Читать книгу: «Mistresses: Passionate Revenge»

Chapter Six

IT WAS a strange dream, where people faded in and out of focus, the girls from school with their taunts of loser, her half-brothers hugging the father who looked on her as excess baggage, and Kurt laughing at her, his white chest quivering with the vibrations. From somewhere Cleo could hear the sound of her nanna telling her to look for the silver lining. She spun around trying to find the source of her voice, trying to pull her from the shadows and hang onto her message and drown out the chorus behind her, when a different shape emerged from the mist, tall and broad and arrogantly self-assured.

“I’m scared.” It was her voice, even though she’d not said a word, and she wanted to run, tempted to turn back to the mocking chorus behind her, back to the world she knew and understood so well, back to the familiar, but her legs were like lead and she couldn’t move and he kept right on coming until he stood head and shoulders above her. And he smiled, all dark eyes and gleaming white teeth. ‘You should be,’ and then he’d dipped his head to kiss her and she heard nothing but the buzzing in her ears and the pounding of her heart, and from somewhere in the shadows, the sound of her nanna’s voice.

‘Rise and shine.’ The words made no sense until the blow to her rump, cushioned with the thick quilt but enough to bring her to consciousness with a jump. ‘You’ve got a busy morning.’

The alarm on the bedside table alongside snapped off and she drank in the scent of bed-warmed flesh. His bed-warmed flesh. So the alarm was the buzzing in her ears? But what was causing the fizzing in her blood?

She sat up and pushed her mask above her eyes, and then, remembering his comment about dressing like a clown, swiped it from her head. A moment later she wished she’d kept it on. He was naked. Unashamedly naked as he strode to the wardrobe and pulled out a robe. Too late she averted her eyes and, oh, my. She felt the blush rise like a tide as the truth sank in—he was huge! Only to have the blush deepen with the next wayward thought.

And if he looks that big now?

She swallowed, pulling her legs up like a shield, wondering why she should be suddenly tingling down there. How big he could be had nothing to do with her. It wasn’t something she was planning on finding out.

‘Hungry?’ he asked casually, but her brain had ceased to function on that level. ‘You missed dinner,’ he explained, slipping into a robe and thankfully tying it at his waist. ‘I thought you might be hungry. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for both of us. You looked like you could have slept until noon.’

She unplastered her tongue from the roof of her mouth. ‘I was tired.’

‘Apparently. You slept like the dead. Breakfast will be here in a few minutes and then your first appointment is in under an hour.’

‘What appointment?’

‘Downstairs in the spa salon. You’re booked in for the works by which time the stylist will be here with a selection of outfits. You won’t have much time to decide. We’re flying out at noon.’

Cleo glanced at the clock; it was only just after seven. ‘That’s hours away.’

‘You’ll need every bit of it, so eat up and don’t wait for me.’ His eyes raked over her and her skin prickled under his gaze. ‘You’re going to need your strength.’

She shivered as he disappeared into the bathroom. Why did she get the impression he wasn’t only talking about her upcoming appointments?

He needn’t have worried about her not eating. Room Service arrived with the heavily laden trolley a minute or two later, and the aroma threatened to drive her crazy. The porter had hardly finished serving the breakfast up on the dining table in the next room before she practically fell upon the feast. There was yoghurt and jam, pastries and rolls and toast, along with two massive platters of English breakfast. It was a feast. The coffee was smooth and rich with just the right amount of bitterness to wash it all down. She couldn’t remember enjoying a meal more.

Andreas emerged from the bathroom while she was still eating, a towel lashed low around his hips and barefoot, moisture still clinging to his chest and beading in the hair that curled into his neck.

‘That’s what I like to see,’ he said, sitting alongside her at the table. ‘A woman with a healthy appetite.’

She managed to swallow her mouthful but it was hard to think about food after that. He was so close she could smell his freshly washed skin, the scent of fine soap and clean flesh challenging her appetite, steering it in another direction completely. He uncovered a platter of croissants, still steaming hot from the oven, and offered it to her.

Turning towards him was one mistake. Looking at him rather than the plate of croissants was a bigger one. His olive skin glistened with moisture under the lights and even as she watched a bead of moisture ran down over his sculpted chest, pausing at the bud of one tight nipple only to sit there, poised on the brink.

She could feel that droplet as if it were on her own skin, feel it rolling down her breast and teetering at her nipple, turning it tight and hard against the soft flannelette of her pyjamas.

She should reach out a fingertip and release it from the tension that kept it hovering. She could at least stretch out one hand and capture the doomed droplet in her palm.

She was too late for either. Gravity won and the droplet fell, swallowed up into his towel. ‘Would you care for something?’

She blinked and raised her eyes to find his watching hers, amusement creasing their corners. ‘A croissant, or perhaps there’s something else you might enjoy more?’ Now even his lips had turned up. He was laughing at her and she’d brought it on herself. Nothing unusual in that; she was used to making a fool of herself. It was just she wasn’t used to making a fool of herself over a naked chest and a single droplet of water.

‘N…No, thank you,’ she managed, holding her pyjamas together at the neck as if that would defend her against…Against what? Throwing herself bodily at him? ‘I should have my shower. Thank you for breakfast.’

‘One thing,’ he said, grabbing one hand as she made a desperate bid for freedom, his thumb making lazy circles on her palm as he held her. ‘You don’t have to thank me for anything. We have a deal. You will act like a mistress and take what is offered you, and I will take what is offered to me. Understood?’

Her hand was dwarfed by his, and so much paler now she’d lost her Aussie year-round tan, and the contrast seemed so much like the contrast between them. Andreas was strong and wealthy and darkly dangerous and she was broke and pale and reduced to making deals to survive. But did he really expect her to offer herself to him? He’d slept out here, the sofa bed still unkempt, sheets and blankets littering the floor, but from the moment he’d awakened her this morning, with his unashamed display of his naked body and his thinly veiled comments, she’d had the sense that sex wasn’t far from his mind. With her? Surely not.

She swallowed. ‘I’ll do my job in accordance with the terms of our contract. I can’t think what else I could possibly have to offer that would interest you.’

‘Exactly what I meant,’ he said, his words at odds with the look in his eyes as he let her go.

The rest of the morning passed in a whirlwind. She was ferried down to the salon and secreted away in a private room where it seemed a dozen staff were fully employed in transforming her into someone worthy of being seen on Andreas’ arm. Nobody seemed to think it odd, or, at least, nobody made her feel that way and she wondered if Andreas had been right, that the staff were paid far too much to sit in judgement or to care about anything but the service they provided.

Before long, their skilful hands had her relaxing so much that she didn’t care. How often did she have a treat like this? Never. She was determined to enjoy it.

In no time it seemed her hair was transformed into a thousand tiny tinfoil packages. A manicure and pedicure followed, along with waxing and a treatment over her new colour before she relaxed into a facial. She felt like a new woman even before the hairdresser studied her, reading her newly coloured hair as a sculptor read the stone, before a make-up artist took her attention, leaving the hairdresser to perform his art.

And finally they were finished. The team gathered around her smiling and waiting for her reaction, but she was too staggered to give one. In the mirror her once-mousy hair gleamed back at her in what looked like a dozen shades of copper to blonde to gold, the skilful cut using her natural wave for fullness while the artful layering somehow seemed to add inches to its length.

And that was just her hair. The make-up artist had turned her eyes into those of a seductress, their blue colouring intensified, the shadows beneath banished, and a woman who had never been pretty felt beautiful for the first time in her life. Tears pricked her eyes and she bit down hard on her lip, trying not to cry, not wanting to ruin all their good work. ‘I can’t believe what you’ve all done, thank you so much.’ And to the make-up artist, she pointed to her eyes and asked, ‘Can you show me how to do this?’ and the girl nodded, her smile widening.

‘I’d love to. You have such extraordinary eyes to work with. You just have to make more of them. They were just lost in your face before.’

Lost in her face? Or just lost? It could have been the story of her life. But a quick lesson later, Cleo was on her way back to the suite, armed with all the products and cosmetics she would need to reproduce the artists’ work.

This time as she walked through the lobby towards the bank of lifts she didn’t cringe, didn’t expect Security to come running. She was still only clad in jeans and a casual top, but she held her head up high and moved with a confidence she’d never known. One or two heads turned as she passed, and it gave her an unfamiliar buzz. She couldn’t keep the smile from her face. Likewise she couldn’t wait to show Andreas the transformation.

Except he wasn’t in the suite. She shoved aside a stab of disappointment. Of course, he was a busy man; he wasn’t going to sit around waiting for her. Besides which, the suite had been turned in her absence into some kind of boutique, with racks of casual, resort and evening wear lining the walls and a stylist named Madame Bernadette who clearly took her job very seriously. No wonder he’d made himself scarce.

Mme Bernadette took one look at Cleo over the top of her glasses, and clucked her tongue. ‘Hmm, let’s get to work. This may take some time.’ She snapped her fingers at an attendant, who meekly bowed and handed Cleo a robe. ‘Put that on,’ Mme Bernadette instructed. ‘We have work to do.’

Two hours later, Cleo was exhausted. She’d lost count of how many times she’d changed, how many times the stylist had poked, prodded and pulled various bits of whatever she had on, analysing the fit, whether it was the sheerest lingerie or the most figure-hugging gown. But she obviously knew her craft, because by the end of it the racks had been depleted. Everything not still hanging was going with them. There wasn’t a whole lot left hanging.

For someone who’d survived on the contents of one backpack for six weeks and lately just one pair of jeans and a couple of T-shirts, an entire couture wardrobe for one month seemed like overkill, but Andreas was clearly calling the shots as Mme Bernadette would not be swayed by any talk of moderation.

The dilemma of how it was supposed to fit in her luggage was soon taken care of, as another knock on the door heralded a trolley carrying a suite of designer luggage and two maids who curtsied as they entered—actually curtsied her—before getting on with the business of packing, letting her get on with her own preparations.

It was almost twelve. She had no doubt Andreas would expect her ready on the dot and had no doubt he would also expect to see the new collection put to good use. For that reason she’d chosen a creamy silk blend trouser suit with a silk camisole that skimmed her new shape, no doubt ably assisted with a new bra that was as sexy as it was an engineering masterpiece. It gave her both cleavage and support yet it looked sexy as sin and felt as if it were barely there. With the new slingbacks that added four inches to her height and showed off her newly pedicured toes to perfection, and a blue scarf Mme Bernadette had pressed upon her because it accented her eyes, she felt more feminine than she ever had, as if she’d grown up and made the transition from a child into a woman in the space of just a few hours. She couldn’t wait to show Andreas the new her.

Twelve noon came and went. Then twelve-thirty and still there was no sign of Andreas, no calls. She sat in a wing-back chair surrounded by packed luggage, swinging one leg and clicking her newly manicured nails, increasingly nervous about what she was doing.

After a whirlwind morning where there’d been no time to wonder at the recklessness of what she was doing, of agreeing to fly off to somewhere in Greece with a total stranger, she wasn’t sure she wanted a chance to think.

Nor did she need the time to wonder if Andreas had suddenly changed his mind, and, having totally sucked her into his plans, he’d left without her. She could imagine he’d worked out that nobody was worth one million dollars for one month of acting. She could equally imagine him laughing at her naivety as he soared thousands of feet above the earth back to his world.

Her stomach clenched. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been cast aside the moment she’d made a commitment. Kurt had chosen his moment with impeccable timing, offering to look after her money and taking everything she’d had to give, first her untested body and then her naïve heart, before cruelly rejecting both. She’d been no more than sport to him, a naïve girl lured overseas and out of reach of family and friends so she could be well and truly fleeced. Once he’d scored both her and her money, he’d discarded her to go in search of fresh prey.

Impatient with the direction of her thoughts, she pushed herself up out of the chair she’d specifically chosen because it was the first thing across the room Andreas would see upon entering, giving up any pretence of appearing cool and calm in favour of striding across the room to the windows, gazing down unseeingly across the busy street to the cool green serenity of Hyde Park beyond.

No, Andreas was no Kurt. He might be arrogant and autocratic, but he would never stoop to such a thing. He’d taken so long to convince her to come with him and he’d gone to such expense. Why do that if he wasn’t going to go through with it?

Her hand went to the drapes and she rested her head against it. Although he’d shown no mercy yesterday. He’d invaded the hotel like an army general routing the enemy, the guests evacuated, the sleeping turfed from their beds, and Demetrius summarily vanquished. She shivered. How could a haircut and a suitcase full of new clothes make her blind to what had happened at his behest only yesterday? Was she so fickle?

No, Andreas might resemble a Greek god, but she’d be a fool to assume he would be a merciful one.

The buzzer sounded and she jumped, suddenly all pins and needles as she crossed the room and pulled open the door. The porter nodded. ‘I’m here to collect the luggage for the airport. Your car is waiting downstairs, miss.’

She took a deep breath, trying to settle her quivering stomach. So she hadn’t been abandoned? That was a good thing, surely? She grabbed her jacket and scarf, threw her bag over her shoulder and marched out, doing her best to play the cool, confident person she was supposed to be when inside even her blood was fizzing. My God, she was actually doing this! She was leaving England for a Greek island with a man she barely knew, a billionaire who needed a pretend mistress.

And yes, he might be arrogant and ruthless and used to getting his own way, and yes, she’d seen enough of him to know she didn’t want to cross him, but it was just for one month. And at the end of that month, she’d walk away a millionaire herself.

How hard could it be?

She smiled as she made her way through the elegant lobby, the waves in her newly styled hair bouncing in time with the tapping of her heels on the marble floor. Finally her luck was changing. Finally Cleo Taylor was going to be a success.

A doorman in a top hat touched a hand to his brow as she emerged. ‘Miss Taylor,’ he said, as if she were some honoured guest he’d been waiting for and not the hick girl who’d walked in wearing cowboy boots less than a day before, and he pulled open the door to a waiting limousine.

She dipped her head and climbed inside, sliding onto the seat behind the driver, opposite where Andreas was sitting totally engrossed in some kind of report perched on his knees.

‘I thought you could probably use the extra time,’ he said by way of explanation, flipping over a page without looking up.

‘You mean you’re blaming me for you being late.’

He looked up at that, looked ready to take issue with her words, but whatever he’d been about to say died before it ever got to his lips. He didn’t have to say a word, though, not with the way his eyes spoke volumes as they drank her in, slowly and thoroughly, from the tip of her coloured hair to the winking toenails peeking out at him from her sandals, a slow gaze that ignited a slow burn under her skin, the flames licking at her nipples, turning them hard, before changing direction and licking their way south.

‘Cleo?’

‘You were expecting someone else?’

The report on his lap slid sideways, forgotten. She smiled. ‘Well? Do you think you got your money’s worth?’

They’d done something with her eyes, he realised. They’d done something with her hair too, so it was no longer mousy and shone in what looked like a hundred different colours, and her clothes were a world apart from her jeans and cowboy boots, but it was her eyes that looked most different. Before they’d been the misty blue of a Santorini morning, but now suddenly it seemed the mists had cleared and they were the perfect blue of a still summer’s day.

‘Have I had my money’s worth?’ he mused, finally getting to her question. She was happy with the results, that much was clear, but not half as happy as he was. His hunch had been right. She would be perfect. ‘Maybe not yet. But I fully intend to.’ She gasped, colour flooding her cheeks almost instantly, and it was his turn to smile. Her reactions were so instantaneous, so honest. He hoped she’d never lose that. At least, not for the next few weeks.

He picked up the abandoned report and returned to his reading. He didn’t want to have to work late.

Not tonight.

Tonight he hoped to have better things to do.

The Jet Centre at London City Airport ushered them through with a minimum of fuss, expediting immigration and customs requirements so that they were ready to board less than forty minutes after leaving the hotel.

She recognised the logo she saw on the side of the small jet they were approaching, the same stylised X she’d seen adorning Andreas’ luggage. ‘Isn’t that your logo?’

Andreas nodded. ‘You recognised it?’

She shook her head. He was missing the point. ‘You own a plane? Your own jet?’

‘Not entirely,’ he responded, stepping back to let her precede him up the short flight of steps. ‘The company leases it. Along with the helicopter we have for short-haul flights within Greece itself. It is a tax-effective arrangement.’

She shook her head. He imagined she was interested in his financing arrangements? For someone who’d only recently made her first ever flight in a commercial airline, and then cramped in cattle class with three hundred other tortured souls, the concept of having one’s own plane at one’s beck and call was mind-boggling. She’d thought the limousine was the height of luxury and here he was with his own private jet. And a helicopter.

‘But there must be two dozen airlines flying between London and Greece every day.’

He shrugged. ‘I expect so. But not when I want to.’

That was at the heart of it, she guessed, and what Andreas wanted, Andreas got. After all, wasn’t that what she was doing here? And if he could afford to throw away a million dollars plus expenses on her, clearly a million dollars didn’t mean very much to him. He had money to burn.

A smiling stewardess greeted her, directing her to a seat, showing her where to store her bag and taking her jacket before disappearing again. Cleo settled herself in, looking around the cabin in wonder and doing a rapid rethink.

The interior oozed comfort, a centre aisle flanked by no more than half a dozen ultra-wide armchairs in dove-grey leather that looked more suited to a fireside setting than to any plane travel she’d ever heard of. She thought about the cramped conditions on her flight to London, the lack of space to store her own things let alone the pillows, blankets and toiletry packs they weighed you down with so that you couldn’t even sit down when you boarded, of the man in the seat in front who’d jerked his seat back the first chance he’d had and left it there the entire flight and the child two rows back with the spluttering cough. Who wouldn’t choose flying like this over queues and delays and airline food if they could afford it? If you had money to burn, there were no doubt worse ways to spend it.

Andreas dropped his briefcase down on a timber table-cum-desk that extended from the other wall, slipping into the seat alongside her as the attendant reappeared, this time bearing a tray with two filled champagne flutes. ‘Enjoy your flight,’ she said. ‘We’ll be taking off shortly and I’ll be serving lunch as soon as we’re level.’

Andreas took both glasses, thanking her and passing one to Cleo as the plane started taxiing from the apron. ‘This toast is to you,’ he said, raising his glass, ‘and to our month together. May it be mutually—satisfying.’

The glass paused on the way to her lips. How did he make just one innocent word sound so sinful? And what was it about him that provoked her thighs to suddenly squeeze down further into the seat? He watched her over the rim of his glass as he took a sip of the sparkling wine, his lips curled, his eyes charged with a heat that was soon washing through her, closely followed by a crashing wave of fear that sucked the air from her lungs.

He could be a panther sitting there, rather than a man, a big dark cat watching its next meal, waiting. She could even imagine the lazy flick of his tail as he pretended there was no rush…

Oh, God, what was she even doing here? She was an imposter, a charlatan. She’d had sex once in her life and it had been lousy. And here she was, contracted to play the role of this man’s mistress for an entire month. Never had she been so unqualified for a position. Never so unprepared.

‘You don’t like the wine?’

Condensation misted the glass between her fingers. ‘I’m not very thirsty. Maybe with lunch. How long is the flight?’ She grasped onto anything that might steer the conversation, and her thoughts, into safer territory.

‘Four hours, give or take. Unfortunately after our late departure we will have missed the sunset, said to be the most beautiful in all of Greece. You haven’t been to Greece before?’

There was that sunset thing again. Maybe that was one thing Kurt hadn’t lied about, and now she’d have the chance to experience Santorini’s sunset for herself. The bright side, she thought as she shook her head in answer to Andreas’ question, definitely a bright side.

‘Ah. Then you are in for a treat. I promise you will love Santorini.’

His enthusiasm was infectious and she found an answering smile with no hesitation. ‘I look forward to it.’

The jet came to a brief halt at the end of the runway before the engines powered up and the plane moved off. Again Cleo was struck by how different this felt from the hulking jumbo jet that had seemed to take for ever to get going, panels vibrating and overhead lockers rattling as it lumbered along the runway before somehow managing to haul itself up into the air. This jet was small and powerful and accelerated as if it had been fired from a gun.

She held onto her stomach but there was none of the lurching motion that had made her feel queasy in the seven four seven. Instead the ground fell sharply away as the plane pierced the air like an arrow, and Cleo watched the rain-washed view in fascination until cloud cover swallowed both it and the plane. A few moments later they had punched their way through and bright sunshine poured through the large portholes, filling the cabin with light.

‘I have some work I must attend to,’ Andreas told her, retrieving his briefcase. ‘But I have a copy of our contract for you to look over and sign. Will you be comfortable?’

Much more comfortable than if you didn’t have work to do. The traitorous thought was as sudden as it was true. When he looked at her in that heated way that he did, it was impossible to think straight. And after the intensive morning she’d had, she could do with a few hours of quiet time curled up in a good book, or a good contract for that matter. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said a little uncertainly, taking the papers he offered.

He watched her a while, trying to search behind her eyes for what she was really thinking, but he found no hint of machination. Instead her clear blue eyes held without shifting or looking away. He nodded then, turning back to his report, before she might read too much into his gaze.

A woman who didn’t need constant pandering, who didn’t sulk and was content to let him work when he needed to? She was definitely a rarity. A pity about her ‘no sex’ demands. If she were any good in bed, she’d be just about perfect.