Mistress on Demand

by Maggie Cox

  ‘Have you forgotten about our arrangement? Surely I deserve more consideration than that? Or will your job always take precedence over the needs of our relationship?’

  Hurt that he could believe she would be so intransigent, Sophie frowned. ‘As part of a couple, of course I would always strive to compromise when things like this come up. Unfortunately the Easter celebrations are pretty much set in stone, Dominic. Performing in the play means a lot to the children. They’ve been rehearsing for weeks, and as their teacher I’m the only one who knows what’s to be done. I couldn’t possibly take time off during such a crucial time.’

  Shehated the fact that he was going away again when he had only just returned, but she was wary about expressing her true feelings when Dominic seemed to be setting the standard for the way their relationship would progress. He wasn’t interested in her love. He desired her, and he wanted her to be with him because he was used to getting whatever he wantedwhen he wanted it, but so far he had not expressed any spirit of compromise whatsoever. The more she realised it, the more Sophie sensed their union could bring nothing but disaster for them both.

  Her chest felt as if it had a huge rock inside it as Dominic’s frosty gaze swept over her.

  ‘So you won’t come with me to Geneva?’

  ‘I told you—I can’t!’

  ‘Then so be it. But when I return you and I are going to have to have a very serious talk.’

  Did he mean that he was going to call off their plans? That he never wanted to see her again?Sophie knew she couldn’t wait for however long Dominic was away in Geneva to hear the truth. The waiting and the nervous expectation of hearing the worst would likelykill her.

  ‘Why don’t we have that talk right now, rather than wait until you get back from Geneva?’ Clutching her leather handbag stiffly between her fingers, Sophie stood her ground, feeling as if a chill factor of below zero had just swept in from the Arctic.

  Used to calling the shots, Dominic would not be moved. Even though he’d witnessed the treacherous wobble of her vulnerable bottom lip as she stood facing him, clearly expecting the worst. It hit him then that she must imagine he was going to suggest they part. The fact that Dominic intended no such thing, but merely wanted to lay down some important ground rules for their future relationship, caused relief and adrenaline suddenly to flood through his system. But it surely wouldn’t hurt to play her along a little bit? It might after all make her think twice about putting the demands of her job over their relationship.

  ‘No. We will wait until I return. Now, are you going to stay for dinner or not?’

  Walking to the door, her head held determinedly high even though her heart was breaking, Sophie turned briefly to regard Dominic as he stood by the fireplace, beside that ominous lone birthday card that resided on the mantel.

  ‘I’m not. Have a safe trip, won’t you?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT ATEat Sophie’s soul that Dominic would be spending his birthday eating dinner alone. There he was, a man with more advantages and material assets than most people could dream of, and yet tonight he was all on his own in that big glamorous house in Mayfair, with just one abstemious birthday card from his parents on the mantel.

  Did his friends not think Dominic’s birthday was worth celebrating? Or perhaps he didn’ttell them when his birthday was?

  ‘It’s not so big a deal,’he had explained, almost disdainfully.But what if he hadn’t meant that at all? Sophie considered thoughtfully. What if secretly he wouldenjoy being made a fuss of on his birthday? If his parents were so reserved with their good wishes, perhaps he’d grown up taking their lead, and believing that birthdays weren’t a big deal? But that didn’t stop him from minding that they weren’t celebrated.

  Sophie’s thoughts feverishly ran on. And if people around him perceived him as the man who had everything, how would they believe that heneeded anything? Like simple good wishes and fun on his birthday? It was Sophie’s opinion that when she’d left him Dominic had not looked like a man who had everything at all. She’d been left with the impression of something quite different.

  The ridiculous feeling that she’d somehow abandoned him on his birthday wouldn’t leave her alone for the rest of the evening. Finally, unable to bear her incessant fretting, Sophie ran herself a hot bath to distract herself. But as she lay back in the fragrant lapping water, trying hard to will the tensions of the day away, an even more worrying thought wormed its way into her thinking.

  What if Dominic hadn’t stayed alone when she’d left? What if he’d rung someglamorous female friend of his who was more than willing to come over and keep him company? Diana had more or less intimated that he was inundated by phone calls from women throughout any one week. What did that signify? That he could take his pick of women whenever he wanted? Surely they couldn’t all just be ‘friends’? Sophie groaned out loud in dismay. Unable to enjoy even the apparently uncomplicated simple pleasure of a long hot soak, she got out of the bath and with a heavy heart dried herself, then dressed in her night things and deliberately went to bed.

  Returning the telephone receiver to its rest, Dominic rubbed ruefully at his throbbing ear. Having just spent the entire morning on a call to Geneva, trying to circumvent the need to fly out there at least for the next few days, he had achieved his object with not a small amount of difficulty.

  The decision to postpone his trip had been reached last night, after barely doing justice to the beautiful dinner Maria had cooked for him.A dinner he’d hoped to share with Sophie. After he’d eaten Dominic had spent the rest of the evening in morose contemplation, finally picking up the birthday card he’d received from his parents, tearing it up and throwing the pieces in the bin.

  He’d wanted to go round to Sophie’s place there and then, to tell her that he’d rather spend the evening of his birthday with her than anybody else and apologise for being such a boor. But stubborn pride had stopped him. He wasn’t used to admitting he might have been at fault, and he certainly wasn’t used to apologising. And his antipathy to publicly owning to either of those two traits was so strong that he’d made himself spend the entire evening wallowing in misery rather than doing what his heart really desired.

  However,today was a different matter. Having postponed the need to go to Geneva, Dominic vowed to do something about this intended agreement of theirs—and do itnow . He picked up the telephone receiver once more and dialled out.

  On playground duty, Sophie did up another button on her coat and crossed her arms in front of her chest to keep warm. The day—though bright—was particularly cold, and she envied the children tearing around—having fun, keeping warm, and paying no mind to the inclement temperature as only children could.

  ‘Please, Miss…That man over there is waving to you.’

  ‘Ashley!’ Smiling down at the pretty five-year-old with her blonde curls, Sophie strained to hear the soft, sweet voice. ‘What did you say?’

  Crouching down to give her full attention to the child, she felt her heart start to beat wildly when she saw the little girl point to Dominic, standing outside the gates of the playground gazing in at her. The collar of his mackintosh was turned up, and his expression was hard to detect at the distance that separated them.

  She couldn’t believe he’d turned up at the school.Wasn’t he supposed to be flying out to Geneva today? Fearful of what had brought him, and wondering what he was going to say, Sophie thanked the child and made her way towards him, self-consciously trying to pat down her wind-blown hair as she approached.

  ‘Dominic! What are you doing here? I thought you were going to Geneva?’

  ‘I postponed my trip. I rang the school office to speak to you, and they told me you were on playground duty. I wanted to meet you after school. I thought we could go and have coffee somewhere and talk?’

  Even though they’d parted on uneasy terms, and she was still feeling sore, Sophie couldn’t think of a single excuse to deny him just then. In truth, she was too happy th
at hehadn’t left on his trip.

  ‘Okay,’ she agreed. ‘School finishes in about an hour. I’ll see you then.’

  ‘Good.’

  With an unexpected smile he briefly inclined his head, glancing over her shoulder at the children playing. ‘Looks like you’ve got your hands full,’ he commented wryly.

  Something about that smile—the wary, almost cautious nature of it—as if he fully expected his conversational stance to be rebuffed—tore at Sophie’s heart and caused her own enforced wariness to relent. Her lips parted in one of her brightest, sunniest grins.

  ‘You don’t know the half of it! But at least they’re keeping warm tearing around, while I’m standing out here doing a good impression of an icicle!’

  ‘I’ll have to think of something to warm you up when I see you, in that case.’ Dominic’s emerald eyes briefly darkened, with palpable need and a flare of heat inside Sophie suddenly chased away the cold and made her tremble with longing.

  ‘I’d better go. I daren’t take my eyes off of this lot for a second!’ She started to withdraw.

  ‘After school then…Bye.’

  He turned and walked away. Sophie watched him as he quickened his pace to cross the road: a tall, impressive figure with a bright crown of golden hair that would catch the eye of even the most short-sighted woman in the world and make her heart beat faster at the mere sight of him.

  Louis opened the door of the Rolls and was ready at the kerbside waiting to help Sophie as she stepped out, closely followed by Dominic. Curious, she glanced around the busy London thoroughfare with its impressive array of up-market shops—mostly selling the kind of expensive items that she couldn’t dream of buying on a teacher’s pay—and wondered where Dominic was going to take her for coffee.

  When he lightly touched the small of her back to direct her towards a nearby jeweller’s, Sophie’s shock was palpable. Especially when she read the inscription ‘Jewellers to Her Majesty the Queen’.

  Deliberately slowing on the pavement beside him, Sophie knew her blue eyes were clearly troubled as she commanded his attention. ‘Where are you taking me, Dominic? I thought you said we were going somewhere for coffee?’

  ‘I want to buy you some jewellery, Sophie—something to seal our agreement. Is that all right with you? I have made an appointment and we are expected.’

  Sophie had truly believed that he was going to call the whole thing off, and instead he was professing to buy her yet another expensive gift—to ‘seal’ their agreement. She seriously needed a few moments to acclimatise herself to the idea. Last night Dominic had been morose and withdrawn, and what else should she have thought other than that he wanted to rescind his proposition? Indeed, Sophie had been mentally gearing herself up to hear him say the words that would no doubt herald the worst misery she had ever experienced.

  But now, as she glanced at his usually guarded expression, she saw an intention blazing in his arresting gaze that couldn’t help but make her hopes soar. ‘After last night…I thought you might be having reservations about me coming to live with you,’ she confessed, her eyes sliding away from his.

  Because he had experienced the same doubt about Sophie’s feelings towards him, Dominic experienced a strong upsurge of fierce satisfaction that she was still willing to go through with their agreement.Especially when he had behaved like such a jerk towards her last night. If shehad changed her mind about their living together he would not have known what to do, he realised. For once in his life he would have been at a complete loss.

  When he’d seen her in the playground of the school this afternoon, with the children running around her and her lovely face never wavering far from a smile, something hard inside him had melted. Like a large chunk of ice succumbing to spring sunshine. For a long moment the feeling had left him breathless. That unfamiliarwarmth inside of him when he gazed at Sophie had illustrated with impact that her rejection would have been untenable. It would have seriously pained Dominic to let her go.

  He hadnever felt such an attachment to anyone before—including his parents. It made him even more determined to have her by his side and introduce her to the privileged world he inhabited. No matter how cynical or shocked by his choice of lover his friends or family might be when they heard the news.

  ‘We had an agreement, yes? I have no intention of reneging on it. It is what Iwant .’

  It was not the answer that Sophie’s heart ached for. Admirable though it undoubtedly was that Dominic was a man of integrity and honour, they werenot the qualities she needed him to demonstrate right then. When he urged her onwards to their destination Sophie held back, hurt and doubt clouding her beautiful blue eyes as she continued to study him.

  ‘Wait a minute, Dominic. We shouldn’t just rush into this. More important than you buying me another gift is the fact that we need to talk aboutus .’

  Surprise flitted across his handsome face. ‘How much talking do we need to do, Sophie? We both know what we feel towards each other, don’t we? I want you to move in with me, and the sooner we organise that the better.’

  ‘That’s what I mean, Dominic! You’re making a lot of assumptions without even consulting me! It’s just not practical for me to live in Mayfair—don’t you realise that? Where I live right now, my school is only a bus ride away. It would take me twice as long to get there every day from your house!’

  ‘Why are you worrying about bus rides? You can easily drive to school from where I live.’

  It had seriously started to alarm Dominic that Sophie would eventhink of remaining in her own small house when they had already made what he considered to be a firm agreement that she would move in with him. She simply seemed set on creating difficulties where as far as he could see thereweren’t any.

  ‘I can’t drive anywhere Dominic…I don’t have a car! And, besides that, the West End traffic is too horrendous to make that feasible even if Idid have one.’

  ‘You’re deliberately making a problem where there isn’t one!’ he concluded impatiently, drawing her away to the relative shelter of a shopfront awning, out of the jostling of hurrying passers-by. ‘I’ll happily buy you a car of your choice. And if you choose not to drive yourself to work I’ll get Louis to drive you.’

  Dominic didn’t reveal to Sophie that he fully intended for her eventually to give up working as a teacher…quitesoon after she moved in with him in, fact. So the thorny issue about how she would get there every day would no longer be a problem. He had months of business travel ahead, and he wanted Sophie with him. He had no intention of enjoying a relationship with her only to leave her behind when he went to work. Not when he wanted to experience more of this bewitching warmth he was feeling around her.

  Sophie just about stopped herself from laughing out loud. The very idea that she would be dropped off each day at the school where she worked by Louis, driving the Rolls, was so ludicrous that it was like some unbelievable scenario in a comedy programme! But, staring dumbfounded into Dominic’s completely serious face, she realised that the anomaly had not even struck him. Hewas just as she’d suspected that first day they had met, when she’d been splashed by that muddy puddle and Louis had pulled over. Protected by vast wealth and a lifestyle so far removed from the everyday concerns of most folk, he had noidea of the problems such a showy display of wealth might bring.

  She would have happily been able to overlook the odd eccentricity on his part if he had loved her. But no amount of wishing and hoping would persuade Sophie now that there was even a possibility of such an event. Dominic wanted what he wanted, and right now, for some inexplicable reason, he wanted Sophie.

  She had to ask herself would she be happy just being another acquisition for him, like some of those beautiful objets d’art in his walnut cabinets?She knew the answer straight away. Women like Diana might be open to entertaining such a situation, in return for experiencing wealth beyond their wildest dreams, but Sophiewasn’t .

  ‘Dominic, I really don’t want to think about buying jew
ellery right now. Can you ask Louis to just drop me home…please? If that’s not possible, I’ll catch the tube.’

  Sensing her determined withdrawal, Dominic felt shock and fury lace his gut in an angry cocktail. ‘I cannot believe you are doing this! We had an agreement!’

  A little vein in his forehead throbbed, and a wave of sadness rolled over Sophie at the realisation that he was probably just disappointed by not having his wishes fulfilled. If he had told her he needed her—or cared for her, even—she might have relented to this ‘six-month’ arrangement he’d been proposing. She might even have allowed herself to believe that Dominicmight grow to love her eventually, and that they could make their union a happy and long-lasting one. But all she saw on his beguiling, handsome face right then was the petulant displeasure of a man who was not accustomed to being thwarted in any way.

  ‘Some agreementsmust be open to renegotiation, Dominic. And this is one of them. You and I are too different to have a hope of making a relationship work. I think you really know that in your heart. You seem to see a relationship as something purely pragmatic, to fulfil a need, and I don’t. As much as I’ve been hurt in the past, I don’t want to give up on the idea of falling in love and spending the rest of my days with that person…rich orpoor . I’m sure you’ll think that’s very naïve of me, and you’re entitled to your opinion, but that’s whatI want. From what Diana has intimated you won’t be without female company for long. Don’t worry about giving me a lift. I’d rather catch the tube.’