Australia: Wicked Mistresses

by Robyn Grady

  It seemed to take for ever but it was probably only fifteen minutes and Andreas was back. She stood to greet him. ‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked, collecting her inside his arm.

  ‘Better, thanks. What happened to Kurt?’

  ‘I’ll tell you once we’re alone.’ And she understood why. There was a crowd gathered around the store now, sensing the excitement, wanting to find out what was happening and be part of the action, a crowd that seemed suddenly fascinated in blue-beaded key rings and postcards and bookmarks featuring church domes and cats.

  She turned to the beaming proprietor, who was busy exchanging Euros for trinkets, but not too busy to be able to do two things at once. ‘Efharisto poli,’ she said, in her slowly improving Greek, repeating it in English in case she’d made a complete hash of the words. ‘Thank you, so much,’ and the woman beamed and nodded and replied with a torrent of words Cleo was at a loss to understand. ‘What did she say?’ she asked as soon as they’d re-entered the busy street and he’d steered her towards the mansion.

  Andreas didn’t look at her, his gaze fixed somewhere ahead, his jaw tight. ‘She said we would have beautiful children.’

  ‘Oh. How…quaint.’

  Andreas didn’t answer. He was too busy wanting to believe it.

  ‘I believe this is yours.’ Staff had brought coffee and pastries to a table on the mansion terrace overlooking the caldera that Cleo knew should be listed as one of the wonders of the world, when Andreas handed her the envelope.

  She eyed it suspiciously. ‘What is it?’

  He pressed the envelope into her hands. ‘Take a look.’

  She opened the flap and peered inside. A stack of notes sat plump and fat inside. She frowned. ‘What is this?’

  ‘I had a chat to your former friend.’

  ‘You mean Kurt? You’re kidding! You got Nanna’s money back. I don’t believe it!’

  ‘It seemed he was only too happy to refund you the money he’d borrowed from you in order to escape a charge of shop lifting, plus a bonus for the inconvenience he caused you along the way.’

  ‘Shoplifting?’

  ‘The sunglasses. His girlfriend didn’t have time to put them back on the rack. It ended up being a handy levering device. It seems he didn’t want to hang around on Santorini and explain it to the police when his cruise ship was sailing tonight.’

  It really didn’t matter how or why, it didn’t matter that soon Cleo would have more than enough money to repay her many times over, the simple fact was it was her grandmother’s money she was getting back, the money she had entrusted to Kurt and haplessly thrown away in the same instant. And getting it back was as if she hadn’t lost it at all. ‘Thank you,’ she said, throwing her arms around his neck. ‘I love you so much.’

  It wasn’t so much hearing her own words. It was feeling his hands still at her sides that alerted her. She slid down his body, appalled at the gaffe she’d just made. ‘That’s just a figure of speech in Australia. A kind of thank you. Because I really appreciate what you’ve done.’

  ‘I understand,’ he said, but still putting her away from him as he was suddenly craving distance. ‘I need to drop by the office, check everything is all right, given Petra is sick. Will you be okay?’

  She nodded stoically, thinking that if Andreas had wanted her to stay longer before, he’d no doubt now want her gone tomorrow. ‘Of course. I’ll see you later.’

  And then Andreas was gone and Cleo was left alone, in the sun and breeze and clear blue sky. There were clouds gathering in the distance, she noted absently, thinking that maybe they were in for a storm, while at the same time wishing that one day she would learn not to be so impetuous and admit things she didn’t really feel.

  Because she hadn’t really loved Kurt. She could see that now. She was in love with the idea of being in love and being loved and she’d wanted it to work. So desperately that she’d thought that once they’d had sex, she should tell him that she loved him.

  And she didn’t really love Andreas either. Not really. He was just kind and she was just grateful and it was crazy to think, that just because he had behaved better to her than Kurt, this gratefulness she felt for him was somehow love.

  Liar.

  An inner voice brought her to task. She didn’t want to stay because she knew what would happen. Not that she was at risk of falling in love with him, but because she would be at risk of loving him more.

  Because she already loved him.

  The wind whipped stronger around her, the cruise ships below straining at their chains. Kurt was down there, she realised, on board one of those ships and soon to sail once more out of her life.

  But Kurt was nothing to her now. As Andreas had said, that first night they’d made love—had sex—Kurt had given her nothing.

  It was Andreas who had given her everything. It was Andreas who had opened her heart.

  It was Andreas she loved.

  Andreas reread the fax with increasing frustration. There was a problem with the paperwork on the takeover of Darius’ hotel. The bank needed more signatures. His. Or the papers could not be processed and the transaction could not proceed and Darius would retain ownership by default.

  He would have to go to London.

  It would take no time. A day. Two at the most. Cleo could come with him.

  ‘I love you so much.’

  Her words came back to him in stark relief. Sure, she’d tried to explain it away, to get him to accept it was some kind of Australian equivalent for thank you. But he wasn’t buying that.

  There was no way he could take her. As much as he wanted her and hungered for her, as much as he’d wished she’d been already incubating his child—maybe it was better that she didn’t come with him.

  Maybe, he thought with a tinge of reluctance, maybe it was even better that he sent her home early. He’d never wanted to get involved with virgins and with good reason.

  Cleo had been the closest he’d got to having a virgin and maybe this experience had proven him right. Virgins and almost virgins. They were looking for someone to love, looking for someone special to make this huge physical leap they were taking into something emotional. Even if there was nothing there.

  Except that his mother wanted a grandchild.

  Cleo would be beautiful pregnant, her body rounded and blooming, her belly swelling with his seed, but she didn’t want to stay and now he wasn’t sure she should.

  Maybe his trip away would do them both good, and put things into perspective, a perspective he was admittedly having trouble with himself. And then it would all make sense when he came back.

  The idea appealed. Logic appealed.

  Although, strangely, leaving her again didn’t.

  She’d blown it. Whatever sense of camaraderie had been building between them, she’d blown it with a few thoughtless and ill-timed words. He’d told her he was leaving in one breath and he was gone in the next, with barely a backward glance and even less warmth. She hadn’t even rated a peck on the cheek.

  It hurt, his physical withdrawal from her. It hurt more than the fact he would be gone for a day or two, because eventually he would return to Santorini, but things would be different between them.

  At least it would be easier for her now to leave. Now there was no way he would want her to stay.

  Restless and unable to settle into her books, she wandered into the town, to a small travel agent she’d seen tucked away alongside a heaving souvlaki shop. There was no reason why she shouldn’t make enquiries about flights to Australia, the two weeks she had left would soon pass, but still she felt guilty, as if she were going behind Andreas’ back. Which was ridiculous, she told herself as she forced herself to enter the narrow shopfront It was not as if he didn’t know she was going to leave. Not as if he didn’t know when. What harm would it do to ask?

  Then she saw it on the cover of one of the faded and tatty brochures that lined the walls, a picture of Ayers Rock amid a sea of red dust, and a wave of homesick
ness crashed over her. That was her world, a dusty, hot land where it never seemed to rain. That was where she belonged, not this island paradise, with its to-die-for-views and romantic sunsets and a man who would never really be hers.

  A little over two weeks and she could be home.

  Maybe it would be wise to make a booking now.

  She found Petra in their suite, rifling through the drawers on Andreas’ side of the bed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Ha!’ the woman said, clearly not feeling guilty in the least as she turned, holding up a fistful of papers. ‘There was nothing in the office but I knew I’d find it here.’

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, while fear uncurled in her stomach like a viper, hungry and hissing. ‘What have you got?’ But Cleo knew what it was. Andreas’ copy of the contract. Their contract. And she remembered being out on the terrace and discussing an extension and them turning to see Petra watching them. Listening. She swallowed as the woman’s greedy eyes drank in the details. ‘That’s none of your business.’ She marched across the room and tried to snatch it from Petra’s hands, but Petra whipped it away, staring at Cleo with such a look of triumph that Cleo was momentarily afraid.

  ‘One million dollars! He’s paying you one million dollars to sleep with him?’

  ‘No, he’s not! Give that back!’

  ‘What does that make you? Some kind of high-priced whore?’ Her eyes raked her as effectively as a blast of burning-hot Kangaroo Crossing dust. ‘More like an overpriced one.’

  ‘It’s not like that. I didn’t have to sleep with him.’

  ‘No? But you are, aren’t you? I’ve seen the way you look at him. I know what you’re doing. How is that not selling yourself? How is that not whoring?’

  ‘Get out! It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Isn’t it? I wondered where Andreas had dredged you up from, acting more like some frightened schoolgirl than one of his women. I knew something was up the minute you stepped from the plane. It was all a charade, all for my benefit.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Why should it be for your benefit?’

  ‘Because Andreas was my lover, until you showed up!’

  Cleo reeled, feeling blind-sided. ‘What?’

  ‘And he didn’t know how to tell me it was over. So he employed you—’ she gave a theatrical toss of her head ‘—to be his whore.’

  ‘Andreas wouldn’t do that.’ But even as she put voice to the words, the doubts she’d had from the start doubled and redoubled in her mind. Why had he needed someone to act as his mistress? To deflect gold-diggers generally, or one woman in particular? She couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.

  ‘But why couldn’t he just tell you? Why go to so much trouble?’

  ‘To totally humiliate me, why else?’

  The other woman glared at her, as if she belonged here in this place and Cleo didn’t, and a wave of revulsion rolled over her. Had Petra occupied this bed in this room before her arrival? Had Petra spent the nights lacing her long legs around Andreas’ back as he drove himself deep into her? She closed her eyes, trying to block the pictures out.

  No wonder the woman didn’t like her. She’d been right from the start: Petra’s edgy friendship had been laced with hidden meaning and snide digs.

  But whatever his tactics and however repugnant they might be, Andreas had clearly made up his mind. It gave Cleo a much-needed foothold in the argument. ‘So Andreas didn’t want you, then.’ It was her turn to smile. ‘And you just can’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘You bitch! Do you really think he wants you, a woman who is so stupid she falls for someone over the Internet and loses everything? Do you really think he would prefer your type than someone who can talk business with him and understands his needs?’

  Even while Cleo berated herself for revealing so much to this woman—too much—she was so grateful she hadn’t revealed absolutely everything. And at least she had the advantage of knowing Andreas wanted her, at least for now. ‘Clearly,’ she countered, ‘you ceased being one of his needs some time ago! Did you overhear while you were eavesdropping on the terrace that he’d asked me to stay longer? Tell me then, who is it he needs—you, who are so loyal to your boss that you skulk around in his bedroom looking for dirt, or me, who he would happily part with another million dollars to have stay?’

  And Petra pulled out her trump card. She collapsed on the bed and burst into tears, the contract slipping from her fingers onto the coverlet. Cleo reached down and snatched it up, although the damage had already been done, the cat well and truly let out of the bag. But as for what to do next? Comfort the hysterical woman after the things she’d said and the names she’d called her? Not likely.

  ‘Do you want me to call a doctor?’

  Petra sniffed and shook her head, for once her perfect hair unravelling at her nape like the woman herself. ‘There’s no point. I know what’s wrong with me.’ She snatched a tissue from the holder on the bedside table and blew her nose.

  Maybe she really was heartbroken, thought Cleo. Maybe she’d really loved Andreas and thought he’d loved her back and she couldn’t bear the thought of someone else having him.

  ‘I guess it wasn’t easy seeing me here.’ She wasn’t hoping for conciliation. She still hadn’t sorted out how she felt about being used by Andreas to ward off his previous lover.

  Petra responded with a snort. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘It’s always hard when the person we want doesn’t want us.’ Hell, she’d been there herself. ‘But sometimes it’s for the best. Sometimes they’re not the right choice for us after all.’

  The woman looked sideways at her, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. ‘So now you’re giving me advice. How sweet. Perhaps you might give me advice on another matter?’

  Okay, so she probably wasn’t the best person to be comforting this particular woman. But at least she was trying. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Do you think I should have an abortion?’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  LIGHTS swam behind her eyes, blood crashed in her ears and Cleo felt the urge to run. Run as fast and as far as she could. Run till her lungs burst and her legs collapsed under her. Run till she hurt so much she couldn’t feel any more pain.

  ‘You’re pregnant, then.’ It all made sense, Petra’s morning queasiness by the pool, her dizziness this morning and her mood swings and tears.

  ‘How clever you are. And have you similarly worked out whose child it would be?’

  And Cleo’s fantasy world crashed down around her. Andreas’ child. His baby.

  ‘It’s not a crime to trust someone.’

  Maybe not. But it should have been a crime to make the same mistake, over and over and over, like a broken record. The bright side, Nanna, where’s the bright side?

  You have a booking to go home in two weeks, a voice in her head told her. Change it.

  And Cleo knew that was what she had to do. She had to leave, and now, while Andreas was away. Staying was pointless She didn’t want anything to do with him any more, a man who could treat women as he had, pitting one against the other like queens battling it out on some chessboard.

  Besides, there was Petra to consider, and a baby.Andreas’baby.

  She put a hand to her own stomach. For a few days there, the possibility had existed that it could have been hers. That she too could have been pregnant.

  Thank God it had never happened! What a mess that would have been.

  ‘He doesn’t know, then?’

  ‘Not yet. I only just found out myself.’

  ‘I think you should tell him as soon as he comes back. I’m sure…I’m sure he’ll do the right thing.’

  Petra nodded, still looking at the floor. ‘I know he will. His mother desperately wants grandchildren. At least she will be delighted.’

  Oh, God. More words she didn’t need to hear. More words that rocked the foundations of her soul. Andreas had forgotten to use protection with her that time. S
urely not intentionally? And yet he’d seemed almost annoyed when he’d learned she wasn’t pregnant. He’d offered her more money to stay—to give him more time to get her pregnant? It didn’t bear thinking about. She didn’t want to know the answer.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ Cleo told the woman still hunched and bowed on the bed. ‘I’ll pack my things and be gone this afternoon.’ It was still early in the day. She was sure she could get some kind of link to Athens, be it by plane or ferry. She’d get out now, before Andreas returned and threw her out because there was no point continuing with their charade. She’d get out now while she still held some shred of pride intact.

  Petra sighed and sent her a watery smile. ‘That’s probably for the best.’

  Halfway to London, Andreas was growing restless, still searching for the answer to a question that had been plaguing him for hours. Why had she told him she’d loved him? Why would she do that?

  She’d turned down a million-dollar offer to stay. Turned him down flat, talking about returning home as if she couldn’t wait to be out of there.

  And then he’d given her an envelope full of Kurt’s money and she’d told him that she loved him. It made no sense, no sense at all.

  He toyed with the plate of dips and antipasto, took a sip of his cold Mythos beer and watched the landscape beneath his window slowly roll by. What did she want by saying such a thing?

  He sighed and pushed back into his seat, smiling about how excited she’d been when she’d told him what she’d learned about the legend of Atlantis. Why did she want to go home so badly to study when all she wanted was all around her here? She couldn’t study in a more perfect place. No, she had to stay, there was no question.

  But she wouldn’t take his money. What else could he offer?

  Family.

  The idea was so simple! If she were part of his family she would stay. And she could bear him the children his mother so desperately wanted. He wasn’t interested in looking for a wife. He couldn’t even think about it with Cleo occupying his bed and his thoughts. And she had said that she loved him. It was perfect.