THE thrumming power of the jet as it took off sent vibrations rippling through Billie's taut slender length. As soon as they were airborne the crew served drinks and snacks, after which Alexei dismissed them. As the tension in the atmosphere took on an explosive edge, Billie gnawed at the soft underside of her lip until she could no longer bear the silence.
'What were you doing in Paris today?' she demanded thinly.
'The Drakos foundation was staging a charitable lunch,' Alexei answered, referring to the global charity set up by his father. 'I had a speech to make.'
She had a vague recollection of the luncheon benefit and compressed her lips. 'How did you know where I was?' she asked tautly.
'Helios only tracked you down when you arrived at the airport for your flight out to Paris.' Alexei's cool, controlled diction unnerved her and merely increased her wariness. 'So where did you go in London beforehand and who were you meeting? You were very keen to ensure that there were no witnesses.'
Billie turned her head and finally focused on him. 'I didn't want you to know that I was planning a trip to Paris as well,' she admitted baldly. 'I had no other motive and no reason to hide where I was going or what I was doing. Actually, I had my first meeting in London with my father over lunch today—'
That announcement certainly did grab Alexei's attention and his expressive brows drew together. 'Your father?' he exclaimed in disbelief. 'But I thought you had no idea who he was!'
Billie dug into her bag to retrieve the letter Desmond had written and leant across the aisle to pass it to Alexei.
His bold bronzed profile set hard while he scanned the comparatively brief communication. 'And until now you never even thought to mention this man's approach to me?' he ground out.
Billie reddened, for he sounded so astonished that she could have neglected to share the contents of that letter with him sooner. 'There was so much else going on between us at the time—'
'But you still just went ahead and arranged to meet this guy, taking him on trust?' Alexei thundered in interruption, springing upright to stare down at her in frank disbelief. 'You didn't even have a background check
done on him! Have you any idea what a risk you took?'
'There was no risk,' Billie disclaimed. 'Desmond is a perfectly ordinary middle-aged businessman.'
'But this letter could have been a con trick to lure you into a vulnerable position.' His striking cheekbones prominent below his dark skin, golden eyes blistering, Alexei slowly shook his handsome head in angry wonderment. 'You could've been kidnapped, robbed, anything!' he spelt out angrily.
'Don't be so melodramatic—'
'Don't be so stupid,' Alexei retaliated with icy bite. 'You're part of my world now and worth more money as my wife than most people could earn in a lifetime. People maim and kill others for a great deal less. Round-the-clock protection is a necessary precaution to ensure your safety.'
A good deal paler than she had been after receiving that graphic warning, Billie nodded acceptance of his concern, which did ironically have the side effect of briefly lifting her mood. Alexei could be so cold and unemotional that it was good to know he cared enough to worry about her well-being to this extent. 'I promise that I won't be so trusting with anyone again, but my father is a very agreeable man.'
'That doesn't mean that he couldn't also be a fraudster on the make,' Alexei proclaimed with crushing cynicism. 'I'll have him thoroughly checked out before you see him again.'
Quietly convinced that her father was exactly who and what he purported to be, Billie made no comment. It struck her as deeply sad that she had had to look to Alexei's anger to find solace in the idea that he cared about what happened to her. Had their relationship always been so one-sided, so empty? Then he did not reciprocate her feelings, nor had he ever pretended to. She sipped her cold drink to moisten her dry mouth. 'Please don't let's talk about what I was doing in Paris,' she urged him in hasty appeal.
'How can I ignore what you did? What the hell were you thinking of when you went there?' Alexei responded with censorious golden eyes. 'You're my wife. I expect you to behave with dignity. That does not mean confronting Calisto in one of our homes and accusing her of having an affair with me.'
Her face burning at that rebuke, Billie lifted her chin. 'I wasn't sure that you still regarded me as your wife. Most of our conversations since our wedding have ended with you walking out or talking about us being over as a couple…'
Golden eyes gleaming, Alexei loosed a harsh laugh of challenge. 'You make me sound so unreasonable. Nobody would credit that you spent more than a year lying to me and then produced my son like a rabbit out of a magician's hat the same day that I married you!'
Having paled at that accurate if acerbic summing-up of her sins, Billie swallowed hard. She registered that in his eyes she was never going to live down her past and concentrated on what mattered most to her at that moment. 'I'm still entitled to ask you what's going on between you and Calisto.'
'Nothing sexually.' Alexei's wide sensual mouth took on a sardonic twist. 'It's business now. Her father died during our relationship and in his will he placed me in charge of her inheritance. As she was one of three children the legacy was not particularly large. But when I parted from Calisto it was on poor terms and it was easier for me to ignore the responsibility her father had given me. While I was doing that, she got into considerable debt.'
'Debt?' Billie leant forward to question in unabashed surprise at that statement. 'I thought Calisto was a wealthy woman in her own right.'
'So did she, but she didn't get a big divorce settlement because of the pre-nuptial agreement she signed with Bethune,' Alexei informed her wryly. 'And as the wife and then the girlfriend of two very rich men there was never any need for her to watch her expenditure. But once she was living on her own income, she quickly got into trouble.'
'And because of this, she's now living in your town house in Paris?' Billie had already worked out the direction his cool explanation was going in and she was not overly impressed by it. So, poor Calisto had finally been forced to live as an independent woman and settle her own bills! She could see that such an obligation would have been uncomfortable for Alexei in the aftermath of a broken relationship, but she did not accept the need for him to have got involved again with Calisto on such a very personal basis. He could easily have brought in an accountant or lawyer to take charge of the Greek woman's financial affairs and have kept Calisto at arm's length.
'If I had done my duty by Calisto as her late father expected of me, her finances would never have got in such a mess,' Alexei reasoned as if his involvement and sense of guilt were the most natural and understandable reactions in the world. 'As she's currently working for a Parisian fashion house, it made sense for her to use my property as a base and reduce her outgoings.'