An Indecent Proposition by Carol Marinelli

Author:Carol Marinelli
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-12-31T19:28:19+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

SHE lay curled up and wounded on the bed, too mortified to go out, dreading Nico’s wrath, but far more than that she was beyond hurt by what Zander had done.

The contempt, the disregard, how he had used her.

A knock at the door a short while later did not see Charlotte moving. She did not care who it might be: Nico to fire her or Zander, for what?

An apology wasn’t going to fix this.

Instead, when the knock came again, she closed her eyes at the sound of a woman’s voice.

‘Charlotte, it’s me—Constantine.’

She could not be rude to Nico’s wife. She had met her a few times and Constantine had always been nice. Beyond ashamed, Charlotte opened the door, and burst into tears when the other woman wrapped her arms around her.

‘Nico told me what happened.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Charlotte wept. ‘I’m so ashamed …’

‘For what?’

‘For what I did.’ Everything that had been so beautiful had been turned around and it all seemed sullied and sordid now. ‘I thought … I never thought he hated Nico. It was not about being disloyal.’

‘Charlotte.’ Constantine was kind. ‘What happened between you and Zander is not Nico’s business, or mine.’

‘It has become that though,’ Charlotte wept. ‘I really thought …’ But she could not divulge her dreams because they seemed so pathetic now, that with one look, with one kiss, he had whisked her away, had let her glimpse a world she did not know and now wished she never had.

‘Is Nico going to fire me?’

‘He wants to speak with you, he wants to know what was said, what Zander revealed. I doubt he could fire you for sleeping with someone.’ Constantine gave a wry smile. ‘My husband is many things, but he is never a hypocrite. He is cross,’ she admitted, ‘furious, but I think that is more aimed at his brother. As I pointed out to him when he told me what had happened, we were together the night we met—it was, in fact, my wedding night and Nico was not the groom …’ Charlotte blinked at the admission from Nico’s wife. ‘I know how devastating they can be, how irresistible Nico was to me. I am not here to judge you, I just want to know you are okay.’

‘I will be,’ Charlotte said, for she was certainly not okay now. She tried to scan her future for a time when this would not hurt so much, but Zander had changed it for ever. ‘If I had thought, for even a second, that he was not looking forward to meeting Nico … Why would he hate him? It’s not as if Nico was raised by his parents. Nico was the one that was sold …’

‘Roula, their mother, she was not stable …’ Constantine paused. Charlotte could see the other woman was uncomfortable discussing this, for though Charlotte had been privy to certain information, emotion had always been left out, only names and facts had been given by Nico. ‘Or that is what we have been told.

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