Mistress: Taming the Playboy

CHAPTER SIX

LAURA stared at Constantine, her heart beating wildly, scarcely able to believe her ears. ‘Your wife?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘Why on earth would I want to marry you?’

‘ Want has nothing to do with it,’ he iced back, outraged at her shocked and unflattering response. ‘Need is a far more fitting word. For a start, you need money.’

‘I never said—’

‘You’re a waitress who also works in a damned shop!’ he shot out.

The beating of her heart increased. ‘How did you know that?’

His lips twisted. How naïve she was! ‘It wasn’t difficult. I got someone to find out for me.’

Laura swallowed. ‘You mean you’ve been spying on me?’

Dismissively, he batted the question away, with an arrogant flick of his hand. If only it were as easy to bat away the memory of the photos his private detective had dropped in front of him: Laura taking the boy to school in clothes which were clearly too small for him. Not to mention the pictorial evidence of his son growing up in some scruffy apartment over a seedy little shop.

But it was more than that. There had been the dawning realisation that perhaps this trembling little waitress might actually make ideal marriage material. Poor and desperate—wouldn’t she be so swept away by his power and his riches that she would be completely malleable, so that he could mould her to the image of his perfect wife? And of course added to all this was the inexplicable fact that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that stolen kiss in the dark basement of the hotel … Why, even now the memory of it made him want to do it all over again. It was crazy. It was inexplicable. And it was as potent as hell …

He scowled, forcing his mind back to her ridiculous claim that she’d been spying on him. ‘Don’t be hysterical, Laura,’ he snapped. ‘When a woman comes to a man in my position, making claims of enormous significance, it is inevitable her background will be investigated. For all I knew you might have had some male partner at home, his eyes fixed greedily on the main chance—seeing your ex-lover as a meal ticket.’

‘You … you … cynic …’ she breathed.

‘Or simply a realist?’ he countered. ‘Oh, come on—you can lose the outrage, agape mou. You see, I know the corrupting power of money. And I’ve seen what people will do in its pursuit.’

Laura stared at him. His wife? Had he really just asked her to be his wife? ‘But I thought you were marrying that other woman—’

‘What other woman?’

She saw his eyes narrow dangerously and wished she hadn’t started this. ‘The Swedish supermodel,’ she said reluctantly.

‘Who told you that?’

‘I heard it on the radio,’ she admitted, and from the look of slowly dawning comprehension which crossed his face she wished she’d kept quiet. Because now she sounded like some kind of stalker.

‘You shouldn’t believe a word the media tells you,’ he snapped. ‘But at least that explains why you suddenly appeared out of nowhere the other night.’ His eyes fixed her with icy challenge. ‘Actually, the press have been trying to marry me off for years—but I will chose whom and when to marry, not the media!’

She stared up at him, full of bewilderment. ‘I still don’t understand … after everything you’ve said—why you want to marry me.’

‘Don’t you? Think about it. Marriage has always been on a list as something that perhaps I ought to do when I get around to it—but there’s been no real sense of urgency. Until now.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘You see, I possess a vast fortune, Laura,’ he elaborated softly, ‘and my father is old and frail. His greatest wish is to see me provide him with an heir. This could be a surprisingly easy way of accomplishing both objectives.’

Laura shook her head. ‘But that’s so … cold-blooded!’

‘Is it?’ He gave a cynical laugh. ‘Unlike you, I have not grown up on a diet of believing in romance and happy-ever-after.’ In fact, he knew better than anyone that reality never matched up to dreams, and that emotion robbed men of sense and of reason. He lowered his voice. ‘Why not look at it practically rather than emotionally? Marriage will serve a purpose—it will legitimise my son and it will give you all the financial security you could ever need.’

But deep down Laura’s suspicions were alerted. It would also give Constantine power, she recognised. And once he had that power wouldn’t he be tempted to use it against her? Pushing her to the sidelines until he dominated Alex’s life as she suspected that he could all too easily? Everything that she’d fought and worked for could be threatened by this man’s undeniable wealth and charisma.

‘No! No and no and no!’ she flared back, as the emotion and the humid atmosphere of the bar began to tighten her throat. Suddenly she needed to get away from Constantine’s heady proximity and the danger he represented.

Grabbing her handbag, she stood up—and without another word walked straight out of the bar, uncaring of the sudden lull in conversation from the couples around them, or the curious eyes watching her as she tried not to stumble in her high wedges.

Outside in the fast-fading light the atmosphere was just as sticky, and the heady scent of roses was almost overpowering. Laura dimly wondered if she should take off her shoes and run to the bus stop in an effort to escape from him, when she felt a hand gripping her arm. Constantine spun her round to face him, his black eyes blazing.

He stared at her, a nerve working furiously in his cheek. Because no woman had ever said no to him before. And no woman ever turned her back on him, either.

‘Don’t you ever walk out on me like that again!’ he bit out.

‘I’m a free agent and I can do exactly as I please!’

‘You think so?’ His mouth hardened with lust. ‘Well, in that case, so can I!’

Without warning he pulled her right up against him—so close that she could feel every hard sinew. And she wanted to resist him—just as she was resisting his demand that she marry him. But it seemed that her body had other ideas. To her horror she found herself wanting to sink against him. Into him.

Did he sense that? Was that why he gathered her closer still—with a small moan of what sounded like his own surrender?

In the pale light, he tilted her face up. ‘Now, this is a time when the word want is appropriate. And you want me, Laura—just as I want you. Don’t ask me why, but I do,’ he ground out, and he drove his mouth down onto hers.

She had meant to gasp out her protest, but instead her lips opened beneath his like a sea-anemone, and suddenly her feelings ran away with her. Was it anger or frustration which fuelled her desire, causing her fingers to clutch at his shoulders—finding the butter-soft silk of his shirt and the hard sheath of the muscular flesh beneath? Or was it something infinitely more dangerous—the fierce clamour of her heart for a man who would never grant her access to his?

‘Oh,’ she breathed, as she felt his free hand move down to splay with intimate freedom over the globe of one buttock, and a shudder rocked through her as her body melted into his.

‘Theos mou!’ he ground back in response. Through waves of hunger, which came with a strength he had not been anticipating, Constantine pulled her into a darkened recess at the side of the building and continued to plunder her mouth with kiss upon kiss. The fingers which had been on her bottom now slipped underneath the little sundress, and he slid his hand round until it lay over the cotton-covered warmth of her mound. He felt her gasp out a little cry. Her passion had not abated over the years, he thought grimly. Nor had her eagerness dulled or softened around the edges. He felt himself grow so hard that he thought he would explode.

Should he do it to her here? Unzip his trousers and thrust himself in her sweet, wild wetness? He moved his hand over what felt like a pair of functional cotton panties.

‘If only you weren’t wearing any … then how easy it would be,’ he commented unevenly.

His graphic words broke into the darkly erotic spell which had captivated her, and Laura opened her eyes to see the face of Constantine—taut and tight with sexual hunger. Reality washed over her like a cold shower. What the hell was she doing? Standing there while he put his hand between her legs and incited her to … to …

‘Stop … stop it,’ she whispered.

‘Stop what?’

‘T-touching me.’

‘But you like it. You know you do.’ He moved a finger against her and heard her breathing quicken. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Oh.’

His fingertips continued to tease her moist heat—and even in the dim light he could see the sudden dilation of her eyes before the lids came down to obscure them. She relaxed against him once more and he felt her imminent surrender. Should he carry on? Bring her to an orgasm she would be unable and unwilling to prevent? Kiss away the gasping little sounds as those sweet spasms pulsed through her? It would be a turn-on to watch her, and perhaps she would be more amenable to his plans if he had her glowing and basking in his arms afterwards.

But at that moment he heard the sound of a car approaching, and saw the powerful beam of its headlights snaking up the drive. He realised just what he was doing. He, Constantine Karantinos, was standing by the side of a hotel, making out with a woman, in an aroused state such as he had not been in since his teenage youth!

‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he murmured, his lips soft as they whispered over the long pale line of her neck.

Through the mists of sweet, sensual hunger warning bells sounded like fire alarms in her head, and Laura opened her eyes in confusion. ‘Up-upstairs?’ she echoed blankly.

‘Mmm. Much more comfortable there. Enormous bed. Enormous pleasure.’ He kissed her neck and guided her fingers to where he was hard and aching for her. ‘Enormous everywhere,’ he whispered, on an arrogant boast.

But Laura shrank back, snatching her hand away from his tantalising heat as she looked up at him, aghast. ‘You have a room here?’

‘A suite, actually. Not the best I’ve seen—but not bad.’

‘Let me get this straight.’ Her heart was pounding. ‘You thought … you thought that I’d just meekly go to bed with you?’

He smiled. ‘Meekly is not the word I was hoping for, agape mou—since your response so far tells me that you are a very passionate woman. But then as I recall you always were,’ he added softly.

And it was those last words of his which were almost her undoing—because they gave the situation a faux intimacy, almost as if they had some kind of tender, shared past between them. But they didn’t, she reminded herself painfully. What they had shared had been nothing but a powerful sexual chemistry which had flared out of control. And just because that sexual chemistry was as explosive as ever, it didn’t mean she had to give in to it. To behave in a way which would afterwards have him insulting her as if she were no better than a cheap little tramp.

‘I’m not going upstairs with you,’ she said sharply, pulling herself out of his arms and tugging her dress down defiantly as she moved away from the alcove.

To Constantine’s astonishment, he could see that she meant it. Had he thought that she would capitulate as easily as she had done all those years ago? The way women always did? For a moment frustrated longing pulsed around his veins as he searched her face for a sign that she might be on the verge of changing her mind, but there was none.

With the steely self-control for which he was renowned he forced his own desire to evaporate, like droplets of water sizzling onto a hot Greek street. There would be plenty of time for sex once she had agreed to his other demands—and, banishing the tantalising memory of her heated response to him, Constantine switched to the real reason he was here.

‘Hasn’t that little interlude convinced you that we could make a creditable stab at matrimony?’ he questioned softly as he followed her, his feet crunching over the soft gravel.

‘How delightfully you put it—but the answer is still no.’ Her knees still weak, Laura sank down onto a wooden bench in full view of the main entrance into the hotel, where cars were coming and going. Let him dare try to start touching her here!

Constantine sat down next to her. Was this like a boardroom battle? he wondered. With her supposedly stubborn resistance being used as a lever to increase her demands? He gave a small smile. She would soon learn that he called all the shots. ‘I’d like to know what your main objection to my proposal is?’ he questioned silkily.

‘Why—Alex, of course,’ she shot back. ‘Do you really think I can just announce to him that I’m marrying his father—whom he’s never even met—and that we’re all going off to Greece to live happily ever after?’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not? Don’t you know anything about children?’

‘Actually, no, I don’t,’ he snapped. ‘Since I’ve been denied that opportunity up until now!’

Laura swallowed as she stared into the shadowed flint of his features. Be reasonable, she told herself as she worked out what to say. Because if she expected him to come round to her way of thinking then she was going to have to be convincing. And convincing a man like this about anything wasn’t going to be easy. She had to show him how it would look from a little boy’s point of view.

Her voice softened. ‘Alex’s life is here in England—it’s all he’s ever known. Don’t you think that suddenly landing all this in his lap would be overloading him with too much, too soon? Tearing him away from his home and his school? A new father who turns up out of the blue and a new life he has no say in? What if Greece doesn’t work out?’

‘We will make it work out,’ he vowed grimly.

And in a way that stubborn insistence only reinforced her determination. Laura suddenly got an ominous vision of the finality of being trapped in a loveless marriage with a man like Constantine, and a shiver ran down her spine. ‘You can’t make things happen like that,’ she said. ‘Human beings aren’t puppets that you can play with and control. I don’t think you realise the impact of taking a child who’s never even been abroad and plonking him in a foreign land.’

His body tensed as if she had hit him, and he clenched his fists. ‘Don’t ever … ever … refer to Greece as a “foreign land” in front of me or in front of my son,’ he hissed. ‘It is the land of his forebears with a rich and glorious heritage. And one which I intend that he will learn about.’

The fingers which had tightened into two fists now slowly unfurled, and Laura found herself watching them with a horrible kind of fascination.

‘I want contact with Alex,’ he continued inexorably. ‘And I want him to meet his grandfather. Those two things are non-negotiable—so how do you intend to let me go about doing it, Laura?’

And Laura knew then that she didn’t have to be stuck on an island to be trapped. Entrapment could be emotional as well as geographical, she realised—and in a way her fate had been sealed from the moment she had made contact with him again. She could see the determination etched on his face, and she realised that there was no way she was going to be able to escape his demands. Which meant that she had to fashion them to best suit her and Alex’s purpose. And no one could deny that it was in a child’s best interests to learn about his father—no matter what she thought about him.

She laced her fingers together. ‘I think it’s best for Alex to get to know you … gradually.’

‘And how do you suggest I do that?’ he demanded. ‘Start coming into that bread shop you run and buying some damned bun every morning?’

If the circumstances hadn’t been so fraught then Laura might almost have laughed, because the image of this powerful Greek going into her little village shop was both bizarre and amusing. But there was no place for humour here; this was deadly serious. Yet neither was there was any need for him to be so scathing about her method of earning a living. Working in a shop wasn’t up there with being a supermodel, but it was honest and it was decent—even if it didn’t reap the huge kind of rewards which he obviously considered essential.

‘Of course I don’t,’ she said stiffly.

‘My life and my work are in Greece,’ he clipped out.

‘I realise that.’ Just as hers and Alex’s was here—a cultural and geographical world away. Laura’s mind starting spinning as she searched desperately for some sort of solution to their dilemma, when suddenly a thought occurred to her. Unseen in the folds of her cheap summer dress, her fingers tightened as an idea of breathtaking simplicity came to her. ‘But the long summer holidays are coming up,’ she said slowly.

Constantine stilled. ‘And what has that got to do with anything?’

‘I could come to Greece,’ she said carefully. ‘But not as your wife. A complete lifestyle change would unsettle Alex—but he could cope with the kind of situation he’s used to.’

‘You aren’t making any sense,’ he snapped.

‘Well, I … I presume that your father employs staff at his home in Greece?’

‘Of course he does.’

‘How many?’

‘I am not in the habit of keeping an inventory,’ he drawled. But her eyes continued to regard him steadily and he gave an impatient kind of sigh. ‘There is a permanent housekeeper who lives within the complex, and several people who come in from the village to help out.’

‘And do … do any of them have children?’

‘Not young children, no—but there are plenty of those in the village.’ He frowned. ‘What the hell does that have to do with anything?’

Laura let out a long breath. ‘I know exactly what we can do,’ she breathed. ‘You take me on for the summer as a temporary member of staff. I can work in your father’s house—’

‘Work in my father’s house?’ he roared in disbelief, staring at her as if she had taken complete leave of her senses. ‘Doing what?’

Laura lifted her chin up, determined not to be intimidated by the fierce blaze from his eyes. ‘The skills of which you’ve already been so very critical—I can clean and make beds. I can serve food. I can even cook—though not to any cordon bleu standard.’

Constantine stared into her face. ‘Such lowly and subservient pursuits!’ he bit out. ‘What kind of a woman would want this?’

A woman with pride, thought Laura ardently. And a woman with dignity—or rather one who was trying to claw back some of the poise which always seemed to fly out of the window whenever Constantine was around.

‘Meanwhile, Alex gets a few weeks in the sun,’ she carried on, her enthusiasm growing now. ‘If he plays with other children he can learn a little Greek, and they can learn English. It’ll do him good to have a holiday—and in that relaxed environment he can get to know you.’

There was an ominous kind of silence while Constantine mulled over her words—there was no doubt that he was surprised by the humbleness of her request. She wanted to come to his house as a servant! And yet maybe it would work out better this way—for wouldn’t it place strain on his father’s heart to suddenly produce a seven-year-old grandson out of nowhere? And wouldn’t she be more expendable as a servant than as a wife? Easier to dispose of afterwards, if her presence began to grate on him, without having to go through all the publicity and disruption of a divorce?

He stared at her, aware that her impudent idea was distracting him from the most important question of all. ‘And when do you propose telling Alex that I’m his father?’ he asked softly.

The eyes she turned to him were huge. ‘Can we … can we wait until the moment is right?’

He hardened his heart against the tremulous appeal in her voice. ‘I will not wait for ever, Laura,’ he warned.

‘No. No, I can understand that. We will tell him as soon as it’s appropriate. I promise. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Constantine.’ She flashed him a grateful smile, but the look he gave in response was like ice.

‘This is not a situation I am happy with,’ he bit out.

How hard the years had made him, she thought fleetingly. He was a completely different person from the ruffle-haired man who had sailed in and out of her life all those summers ago.

And what about her? Had she changed that much? Laura bit her lip. Quite honestly, that brief period of freedom and sexual awakening had been so unlike anything she had known since that she had almost completely forgotten it. Or maybe she had just blocked it from her mind. Maybe it was too painful to remember being carefree and unencumbered by worry.

She forced her mind back to practicalities. ‘The only problem I can think of is that I’m going to need a replacement to help my sister in the shop while I’m away—but I assume you’d be able to help me sort that out?’