Читать книгу Mistresses: Passionate Revenge - Шантель Шоу, Trish Morey - Страница 17

THE cloud cover cleared after lunch when they were somewhere over the south of France, revealing a coastline that was staggeringly beautiful even from this height, the world below like a rich tapestry of colour and texture of sea and land and mountains complete with their frosting of snow. Cleo watched the colours change below as they sped towards the night, the shadow moving over the earth as night claimed more and more for its own.

The contract had taken no time at all to deal with, the terms reasonably straightforward, even to her unbusinesslike brain. One month of partnering Andreas in exchange for one million Australian dollars and an all-expenses first-class fare home. Simple really, if she didn’t let herself think about whom she was contracting with. No sex seemed such a crystal clear notion until she looked at him and felt that increasingly familiar tingle in her flesh, a tingle that felt too much like longing.

So she wouldn’t look at him. Instead she pushed back in the wide armchair that felt more like a bed, shucking off her shoes and tucking her legs beneath her. Once in Greece she’d be four hours closer to home, a four-hour head start when she left in a month to return to Kangaroo Crossing. She smiled when she thought about seeing her mum and her nanna again, and her rough-and-tumble half-brothers who were happiest in their own company and probably hadn’t even realised she’d gone yet. She’d send them a postcard the first chance she got, let them all know she was a few hours closer to coming home…

The next thing she knew, she was waking up with a start, struggling to sit up with her chair reclining to near horizontal, a weightless but snug mohair rug covering her.

‘You’re back with us, then,’ Andreas said, putting away his laptop. ‘We’ll be landing soon.’

She put a hand to her hair, and then to her eyes, worried she’d just undone all the good work of the morning. ‘I must have drifted off.’ She looked outside her window but it was inky blackness outside, clusters of lights visible way down below, but, more importantly, no reflection to assure her she wasn’t wearing panda eyes. Or, worse still, just the one.

‘You look good.’

She blinked and turned slowly, not sure she’d heard right or that he was even talking to her.

He was stashing his briefcase away in the compartment alongside his knees, and for a moment she thought she must have misheard or been mistaken. Until…‘If that’s what you were worried about.’ Now he did turn, and once again she was staggered by the intensity of his gaze and the power he had to skewer her with just one glance. ‘Stunning, in fact. I don’t suppose I told you that before.’

Nobody had ever told her that before. Let alone a man whose five o’clock shadow only served to increase his eye appeal. Along with his white shirtsleeves rolled up and the dark V of skin at his unbuttoned neck, he looked more like a pirate now than a property magnate. She licked her lips. Boy, she could do with a drink. ‘Um. Thank you.’ She wanted to believe the butterflies in her stomach were all to do with the fact the pilot had chosen that second to commence his descent, but she’d be lying to herself. For the hungry look she’d seen in his eyes when she’d got his attention in the car was back again, and that had been enough to start the fluttering sensation, enough to switch on the slow burn inside her.

Nobody had ever called her anything approximating stunning before. Nobody. Even her own mother had never got beyond cute. Hearing Andreas say it made it all the more real.

And made him all the more dangerous.

She injected a lightness into her voice that was at odds with the pounding of her heart. Why let him know how much he affected her? That was never part of the deal. ‘Well, it’s good to know all this morning’s work didn’t go to waste.’

She unclipped her seat belt and stood, heading for the bathroom, and she was halfway to escape when the ground went from under Cleo’s feet, her stomach suddenly in her mouth. With Cleo thrown offbalance, it took only a jerk of Andreas’ hand to steer her towards him. She landed in his lap a moment later, appalled that he’d borne the brunt of her weight as she’d collided against him.

‘This is no joking matter,’ he warned, showing no discomfiture for her sudden landing, indeed, giving every impression that he welcomed it as he nestled her deeper into his lap. ‘This is serious.’

She could see it was. She could feel it was. She looked up at his shadowed face, so supremely confident while she lay there breathless and terrified, her heart thudding like a drum as she battled to get her wayward stomach under control. She was no good in turbulence, she knew from experience, the unexpected motion flipping her stomach end to end.

And right now, sitting on Andreas’ lap, was no ordinary turbulence. Flames under her skin licked and curled in all the places their bodies met—where his hands touched her and where her legs lay across his before they spilled over the arm rest, where her breast rested heavy and full against his chest and, most of all, where her bottom pressed tight into his lap. Where something growing and rock-hard pressed back.

She squirmed, embarrassed at the intimacy of the contact. He felt huge, so much bigger than he had looked this morning before his shower, so much bigger than Kurt, and she didn’t want to know. Didn’t need to know. ‘Andreas,’ she pleaded, not even sure what she was pleading for as she squirmed some more, the urge to escape such intimate contact warring with an inexplicable need to get even closer.

But his eyes were closed, a frown pinching the skin between his brows, the skin drawn tight across his cheekbones. ‘You really should stop wriggling…’ he said cryptically, and then he opened his eyes and she read desire in their swirling depths and it only served to confuse her more. ‘Unless you’re planning on rescinding that no sex condition.’

She launched herself from his lap, scrabbling to get herself upright and away from him. ‘Don’t flatter yourself! It was you who yanked me into your lap, remember?’

He smiled as she headed, chin up, for the bathroom. ‘How could I forget? But it wasn’t me who was wriggling.’

Clusters of lights clung to the hilltops off to one side, but it was the air Cleo noticed first as they stepped from the plane, so clear and fresh after London’s heavy atmosphere, it seemed to have been washed with the very ocean itself. She inhaled deeply and tried to relax. It wasn’t working. The plane might have landed but the flock of butterflies in her stomach hadn’t come down with it.

‘Welcome to Santorini,’ Andreas said, drawing her into the circle of his arm and pressing his lips to her hair as they headed towards a waiting car, its headlights lighting their path. She shivered, as much from the cool night air as from his sudden and unexpected touch, and he squeezed her closer so she had to tuck her arm around him. Clearly the pretence had already begun.

It was no hardship to hold him, there was a firmness about his body that made him a pleasure to touch, and the closer she was to him, the more of his delicious masculine scent she could consume, but it was impossible to relax. Her legs felt stiff, her steps forced, her features tense. It was all for show, all to give the appearance they were lovers. And all of it was fake.

‘Smile!’ he ordered. ‘Anyone would think you were about to meet a firing squad.’

Maybe not, but Andreas was paying her a million dollars to pretend to be his mistress and it was a role she had no concept of. A million-dollar mistress who couldn’t sell what she knew about being someone’s mistress for one dollar.

She should have told him, should have confessed that her experience with the opposite sex was limited to one lousy time instead of claiming to have had sex ‘loads of times’. He’d expect her to know what was expected of her and how to act and he’d have every right to be furious when she didn’t. She glanced up at him but his profile was set hard, his jaw line rigid as he scowled at the waiting car, and she thought better of it. Whatever he seemed so upset about, now was hardly the time to confess her inexperience.

Whatever was bothering him didn’t stop him hauling her closer to him so that they were joined from shoulder to hip, their legs brushing every time they took a step, limb against limb, flesh against fabric until his heat radiated through her. She looked down at her feet and took a deep gulp of the clear night air. Did he feel it too, this delicious friction? Or was he so used to the feel of women that he didn’t even notice? She was sure there was no way she would ever get used to the touch of him.

‘Cleo?’

She turned her head up towards his. ‘Yes?’

And suddenly he was kissing her. No tender kiss, this one; instead his mouth plundered hers with both savagery and skill that left her once-stiff knees jellied and her senses reeling.

She found her fingers in his thick hair, his breath in hers, and all she knew was that she wanted more. How could he do this to her with just one kiss? She could have been back on the plane, feeling the press of his erection hard against her thigh, the same desperate need building inside like a furnace suddenly given oxygen until she was thinking insane, irrational thoughts. Such as she needed to be closer. Horizontal. Naked.

He let her go just as abruptly and it was all she could do to stand. ‘Wha…? What are you doing?’ She clung to him, breathless, her lips swollen and aching as he scowled again even as he smoothed her hair where his fingers had tangled in it.

‘Come on,’ he said impatiently. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’

It was a contest which one was the most sleek. The Alpha Romeo had smooth fast lines and sexy red duco. The blonde leaning against the door with the amused look on her face was even sleeker. Skinny blue jeans, a white top and a gold belt all atop a pair of killer sandals had never looked less casual. Despite the new clothes, Cleo immediately felt lumpy and inferior and completely ill at ease.

‘Cleo,’ Andreas said, ‘I’d like you to meet Petra Demitriou, my right-hand man, or, as it turns out, my right-hand woman.’

Petra laughed and shook her golden head, showing off her effortlessly sophisticated up-do and, courtesy of the same movement, the long smooth sweep of her neck. ‘Oh, Andreas, and I thought you’d never noticed.’ She elegantly unwrapped her long arms from over her ample chest and extended a hand to the visitor, while her razor-sharp eyes gave her the once-over. Cleo got the feeling she missed nothing. The way Petra blinked as her smile widened told Cleo she’d been found wanting.

It was hardly her fault. She was still battling to regain her land legs after that kiss. It hadn’t been an air pocket she’d hit this time, it had been an Andreas pocket that had sucked the oxygen from the air and knocked her off her feet.

‘Hello, Cleo, it’s always nice to welcome another of Andreas’ guests.’

The woman had an accent that sounded as smooth as honey and yet came with a chilli bite. So Petra wasn’t impressed with Andreas’ passing parade of women? But then, who could blame her? No doubt she’d be equally unimpressed if their roles were reversed. So instead of reading anything into the critical once-over and the clearly unwelcoming welcome, she thanked her and took the woman’s hand.

Petra’s fingers were long and slender and cool to touch and clearly weren’t aiming to linger. In the next movement they’d been withdrawn and the other hand was holding out a car key to Andreas. ‘I thought you might like to drive the new Alfa Romeo. It just came in today. Cleo and I can sit in the back.’ Cleo caught something distinctly unfriendly in her expression the moment before her mouth turned into a smile. ‘We could get to know one another while Andreas test-drives his new toy.’

Cleo did a rapid reassessment. Maybe she’d only imagined that sneer? She shrugged, confused by it all, confused by what was expected of her and not wanting to offend anyone. ‘Lovely. Thanks.’ Anything right now to escape the confusion the man alongside her could wreak with a single kiss.

‘I wondered why you decided to meet us, rather than send Nick.’ Andreas sounded annoyed, his words clipped.

Petra laughed his comment off as she offered the keys up at eye level like a temptation, her lips pouting seductively behind them. He remembered the pose. It was the same one she’d given when they’d been at that restaurant in Oia and she’d said she’d had too much to drink and asked if he could drive them both home, her hand on his thigh the entire way…

‘I know how much you were looking forward to a ride. I thought you might appreciate the key.’

Breath hissed through his teeth. He hadn’t had too much to drink tonight and the only ride Andreas was looking forward to right now was apparently off limits. But that Petra could be so obvious when it was clear he had found someone else to spend his nights with only served to confirm he had been right to bring someone home with him.

Thank God he hadn’t turned up tonight alone. Sto thiavolo, he should have chosen someone who could be a bit more convincing! Cleo was as rigid and stiff in his arms as a store dummy. Even his kiss, designed to show Petra that they were completely and sexually into each other, had backfired. Your mistress wasn’t supposed to ask what you were doing when you kissed her, as if you’d taken some liberty. No, it would take some doing to make Cleo more comfortable, and more convincing in her role, but if sex was off the agenda he didn’t know what would do it.

He hadn’t needed Petra turning up at the airport. Had she imagined that one look at her and his desire would be rekindled, the new lover forgotten? Or had she hoped he’d been bluffing, and that there was no woman? Why else would she dress so provocatively, in clothes that clung to her body like a second skin? He was suddenly beginning to get a new appreciation of his right-hand woman. She’d always been a good operator but he’d never realised just how cunning she was.

‘Would you mind if I asked you to drive, Petra? Cleo and I have had such a long day. Haven’t we, sweetheart?’ The implication hung on his words that he’d had a long night and was expecting another to follow. The endearment was meant to convince Petra. Meanwhile a wide-eyed Cleo looked up at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He pulled open a rear door and ushered her in, wishing that just once she might act like the mistress he was paying her to pretend to be.

Petra, left with no other choice but to comply, smiled meekly and slid into the driver’s seat.

‘Have you eaten?’ she asked a moment later as the car’s powerful engine turned over. ‘I’ve made you a booking at Poseidon.’

Andreas couldn’t fault her logic. It was what he normally did if he arrived with a woman in the late afternoon or evening. Sometimes they’d be in time to catch the sunset, sometimes they’d miss it, but a platter of fresh seafood and a Greek salad filled with olives, feta and fresh tomatoes bursting with Greek sunshine ensured that they would be fuelled for the night ahead.

But not tonight. Not when his so-called mistress was as jumpy as a kitten. Maybe she might relax at the house.

‘No, take us straight to the house. We had a late lunch. We will eat later.’

There was silence from the driver and yet Andreas could almost hear her mind ticking over, wondering just what was so important that they would rush back to the house and pouncing on the answer in the very next thought. He wondered how far Petra could be pushed. Would she leave if she could see her position was hopeless? He hadn’t wanted to lose her expertise but maybe that would be for the best. No one was indispensable. And he couldn’t have her thinking she had claims on him.

Likewise he couldn’t have the woman alongside him thinking that she could just sit there, as far away from him as she could get and gaping out of her window like some tourist on a coach tour. Damn it, she was supposed to be interested in him!

He leaned across and wrapped an arm around her, cursing when her startled response earned raised eyebrows from their driver in the rear-vision mirror.

‘It’s not far to Fira,’ he told Cleo as the car powered up the road from the airport.

It was as he said. Within a few minutes the car had climbed its way past small picturesque villages and scattered whitewashed hotels to a road along the very edge of the island where it became more built up. On one side the land sloped down gently to where they’d just come, the lights of the airstrip bright in the dark night. On the other side, the land fell away steeply, to a dark flat sea. A scattering of lights shone across the waters while in front there seemed a sweeping curve of lights into the distance that curved in tiers down a hillside before being swallowed up by the darkness.

‘It is hard to appreciate in the dark,’ Andreas told her, the stroke of his thumb on her upper arm doing all kinds of crazy things to her breathing, ‘but Santorini is actually a collection of small islands, the remnants of an ancient eruption. Fira, the capital, is built on the lip of the crater. The lights you see further on belong to the town of Oia. Like Fira, it is a very beautiful town, full of narrow cobbled streets and beautifully restored buildings, centuries of years old. Some say the sunset in Oia is the best in the world. I will take you there if you like.’

She suspected he was merely acting his part, she knew she should be, but still the very picture of sharing a sunset with this man worked its way into her soul so much that she almost wanted it to be real. Her voice, when she found it, was breathless and short, and it was no trouble for her to inject into it the necessary enthusiasm. ‘I would like that, very much.’

There was a strangled sound from the front seat, followed by a cough and a murmured apology. ‘Andreas is right, Cleo,’ Petra said, steering the car through a succession of narrower and narrower streets, past ornate iron gateways and walls of polished white set off with colourful bougainvilleas that caught Cleo’s eye. ‘It is only a small island, but there is much to see on Santorini. Will you be staying long?’

Cleo shot a look at Andreas, who was scowling again, and she wondered if it was because she’d made such a hash of things that he was already regretting their deal and the time he’d said they’d have together. ‘Maybe a few weeks,’ she offered nervously, ‘maybe less…’

In the rear-view mirror she saw their driver’s eyebrows shoot up as she pulled up before a private garage alongside a red-brick building that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Venice and waited for the automatic door to roll up. ‘That long? How lovely for you. It will be like a wonderful holiday.’

‘Of course,’ Andreas added with a growl as Petra steered the car into the garage and pulled to a stop. ‘There’s every chance she may stay longer.’

‘Why did you say that?’ Petra had bid them goodnight and left them in the lobby, retiring to her own suite, and meanwhile Cleo had been playing and replaying the words over in her head, so much so that she’d barely taken in the details of the house, other than just a handful of impressions. Grand proportions, furnishings that were both elegant and exquisite, it was more a palace than any humble home she’d ever seen.

‘Say what?’ Andreas sounded almost bored as he instructed the hired help to take care of the luggage and led the way to his suite of rooms, and yet there was too much coiled tension in his every step, his every movement, for her to believe that. Even his words were brimming with tension. The sound of her heels clicking on the terrazzo floor only served to ratchet it up.

‘Why did you say I might stay longer?’

‘Because you made it sound like you weren’t planning on staying at all.’

‘I wasn’t sure you’d want me to.’

‘And I thought we had a deal.’

Maybe so, but she knew he wasn’t happy with her, knew she’d failed to impress him with her acting skills. But what did he expect when she’d never been a mistress, didn’t know how a mistress was supposed to act? It wasn’t as if she’d blown it in front of his business partners. It had only been his driver—his right-hand woman. An exceptionally beautiful right-hand woman.

Could the act all be for her benefit?

‘Petra is very beautiful.’

He shrugged, but gave every impression of knowing who he was talking about. ‘Is she? She’s good at what she does.’

‘And she lives here with you, in this—’ she looked around her, at the exquisite wall hangings and period furniture ‘—this house?’

‘The offices of Xenides Properties are here. I’m often away and Petra works long hours. It’s an arrangement that works well for both of us.’

There was no hint of any attachment in his words or the tone of his voice. In fact he could have been talking about any employee. Maybe her hunch had been wrong. Maybe he was just aware of Petra’s obvious resentment for his lifestyle and his constant change of companions? Or maybe he was just angry with her own hopeless acting skills. She could hardly blame him if he was.

‘Here we are.’ A pair of carved timber doors stood at the end of a passageway. He pushed them both open and her eyes opened wide. ‘The sitting room,’ he said, still moving.

She stayed where she was and let herself gape. By now she should have been used to the luxury—luxury suites in London hotels, a personal private jet with wrap-around leather and champagne on tap—but still the sheer opulence of his everyday lifestyle made her jaw drop. For this was no rented accommodation or flying office, this was his home. And this one room was large enough to house her entire family back home.

‘How much money do you have?’

And he turned and looked at her, a cold expression charging his eyes. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Well, no. It’s just…’

‘Do not fear, I have more than enough to pay for you.’

His words shouldn’t have stung but somehow they did. The notion he was paying to have her here, to stroke her hand with his thumb and kiss her when he needed to look as if he had someone to kiss.

It wasn’t as if he were paying her for sex. She was merely acting. Pretending. And yet there was no pretence about the impact his touch and his kisses had on her. It made no sense. She’d been the one to insist on no sex, so why was it that his touch made her think of nothing else? Why did his kisses make her hunger for that which she had refused to entertain? Did he really not feel it too, this ribbon of desire that seemed to tug her ever closer to his side?

No! Andreas was right. This was a commercial arrangement, not some fairy-tale Cinderella story. In a month’s time, or however long it took, she’d leave Santorini and go back to her home in Kangaroo Crossing, albeit a million dollars richer than when she’d arrived. For a girl with her background and her chances in life, surely that was fairy tale enough. And yes, clearly there was no question he couldn’t afford it.

‘Come on, then,’ he said gruffly as he tugged off his tie, pointing towards a door on the far side of the room at the same time. ‘Let’s get this over with.’