Читать книгу Constantine's Defiant Mistress - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

‘YES, Vlassis,’ Constantine bit out impatiently, as he glanced up at one of his aides, who was hovering around the door in the manner he usually adopted when he was about to impart news which his boss would not like. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s about the party, kyrios,’ said Vlassis.

Constantine’s mouth flattened. Why had he ever agreed to have this wretched party in the first place? he found himself wondering. Though in his heart he knew damned well. Because there had been too many mutterings for much too long about people in London wanting to enjoy some of the legendary Karantinos wealth. People always wanted to get close to him, and they thought that this might give them the opportunity. And it was always interesting to see your friends and your enemies in the same room—united by those twin emotions of love and hate, whose boundaries were so often blurred.

‘What about it?’ he snapped. ‘And please don’t bother me with trivia, Vlassis—that’s what I pay other people to deal with.’

Vlassis looked pained, as if the very suggestion that he should burden his illustrious employer with trivia was highly offensive to him. ‘I realise that, kyrios. But I’ve just received a message from Miss Johansson.’

At the mention of Ingrid, Constantine leaned back in his chair and clasped his fingers together in reflective pose. He knew what the press were saying. What they always said if he was pictured with a woman more than once. That he was on the verge of marrying, as most of his contemporaries had now done. His mouth flattened again.

Perhaps one of the greatest arguments in favour of marriage would be having a wife who could deal with the tiresome social side of his life. Who could fend off the ambitious hostesses and screen his invitations, leaving him to get on with running the family business.

‘And?’ he questioned. ‘What did Miss Johansson say?’

‘She asked me to tell you that she won’t be arriving until late.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘Something about her photo-shoot overrunning.’

‘Oh, did she?’ said Constantine softly, his black eyes narrowing in an expression instinctively which made Vlassis look wary.

Unlocking his fingers, Constantine raised his powerful arms above his head and stretched, the rolled-up sleeves of his silk shirt sliding a little further up over the bunched muscle. Slowly he brought his hands down again, lying them flat on the surface of the large desk. The faint drumming of two fingers on the smooth surface was the only outward sign that he was irritated.

Ingrid’s coolness was one of the very qualities which had first attracted him to her—that and her white-blonde Swedish beauty, of course. She had a degree in politics, spoke five languages with effortless fluency—and, standing at just over six feet in her stockinged feet, she was one of the few women he had ever met who was able to look him in the eye. Constantine’s mouth curved into an odd kind of smile. As well as being one of the few natural blondes he’d known…

When they’d met, her unwillingness to be pinned down, her elusiveness when it came to arranging dates, had contrived to intrigue him—probably because it had never happened before. Most women pursued him with the ardour of a hunter with prized quarry in their sights.

But over the months Constantine had realised that Ingrid’s evasiveness was part of a game—a master-plan. Beautiful enough to be pursued by legions of men herself, she had recognised the long-term benefits of playing hard-to-get with a man like him. She must have realised that Constantine never had to try very hard, so she had made him try very hard indeed. And for a while it had worked. She had sparked his interest—rare in a man whose natural attributes and huge wealth meant that his appetite had become jaded at an early age.

She had been playing the long game, and Constantine had allowed himself to join in; Ingrid knew what she wanted—to marry an exceptionally wealthy man—and deep down he knew it was high time he took himself a wife. And surely the best kind of wife for a man like him was one who made few emotional demands?

He didn’t want some clingy, needy female who thought that the world revolved around him. No, Ingrid came close to fitting almost all his exacting criteria. Every hoop he had presented her with she had jumped through with flying colours. Why, even his father approved of her. And, although the two men had never been close, Constantine had found himself listening for once.

‘Why the hell don’t you marry her?’ he had croaked at his son, where once—before age and ill-health—he would have roared. ‘And provide me with a grandson?’

Good question—if you discounted his father’s own foolish views on love. Didn’t there come a time when every man needed to settle down and produce a family of his own? A boy to inherit the Karantinos fortune? Constantine frowned. Circumstances seemed to have been urging him on like a rudderless boat—and yet something about the sensible option of marrying Ingrid had made him hold back, and he couldn’t quite work out what it was.

How long since they had seen one another? Constantine allowed his mind to flick back over the fraught and hectic recent weeks, largely filled with his most recent business acquisition. It had been ages since Ingrid had been in his bed, he realised. Their paths had been criss-crossing over the Atlantic while their careers continued their upward trajectory. Constantine gave a hard smile.

‘What time is she arriving?’ he questioned.

‘She hopes before midnight,’ said Vlassis.

‘Let’s hope so,’ commented Constantine, as a faint feeling of irritation stirred within him once more. But he turned to a pile of papers—to the delicate complexity of an offshore deal he was handling. And, as usual, work provided a refuge from the far more messy matter of relationships. For Constantine had learned his lesson earlier than most—that they brought with them nothing but pain and complications.

He left the office around six and headed for the Granchester, whose largest penthouse suite he always rented whenever he was in town. He loved its glorious setting, overlooking lush green parkland, its quiet luxury and the discretion of its staff. And he liked London—just as he liked New York—even if they were too far from the sea for him to ever let complete relaxation steal over him….

To the sound of opera playing loudly on the sound system, he took a long, cold shower before dressing in the rather formal attire which the black-tie dinner warranted. His eyes glittered back at him as he cast a cursory glance at himself in the mirror.

Slipping on a pair of heavy gold cufflinks, he made his way downstairs, his eyes automatically flicking over to his people, who were discreetly peppering the foyer. He knew that his head of security would be unable to prevent the paparazzi from milling around by the entrance outside, but there was no way any of them would be getting into the building to gawp at the rich and the powerful.

Ignoring the gazes of the women who followed his progress with hungry eyes, he walked into the ballroom and looked around. The Granchester had always been a byword for luxury—but tonight the hotel had really surpassed itself. The ballroom was filled with scented blooms, and chandeliers dripped their diamond lights…

A soft voice cut into his thoughts.

‘Could…could I get you a drink, sir?’

For a brief moment the voice stirred a distant memory—as faint as a breath on a still summer’s day. But then it was gone, and slowly Constantine turned to find a waitress standing staring up at him—chewing at her lip as if she hadn’t had eaten a meal in quite a while. His eyes flicked over her. With her small, pinched face and tiny frame she looked as if she probably hadn’t eaten a meal in ages. Something in her body language made him pause. Something untoward. He frowned.

‘Yes. Get me a glass of water, would you?’

‘Certainly, sir.’ Miraculously, Laura kept her voice steady, even though inside she felt the deep, shafting pain of rejection at the way those black eyes had flicked over her so dismissively. She had tried to hold his look for as long as was decently possible under the circumstances—willing him to look at her with a slowly dawning look of incredulity. But instead, what logic told her would happen had happened. The father of her son hadn’t even recognised her!

Yet had she really bought into the fantasy that he might? That he would stare into her eyes and tell her that they looked like the storm clouds which gathered over his Greek island? He had said that when he had been charming her into his bed, and doubtless he would have something suitable in his repertoire for any woman. Something to make every single woman feel special, unique and amazing. Something which would make a woman willingly want to give him her virginity as if it were of no consequence at all.

It had been her moment to tell him that he had a beautiful little son—while there was no sign of the supermodel girlfriend all the papers had been going on about—and she had blown it. The shock of seeing him again, coupled with the pain of realising that she didn’t even qualify as a memory, had made her fail to seize the opportunity. But surely you couldn’t just walk up to a man who was essentially a total stranger and come out with a bombshell like that?

Laura hid her trembling fingers in her white apron as she quickly turned away—but the emotional impact of seeing Constantine again made her stomach churn and her heart thump so hard that for a moment she really thought she might be sick.

But she couldn’t afford to be sick. She had to stay alert—to choose a moment to tell him what for him would be momentous news. And it wasn’t going to be easy. Getting an agency placement to waitress at the Karantinos party had been the easy bit—the hard stuff was yet to come.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ demanded a severely dressed middle-aged woman as Laura walked up to the bar to place her order.

Laura smiled nervously at the catering manager, who had summoned all the agency staff into a cramped and stuffy little room half an hour earlier to tell them about the high expectations of service which every Granchester customer had a right to expect. ‘I just offered the gentleman a drink—’

‘Gentleman? Gentleman? Do you know who that is?’ the woman hissed. ‘He’s the man who’s giving this party which is paying your wages! He’s a bloody world-famous Greek shipping tycoon—and if anyone is going to be offering him drinks then it’s going to be me. Do you understand? I’ll take over from now on. What did he ask for?’

‘Just…just water.’

‘Still or sparkling?’

‘He…he didn’t say.’

The manager’s eyes bored into her. ‘You mean you didn’t ask?’

‘I…I… No, I’m sorry, I’m afraid I didn’t.’ Inwardly, Laura squirmed beneath the look of rage on her supervisor’s face, and as the woman opened her mouth to speak she suspected that she was about to be fired on the spot. But at that moment there was some sort of hubbub from the other end of the ballroom, as the harpist arrived and began making noisy demands, and the manager gave Laura one last glare.

‘Just do what you’re supposed to do. Offer him both still and sparkling, and then fade into the background—you shouldn’t find that too difficult!’ she snapped, before hurrying away towards the musician.

Laura tried to ignore the woman’s waspish words as she carried her tray towards Constantine. But inside she was trembling—mainly with disbelief that she had managed to get so close to him. And thrown into the complex mix of her emotions at seeing him again was also her body’s unmistakable reaction to seeing the biological father of her son. It was something she stupidly hadn’t taken into account—the powerful sense of recognition at seeing him. The sense of familiarity, even though this man was little more than a stranger to her.

Because here was Alex in adulthood, she realised shakily—or rather, here was a version of what Alex could become. Strong, powerful, prosperous. And wasn’t that what every mother wanted for her son? A lion of a man, as opposed to a sheep.

Whereas the Alex she had left back at home being looked after by a frankly cynical Sarah—well, that Alex was headed in a completely different direction. Bullied at school and living a life where every penny mattered and was counted—how could he possibly achieve his true potential like that? What kind of a future was she offering him?

And any last, lingering doubt that she must be crazy to even contemplate a scheme like this withered away in that instant. Because she owed Alex this.

It didn’t matter if her pride was hurt or the last of her stupid, romantic memories of her time with Constantine was crushed into smithereens—she owed her son this.

But as Laura approached him again, it was difficult not to react to him on so many different levels. His had always been an imposing presence, but the passing of the years seemed to have magnified his potent charisma. There had been no softening of the hard, muscular body—nor dimming of the golden luminance of his skin. And, while there might be a lick of silver at his temples, his wavy dark hair was as thick as ever. But with age had come a certain cool distance which had not been there before. He carried about him the unmistakable aura of the magnate—a man with power radiating from every atom of his expensively clad frame.

Laura felt the erratic fluttering of her heart. Yet none of that mattered. His eyes were still the blackest she had ever seen, and his lips remained a study in sensuality. She still sensed that here was a man in the truest sense of the word—all elemental passion and hunger beneath the sophisticated exterior.

‘Your water, sir,’ she said, trying to curve her mouth into a friendly smile and silently praying that he would return it.

Hadn’t he once told her that her smile was like the sun coming out? Wouldn’t that stir some distant memory in his mind? And didn’t they say something about the voice always striking a note of recognition—that people changed but their voices never did?

She spoke the longest sentence possible under the circumstances. ‘I…I wasn’t sure if you wanted still or sparkling, sir—so I’ve brought both. They both come from…from the Cotswolds!’ she added wildly, noticing the label. A fact from a recent early-morning farming programme on the radio came flooding back to her. ‘It’s…um…filtered through the oolitic limestone of the Cotswold Hills, and you won’t find a purer water anywhere!’

‘How fascinating,’ murmured Constantine sardonically, taking one of the glasses from the tray and wondering why she sounded as if she was advertising the brand. She didn’t look like the kind of out-of-work actress who would moonlight as a waitress, but you could never be sure. ‘Thanks.’

He gave a curt nod and, turning his back on her, walked away without another word and Laura was left staring at him, her heart pounding with fear and frustration. But what had she expected? That he would engage her in some small-talk which would provide the perfect opportunity for her to tell him he had a son? Start remarking that the slice of lemon which was bobbing around in his glass of fizzy water was vastly inferior to the lemons he grew on his very own Greek island?

No. The smile hadn’t worked and neither had the voice. Those black eyes had not widened in growing comprehension, and he had not shaken his coal-dark head to say, in a tone of disbelief and admiration, Why, you’re the young English virgin I had the most amazing sex with all those years ago! Do you know that not a day goes by when I don’t think about you?

Laura chewed on her lip. Fantasies never worked out the way you planned them, did they? And fantasies were dangerous. She mustn’t allow herself to indulge in them just because she had never really got over their one night together. She was just going to have to choose her moment carefully—because she wasn’t leaving this building without Constantine Karantinos being in full possession of all the facts.

The evening passed in a blur of activity—but at least being busy stopped her from getting too anxious about the prospect which lay ahead.

There had been a lavish sit-down dinner for three hundred people, though the space beside Constantine had remained glaringly empty. It must be for his girlfriend, thought Laura painfully. So where was she? Why wasn’t she sticking like glue to the side of the handsome Greek who was talking so carelessly to the women in a tiara on the other side of him. It was a royal princess! Laura realised. Hadn’t she recently come out of a high-profile divorce and walked away with a record-breaking settlement?

Laura had managed to pass right by him with a dish of chocolates, just in time to hear the Princess inviting him to stay on her yacht later that summer—but Constantine had merely shrugged his broad shoulders and murmured something about his diary being full.

The candlelight caught the jewels which were strung around the neck of every woman present—so that the whole room seemed to be glittering. In the background, the harpist had calmed down, and was now working his way through a serene medley of tunes.

It was not just a different world, Laura realised as she carried out yet another tray of barely touched food back to the kitchens, it was like a completely alien universe. She thought of the savings she had to make so that Alex would have a nice Christmas, and shuddered to think how much this whole affair must be costing—why, the wine budget alone would have been more than the amount she lived on in a single year. And Constantine was paying for it all. For him it would be no more than a drop in the ocean.

The guests had now all moved into the ballroom, where the harpist had been replaced by a band, and people had started dancing. But the minutes were melting by without Laura getting anywhere near Constantine, let alone close enough to be able to talk to him. People were clustering around him like flies, and it was getting on for midnight. Soon the party would end and she’d be sent home—and then what?

There was a momentary lull before a conversational buzz began to hum around the ballroom, and then the dancing crowd stilled and parted as a woman began to slowly sashay through them, with all the panache of someone whose job it was to be gazed at by other people. Her flaxen fall of hair guaranteed instant attention, as did the ice-blue eyes and willowy limbs which seemed to sum up her cool and unattainable beauty.

She wore a dazzling white fur stole draped over a silver dress, and at over six feet tall she dominated the room like the tallest of bright poppies. And there was really only one person in the room who was man enough not to be dwarfed by her impressive height—the man she was headed for as unerringly as a comet crashing towards earth.

‘It’s Ingrid Johansson,’ Laura heard someone say, and then, ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’

Convulsively, she felt her fingers clutching at her apron as she watched the blonde goddess slink up to Constantine and place a proprietorial hand on his forearm before leaning forward to kiss him on each cheek.

Constantine was aware of everyone watching them as Ingrid leaned forward to kiss him. ‘That was quite an entrance,’ he murmured, but inside he felt the first faint flicker of disdain.

‘Was it?’ Ingrid looked into his eyes with an expression of mock-innocence. ‘Must we stay here, alskling? I’m so tired.’

‘No,’ Constantine said evenly. ‘We don’t have to stay here at all—we can go upstairs to my suite.’

To Laura’s horror she saw the couple begin to move towards the door, and she felt her forehead break out into a cold sweat.

Now what?

She saw some of the bulkier security men begin to follow them, and the slightly disappointed murmur from the rest of the guests as they began to realise that the star attractions were leaving. Soon Constantine would be swallowed up by the same kind of protection which had shielded him so effectively from her all those years ago…

And then a terrible thought occurred to her—a dark thought which came from nowhere and which had never even blipped on her radar before. Or maybe she had simply never allowed it to. What if it hadn’t been his security people who had kept her away from him all those years ago? What if he’d known that she was trying to make contact? And what if he’d actually read the letter she’d sent, telling him about Alex, and had decided to ignore it?

What if he had simply chosen not to have anything to do with his own son?

A cold, sick feeling of dread made her skin suddenly clammy, but Laura knew it was a chance she had to take. If that had been the case, then maybe she would find out about it now. And if he chose to reject his son again…well, then she wanted to see his face while he did it.

She went over to the bar and ordered a bottle of the most expensive champagne and two glasses.

‘Put it on Mr Karantinos’s account,’ she said recklessly, and took the tray away before the barman could query why the order hadn’t gone through room service.

Her flat, sensible shoes made no sound as they squished across the marble foyer, but within the mirror-lined walls of the lift she was confronted with the reality of her appearance and she shuddered. Hair scraped back into a tight bun, on top of which was perched a ridiculous little frilly cap. A plain black dress hung unflatteringly over her knees and was topped with a white-frilled apron.

She looked like a throwback to another age, when people in the service industry really were servants. Laura was used to wearing a uniform in the bread shop—what she was not used to was looking like some kind of haunted and out-of-place ghost of a woman. A woman who must now go and face one of the world’s most noted beauties, who happened to be sharing a bed with a man whose child Laura had borne.

The lift glided upwards and stopped with smooth silence at the penthouse suite, its doors sliding open to reveal Laura’s worst fears. Two dark and burly-looking men were standing guard outside the door. So now what? Fixing on a confident smile, which contradicted the awful nerves which were twisting her stomach like writhing snakes, Laura walked towards the door.

One of the guards raised his eyebrows. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

His accent was thickly Greek, and somehow it only added tension to her already jangled nerves. Laura’s smile widened, though a bead of sweat was trickling its way slowly down her back. ‘Champagne for Mr Karantinos.’

‘He told us he didn’t want to be disturbed.’

Because of what was at stake, Laura found herself digging deep inside herself, finding courage where she had expected to find fear. Her smile became conspiratorial; she even managed a wink. ‘I think he’s about to announce his engagement,’ she whispered.

The other guard shrugged and jerked his head in the direction of the door. ‘Go on, then.’

Rapping loudly on the door, Laura heard a muffled exclamation—but she knew she couldn’t turn back now. She had to get this over with—because if she left it much longer she might find them…find them…

Blocking out the unbearable thought of Constantine and the supermodel beginning to make love, Laura pushed open the door, and the scene before her stamped itself on her gaze like a bizarre tableau.

There was Constantine, staring hard at the supermodel. And there was Ingrid staring back at him, her expression disbelieving. She had removed her fur wrap, and her dress was nothing but a sliver of silver which clung to her body and revealed the points of her nipples.

They both looked round as she walked in.

‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ demanded Constantine, and then frowned as he saw the tray she was carrying. ‘You don’t just walk into my suite like this—and I didn’t order champagne.’

Not even he was cold-hearted enough to celebrate the fact that he’d just finished with his girlfriend—even though Ingrid was still standing there staring at him as if she didn’t quite believe it.

Putting the tray down on a table before she dropped it, Laura looked up at him, her voice low and trembling. ‘I need to talk to you.’ She glanced over at the model, who was glaring at her. ‘Alone, if that’s all right.’

‘Who the hell is this?’ snapped Ingrid.

He had absolutely no idea, and for one moment Constantine wondered if the insipid little waitress was some kind of set-up. Were her male accomplices about to burst in with cameras? Or did her uniform conceal some kind of weapon? Hadn’t kidnap attempts been suspected enough times in the past?

But he remembered her from the ballroom—her pinched, pale face and her inappropriate babbling on about some type of water. She didn’t look like the kind of woman capable of any kind of elaborate subterfuge. And her expression was peculiar; he had never seen a woman look quite like that before—and it made him study her more closely.

Her cheeks were pale but her grey eyes were huge, and she looked as if she was fighting to control her breathing. Her breasts—surprisingly pert breasts for such a tiny frame, he thought inconsequentially—were heaving like someone who had just dragged themselves out of the water after nearly drowning.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded hotly. ‘And what do you want?’

‘I told you,’ answered Laura quietly. ‘I need to talk to you. Alone, if I may.’

Constantine’s eyes narrowed as some primeval instinct urged him to listen to what this woman was saying. And something in her strange urgency told him to ensure that they had no audience. He turned to the supermodel, praying that she wouldn’t make the kind of scene which some women revelled in when a man had just ended a relationship.

‘I think you’d better leave now, don’t you, Ingrid?’ he questioned quietly. ‘I have a car which will take you wherever you want to go.’

For a moment Laura felt eaten up with guilt and shame as she saw the supermodel’s stricken face, and her heart went out to her. Because what woman wouldn’t be able to identify with the terrible battle taking place within the gorgeous blonde? Anyone could see she wanted to stay—but it was also easy to see from the obdurate and cold expression on Constantine’s face that he wanted the supermodel out of there.

Oh, this was just terrible—and it was all her fault. Awkwardly, she shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Look, perhaps I can…come back.’

‘You are not going anywhere,’ snapped Constantine as he flicked her a hard glance. ‘Ingrid was just leaving.’

At this, Ingrid’s mouth thinned into a scarlet line. ‘You bastard,’ she hissed, and marched out of the suite without another word.

For a moment there was silence, and Laura’s heart was pounding with fear and disbelief as she lifted up her hands in a gesture of apology. ‘I’m sorry—’

‘Shut up,’ he snapped, two fists clenching by the shafts of his powerful thighs as a quiet fury continued to spiral up inside him. ‘And don’t give me any misplaced sentiments. Do you think you can hysterically burst in here making veiled threats and then act like a concerned and responsible citizen who cares about the havoc she’s wreaked along the way? Do you?’

Nervously, Laura sank her teeth into her bottom lip. She supposed she deserved that—just as she supposed she had no choice other than to stand there and take it. Maybe if she let him vent his anger then he would calm down, and they could sit down afterwards and talk calmly.

His black eyes bored into her like fierce black lasers. ‘So who are you?’ he continued furiously. ‘And why are you really here?’

Brushing aside her hurt that he still didn’t recognise her, Laura tried again. ‘I…’ It sounded so bizarre to say it now that the moment had arrived. To say these words of such import to a man who was staring at her so forbiddingly. But then Alex’s face swam into the forefront of her mind, and suddenly it was easy.

She drew a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry it has to be this way, but I’ve come to tell you that seven years ago I had a baby. Your baby.’ Her voice shaking with emotion, she got the final words out in a rush. ‘You have a son, Constantine, and I am the mother of that son.’