Australia: Wicked Mistresses

by Robyn Grady

  Cleo followed the movement and wished she hadn’t. Did the woman not have a bulge anywhere? ‘You’re not well?’

  The woman gave a shrug and checked her hair. ‘We had a reception with lunch yesterday. Most likely just something that disagreed with me.’ She walked lithely to the water’s edge, descending the stairs into the pool’s liquid depths as regally as a Miss Universe contestant, where she breast-stroked two lengths of the pool without a splash, emerging from the water with her hair as sleek and perfect as when she’d gone in.

  ‘Ah, that’s wonderfully refreshing,’ she said as she lowered herself to the lounger. ‘And finding you here is even better. We haven’t had much of a chance to get to know one another, have we? Andreas selfishly keeps you all to himself.’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘I love your swimsuit,’ Petra said, patting herself dry with a towel. ‘Those colours are wonderful on you.’

  Cleo blinked. The words sounded sincere enough, and she wondered if she’d misjudged the woman. All she’d had to go by was one car trip from the airport and she’d been tired. Maybe she’d imagined the snippiness. ‘Thank you. Yours looks gorgeous too.’

  Petra smiled and nodded her thanks. ‘You’re Australian, aren’t you?’

  Cleo relaxed a little. At least here was a safe topic. ‘That’s right. From a little outback town called Kangaroo Crossing. It’s dry and dusty and nothing at all like here.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Australia. Tell me about it.’

  Cleo obliged. It was good to talk of home, of a place that was so much a different world from this one that it could have been on another planet, of a place of endless drought and struggling families and mobs of kangaroos jumping across paddocks of red dust. And the more she spoke of home, and the more the other woman smiled and laughed, the more she relaxed. It was good to talk to another woman. She’d missed that in London.

  ‘Now I simply must go and visit your homeland. But Andreas said you met in London. What were you doing so far from home?’

  Cleo shook her head. ‘You really don’t want to know. You’d think me a total fool if I told you.’

  ‘Oh, no, never.’ She reached one long-nailed hand over to Cleo’s and patted it. ‘It’s all right. You can tell me. I’ll understand I promise.’

  And then, because it had been so long since Cleo had been able to pour her heart out to anyone, it all came out in a rush, how she’d found Kurt through an Internet chat room and how he’d seduced her with his promises of romance and travel and how she’d fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. She didn’t tell her about his making love to her, of relieving her of her virginity and then casting her aside. She’d had no choice but to tell Andreas, but that part was nobody else’s business.

  ‘So you were stuck in London? You poor thing. But surely you had a return ticket?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’d only enough money for one way. I never thought I’d need to head home so soon. Except my nanna had lent me the return fare just before I boarded the bus to the city, just in case the worst happened. Only I didn’t have a bank account so Kurt said he’d look after it for me…’

  ‘And he took your money? What kind of man was he?’ She patted her arm again. ‘You are much better off without him and here in Santorini.’

  ‘I know.’ She took a deep breath. It felt surprisingly good to get that all off her chest. All the emotions and guilt and self-flagellation that had plagued her every day since he’d dumped her felt as if they were sloughing away, as if she’d confessed her sins and all would be right with the world.

  ‘And how fortunate for you to meet Andreas after all that had happened to you. You must feel very lucky.’

  ‘I do,’ Cleo agreed, sure Petra hadn’t meant that to sound as it had.

  ‘So how are you enjoying Santorini, then?’ she asked, changing tack. ‘This is your first time here?’

  Cleo relaxed again, certain she’d been reading too much into the other woman’s tone. Santorini was another topic she could easily and honestly enthuse about. ‘It’s so beautiful! You’re so lucky living here, being surrounded by all this—’ her arm swept around in an arc ‘—every day. The sights and atmosphere even the history is amazing.’

  ‘I’m so glad you’re enjoying it. We’re very proud of our island home. We want visitors to be happy here.’

  ‘I’m very happy. The sunsets are amazing.’

  ‘Honeymooners come here just to experience Santorini’s sunset. It’s supposed to be very romantic. What do you think?’

  Cleo suddenly felt too tied in knots to answer. It was romantic, or it would be, if you were here with the right person. But Andreas wasn’t the right person, was he? They’d just been forced together by circumstances and soon she would leave. Although the way he’d looked at her the other night on the terrace…‘I guess it could be, if you were here with the right person.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m making you uncomfortable.’

  ‘It’s okay. It’s not like I’m here for the romance exactly.’

  The other woman’s eyebrows arched approvingly. ‘No? Well, I guess in your place that’s the best way to think about it. Andreas has quite a reputation for moving on. And now I must get back to work. Thank you so much for talking with me. I feel like we’re going to be good friends while you’re here.’

  ‘Are you feeling any better?’ she asked as Petra retied the tiny skirt around her hips.

  ‘Oh, I’m feeling much better, thank you.’

  Cleo watched her slip on her gold sandals and wander away, wondering why it should be that she was suddenly feeling so much worse.

  ‘It’s just a lump, Andreas. There’s no need to go on about it.’ Sofia Xenides stiffened her spine and sat her slim body higher on the chaise longue, her ankles crossed demurely beneath her, her coffee balanced on her knees. Andreas knew the posture, recognised it as his mother closing the subject down again.

  To hell with that.

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘You were busy. In London apparently. And then with who knows what?’

  He bristled. ‘You could have called me on my cell phone.’

  ‘And told you what? That I had a lump? And what could you have done besides worry?’

  ‘I would have made you see a doctor.’

  ‘Which is exactly what I did do. And tomorrow I will get the results of the biopsy and we will know. There was no point worrying you unnecessarily before, but I am glad you will be with me tomorrow. And now we have more important things to discuss. When were you planning on telling me what exactly you were doing in London?’

  Andreas sighed. ‘You know, then?’

  ‘Petra tells me you found Darius. Is that true?’

  ‘I found him. He’d gambled the last of the money away, all he had left was a seedy hotel filled with mould and rising damp. He was ripe for a low-interest loan in order to fund his gambling habit.’

  ‘So you found him, and you exacted the revenge you have been looking for all these years. I imagine you ruined him in the process.’

  ‘It is no more than he did to us!’

  ‘Andreas,’ she sighed, ‘it is so long ago. Perhaps now you can put the past behind you?’

  ‘How can you say that? I will never put the past behind me. Don’t you remember what he did to us, what it was like back then? He destroyed Father and he walked away and left us with nothing. Nothing!’

  She shut her eyes, as if the mention of her late husband was still painful, but a breath later she was still firm. ‘And it has driven you all these years, my son. Now that you have achieved the goal you have aimed for all your life, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?’

  Andreas stared blankly out of the window and shrugged, the question unnerving him. Hadn’t he been feeling an unfamiliar lack of motivation lately, avoiding the office because suddenly it was all too uninspiring? Below the terrace lay the rolling expanse of Athens city, apartment blocks jostling with antiquiti
es in the sprawling city. No, he was just temporarily distracted with Cleo, that was all. Soon she would be gone and he would refocus on his work again. ‘I will go on with my business,’ he said, resolutely. ‘Already the Xenides name is synonymous with the most prestigious accommodation on offer across all of Europe. I will make it even bigger, even better.’

  She gave another sigh, except this one sounded less indulgent more impatient. ‘Maybe there is another goal you might pursue now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Perhaps it is time you thought about family.’

  ‘I have never neglected you!’ Even though he felt a stab of guilt that he’d never returned her call as he’d intended.

  ‘Did I say you had? But the time for looking backwards is past. It is time to look to the future, and to a family of your own.’

  He sighed. If this was about getting married again…And then something he’d never seen coming hit him like a brick. ‘You want grandchildren.’

  ‘I am a Greek mother.’ She shrugged. ‘Of course, I want grandchildren. Maybe now you have satisfied this lifelong quest for vengeance, you might find the time to provide me with some, while I can still appreciate them.’

  ‘Mother—’

  She held up one hand to silence him. ‘I am not being melodramatic It is not just that I have had this scare and I must face the prospect of the results not going the way I would prefer, but you are not getting any younger, Andreas, and neither am I. I do not want to be too old or too sick to appreciate my grandchildren when they eventually come.’

  ‘Stop talking this way! I’m not about to let you die.’

  ‘I have no intention of dying! At least not before you bestow upon me the grandchildren I crave. I am not blind.You have quite a reputation with the women, I believe. After all this experience, do you not know what kind of woman would suit you for a wife?’

  It was ridiculous to feel like blushing at something his mother said, and he wouldn’t, but still her veiled reference to his many lovers made him so uncomfortable he couldn’t bring himself to answer. Besides, could he in all honesty answer? The women he had through his bed had one resounding attribute, but it hardly made them wife material.

  ‘Petra said you have a woman staying with you.’

  He almost growled. Petra had always been like family, they’d practically grown up together, but there were times he resented the closeness and the fact Petra knew his mother so well. This was one of those times.

  ‘It’s none of Petra’s business. Or yours, for that matter.’

  ‘Tsh, tsh. Who else can ask if I can’t? Petra said she’s an Australian woman. Quite pretty, in her own way.’

  She was more than pretty, he wanted to argue, until another thought blew all thoughts of argument out of the water.

  And she could be pregnant.

  They’d had unprotected sex. Twice. Right now she could be carrying his seed.

  A baby. His mother could have the grandchild she yearned for. And as for him? He would have Cleo.

  Strange, how that thought didn’t send his blood into a tailspin.

  But marriage? Was that what he wanted? He took a deep breath. But his mother would expect it, and, besides, there was no way he could not marry the mother of his child. Especially not now.

  Granted, they’d shared but a few short days, less than two weeks, but those days had been good. The nights even better. Surely there could be worse outcomes?

  ‘Petra said—’

  He snapped away from possibilities and turned back to the present. ‘Petra talks too much!’

  ‘Andreas, she only wants the best for you, just as I do. In fact, I once wondered if—’

  It was like a bad soap opera. Or a train wreck where you couldn’t look away. He had to keep going till the bitter end. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, you and Petra have lived together for a long time now.’

  ‘We share a building, not a bed!’ And the mood his mother was in, he wasn’t about to confess that they had. Once.

  ‘And,’ she continued, without missing a beat, ‘you have so much in common.’

  ‘She works for me. Of course, we have a lot in common.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Sofia said with a resigned shrug of her shoulders before she turned her attention to pick at an invisible speck of nothingness alongside her on the sofa, ‘sometimes we don’t realise what’s right there in front of us, right under our noses. Not until it’s gone.’

  His teeth ground together. ‘I’m not marrying Petra.’

  She smiled up at him, blinking innocently as if his outburst had come from nowhere. ‘Whoever said you would? I just wondered, that’s all. And there’s nothing wrong with a mother wondering, is there, Andreas? Much better to consider the options than to let the grass grow beneath your feet.’

  The grass was feeling comfortable enough where he was standing right now. Or it had been, until his mother had laced its green depths with barbs that tore at the soles of his feet and pricked at his conscience.

  ‘About this appointment tomorrow to see your doctor…’

  ‘I get the point, Andreas. But enough about doctors too. Would you like some more coffee?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CLEO was in the pool resting her elbows on the edge, one of her glossy history books perched in front of her. Hungrily Andreas’ eyes devoured her, from the streaked hair bundled up in a clip behind her head, her bare shoulders and back, and her legs making lazy movements in the water. She looked browner than he remembered, her skin more golden. Clearly the weather here suited her better than that dingy hotel in London where her skin was never so much as kissed by the sun.

  And an idea, vague and fuzzy inside him, found dimension and merit. She could be pregnant with his child, even now. And even though the news for his mother had been good, the tests had come back negative, that still didn’t change the fact that his mother yearned for grandchildren.

  Sofia was right. She wasn’t getting any younger, although he’d never thought of his mother as a number with a finite span. And he’d never thought of his own age and the possibilities of family. Because he’d thought of nothing beyond the one thing that had driven his life for more than a decade.

  Retribution.

  And now he’d achieved it all, he’d built himself up from nothing until he could exact the revenge he’d been planning for twelve long years, and yet somehow he didn’t get the same buzz from the achievement any more. He didn’t even care any more if Constantine turned his proposal down flat, and that had never happened before. But the prospect that the grandchild his mother hungered for could already be in the making caused a new and unfamiliar buzz.

  Fate? He shook his head. You made your own opportunities in this life, he knew. He’d lived by that mantra for years. He believed in it. It had been what had kept him focused, until he’d found Darius and pulled what was left of him down.

  He’d made this opportunity. And like any other, he’d make the most of it.

  He padded noiselessly to the side of the pool. He doubted she would hear him anyway, even if he had made a noise. The books she’d bought on Santorini and its ancient civilisations seemed to have her completely in their thrall. Maybe it wasn’t just talk, maybe she really was interested in more than a superficial picture of the island. Or maybe she was just killing time until his return.

  Option B, he much preferred.

  She turned a page, the angle of her head shifting, still totally oblivious to his presence.

  She wouldn’t be for long.

  He dived into the water and crossed the pool, taking her by the waist as he erupted like a sea god from the water.

  ‘Hey!’ She turned, her fright turning to delight when she saw who her assailant was. ‘Oh, you’re back.’

  Her legs were cool where they tangled with his, her shoulders deliciously warm from the sun and her lips so slick with gloss he wanted to find out if they were as slippery as they looked. ‘Did you miss me?’ he asked, his hands caressing curves they had sorely
missed.

  ‘Not really,’ she lied, unable to keep the smile from her face or the tingling from her skin. ‘I was kind of busy here, catching up on my reading. You know how it is.’

  ‘Liar!’ he said. ‘Believe me, I know how it is—’ before pulling her into a deep kiss that had them both spinning together into the depths. They came up gasping but Andreas wasn’t finished with her yet. Already he’d untied her bikini top, one hand at her breasts while the other pushed at her bikini bottoms.

  ‘Andreas…’

  ‘Do you realise how long I’ve dreamed about having you in water?’

  ‘Andreas…’She clung to him. She had no option but to cling as he brought her flesh alive and made her blood sing. His hands pushed inside her bikini, rounded her buttocks and delved deeper.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he growled, burying his face at her throat, his words so heavy with want it made her head spin. ‘And I want you, so badly.’

  ‘I…I got my period.’

  He lifted his head slowly and gazed at her, his vision blurred by a rush of blood. Bad blood. ‘I see.’

  ‘But that’s good news, isn’t it? I thought you’d be pleased. Now there are no complications. That’s what you wanted.’

  He let her go and turned towards the edge of the pool, powering himself up with his hands to step from the pool like an athlete. He pulled a towel from a nearby stack and buried his face in it. ‘Yes, it’s good news. Of course.’ Only it didn’t feel like good news. It felt as though all the shifts he’d made, all the changes he’d made in his thinking were for nothing, and he was left stranded. He didn’t like the feeling.

  He could have done with the odd complication. It would have suited his purposes well.

  So much for making opportunity happen.

  Petra brought them both coffee as he checked his files the next day. Or she brought him one. Her nose twitched as she deposited the cup on his desk. ‘You’re not having one?’ he queried, surprised she wasn’t joining in with this long-time ritual.