Tears stung her eyes at the prospect of that cold physical separation. She wasn't at all sure about what she had just done but his refusal to even countenance the term 'making love' for their intimacy had hit hard and had bolstered up her defences. At the same time she just couldn't get Calisto out of her mind and his refusal to talk about his ex-fiancée only increased her doubts about the nature of his continuing relationship with the other woman. In one way Alexei had been very right: the trust they had once shared had gone and without it she felt lost, scared and out of control.
When she awakened early the next morning, Alexei had already left the house. She had to phone Helios to discover that her husband had flown out to France, a revelation that shook her inside out. As soon as she heard it she was convinced that he would be staying in Paris with Calisto and spending the night with the gorgeous blonde. That conviction killed her appetite for breakfast and made it a major challenge for her to feed Nicky and play with him with her usual light heart. Worry stoked her growing anger. Possibly freezing Alexei out of the marital bedroom the night before had been unwise, but he had blocked all her efforts to bridge the mental gulf between them. If he imagined, however, that she planned to close her eyes to his infidelity as so many other women had in the past he was in for a huge shock! Determined to discover the truth at first hand, Billie booked a late afternoon flight to Paris. If Alexei had resumed his affair with Calisto, she would confront them and see the evidence for herself before she gave up hope on their marriage.
After all that drama and agonising over what to do next it was an effort for Billie to get into the right frame of mind to go and meet her long-lost father for the first time. When she realised that a security team was to accompany her to London, she swiftly appreciated that if she accepted their presence she would never be able to surprise Alexei with Calisto in Paris as he would immediately be informed if she was flying into the same city. So, when Petros joined her in the hall to request exact details of her planned itinerary in London, she told him that she was sorry but that she did not wish to be accompanied.
'I'm following your husband's orders, kyria,' Petros replied in some surprise. 'It is the wish of Kyrios Drakos that you enjoy protection whenever you leave home.'
'But I'm afraid it is not my wish,' Billie replied firmly. 'You may tell my husband that I refused to allow you to come with me.'
Feeling guilty at having put the bewildered Petros in that awkward position, Billie left Hazlehurst without any further ado. Just before Billie got out of the limo at the rural station where she was to catch a train to the city, Alexei called her on her mobile phone.
'What the hell are you playing at?' he demanded without any preliminary chat. 'You need a security team—'
'I don't need anyone following me every place I go. I like my privacy.'
'Privacy in which to do what?' Alexei queried in a glancing challenge that startled her.
Billie released an angry laugh. 'So now we're getting to the truth of the matter. It's not my personal safety you're concerned about, but what I might be doing. You want me to have bodyguards so that you can spy on me and I won't accept that!'
Buoyed up with a sense that she had to stand up for her rights before Alexei's powerful personality and controlling nature steamrollered her bid for independence flat as a pancake, Billie switched off her mobile phone and plunged it back into her bag. She caught the train to London and walked to meet her father in a quiet restaurant that lay not far from the station.
Her first impressions of Desmond Bury were good and her tension slowly began to drain away. She found unexpected pleasure in the fact that she had evidently inherited her father's small stature, auburn hair and green eyes. Smartly dressed in what was obviously a new suit, the older man felt familiar from the first moment he joined her with a rather shy smile at her table. He asked her a great deal about her childhood experiences on Speros and she wrapped up the truth as best she could, while suspecting that he had known Lauren well enough to deduce that her daughter might well be glossing over some disagreeable realities. In turn Desmond answered Billie's questions about his side of the family tree and his business. His marriage had been childless and his parents were long dead so, with the exception of a couple of elderly great-aunts in Scotland, there were no other close relatives for her to discover. Billie asked him if he thought they should get a DNA test to confirm their relationship and he looked taken aback momentarily. Then he grasped her hand firmly to assure her that she was the very picture of his late sister and that he was already fully satisfied that she was his flesh and blood. His unquestioning faith in their bond warmed her heart as much as Alexei's distrust had chilled it.