But there was no denying that the tranquillity she had achieved had been slaughtered by Andreas's arrival and consequent departure. She felt bereft and empty and unhappy and that made her so angry with herself. She had to learn to live without Andreas. A positive development on the career front that would also keep her busy had never been more necessary.
Her new phone rang. 'Yes,' she answered all breathless, and on edge.
'It's me…' Andreas imparted unnecessarily, the dark timbre of his sexy voice shimmying down her sensitive spine.
All of a sudden she was reliving the crash-and-burn effect of his gorgeous mouth on hers, his wildness in bed and the complete impossibility of ever replacing him with anyone even human.
'I have some family stuff to deal with this evening.' He sighed with audible regret. 'But I would like to see you tomorrow.'
She breathed in deep and held her breath to prevent herself from saying yes too quickly. 'OK…' she said finally, trailing out the word as if she were still considering the idea.
'I'd appreciate your advice on a house I'm thinking of buying.'
Hope was vaguely surprised that she didn't swoon.
Andreas wanted her advice? That was a huge compliment. And the advice related to a house? She adored houses. Was he moving? Whatever, it felt marvellous and cosy and confidence-boosting to be approached for an opinion. It was respect…in a small way, she told herself. Suddenly the glitz and the sparkle had returned to her day.
'What right did Finlay have to take Robbie and Tristran to his mother's house?' Elyssa demanded shrilly of Andreas for at least the tenth time.
'You're very upset.' Andreas released his breath in a soundless hiss. 'Perhaps your husband thought he was doing you a favour.'
Finlay often took his sons to their grandmother's with Elyssa's blessing. On this occasion, however, Elyssa was making a drama out of the event. Although Andreas had been at the Southwick home for almost an hour he still had no idea why his sister's husband had left the marital home. Elyssa had been in hysterics when he'd arrived and it had taken Andreas a phenomenal length of time to calm her down.
'Isn't it time you told me why Finlay has walked out?'
'I don't know why!' Elyssa slung petulantly. 'There has to be a reason,' Andreas murmured steadily. 'Why are you so afraid that Finlay might have deliberately removed the children from your care?'
'Maybe he's bored with me, maybe he's got someone else. He could be planning to make up insane lies about me in an attempt to gain custody of my boys!' Elyssa cast a sidelong glance at her brother to see how he reacted to that very specific concern on her part.
From the outset, Andreas had been aware that his sister was determined to win every possible atom of his sympathy. Now he grasped that he needed to hear the precise nature of what she termed lies. 'Tell me about the lies,' he encouraged softly.
Her sullen brown eyes flicked warily back to him. 'Finlay had the nerve to imply that I was a neglectful mother just because I left the boys with the nanny overnight.'
'For how long was the nanny left in charge?' 'Only over a few weekends… and once for a week when I went to Paris.'
Reluctant to risk provoking her hysteria again, Andreas struggled to be tactful. 'I understand Finlay's concern. Couldn't you have taken the children with you?'
'I'm only twenty-five years old,' Elyssa responded heatedly. 'Surely I'm entitled to a life of my own?' 'You have a good life,' Andreas told her levelly. 'Now why won't you tell me why your husband has left?'
Elyssa tossed her head. 'I don't want you preaching at me,' she warned him thinly. 'All right… I had an affair.'
Sincerely shocked by that truculent admission, Andreas stiffened. He attempted to keep an open mind. 'Are you in love with this man?'
Her earlier distress apparently forgotten now that she had confessed, Elyssa rolled pained eyes. 'It was only a fling. I can't believe the fuss Finlay is making. As if anyone needs to break up a marriage over a casual affair!'
'I would if you were my wife,' Andreas responded without hesitation.
'You're Greek… your vote doesn't count. You're angry with me but I need you to make Finlay see sense. He has huge respect for you. He'll listen to you.'
Distaste gripped Andreas. He could see no evidence that Elyssa even regretted her infidelity. 'How long did the affair last?'
Elyssa gave him a sulky look. 'I suppose I have to tell you because if I don't Finlay will, there's been more than one affair.'
Andreas surveyed the young woman in front of him with incredulous disdain. Elyssa pouted. 'I can't help it if men find me irresistible. '
Her vanity even in the face of the damage she had done was deeply offensive to Andreas. Somehow he had overlooked the reality that his once-vulnerable little sister had grown to adulthood and full independence. It was not a good moment to discover that he did not like the woman she had become.
'The night that you threw your housewarming party,' Andreas murmured abruptly as it occurred to him that his sibling was not at all the reliable and truthful witness he had believed her to be, 'you said that you found Hope with Ben Campbell. Was that true?'
Her surprise patent at that unexpected change of subject, Elyssa coloured. 'Why are you asking?'
'That story about Hope was a wind-up, wasn't it?' Determined to get the truth out of his sister, Andreas let a deceptively amused smile curve his handsome mouth.
His sister regarded him uncertainly and then she relaxed when she saw the smile. 'How did you guess?'
At Elyssa's confirmation that she had concocted the tale about Hope, Andreas fell very still. 'Why did you do it?'
'I had to protect myself. She caught me kissing another man. I decided to discredit her before she got the chance to tell anybody what she'd seen.' Elyssa lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug of dismissal.
Cold condemnation was stamped on her brother's lean, hard-boned face. 'I'll never forgive you for hurting her.'
'You tricked me into telling you.' Pale with consternation as that truth sank in, Elyssa started to scramble upright. 'That's not fair!'
'How fair were you to Hope?'
'Surely you didn't expect me to like her?' his sister snapped with furious resentment. 'From the minute you met Hope Evans, you had no time for me any more. You were always with her playing house. Yet who was she? A vulgar little upstart from nowhere! I couldn't believe that you would bring a woman like that to my home and show her off!'
'Your spite turns my stomach,' Andreas breathed in disgust.
When he emerged from his sister's home, he did not climb back into the limo. He wanted to walk for a while in the fresh air. Elyssa's vicious attack on Hope and the jealousy that had powered her abuse appalled him. Nothing could excuse his sister's cruel lies or her complete lack of guilt. How could he have been so blind to the younger woman's true nature? Elyssa had always needed to be the centre of attention. From babyhood she had thrown tantrums to ensure she got what she wanted. Of recent Andreas had become less patient with her constant demands and had encouraged her to rely on her husband for support. Naturally he had wanted to spend more time with Hope. Once or twice he had wondered why his sibling had so little apparent interest in his private life. Now he suspected that Elyssa's resentment had grown in direct proportion to the longevity of his relationship with Hope. Yet he had failed to notice that anything was wrong. He had also made the fatal mistake of introducing Hope to his sister. It was his fault that Hope had become the innocent victim of her malice. How was he supposed to make that up to Hope?
He phoned her five minutes later. 'I have to see you.'
'Why?' Hope said a little prayer that he would answer that he was missing her.
'Something's happened. I don't feel right about waiting until tomorrow to discuss it with you,' Andreas admitted. 'It's late… you could stay the night.'
'At the town house?' 'Yes.'
Hope entered a large tick on the mental scorecard she was running on him. 'That would be OK,' she said as
lightly as she could. 'But I couldn't actually stay with you, if you know what I mean.'
'I'll send the car to pick you up.'
A manservant ushered her into the elegant hall of the big Georgian terraced house and into an imposing drawing room where Andreas awaited her. He looked very serious and her apprehension shifted up another notch on the scale.
'What's wrong?' she asked immediately.
Andreas read the strain in her clear turquoise eyes and reached for both her hands. 'Stop worrying right now,' he told her firmly. 'I think that what I have to say qualifies as good rather than bad.'
'That's great.' Some of her tension evaporated. Her hands trembled in the grip of his and she tugged them free again. Either she was his mistress or she tried to be a friend, even though he had once told her that he didn't do friendship with women. She could not be a mixture of both and there had to be boundary lines. So this was not the moment when she should be noticing that the dark stubble beginning to shadow his sculpted mouth and hard jaw line made him look outrageously sexy. In fact just thinking that forbidden thought made ready colour warm her complexion.
With a distinct air of concern, Andreas urged her down onto a sofa. 'You look tired.'
Hope decided being pregnant was deeply unsexy.
Only three months ago, he would have urged her down onto a sofa solely to take rampant, masculine advantage of her horizontal state. But now he was more keen for her to rest.
'Tonight I found out something that shocked me.' Lean, strong face taut, Andreas launched straight into the confession he knew he had to make. 'As you've probably already worked out, Elyssa has been having affairs with other men. This evening, I also learned that my sister lied when she claimed to have seen you in Ben Campbell's arms at her party.'
Hope closed her eyes and breathed in slow and deep. Relief made her feel dizzy. That part of the nightmare was over, Andreas was finally accepting that she had told him the truth all along. 'I'm glad. I really thought that I was going to have to live with that nonsensical story for ever.'
'I wish I could tell you that Elyssa is very sorry for what she's done. But I'm afraid my sibling appears rather lacking in the conscience department,' Andreas derided harshly. 'Before tonight, I had no idea that Elyssa resented your place in my life.'
'She called me your whore at the party,' Hope mused with a little shiver of reluctant recall.
Andreas groaned, his vexation unconcealed. 'Why didn't you tell me?'
'I knew how fond you were of her and telling tales would only have made her dislike me even more. I suppose that even then I wasn't sure that you would take my word over hers. ' Hope worried at her lower lip and let her pent-up breath escape softly. 'Of course, by the end of the evening I found that out for a fact.'
Andreas tensed at that reminder. 'I thought I knew Elyssa inside out but I had idealised her. I wasn't seeing her as she really was… spoilt, selfish, shallow in her affections,' Andreas enumerated with a heavy regret that she could feel. 'OK. I admit it. I didn't want to see those traits in my closest relative.'
'You were proud of her, it was natural that you would want to think only good things about her,' Hope told him gently. 'I don't hold that against you. You had no reason to doubt her word if she hadn't lied to you before.'
Andreas rested his brilliant dark eyes on her heart shaped face. 'You're being very generous about this.' 'I don't think so. I just want to be fair.'
'I'm sorry I didn't believe you, pedhimou. I don't know where to begin apologising for some of the things I've said or for the way I've treated you,' Andreas admitted with roughened honesty. 'But I was so angry that that whole week is virtually a blank. It was a very unfortunate coincidence that you had indicated your dissatisfaction with our relationship shortly before that party.'
That angle had not occurred to Hope before and she was dismayed that she had not guessed that he would inevitably forge a link between those two apparent events.
Andreas spread lean brown hands, his darkly handsome features clenched taut. 'I thought you weren't happy with me any longer. It made the idea that you had sought consolation with someone else seem much more likely.'
'Yes, I imagine it would have done.' But Hope also felt that, having known her so well, he should at least have cherished some doubt of her guilt. But then she had long since reached her own conclusions as to why he had been so quick to misjudge her and saw no good reason to share those thoughts. 'Well,' she added with a typically warm and soothing smile, 'I'm grateful that you know nothing happened between Ben and I.'
'That night anyway.' Andreas could not silence that qualifier. He was fishing, he knew he was, regardless of his awareness that he had no right to ask her what had happened since then between her and the other man. But he was unable to resist his own powerful need to know.
Tensing below that laser-sharp dark golden appraisal, Hope lowered her uneasy gaze to her linked hands where they rested on her lap. Hot pink was blooming over her cheekbones. It was dreadful but she felt as though every kiss she had exchanged with Ben were written above her head in letters of fire and shame. They had really been very innocent kisses but anything she had shared with Ben ought to remain private. In any case Andreas was not entitled to that sort of information, she reminded herself sternly. After all, could she believe that he had behaved in an equally innocent manner with the beautiful, sophisticated women he had been seen out with in recent times? No, she could not credit that. She had lain awake a lot of nights while she'd struggled not to torment herself with agonising images of Andreas making the most of his newfound sexual freedom.
As Andreas watched her fair skin turn pink a cold, heavy sensation settled like concrete in his stomach. He knew how unreasonable he was being but he had very much hoped to hear her say that, challenging though the circumstances had been, she had stayed loyal to him in spite of everything. Intelligence told him that was unlikely. Intelligence told him that blush was as good as a signed confession in triplicate. She had slept with Campbell. Of course she had.
Andreas endeavoured to put the entire controversial subject out of his mind. He was a pragmatic man. What had been done could not be undone. He offered Hope a soft drink, which she declined. He poured a whisky that he drank down in two minimal gulps. Pragmatic though he believed himself to be, he was assailed by another unfortunate reflection, there was no point hoping that at some future stage she would tell him that Campbell had been absolute rubbish in bed. She was not that kind of woman. He would never, ever know whether she compared them.
'I feel that I should make an effort to clear the air,' Hope remarked hesitantly, fixing anxious turquoise eyes on Andreas.
'As regards what… exactly?'
'As regards Ben,' Hope proffered gently.
Andreas froze. His imagination went into a loop.
In the name of honesty, she was about to talk like a canary, telling everything right down to the tiniest and most insignificant detail. He wanted to know but feared that knowing would torture him. He breathed in deep. 'Hope…'
'No, please let me say what I want to say first,' Hope interrupted apologetically. 'Ben's been so very kind to me. I want you to understand that he's a much nicer person than people seem to appreciate. I think you'd really like Ben if you got to know him.'
That was the moment when Andreas knew that he should have drunk all the whisky in the decanter in the hope of anaesthetising his sensibilities into a stupor. Hope was engaging in a more refined form of torture than he had even envisaged. She was keen for him to get to know Ben. In the eternally sunny world she inhabited they were probably all destined to become the very closest of mutually supportive friends. There was just one small problem. He could not think of Ben Campbell without wishing to wipe him with maximum violence from the face of the earth.
'I'm fond of Ben and he's been a terrific friend.' 'That's cool,' Andreas breathed between clenched teeth.
'I would like him to stay a friend,' Hope advanced. Valiantly, Andreas shrugged while
conceding that the eating of humble pie was his equivalent of eating rat poison. But he had screwed up badly. She was expecting his baby and he had put her through hell and this was his penance. Presumably, if he agreed with even the most fanciful and unreasonable requests and expectations, all her fears would be soothed and everything would finally go back to normal. Normal. That was his only ambition. 'Why not…?'
Hope wondered why he was so tense. Was he annoyed because she had said earlier that she believed that she ought to sleep alone? The belief was not set in stone. She was open to clever argument and even downright seduction. Had she hurt his feelings with her embargo? His ego? Was that why he was chucking whisky down his throat as if there were no tomorrow? What was wrong? As a rule, he was a very occasional drinker.
'You should go to bed,' Andreas suggested rather abruptly. 'We have an early start in the morning.' 'Oh, my goodness, I never even asked you about the house.'
Andreas opened the door into the hall. 'It'll keep until tomorrow.'
Hope swallowed back a yawn. In truth she was very tired. 'I haven't even told you my own news yet.' She laughed on the way up the imposing stairs. 'Guess what? I've been discovered by the fashion world. I met Leonie Vargas this afternoon and I'm being offered the chance to design bags for her next collection!'
'That's great.' Andreas thought about what he knew about Leonie Vargas. In his conservative opinion, she was a very eccentric lady who wore even stranger outfits. Even so she had become spectacularly rich designing clothes for the young and hip. Hope had really found her niche, Andreas thought with satisfaction and considerable relief. The Vargas woman would probably be delighted with a bag that resembled a tomato. His biggest fear had always been that Hope would meet with the kind of rejection that crushed a vulnerable creative personality.
'See you in the morning.' Hope whispered, hovering within reach.
Andreas resisted temptation. She had taken the trouble to warn him off before she had even agreed to stay. In the light of that prohibition, testing the boundaries would be a bad move. Tomorrow, however, after he had proposed and she had the engagement ring on her finger, he would probably bulldoze down the boundaries. Gently bulldoze, he adjusted, thinking about the baby. In any case he still had one or two arrangements to put in place for the next day.