One Summer Night: An Indecent Proposition / Beholden to the Throne / Hers For One Night Only?. Carol Marinelli

in his guts, a need for more. Adrenaline still flooded his muscles, had his heart pounding in his throat with such force he wanted to rip off his tie and tear at his shirt. He was furious that his twin had known, that Nico had stood and faced him as he’d walked in rather than recoil in shock. Insulted by Nico’s outstretched hand, Zander had declined it; instead, he had told him exactly his feelings—that there would be no contact, that forgiveness would never be on the table. That his mother had chosen the golden one, had given Nico the chance of a privileged life and left Zander to survive for himself.

      And he had.

      Oh, he had.

      He did not need anyone.

      He had made it alone and would go on doing so.

      Would destroy Nico if he tried to get close.

      And, now that was over, all he wanted was to get out.

      Away from the man who looked like him, away from the reflection that was now in his mirror.

      Away from the son that his mother had chosen.

      And then, as he strode out, when he would have preferred to hit, or to run, he saw her sitting there, saw the confusion in her eyes and the tremble to the mouth that last night had been his. And he did not want her for Nico, he wanted her for himself.

      ‘Get your things.’ He snapped his fingers to tell her his haste. He wanted her away, he wanted her upstairs, he wanted her on his bed, and he would forget what he had just seen, forget the brother that never would be, he would lose himself in her. But she just sat there.

      ‘Get your things!’ Zander said. ‘You come with me.’

      He did not understand her hesitation. He was offering her his world, offering more of what they had had last night. ‘You work for me now,’ he clarified, except Nico was walking out of his office and still Charlotte sat there.

      ‘Charlotte has nothing to do with this,’ Nico said.

      ‘Except that she comes now with me,’ Zander retorted, without looking at the man he loathed. ‘Come now.’ He gave her one more chance when he gave others none but, pale, she still sat there, her eyes moving from his to Nico and then back to him.

      ‘I work for Nico.’ Her voice was as pale as her face.

      ‘My staff are loyal to me,’ came his brother’s voice, and Zander could not believe that she would choose him after the night they had shared. His mind was so black with loathing, so angry having lived a life of betrayal, that there was no chance of straight thinking.

      ‘Really?’ Zander shot back. ‘Well, that’s not how it seemed when her legs were wrapped around me last night.’ It all came out in one caustic response. Zander watched her quail as the words spewed out, but really the words were not aimed at provoking her and he looked at Nico to relish his response. He wanted his brother to thump him; he wanted a fist because it was pain he could see, a bruise he could feel, hurt that could be measured. He wanted to fight but his brother just stood there, and, worse, Charlotte apologised for the one good thing on Xanos that had ever taken place.

      ‘I’m sorry, Nico …’ She could not have felt more betrayed, more humiliated, more ashamed—could so clearly see now how she had been used. She could not stand to look at Zander, so she looked at her boss instead. He was the man she should have been loyal to, the man who paid her wages. ‘I’m so sorry, Nico.’

      ‘No problem.’ Nico was tough, and could be just as cutting as his brother, though the barb in his response, she knew, was not aimed at her. ‘We’re all allowed a mistake—yours just happened to be my brother.’

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      SHE lay curled up and wounded on the bed, too mortified to go out, dreading Nico’s wrath, but far more than that she was beyond hurt by what Zander had done.

      The contempt, the disregard, how he had used her.

      A knock at the door a short while later did not see Charlotte moving. She did not care who it might be: Nico to fire her or Zander, for what?

      An apology wasn’t going to fix this.

      Instead, when the knock came again, she closed her eyes at the sound of a woman’s voice.

      ‘Charlotte, it’s me—Constantine.’

      She could not be rude to Nico’s wife. She had met her a few times and Constantine had always been nice. Beyond ashamed, Charlotte opened the door, and burst into tears when the other woman wrapped her arms around her.

      ‘Nico told me what happened.’

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ Charlotte wept. ‘I’m so ashamed …’

      ‘For what?’

      ‘For what I did.’ Everything that had been so beautiful had been turned around and it all seemed sullied and sordid now. ‘I thought … I never thought he hated Nico. It was not about being disloyal.’

      ‘Charlotte.’ Constantine was kind. ‘What happened between you and Zander is not Nico’s business, or mine.’

      ‘It has become that though,’ Charlotte wept. ‘I really thought …’ But she could not divulge her dreams because they seemed so pathetic now, that with one look, with one kiss, he had whisked her away, had let her glimpse a world she did not know and now wished she never had.

      ‘Is Nico going to fire me?’

      ‘He wants to speak with you, he wants to know what was said, what Zander revealed. I doubt he could fire you for sleeping with someone.’ Constantine gave a wry smile. ‘My husband is many things, but he is never a hypocrite. He is cross,’ she admitted, ‘furious, but I think that is more aimed at his brother. As I pointed out to him when he told me what had happened, we were together the night we met—it was, in fact, my wedding night and Nico was not the groom …’ Charlotte blinked at the admission from Nico’s wife. ‘I know how devastating they can be, how irresistible Nico was to me. I am not here to judge you, I just want to know you are okay.’

      ‘I will be,’ Charlotte said, for she was certainly not okay now. She tried to scan her future for a time when this would not hurt so much, but Zander had changed it for ever. ‘If I had thought, for even a second, that he was not looking forward to meeting Nico … Why would he hate him? It’s not as if Nico was raised by his parents. Nico was the one that was sold …’

      ‘Roula, their mother, she was not stable …’ Constantine paused. Charlotte could see the other woman was uncomfortable discussing this, for though Charlotte had been privy to certain information, emotion had always been left out, only names and facts had been given by Nico. ‘Or that is what we have been told. She left the father and worked the streets … The Eliadeses desperately wanted a baby …’ Constantine screwed her eyes closed, and it was clear that she hated discussing this. ‘Alexandros, I mean Zander, was raised by his father. It would seem …’ Charlotte closed her eyes as Constantine spoke on and she recalled Zander telling her that his time in Xanos had not all been happy. ‘He was not a good man, he was a cruel man, in fact.’

      ‘If that was the case, why would she leave Zander with him?’

      ‘That is what we are trying to find out. There are so many questions, which is why we are searching for her. But Zander has run true to form, it would seem—like father, like son.’

      Charlotte’s eyes opened at the rare bitterness in Constantine’s voice and though she was hurting, bleeding inside, even though she had nothing to base it on, something within her rose to defend him. ‘You can’t say that.’

      ‘Oh, but I can,’ Constantine flared. ‘He has done nothing to prove otherwise. Cruel seems a very good word to describe him to me. He has bought up the homes on the island for a pittance and now, till he is ready to bulldoze them, he rents them out for a small