Constantinou's Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  The floor was in complete darkness, and as they moved in silence along the corridor he flicked on various lights until the floor was bathed in bright artificial light.

  ‘So,’ he said, as soon as they were in his office and she was standing uncomfortably behind a chair while he went to sit on the sofa. ‘What is this all about? No, allow me to guess. You want more out of this relationship than what we have, am I right? Though why we could not have discussed this somewhere a little more comfortable, I have no idea.’

  ‘Nick, I…’

  His fingers drummed methodically on his knee while he continued to stare at her, his clever mind trying to find answers on her face that were frustratingly unforthcoming.

  ‘Come and sit next to me,’ he said irritably, ‘instead of standing there like a policewoman.’

  She sat, but not next to him as instructed—instead in the normal chair she used for taking notes whenever she was in his office.

  ‘Look, what I want to say…’

  ‘I did ask you to move in with me,’ he pointed out accusingly, darkly contemplating her avoidance of him. ‘It is much, much more than I have done with any woman in the past.’ He was losing the thread of this, he thought savagely, and he didn’t know why. He just knew that whatever he was saying was flowing over her head.

  ‘Yes, I appreciate this, but what I wanted to say…’

  ‘You want to finish this, is that it?’ What else could it be? It certainly wasn’t a demand for marriage, at least not judging from her reaction to his feverish speculations.

  He raked his fingers through his hair and stood up, glowering at her. He began to circle her, watching her down-bent head and getting more frustrated with every passing second.

  ‘Well?’ he prompted harshly. ‘Is that what you are trying to tell me?’ If it was, then he wasn’t going to beg. In a complete turnaround to what he had been thinking earlier, he decided that he wasn’t going to beg and cave in. She was just a woman, he raged inwardly, and there were plenty other women out there. She may have satisfied him, but if she could then so could someone else.

  ‘Will you just let me say what I have to say?’ Lucy blurted out. ‘And stop walking round and round this chair! I need to see you!’

  It was on the tip of his tongue to shout back that he was not going to take orders from her, but instead he remained angrily silent and resumed his position on the sofa.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’ Lucy held her breath and looked at him, not quite knowing what to make of the deafening silence that greeted her confession. It stretched painfully on until she found herself rambling into an explanation. ‘I thought that I was in a safe period when we were…were out there…on the island, that I could go on the Pill as soon as we returned to England, and I did. I did go on the Pill. But it turns out that…that, well, I must have miscalculated. I couldn’t believe it when I did the test two days ago, so I went to my doctor and he says…he said that sometimes it happens. You know, well, um, a woman’s ovulation can alter, perhaps because of the change in time zones, I don’t know…’ Her voice trailed off miserably as she watched the expression on his face grow stonier.

  What had she expected? Not this. Fury, perhaps. But she realised now, with spiralling dismay, that she had expected him to be pleased. She must have been mad! He looked anything but pleased, but that was what she had half hoped, in the depths of her, that he would have been. He had said, in one fleeting moment, that he had wanted a baby, hadn’t he?

  ‘So,’ he said in a freezing voice, ‘no different from the rest after all, were you, Lucy? When did you concoct this little scheme of yours? At what point did you decide that getting pregnant would be an easy way in to my bank balance? Was it that very first time we slept together? Here in this office? Me the worse for wear? Did you decide then? Did you think that you would bide your time, see if I eventually came for a second helping, so that you could then spring a little pregnancy on me?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her face drained of colour and she realised that she was shaking violently. She clasped her hands together and continued to stare at him in appalled fascination.

  ‘You know exactly what I mean, you scheming little bitch. Tell me something, is this just your work, or is Robert involved as well? Ah, yes, I see it now. You and Robert planned this together, didn’t you? You never made the mistake of going down the nagging route, dropping hints about commitment and wedding rings, because you never wanted to get married to me anyway. Your plan was simply to get pregnant and try and convince me that I was the father so that I could end up supporting you and your lover!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Shock at his accusations had turned her voice to a whisper, barely audible over the beating of her heart.

  ‘Don’t play the innocent with me!’ He couldn’t keep sitting any longer. He had to move and he would have to try very hard not to get too close to the woman looking at him in such appealing and utterly deceitful bewilderment.

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Have you been running the two of us together at the same time?’ The thought of that was so powerfully disgusting that he was paralysed for a few seconds into immobility. ‘Of course you were. Or else you used the poor fool the same way you are trying to use me now. Used him to impregnate you so that you could come running to me, pretending that I was the father, expecting me to marry you or at least fund you for the rest of your life.’

  ‘How can you say these things?’

  ‘Because they are the truth!’ His voice was like the crack of a whip.

  ‘You’re wrong. How could you think that of me? I haven’t seen Robert since we got back to England! You know that!’

  ‘How do I know that? We do not live in each other’s pockets. You made very sure of that, made very sure that you kept a part of the week to yourself!’

  ‘I didn’t want…’ Didn’t want him to find her too pushy, she thought, fighting back the tears, hadn’t wanted him to start feeling swamped by her until his passion curdled and he began to grow bored. At the back of her mind she had hoped that he might one day grow to love her. Fat chance, as it turned out, because if his reaction was anything to go by loving her had never been a possibility, not even a remote one. He was looking at her now as if she was a stranger, a stranger he despised.

  ‘And even if you and your ex-lover were not in on this together, that still left you, did it not? I was your passport to an affluent lifestyle and you decided to grab hold of it. Whichever way you look at it, you took me for a fool, and let me tell you something—no one, but no one, takes me for a fool!’

  ‘I never took you for a fool.’

  ‘No, you just overestimated your influence on me.’ Her head was lowered and he didn’t need to see her eyes to know that tears would be glistening on her lashes. Such a convincing picture of innocence, he thought harshly. Even now, repelled as he was by the manoeuvring that had finally brought them both to this point, there was still a corner of his heart that tugged at his emotions.

  He went across to the window, through which the city looked like a nonsensical criss-cross of lights, and stared outside for a few seconds, then he turned slowly to face her with his arms folded, his expression grim and stamped with hostile distaste.

  ‘Did you think that because I am a man of honour I would be willing to pay whatever price you demanded for another man’s child?’

  ‘Why do you keep suggesting that the baby isn’t yours?’ Lucy cried out. That, more than anything else, hurt. She placed her hand protectively over her still flat stomach.

  Nick ignored the question. His eyes were flat and hard, like two jet stones boring into her.

  ‘Or maybe you imagined that what I felt for you was love?’ The word passed his lips and he felt a sickening rush of realisation. He had fallen in love with her. Every instinct told him to hate and he would listen to those instincts, but, dammit, she hadn’t been just a satisfying sexual partner, or a satisfying woman to talk to, or someone who cou
ld make him laugh. It had all added up to something bigger and more powerful and he hadn’t even had the wit to see that for himself until now.

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Because if you imagined that then, by God, you were wrong!’ He wanted to hurt her for hurting him and he hated himself for the pain he was enduring now. After all the messy business with Gina, the disillusionment, the lessons learnt, he was hurting now in a way he had never hurt before.

  ‘I never loved you!’ He made himself say it and watched as she flinched back from the statement as if from a physical blow. ‘Yes, you and I were compatible in bed, but that was always as far as it went. The sex was good, I’ll admit that, very good, but as for love…well…there is a yawning chasm between lust and love, is there not?’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ Lucy said in a dull voice. She finally got up the courage to meet his eyes without wincing. ‘Well, now that I’ve said what I wanted to say, there’s no point in being here any longer.’ She stood up, looking around for her coat and her bag, while he continued to stand at the window, as implacable as a granite rock.

  When he thought of her trekking back to that poky flat of hers on her own, a lonely little figure wrapped up in her thick coat, his heart constricted. He had to remind himself that in all probability she would be trekking back to Robert’s house. Lonely she would not be. And, if not, then the conniving witch deserved her loneliness.

  ‘I…when do you want me to clear my desk?’

  ‘Now would be as good a time as any,’ he stated bluntly.

  ‘Now. Right.’

  He followed her out to her office and lounged against the door-frame, watching as she removed the few personal possessions stored in her desk.

  ‘There’s no need to hover over me, Nick.’ She wanted to feel a healthy flare of anger but instead her voice emerged as weary and desolate. ‘I won’t make off with anything of any value.’ She shoved her fountain pen into her coat pocket and a book which she had been reading two months ago and never finished. The plant would have to stay. Traipsing through London with a one-foot-high plant on the underground wasn’t feasible.

  ‘What shall I do about the things in your flat?’ She had walked towards the door and now she paused, with her hand on the door knob.

  ‘I will have them sent to you.’

  ‘And my pay?’

  ‘Now we get to the crux of it, don’t we? Don’t worry. I will not forget to let Personnel forward your pay packet to you, but if you imagine that you will be getting a penny over and beyond what you are owed by law then you can think again.’

  This time some much-needed anger did come to her service and she lifted her chin proudly to look at him. ‘I asked about my pay, Nick, because I’m going to need every penny I can get to support your baby when he or she is born. I realise you might not have wanted to be lumbered with fatherhood, but don’t for a minute imagine that this baby is anyone’s but yours. You can think up any reason you want to justify your behaviour, but you’re lying to yourself. I never thought you were a coward, Nick, but you are if you’re too scared to face up to your responsibilities.’

  They stared at each other across the massive chasm that had opened up between them, and he was the first to break the silence.

  ‘Get…out.’

  ‘Goodbye, Nick.’ She turned on her heel and exited the room, closing the door very quietly behind her.

  It all felt like a nightmare. Had he really said all those things to her? Had he really accused her of the most vile, cold manipulations any human being could ever have been capable of? She very nearly thought that if she blinked hard enough she would somehow rouse herself to discover that it had all been in her head.

  But it wasn’t. She made it back to her flat in one piece and spent the remainder of the night in a state of muted shock, furiously trying to work out what happened next in the nightmarish play in which she now appeared to be the leading lady.

  Telling her parents would have to come at some stage, and her mind reared up as she contemplated the disappointment she would have to endure, but the plain truth of the matter was that she would inevitably need their help. She just wouldn’t be able to go it alone, especially not in London, where rents were high and children were not easily slotted into any kind of working lifestyle.

  Which meant that she would have to leave London and go back to her parents’ to stay.

  Nor would she have the luxury of thinking things through. Time was not on her side. Fortunately, she had a fair amount of savings into which she could dip, but savings had a nasty habit of vanishing into thin air the minute they were dipped into and she couldn’t afford to be out of work for too long.

  It was only the following day, when she trekked down to the employment agency, that she was made aware of one small technical hitch to getting another well-paid temp job.

  A reference. It was well within Nick’s power to utterly scupper any chances she had of getting work if his reference was detrimental.

  She almost fainted when, having dialled his direct line at the office, she heard his voice fly down the end of the phone, straight into the core of her.

  ‘It’s me. Lucy. I…I’m phoning to find out whether you could provide me with a reference.’ She held her breath and waited for him to either hang up or to tell her that he intended to do no such thing.

  Nick could feel the tension oozing out of her, even though he couldn’t see her face. He could hear it in her small voice. He could also feel a treacherous surge of elation at simply hearing her. God, but he was a fool!

  ‘It’s already been done,’ he said brusquely. ‘I dictated it at the same time as I informed Personnel to send you your pay packet. You need not worry that I’m going to concoct any lies about your working capabilities.’ He heard her sigh of relief and he was tempted to ask her what kind of man Robert was if he demanded that she continue working even though she was now carrying his baby. He resisted. He had not had a minute’s sleep for the entire night, thinking about the two of them, and he suspected that if the man’s name so much as left his lips he would be back down that road of accusation and bitterness.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Why thank me? You were a supremely efficient secretary.’ He gave a harsh, humourless laugh. ‘Some might say a little too efficient.’

  ‘Please don’t start on me again, Nick.’

  ‘Your pay and your reference will be with you by tomorrow morning. Now, if that’s all…’ He let a few seconds elapse, furious with himself for his desperation to prolong the pointless conversation, then he let the receiver drop and sat back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head.

  Time was a great healer, he reminded himself. In a week’s time he would find himself once again consumed by his work and functioning normally, and in a month’s time he would probably not even be able to remember the definition of her face.

  There would be no further reason for her to contact him again. She and her lover would be able to cope with the consequences of their ill-thought-out plans.

  And he…he would simply move on.

  He almost laughed with relief at the logical clarity of his thoughts. He picked up his address book and flicked through, but the blur of pages promised nothing. In time, he thought. Everything would return to normal.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE choice of pub was not to Nick’s liking. It was dark, smoky and packed to capacity. The bar was thick with an after-work crowd and the noise was reverberating. But it was appropriate.

  He cradled his beer with both hands and then took a long swig before addressing the man sitting opposite him.

  ‘Well? What have you got for me?’

  ‘Same as I had for you last week, guv, and the week before and the week before that. Nothing.’ The short, balding man flicked through the pages of his notebook. ‘At least, nothing of any interest. Visit to the doctor. Once. Visits to the supermarket, several. Trips to the cinema. Three. All with other women. She’s had two temp jobs, both in the Marble Arc
h area.’

  ‘I am not interested in all of that.’ Nick waved his hand dismissively. ‘What about men? One in particular. Average height, medium colouring, average build.’

  ‘No men of the average variety, guv. In fact, no men at all.’ He shut his notebook, sat back and waited.

  ‘Are you sure you are doing your job properly?’

  ‘Look, I’m not about to complain at the dosh you’re throwing my way to keep an eye on this lady of yours, but you’re wasting your time. I’ve got a lot of experience in this field and I would have found out by now if there was anything going on. Nothing’s going on.’

  ‘Does she…look well?’ He glowered at the private detective, daring him to show the slightest sign of amusement at the question, but Norman White maintained a perfectly straight face.

  ‘Looks as well as is to be expected.’

  ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Doesn’t seem to eat much, least not on the occasions I’ve sat behind her at the restaurants she goes to with her girlfriends. Should be eating more, in her condition.’

  Nick drummed his fingers impatiently on the small circular table and stared away into the distance. He had been a fool thinking that he could let this thing go. He had been confident that a few weeks would see him back to his usual routine, getting on with work and his social life. In fact, he was doing neither. He was pretty sure that, as far as outward appearances went, he was still running a tight ship, but his heart was no longer in his job. He went in to his office every morning, determined not to let her invade his head, and he returned home every night knowing that he had failed yet again.

  ‘Think she might be planning on leaving London, though,’ Norman said thoughtfully, and Nick’s steady drumming on the table stilled.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘She’s thinking of leaving London, going to stay with her parents. Overheard the conversation last Friday. Apparently thinks that London won’t work for her and the kiddie when it comes along, and I tend to agree with her. Too fast, this place. My own daughter has a nice little place in Reading. Bit of countryside for the kids, no scrambling on the tube if you want to get anywhere.’ He shook his head. ‘Sooner she clears out, the better.’