Touching her fingertips to her belly, she went to answer the door to find a blonde woman standing on the step—someone she didn’t recognise but who looked oddly familiar.
‘Can I help you?’ questioned Ellie.
‘You don’t remember me?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘Should I?’
‘Probably. I knew you before you were married. I was staying at The Hog when you were working there. Remember now?’
And suddenly the mist cleared. Of course. It was the journalist. The sneaky blonde who had asked those questions which Ellie had stupidly answered, and which had ended up with her getting the sack. She looked into the woman’s glacial eyes.
‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ said Ellie.
‘Maybe not. But you might be interested in what I have to say to you.’
‘I don’t think so.’ She started to close the door. ‘My husband doesn’t like journalists and neither do I.’
‘Does your husband realise he has a brother?’
Sweat broke out on her forehead as Ellie leant against the door. She thought about what Alek had told her about his childhood. And amid all the pain and the heartbreak of his upbringing, he hadn’t mentioned his father having any more children. But maybe his mother had gone on to have more children. If he’d never met her, he wouldn’t actually know, would he? ‘You’re lying,’ she croaked.
‘Why would I lie? Actually, he has a twin brother. Yeah, I thought you’d be interested.’
Yes, she was interested but that didn’t stop Ellie from shaking her head, because the dramatic words seemed to make no sense. ‘But if what you say is true, how come you know and he doesn’t?’
The woman shrugged. ‘His brother asked me to track him down and speak to him. He wanted to know whether Alek would be receptive to a meeting. The first part wasn’t difficult but the second part was, because I could never get close enough to ask him. Men like Alek Sarantos are never easy to get close to. He doesn’t do interviews and he’s not the kind of man who drinks alone in bars, so trying to pick him up was never going to work. And as you say, he doesn’t like journalists.’
‘Are you surprised?’
‘Nothing surprises me any more,’ said the woman cynically. ‘That’s why I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw him with you that night. A waitress who was way out of his league and you were making out like two teenagers at a school disco! I thought I had the perfect opportunity to smoke him out, and I was right.’
‘Smoke him out?’ echoed Ellie in horror.
‘Sure. Put a woman into a man’s life and immediately you’ve got another way in.’
‘You’re disgusting.’
‘No, honey. I’m just doing my job.’ The journalist leant forward and tucked a business card into Ellie’s free hand. ‘Why don’t you tell him to call me?’
After she’d gone, Ellie shut the door, leaning back against it and trying very hard to steady her breathing.
A brother.
A twin brother.
How could that be? Did Alek know about this explosive fact and was this just one more thing he had deliberately omitted to tell her? She felt so spaced out that she couldn’t seem to take it in. Had the journalist being doing what journalists did so well...inventing a story to try to get some sort of reaction? Her heart was pounding and a weird kind of pain was spearing through her and she wasn’t sure how long she stood there, only that she couldn’t stay there. She couldn’t let Alek come home from work and find her slumped there like a zombie.
She forced herself to dress, but the silky tea dress seemed only to mock her. She remembered the day she’d gone shopping, when she’d felt so proud of herself. So stupidly proud. As if managing to run up a massive bill on a man’s credit card all by herself was some sort of mega achievement. She remembered how easy she’d found it to spend his money. For all her feisty words, was she really any different from the other women who adored his wealth? He hated gold-diggers. He seemed to hate women in general and now she could understand why.
Never had that famous saying seemed more appropriate.
Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.
Wasn’t that just the truth?
Alek had spent the first years of his life deserted by his mother and left alone with a cruel father. Was it any wonder that he’d locked his emotions away and thrown away the key?
She got more and more nervy as time wore on but when eventually Alek arrived home and walked into the sitting room, she thought how weary he looked. She’d been intending to break it to him gently but maybe something in her expression alerted him, because he frowned the minute he saw her.