Dragging her suitcase up the stairs, she pushed through their front door and made a sound of rich emotion as she barged towards Filip. She pressed a kiss to his cheek and then crouched before him. “Darling. I’m so sorry about all of this. I don’t know how …”
Hannah emerged from the bathroom, wiping her hands on the front of her jeans. “Filip. Tell her.”
Elle stared at Hannah, the accusatory question she’d been about to level dying on her lips. “Tell me what?”
“I did it.” His eyes had a spark of defiance. “I told a friend of mine who’s uncle writes for the Times.”
Elle stared at him in shock. The words were swirling in a strange way, none of them making a jot of sense. “What do you mean? Why?”
“Because I knew you were over there for me. Why else would you go and talk to someone like Christos Rakanti?”
Hearing her brother say Christos’s name made her stomach flop uncomfortably. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” she prompted, hoping he’d speak before she gave too much away.
“Yes, you do. My father died. Then weeks later you’re snapped with his son. I’m not a rocket scientist Elle, but it was pretty obviously about me.”
Elle squeezed her eyes shut. “You knew?”
“That Filip Rakanti was my father? Of course I knew. I’m not an idiot. I look just like him. I have the same name. And mom was hardly discreet when she’d had a few vodkas, which was pretty damn often.”
“Oh my God.” Elle shook her head and then knelt to his eye level. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His beautiful dark eyes crinkled with an impatience that was now achingly familiar to her. “Because it was meant to be some big secret. I know he was pressuring mom to keep my very existence a secret. He was furious she’d called me Filip.” His expression was cold, despite the painful admissions he was uttering. “I figured his son was doing the same crap to you. I’m not going to have it. Not anymore.”
“You did this to protect me?” She whispered, putting her head on his chest and listening to his strong, kind heart.
“Why else?” He wrapped an arm around her and she let go of the tears that were clogged in her throat. “You’re my sis. I wasn’t going to have you get involved with him for my sake. Stuff it. Now the truth’s out. I’m so tired of all the lies. I can’t be the only kid a rich man didn’t want.”
“Darling, don’t speak like that. It’s more complicated …”
“Blood isn’t complicated,” he corrected firmly. “It’s simple. And now he’s dead. And mom’s dead. And I’m sick of pretending not to be who I am because he was ashamed of me. The truth’s out. That’s it. All over.”
Not quite, Elle thought sadly. Christos would go to his grave believing she’d got what she needed from him and then broken his trust.
“No one has ever been ashamed of you,” she said falteringly.
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean it.” She stroked his face lovingly. “Your father cheated on his wife with mom. Acknowledging you would have been very painful and …”
“Don’t defend him,” he said softly.
She nodded. He was right. How could he possibly speak in the defense of Christos’s father. “Listen to me. Christos is … he’s proud. And he adored his dad.” She swallowed as Christos’s face swam before her eyes. “He might never want to know you. Not because of who you are, but because of his love and loyalty for his parents.” She took in a deep breath, preparing steeling herself to admit to the possibility of Christos’s involvement in their lives. “But if he does want to reach out to you, you can never, ever, not for all the money or salvation in the world, tell him that it was you who broke this story.”
“I’m so sick of the lies,” he groaned, seeming much older than his fifteen years.
“I know, dearest. But he would never forgive you.” She remembered the hatred in his eyes and shuddered. “And he doesn’t need to know, anyway. What’s done is done.”
“Do you think I care what he thinks of me?”
Elle’s heart was sore. “It’s not his fault. He knew nothing about you until … until …” her eyes lifted to Hannah’s face. “Until I went to Athens.”
“So? Not my fault, not my problem.”
Elle swallowed painfully. “Just … promise me you won’t tell anyone else that you were the one who went to the press.” A desire to protect him from further wrath and admonishment sparkled at the forefront of her mind.
“I don’t intend to tell anyone anything about them now. The truth’s out. Now we can all just let it go.”
Elle was hardly concentrating. Hannah’s brother Chip was half-way through the story though; it was too late for Elle to admit she had barely heard a word he was saying. So she laughed when he did and nodded at what she hoped was the appropriate juncture.
It had been a month.
A whole month.
And things had, at least ostensibly, returned to a pattern of normality. Hannah studying, Elle working such long hours she felt like her feet could melt off, and Chip hanging around every spare moment he had, trying to decide what to do with his life.
Elle didn’t mind though. She’d known him forever, and he was great with Filip. Even though Chip was Elle’s age, they were both baseball mad, and it gave them the common ground necessary to make them as thick as thieves.
“Can you believe that?”
She shook her head. Believe what? What had she missed? Chip launched back into his story without missing a beat, and as he talked he reached over and unhooked the groceries from Elle’s arm, as though just realising she was weighed down by a bag of lentils and canned tomatoes.
“Thanks,” she murmured.
“No worries.” He put an arm casually around her shoulder, easing her to a stop. “You sure you’re okay? You seem out of it today.”
“Gee, thanks.” She punched him playfully on his arm. “I’m just tired.”
“You’re working too hard.”
“I’m working just hard enough.” She was finally seeing some decent savings growing in her bank account. Oh, nothing that would set the world on fire, but it was enough to offer a little breathing space.
“Why don’t you let me take you out tonight? Dinner? Movie? You deserve a break.”
She shook her head. “I’m beat, Chip. I feel like I could sleep a week and I’ve got to be back at work in twelve hours.”
He squeezed her shoulders and began to walk again. Her apartment was only a block away. “Besides,” she smiled up at him. “Filip would never forgive me if I deprived him of his armchair buddy.”
Chip laughed. “That’s true. So beers and fries then.”
“Beer for you,” she reminded him with a laugh. “Filip is only fifteen.”
“Almost sixteen,” Chip grinned and Elle shook her head.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Guilty as charged.”
She lifted her eyes to his, tempted to call him something far worse when her feet stumbled. If Chip hadn’t already had an arm around her shoulders she might have fallen flat on the pavement.
It was the shock that did it.
For four long, miserable weeks she had imagined Christos everywhere she went. And now that he was actually there, standing broodingly at the bottom of her apartment building framed by cream buns on one side and bread the other she felt like all the wind had been knocked out of her lungs.
“Hey? Earth to Ellie. What’s up?” Chip moved to stand in front of her. “Honey? You right?”
She shook her head and swallowed compulsively. “It’s him,” she said simply, her eyes darting past Chip’s reassuringly broad frame to Christos.
Chip threw an assessing glance over his shoulder and then turned back to Elle’s stricken face. “So it is. What do you want me to do?”
She bit down on her lip. “Would you … would you stay with Filip? Just until I can work out what he’s doing here.”
“You think he’s come to make troubl
e?”
I’m thinking that I wish I’d never met you, but that at least I have the satisfaction of knowing you meant nothing to me. That you were nice to sleep with when I was in the mood, but that beyond that you bored me and I’m glad I have a reason to get rid of you without guilt.
Pain lanced her anew, as though the words had been freshly issued. “I think he’s not here to make chit-chat,” she said seriously.
Chip squeezed her shoulder. “Come on.”
He walked with Elle close to his chest, his eyes pinning Christos the whole way. Christos didn’t notice. He could only stare at Elle. It was as though he had never seen her, yet somehow he felt like he’d only kissed her moments earlier. There was an eerie familiarity that defied logic.
Dressed all in black with her blonde hair pulled up in a high, voluminous ballerina bun, she looked graceful and enigmatic. She looked fragile too, as though a single gust of wind might lift her far away.
He hardened his heart to any sense of her vulnerability. He’d killed whatever they’d shared that last morning in Greece and he was glad. She was dishonest and grasping, just like her mother had been.
“Chip Smith.”
Christos ignored the other man and Elle felt Chip stiffen. “I’m fine,” she smiled up at her would-be Knight in Hillfiger armour. “Why don’t you go get started? I’ll only be a minute.”
“You sure, babe?”
Babe. The word was a gauntlet that Chip was issuing; his staking a claim to Elle was a deliberate attempt to support her in the face of Christos’s appearance and she appreciated it.
“Yeah.”
She watched as he let himself into the door with Hannah’s key and then turned back to Christos. There was an enormous part of her that wanted to stare at him and drink in every single detail of his appearance. But she refused to give him the satisfaction.
“What do you want?” She cut to the chase, her words ringing with cold rejection.
“Am I interrupting something?” He demanded, leaning against the wall of the building as though he hardly cared.
“Yes.” She crossed her arms and flicked a gaze up to the apartment.
Something moved in his expression; something she didn’t understand. She’d never understood him though. Not really.
“Where is he?”
“Who?” She asked, deliberately appearing not to understand.
“Your brother.”
“Your brother too,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, and thanks to you the whole world knows it.”
She jerked her face away, staring out at the street just as a bus revved past. “We’ve already dealt with that. Or do you have some more insults you want to throw at me?”
His lip twisted. “If I had my way, I wouldn’t speak to you again.” The insult cut her as deep, perhaps more deeply, than he’d intended. “However you are, currently, Filip’s legal guardian. Evidently I have to go through you to get to him.”
Her pulse fired in her body; fear made her brow dot with perspiration. “What do you mean? Why do you want to get to him? He hasn’t done anything wrong.” The words tumbled quickly out of her mouth.
He nodded. “No. He’s an innocent, remember? Like my mother.”
“So?”
“She wants to meet him,” Christos said darkly and Elle could tell the words brought him a huge amount of heartache.
“Why?” Elle crossed her arms in an immediate physical rejection of the idea.
“Because we’re ‘family’.” He spat the word angrily. “Because he has my father’s blood in his body and he is therefore a piece of my father. She has some misguided idea that your brother deserves to be brought into our lives simply because my father made a foolish mistake sixteen years ago.”
And all of the emotions that had been burning through her; the injustice, the ache, the hurt, the loss, bubbled up at that single word. She slapped him hard against his cheek, just like she’d seen countless women do in movies. She’d never so much as swatted a fly, yet she aimed a perfect, flat-palmed strike across his face and didn’t even regret it. “My brother is not a mistake. And if you intend to make him feel like a second-class citizen then I will never let you near him.”
She bared her teeth and growled at him like a tigress and Christos was very, very still.
He had never seen her like that. It was the same protective instinct though that had sent her to Athens, and had emboldened her to seduce a stranger. She would do anything for Filip.
Anything.
Including revealing the secret of his parentage to the media.
If she’d believed it would strengthen her bargaining position then she’d have been right. Christos could no longer deny that Filip was entitled to a bigger piece of his father’s empire than he had been allotted. Particularly not when Xanthe was breathing down his back about justice and the importance of family.
“I have no reason to think badly of him, despite the fact he is related by blood to you.”
It was both insult and encouragement. If he could truly separate what he felt for her and Filip then she surely couldn’t justify standing in his way. “I don’t want him to be hurt,” she whispered, pushing away the doubts that were based on her needs, not Filip’s.
“Like my mother was?”
She nodded, not even tempted to issue a denial. “Please be kind to him.”
“Where is he?”
“Upstairs.” She pushed her key into the door and hesitated for the briefest moment. But Christos was there, pushing the door inwards and stepping into the hallway.
“Here?” He nodded towards the curving staircase and she nodded.
“There’s a service elevator at the back, but we just take the stairs. We’re only on the first floor. It’s a good location.” She was babbling. She clamped her lips together and moved to precede him up the stairs. She had to sidestep him and it brought her dangerously close to his body. She ignored the lurch of awareness.
“Hey,” she called brightly as she walked inside. She spun to Christos. “Give me a minute to …”
He wasn’t looking at her though. He was skimming his gaze over the apartment with undisguised appraisal. Elle turned and looked at it through his eyes, seeing the peeling wallpaper, the second-hand furniture, the faded carpets, the grimy windows. Mortification curled around her. It was as far a cry from his luxurious home in Athens as it was possible to get.
“Where is he?”
“Just let me tell him you’re here.” She padded into the apartment, placing her bag down on the side table as she went. Filip was in the lounge, a box of fries on his lap, his eyes fixed to the screen.
“Grab a seat, sis. First ball’s almost up.”
She smiled with deep affection. “Darling, Christos Rakanti is here to see you.”
Filip wheeled around in shock, and the same emotion was mirrored on Christos’s face when he stared at the young boy who could have been his mirror image.
Except for one vital difference.
From the waist down, Filip’s body was withered and slim; he was kept upright by the metallic frame of the wheelchair.
But the angry appraisal in the young man’s eyes was an emotion Christos recognised all too well. He pushed aside the ten thousand questions he had, sending Elle a look of repressed annoyance, before crossing the room and extending a hand to Filip.
“I understand we’re brothers,” he said, ignoring the physical disability.
“We share a father,” Filip spoke coldly. “That doesn’t make us brothers.”
Christos smothered his smile. The air of determination was deeply familiar to him. “A fair point.”
Filip’s distrust deepened. “I don’t want my sister being upset.”
The look Christos directed in Elle’s direction was laced with frustration. She understood his annoyance, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not upset, Fil. I’m fine. I’m … glad Christos is here to see you.”
Filip wheeled around to study her face
. “You are? I thought you hated …”
“No.” She shook her head, refusing the meet Christos’s face for the sardonic judgement she knew she’d find there. She crouched down in front of her brother, cupping his cheeks with her hands. “He’s your brother. As much as I’m your sister.” She stroked his face with her thumb. “You aren’t hurting me. You aren’t betraying me. Your relationship with him is nothing to do with me.”
“But you …”
“I’m fine.” She lifted up and kissed his forehead. “You should at least hear him out.”
Filip’s dark eyes scanned hers. “Fine. I’ll hear him out.” He set his chin at a belligerent angle and then turned his gaze towards Christos.
“Well?” He prompted, so darkly that Elle had to hide a smile as she moved back towards Chip.
Christos continued as though he didn’t notice the coldness in Filip’s reception. “I was hoping we could get to know each other better.”
Filip arched a thick, dark brow. “Why?”
“Well, as you said, we share a father. You must have questions about him …”
Filip’s sardonic laugh was a perfect imitation of Christos’s. “I know everything I need to about your father.”
A muscle jerked in Christos’s cheek. Yet he could understand this child’s anger. Particularly when he saw the way he and Elle had been living. Not to mention a lifetime spent knowing you were unwanted by the man who’d helped create you.
“You’re fifteen?”
Filip nodded.
“So I’ve missed fifteen years of your life.” Christos shook his head. “I don’t want to miss any more of it.”
Elle turned away. The honest admission was too loaded with goodness to leave her unaffected. “Excuse me,” she said softly, padding into the kitchen. Chip saw the slump in her shoulders and followed her, wrapping her in a bear hug once they were out of sight.
“It’s going to be okay,” he promised. “You’ll always be his sister.”
“Why do I feel like I’m going to be pushed out then?” She whispered.
“That’s natural, but it’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t understand. Christos can offer Filip the world. He has everything at his disposal. And I can’t compete with that. What do I have? This apartment? I’m never even here.”