Читать книгу The Holiday Escapes Collection - Сандра Мартон - Страница 42

ONCE the lift doors opened with a whisper, Damon pulled Charlotte along with him to his penthouse, swiping his card key and thrusting the door open so she could precede him into the plush suite.

She watched as he lifted his hand to his throat and released his tie, the action so very masculine she felt her stomach tilt sideways in spite of all that had happened this evening.

‘What are you after this time around, I wonder?’ he asked, shrugging himself out of his jacket and tossing it on to one of the luxurious sofas.

Her face flamed with a combination of fury and embarrassment. ‘I don’t want anything and certainly not from you.’

He gave a mocking laugh. ‘Every woman is for sale,’ he said with arrogant confidence. ‘The trick for men is to get the currency right the first time around. You were after a billionaire husband four years ago and you very nearly pulled it off.’

His leather belt coiled like a serpent on the carpet and fear crept with frosty footsteps up the back of Charlotte’s neck.

‘But this time around I must say you have me a little intrigued as to your motives,’ he went on musingly. ‘You suggested we have a drink together but then you pretended you did not want to follow through. Then you could not stop yourself from touching and kissing me, and yet you deny any lingering attraction. You are playing cat and mouse games with me, are you not?’

‘No, of course not!’

‘You wanted to remind me of what I threw away, eh, Charlotte?’ He lifted her chin so she had no choice but to meet his all-seeing gaze, his thumb stroking so close to her mouth she could feel her lips starting to tingle. ‘Are you offering a re-run, I wonder?’

‘No…’ The word came out too softly to be believed but Charlotte knew that, no matter what passion still flared between them, she couldn’t possibly sleep with him without revealing her emergency Caesarian scar. He had accused her of lying about her pregnancy to get out of trouble. What would he say when he found out she hadn’t been lying at all?

If he were to find out she’d had his child, she knew she would be forced to say goodbye to her daughter for ever. She knew it without a doubt. With her sister’s problems on top of what Damon had already accused her of four years ago, Charlotte’s press for full custody would be laughed out of court for sure. Besides, good legal representation would cost her dearly and she had enough money worries already without adding to them.

She had to get Stacey into that clinic. It was her only chance to get out of the clutch of her addiction.

‘You are looking pale,’ Damon observed, dropping his hand. ‘Have I shocked you, Charlotte? Did you not think I would still want you after all this time?’

She moistened her mouth. ‘Y-yes…I am a little shocked…’

His eyes glinted. ‘To tell you the truth, agape mou, so am I. I did not expect to feel anything but hatred when I saw you tonight but the sudden rush of desire I felt and still feel for you is like a fever raging in my blood. I will have you again. That is what your little heat and retreat routine tonight was all about, was it not? To make me revisit what we started four years ago.’

She sent him a look of defiance overlaid with scorn. ‘Only a barbarian would want to satisfy a desire for someone he hated.’

‘You think me a barbarian?’ His black eyes challenged hers. ‘I can see I am going to have to make you eat those words, Charlotte. You were the one who came on to me in the limousine, remember? You made it very clear you were interested in resuming our association.’

Anger rose in her like bile; she could taste it in her mouth, the metallic sourness making her feel positively ill. Shame was there too, burning red-hot shame that leaked into her cheeks as she remembered how she had touched him.

‘If you think you can intimidate me, think again,’ she lied.

‘I must not be getting my message across very clearly,’ he said silkily, his deep voice moving over her skin like a flow of sun-warmed chiffon.

She disguised a nervous swallow but she saw the way his gaze dipped to her neck as if he had sensed the up and down movement of her throat. ‘Wh-what do you mean?’ she said.

‘I want you, Charlotte as much as you want me,’ he said. ‘I am here in Sydney for the next month. During that time I want you to be my mistress.’

She reeled backwards in shock. ‘No!’

His dark brows rose imperiously. ‘No?’

‘N.O. No,’ she repeated. ‘Never.’

He paused for a moment, each second ticking by feeling like a hammer-blow to Charlotte’s skull. The tension was unbearable.

‘I met someone this evening,’ he dropped into the taut silence. ‘Someone who reminded me very much of you.’

Charlotte’s eyes flicked nervously to her evening bag before she could stop them.

‘It seems theft runs in your family,’ he continued.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘The police are searching for your sister as we speak,’ he informed her. ‘Once they locate her, it is up to me to decide whether or not to press charges.’

She stared at him speechlessly, her stomach folding over in panic.

‘Of course, if I do happen to press charges, she is likely to face trial, even be sent to prison,’ he continued in the same coolly detached tone.

Charlotte knew all about prisons and the drug use that was rife within them. Her father had died a horrible death—a death that could have been prevented if he had received the help he’d needed earlier.

She had to stop the same thing happening to Stacey. Whatever it took, she had to stop her sister going down even further. Stacey would never recover, not after months in some horrid prison with heroin on tap.

‘So you see it is all up to you, agape mou,’ he said with another little unreadable smile. ‘You either agree to be my mistress for the next four weeks or you will be seeing your sister from between iron bars for who knows how long.’

‘You can’t ask this of me. It’s totally immoral.’

‘Perhaps your sister’s welfare is not enough inducement for you,’ he said, his gaze sweeping over her indolently. ‘I can see you have much more class than she has, so perhaps I will have to use a different currency with you after all.’

This is it, Charlotte thought with another sickening wave of panic. Here goes my career and my livelihood.

‘Are you not going to ask me what I mean, Charlotte?’ he demanded when she didn’t respond.

She clenched her teeth until she was sure they would crack. ‘All right, let’s get it over with. Tell me what you’re going to do if I don’t cooperate. I can handle it. It is after all what I expect from someone as unprincipled as you.’

‘You will have to tame that tongue of yours,’ he cautioned. ‘I will not tolerate you speaking to me in such a way.’

She tightened her mouth and glared at him. ‘How do you expect me to speak to you when you’re treating me like a…a…?’

‘Whore?’ he offered. ‘Isn’t that the word you are looking for?’

‘I am not a whore and you cannot make me one.’

‘I have no intention of doing so. The role I have assigned for you is somewhat different,’ he said smoothly. ‘You will be my companion for the many social engagements I have planned for the time I am here. I do not know my way around Sydney and would appreciate your company.’

‘And if I don’t agree to this preposterous plan of yours?’

He smiled another one of his enigmatic smiles. ‘I would have thought you would have worked that out for yourself by now, agape mou.’

She had worked it out but she clamped her lips tightly together and waited for him to continue, her stomach tightening with apprehension.

‘If you do not consent to be my mistress, the Eleni Foundation will immediately withdraw its sponsorship from the Greek Exhibition you and your desperately ill colleague have meticulously planned. Of course, if the major sponsor should pull out, what do you think the other smaller ones will do?’ he said.

Again Charlotte knew exactly what they would do, but wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of hearing her say it out loud.

‘As to your job…’ He paused to inspect his signet ring for a moment before returning his gleaming eyes to hers. ‘Is it worth losing over a simple matter of your pride?’

She tightened her hands into fists. ‘You can’t do this. I won’t let you toy with me like this.’

‘The way I see it, Charlotte, you do not have any choice. You either agree to be my mistress or face the consequences. I let you off lightly four years ago. My mother was far too gracious on your behalf to allow me to send you to the authorities as I had planned.’

Her eyes shone with unshed tears.

She would not cry.

Not now.

Not in front of him.

‘I did not steal from your mother’s gallery.’

He ignored her to continue, ‘You wormed your way into my bed in order to get to the treasure trove of my dead father’s priceless collection, did you not? I should have guessed it but I was naïve to the underhand tactics of someone like you. You had me fooled, which is something I am not proud of to this day. I foolishly fell for a lie. I had you picked as a young, innocent twenty-two-year-old student who had not seen much of the world, but I was wrong. You are as street-smart as they come, perhaps even more so. The hostel operator told me later that you had had at least two other men in your room while you were seeing me.’

She looked at him in outrage. ‘That’s an outright lie!’

He tilted his head at her imperiously. ‘You have some other explanation?’

‘Yes. The two young men in question were nothing but troublemakers. I met them a few days before I left. They were annoyed I wouldn’t go out with them to party all night. They started playing practical jokes on me like leaving their clothes in my room or pinching my pillow.’

‘You did not mention them to me at the time,’ he pointed out with narrowed eyes.

‘I didn’t see the point. They were just kids with too much money and too little sense. I didn’t want them to get into trouble unnecessarily.’

‘I do not believe you.’

Her eyes blazed at him in fury. ‘It wouldn’t matter what I said—you’d never believe me. You’re crazy. Totally out of your mind crazy.’

‘Not crazy, Charlotte—I am simply in search of justice.’

‘Why now?’

‘When I was approached by Julian Deverell about this exhibition I was immediately interested,’ he said. ‘I knew you lived in Sydney, but when I found out that you not only worked at the museum but would be actively involved in the exhibition itself, I could not resist coming to see what you had made of yourself.’

She gaped at him. ‘You planned this?’

He gave her an indifferent look. ‘It was too good a coincidence to pass up on. I must say it impressed me that you had gone on to complete your studies, even to get a Ph.D.—a grand achievement for a young woman of your age, but again, I imagine you slept your way to your graduation.’

Charlotte glared at him, her chest rising and falling in anger at his assumptions about her character.

She had worked so hard to get her final qualification. Her pregnancy had been a nightmare and her mother’s sudden diagnosis of an aggressive type of breast cancer had made a difficult situation unbearable. She had studied into the early hours, existing on a minimum of sleep in order to get her thesis written, all the while nursing her rapidly failing mother and doing her best to keep her younger sister out of the trouble she seemed intent on drifting into with an unfortunate choice of friends.

Charlotte still blamed herself for Stacey’s current problems. She had been too preoccupied with juggling her pregnancy and completing her degree to do what should have been done. Stacey had been steadily heading down the same destructive pathway as their father but she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. It had been too painful.

‘You can think what you like, but I can assure you my qualifications are all above board,’ she bit out.

‘Nevertheless you have used them to your advantage, have you not?’ he observed. ‘You handle daily some of the most priceless artefacts in the world. Tell me, Charlotte, have you been tempted to steal something from the museum and sell it on the black market yet?’

She threw him a caustic glare. ‘I am not even going to dignify that question with an answer.’

‘Why did you not tell me your father served a considerable time in prison for armed robbery?’ he asked after a small but carefully timed pause.

Charlotte could feel shame weighing her shoulders down but forced herself to hold his obsidian gaze. ‘My father died behind bars several years ago. I don’t even think of him now.’

If he was in any way taken aback by the cold, unemotional delivery of her statement he showed no sign of it.

His eyes bored into hers for another beat or two before he continued in a tone that contained an unmistakable threat. ‘It would be rather unfortunate if I were to be forced to reveal to your employers your little indiscretion of four years ago. They might not like the thought of harbouring a thief in their midst.’

Charlotte knew he would do it. She could see the ruthlessness in his dark-as-night gaze as it challenged hers.

‘You are all I most despise in a man,’ she said through tight lips. ‘I cannot think of a man I hate more.’

‘Then it will make our relationship all the more exciting, don’t you think?’

‘It will make it disgusting and unbearable,’ she shot back.

‘I will make sure you are adequately compensated,’ he said and reached for his cheque book in the inner pocket of his coat. ‘You will need an array of glamorous clothes, for which I do not expect you to pay for yourself.’

She watched in sinking despair as he slashed his distinctive signature at the bottom and handed it to her.

‘It’s blank,’ she said, glancing down at it without taking it from him.

‘That is because you can name your price, agape mou,’ he said. ‘I am willing to pay you whatever you want. You, of all people, know I can afford it.’

Charlotte felt like asking for a totally outrageous sum but her pride wouldn’t allow it. He had wrapped his proposition in the euphemistic term of mistress but she knew exactly what he was expecting in return.

A vision slipped into her mind of her sister taking money off strangers to feed her habit. Night after night Stacey rented her body and yet here was a chance for Charlotte to put an end to that for ever.

She skittered away from the thought of being Damon’s lover again but the images came creeping back into her brain: his long, hair-roughened legs entwined with her smooth ones, his body pumping its frantic passionate response into the tender sheath of hers.

Her stomach gave a funny little somersault at the thought of feeling that level of sensuality again.

No.

She would not, could not, do that again.

‘Since you are having such difficulty deciding on the amount, I will leave you to fill it in yourself,’ he said and, before she could stop him, he took her bag from her shaking fingers and opened the clasp.

Charlotte’s breath screeched to a halt in her chest, her face feeling as if a bonfire had been lit in each cheek as he took out his wallet, his long tanned fingers seeming to her as if they were moving in slow motion.

‘I—I was going to give it back to you…’ she said as his dark accusing eyes locked on to hers.

The white tips of anger about his mouth distorted his arrestingly handsome features into harsh lines of revenge. ‘You lying, thieving little bitch,’ he ground out. ‘You are working as a team with your sister. I should have guessed.’

‘No! That’s not true!’ she said. ‘I’ll g-get your money back for you…’

His brows snapped together in time with the closing of his wallet. ‘Indeed you will,’ he said. ‘But in the meantime you can pay me back in kind.’

Charlotte swallowed convulsively. ‘I can’t do this, Damon,’ she said brokenly. ‘Please don’t ask me to.’

‘I’m not asking you, Charlotte—I’m telling you. If you do not agree to be my mistress, then your sister will face the authorities as she so clearly deserves.’

She felt her shoulders drop in defeat. It seemed there was going to be no way out of this.

‘How much do you want?’ he asked again, each hard-bitten word driving a stake through her heart.

She stared at the floor and mumbled what she thought would be enough to cover the cost of Stacey’s rehabilitation—her face fiery red with shame at what she was committing herself to in agreeing to be his short-term mistress. It was a pathway to heartbreak all over again, but what other choice did she have? She could hardly tell him the truth about her motives. Stacey’s issues aside, if he found out he had a child he would stop at nothing to take Emily away from her.

He wrote the figure on the cheque and handed it back to her. ‘I can see how you have perfected the art of camouflaging your real motives. You give every appearance of being uncomfortable accepting money from me, but I know that is all a clever little ruse of yours to get me to lower my guard.’

‘I feel uncomfortable accepting a glance from you, let alone anything else,’ she said in arctic tones. ‘The thought of sharing my body with you sickens me to my stomach.’

His black gaze visibly hardened, his jaw tensing as he fought for control. ‘It did not seem to sicken you a short time ago in the limousine. We both know I could have taken you then and there.’

She knew it was foolish but she couldn’t resist retorting, ‘It would have been by force.’

He gave a mocking laugh. ‘You think so?’

She sent him a fulminating look. ‘I hate you, Damon Latousakis. I hate you with every breath and bone in my body.’

‘I am sure you do, but perhaps I should make it clear at this point that your hatred and loathing is to be kept strictly private. In public we will be like any other couple who have nothing but the highest regard for each other.’

‘And if I don’t comply?’

‘I am surprised you have the gall to even ask me that,’ he said.

She lowered her gaze in case he saw the desperation she was feeling. ‘How do you wish to…er…conduct our…relationship?’

‘I would like to see you on a regular basis.’

Charlotte felt her insides twist in anguish. Her little daughter Emily hated it when she went out more than once or twice a week. It was hard enough juggling a day job without trying to burn the candle at both ends. And this particular candle was going to be a very dangerous one…

Damon looked down at her wide frightened blue eyes and frowned as his conscience gave him a sharp little nudge. Had he pushed her too far? He hadn’t thought so but how could he tell? She was a master at deception and he wasn’t going to allow himself to forget it for a minute. She had fooled him before with her declarations of undying love but she had betrayed him in the end. She had ruthlessly used her relationship with him to get to his family’s wealth and that he would never forgive. Tonight was yet another example of her artifice. It could hardly have been a coincidence that her sister stole his wallet. Charlotte had known for months that he would be there that evening. What better payback for the way he had uncovered her thieving in the past than to do the very same again, albeit vicariously?

‘I will expect you to be available to me each evening,’ he said into the stiff silence. ‘There will be late nights on occasion.’

She looked up at him, tears sparkling like tiny diamonds in her Aegean-blue eyes. ‘I can’t stay overnight…’

His hand tipped up her chin. ‘Is there someone else?’

What could she say? Yes, your little daughter, who will expect me to tuck her in each night. It would be asking for instant heartbreak. She’d have to find some way of fulfilling his expectations of her without compromising Emily’s well-being. It wasn’t as if she could rely on her sister, but her friend Caroline Taylor was another option she could explore. They often traded babysitting time when either of them had something important on in the evening.

‘No…no, there’s no one else…’ She had to think on her feet and added, ‘I’m doing an on-line course on archaeology. I have to study most nights. I have assignments to complete…It’s a big workload…’ She held her breath to see if he believed her, his eyes raking her face as if searching for the colour of her lie.

He released her chin after an eternity and stepped back from her and held open the door. ‘I will see you tomorrow evening,’ he said, his voice detached and cold. ‘Seven-thirty in the bar downstairs. I will make sure the concierge issues you with a swipe card to my room if I am not there to meet you on time.’

Charlotte walked past him on shaky legs. She turned around but he had already closed the door, the sudden movement of air feeling like a slap on her tear-streaked face.