Kitabı oku: «His Mistress for a Million»
Excerpt
‘So how much, Cleo? How much to secure your services for a month? Four hundred thousand dollars? Would that be enough?’
The numbers went whirling around her brain. Four hundred thousand dollars for a month of pretending to be Andreas’ companion? Was she nuts even to think about giving that up? She could go home, pay for the farm’s leaking roof to be fixed, and she’d still have enough left over to buy a place of her own.
But could she pretend to be this man’s lover? She shook her head, trying to work it all out. ‘Andreas, I—’
‘Five hundred thousand pounds! One million of your dollars. Will that be enough to sway your mind?’
One million dollars. She swallowed against a throat that felt tight and dry. ‘I don’t know if I’m the right person for the job.’
He smiled then, as he curved one hand around her neck. ‘You’ll be perfect. Any other questions?’
She shook her head. His fingers were warm and gentle on her skin and setting her flesh alight.
‘Then what say we seal this deal with a kiss?’
Trish Morey is an Australian who’s also spent time living and working in New Zealand and England. Now she’s settled with her husband and four young daughters in a special part of South Australia, surrounded by orchards and bushland, and visited by the occasional koala and kangaroo. With a life-long love of reading, she penned her first book at age eleven, after which life, career, and a growing family kept her busy until once again she could indulge her desire to create characters and stories—this time in romance. Having her work published is a dream come true. Visit Trish at her website, www.trishmorey.com
Recent titles by the same author:
THE RUTHLESS GREEK’S VIRGIN PRINCESS
FORCED WIFE, ROYAL LOVE-CHILD
THE ITALIAN BOSS’S MISTRESS OF REVENGE
THE SHEIKH’S CONVENIENT VIRGIN
His Mistress for a Million
By
Trish Morey
MILLS & BOON®
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To the Maytoners, every one of you warm, generous and wise. This one’s for you, with thanks. xxx
Chapter One
REVENGE was sweet.
Andreas Xenides eyed the shabby building that proclaimed itself a hotel, its faded sign swinging violently in the bitter wind that carved its way down the canyon of the narrow London street.
How long had it taken to track down the man he knew to be inside? How many years? He shook his head, oblivious to the cold that had passers-by clutching at their collars or burrowing hands deeper into pockets. It didn’t matter how long. Not now that he had found him.
The cell phone in his pocket beeped and he growled in irritation. His lawyer had agreed to call him if there was a problem with his plan proceeding. But one look at the caller ID and Andreas had the phone slipped back in his pocket in a moment. Nothing on Santorini was more important than what was happening here in London today, didn’t Petra know that?
The wind grew teeth before he was halfway across the street, another burst of sleet sending pedestrians scampering for cover to escape the gusty onslaught, the street a running watercolour of black and grey.
He mounted the hotel’s worn steps and tested the handle. Locked as he’d expected, a buzzer and rudimentary camera mounted at the side to admit only those with keys or reservations, but he was in luck. A couple wearing matching tracksuits and money belts emerged, so disgusted with the weather that they barely looked his way. He was past them and following the handmade sign to the downstairs reception before they’d struggled into their waterproof jackets and slammed the door behind them.
Floorboards squeaked under the shoddy carpet and he had to duck his head as the stairs twisted back on themselves under the low ceiling. There was a radio crackling away somewhere in the distance and his nose twitched at a smell of decay no amount of bleach had been able to mask.
This place was barely habitable. Even if the capricious London weather was beyond his control, he had no doubt the clientele would be much happier in the alternative accommodation he’d arranged for them.
A glazed door stood ajar at the end of a short hallway, another crudely handwritten note taped to the window declaring it the office, and for a moment he was so focused on the door and the culmination of a long-held dream that he barely noticed the bedraggled shape stooping down to pick up a vacuum cleaner, an overflowing rubbish bag in the other hand. A cleaner, he realised as she straightened. For a moment he thought she was about to say something, before she pressed her lips together and flattened herself against a door to let him pass. There were dark shadows under her reddened eyes, her fringe was plastered to her face and her uniform was filthy. He flicked his eyes away again as he passed, his nose twitching at the combined scent of ammonia and stale beer. So that was the hired help. Hardly surprising in a dump like this.
Vaguely he registered the sound of her retreat behind him, her hurried steps, the thud of the machine banging against something and a muffled cry. But he didn’t turn. He was on the cusp of fulfilling the promise he’d made to his father on his deathbed.
It wasn’t a moment to rush.
It was a moment to savour.
And so he hesitated. Drank in the moment. Wishing his father could be here. Knowing he would be watching from wherever he was now.
Knowing it was time.
He jabbed at the door with two fingers and watched it swing open, letting the squeak of the hinges announce his arrival.
Then he stepped inside.
The man behind the dimly lit desk hadn’t looked up. He was too busy scribbling notes on what looked like the turf guide with one hand, holding the phone to his ear with the other, and it was all Andreas could do to bite back on the urge to cross the room and yank the man bodily from his chair. But much as he desired to tear the man to pieces as he deserved, Andreas had a much more twenty-first-century way of getting justice.
‘Take a seat,’ the man growled, removing the phone from his ear long enough to gesture to a small sofa, still busy writing down his notes. ‘I’ll be just a moment.’
One more moment when it had taken so many years to track him down? Of course he could wait. But he’d bet money he didn’t have to.
‘Kala ime orthios,’ Andreas replied through his teeth, I’m fine standing, ‘if it’s all the same to you.’
The man’s head jerked up, the blood draining from his face leaving his red-lined eyes the only patch of colour. He uttered a single word, more like a croak, before the receiver clattered back down onto the cradle, and all the while his gaze didn’t leave his visitor, even as he edged his chair back from the desk. But there was nowhere to go in the cramped office and his chair rolled into the wall with a jolt. He stiffened his back and jerked his chin up as if he hadn’t just been trying to escape, but he didn’t attempt to stand. Andreas wondered if it was because his knees were shaking too much.
‘What are you doing here?’
Andreas sauntered across the room, until he was looming over both the desk and the man cowering behind it, lazily picking up a letter opener in his long-fingered hands and testing its length through his fingers while all the time Darius watched nervously. ‘It’s been a long time, Darius. Or would you rather I called you Demetrius, or maybe even Dominic? I really can’t keep up. You seem to go through names like other people go through toilet paper.’
The older man licked his lips, his eyes darting from side to side, and this close Andreas was almost shocked to see how much his father’s one-time friend and partner had aged. Little more than fifty years old, and yet Darius’s hair had thinned and greyed and his once wiry physique seemed to have caved in on itself, the lines on his face sucked deeper with it. The tatty cardigan he wore draped low on his bony shoulders did nothing to wipe off the years.
So time hadn’t treated him well? Tough. Sympathy soon departed as Darius turned his eyes back to him and Andreas saw that familiar feral gleam, the yellow glow that spoke of the festering soul within. And he might be afraid now, taken by surprise by the sudden appearance of his former partner’s son, but Andreas knew that any minute he could come out snarling. Not that it would do him any good.
‘How did you find me?’
‘That’s one thing I always liked about you, Darius. You never did waste your time on small talk. No “how are you?” No “have a nice day”.’
‘I get the impression you didn’t come here for small talk.’
‘Touché,’ Andreas conceded as he circled the room, absently taking inventory, enjoying the exchange much more than he’d expected. ‘I have to admit, you weren’t easy to find. You were good at covering your tracks in South America. Very good. The last we heard of you was in Mexico before the trail went cold.’ Andreas looked up at the high basement window where the sleet was leaving trails of slush down the grimy glass before he turned back. ‘And to think you could still be back there enjoying the sunshine. Nobody expected you’d be fool enough to show your face in Europe again.’
A glimmer of resentment flared in Darius’ eyes, and his lip curled into a snarl. The hungry dog was out of its kennel. ‘Maybe I got sick of beans.’
‘The way I hear it, you ran out of money. Lost most of it on bad business deals and flashy women.’ Andreas leaned over and picked up the form guide sitting on the desk. ‘Gambled away the rest. All that money, Darius. All those millions. And this—’ he waved his hand around him ‘—is what you’re reduced to.’
Darius glowered, his eyes making no apology in their assessment of his visitor’s cashmere coat and hand stitched shoes, a tinge of green now colouring his features. ‘Looks like you’ve done all right for yourself though.’
No thanks to you!
Andreas’ hands clenched and unclenched at his sides while he tried to remember his commitment not to tear the man apart. A deep breath later and he could once again manage a civil tone. ‘You’ve got a problem with that?’
‘Is that why you came here, then? To gloat?’ He sneered, swinging a hand around the shabby office. ‘To see me reduced to this? Okay, you’ve seen me. Happy now? Isn’t that what they say—success is the best revenge?’
‘Ah, now that’s where they’re wrong.’ This time Andreas didn’t restrain himself, but allowed the smile he’d been headed for ever since he’d set foot in this rat trap. ‘Success is nowhere near the best revenge.’
The old man’s eyes narrowed warily as he leaned forward in his chair, the fear back once more. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Andreas pulled the folded sheaf of papers from inside his coat pocket. ‘This,’ he said, unfolding them so that the other man could see what he was holding. ‘This is the best revenge.’
And Andreas watched the blood drain from the other man’s face as he recognised the finance papers he’d signed barely a week ago.
‘Did you even read the small print, Darius? Didn’t you wonder why someone would offer you money on this dump you call a hotel on such easy terms?’
The older man swallowed, his eyes once more afraid.
‘Did you not suspect there would be a catch?’
Darius looked sick, his skin grey.
Andreas smiled again. ‘I’m the catch. That finance company is one of mine. I lent you that money, Darius, and I’m calling in the debt. Now.’
‘You can’t…You can’t do that. I don’t have that kind of money lying around.’
He flung the pages in Darius’ direction. ‘I can do it, all right. See for yourself. But if you can’t pay me back today, you’re in default on the loan. And you know what that means.’
‘No! You know there’s no way…’ But still Darius scrabbled through the pages, his eyes scanning the document for an out, squinting hard when they came across the clause that proved Andreas right, widening as he looked up with the knowledge that he’d been beaten. ‘You can’t do this to me. It’s no better than theft.’
‘You’d know all about theft, Darius, but whatever you call it this hotel is now mine. And it’s closing. Today.’
The shocked look on Darius’ face was his reward. The man looked as if he’d been sucker punched.
Oh, yes, Andreas thought, revenge was sweet, especially when it had been such a long time coming.
Chapter Two
ROCK bottom.
Cleo Taylor was so there.
Her head ached, her bruised shin stung where the vacuum cleaner had banged into it, and three weeks into this job she was exhausted, both mentally and physically. And at barely five o’clock in the afternoon, all she wanted to do was sleep.
She dropped the machine at the foot of her bed and sank down onto the narrow stretcher, the springs that woke her every time she rolled over at night noisily protesting her presence.
Karma. It had to be karma.
How many people had tried to warn her? How many had urged her to be careful and not to rush in? And how many of those people had she suspected of being jealous of her because she’d found love in the unlikeliest of places, in an Internet chat room with a man halfway around the world?
Too many.
Oh, yes, if there was a price to pay for naivety, for blindly charging headlong for a fall, she was well and truly paying it.
And no one would say she didn’t deserve everything that was happening to her. She’d been so stupid believing Kurt, stupid to believe the stories he’d spun, stupid to believe that he loved her.
So pathetically naïve to trust him with both her heart and with her nanna’s money.
And all she’d achieved was to spectacularly prove the award she’d been given in high school from the girls whose company she’d craved, but who never were and who would never be her friends.
Cleo Taylor, girl most likely to fail.
Wouldn’t they just love to see her now?
A barrage of sleet splattered against the tiny louvred window high above the bed and she shivered. So much for spring.
Reluctantly she thought about dragging herself from the rudimentary bed but there was no way she wanted to meet that man in the hallway again. She shuddered, remembering the ice-cold way his eyes—dark pits of eyes set in a slate-hard face—had raked over her and then disregarded her in the same instant without even an acknowledgment, as if she was some kind of low-life, before imperiously passing by. She’d shrunk back in-stinctively, her own greeting dying on her lips.
It wasn’t just that he looked so out of place, so wrong for the surroundings, but the look of such a tall, powerful man sweeping through the low-ceilinged space seemed wrong, as if there wasn’t enough space and he needed more. He hadn’t just occupied the space, he’d consumed it.
And then he’d swept past, all cashmere coat, the smell of rain and the hint of cologne the likes of which she’d never smelt in this place, and she’d never felt more like the low-life he’d taken her to be.
But she had to get up. She couldn’t afford to fall asleep yet, even though she’d been up since five to do the breakfasts and it had taken until four to clean the last room. She reeked of stale beer and her uniform was filthy, courtesy of the group of partying students who’d been in residence in the room next door for the last three nights.
She hated cleaning that room! It was damp and dark, the tiny en suite prone to mould and the drains smelling like a swamp, and if she hadn’t already known how low she’d sunk that room announced it in spades. The students had left it filthy, with beds looking as if they’d been torn apart, rubbish spilling from bins over the floor, and an entire stack of empty takeaway boxes and beer bottles artfully arranged in one corner all the way from the floor to the low ceiling. ‘Leaning Tower of Pizza,’ someone had scrawled on the side of one the boxes, and it had leant, so much so that it was a wonder it hadn’t already collapsed with the vibrations from the nearby tube.
It had been waiting for her to do that. Bottles and pizza boxes raining down on her, showering her with their dregs.
No wonder he’d looked at her as if she were some kind of scum. After the day she’d had, she felt like it.
She dragged herself from the bed and plucked her towel off a hook and her bag of toiletries, ready to head to the first-floor bathroom. What did she care what some stranger she’d never see again thought? In ten minutes she’d be showered, tucked up in bed and fast asleep. That was all she cared about at the moment.
The bright side, she told herself, giving thanks to her nanna as she ascended the stairs and saw rain lashing against the glazing of the ground-floor door, was that she had a roof over her head and she didn’t have to go out in today’s weather.
“There’s always a silver lining”, her nanna used to tell her, rocking her on her lap when she was just a tiny child and had skinned her knees, or when she’d started school and the other girls had picked on her because her mother had made her school uniform by hand and it had shown. Even though her family was dirt poor and sometimes it had been hard to find, there’d always been something she’d been able to cling to, a bright side somewhere, something she’d been able to give thanks for.
Almost always.
She sighed as the hot water in the shower finally kicked in and warmed her weary bones. A warm shower, a roof over her head and a bed with her name written on it. Things could always be worse.
And come summer and the longer days, she’d have time to see something of the sights of London she’d promised herself before she went home. Not that there was any hurry. At the rate she was paid, after her board was deducted, it would be ages before she could even think about booking a return airfare to Australia. God, she’d been so stupid to trust Kurt with her money!
A sudden pang of homesickness hit her halfway back down the stairs. Barely six weeks ago she’d left the tiny outback town of Kangaroo Crossing with such confidence, and now look at her. If only she could go home. If only she’d never left! She’d give anything to hug her mum and half-brothers again. She’d even find a smile for her stepfather if it came down to it. But when would that be? And how would she be able to face everyone when she did?
She would be going home humiliated. A failure.
The bright side, she urged herself, look at the bright side, as she pulled her eye mask down and snuggled under the covers, the cold rain lashing at her tiny window. She was warm and dry and she had at least ten hours’ sleep before she had to get up and do it all over again.
‘But you can’t close the hotel,’ Darius protested. ‘There are bookings. Guests!’
‘Who will be catered for, as will the staff we have on file from your finance application.’ Andreas snapped open his phone, made a quick call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. ‘I’m sure the guests won’t mind being transferred to the four-star hotel we’ve chosen to accommodate them in and you can be assured the employees will be paid a generous redundancy.’
He cast a disdainful eye around the room. ‘I don’t foresee any complaints. And now I want you off the premises. I have staff coming in to take over and ensure the changeover is smooth. The hotel will be empty in two hours.’
‘And what about me?’ Darius demanded. ‘What am I supposed to do? You’re leaving me with nothing. Nothing!’
Andreas slowly turned back, unable to stop his lips from forming into a sneer. ‘What about you? How many millions did you steal from my father? You happily walked away and left my family with nothing. What did you care about anyone else then? So why should I care about what happens to you? Just be grateful you’re able to walk out of here with your limbs intact after the way you betrayed my father.’
A buzzer sounded, the security monitor showing a team of people waiting on the front step. ‘Let them in, Darius.’ The older man’s hand hovered over the door-release button.
‘I can help you!’ he suddenly said instead, pulling his hand away to join the other in supplication. ‘You don’t need all these people. I know this hotel and I…I’m sorry for what happened all those years ago. It was a mistake…A misunderstanding. Your father and I were once good friends. Partners even. Isn’t there any way you might honour that?’
Andreas dragged much-needed air into his lungs. ‘I’ll honour it in the same way you honoured my father. Get out. You’ve got ten minutes. And then I never want to see you again.’
Darius knew when he was beaten. Sullenly he gathered his personal possessions, the form guide included, in a cardboard box and slunk away even as the team filed into the office. Andreas took two minutes to go over the arrangements. Someone would email all forward bookings and advise of the change of hotels while the rest of the team would meet guests as they returned to expedite their packing and transfer to the new hotel. New guests would simply be ferried to the alternative premises nearby. There was no reason for the operation not to go like clockwork.
His cell phone beeped again as he dismissed the team to their duties and he reached for it absently, taking just a second to savour what he’d achieved. The look on Darius’ face when he’d realised the truth, that he had lost everything and to the son of the man he’d cheated of millions so many years ago, was something he would cherish for ever. Doubly so because his father never could.
He frowned when he looked at the phone. Petra calling again? Kolisi, maybe there really was an emergency.
‘Ne?’
Half a continent away, Petra’s voice lit up. ‘Andreas!’ She sounded so bright he could almost hear the flashbulb.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Oh, I’ve been so worried about you. How is it in London? It is all going to plan?’
Andreas felt a stab of irritation. No emergency, then. Merely Petra thinking she had some stake in what was happening here. She was wrong. ‘Why are you calling, Petra?’
There was a pause. Then, ‘The Bonacelli deal! The papers are here ready to be signed.’
‘I expected that. I told you I’ll sign them when I get back.’
‘And Stavros Markos called,’ she continued at rapid pace, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘He wants to know if they can book out the entire Caldera Palazzo for their daughter’s wedding next June. It’s going to be huge. They only want the best and I told them it should be fine, though I have to put off another couple of enquiries—’
‘Petra,’ he cut in, ‘you know they can. You don’t have to ring me to confirm. What’s bothering you? Is there something else?’
There was silence at the end of the line, and then she laughed, an uncomfortable tinkle. Or at least, it made him feel uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, Andreas,’ she continued. ‘It probably sounds silly, but I miss you. When do you think you’ll be back?’
Something clenched in his gut, the pattern of her constant phone calls making the kind of sense he didn’t want them to make. But there was no other option. She’d been checking up on him, making sure nobody else was occupying his bed or his attentions while he was in London and she was holding the fort back on Santorini.
He murmured something noncommittal before sliding his phone shut. What was wrong with her? He didn’t do relationships. Petra, more than anyone, should have understood that. She’d witnessed the parade of women through his life. Hell, she’d been the one to organise the flowers for them when they were on the inner, the trinkets for them when they were on the outer. But he’d made one fatal mistake, broken his own rule never to get involved with the staff.
Drunk on success and the culmination of years of planning, he’d let his guard down when he’d heard the news that Darius had been found and the trap set. He’d been the one to insist Petra go out to dinner with him to celebrate. He’d been the one to order the champagne and he’d been the one to respond when she leaned too close, all but spilling her breasts into his hands. He’d wanted the release and she’d been there.
What a fool! He’d always assumed she was as machine-like and driven as he was. He’d always thought that she’d understood it was always just sex to him. And yet every time Petra called him now, he could almost feel her razor-sharp nails piercing his skin all over again. But why she’d want to be his mistress when she knew which way they invariably went…
Cold fingers crawled down his spine.
Or did she have something else in mind? Something more permanent she thought she was due after working alongside him for so many years?
Sto thiavolo!
What had his mother been telling him in her recent phone calls? That maybe it was time for him to settle down and find a wife?
And who did his mother like to talk to first, calling the office line instead of his cell phone, because ‘her own son never bothered to tell her anything’?
Petra.
Had his mother also confided the news with her good friend’s daughter that it was time for her only child to settle down? He’d just bet she had.
Damn. He didn’t want to have to find a new marketing director. Petra was a good operator. The best at marketing the package of luxurious properties that Xenides Exclusive Property let to the well-heeled looking for a five-star experience in some of the most beautiful places in the world. She’d single-handedly designed the website that made his unique brand of five-star luxury accommodation accessible to every computer on the planet and made it so tempting that just as many booked through the website alone as booked by personal referral.
He didn’t want to lose her; together they made a good team. But neither did he want her thinking she was destined to be anything more to him than a valued employee.
He sighed. What would she do when he found someone else, as he inevitably would? Would she leave of her own accord?
Andreas made up his mind on a sigh. It was a risk he would just have to take. Petra’s departure from the business, while inconvenient, was preferable to her making wedding plans. All of which meant one thing.
He wouldn’t be returning to Santorini without a woman on his arm and in his bed.
She would have to be somebody new, somebody different, someone who could step into the role of his mistress and then step out when he no longer needed her. No strings. No ties.
A contract position. A month should be more than enough.
Now he just had to find her before his flight back to Greece tomorrow.
He looked around the dingy room and sighed, the weight of years of the need for vengeance sloughing from his shoulders. His work here was done, an old score settled and Darius vanquished. There was no need for him to linger; his team knew what to do. He could hear them now knocking on doors and explaining the move, smoothing any objections with the promise of four-star luxury and their bill waived for the inconvenience. They would make the necessary transfers and see to the stripping bare of the furnishings in preparation for the builders and decorators that would turn this place into something worthy of being included in the Xenides luxury hotel portfolio.
Everything was under control.
And that’s when he heard the scream.
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