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As they waited in a VIP lounge, Ella was conscious of his scrutiny. She knew he was desperate to know what she intended to do next. He had removed the one threat that could have forced her to take whatever he threw at her. No longer did she need to stay with him purely for Callie’s sake. His ferocious pride couldn’t live with that concept. Blackmail, he had finally discovered, did have its drawbacks.
They were walking towards the helicopter with a neat, respectful space between them when Ella reached abruptly for a lean, brown hand across that divide. ‘I want to stay with you,’ she told him tautly.
Right there and then, Aristandros turned round and swept her straight into his arms, plunging his mouth down urgently on hers with a passion that blew her away. He had to practically carry her on board the helicopter after that. She was stunned by the level of his relief at her announcement, and could not have doubted his level of ongoing satisfaction over that news when he gave her a heart-stopping smile and retained a hold on her hand throughout the flight. The engine was so noisy that there was no chance of any further conversation until they arrived back on Lykos.
Ella kicked off her shoes just inside the front door when they arrived and padded off straight to the nursery to satisfy her desperate need to see Callie. When she looked up from the cot and the peacefully sleeping child, Aristandros was on the other side of it.
‘I really screwed up tonight—the opera thing,’ Ella said ruefully. ‘I know it was important. I’m sorry I didn’t make it.’
Aristandros gave her a wryly amused appraisal. ‘You left me standing. But then I’m used to you embarrassing me in front of my family.’
Ella blinked. ‘Your…er…family?’
‘Yes. Pretty much the whole tribe attended that benefit, and I was planning to show you off to them all.’
‘My word; truthfully?’ Ella prompted as she followed him out of the nursery. ‘Why did you want to show me off?’
‘Because I very much hope you’re going to marry me, but I wasn’t so stupid that I was going to make an announcement without thoroughly discussing terms with you in advance,’ he explained smoothly.
Her bright-blue eyes grew very wide. ‘You’re proposing again?’
‘A tactful woman would have left out that last word,’ Aristandros told her, walking her out on to the terrace where a champagne bottle and glasses sat on the table. ‘Are we celebrating or not?’
Ella winced. ‘I’m totally, madly in love with you and just like the last time I really, really want to marry you and be with you for ever. But I also spent a large chunk of my life training to become a doctor.’
‘And you can still be a doctor.’ Aristandros frowned as she looked at him in shock. ‘I was being very selfish, which I hate to admit comes naturally to me around you. My mother was so obsessed with the film world that she had no time or energy to spare even for me, never mind my father. I don’t want a marriage like that. I once resented your medical career because you chose it over me.’
Her lovely face was pensive in the moonlight. ‘No, I think I used it as my get-out clause because I’d suffered Theo as a horrid example of a womaniser and I was so afraid of getting hurt. I should have had more faith in you.’
‘We didn’t have enough time together.’ Aristandros lifted her hand and slid a ring on to her engagement finger. ‘It’s the same diamond I planned to give you seven years ago, but I’ve had it reset.’
‘It’s glorious.’ Ella watched the glittering stone sparkle like starlight on her hand and a warm, deep sense of happiness began to fill her.
‘We were too young then,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘If we’d been more mature we would have tried to find a compromise and a way of being together that we could both live with. Instead I lost my temper with you because you made me feel foolish, which was very superficial.’
‘You really broke my heart,’ Ella confided, ready to be totally frank now that she had his ring on her finger and a proper secure future to look forward to. ‘I couldn’t believe you’d ever loved me.’
‘I loved you so much that I never found anyone else to replace you. With you I thought I could break the Xenakis tradition of bad marriages. I believed that settling down while I was still quite young into marriage would give me a much better prospect of happiness than, for instance, the life I’ve been leading since then.’ His rich, golden eyes were full of regret. ‘But I fell at the first challenge.’
Ella wrapped her arms round his neck, her fingers gently feathering through the silky, black hair at his nape. She wished she had understood him better seven years earlier and recognised that his troubled background had made him crave a much more stable life with one woman rather than a succession. ‘You were so all-or-nothing about everything, and then you just walked away from me and I never heard from you again.’
