meeting with the lawyers earlier and they’d argued, both of them simmering with fury, and then they’d looked into each other’s eyes and desire had been stronger than their anger combined. Unreasonable, but undeniable.
But then what did desire ever have to do with reason?
They’d rented a hotel room like newlyweds, kissing and pulling at each other’s clothes in the lift, hardly noticing the other guests’ shocked or amused expressions as they’d run to their room.
But even before the sheets tangled around their warm, damp bodies had grown cold she’d realised her mistake.
That night hadn’t been some eleventh-hour reprieve for their marriage. Aristo hadn’t acknowledged his part in their marital problems, or been willing to listen to her point of view. Instead he’d just wanted to get his own way and, having failed to convince her with words he’d switched tactics. Like the hopeless, lovestruck fool she had been then, she’d let herself be persuaded by the softness of his mouth and the hard length of his body.
But, waking in the strange bed, she’d realised her mistake instantly.
She breathed out unsteadily, remembering how his face had grown hard and expressionless, the post-coital tenderness in his eyes fading as he’d told that he’d pay for the room, but that would be the last dollar she’d see of his money.
It hadn’t been. Three weeks later she’d emptied one of the bank accounts they’d shared—the one with the least amount of money in it—partly to prove him wrong, but mostly so his unborn child would have something from its father.
Sliding the ring off her finger, she put it back in the box and got slowly to her feet. Elliot was right. She needed to face reality, and it would be easier to do so if she was in control of what was happening rather than sitting and stewing, waiting for Aristo to call.
Walking back into the living room, she picked up the card he’d given her the night before and punched out his number on her mobile before she had the chance to change her mind.
‘Hello, Teddie.’
She hadn’t expected him to pick up quite so quickly, or to know it was her, but that wasn’t why she slid down onto the sofa. It was just that hearing his voice down the phone again felt strangely intimate, and for a split second she was reminded of how they’d used to talk when they’d first met. Conversations in the early hours of the morning after she’d finished performing and she was lying in bed in some hotel on the other side of the country.
It hadn’t mattered what time she’d called—he’d always answered and they’d talked sometimes for hours. She felt her skin prickle. And not just talk… Sometimes he’d made up stories to help her fall asleep.
Curling her fingers around the phone, she gripped it more tightly. Remembering Aristo doing that for her was like waking to find a handcuff around her wrist, linking her to him in a way she hadn’t imagined.
Steadying her breathing, she pushed the memory to the back of her mind. ‘We need to talk,’ she said bluntly. ‘About George.’
‘So talk.’
‘No, not on the phone. We need to meet.’
There was a short pause, and her chest tightened as she imagined him leaning back in his chair, a small triumphant smile curving his mouth.
‘I can come to your apartment.’
‘No.’ Hearing the panic in her voice, she frowned. But there was no way he was coming to the apartment again, not after what nearly happened last time. ‘I’ll come to your office.’
She glanced at the time. She could drop George off at Elliot’s and then go on into Manhattan.
‘Shall we say about five?’
‘I look forward to it,’ he said softly.
* * *
At exactly five o’clock she was staring up at a tall, gleaming tower as all around her crowds of tourists chatted and laughed—no doubt on their way to see the Empire State Building or some other world-famous landmark.
If only she was a tourist too, enjoying a well-earned holiday, instead of having to face her clever, calculating ex-husband. But the sooner she faced Aristo the sooner she could return home, and so, heart pounding, she slipped through the revolving doors into the cool smoked glass interior of the Leonidas Holdings’ headquarters.
Five minutes later she was riding up in an elevator, only just managing to force her mouth into a stiff smile as the doors opened.
‘Ms Taylor.’ Smiling politely, a young male assistant stepped forward. ‘If you’d like to come with me, Mr Leonidas’ office is this way.’
But not Mr Leonidas, Teddie discovered as the assistant showed her into the empty office. She wondered if Aristo had absented himself on purpose. Probably, she decided. No doubt he was trying to psyche her out by making her wait, by giving her a glimpse of his personal fiefdom.
She glanced slowly around the room, her narrowed gaze taking in the dazzling panoramic views of New York, the Bauhaus furniture and the huge abstract painting that hung behind his desk.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’
She turned, her body tensing automatically as Aristo strolled into the room, his dark eyes sweeping assessingly over her black cigarette trousers, burgundy silk shirt and towering stiletto heels.
He stopped in front of her and she felt her stomach flip over. He’d taken off his jacket, and the sleeves of his cornflower-blue shirt were rolled up, the collar loosened. Her eyes darted involuntarily between the triangle of golden skin at the base of his neck and the fine dark hair on his forearms.
Her breath pedalled inside her chest. He looked both invincible and stupidly sexy, and any hope she’d had that she might have miraculously developed an immunity to him in the intervening hours since she’d seen him evaporated like early-morning mist. Even just being in the same space as him was sending her body haywire, her chest constricting and a prickling heat spreading like a forest fire over her skin.
If Aristo was feeling as uncomfortable as she was, he wasn’t showing it. But then in the six months of their marriage she’d never really known what he was thinking—she might be a mistress of illusion on stage, but he was a master at disguising his feelings. Her lips tightened. Although that, of course, presupposed that he had any.
‘It’s fine,’ she said stiffly. ‘I know you’re a busy man.’
His gaze hovered over her face and she cursed herself silently, for she knew what he was thinking.
Aristo’s obsession with work had quickly become an issue for her. The long hours he’d spent at the office and his single-minded focus on building his business had slowly but inevitably excluded her from his life. Not that either of them had done much to stop it eroding their marriage. For Aristo it had only ever been her problem, and she had found it impossible to tell him the truth. That she wanted the man who had craved her, who had been so hungry to share her life that he hadn’t been willing to wait.
She swallowed, pushing back against the sudden swell of misery spreading through her. It was her own fault. She should have known what to expect when he’d cut
