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‘I don’t like it It doesn’t suit you,’ Aristandros spelt out without skipping a beat ‘On the very first day you meet Callie, do I need to remind you that I make all the decisions where she’s concerned?’

Ella turned very pale at that blunt rehis authority to be challenged Her tuain that he was the one in control, and that she alking a dangerous path from which she could not afford to stray It was clear that he intended to hold her to the very letter of the agreen She had pro All of a sudden she was appreciating just how difficult it was likely to be to take care of Callie while following his rules

‘We come first in this instance, not the child Don’t let her come between us and cause discord,’ Aristandros advised her with forbidding emphasis

Ella wanted to tell hi, but he had just delineated her boundaries as a warning and she did not dare Aristandros Xenakis had spent thirty-two years on the earth doing exactly what he liked at all tiuide, but he would never allow her to lead Who was she to think she could change hiooseflesh on her bare arms and she turned to leave

‘Where are you going?’

Her spine prickled with apprehension ‘I, er, need to work out what I’’

‘No need As yet you don’t have a proper wardrobe My staff will organise a selection of dresses to be brought toThere’s very little that you need to do for yourself now’

Ella flipped back round ‘Sometimes you scare retted it, but there it was: the complete unvarnished truth

Aristandros cast aside the file and vaulted upright His astute eyes were unreadable, his fabulous bone-structure taut ‘I don’t want that’

Ella pinned her tremulous lips closed ‘I can’t help the way I feel’

‘You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever known,’ Aristandros countered

But he wasa coward of her because if she spoke her mind she stood to lose too much, Ella conceded bitterly Aristandros closed a hand over hers and tugged her closer With an iers straight and linked their hands ‘If it’s that important, I’ll make more effort with Callie’ Unusually he hesitated, his wide, sensual h I didn’t have a conventional childhood’

Ella ell aware that even that norance was a e of heart on his part was to be wared, but she was still so tense and worked up that her hand tre inside her, for his cruelly troubled childhood had been lived out in the full glare of the er-than-life parents and was very well documented

‘My earliestatpool They were either drunk or high…’ A broad shoulder shifted, his strong face hardening ‘They were so busy fighting they left ain I knohat not to do if you have a child’

‘Yes, of course you do,’ she agreed ‘When you’re a kid it’s so frightening when you see adults fighting and out of control The first ti to end…’ As Ella realised what she had inadvertently revealed, she was appalled by her carelessness, and she fell silent

‘Repeat that,’ Aristandros urged, his narrowed gaze reflecting his stunned reaction ‘The first time you saw your stepfather hit your mother?’

Ella was aghast at what she had let drop ‘I don’t want to talk about it I really didn’t mean to say that!’

Aristandros lifted a hand to tip up her chin so that her eyes were forced toback or denying it Theo Sardelos is in the habit of hitting your mother?’

Ella was pale as death, and full of the shame she had never been able to shake over that sordid reality ‘I don’t think the violence happens as much now as it once did…at least, I would hope not,’ she confided jerkily ‘But it’s been so long since I had any contact with them, I really have no idea’