“Why don’t you join us?” He prompted with the appearance of relaxed laziness, running his hands through the water.
“Elle doesn’t like to swim,” Filip laughed, pulling through the water like a fish.
“Doesn’t she?” Christos arched a brow, his intense gaze making her skin break out in goosebumps.
“Or to run or hike or do anything that might cause her to break a sweat.”
Christos’s look was pure sensual amusement and Elle knew what he was thinking. She’d sweated plenty with him. Their sex life had been the definition of active. She cleared her throat. “Is that so?”
Filip pulled through the water, coming to prop beside Christos. “Nah. Who has time for sports when you’re living and breathing music, hey?” He flicked water out of the pool, sprinkling her feet. She moved her legs so they were crossed beneath her.
“Filip,” she said warningly.
“Come on, sis. When’s the last time we did anything together that didn’t involve that hunk of metal?”
She looked guiltily at the chair and nodded. The hope in his expression wormed into her heart. “You’re right. I’ll go get changed.”
Christos watched her disappear with impatience. She had behaved in a manner that he could never forgive, and yet he wanted her. And he couldn’t have said how she felt. Uncertainty was a foreign emotion to him; he did not welcome it.
His mood wasn’t improved when she returned a few moments later in her bathers. They were perfectly modest – a black one-piece suit – but that only added to their allure.
She slid into the water carefully. It was a warm day, and Elle was secretly thrilled at the feeling of the water lapping around her body. She smiled at Filip alone as she waded into the middle of the pool. He swam to meet her.
“You don’t know how good this feels,” he grinned, paddling his arms.
She laughed, but a strange emotion was cloying at her throat. “You look great in here.”
“Like myself,” he nodded excitedly. “I know. I feel like myself.”
She felt Christos’s presence behind her. “Filip was always the athlete of the family.”
“My school has excellent programmes,” he said, regretting having teased Elle earlier over her lack of athleticism.
“Your school did not?” Christos prompted, circling around them. Elle was immediately reminded of a shark about to attack.
“Elle’s school?” Filip shook his head. “The only workout she got was running from drug dealers. Or the guys who wanted to date her.” Filip laughed, shaking his head. “I guess that would have kept you pretty fit actually. There was plenty of both.”
“Filip,” she said with exasperation. “You’re making it sound worse than it was.”
“Elle was always the most popular girl in school.”
“How do you even know that?” She said with a frown. “You go to school miles away.”
“Oh, your name was still enough to gain cachet for me. The older guys used to try to get on my good side just for a chance with you.”
“That’s not true,” she said, flicking her eyes to Christos.
His expression gave nothing away. It was unfeeling, though Christos felt deeply.
“Then there was Chip.”
Elle closed her eyes. “Okay. That’s enough walking down memory lane. Show me what you can do. Go.”
Filip laughed. “Am I embarrassing you for a change?”
She couldn’t help but return his smile. “Yes. And I don’t like it. All this water’s gone to your head.”
“Yep. You’d better get used to it. This is the new Filip Bradley and you’re going to be seeing a lot more of me.”
She paddled back to the step, content to sit in the shallow and watch as he swam. Christos did likewise, but from a safe enough distance that Elle didn’t immediately leave the pool.
“My mother is coming for dinner.”
“I see.” She nodded. She thought of meeting his mother and her stomach did all sorts of crazy backflips. She was unspeakably relieved that she’d organised to see her friend’s performance. It was a commitment she couldn’t shake, and she gripped it mentally like a talisman. “That’s fine. There’s something I wanted to do in the city anyway.”
He looked at her strangely. “You will meet my mother.”
She bit down on her lip. “I told you, there’s something …”
“Oh? What is it? This thing you allegedly want to see?” He spoke quietly so that Filip wouldn’t hear the barbed anger in his words.
“It doesn’t concern you.” She was being childish. She softened her response. “A concert.”
“A concert?”
“Andre Meyers is performing in Athens, but only for this weekend. I thought I’d …”
“Not tonight.” He frowned as his brain connected the name in his mind. “The concert pianist?”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she said stiffly. “I’m here for Filip, and he won’t care that I’m out tonight. Especially given that I’m going to see this performance.”
“I care,” Christos ground from between his teeth. “You are hiding from my mother because of what you did. But you cannot hide forever. The sooner you meet her the sooner it will be over.”
“I’m not hiding from your mother.” She slashed him a dark glance. “She is nothing to me. Just as you are nothing to me.” She looked towards Filip and, confident he was still busy with his new-found strength, swam towards Christos. She stood right in front of him. “Don’t think you can push me around.”
“I don’t want to push you around,” he promised. “I want to carry you inside and make love to you on that sofa, like we did last time we were in here together.”
Her eyes widened. “It’s never going to happen.”
His laugh was as sexy as sin. “Never say never.”
She shook her head sadly. “I’m going inside.”
“Dinner’s at eight.”
She paused on the steps and turned around. “I’ll be gone by seven.”
True to her word, just before that hour, Elle emerged downstairs dressed more formally than Christos had ever seen her. It was a stunning ensemble: a pair of wide-legged black trousers and a silky cream blouse teamed with strings of black beads. She’d pulled her hair into two braids and wrapped them around her head like a crown of sorts. Her heels were inches high; she looked like a Hollywood starlet.
He stared at her for a long moment. “You are somewhat overdressed for dinner.”
“Oh, I’ll probably just grab a burger before the concert,” she murmured, deliberately appearing to misunderstand him.
“What concert?” Filip asked, emerging from the lift, a book balanced on his lap. “Are you heading out?”
“Yeah.” She smiled at him. “It suited both of us to catch up tonight.”
“Both of you?” Christos prompted conversationally, though every part of him was on the alert. Was she meeting someone there?
Elle nodded sweetly. “Yes, that’s what I said. Good night.” She crossed to her brother and pressed a kiss against his head. “Love you.”
Christos felt a sharp ache deep in his abdomen. It was their easy affection, that was all.
“I’ll walk you out.”
“Oh, there’s no need.” Her smile, when she tilted her beautiful face to his, was ice. “I’ll never forget where the exit is having been frogmarched to it so well last time I was here.”
She spun on her heel and sashayed from the room, leaving a bemused brother and a powerless ex-lover staring at her departing figure.
“She certainly has not got a lot of time for you,” Filip said with a laugh, spinning on his wheels to come into the kitchen.
“I’m gathering that,” Christos returned throatily.
“She’ll get over it. Elle never stays mad for long.”
Christos poured himself a wine and grabbed a soda for Filip. “You guys are close.”
“You kidding? She raised me.”
Christ
os pulled the meat from the fridge and put it on the chopping board. “Since your mom died?”
“Nah. Even before we lost mom, Elle was in charge. Of all of us, really.”
“All of you?” He prompted, hating himself for the way he was trying to get information about her through her brother. But what choice did he have? She had closed herself off from him.
You’re a stupid whore, with nothing to offer a man beyond your body.
He winced as those words came flashing back to him.
“Hannah, Chip, me. If it wasn’t for Elle, God knows what kind of trouble we’d have gotten in to.” Filip threw his head back and drank half the can. “She must have been blown away when she saw this.” He nodded towards the piano.
Christos nodded, and as he stared at the piano he could see Elle as she’d been that day, sitting at it, her eyes closed, transfixed. “You could say that.”
“What’s for dinner?” Filip wheeled closer and grinned at the sight of the fillet steaks. “My favourite.”
“Mine too.”
“Must be genetics.” Filip shook his head. Genetics. The tangle of DNA that swam in both of them. Courtesy of a man Filip would never know. A man who hadn’t wanted him. Who’d wished him dead. “So what was he like?”
Christos arched a brow enquiringly.
“Your father.”
“Our father,” Christos amended with a rueful shake of his head. He didn’t know how to answer the question. The man who had raised him would never have had an affair. The knowledge filled him with a deep-seated doubt about his parentage. “He was very clever. An astute businessman.”
“Rakanti Industries was passed down from his father?”
Christos nodded. “My grandfather had a shipping company and a few hotels. My father turned the business into the global name it is now.”
“And you’ve done your own thing.”
“Yes,” Christos agreed.
“Why? You could have just stepped into your dad’s shoes.”
“I know. But I never wanted to inherit my fortune.”
Filip nodded. “I can respect that.”
“Hel-lo?” Xanthe swept into the kitchen with a smile on her beautiful face. “Ah! Still just the two of you, I see.”
“Ellie’s got a concert.”
Xanthe’s lips pulled into a line of disapproval. “I should have thought she’d be desperate to see her brother.”
Christos sent his mother a warning glance. Fortunately, Filip either didn’t hear the undercurrent of distaste or chose to ignore it. “Ellie loves music. I dare say it’s some orchestra or other …”
“Andre Meyers,” Christos supplied.
“Oh! She should have said. That makes sense.”
“Does it?” Christos began to heat butter in the frying pan.
“Yeah. They’re old friends.”
“They are?” There it was again. Jealousy. A sharp arrow in his chest. Filip wheeled into the kitchen and opened the cutlery draw. He lifted out utensils as though Christos wasn’t impatiently waiting for him to expand on the statement.
“Sure. He loves her. He’s her biggest fan.”
“Her biggest fan? Darling, he’s a renowned pianist,” Xanthe piped in, struck anew at the similarities between the two men. She felt like something inside of her was being strangled to see these men – brothers – working in unison together in the kitchen.
“Yeah. He’s great. Not as great as Ellie though.”
Christos placed the steaks onto the sizzling butter and then gave Filip his full attention. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Are you telling me Ellie never played this thing for you?”
Christos nodded. “She’s very talented.”
Filip laughed with undisguised surprise. “She’s more than talented. She’s a prodigy. She taught herself, you know.”
Christos was immobile.
“Well, lots of people tinker with instruments,” Xanthe murmured, wiping her hands on her dress as if to push the conversation away.
“When Ellie was two, our mom dated a high school principal. She used to take Ellie to his place. One morning they woke up to find her playing the theme song to Sesame Street.” Filip laughed. “At least, that’s what mom always said.”
“Mothers!” Xanthe threw her hands in the air in a gesture designed to seem frivolous. “We are universally proud of our children. Any excuse to brag about their achievements, no matter how minor.”
“Not our mom,” Filip demurred, placing the cutlery at each space on the table. “She found Ellie’s piano playing annoying.”
“Did she play a lot, growing up then?” Christos needed more. He needed to know everything about her.
“Nah. Mum wouldn’t have it in the house. She liked to sleep late. But Chip and Hannah had a keyboard, and she’d go to school as much as possible to play in the theatre.”
“I had no idea,” Christos said, rubbing his chin.
“Christos.” Xanthe’s word was shrill. “Turn those steaks or we’ll be eating cardboard. Darling.” She added to soften the shrill command of her statement, busying herself with arranging sofa cushions.
Christos’s frown deepened.
Elle had been nervous to meet Xanthe; and he understood it. But it appeared Xanthe was likewise nervous to meet Elle. For what reason? He added some green beans to the pan and several moments later lifted the steaks out to rest. He added butter and white wine to the beans and left them to simmer.
“How did she meet Andre?”
“The Julliard sent him,” Filip said, sipping his cola.
“The Julliard? The music school?” Christos wondered then at how little he knew of this woman. For a week she’d lived in his home and he had the bare minimum facts. It was filling him with doubt, anger and resentment. How could he have possessed her again and again and yet know so little?
Filip rolled his eyes in a gesture so reminiscent of Elle that Christos’s gut rolled. “No. The fast food restaurant. Of course the music school.”
“Hang on. I didn’t know she went to Julliard.”
Filip’s face was suddenly pale. “She didn’t.” He frowned. “I shouldn’t be talking about it anyway.” He smiled disjointedly at Xanthe. “Did you bring those photos?”
Xanthe, relieved to have an ally finally in avoiding talk of Elle, reached into her handbag. “Yes. Here. This is an album of your father’s from school. You are so like him. Just as Christos is.”
Elle tiptoed into the kitchen but she felt like she was dancing. The music of that night throbbed through her whole body. What room was there in her life for sadness and loneliness when there was such melody to be had? She turned on the spot and wiggled her hips, remembering the chord progressions.
Andre Meyers was a genius. An actual genius.
She sighed wistfully, staring at Christos’s piano. Her fingers tingled but she didn’t move closer, lest the temptation to play overtook her and she woke the whole house. Instead, she walked into the kitchen and flicked the kettle on.
Three plates were drying on the side of the sink. So Xanthe had been and gone. And Elle had dodged that bullet.
She was happy to pretend that she had broken the news to the papers. It was best for Filip that she kept that secret. But she didn’t relish coming face to face with the woman who must hate her.
To the woman who, if a million little details had been different, would have possibly, one day, been a part of her family. Who might have been her mother-in-law. She shook her head to clear the errant thought. It was foolish in the extreme to go down that path.
A million little details weren’t different though; they were the important reasons she had for staying away from him for good.
Apart from anything else, Filip would be miserable if they became romantically involved and then broke up. His relationship with Christos was more important than anything else she might feel. Besides, Christos might still desire her sexually, but he hated her. And by his own admittance, it had always
been about sex with them.
She tossed a teabag into a mug and sloshed the boiling water in, then added a few drops of milk. As she placed the milk in the fridge, her eyes dropped to a photo album on the edge of the bench.
Absentmindedly, simply because it was there, she flicked it open. She shut it again almost instantly.
The last person she felt like seeing, Filip Rakanti, had been staring back at her. And she saw it. Christos, when he’d told her to leave, had reminded her so much of Filip Senior that she’d hated him. She’d loved him, but she’d hated him too. And she wasn’t sure she could ever undo that hatred.
9
“Did you change your mind?” Christos asked, admiring Elle’s summery dress and sandals as he chewed his toast.
She smiled pointedly at Filip. “About what?”
“Coming to the office with us.”
“No.” She stiffened her spine and placed her teacup from the night before into the sink.
“How was the concert?” Filip aimed to defuse the palpable tension.
“Great.” She could barely keep the grin off her face. God, she was beautiful when she smiled. Christos ached to kiss those lips; to taste the happiness she was exuding.
“And how’s Andre?”
“Great.” She grinned. “He says hi.”
“You didn’t say that you know him personally,” Christos interjected, taking another bite of toast.
“No.” Her expression was loaded with saccharine. “I suppose I thought it wasn’t your business.”
He ground his teeth together. You were home late. He pushed the statement out of his mind. He wasn’t her father. He wasn’t her lover. He certainly wasn’t her friend.
“So? Come on. What happened?”
“What do you mean?” She asked her brother, bringing a fresh mug of tea and sitting at the table. She curled her legs up beneath her on the chair.
“Did you play for him?”
Her eyes drifted to Christos and then returned to Filip. She nodded cautiously but her eyes were sparkling.
“You played at the concert?” Christos wondered, wishing that he could have seen it.
“No! Not at the concert. Afterwards. Just for Andre.” She sipped her tea then turned to face Christos. “He asked me to spend the day with him. I wondered if I could catch a lift into town with you.”