CHAPTER FIVE
CECELIA WAS TEMPTED to call in sick, but then that would suggest she regretted last night, which she didn’t.
Instead, she regretted how she felt this morning, because rather than getting up to her alarm and facing the very early start to her day, Cecelia had brought a coffee to bed and sat in it looking at the necklace that Luka had given her.
Cecelia did not want to be one of those women who dared to hope that with her things might be different.
She just had to get through this morning and then she would have a bit of a reprieve in the next two weeks, and then hopefully by the time he came back from Xanero, normal services could be resumed.
For the first time, she hadn’t put out her clothes the night before but Cecelia forgave herself that lapse.
She dressed in the navy suit that she should have worn yesterday and after checking her appearance left the flat. It was too early even for Mrs Dawson to be up and about as she left and took the Tube, not to the office but to Luka’s apartment, to which she had keys.
The trouble with being a PA, especially to someone as successful as Luka, was that for the term of your contract you had access to their life in a way few did.
And, Cecelia had learned, if you happened to be crazy about the boss, it was a form of slow torture.
The doorman knew her and greeted her with a smile. She headed up in the elevator and then rang the bell and waited a moment before letting herself in.
Once, thinking he was still overseas, she had let herself in unannounced, without ringing the bell, and had found Luka in bed.
Neither alone nor sleeping.
Yes, working for Luka really was torture.
Cecelia walked in through the entrance hallway, but instead of heading to his bedroom she went through to the lounge and looked out over the view of Hyde Park, wondering how he would behave with her this morning in the office.
Would he carry on like it hadn’t even happened, or would he expect her to be available to him as she served out her notice?
She gave a little shake of her head to clear such thoughts and wheeled the case she had brought with her towards the main bedroom.
Damn!
He was in bed, though thankfully this time alone.
And asleep.
It wasn’t unusual to have to tiptoe around him, only this morning it was made more difficult, knowing she could have awoken next to him.
As quietly as she could, Cecelia opened up a wardrobe and, as the light inside came on, Cecelia heard him stir.
‘Hey,’ Luka said, his voice thick and sleepy.
‘I’m just sorting out your luggage for your trip.’
And then he must have recalled what they had done the previous night because he asked, ‘Why did you leave so abruptly?’
‘Because I wanted to get home,’ Cecelia said, and then she turned and gave him a small smile and did her best to keep it light. ‘And I also wanted some sleep.’
‘Yes, well, you wouldn’t have got that had you stayed.’ He put his hands behind his head and watched her pulling out a couple of casual shirts and adding them to the case.
‘Will you be swimming when you’re there?’ she asked.
‘What do you think, Cece?’ he said.
It really had been a stupid question, given where he was headed, but it had been more to change the subject than to find out the answer.
‘I think you should call me by my proper name,’ she added, ignoring his question. Of course he would be swimming.
‘It’s not a holiday camp.’ He grinned from the bed. ‘The villas all have their own private pools,’ Luka said as she headed into his en suite bathroom, then he let out a fond laugh of recall. ‘Though there used to be just one main one. I used to work it.’
‘Work it?’ Cecelia laughed and called out from the en suite where she was collecting his cologne and things. ‘Were you a cabana boy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Really?’ She came to the door smiling, her hands full of toiletries. ‘I was actually joking.’
‘It’s true, though. I used to head down there after school or during the holidays. It wasn’t as luxurious then as it is now. There was a different owner then—Geo.’
‘What was he like?’
‘Lazy and a gambler,’ Luka said, and he looked at her standing in the doorway and thought of all she had told him last night.
And all she had not.
There was a lot he hadn’t told her either. He thought of her little jab yesterday about not everything being about money. She thought he’d had it all handed to him on a plate.
Everyone did.
He would have two weeks solid of it now; his father swanning around as if he had rebuilt the stunning complex from scratch, and—one thing that really annoyed Luka—complaining about the food when he feasted at the restaurant. Theo would sit there loudly stating that he made it better himself, when in truth Theo Kargas could not make his own coffee, let alone run a high-end kitchen.
Luka rather guessed that the uptight Cecelia might not be a forgiving audience for the story of his beginnings, and not the first person he would choose to share it with.
Luka wasn’t used to sharing anything.
In business and in private he chose to take rather than to give.
Yet she had told him so much last night and the guilt of his past gnawed at his gut like a cancer—not that he would ever admit it.
‘I would pick up the towels and get drinks and things. Then, when I finished school I got a job in Reception.’
Cecelia zipped up his toiletry bag and put it in his case and was just about to ask him about footwear when he said something that made her frown.
‘Of course, I still worked the pool but it was in my own time and it wasn’t towels that I was picking up.’
She looked up and met his eyes. ‘Meaning?’
‘Because I worked in Reception, I knew who the richest women were because they had private access to the beach and the ocean view.’
‘I’m not with you...’
‘I think you are, Cece.’
She added a belt to his case and did not look at him but he could see two pink spots on her cheek.
In fact, she was embarrassed, wondering if it was because of the fact that sex was constantly on her mind around Luka that she was misinterpreting things.
‘I made a lot of money, and I saved all of it. I made enough that when Geo lost a small fortune and was desperate for cash, I put in an offer for the restaurant and it was accepted.’
‘You bought the restaurant?’
‘Yes,’ Luka said. ‘I bought it and gave my father a share, so he might finally work in his own restaurant, as he had always said he wanted to do. Growing up, we had no money and he said there were no jobs but there were jobs. Pot-washing jobs but, still, it was work. He got really angry...’ Luka didn’t add that he’d got the worst beating of his life that night. ‘My mother said he was a chef and that washing pots was beneath him. So, when I had the money, I bought him a share in a restaurant, one with the Kargas name on the door.’
‘But how on earth did a pool boy get the money to buy a restaurant?’
‘It wasn’t the establishment it is now,’ Luka pointed out.
‘But even so! Are you saying you were a gigolo?’
‘If you choose to call it that then, yes, I was,’ Luka said, expecting her to snap his case closed and walk away.
Yet she didn’t.
‘But how?’ Cecelia asked. ‘I mean, how does it work?’
Luka shrugged. ‘A smile, a nod. Often they would buy me a drink.’
‘I thought it would be the other way around.’
‘No.’
‘And did you name a price?’
‘Of course not,’ Luka said. ‘That would be in poor taste.’
‘But how?’ she asked, intensely curious. ‘I mean, I just can’t imagine...’
‘What?’ he said. ‘You can’t imagine naming your wants?’
‘Perhaps you should try it before you knock it!’
‘No, thank you,’ she said primly. ‘And I can’t imagine giving the cabana boy a wink and a nod.’
Luka smiled. ‘The first time it happened was a surprise. I got chatting to one of the guests. She was a widow. I didn’t really know her but she asked me to join her for dinner. I said no, Geo would not like me dining with the guests. She said we would dine in her suite then. And so I went up and we ate and then we...’ He smiled. ‘I’m sure you can guess the rest.’
‘But I can’t,’ Cecelia said, for she wanted to know more, and in her curiosity she found herself sitting down on the bed. ‘How old was she?’
‘A good bit older than I was then. In her thirties, I think,’ Luka said. ‘She was my first.’ He looked at her. ‘Who was yours?’
‘I don’t have to answer that.’
‘If you want to know more you do.’
‘Gordon.’
He wrinkled his nose and Luka was surprised as something that felt like it should be called jealousy surged in his chest.
Which was ridiculous when he was telling her about his own depraved past.
‘Well, my first was actually stunning—a divorcée. She was there with friends but had her own villa. I was there every night until morning and I thought I had found the keys to heaven. The morning she left she came into Reception and when Geo wasn’t looking she gave me an envelope. I thought it was a letter. When I opened it there was a whole load of cash. Until that point I had thought it was a romance.’
‘Were you hurt when she paid you?’
‘Hell no,’ he said. ‘To tell the truth I was already starting to get restless.’
Cecelia suppressed an eye-roll and refrained from saying that perhaps it was an indicator of things to come, as Luka spoke on.
‘I was trying to work out how to break it off but had decided to do so after her holiday. I was the naïve one back then.’
Cecelia gave a wry smile at that. ‘I doubt you were ever naïve. And after she’d gone there was another?’
‘Of course, although it wasn’t always cash. Sometimes they would take me shopping for a watch or such like. Once a car...’
‘A car?’
She started to laugh. An embarrassed laugh, but she was also very curious. ‘Luka!’
‘What?’ He shrugged. ‘I was always careful and it wasn’t all sex.’
‘What else?’
‘Romance. Dinner. Shopping. But mainly talking.’
‘You mean, saying what they wanted to hear?’
‘Yep.’
‘Did you care for them?’
‘Some I did,’ Luka said. ‘Mostly it was work.’ He met her eyes. ‘They didn’t all care for me, Cece. They paid for the full Luka Kargas treatment.’
For a few years the pool had been his playground and the pickings had always been rich.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘once I had bought the restaurant I hired a decent chef and changed the décor.’
‘What about your father?’
Luka didn’t answer directly.
It felt disloyal to his mother to admit that his father hadn’t so much as lifted a saucepan.
‘The restaurant started to do well and was too busy for one chef. Though it didn’t do too well—I made sure of that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I knew it wouldn’t be long until Geo blew things again and would be forced to sell. When that happened I had planned to be in a good enough position to put in an offer on the resort. With help, of course...’
‘Financial help?’ Cecelia checked.
‘No, one of the women I was seeing helped me get my papers in order to go to the bank.’ He didn’t add that the woman had also warned him not to bring his father into the hotel side of things.
It was advice for which he would be grateful for ever.
‘How old were you by then?’
‘Twenty-two. Once the resort was safely mine I hired the best chef I could find and things really started to happen. As the guests came in I started to buy up the houses and land around it. Out of all the hotels I own, it is still the jewel in my crown. From humble beginnings it’s magnificent now.’
She looked at him. He mesmerised her, he truly did. And she was nervous too, for the more she knew him, the more she wanted him.
‘Is your father still your business partner?’
‘Not fully.’ He shook his head. ‘The hotels are mine, the restaurants belong to us both.’ And then, a touch unguarded, he admitted a little more. ‘I should never have gone into business with him.’
‘I agree about not going into business with family,’ Cecelia said, because she had seen such things go wrong in her work before. ‘And, Luka, I also think it’s a really bad idea getting involved with an employer.’ It was Cecelia who brought it back to them. ‘I’m not saying that I regret last night, but it should never have happened. I take my career very seriously.’
‘I know you do, but you’re leaving anyway.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But I still don’t think it’s right and I don’t want Bridgette or anyone knowing that something once happened between us.’
‘Once?’ he checked, and he took her hand to move it to the sheet beneath which he was hardening, but she resisted and her palm came to rest on his flat stomach.
There was no solace there for his skin was warm and she could feel the silk hair that led from his navel to paradise and she ached to move her hand lower.
So much had changed since yesterday.
Not just that she was leaving.
And not just that they had slept together.
He was creeping further into her heart.
‘Luka, I really think we should just draw a neat line under what happened and when you come back from Xanero we’ll go back to how we were.’
She was trying so hard to hold onto her heart, while at the same time sitting on his bed and looking into his eyes.
He pulled her head towards him, and she let him, and they shared a lingering kiss. He was leaving this morning, Cecelia told herself.
Order would soon be returned.
Just not yet.
Their tongues explored each other and their mouths were hungry for sensations.
He kissed down her neck and then moved the collar of her linen jacket and kissed the shoulders that had been revealed to him only yesterday, tracing her clavicle with his tongue until her neck arched.
‘Don’t leave a bruise...’ she said, but he ignored her, biting into her flesh and sucking as his hand pushed between her thighs, which were pressed together.
‘Come to bed,’ Luka said.
And without hesitation she nodded.
Cecelia stood and his eyes were on her as she undressed. He watched as the navy jacket came off and he just stared as she removed her top to reveal the purple mark on her shoulder.
She slipped off her skirt and sandals and then straightened up and removed her bra. She could see he was hard beneath the sheet, and, in response to the command from her hungry eyes, he kicked it off.
He loved that he did not have to persuade her—that he did not have to slowly remove her bra and kiss her while sliding down her knickers.
Instead, she took care of that.
For this was no accident.
Her delicately shaped curls, which he had not had time to appreciate last night, had a coppery tinge that he stared at as she removed her bra. For the first time in years he was hungry to taste a woman, and reached for her to join him in bed.
‘After this morning...’ she warned, but he hushed her with his mouth. ‘I mean it, Luka,’ Cecelia said, pulling hers away.
‘Sure,’ he agreed, ‘so this morning we make the most of it.’
Instead of kissing her, he knelt and lowered his head to her breast.
His tongue swirled around her nipple while his mouth closed and created a delicious vacuum. He sucked hard and Cec
elia felt herself clench down below.
‘Luka...’
‘Nice?’ he asked, removing his mouth and blowing on her erect nipple. Cecelia didn’t know how to answer.
It was beyond nice, it was bliss, yet his moves were so practised and sure. She closed her eyes and then his mouth moved down her stomach.
‘Am I getting the full Luka Kargas treatment?’ she asked.
There was a moment of arrested silence while he paused, his mouth hovering over her stomach. What she didn’t know was that in Luka’s world the tables had turned many years ago. He no longer went down on women.
His start had been sex and Luka had long ago perfected his routine.
But now that his wealth exceeded theirs...
Well, he paid for their favours.
Not directly, of course.
With jewels and exotic weekends.
Now they went down on him instead of the other way around.
But not this morning.
It had been years since...
Years since her pleasure had mattered.
This morning it did.
‘No,’ he responded to her question. ‘You’re getting me.’
He kissed her stomach, not lightly but as deeply and intently as if it were her mouth, and Cecelia found her breath held in her throat as his hand slid between her closed legs. ‘Open them.’
She did, just a little, and she lay there, determined almost not to enjoy it. To remind herself that this was his skill.
His thumb was intent and his fingers were inside her but Cecelia’s throat was tight as he teased and stroked and rubbed, for she brought up her knees in an involuntary movement.
Women had paid him for this, she told herself as his tongue set to work alongside his thumb.
There was a moan building but she held onto it, yet he read it, for he moved between her legs to increase the intensity.
Luka heard her low moan and forgot his practised moves of old for this was new.
He heard her gasps, and finally learned the scent and taste of Cecelia on his tongue.
Her thighs were shaking as he probed deeply, and her hand pressed on his head, pushing him away. He knew she resisted pleasure.
So he upped the intensity again.
‘Luka...’ she sobbed, because it was too intense. His tongue was penetrating and he growled—and knew the moment she felt it. She wanted to come, but knew she would come so deeply that she was terrified to let herself go.
Claiming His Hidden Heir Page 6