His Mistress for a Million Read online

  She pulled her mask over her eyes to shut out the ribbon of light seeping under the door, feeling sleep tugging at her so hard that nothing could keep her awake tonight, not the occasional burst of Greek she could hear coming from the room outside, not regret at making the deal she’d done and not even the fear that, despite his assurances, at any moment Andreas Xenides could walk through that door and climb into this bed.

  She yawned. She knew she should care. She wanted to. But not right now. In the morning she’d be able to think straight. In the morning they could set any necessary boundaries.

  In the morning…

  Andreas was still on the phone when Room Service arrived with the meal he’d ordered in between calls to his lawyers and to the concierge to arrange the round of appointments Cleo would need in the morning. He was hungry and he figured she must be too, and until she’d been thoroughly made over there was little point being photographed with her in any of the restaurants or bars. Before and after shots wouldn’t help his cause. In any event, there was something to be said for taking a few hours in private to get to know one another. For, as much as he expected she’d be perfect for his purposes, the contracts needn’t be signed until he’d made absolutely certain.

  He pushed open the door to the bedroom to let her know their meal had arrived and found the room in darkness, lit only with the light spilling in from the room behind. And there she lay, looking tiny in the big wide bed, her flannelette pyjamas buttoned almost all the way up to her neck like a suit of armour with the quilt pulled up almost as high, and that damned Princess mask hiding her eyes.

  The blood in his veins heated to boiling point. She was sleeping? He’d just agreed to pay her a million dollars and she was sleeping as if it were no big deal and she could start earning her money tomorrow?

  He was just about to rip the damn mask off when she stirred on a sigh and settled back into the mattress, her breathing so slow and regular that he paused, remembering.

  She’d been asleep when his staff had woken her hours ago, he recalled, after being awake since the very early hours, the shadows under her eyes underlining her exhaustion. Maybe he should give those shadows a chance to clear and give the makeover experts a fighting chance to turn her into the woman he needed her to be?

  Maybe he should just back out of here and let her sleep?

  And maybe he should just climb right in there with her and make the most of his money? She’d said she didn’t want sex but he’d never known a woman to turn him down. That she’d been so adamant grated.

  There was a knock at the door outside. Housekeeping, no doubt, come to make up the sofa bed, and he turned and pulled the door closed behind him.

  He had no need to take any woman. He had an entire month. She would come to him; he knew it.

  Chapter Six

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

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

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

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

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

  And if he looks that big now?

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

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

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

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

  ‘What appointment?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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