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

Checking in went smoothly; there was a message from Paulo, Nico’s lawyer in Greece, asking her to contact him, and Charlotte declined the receptionist’s offer of a booking in the restaurant. She would rather eat alone in her room. Swipe card in hand, she wandered through the hotel, not quite brave enough to have a drink at the bar; instead, she headed for her room, bouncing on the huge king-sized bed and revelling for a guilty moment in the feeling that tonight she would not have to sleep with one ear open in case her mother awoke, that she had a little time to herself.

Still, she was here to work, so she rang Nico and got his voicemail. She told him she had arrived and then she rang Paulo too.

‘I’m unable to get hold of Nico,’ Paulo said. ‘I want to speak with him before this meeting on Monday.’

‘I’ve just left a message.’

‘Well, if you do get hold of him, make sure he speaks with me. He says that he doesn’t want me present on Monday, but I don’t want him speaking with this developer without me—he’s bad news.’

‘Really?’ Normally she would not pursue the conversation, would simply pass the message on, but she was far too interested in the elusive Zander, too curious about the voice she had heard on the end of the phone, to let the opportunity to know more pass by. ‘Zander certainly seems inflexible, but …’

Paulo said something in Greek that Charlotte couldn’t decipher and then he translated. ‘It’s a saying here on Xanos—this man is someone who would sell their own mother to the highest bidder. Nico needs to watch out—make sure you have him ring me.’

Paulo was always cautious, Charlotte told herself as she hung up the phone. It was his job to be cautious, she consoled herself. Anyway, she was spending far too much time thinking about a man she had never even met, a man she had spoken to only on the phone, but she didn’t want him to be a man like the one Paulo was describing. She wanted him to be every bit as gorgeous as the one she had secretly imagined.

Charlotte stepped out onto the balcony; she could hear a couple from the suite beside her, though couldn’t see them because of privacy walls, but their conversation was so exotic and glamorous it was heaven to eavesdrop while she looked out to the beach, to the azure water and gorgeous sands. For a moment she almost felt back in her old life, except there were no colleagues to meet up with, no one to explore the island with, no one to lie with her by the pool, as so often she had.

An uneasy feeling seemed to pool in her throat, tasting of bitterness and martyrdom—the food she had been fed by her mother throughout her childhood. And that was the very last thing she wanted.

She needed to think, really think about her future, and even if the neighboring conversation was intriguing, the beach beckoned more and Charlotte headed inside. She pulled on a simple shift dress, light cardigan and sandals, wanting to catch the last of the evening sun.

Still, even though she was miles from home, even though it was a relief to have a night to herself and the secret pleasure of finally coming face to face with Zander on Monday, as she walked along the golden sands of Xanos, her thoughts turned to her mum. Amanda would have loved it here. Their yearly holidays through Charlotte’s childhood were perhaps her most treasured of memories, for it was the only time she had ever really seen her mother happy; the only time Amanda had seemed at peace instead of bitter about the career she had forgone and the lover who, when Amanda had found out she was pregnant, had spurned her instead of facing up to his responsibilities.

How could Charlotte do it to her—put her in a home because it made life easier? Even all these years on, Charlotte nursed guilt for her childish selfishness, for the way she had idolised her absent father, not aware of the sacrifices her mother had made. Oh, the rows and tears that had come from her brought a sting of shame today. But once a year they had cast it aside, walked along Camber Sands or Beachy Head and, without fail, her mother would buy an extra portion of fries each evening, a ten-minute indulgence where they’d feed the seagulls and laugh and whoop as the gathered birds went wild.

There was Nico.

She looked up from her dreams and saw reality: her boss skimming stones in the water. It caught her by surprise, why she could not fathom for Nico lived here now—just along from this stretch of beach was his private residence. Something about him made her start. There was purpose to him, not idle relaxation as his wrist flicked the smooth, flat stones but an anger almost. She carried on walking, though she considered turning around, pretending she hadn’t seen him, for so dark were his features, so deep his concentration, she wondered if he and his wife Constantine had just had a row. Still, it would be worse if he saw her turning and thought she was ignoring him, and she did need to pass Paulo’s message on so, pretending she had not noticed his dark mood, she walked purposefully towards him, smiling as she called his name.

‘Nico!’ she called. ‘I’ve been trying to ring you …’ And then he turned around and her breath held in her lungs as she realised that, though he looked like him, though it surely was him, somehow the man that had turned to her call was not Nico. She could not explain it; the only thing she could liken it to was, years ago, as a small child she had lost her mother in a department store and a few panicked minutes later had rushed towards the familiar beige coat and tugged on it, had looked up at her mum and recoiled as she’d realised that it was not her, that the eyes that frowned at her had not been her mother’s. The feeling was back, was there in her chest now, as her familiar greeting was met with a stranger’s stare. ‘Sorry.’ She walked backwards for a few steps. ‘My mistake …’

She wanted to turn and run, it was her first instinct, she wanted to run, for her head was a mass of jumbled thoughts, but instead she walked quickly, desperate to get back to the hotel, to think, to talk to Nico, to find out just what the hell was going on.

‘Slow down.’ His footsteps were muffled by the sand, but still she heard them, could feel him as he drew closer, jumped with the shock of contact as his hand closed around her shoulder and spun her around. ‘Why are you running?’

She turned to eyes that were black, blacker than Nico’s, to a face that appeared in every detail to come from the same canvas as Nico’s except the brush had been dipped in an ink that was darker; the hand that had created this masterpiece just a touch heavier than the one that had made the other. His hair was longer, his bone structure more severe, but it was his mouth that drew her eyes for a second, a mouth that was heavy and sensual, with beautifully white teeth that smiled a smile that contradicted the bore of his gaze.

‘I made a mistake …’ She was far too confused to think logically. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

‘You thought I was Nico?’ This was so not how he had planned it. Zander knew he had taken a risk walking on the beach, but being cooped in the hotel was driving him crazy. At the last minute he had changed his plans and flown in early, but it had been a mistake, for already there was a buzz at the hotel. He had checked in under a different name, wanting to see how the hotel ran when the staff were unaware the owner was in residence, but the curious looks told him that Nico was a regular. From the way this woman had approached, the fact she had been trying to ring Nico, Zander knew he had only moments to act to prevent his cover being blown. He wanted his moment on Monday, wanted to see Nico’s reaction at first hand, and now he had to convince this woman, this stranger, not to tell him. Somehow he had to win her trust quickly, which was no trouble at all for a man like Zander, who could have any woman eating out of his hand in a matter of moments.

He smiled but his heart was not in it, though surely not a soul on earth could tell, for he had for so long perfected his routine. He looked deep into her eyes and focused on the glittering blue and his hand that was still on her wrist held her more loosely now, but the pulse that leaped beneath his fingers told him that she was in shock and it raced again when next he spoke.

‘I am Nico’s twin.’

‘Twin?’ She almost laughed at the ridiculousness of her response, for of course he was his twin, except she hadn’t even known that Nico had one.

‘I’m Zander.’ And from her blush when he said his name, from the slight catch in her throat, he recognised her. His weekend retreat suddenly became a lot more interesting, a lot more pleasurable perhaps? ‘You must be Charlotte.’ He smiled and it was deadly; it was a smile that had the hairs on her neck rise in strange response, made her arm pull back from his fingers, from the left hand that had shot out to grab her, when Nico would have used his right. ‘Finally we meet.’

‘You’re Zander.’ Her eyes flew away from his intense gaze as she wrestled with mortification—for if their dealings had already been a touch inappropriate, they were far more so now. It had been her boss’s twin that she had flirted with.

Oh, and they had been flirting!

‘I didn’t know Nico even had a twin …’ She could not think with him looking at her, could not be in his space. She stepped back a little, moved her eyes from the intensity of his gaze, back to his mouth, but she could not concentrate by looking there, so she looked downwards—to clothes that could never be described as casual, for there was luxury in every thread. The silk and cashmere black jumper billowed in the wind to give a blatant outline of his chest, the charcoal grey linen trousers rested low on narrow hips—there was no escape from his beauty. Even as she searched lower she was met with naked feet, the olive of his skin a contrast to the pale sand, and she wanted to get away from him, wanted the beach to be empty, wanted to get back to the safety of her thoughts and a walk that was gentle and aimless, instead of the confrontation with him.

‘Neither does Nico,’ Zander said. ‘On Monday I plan to surprise him.’ He must have seen the flare of worry in her eyes, for he moved swiftly to assure her, ‘I am hoping that the surprise will be a pleasant one …’ He sensed her doubt, knew that her instinct was to flee, and he did not want her spoiling all he had planned, did not want her running to Nico with her tales, but also … He looked down at the pale cream shift dress and the long slender arm he had a moment ago been holding, then up to the face that was just as pleasing as the voice he had dealt with in recent times, to the blonde hair that the wind whipped around her face and, yes, he wanted time with her, wanted to meet the voice that had entranced him, for on Monday, when he had said his piece, when he had wreaked his revenge, for sure, Charlotte would want nothing to do with him.

‘I can’t believe this.’ She was completely stunned. ‘Does this mean Nico has found his …?’ She stopped herself from asking further. It was certainly not her business to probe into her boss’s private life, and Nico gave little away. He had told her, more than a year ago, his suspicions that he was, in fact, adopted, but only so that she could be of assistance in researching his history. Though Nico was actively looking for his birth mother, not once had he mentioned that he had a twin—and an identical one too. She knew she had to speak with him, to get away from Zander and speak with Nico, but there was something that needed to be addressed.

‘You knew when you spoke to me.’ Her voice was accusing, which was ridiculous perhaps for he owed her nothing, but somehow she felt betrayed. ‘I should go back …’ There were so many questions and she must not look to him for answers. She plastered on a smile, pretended she was not perturbed, and tried to walk nonchalantly away from him.

‘Stay,’ Zander said.

‘I have things to prepare, I have work to do …’

‘Surely you have questions?’

She did, so very many, but surely the answers should come from Nico. Perhaps Zander sensed where her loyalties lay, and in that moment the battle was on—he wanted her loyalty, wanted to take everything from his brother, and Charlotte seemed a very good place to start.

‘Let us just enjoy the evening,’ he said. ‘There is no harm surely in walking. Perhaps we could have a seat at the beach café and watch the sunset.’

Would it be rude to refuse?

Would Nico scold her on Monday for snubbing his brother?

‘Or …’ he sensed an opening ‘… we could just walk?’

She gave a hesitant nod. Her guard firmly up, she walked tentatively alongside him, determined to say nothing that might compromise Nico until she was sure what was going on.

‘Are you enjoying the hotel?’ Zander asked, and she remembered he owned it, that the man beside her owned the very ground they were walking on. She knew then the true might of this man.

‘It’s wonderful.’

‘He was a hard man to find.’ It was Zander who broke the tense silence; it was he who spoke of his brother. ‘His name is the one that is different.’

She said nothing to that.

‘You like your job?’ Zander changed track.

‘Of course.’ He heard her terse response and could only admire her restraint, for surely she must have a thousand questions, but he watched as she kept them in. He wanted her to speak of his brother, so he paved the way and spoke first about himself.

‘I love it here.’ The words choked in his throat, for he could not loathe the place more, but when she glanced up at him, Zander made sure he was smiling. ‘Always it was my dream to come back …’ He looked at the luxurious properties he’d had carved into the cliffs and hills of Xanos and she followed his gaze.

‘Where was your house?’ She could not help but ask, wondered for a mad moment if it was the house Nico lived in now, but he motioned vaguely to the middle of the development. ‘Where is the one you grew up in?’

‘Where the hotel is.’ He saw her tiny frown. ‘It was unsalvageable.’ He chose not to tell her it had been the first property he had had knocked down, that he had stood with the best champagne in his hand in his office in Australia, and cheered silently as the bulldozer had set to work. Knowing that his family home was being destroyed had been the only moment of pleasure Xanos had given him.

‘You like the beach?’

He saw that she relaxed a little at the less loaded question. ‘I love it,’ Charlotte admitted. ‘Not swimming or anything …’ She smiled, a real smile, the first since she had realised who she was speaking to, and he watched her blue eyes brighten, her mouth spread, and he wanted to see more of the same. ‘Just walking, thinking …’ Her eyes roamed the horizon. ‘Remembering …’ He wondered what. Perhaps romantic walks with Nico before he’d taken a wife, but her voice broke into his thoughts. ‘We always holidayed at the beach,’ Charlotte said. ‘When I was younger.’

He heard her pensive pause and let it be, had learnt so very well how to deal with women, how to get them to unbend, how to win their trust. There was none more skilled at it than he. So brilliant was his technique that it left every woman stunned and breathless when his true nature was revealed, when the man who had listened so intently, had supposedly cared, just dismissed all they had briefly shared.

He was at his dangerous best now, a small question here, an insightful observation there, and as they strolled with seemingly little purpose Charlotte spoke more easily. As a seagull ducked and swooped at a piece of paper, she laughed. Another bird joined it and then another, furious screeches of protest when there was no food to be found.

‘Poor things.’

‘Poor things?’ Zander gave a wry laugh. ‘I can ensure for my guests many things, but a seagull-free beach would be the icing on the cake.’

‘I love them.’ And she laughed and then, because it was safer than talking about Nico, she told him about her long-ago walks with her mother on their holidays, how they had fed the gulls, how it had been a great end to their days.

They walked, five, maybe ten minutes more. The beach café was serving cocktails but they walked past all that to a place more secluded, away from the sand of the beach to the rocky coves around it. Charlotte, calm beside him, was forced to concentrate more on her step than her words.

‘How long have you worked for Nico?’

‘Nearly two years now,’ Charlotte said, and he saw her tense, saw that she sensed perhaps he was fishing, but he worked carefully around that.

‘And before that?’ He tried to guess at her age, mid-twenties he gauged, which was very young to be an assistant to a man like Nico Eliades, but he was quite sure his brother had not hired her purely for her business skills. ‘Did you do business studies?’

‘Oh, no …’ She shook her head. ‘I never intended to be a PA—I was a flight attendant. International.’ She added. ‘That’s how I met him.’

It galled Zander, but he did not show it.

‘On a flight?’

Charlotte nodded. ‘I recognised him back at the hotel I was booked into—he was having trouble being understood.

We were in Japan and, unusually for that hotel, the staff member he was dealing with spoke very poor English, so I stepped in.’

‘You speak Japanese?’

She held her finger and thumb a tiny space a part. ‘A little. And my mother’s French, so I can get by there too. Oh, and I can speak a little … Mía glóssa then íne poté arketí.’ He smiled as she told him in his own language that one language was never enough. ‘I love learning languages, it’s my hobby. I’m studying now … Anyway, Nico was having trouble changing his flight …’ And Zander had to force himself to remember that it was Nico he was trying to find out about, for instead he wanted to know more about her. He wanted to know about her life before Nico and her love of languages, and it wasn’t a ploy when he interrupted her to ask.

‘What are you studying now?’

‘Russian.’ Charlotte rolled her eyes. ‘Well, when I say studying, it’s just on the Internet and I make myself watch the Russian news … Where was I?’ she asked, and he blinked, because he was having trouble remembering where he was. He was forgetting the very reason that he was here. ‘I helped Nico to sort out his flight and his follow-on accommodation and he said that he needed someone part time …’ She gave a tight shrug. ‘I was in no position to accept his offer, of course, I spent half my life 40,000 feet in the air, but we kept in touch and now and then I’d arrange him a flight or book a hotel. But when his PA resigned I’d just left the airline …’ Nothing in her voice revealed the regret in her decision, she just paused for half a second before continuing. ‘It sort of grew from there.’

And something was growing here too—how, she did not know, for her guard was up and she was determined to be businesslike, but there was something about his company that engaged her, something about the hand that reached out for her as she stepped over a rock pool that steadied her stance, just not her heart.

‘I ought to get back.’ Charlotte reclaimed the hand that was warmed by his brief touch. ‘I have to make a phone call. To my mum,’ she added, because, though it didn’t quite fit with her polished party-girl image, she didn’t want him to think she was racing back to tell Nico. ‘You can use mine.’ He pulled out a slim phone from his pocket and she was about to decline, to head back to the safety of her suite, to work out what on earth she should do, but the sky was so gold and her hand was still warm from his touch, and for reasons better left unexamined she did not want their walk to end.

‘It’s international …’ Her voice petered out along with her excuses, because the cost of a phone call would hardly be a problem to him. ‘Thank you.’

Politely he walked on ahead and took a seat on a rock by the water’s edge as she spent a moment locating the number and being put through.

It was heartbreaking. The confusion in her mother’s voice, the pleading with Charlotte to come and save her, to bring her home, had Charlotte biting back tears as a nurse came onto the phone.

‘It might be better if you don’t talk to her just before bedtime,’ the nurse gently suggested. ‘It unsettles her for a couple of hours after she speaks with you.’

‘So it’s better that she thinks I’ve forgotten her?’ Charlotte retorted, and then apologised. “I’m sorry to snap, I just …’

‘It’s so hard on you.’ The nurse was incredibly kind. ‘If she was here permanently it would be different, but she’s only with us for a few days and the change of surroundings is so unsettling, it just disorientates her all the more when you call. Why don’t you ring and speak with the staff to find out how she is?’

It took a moment after hanging up to compose herself enough to join Zander, but he must have seen the glimmer of tears in her eyes because after a moment he spoke.

‘You’re close to your mum?’

‘I don’t know,’ Charlotte admitted, though she had never done so before, her head still spinning from the emotion of speaking with her mother. ‘I don’t know if we’re close or just bound …’ She took a deep breath. This was not the professional conversation she was supposed to be having with him, but surely she wasn’t being indiscreet in speaking about herself. Surely it was safer than speaking about Nico. And on this particular evening, knowing her mother was scared and in tears and that there was nothing she could do about it, it was easy to talk. Not that she would reveal her mother’s illness to him, for she had been badly burned doing so in the past—the look of horror on her boyfriend’s face when she had invited him in one night and he had witnessed the chaos that was her life, and another fledgling relationship that had ended before it had really begun when she had told him of her plight. Charlotte had long since learned where to stay quiet.

‘She had me when she was older …’ Charlotte said a couple of moments later, soothed by the company and the view, her ankles dangling in the water. The sky was a glorious riot of orange. She had front row seats to a show she loved, but this was surely the best one ever, the colours so vivid, the ocean so majestic. ‘I think at first she wanted my dad to leave his wife …’ She hadn’t really told anyone this, but it was so good to talk and have someone answer. Too used to her own thoughts, it was so nice to finally share a part of herself, though she chose not to tell Zander everything, chose not to reveal all of her plight. ‘She was my father’s mistress. He was from London, which was why she moved there. I think she thought if she had a baby that he’d …’ Charlotte gave a shrug. ‘Well, it didn’t work—he wanted a mistress, not a mother. He didn’t leave his wife, didn’t come and see us.’ She gave a wry smile, for her mother had never let her forget just how much she had given up for her child. ‘I always thought he’d come and live with us one day.’

‘Did your mum?’

‘Not in the end. By the time I was at school she’d long since given up.’ Charlotte shook her head. ‘She just got more bitter. I always dreamt he’d come and find us. She said that I lived with my head in the clouds …’

‘Clearly you were intended to,’ Zander said. ‘Forty thousand feet up in them.’ And she smiled, because he had listened, really listened, and then the smile on her face faded, because she was looking at him and he was looking at her, and it was more than talking and sharing. There was more, and in that moment she knew it but forced herself to deny it, changed the conversation, for they could not sit staring endlessly, and if they did, for even a moment longer, he would kiss her. He would kiss lips that were waiting, would be accepting, but he did not move.

‘What about you?’ Her voice did not break the spell.

‘I live with my feet on the ground,’ Zander said.

‘Your parents,’ she asked. ‘Do you still see your mother?’ There was so much she wanted to know, so much Nico was desperate to find out, but, sitting there, it was not Nico she was asking Zander the questions for but herself. She wanted to know him, but it was her question that broke the moment, her words that ended the kiss that never was.