaimed matter-of-factly. ‘I’m a very wealthy man, and it’s possible that someone could try to target you because of your connection to me.’
‘You fixed tracking devices on me?’ Ella condemned him in angry disbelief, still back at that first admission. ‘And you never said a word about it either.’
‘I didn’t want to make you nervous or scared. But I’m not going to apologise for it, either,’ Aristandros added in an aggressive undertone. ‘I needed to be sure you were as safe as I could make you. It’s my job to protect you.’
‘A tracking device,’ Ella muttered shakily. ‘Like I’m a possession…a stolen car or something.’
