by Lynne Graham
CHAPTER FIVE
WITH a groan of disbelief, Atreus lay back against the tumbled pillows and studied Lindy’s flushed and resolute face. ‘I don’t expect this kind of silly melodrama from you. You find out that we’re not heading to the altar and that’s it? It’s all over? Doesn’t that strike you as more than a little unreasonable?’
‘No. Every word you’ve said makes it clear that you don’t respect me or take me seriously in any way!’ Lindy argued vehemently. ‘I’m just someone you sleep with at weekends and never take out in public, and that’s not enough for me.’
Atreus sat up in a sudden movement, anger stamped into every angular line of his hard, handsome face. ‘It’s been more than enough to keep you happy all this time—and do I have to remind you that you’re the one who did not want to be seen out with me in public?’
‘I’m your mistress!’ Lindy condemned with a shudder of disgust. ‘Aren’t I?’
‘That’s an old-fashioned label and I’m not an old-fashioned guy,’ Atreus fired back at her, seeing just how welcome candour would be at that precise instant.
‘Can’t you even admit that that’s what I am?’ Lindy shouted, her hands coiling into tight fists as she fought to get a grip on her self-control again.
Atreus lodged scorching golden eyes full of censure on her. ‘Okay, you’re my mistress.’
Eyes welling with stinging tears of shame and hatred, Lindy stared at him. She wanted to throw things and scream. She had wanted him to deny that she was his mistress, because that title struck her as the final humiliation.
‘But that doesn’t mean that you’re not an important part of my life,’ Atreus delivered with measured cool. ‘You are important to me.’
‘For sex, amusement…a woman to spice up your country weekends who doesn’t cause you any hassle,’ she completed bitterly, her heart beating so fast and so loudly in her ears that she feared she might be on the edge of a panic attack, even though she had never had one before. But then she had never been in such pain. Pain that flailed her with self-loathing and anger and the most appalling sense of loss, for Atreus was so much a part of her life that she could barely muster the courage to even imagine a future without him.
His mistress—that was all she had ever been. All these months she had deceived herself with wishful thinking, imagining a deeper connection and assuming an equality that had never existed between them. A mistress: a woman who gave discreet sexual pleasure, stayed in the background of her lover’s life and looked for nothing more than his approbation and financial support. No wonder he had been so determined to make her accept the car he had bought her, and no wonder he had refused her rent payments! After all, a mistress was supposed to be rewarded and even supported by her lover. That was the deal. Awkward questions such as she had just asked were not part of that deal.
‘I do value you,’ Atreus breathed in a raw undertone. ‘I’ve never stayed with one woman as long as I have stayed with you.’
But Lindy had another angle entirely on the surprising longevity of their affair. Without challenging him with words of love, she had adored him, admired him and lived to please him. She had asked for nothing. Why would he have walked away from so convenient an arrangement? He said he valued her. But even when telling her that she was important to him he was careful to employ dispassionate words which promised nothing deep or lasting. The caution with which he spoke also warned her that Atreus Dionides had never had any doubts about her exact status and place in his life. A mistress was all she had ever been, and that she could ever have believed she might mean more to him now struck her as pathetic and laughable.
As the door thudded shut on her silent departure, Atreus ground out a roughened curse. What had got into Lindy? He would have sworn that he knew her inside out, but she was behaving like a stranger. Where had that temper come from? Where had those damnable questions come from? Out of the blue? Or was it Ben Halliwell he should be thanking for this denouement?
Atreus raked lean fingers through his tousled black hair, enraged by what had happened. He had been taken by surprise and he wasn’t accustomed to that. How could she be so foolish? They were perfect together as they were. What was wrong with being his mistress? Hundreds of women would have killed to occupy her position. Labels and silly discussions about where they were going had never been necessary between them. She had never tried to subject him to such a conversation before. Why should she have done? He knew he made her happy and prided himself on that fact.
It cut both ways: she pleased him as well. When he needed to work she never voiced a word of objection; she would just go off to the animal sanctuary and put in a few hours there. Often he would end up looking for her. She was easy to be with, stubbornly independent, and well able to manage without him around. She had slotted into his schedule as though she had been tailor-made for the purpose.
But that did not empower her to make ridiculous demands and throw his generosity back in his teeth, and nor would he necessarily forgive her for those errors of judgement. Had she truly thought he might consider marrying her and having a family with her? Just as though he was some Joe Nobody instead of one of the richest men in the world, with a social pedigree in his Greek homeland that could be traced back several hundred years?
Was he so much a snob? When it came to matrimony, surely his family were entitled to have certain expectations of him? Hadn’t his father’s divorce, remarriage and subsequent loose lifestyle caused the Dionides family incessant grief and mortification? The family had had to pick up the pieces in the end: not his deluded father and his feckless mother, but his aunt and uncle, who had ultimately been landed with the task of raising him to adulthood. A responsible man did not marry out of his own order.
Atreus was as outraged with Lindy as he was frustrated by her departure. Just as quickly, however, he recalled his awareness at the outset of their arrangement that she had no idea of the rules he played by and was likely to be hurt. The logic was irrefutable: he should let her go now, close the book on their association.
Lindy had never known she had it in her to be as emotional as she was that night. Eyes dry, head held high, she had stalked back to the lodge on foot with her dogs, fury washing over her in heady bursts. But her anger with Atreus was no greater than her anger towards herself. Why on earth had she got involved with him? She couldn’t sleep, she tossed and turned, fell into a doze a couple of times and then, wakening, instinctively looked for him and went through the whole ghastly drowning sense of loss all over again. Samson and Sausage got up on the bed and lay beside her, pushing their heads under her hand, nudging her with their warm bodies in an effort to respond to her misery.
Atreus would never have let the dogs into the bedroom, never mind onto the bed, she reflected numbly, seeking some reason to celebrate their break-up. But still more tears leaked from her sore eyes. It had happened so fast that she had had no time to prepare, and now her whole world seemed empty and without structure. She was used to going horse riding first thing on Saturday mornings. Atreus had taught her to ride and had tipped her out of bed soon after dawn every Saturday without fail. When he wasn’t involved in business he was relentlessly active, with buckets of surplus energy that required a physical outlet. Her face burned as she recalled how available she had always been—as hot for him as he was for her. Shifting uneasily in her bed, she frowned as a bout of nausea made her tummy lurch, and a moment later she flung herself out of bed and raced full tilt for the bathroom.
Lindy was almost never sick, and she wondered if her emotional distress had somehow affected her digestive system. As she freshened up she accidentally brushed her breast with her arm and winced at the painful tenderness of her flesh. She knew that some women experienced sore breasts during the latter half of their menstrual cycle but she’d had a light period only a few days ago. Her momentary tension faded. Obviously her hormones were out of sync and her body was going haywire, doing things it had never done before. But at least she had no grounds to
suspect that she might have fallen pregnant, she told herself in urgent consolation.
Early on in her relationship with Atreus Lindy had begun taking contraceptive pills, but side effects had forced her to come off them again and give responsibility for protection back to Atreus. He had never taken the smallest risk with her which, bearing in mind his feelings on that issue, she reckoned painfully was fortunate. He would surely give an ex-mistress who had become pregnant with his child short shrift. It was not hard to assume that, put in such a situation, he would prefer a termination to an actual birth—an approach which would ensure that there was no permanent damage inflicted on his precious aristocratic family tree. She was very, very thankful that she was not being faced with that particular challenge.
That weekend Atreus returned to his London life early, and he did not visit the following week. Whenever he thought of his country home, he thought of Lindy, a fact which infuriated him since he had never considered himself to be remotely sensitive or even imaginative. Regardless, his memory threw up images of Chantry in which she always featured, and the merest hint of the scent of lavender made him grit his teeth.
He remembered the melting taste of her ginger fudge shortcake and wondered if he was entering his second childhood. He remembered how terrified she had been when he’d put her on a horse, although nothing would have made her admit the fact. He remembered that she never said a bad word about anyone, and that when he was late or curt she said nothing but simply looked disappointed in him, which somehow made him more punctual and more polite. He woke in the night, his body aching for her, and reached for her to find she wasn’t there.
He had never had a problem with anger. He had never regretted breaking up with a woman. After all there was always another dozen queuing to fill the space in his bed. Every woman was replaceable; this was a mantra he had believed in from an early age. But even though he plunged straight back into socialising, he discovered that his tastes had changed. He liked a woman to appreciate the value of a comfortable silence, one who ate without caring about calories, one who went out without fussing about her appearance, one who listened and responded with intelligence when he talked. And the less easy he found his search for a substitute the angrier and more frustrated he became.
The following Friday he was about to cancel his trip to Chantry again when it dawned on him that there was a solution to what ailed him.
He called his estate manager and freely admitted that he would like the tenant in The Lodge to relocate. He suggested that a substantial cash inducement be offered to bring about that desirable result. He travelled down to Chantry that afternoon.
He would not have looked in the direction of The Lodge at all, had he not noticed that Ben Halliwell’s BMW was parked there. He frowned, still galled by the idea that this agent provocateur had contrived to escape unscathed from the trouble he had caused. Atreus opened the door of Chantry with a glum expression to discover the Georgian house horrendously quiet. There were no dogs to greet him with lolling pink tongues, shrill barks and frantic wagging tails…. Setting his even white teeth together, and reminding himself that he had never liked animals indoors, Atreus sat down to dine on the very best his French chef could offer. But the selection didn’t include any ginger fudge shortcake.
That same afternoon, Lindy was grateful for the diversion of the evening wedding party she was to attend with Ben, although she was fairly sure that she wouldn’t be eating anything at the supper. The stomach upset she had first suffered a couple of weeks earlier had since come back to haunt her on several occasions. Evidently she had caught a virus, and her body was finding it hard to shake it off. As such illnesses always ran their course, she saw no point in consulting her doctor. She’d put fresh linen on her own bed for Ben, having decided that it would be cruel to put someone as tall as him on a sofa for the night. She had had her hair done and had bought a misty-blue dress for the occasion. Ben was good company and she would enjoy herself.
Lindy was determined to cast off the awful sense of abandonment she had suffered in recent weeks. It was as if she and Atreus had never been together at all. No man had ever been more easily got rid of; he had not even tried to change her mind, which suggested that she had never been the slightest bit important to him. In time she would stop missing him, thinking about him all the time, crying herself to sleep. Some day, she told herself fiercely, she would be capable of saying, Atreus…who? and meaning it.
Ben could not conceal his satisfaction at having been right about Atreus when Lindy told him that the affair was over. Assuring her that time healed everything, and that she was far better off without her Greek lover, Ben promptly forgot the matter again while he got on with the important matter of socialising with the well-connected guests present at the wedding supper. Lindy longed for the solace of her female friends, Elinor and Alissa, believing that only another woman would understand what she was going through. She planned to phone them and tell them what was happening very soon.
Resolute in his goal of getting through the weekend in much the same way as he had always done, Atreus went out riding the following morning. From a distance of a hundred yards as he rode back across the park he saw Ben Halliwell’s car, still parked in the exact same position as it had been the evening before. Halliwell had spent the night. With Lindy.
A thunderbolt of primeval rage roared through Atreus’s powerful frame like a sudden all-encompassing storm. It was so potent that as he dug his knees into the stallion to head for The Lodge he was not conscious of any thought at all. Every atom of his anger and frustration had found a fitting focus at last.
Lindy had slept badly on the lumpy sofa. When the doorbell sounded the dogs went bonkers, barking. She rolled off the sofa, ignoring her feeling of nausea, and was putting on her cotton wrap when Ben shouted downstairs. ‘Who the heck is that at this hour?’
‘Haven’t a clue,’ she called back.
‘It might be for me. Geoffrey Stillwood did say something about inviting me out for a day’s hunting,’ Ben reminded her. ‘Not something I’ve tried before, but I should show willing if the invite is issued by my boss’s father-in-law!’
Lindy’s nose wrinkled at the thought of deer being killed for sport. It had been a challenge for her to keep her views to herself while she’d listened to that conversation the night before. Tightening the sash of her wrap, she opened the front door. Her eyes opened very wide at the sight of Dino, Atreus’s black stallion, cropping the lawn. Atreus, sheathed in tight jodhpurs, polished boots and a black jerkin, was on her doorstep, and even his worst enemy would have been forced to admit that he looked drop-dead gorgeous in that get-up.
As Samson and Sausage charged out and careered round Atreus’s feet in rapturous doggy welcome, stunning dark golden eyes lanced into her. ‘It didn’t take you very long to take another man into your bed,’ Atreus condemned with seething scorn.
‘I’ll take care of this,’ Ben announced from behind Lindy, pushing her to one side to gain the space to step out. Unshaven, and in jeans, boots and a sweater, it was obvious he had got up in a hurry.
‘Do you think you can?’ Atreus sent him a contemptuous look of challenge. ‘I’m not in the habit of fighting over loose women.’
‘There’s not going to be any fighting,’ Lindy assured him indignantly, only to fall silent, her jaw dropping and her lips framing a silent ‘oh’ of shock and horror when Ben took a swing at Atreus and struck him on the chin.
‘Don’t talk about Lindy like that!’ Ben slung at the tall Greek, full blast.
‘How unexpected—a City trader who can put his money where his mouth is!’ With that sardonic quip, Atreus punched Ben so hard that the blond man hit the ground like a fallen tree.
Thirty seconds later, as a groaning Ben began clambering shakily upright for another bout, Lindy stepped between the two men and voiced outraged words of reproof. ‘No! Stop it right now!’
‘Stay out of this,’ Atreus urged, powerful arms closing round Lindy from b
ehind to lift her bodily out of his path and set her out of harm’s way.
‘Don’t you dare tell me to stay out of it!’ Lindy raked back furiously at him, just as the sound of a perky mobile phone ring-tone cut through the tense atmosphere.
Atreus strode back to attack just as Ben dug out his phone and answered it, raising a hand palm first to Atreus in a ludicrous gesture that urged his Greek opponent to give him a moment’s breathing space.
‘Geoff? Hello, Geoff…No, of course it’s not too early for me,’ Ben was saying in a smarmy tone while checking his watch. ‘I would love to…When? Right, I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
Wearing a newly purposeful expression, Ben swung round to Lindy in haste. ‘Where’s the nearest country clothing shop?’
Somewhat taken aback by that sudden request, Lindy obliged with the information. Ben then raced back indoors to collect his stuff, all desire to continue his fight with Atreus in her defence evidently forgotten in his excitement at being invited out on a shoot by a member of the local gentry.
Atreus interpreted the expression of blank disbelief on Lindy’s face. ‘Financial traders have a reputation for being cold-blooded,’ he remarked. ‘No Greek male would ever stop to take a phone call in the middle of a fight.’
‘If that’s the best you can say for yourself it’s not a lot!’ Lindy fired back, unimpressed. ‘How dare you come here and suggest that I sleep around?’
Atreus lifted a broad shoulder in a slow mocking shrug, an ebony brow lifting. ‘I’m not cold-blooded. I didn’t think you’d get over me so quickly.’
Taken aback by the cruel comment that went too close to the bone for comfort, Lindy reddened but stayed silent on the score that she no longer owed him any explanations. She watched him take the lead rope hanging from the iron ring at the corner of the house and approach the black stallion. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she asked.