amuses Charlotte?’
Clearly nothing did.
‘What will it take for you to enjoy it? What do I have to do to—?’
‘There’s nothing you can do,’ she cut in, for did he really think she was so shallow, that a trip on his yacht and champagne could soothe the hurt? ‘How can I ever enjoy time with you when I know what you did to me, when I know what you are capable of?’
‘I have apologized,’ Zander said. He did so rarely, but it had always worked in the past.
‘But it still happened,’ Charlotte said, and such was the visible regret in his dark eyes, she almost believed it was real. She felt the spell that he cast so easily start to work its charm and she flailed for something else, an antidote to the magic he made, and she found it. ‘I know how you treated me, and I know how you treat others, how you do business, the lengths you will go to …’ It felt good to say it, easier to be angry on other’s behalf, for around him, for herself, she was weak. ‘Look what you’ve done to Xanos.’
‘It needed it,’ Zander said. ‘The place was falling apart, people were leaving in droves. Now it is prosperous.’
‘For you, perhaps,’ Charlotte said.
‘It was a dwindling fishing village, now there are jobs, now the island is thriving.’
‘There are no jobs for the locals, though.’ She challenged him. ‘Except for the taverna that feeds your labourers, all the other workers are from the mainland.’ He heard her words and he moved to defend himself, to correct her, but there it was again, this guilt that seemed to invade at times when she was around. She was such a wisp of a thing, Zander thought, but she was stronger than most; not in her slender arms that stretched out, exasperated, and not in her voice, which could so easily be drowned by his, but in her resolve, in her beliefs, in her convictions, and he was silenced. ‘Will you take me back now?’
‘If that is what you want. But I brought you here to find out why, because of me, your mother needs to go in a home.’ This time there was no derision in his voice. ‘Charlotte, I need to know. I need to put that right at least.’
‘Please,’ Charlotte said, ‘just leave it.’
‘I cannot. If Nico is going to fire you because of what happened … I have told you, there is a job for you.’
‘A paid mistress?’ Charlotte sneered. ‘I’m not even going to respond to that offer.’
‘I don’t understand how your mother—’
‘Zander, stop!’ Her voice was shrill and she tamed it. ‘I’m sorry that I said that.’
‘Sorry?’ He could not make out this woman, was used to women pouring out their hearts rather than holding back.
‘My mother is sick, she has Alzheimer’s, and I’ve been looking after her at home. I don’t have the party life that I told you I did. That life was a long time ago.’ And she waited, waited for horror to cloud his features, for him to recoil, but still he stood there. ‘I lied to you.’ She spelt it out and still he stood there.
An angel had not been required, but she was close to it now. This was the woman he had thought sleeping with his brother, the party girl he had assumed could handle all he heaped on her. And he knew then how badly he had hurt her, that the heart he had broken this time had been a fragile one.
‘Why?’
‘I lied to you because …’ She screwed her face up in frustration. ‘Because you didn’t need to hear it, because it could never impact on you.’
It just had, though.
‘I thought I could handle a fling,’ Charlotte said simply. ‘In fact, I’m quite sure I could have. I just never anticipated that you’d cause me so much pain.’ She was terribly honest. ‘I’m sorry that I blamed you about my mother, it just felt easier.’
‘Easier?’
‘I’m starting to sound like her.’ She did not need to explain herself to him, Charlotte realised, she just needed to explain it to herself. ‘You actually did me a favour …’ She gave a wry smile. ‘You learn a lot about yourself when difficult times hit.’
‘So what did you learn?’
He was the man she’d first met, the man who made her unbend, the man she could talk to, but she was far more wary now. Still, it was a relief to voice what had been whirring in her head.
‘That I’m starting to sound like her.’ Charlotte explained. ‘Bitter, a victim, berating—it was never my intention. She begged me not to put her in a home when she was first diagnosed, told me over and over that I was all she had, that she had done so much for me. I love my mum. Whatever decision I make it’s going to hurt. But when I heard myself blaming you, when I used my mum as an excuse …’
‘What do you want, Charlotte?’
‘I want my life back.’ There, she’d said it out loud.
‘To go back to flying …’
‘No. I don’t want to be away all the time while I’ve still got Mum. Hopefully I’ll keep my job and be able to visit Mum a lot.’ She was talking as if it were a done deal, but she felt sick inside and she looked beyond the boat to the ocean, wished for a glimpse of peace, but it did not come from the view; instead, it came from a most unexpected source. He put his hand on her shoulder and for the first time her body did not respond to his with a leap of awareness. As his fingers rested on her shoulder, it was a caress that soothed, a caress she wanted to sink into, his voice somehow the one that calmed her.
‘I can only imagine what you think of me, and I know my opinion might not mean much to you, but for what it’s worth, I think you have made the right choice.’
And his opinion should not matter, except it did, and to hear him approve of her wretched decision brought a sting of relieved tears to her eyes.
‘It’s a horrible choice, though.’
‘There isn’t a nice one,’ Zander pointed out. ‘From impossible situations you make impossible choices. Maybe if your mother had her time again, if she knew how bad it would get, maybe she would be saying the same thing.’
‘I doubt it!’ Her smile was small but genuine. ‘I love her dearly, but she really was the most difficult woman.’
‘She probably did her best,’ Zander offered, and Charlotte could tell he immediately wished that he hadn’t because as her eyes jerked to his, he looked away. She knew he was going to change the subject.
‘Maybe yours did, too.’
He stood, did not even attempt a response. ‘Do you want to swim? Or we could head back …’
‘No.’
He was the one resisting now, he was the one who wanted the safety of shore, and she wanted him to stop, wanted him to talk. ‘Maybe she did do her best, Zander.’
‘By selling one child and deserting the other?’ Zander asked.
