The Unlikely Mistress (London's Most Eligible Playboys #01)

by Sharon Kendrick

  ‘Who is this, please?’

  Sabrina wondered fleetingly whether she should give her name. No, better not. ‘This is a friend of Guy’s,’ she answered.

  ‘A friend?’ The voice sharpened. ‘And where is he, please?’

  ‘He’s gone out.’

  ‘Where has he gone?’ asked the voice impatiently.

  Suddenly Sabrina had had enough. The woman was speaking to her as if she were a chambermaid! ‘Who would like to know?’ she asked softly.

  The voice acquired a sudden brittle ring. ‘This is one of Prince Raschid’s representatives. The Prince is keen to learn whether Mr Masters has managed to acquire the painting he was so anxious to secure.’

  Sabrina very nearly dropped the phone. ‘I really have no idea where he’s gone,’ she said slowly, still reeling from the fact that Guy Masters was doing deals for princes. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘The Prince is paying Mr Masters an extremely large commission—for which we would obviously expect him to be instantly accessible,’ said the voice icily. ‘And whether or not he chooses to jeopardise that commission by using his time in Venice to concentrate on his love affairs, instead of paying attention to the work in hand, is obviously something which the Prince will be very interested to hear about.’

  Sabrina drew in a deep breath, trying to remember that the customer was always right. ‘Isn’t there someone else who can deal with your query?’

  There was silence. ‘The Prince will only deal with the owner of the company. Not his minions. Goodbye,’ said the woman, and put the phone down.

  The owner of the company? The company that paid for this hotel room? Sabrina stared down at the receiver, then walked over to the desk, which was covered with neat sheaves of paper.

  She hunted around until she found what she was looking for—a letterheaded sheet of business notepaper stating, ‘Guy Masters. Dealer in fine art’, and an address in what was probably one of the most famous and exclusive streets in London.

  Sabrina felt dizzy. Sick. He had lied. Just a little lie—but a lie all the same. What else had he lied to her about? she wondered as she hunted distractedly around the room for her discarded panties. All those things he’d said. He’d implied…

  She drew in a deep, unsteady breath as she clipped up her bra. She remembered his words as she’d gazed up with wide-eyed admiration at the hotel’s beautifully faded façade. ‘The company pays for it.’

  He had deliberately played down his wealth and his influence—which begged the question why? Did he think that if she found out just how rich he really was, he might never get rid of her? And was that why he had disappeared so conclusively this morning, despite knowing that she would probably be feeling vulnerable?

  She had just slithered into her panties when the phone rang again, and she snatched it up without thinking.

  ‘Signor Masters, please,’ said an Italian-accented voice.

  Feeling that she’d already been down this road, Sabrina sighed. ‘He isn’t here.’

  ‘Could you please give him a message?’ asked the voice.

  Curiosity overrode caution. ‘OK,’ said Sabrina tentatively.

  ‘This is Air Executive at Venice Airport. We need him to confirm his seat on this afternoon’s flight out to London. A water-taxi has been booked for two-thirty, as requested.’

  A flight out today?

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ said Sabrina in a dazed and hurt voice, then replaced the receiver.

  The bastard! The cheating, lying bastard! Another lie! How many more would she discover? He had told her that he was staying for a few days—just as she was. Maybe he had always planned to leave just as soon as he had taken her to bed—he probably hadn’t reckoned on her falling into it quite so quickly.

  She felt the sickening plummet of her stomach as the reality of what she had done began to sink in. She had slept with a stranger. It had been the most heart-stoppingly beautiful night, yes, but Guy hadn’t even been able to face her this morning. And that was how much he cared about her. At least he was allowing her to make the decision to leave herself, rather than having to eject her.

  Face it, she told herself with a bitter pang of regret, you’ve been used. The classic one-night stand. But what had she expected? No woman would ever receive courtesy and consideration from a man like Guy Masters—not when she had ended up in bed with him on a first date.

  Her heart racing, Sabrina slithered the silvery-blue dress over her head and located first one shoe, and then the other.

  She looked around at the sumptuous fittings of the room, feeling more out of place with each second that passed. This was not her kind of world. Guy was not her kind of man. Get out now, she told herself—now while you still have some pride left.

  He was probably downstairs on the lookout in the huge marble foyer, waiting until she had gone back to her own hotel and the coast was clear for him to return to his suite.

  Pausing only to brush through the tangled strands of her hair, she quietly left the room and located the lift, steadfastly ignoring the rather curious expression of a beautiful young Italian woman until it had reached the ground floor.

  Stealthily slinking out, she peeped around one of the giant marble pillars to see, to her absolute horror, that Guy was sprawled out on one of the silk sofas, talking into a mobile phone.

  He looked, Sabrina thought, completely businesslike. Miles away. Worlds away. Worlds apart. He’d shaved, put on a suit and smoothed down the hair which she had ruffled with her greedy, frantic fingers during the night. He didn’t look remotely like a man who had spent the whole night making mad, passionate love to her. Maybe that had been put in the out tray, she thought, her heart thundering like a cannon in her ears.

  She waited until he turned his head, giving her a glimpse of that hard, beautiful profile as he gestured for a coffee.

  Moving with a quiet and guilty step, Sabrina quietly left the hotel.

  Guy opened the door to his suite, wondering whether Sabrina would still be in bed, telling himself that he would not join her there. After recklessness came reason.

  But still a slow rise of colour begin to flush its way along his cheeks, and he moved quietly towards the bed and stared down at it with slowly dawning disbelief. Empty.

  He stood very still. ‘Sabrina?’ he called softly, but even as he said her name he knew that it was futile.

  She had gone.

  He ripped the covers back, as if they were somehow concealing her, as if her slender frame could be hidden away, but there was nothing other than the lingering musky traces of sex marking the sheets.

  His mouth twisted as he dropped the sheet as abruptly as if it were contaminated, his grey eyes growing steely as they travelled around the room.

  Her clothes had gone. The discarded panties and stockings had disappeared.

  Gone, just as if she had never been there.

  A slow pulse began to throb unsteadily at his temple, his gaze not missing a thing as he walked round to the other side of the bed. His eyes scanned this way and that for the note which logic told him she had not left. And at first the glint of gold which gleamed so palely against the silken rug held no interest for him.

  Until he realised that she had left something behind.

  He bent and retrieved the delicate chain and stared down at it with dawning realisation as it glittered in the palm of his hand.

  And his mouth twisted into a slow, cruel smile as his fingers closed over it and he dropped it deep into the pocket of his trousers.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE old-fashioned bell on the bookshop door clanged loudly as Sabrina stepped in out of the rain. The shop was empty save for a mild-looking man with glasses who glanced up, his face brightening into a smile of welcome.

  ‘Sabrina!’ he said in delight. ‘Welcome back!’

  Sabrina tried to match his smile, and wondered if it looked as lopsided as it felt. ‘Thanks, Paul,’ she said, and slowly began to unbutton her raincoat, brushing off the drops o
f rain as she did so. ‘It’s great to be back!’

  ‘So, how was Venice?’

  Sabrina quickly turned to hang the dripping garment on the peg, hoping that he wouldn’t see the sudden defensive set of her shoulders. Or the swift shiver of memory which had her biting her lip in consternation. How could you ache so badly for a man you barely knew? she wondered. A man who had given you his body, but not his honesty?

  But by the time she turned round again she had managed to compose her face into the kind of dreamy post-holiday smile which Paul would be expecting.

  ‘Venice? Oh, it was…’ She swallowed as recollections of mocking grey eyes and a hard, lean body swam unwillingly into her mind. ‘It was lovely!’ she finished lamely.

  ‘Lovely?’ echoed Paul, pulling a face. ‘This is the place that you wanted to visit more than anywhere else on earth and you describe it as “lovely”? What happened in Venice, Sabrina?’ He laughed. ‘Did you leave your descriptive powers behind?’

  ‘I’m a bit tired after all the travelling, that’s all. I went to see my aunt in Scotland as soon as I got back.’ She sat down at the desk and began to flick through the morning’s post.

  ‘Yes.’ Paul frowned. ‘You look a little pale. Like some coffee?’

  ‘I’d love some. I’ll make it.’

  But Paul Bailey shook his head. ‘No, you won’t. I’ll do it. You look bushed. Sit down and I’ll bring you something hot and restorative.’

  ‘Thanks, Paul,’ said Sabrina gratefully. She dropped a discarded envelope into the bin and looked around.

  It was hard to believe that she was back. That everything was just as she’d left it. And nothing had changed.

  She bit her lip again and stared down at the pile of manila envelopes on her lap.

  Except her. She had changed. In the course of those few days in Venice she had discovered some unbelievable things about herself—things she wasn’t sure she liked at all.

  And now she was having to come to terms with the knowledge that she was the kind of woman who was able to have a passionate fling with a man who was little more than a stranger to her. A stranger who had left her heart breaking for him.

  Paul came back into the room, carrying a tray with two steaming mugs of coffee, one of which he deposited in front of her, together with a chocolate bar.

  She shook her head. ‘You can have the biscuit. I’m not hungry.’

  Paul tutted, sounding torn between concern and impatience. ‘I thought that one of the reasons behind you going to Italy was to try and tempt yourself back into eating.’ His voice softened, along with his eyes. ‘Come on—you can’t keep pining for Michael for ever, you know, Sabrina. He wouldn’t want that.’

  Sabrina quickly put down the coffee, terrified that she might drop it. For what would the decent and honourable Paul say if he knew how little she had been pining for Michael? She tried to imagine his reaction if she told him the truth about her holiday, and paled at the thought of how his opinion of her would be reversed if only he knew.

  ‘In fact,’ said Paul gently, ‘I thought you were going to come back from Venice a new woman—wasn’t that the plan?’

  She lifted her head. ‘And I haven’t?’ she teased him. ‘Is that what you mean?’

  He shrugged awkwardly. ‘Just as slim and even paler—what did you do out there?’

  ‘What does everyone do in Venice?’ she asked lightly, as she tried not to remember.

  Paul grinned. ‘You travelled in a gondola, right?’

  Sabrina forced a smile in response. ‘You bet I did!’ And that was how the whole damned thing had started—blinded by a man with night-dark hair and a body which had stirred a deep, primitive response in her. And she couldn’t blame Guy for that. She had set the wheels for that in motion herself. Unless she was planning to blame him for his physical beauty and impact. ‘Anyway, that’s enough about me, Paul. How has business been?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘So-so. March is slow, as you know, but it’ll be Easter soon. Interestingly enough, I had a phone call yesterday from a man trying to track down a rare first edition.’

  Sabrina sipped her coffee. ‘Oh?’

  ‘That’s right. You must have served him. He asked for you. I told him you weren’t due in until today.’

  ‘Really?’ she questioned absently.

  Once she had drunk her coffee, Sabrina forced herself to get back into the slow and rhythmical pattern of her working day and found it comforting. She would put the whole affair down to experience and not let it get out of hand in her imagination. After all, lots of people had holiday romances which ended badly.

  If only Guy Masters wasn’t such an unforgettable man. If only she hadn’t lost her head. But ‘if onlys’ wouldn’t change a thing—they never did.

  Fortunately, work soon took over. Maybe that was because she had become an expert in pushing away disturbing thoughts. She settled down to some long-overdue ordering and soon became immersed in that.

  She heard the sound of the shop door clanging open and flourished her signature in the order book before looking up and blinking, her polite smile freezing into disbelief on her lips.

  It couldn’t be him, she thought, even as her heart responded with an instinctive surge of excitement. But the delight ebbed away as quickly as it had come, to be replaced by a sudden wariness when she saw the dark, forbidding expression on his face.

  It couldn’t be him. But it was.

  She was aware of the fact that Paul was working in the storeroom, and composed her face accordingly.

  ‘Hello, Guy,’ she said, her voice sounding astonishingly calm considering that the thundering of her heart was threatening to deafen her. ‘This is a surprise.’

  ‘Is it?’ He leaned over the desk and the male scent of him reached out to her senses, sending them spinning out of control as she registered his closeness. ‘So you do remember me?’ he drawled silkily. ‘Wow—that’s a relief.’

  Sabrina blushed at the implication behind his insulting question. ‘Of course I remember you! I…We…’

  ‘Had a night of no-holds-barred sex before you did a runner in the morning?’ he remarked insolently.

  ‘You were the one who did a runner, and will you keep your voice down?’ she hissed furiously.

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or I’ll have you thrown out of the shop!’

  Guy’s gaze swivelled to where Paul was busy flicking through a card index, and he raised a laconic eyebrow. ‘Oh, really?’

  She knew just what he was implying. For a man of similar age to Guy, Paul was no weakling, but comparing him to the angry specimen of manhood who stood just inches away from her would be like comparing a child’s chugchug train to a high-speed express. But even so…

  Sabrina raised a stubborn chin to him. No matter what had happened between the two of them, he couldn’t just march in here like some autocratic dictator and start jeopardising her very livelihood. Not when he’d already taken out her heart and smashed it into smithereens…

  ‘Yes, really!’

  He cocked an arrogant eyebrow at her. ‘Going to start talking, then, are we, Sabrina?’

  ‘I can’t talk to you now,’ she stated levelly. ‘I’m working.’

  ‘Then when?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she prevaricated.

  The grey eyes narrowed. ‘What time is your lunch-hour?’

  ‘I don’t usually take lunch.’

  ‘House rules?’ he drawled.

  ‘No, my rules,’ she answered stiffly.

  ‘Then change the rules, baby,’ he commanded, with a cool arrogance which infuriated her almost as much as it reminded her of his consummate mastery in bed. ‘And change them now.’

  Sabrina tried to imagine the worst-case scenario. What if she agreed to meet him for lunch—in a city where she had lived all her life and where she was known? She wasn’t the same woman here as he had met in Venice. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But what if he managed to reduce her to that same mindless be
ing who just cried out for his touch?

  And it wasn’t difficult to work out how he might go about that. Surely he would only have to take her in his arms again. Just as he’d done before. She couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t succumb, and how could she possibly come back in here after that and spend the afternoon working, as if nothing had happened?

  ‘I eat my lunch here,’ she told him resolutely.

  He rubbed a thoughtful forefinger over his chin, and the movement was accompanied by the unconscious thrust of his hips. ‘Then I guess I’ll just wait here until you’ve finished,’ he told her softly, and then deliberately raised his voice. ‘Perhaps you could point me to the section on erotic literature?’

  ‘Don’t you dare—’

  ‘Is something wrong, Sabrina?’ Paul came through from the storeroom, pushing his spectacles to the back of his nose, looking with distrust at the tall, dark man who was towering over his assistant’s desk.

  Sabrina sent a look of appeal up at Guy but was met with nothing but an uncompromising glitter. She knew then that he wouldn’t be going anywhere until he got what he’d come for. And that there was no way she could get out of this meeting. She swallowed down her reservations and forced a brittle smile.

  ‘Guy is a friend…’ She hesitated on the inappropriate word before continuing, seeing the brief, hard twist of his mouth as he registered it, too. ‘A friend of mine. Who has dropped into town unexpectedly—’

  Guy fixed Paul with a bland smile. ‘And I was hoping to persuade her to come to lunch with me, but—’

  ‘Well, we usually eat a sandwich here—but you go to lunch if you want, Sabrina!’ said Paul immediately. ‘It’ll make a nice change.’

  Sabrina shook her head and sent Guy a furious look. How dared he be so manipulative in order to get his own way? ‘No, thanks, Paul. I’ve agreed to meet Guy…after work.’ She managed to get the words out—even though they almost choked her in the process.

  ‘Yes, she has. I can hardly wait.’ Guy gave her another wintry smile, but the hungry look of intent which had darkened his eyes told its own story. ‘I’m taking you out for dinner, Sabrina.’