LITMIR.BIZ

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met your mum!’ Charlotte said. ‘I spoke with your mum. Don’t you even want to know how she is?’

      ‘No.’ It was that simple to Zander. ‘I care nothing for her. She is a poor excuse for you to use. I asked you to be there tonight, I was going to …’ And he could not say it, for he had been a fool to even think it, think for a moment that they could ever be.

      ‘Going to what?’ she pushed, because she wanted to know, wanted to believe that love might have been on offer tonight, wanted to remind him of all he was losing.

      ‘Give you this.’ He handed her a thick velvet box, but it came with no meaning, for even rubies and diamonds shone dull without love.

      ‘Just this?’ Charlotte said, which seemed strange when the necklace was worth a small mortgage, but she was sure, so sure there had been more to come.

      ‘What else were you expecting?’ He frowned. ‘Oh, and by the way, I’ve reconsidered the job offer.’

      ‘Job offer?’

      ‘We discussed you working for me?’ He twisted the knife. ‘I prefer someone a little more reliable—someone who does not dash off when we have plans. Still …’ he gave a tight shrug ‘… we have had some pleasant times.’ He glanced at the box. ‘Have it.’

      ‘For services rendered?’

      ‘Don’t be crass.’

      ‘That’s how you just made me feel.’ And there was nothing left to dream, for it had always been impossible. ‘I’d say no anyway.’ She looked at the stone of his face, at eyes that refused to warm, at the immutable man that was Zander. ‘Even if it was more than a job, even if it was more than your mistress, no matter what you were going to offer, I’d still say no.’

      Was that a smirk on his face, yes, it was, and it incensed her.

      ‘I would say no.’

      ‘Liar.’ It was the closest he would come to admitting that the night could have been very different, that had she not chosen Nico, he would have offered it all.

      ‘Of course I would. You’ve got a mother who loves you. You don’t know what happened, you don’t know what she went through …’

      ‘She’s had thirty years to come up with her excuses. Whatever she told you—’

      ‘It’s nothing to do with what your mother told me,’ Charlotte interrupted. ‘It’s to do with you, Zander.

      You’ve got a whole family waiting, a whole parade of people who want to get to know you, and all you choose is pain. I would say no to whatever you offer, for it would be like living with my mother—and I’ve done my time with bitter.’ And then she looked straight at him. ‘It would be worse, in fact. My mother has genuinely forgotten her past, whereas you choose not to know. Your brother is grieving tonight but your black heart cares nothing for that.’

      ‘Nico has what he wants from me—he has the land. Tell him I am selling Xanos. Run to your boss with that bit of information and see if he pays you a bonus for giving him the heads up.’

      ‘It isn’t Xanos Nico wants!’ Charlotte said pleadingly. ‘Can’t you see that when you hurt Nico, you hurt me?’ Her words came out wrong, her thoughts too jumbled, but she didn’t attempt to explain. ‘I know what I want, so thank you for helping me see it. I know what I want now.’ She held out the box but he did not take it. Neither did he ask her to explain what it was she wanted, but she told him. She looked at him, and he did not flinch as she said it, but she watched his face turn grey, watched his jaw clench just a fraction.

      ‘I want what your brother’s got.’

      She moved her lips closer to his ear and could have sworn she heard the thud of his black heart as she spoke on. ‘I want everything your brother has—a home, babies, love, acceptance and forgiveness, all the things that you can never give.’ How cruelly she taunted him, but better that than not say it, better that than he never see. ‘I want what Nico has.’

      ‘Well, you’ve made the right choice,’ Zander responded, ‘because you’ll never get it from me.’

      He climbed into a car that would take him the short distance to the jetty, and she stood watching the seaplane lift into the sky and it hurt, for she wanted to be on it, wanted so badly to be with him, but not this way, never this way. She walked the streets of Xanos that night and wandered down to the beach. How she longed to ring him, but knew she must not.

      She felt rain start to fall, winter rain that came from the north and was cold and driving, but as she sat on the beach and shivered, it did not feel like rain. Zander had left, signed over the land, walked out, not just on her but the truth, and it felt as if right now, this minute, he was washing his hands of Xanos.

      Cleansing himself of her.

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      HE TRIED.

      Every part of him tried to remove Xanos from his heart. For the first time he ordered his team to respond to the expressions of interest in the hotel, the land, the entire development. He wanted it sold, he simply wanted it gone.

      Zander wasn’t baiting Nico, but it came as no surprise that Nico was a serious bidder. There were few who could afford it, fewer still who had a heart in the place, and of course his brother wanted it.

      Nico wanted something else too, something Zander could never give.

      ‘No.’ Zander’s response to his legal team was instant, for it was all done through them, there had been no conversations between the brothers. ‘I’m not interested in a partnership.’ He moved to the window, stared out to what was surely the most beautiful harbour in the world, to glimpses of beaches that should, after all this time, feel like home, so why was his heart in Xanos? ‘He can buy it all or nothing.’

      Why did it hurt as his lawyers made calls, as he shed a painful past and moved towards his future? Why did it hurt to listen to his lawyer inform Nico’s team they would be looking at all offers and get back to them soon.

      ‘She wants to know how soon is soon.’ The lawyer put the phone on mute. ‘Apparently, Nico Eliades does not want to be kept waiting for your decision as he has been in the past. He has another development he is keen on and will be retracting his offer at the end of the week.’

      ‘Tell Paulo—’

      ‘It’s not his lawyer on the line, it’s his PA, with a direct message from Eliades.’

      It was Nico baiting him this time, Zander realised, for Charlotte was the only thing that had bound them. Were it not for her, he might not even have bothered going to Xanos to confront his brother. It had been the lure of her voice that had changed his plans, had made him go to the island he hated. It had been Charlotte who’d had him stay on those extra days and Nico knew it.

      ‘Tell her …’ Zander said, but his voice trailed off, because it was late afternoon in Australia and early morning in London, and he wanted her voice and the image of her in bed; he wanted to go back to what they’d had before. Which was impossible of course, and it was impossible too to move forward, for he did not have a heart to give—except it seemed to be beating just now, pounding in his chest and demanding the sound of her voice to soothe it. And there beneath his heart, his soul also demanded, but he shut it down with bile, would not give in to Nico, would not let him use Charlotte as his pawn. ‘Give me the phone,’ Zander said, but did not ask for privacy, for there were few words to be said. ‘My staff will get back to you when I tell them to. Tell your boss that, tell him too that he is the one using you, but I don’t care who calls, I don’t care—’

      ‘I’ll pass it on.’ The clipped words halted him, the sound of a woman’s voice, but not hers.

      ‘I thought I was

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