Rising Stars & It Started With… Collections. Кейт Хьюит
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and the streets like a drunk in a rage, for he could not stand to hear it, could not face the music, could not be alone as his pompous, lucky, chosen brother sat in a house that was a home.
So he took the plane to Rhodes, blasted the casino and hated himself more for winning. He drank hundred-year-old brandy and it barely touched sides. He wanted it to be easy, wanted to want, as he had before, the women who flocked to him, but knew tonight, for their sakes, that he was safer to be alone. So he paced the floors of the Imperial Suite, and nothing, not money, not brandy, could sate him; nothing in these luxurious confines could tame or sedate him. He waited for sunrise, for the clarity of a morning that was still a couple of hours away—but the sun did not rise, he remembered, it was we who moved towards it. He thought of that first morning phone call, the difference in time that had brought her to him, thought of her in London deeper in the darkness now than he.
She messed with his head, Zander decided. Charlotte messed with his head and changed things and he paced harder. He wanted to get on the plane and chase endless darkness, not run to the morning and the painful light it would bring. But he was weary from running, exhausted from it, knew he had to face the fact that there was nothing now that he would not do to be with her.
And he paced, for he did not know how to find her, did not know how to move forward without going back, yet he could not stand to go back without her.
Nico paced with him not beside him, but in Xanos, for he had worn the same path recently, knew the pit of despair that his brother was now in. He paced his house and garden through the night. He felt his brother’s rage, the hurt and anger, but Nico believed in the pendulum, knew that Zander would calm down. He believed in it so fiercely, was so connected with his brother that night, that he knew the moment Zander made his decision.
‘Nico.’ He looked up at his wife, saw the concern in her face as she came out to the dark garden—the sound of the fountains audible now, the world coming back into focus as he stepped back from his brother’s pain and looked into her eyes. How lucky he had been to have her there when the truth had surfaced, how much cooler she had made the hell he’d plunged into.
‘I want to help him,’ Nico said, as if it was that simple, as if the man who hated him would want his help. But even if she did not approve of his brother, Constantine was always there for him, with a word, with a smile that soothed.
‘Then do.’
SHE missed him far more than she should.
Far more than one should miss a man who had caused so much pain, Charlotte reminded herself as she woke to the morning and another day without Zander.
The heating came on, the pipes filling, spreading warmth through the house, and she wished it would do the same for her heart, for Zander’s heart too. She lay for a moment with her head in the clouds, imagined that he was near, that things were different, and though she loved visiting dreams, she knew she couldn’t linger. She put a toe out to the carpet and then pulled it back in, but she had to get up. There was a nurse coming at nine and she wanted the house a little more ordered before she arrived.
Charlotte hauled herself out of bed. The bedroom was freezing as she walked across it but as she caught sight of herself in the mirror, the reflection was not unfamiliar. She did not see a woman living a life she was not happy with. Instead, she saw herself staring back. She was dressed in faded lemon pyjamas, her hair was in need of a wash, but she was wearing a hundred-thousand-dollar necklace, and she could look into the mirror and smile. The hardest weeks of her life lay ahead, yet somehow she knew she could handle it and was at peace with the choices she had made.
She was bound to her mother, Roula had taught her that. Sitting talking to Roula, listening as she’d relived the mistake made long ago, hearing her pain, Charlotte had realised that she was bound to her mother for ever—only not out of duty, but love.
Still, the ringing of the doorbell made her grumble, sure that the nursing agency had messed up the times again. She pulled the door open and then promptly closed it, not in anger, just in shock, for there should surely be a warning alert on a cold winter morning when the man of your dreams comes knocking at your door.
‘Charlotte!’ He opened the letterbox, which was in line with her crotch, and she jumped to the side.
‘Can we talk?’
‘Now?’
‘Right now.’ She heard the need, the plea, felt the urgency, and she opened the door to a man only her heart recognised. She saw the unkempt suit, a jaw that needed a razor and eyes that were bloodshot, and she could smell brandy, but his soul shone bright and she could never not let him in.
‘It was not a job I was going to offer you …’
‘I know.’
‘And I was not going to ask you to be my mistress that night.’
‘I know that too.’
‘And would you still have said no?’
‘No,’ Charlotte admitted, for had she made it to dinner, had he offered her his world and an exclusive part in his life, hell, she’d have said yes in a heartbeat, but she was stronger than that now. ‘Though I’m sure I’d have lived to regret saying yes.’ It was such a hard thing to say. ‘I want the Zander I thought I knew, the one I first met. The one who could not wait to meet with his brother …’
‘I spoke to Nico. I went to see him yesterday.’ Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, knew just how big this was, but she forced herself to say nothing, to let him tell her in his own time. ‘He gave me your address, early this morning he texted it to me. I understand if you have little to say to me but I have to know, did I cost you your job?’
‘No.’ Immediately she shook her head. ‘No … I …’ She did not want to say it here, did not want to discuss such things in the hall. ‘Come through.’
She saw him blink in surprise as she led him not to the lounge but to her bedroom, for it was the only place in the house that was truly hers. She sat on the bed and he perched on the jumble of clothes that hid her chair and she said the hardest words.
‘I was going to put Mum in a home. I just couldn’t keep looking after her and I had to work and it would have been the right decision at the time. But when I got back I had some bad news about her health—Mum’s only got a few months left to live.’ She took a big breath because it was so hard to say it, but she forced herself, said it quickly, lightly, even though it masked so much hurt. ‘So I’ve bunged a bit of money on the mortgage and I’m taking a year off from my job.’
‘You could have sold the necklace.’ He smiled to see it around her neck, smiled that it was not locked up in a box but that she wore it with pyjamas. ‘I was trying to take care of you with that.’
‘I’d never sell it,’ Charlotte said. ‘No matter what it’s worth, it’s worth more than money to me.’
He looked at her face, at the dull eyes and the unwashed hair, and all he could see was Charlotte.
‘You could have rung,’ she said. ‘You should have given me some warning.’
‘I wanted to see you.’
‘Well, now you have,’ Charlotte said. ‘And I’m fine. I still have a job when I’m ready to go back. You can leave with your conscience clear.’
But he did not.
‘You must be exhausted,’ Zander said, as even with a racing heart she stifled a yawn.
‘A bit,’ she admitted. ‘But I just want to finish what I started. I couldn’t go on looking after Mum indefinitely, I can see that now, but …’ He said nothing, he just looked. ‘It isn’t indefinite any more and I want to focus on the time we have. I’ve got a nurse that comes in and we’re going on holiday