by Trish Morey
And yes, he might be arrogant and ruthless and used to getting his own way, and yes, she’d seen enough of him to know she didn’t want to cross him, but it was just for one month. And at the end of that month, she’d walk away a millionaire herself.
How hard could it be?
She smiled as she made her way through the elegant lobby, the waves in her newly styled hair bouncing in time with the tapping of her heels on the marble floor. Finally her luck was changing. Finally Cleo Taylor was going to be a success.
A doorman in a top hat touched a hand to his brow as she emerged. ‘Miss Taylor,’ he said, as if she were some honoured guest he’d been waiting for and not the hick girl who’d walked in wearing cowboy boots less than a day before, and he pulled open the door to a waiting limousine.
She dipped her head and climbed inside, sliding onto the seat behind the driver, opposite where Andreas was sitting totally engrossed in some kind of report perched on his knees.
‘I thought you could probably use the extra time,’ he said by way of explanation, flipping over a page without looking up.
‘You mean you’re blaming me for you being late.’
He looked up at that, looked ready to take issue with her words, but whatever he’d been about to say died before it ever got to his lips. He didn’t have to say a word, though, not with the way his eyes spoke volumes as they drank her in, slowly and thoroughly, from the tip of her coloured hair to the winking toenails peeking out at him from her sandals, a slow gaze that ignited a slow burn under her skin, the flames licking at her nipples, turning them hard, before changing direction and licking their way south.
‘Cleo?’
‘You were expecting someone else?’
The report on his lap slid sideways, forgotten. She smiled. ‘Well? Do you think you got your money’s worth?’
They’d done something with her eyes, he realised. They’d done something with her hair too, so it was no longer mousy and shone in what looked like a hundred different colours, and her clothes were a world apart from her jeans and cowboy boots, but it was her eyes that looked most different. Before they’d been the misty blue of a Santorini morning, but now suddenly it seemed the mists had cleared and they were the perfect blue of a still summer’s day.
‘Have I had my money’s worth?’ he mused, finally getting to her question. She was happy with the results, that much was clear, but not half as happy as he was. His hunch had been right. She would be perfect. ‘Maybe not yet. But I fully intend to.’ She gasped, colour flooding her cheeks almost instantly, and it was his turn to smile. Her reactions were so instantaneous, so honest. He hoped she’d never lose that. At least, not for the next few weeks.
He picked up the abandoned report and returned to his reading. He didn’t want to have to work late.
Not tonight.
Tonight he hoped to have better things to do.
The Jet Centre at London City Airport ushered them through with a minimum of fuss, expediting immigration and customs requirements so that they were ready to board less than forty minutes after leaving the hotel.
She recognised the logo she saw on the side of the small jet they were approaching, the same stylised X she’d seen adorning Andreas’ luggage. ‘Isn’t that your logo?’
Andreas nodded. ‘You recognised it?’
She shook her head. He was missing the point. ‘You own a plane? Your own jet?’
‘Not entirely,’ he responded, stepping back to let her precede him up the short flight of steps. ‘The company leases it. Along with the helicopter we have for short-haul flights within Greece itself. It is a tax-effective arrangement.’
She shook her head. He imagined she was interested in his financing arrangements? For someone who’d only recently made her first ever flight in a commercial airline, and then cramped in cattle class with three hundred other tortured souls, the concept of having one’s own plane at one’s beck and call was mind-boggling. She’d thought the limousine was the height of luxury and here he was with his own private jet. And a helicopter.
‘But there must be two dozen airlines flying between London and Greece every day.’
He shrugged. ‘I expect so. But not when I want to.’
That was at the heart of it, she guessed, and what Andreas wanted, Andreas got. After all, wasn’t that what she was doing here? And if he could afford to throw away a million dollars plus expenses on her, clearly a million dollars didn’t mean very much to him. He had money to burn.
A smiling stewardess greeted her, directing her to a seat, showing her where to store her bag and taking her jacket before disappearing again. Cleo settled herself in, looking around the cabin in wonder and doing a rapid rethink.
The interior oozed comfort, a centre aisle flanked by no more than half a dozen ultra-wide armchairs in dove-grey leather that looked more suited to a fireside setting than to any plane travel she’d ever heard of. She thought about the cramped conditions on her flight to London, the lack of space to store her own things let alone the pillows, blankets and toiletry packs they weighed you down with so that you couldn’t even sit down when you boarded, of the man in the seat in front who’d jerked his seat back the first chance he’d had and left it there the entire flight and the child two rows back with the spluttering cough. Who wouldn’t choose flying like this over queues and delays and airline food if they could afford it? If you had money to burn, there were no doubt worse ways to spend it.
Andreas dropped his briefcase down on a timber table-cum-desk that extended from the other wall, slipping into the seat alongside her as the attendant reappeared, this time bearing a tray with two filled champagne flutes. ‘Enjoy your flight,’ she said. ‘We’ll be taking off shortly and I’ll be serving lunch as soon as we’re level.’
Andreas took both glasses, thanking her and passing one to Cleo as the plane started taxiing from the apron. ‘This toast is to you,’ he said, raising his glass, ‘and to our month together. May it be mutually—satisfying.’
The glass paused on the way to her lips. How did he make just one innocent word sound so sinful? And what was it about him that provoked her thighs to suddenly squeeze down further into the seat? He watched her over the rim of his glass as he took a sip of the sparkling wine, his lips curled, his eyes charged with a heat that was soon washing through her, closely followed by a crashing wave of fear that sucked the air from her lungs.
He could be a panther sitting there, rather than a man, a big dark cat watching its next meal, waiting. She could even imagine the lazy flick of his tail as he pretended there was no rush…
Oh, God, what was she even doing here? She was an imposter, a charlatan. She’d had sex once in her life and it had been lousy. And here she was, contracted to play the role of this man’s mistress for an entire month. Never had she been so unqualified for a position. Never so unprepared.
‘You don’t like the wine?’
Condensation misted the glass between her fingers. ‘I’m not very thirsty. Maybe with lunch. How long is the flight?’ She grasped onto anything that might steer the conversation, and her thoughts, into safer territory.
‘Four hours, give or take. Unfortunately after our late departure we will have missed the sunset, said to be the most beautiful in all of Greece. You haven’t been to Greece before?’
There was that sunset thing again. Maybe that was one thing Kurt hadn’t lied about, and now she’d have the chance to experience Santorini’s sunset for herself. The bright side, she thought as she shook her head in answer to Andreas’ question, definitely a bright side.
‘Ah. Then you are in for a treat. I promise you will love Santorini.’
His enthusiasm was infectious and she found an answering smile with no hesitation. ‘I look forward to it.’
The jet came to a brief halt at the end of the runway before the engines powered up and the plane moved off. Again Cleo was struck by how different this felt from the hulking jumbo jet that had seemed to take for ever to get going, panels
vibrating and overhead lockers rattling as it lumbered along the runway before somehow managing to haul itself up into the air. This jet was small and powerful and accelerated as if it had been fired from a gun.
She held onto her stomach but there was none of the lurching motion that had made her feel queasy in the seven four seven. Instead the ground fell sharply away as the plane pierced the air like an arrow, and Cleo watched the rain-washed view in fascination until cloud cover swallowed both it and the plane. A few moments later they had punched their way through and bright sunshine poured through the large portholes, filling the cabin with light.
‘I have some work I must attend to,’ Andreas told her, retrieving his briefcase. ‘But I have a copy of our contract for you to look over and sign. Will you be comfortable?’
Much more comfortable than if you didn’t have work to do. The traitorous thought was as sudden as it was true. When he looked at her in that heated way that he did, it was impossible to think straight. And after the intensive morning she’d had, she could do with a few hours of quiet time curled up in a good book, or a good contract for that matter. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said a little uncertainly, taking the papers he offered.
He watched her a while, trying to search behind her eyes for what she was really thinking, but he found no hint of machination. Instead her clear blue eyes held without shifting or looking away. He nodded then, turning back to his report, before she might read too much into his gaze.
A woman who didn’t need constant pandering, who didn’t sulk and was content to let him work when he needed to? She was definitely a rarity. A pity about her ‘no sex’ demands. If she were any good in bed, she’d be just about perfect.
Chapter Seven
THE cloud cover cleared after lunch when they were somewhere over the south of France, revealing a coastline that was staggeringly beautiful even from this height, the world below like a rich tapestry of colour and texture of sea and land and mountains complete with their frosting of snow. Cleo watched the colours change below as they sped towards the night, the shadow moving over the earth as night claimed more and more for its own.
The contract had taken no time at all to deal with, the terms reasonably straightforward, even to her unbusinesslike brain. One month of partnering Andreas in exchange for one million Australian dollars and an all-expenses first-class fare home. Simple really, if she didn’t let herself think about whom she was contracting with. No sex seemed such a crystal clear notion until she looked at him and felt that increasingly familiar tingle in her flesh, a tingle that felt too much like longing.
So she wouldn’t look at him. Instead she pushed back in the wide armchair that felt more like a bed, shucking off her shoes and tucking her legs beneath her. Once in Greece she’d be four hours closer to home, a four-hour head start when she left in a month to return to Kangaroo Crossing. She smiled when she thought about seeing her mum and her nanna again, and her rough-and-tumble half-brothers who were happiest in their own company and probably hadn’t even realised she’d gone yet. She’d send them a postcard the first chance she got, let them all know she was a few hours closer to coming home…
The next thing she knew, she was waking up with a start, struggling to sit up with her chair reclining to near horizontal, a weightless but snug mohair rug covering her.
‘You’re back with us, then,’ Andreas said, putting away his laptop. ‘We’ll be landing soon.’
She put a hand to her hair, and then to her eyes, worried she’d just undone all the good work of the morning. ‘I must have drifted off.’ She looked outside her window but it was inky blackness outside, clusters of lights visible way down below, but, more importantly, no reflection to assure her she wasn’t wearing panda eyes. Or, worse still, just the one.
‘You look good.’
She blinked and turned slowly, not sure she’d heard right or that he was even talking to her.
He was stashing his briefcase away in the compartment alongside his knees, and for a moment she thought she must have misheard or been mistaken. Until…‘If that’s what you were worried about.’ Now he did turn, and once again she was staggered by the intensity of his gaze and the power he had to skewer her with just one glance. ‘Stunning, in fact. I don’t suppose I told you that before.’
Nobody had ever told her that before. Let alone a man whose five o’clock shadow only served to increase his eye appeal. Along with his white shirtsleeves rolled up and the dark V of skin at his unbuttoned neck, he looked more like a pirate now than a property magnate. She licked her lips. Boy, she could do with a drink. ‘Um. Thank you.’ She wanted to believe the butterflies in her stomach were all to do with the fact the pilot had chosen that second to commence his descent, but she’d be lying to herself. For the hungry look she’d seen in his eyes when she’d got his attention in the car was back again, and that had been enough to start the fluttering sensation, enough to switch on the slow burn inside her.
Nobody had ever called her anything approximating stunning before. Nobody. Even her own mother had never got beyond cute. Hearing Andreas say it made it all the more real.
And made him all the more dangerous.
She injected a lightness into her voice that was at odds with the pounding of her heart. Why let him know how much he affected her? That was never part of the deal. ‘Well, it’s good to know all this morning’s work didn’t go to waste.’
She unclipped her seat belt and stood, heading for the bathroom, and she was halfway to escape when the ground went from under Cleo’s feet, her stomach suddenly in her mouth. With Cleo thrown offbalance, it took only a jerk of Andreas’ hand to steer her towards him. She landed in his lap a moment later, appalled that he’d borne the brunt of her weight as she’d collided against him.
‘This is no joking matter,’ he warned, showing no discomfiture for her sudden landing, indeed, giving every impression that he welcomed it as he nestled her deeper into his lap. ‘This is serious.’
She could see it was. She could feel it was. She looked up at his shadowed face, so supremely confident while she lay there breathless and terrified, her heart thudding like a drum as she battled to get her wayward stomach under control. She was no good in turbulence, she knew from experience, the unexpected motion flipping her stomach end to end.
And right now, sitting on Andreas’ lap, was no ordinary turbulence. Flames under her skin licked and curled in all the places their bodies met—where his hands touched her and where her legs lay across his before they spilled over the arm rest, where her breast rested heavy and full against his chest and, most of all, where her bottom pressed tight into his lap. Where something growing and rock-hard pressed back.
She squirmed, embarrassed at the intimacy of the contact. He felt huge, so much bigger than he had looked this morning before his shower, so much bigger than Kurt, and she didn’t want to know. Didn’t need to know. ‘Andreas,’ she pleaded, not even sure what she was pleading for as she squirmed some more, the urge to escape such intimate contact warring with an inexplicable need to get even closer.
But his eyes were closed, a frown pinching the skin between his brows, the skin drawn tight across his cheekbones. ‘You really should stop wriggling…’ he said cryptically, and then he opened his eyes and she read desire in their swirling depths and it only served to confuse her more. ‘Unless you’re planning on rescinding that no sex condition.’
She launched herself from his lap, scrabbling to get herself upright and away from him. ‘Don’t flatter yourself! It was you who yanked me into your lap, remember?’
He smiled as she headed, chin up, for the bathroom. ‘How could I forget? But it wasn’t me who was wriggling.’
Clusters of lights clung to the hilltops off to one side, but it was the air Cleo noticed first as they stepped from the plane, so clear and fresh after London’s heavy atmosphere, it seemed to have been washed with the very ocean itself. She inhaled deeply and tried to relax. It wasn’t working. The plane might have landed but the
flock of butterflies in her stomach hadn’t come down with it.
‘Welcome to Santorini,’ Andreas said, drawing her into the circle of his arm and pressing his lips to her hair as they headed towards a waiting car, its headlights lighting their path. She shivered, as much from the cool night air as from his sudden and unexpected touch, and he squeezed her closer so she had to tuck her arm around him. Clearly the pretence had already begun.
It was no hardship to hold him, there was a firmness about his body that made him a pleasure to touch, and the closer she was to him, the more of his delicious masculine scent she could consume, but it was impossible to relax. Her legs felt stiff, her steps forced, her features tense. It was all for show, all to give the appearance they were lovers. And all of it was fake.
‘Smile!’ he ordered. ‘Anyone would think you were about to meet a firing squad.’
Maybe not, but Andreas was paying her a million dollars to pretend to be his mistress and it was a role she had no concept of. A million-dollar mistress who couldn’t sell what she knew about being someone’s mistress for one dollar.
She should have told him, should have confessed that her experience with the opposite sex was limited to one lousy time instead of claiming to have had sex ‘loads of times’. He’d expect her to know what was expected of her and how to act and he’d have every right to be furious when she didn’t. She glanced up at him but his profile was set hard, his jaw line rigid as he scowled at the waiting car, and she thought better of it. Whatever he seemed so upset about, now was hardly the time to confess her inexperience.
Whatever was bothering him didn’t stop him hauling her closer to him so that they were joined from shoulder to hip, their legs brushing every time they took a step, limb against limb, flesh against fabric until his heat radiated through her. She looked down at her feet and took a deep gulp of the clear night air. Did he feel it too, this delicious friction? Or was he so used to the feel of women that he didn’t even notice? She was sure there was no way she would ever get used to the touch of him.