had looked from the cell in her hand to the woman who’d raised her, and the rose-coloured glasses she’d worn all her life had slipped off.
Romance and everlasting love were myths. Her parents were prime examples of this truth and she’d been a naïve idiot to think she would be any different.
From that moment her life changed. Everything.
Over the subsequent years she’d refused to think of the man who’d broken her heart. As far as she’d been concerned, he didn’t exist, which worked for three years until she stumbled on a profile article about the newly appointed head of Timos SE, Xander Trakas. Xander had managed the seemingly impossible and broken into the American market.
Reading it, she’d learned exactly how wealthy he and the Trakas family were, and how powerful; on a par with the Onassis family. It was through this article she’d learned about Ana Soukis. His childhood sweetheart. Xander and Ana had been going to marry but Ana had tragically died in a car accident before they could exchange their vows.
Xander had been twenty when Ana died. The same age he’d been when he’d married her, the lying, cheating dirtbag.
Either he’d married Elizabeth when he was engaged to another woman or he’d married her when he should have been grieving the love of his life.
She’d burnt the article and thanked her lucky stars the lying, cheating scumbag had dumped her before it had been too late to get an annulment. She didn’t think she would have been able to handle a divorce.
As much as she’d hated herself for doing it, she’d kept an eye out for his name over the years. Xander had never remarried. And why should he? He had women falling off his arm; even more women than she had thought possible if one believed Celebrity Spy!
Of all the men in the eye of the scandal’s storm, Xander was the least affected. He had no need to find a wife.
She shouldn’t be thinking of him, she told herself crossly, slipping into her bathroom and putting the plug in the tub.
After a fourteen-hour flight she felt grubby and completely out of sorts.
If Piper hadn’t said what she had, Elizabeth wouldn’t even be thinking of him.
Determined to shove him from her mind, she thought of Piper instead and wished with all her heart she could warn her away from Dante. Elizabeth hadn’t matched them together. Their marriage was being born from a one-night stand that had resulted in a pregnancy. Elizabeth’s services had been required only to make the poor woman over and turn her into a shining, sparkly wife who would look good on Dante’s arm.
If she’d been asked to match Dante with anyone, Piper would have been the last woman on the list. She was much too sweet and naïve for the world she was being thrust into.
Just as she, Elizabeth, had once been too sweet and naïve.
She stripped naked and stepped into the steaming, frothy water, then lay back and closed her eyes.
Her cell rang.
Every atom in her body froze. Including her brain.
Then her heart kick-started, hammering against her ribs as if demanding attention.
Breathing deeply and keeping her eyes squeezed shut, Elizabeth did something she had never done before and ignored it.
Eventually it rang off to voicemail.
A short vibration a moment later told her the caller had left a message.
She opened her eyes and gazed up at the white ceiling she had painted herself, and willed her body into calm.
It didn’t have to be him. It could have been anyone. Her clients were the richest of the rich and not used to waiting for anyone. Most had no concept of personal space or personal time, not when it came to anyone but themselves. To them, she was employed to do a job and if they wanted to call her at ten p.m. on a Friday evening then she should damn well be available to take the call.
She would check the message when she got out and call whoever it was back. Her business was her baby and the one thing in her life she was proud of. She’d built it up from scratch and...
The cell rang out again.
This time her heart flew up her throat. She turned her head to stare at it. She’d placed it on the small ledge where she always put it, within arm’s reach. The screen was flashing in time to the ring.
Before she could galvanise herself to do anything, it went through to voicemail again.
Within ten seconds it started ringing again.
A surge of adrenaline propelled her up. She wiped her hand on the towel on the sink then snatched the phone. It wasn’t a number she recognised.
Her heart now gearing itself to fly out of her mouth, she put the cell to her ear.
‘Hello?’ she said tremulously.
‘Elizabeth?’
Hearing Xander’s deep voice in her ear was as shocking as if she’d plunged herself into a bucket of ice. Her body reacted as if she had, the phone slipping from her rigid fingers and landing with a splash in the water between her legs.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, her blood pressure almost back to normal, her body dry and cocooned in a thick towelling robe, Elizabeth unplugged her hairdryer, which she’d blasted at the SIM card she’d yanked out of her sopping phone. Still cursing herself for her stupidity and hoping the damage was minimal, she inserted the SIM card into her old phone, which she’d dug out of a drawer.
It took three nail-biting minutes before she could confirm the switchover had been successful and that all her contacts had been saved. Unfortunately there was no way to track Xander’s number on the old cell, but intuition told her it wouldn’t be long before she heard from him again, and this time she would be prepared.
Her intuition was correct.
Her old cell still had everything set up on it, including emails. A message pinged into her inbox.
Elizabeth, it’s Xander. I assume you’re having issues with your phone. Here’s my number. Call me as soon as possible.
Her first impulse was to burst into tears but, before they could be unleashed, anger so strong it burned flushed through her and dried the unshed tears in an instant.
So he was going to follow in the footsteps of his fellow Casanovas and employ her.
The nerve of him. The crassness. The complete lack of sensitivity.
What did he need a wife for?
As tempting as it was to fire an angry email back and tell him in graphic detail what he could do with his order to call him back as soon as possible, she held herself back.
Xander had left her ten years ago. If she were rude or ignored him it would imply that she was still angry with him, which in turn would imply she had never gotten over him, which in itself was ridiculous. She was simply tired and overwrought after a busy few weeks.
She would prove she didn’t have any residual feelings for him.
She stood in front of her bedroom mirror and counted to thirty, then keyed in the number. It was answered on the first ring.
‘Thanks for calling me back.’
His businesslike tone echoed into her ear.
Keeping her focus on her reflection, Elizabeth fixed a smile to her face so her complete lack of residual feelings for him echoed down the line. ‘No problem. My apologies for earlier. I dropped my cell phone in Rome and it’s been playing up since.’ The lie fell smoothly from her tongue. Her voice sounded as friendly as she wanted it to be.
‘Is it liable to cut out again?’
‘No. I’m back home and have switched to my old one.’
‘Good.’