No Mistress But Love
Kate Proctor
Some women are slow reaching sexual maturity - it was just your bad luck to be around when I reached mine!Nick Leandros thought he was such a big shot, just because he happened to own the island - well, Lindy Hall had had enough! He thought he could play with her feelings as and when he chose. How would he like it if she turned the tables on him for a change?Only, Lindy thought hesitantly, the fact that he was convinced she was married to another man did complicate the matter somewhat. But she would find a way out of that, too… .
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#uae2bbbde-1b53-5954-ab07-986bc287d455)
Excerpt (#u20417165-034c-535f-b20b-2463910b7097)
About the Author (#uce4a8f1c-c352-5b79-9b04-4e84b6b9ed40)
Title Page (#uc418efd0-5206-5e77-9c31-c632c06d01ef)
Chapter One (#u6808a0e7-79c8-5398-8c6e-185f05b64f7a)
Chapter Two (#uddf58096-995f-5cef-8268-e075bb62a320)
Chapter Three (#u69f53b54-a908-56b0-a4b5-1419c9ee4e3b)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Lindy froze suddenly. “What did you say?” she just about managed to croak.
“I’ve just told you that I won you in a poker game last night,” he informed her indifferently, turning and strolling to the door. He paused as he reached it. “By the way, when your husband turns up—tell him he’s fired. I did mention it to him last night, but he was probably too worse for drink to remember…I dare say the fact his wife is now mine to enjoy has also slipped his memory, so perhaps you’d be good enough to remind him of that, too. And by the way—I’ve had your things moved into my suite.”
KATE PROCTOR is part Irish and part Welsh, though she spent most of her childhood in England and several years of her adult life in Central Africa. Now divorced, she lives just outside London with her two cats, Florence and Minnie (presented to her by her two daughters who live fairly close by).
Having given up her career as a teacher on her return to England, Kate now devotes most of her time to writing. Her hobbies include crossword puzzles, bridge and, at the moment, learning Spanish.
No Mistress But Love
Kate Proctor
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_d7f971ea-6786-5438-9b88-0885432c2e73)
THE very first time Lindy Hall had seen Niko Leandros her breathing mechanism had all but seized up on her; and on subsequent meetings, despite decided reservations as to his character, she had found her fingers itching to reach out and ascertain for themselves whether or not that vision of male perfection comprised actual flesh and blood.
‘Where is your husband?’
And that was another thing about him, reflected Lindy, lack of sleep dulling her normally alert mind—his voice: its unmistakably English, and markedly upperclass drawl would unexpectedly soften with the slightest of Greek accents on the odd word, rendering it one of the sexiest voices she had ever heard.
‘Am I to take it you don’t wish to tell me where your husband is?’ enquired Niko, his tall, statuesque form gliding past Lindy’s desk and to the window behind her.
‘I really do wish you’d call me Lindy.’ She sighed involuntarily, and was immediately cursing both herself, for inviting yet another glacial rebuff, and Tim Russell for never being around when he was needed.
And where on earth was Tim? she wondered irritably. He had sloped off early yesterday afternoon and, as far as she knew, hadn’t set foot inside the hotel since—a fact which, coupled with last night’s abnormally oppressive heat, had guaranteed her a virtually sleepless night.
‘Yes, I suppose I should—under the circumstances,’ murmured Niko in that soft, drawling voice of his as he parted the slats of the blind to peer out into the dazzle beyond, where sea and skies merged into a single shimmering blue.
‘I beg your pardon?’ croaked Lindy, scarcely able to believe her ears.
She swivelled round her chair in order to see him, a small frown creasing her brow as her eyes caught sight of the still-livid scar running from within the gleaming black of his hairline right down to the elegant arch of his right eyebrow. Though admitting it brought her a decided pang of guilt, she realised that she found something almost comforting in the sight of that one blemish on the otherwise chiselled perfection of his features—no one had any right to look as good as this man did.
‘Perhaps it is best if I start calling you by your first name,’ he reiterated, his gaze still on the view beyond the window.
Lindy’s eyes rolled heavenwards. What was she supposed to do—get down on her knees and thank him for the favour he was bestowing on her? He might be the most gorgeous-looking man she had ever clapped eyes on, but his downright arrogance more than cancelled that out! From the moment he had arrived he had treated both herself and Tim to a brand of polite disdain that left neither of them in any doubt as to who was the master and who the servants.
‘And you may call me Niko.’
Had the chair not been of the solid, figure-hugging variety Lindy felt sure she would have fallen from it in shock.
‘You’ve obviously misunderstood me,’ she managed coolly. ‘I wasn’t implying I wanted to be on first-name terms with you…it’s just that…well, to be honest, it makes me feel ancient when people refer to me as Mrs Russell.’ And nine times out of ten she failed to respond to that bogus name, she added miserably to herself—there having been nothing in the least honest in her stammered excuse.
‘Under the circumstances,’ murmured Niko, turning from the window to face her, ‘it would be rather ludicrous for us to be on anything other than first-name terms.’
Lindy leaned back against the chair, willing herself not to react to the taunting tone of those words and willing her eyes to keep their appreciation to themselves as they surveyed the broad-shouldered muscularity of the body beneath the heavy white silk of the shirt encasing it.
‘You keep saying ‘under the circumstances",’ she muttered, hastily removing her unreliable eyes from the muscled tautness of the well-shaped thighs they were now graphically envisaging beneath close-fitting, immaculately tailored black trousers.
‘True—I keep saying ‘under the circumstances",’ he concurred, taking a couple of unexpected strides towards her and hauling her to her feet. ‘And almost every time you look at me your eyes begin eating me,’ he added inconsequentially, his fingers biting painfully into her flesh.
Momentarily stunned by the complete unexpectedness of both his actions and words, Lindy gazed up blankly into the face now scant inches from her own, her widespaced blue eyes widening in shock as they discovered just how cold brown eyes could be, even brown ones flecked with gold, as she now discovered his to be, and which should rightly have been the embodiment of nothing but warmth.
‘I’m afraid you suffer from a seriously over-inflated ego, Mr Leandros,’ Lindy informed him with all the coolness she could muster, given that her pulses seemed intent on breaking the sound barrier. ‘Because what you’ve seen in my eyes and misread is pity—pure and simple! Though I’m sure that, given time, the terrible disfigurement on your head will fade to little more than a barely noticeable scar.’
Had her own common sense not already told her how utterly pathetic that spur of the moment excuse had been the expression of amused disbelief flickering across Niko Leandros’s handsome features would have quickly brought it home to her.
‘My, my—so you’re compassionate as well as beautiful,’ he drawled, his words husky with laughter as he sank his fingers none too gently into the shoulder-length thickness of her sun-streaked dark blonde hair and tilted back her head. ‘Perhaps I’m a far luckier man than I’d realised.’
‘Would you mind letting go of me, Mr Leandros?’ demanded Lindy frigidly, his taunting reference to her looks touching a raw nerve in her that put a merciful break on her racing pulses.
‘Why? Surely you don’t object to a man—even one as grossly disfigured as I am—telling you that you’re beautiful?’ he enquired silkily, an openly predatory gleam in his eyes as he tugged her body against his.
‘I’m not beautiful—and we both know it!’ she exclaimed in a strangled voice, tearing her body free from its electrifying contact with his and racing round to the other side of the desk.
‘Well, that’s a novel line, I must admit,’ he muttered, his eyes narrowing to watchful slits as Lindy, her cheeks burning with humiliation, gazed sightlessly down at the papers strewn across the desk.
This was it, she told herself furiously; Tim Russell could rant and rave and make all the threats he liked—she had had enough and was taking the first boat she could get off this damned island!
‘Unfortunately for you, I don’t find it in the least intriguing when women start playing silly games and fishing for compliments—so you can dispense with both,’ he informed her coldly, then added with mocking amusement, ‘Under the circumstances, it would pay you to do both with alacrity.’
Lindy’s eyes flew to his, anger darkening their blue to navy.
‘It seems your husband hasn’t had the guts to put you in the picture,’ he continued, his eyes taking almost insultingly candid stock of the slim, golden-skinned figure across the desk from him and lingering openly on the softly rounded curves that even the shapeless T-shirt dress she was wearing couldn’t disguise. ‘Though I can’t say I’m surprised—one can’t really expect honour in such a man, now, can one?’
‘One hasn’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ snapped Lindy, wondering what on earth it was that Tim had been up to this time, and wondering even more at her own perverseness in finding this loathsomely arrogant specimen of a man so unspeakably attractive.
‘Really? Not only does he play cards badly and way beyond his means—but he also cheats.’
Lindy only just managed to stifle a groan of complete exasperation. She had had more than enough of Tim Russell and his ghastly ways—even though she had no one to blame but herself for that unpleasant fact.
‘Perhaps you will find it a little ironic that, even cheating unchallenged, he still managed to lose you to me last night.’
‘What Tim does…’ Lindy froze suddenly. ‘What did you say?’ she just about managed to croak.
‘I’ve just told you that I won you in a poker game last night,’ he informed her indifferently, turning and strolling to the door. He paused as he reached it. ‘By the way, when your husband turns up—tell him he’s fired. I did mention it to him last night, but he was probably too worse the wear for drink to remember… I dare say the fact that his wife is now mine to enjoy has also slipped his memory, so perhaps you’d be good enough to remind him of that too. And, by the way—I’ve had your things moved into my suite.’
Lindy leaned back against the desk as the door closed behind him, her mind reeling in a daze of confusion. Unconsciously she raised a hand to rub against her upper arm where the imprint of Niko’s fingers still tingled against her flesh, while the thought crept accusingly into her head that it was the inexplicable potency of the attraction she felt towards Niko that had somehow prevented her having a show-down with Tim.
Frowning, she shook her head. It was completely irrational of her to feel even a single twinge of guilt. A platonic relationship was what she and Tim had agreed on while they were here—Tim because he was still nursing wounds from a particularly hurtful relationship, and she because…Her thoughts stalled uncertainly. Because, to be perfectly frank, she seemed to have a problem where men were concerned, she told herself bluntly. At fifteen she had lost her heart to the local Romeo, whose callous remarks about her adolescent podginess—which had clung to her with relentless tenacity until she was almost twenty—had left her with a cripplingly negative self-consciousness towards her appearance. Despite the claims of her beautiful mother and her equally stunningly beautiful sister, Joanna, seven years her senior, that such a period of fatness was no more than an unfortunate family trait, she had protected herself so assiduously from the potentially hurtful attentions of males that, when they had eventually begun determinedly seeking her out, her total lack of even the most basic of experience had brought complications she had never even dreamed of to her life. Which was why, she reasoned ruefully, she had welcomed the allegedly broken-hearted Tim so wholeheartedly into her chaotic life. Tim hadn’t drooled with what she considered to be the blatant insincerity of other men, she remembered, and—until he had shown his true colours here—neither had he tried to lure her into his bed, the sole aim, she had become convinced, of just about every man with whom she had been coming into contact.
‘A year or so out of the London rat race—that’s what I need, and what I honestly think you could do with too,’ was how Tim had first introduced the subject. ‘There’s a job going on one of the Greek Islands, managing a super de luxe hotel, which I thought I’d try for… Interested?’
‘Very,’ Lindy had laughed, ‘except that I know absolutely nothing about hotel management.’
‘No problem—I know enough for the two of us.’
She realised now that she hadn’t really taken his suggestion that she should join him seriously, because her first thought had been how she would miss his availability as an escort whenever she needed one—an escort she could trust not to start making physical overtures as the evening progressed. But she had encouraged him in seeking the job, she reminded herself, her face clouding as she remembered to what extent…even then, the signs were there, she thought angrily—if only she had had the sense to read them. But it was her own pig-headed stubbornness that had been her downfall and led her to all this, she reminded herself harshly. The more sceptical her friends had become, the more protective she had felt towards Tim.
‘Lindy, don’t be so na?ve!’ they had chorused. ‘He has to be expecting a darn sight more than friendship from you, carting you off to some remote Greek island for a year—especially when he’s told them all you’re his wife!’
‘How many times do I have to explain that was a misunderstanding?’ she had protested—and one she hadn’t been in the least happy to hear of. ‘It wasn’t until he’d got the job that Tim realised it was for a married couple.’
‘Yet he was the only one traipsing back and forth to Greece for interviews,’ it had been pointed out to her with such open scepticism that she hadn’t dared admit even to her closest friends that it had been her money—her entire savings, in fact—that had financed those trips.
His excuse for borrowing from her had, at the time, been plausible enough, but nothing could alter the fact that he had made no attempt to repay her to date.
Lindy moved from the desk to the window, half closing her eyes against the glare of the sun as she opened the blind. She had closed her ears to the advice of good friends because she had felt sorry for Tim and because she had always yearned for travel and adventure, and this job on Skivos had promised both.
But the gentle—and, to be ruthlessly honest, slightly pathetic—Tim with whom she had arrived had gradually disappeared. In his place had appeared an unpredictably moody, unrecognisably different person against whom she had, soon after their arrival, had to lock her bedroom door of the suite they shared. And she was now beginning to wonder if his tale of a broken heart had been simply that—a tale calculated to breach the defences she had erected against men.
She gave a sudden shrug of dismissal—it didn’t really matter because, whatever way she looked at it, she had been well and truly deceived and it was her own stupid fault. The real Tim Russell was bad-tempered, drank far too much and was a womaniser. She paused for an instant before adding gambler and cheat to her list of his attributes, then rolled her eyes in exasperated disbelief. And now he had lost her in a game of poker, she added further to that list before beginning to chuckle weakly as her irrepressible sense of humour belatedly sprang to life and got the better of her.
She reached up and closed the blind, her amusement faltering as a picture of the man to whom she had been lost leapt to her mind…a man who had stirred such strangely primitive feelings within her that they had distracted her from giving her problems with Tim the attention they most certainly warranted; powerful and conflicting feelings of excitement and apprehension that had been laying siege to her right from the very first moment she had caught sight of him.
Without even pausing to knock, Lindy flung open the door to the palatial suite of rooms Niko Leandros occupied on the top floor of the building.
‘Where are you?’ she demanded, marching straight into the centre of the almost spartan elegance of the drawing-room.
‘If it’s me you’re looking for—I’m here,’ drawled Niko’s voice from behind her.
Lindy spun round, the angry words she had been about to hurl at him dying on her lips as she caught sight of him.
He was standing in an archway leading off the large room, aggressive masculinity managing to ooze from his every pore, despite the expression of mild boredom adorning his handsome features. His hair was tousled and damp, threatening almost to curl against his head, and the whiteness of the walls and the short towelling robe encasing his tall, athletic body served only to accentuate the golden sheen of his skin and the hirsute darkness of his long, perfectly proportioned legs.
The sight of him, even fully clad, was usually enough to knock the breath from her, Lindy admitted to herself with fatalistic candour, but it was the sight of his legs that now froze the anger in her—or, to be precise, the sight of his right leg, down the outer side of which, from as much of its thigh as was visible right down almost to his calf, ran livid, knotted scar tissue.
‘There’s more, if you’re interested,’ he murmured mockingly, his hands moving to the belt of his robe as his eyes noted the path of hers. ‘Though I feel it only fair to warn you that this is all I’m wearing.’
‘I’m perfectly aware that convalescence can be a very boring time for some people, especially those used to active lives, Mr Leandros——’
‘Niko—I thought we’d agreed.’
‘All right—Niko,’ ground out Lindy from between clenched teeth, the anger stifled in her by the sight of that terrible scar swiftly rekindling. ‘But I’d be grateful if you’d stop trying to amuse yourself at my expense. And you can start by moving my things back into my room—I mean, Tim’s and my suite.’
She stood her ground as he began walking across the mottled marble of the floor towards her, determined to conceal the feeling of intimidation now joining the morass of other sensations assailing her. He drew to a halt scarcely a foot from her at the moment when her nerve was about to desert her completely.
‘No, your things will not be moved,’ he informed her, the sudden darkening in his eyes as they met hers creating a jangling mixture of fear and excitement within her that held her rooted to the spot. ‘But yes, I shall be amusing myself at your expense. You see, my goldenhaired Lindy, it’s quite some time since I’ve had a woman,’ he declared, his eyes boldly proprietorial as they swept the contours of her body.
‘Had?’ she squeaked, fear all but wiping excitement out of existence in her. This certainly wasn’t the type of adventure she had been seeking in coming to this island!
‘Had the pleasure of a beautiful woman’s company,’ he amended with blatant insincerity.
‘I know for a fact that’s a lie!’ retorted Lindy incautiously. ‘Women have been coming to this island in their droves ever since you arrived—and every single one of them stunning!’
‘Yes, but they’re too easy,’ he countered lightly. ‘They’re not as discerning as you are—they all see me as just as beautiful as they are…whereas you see me as disfigured and worthy only of your pity.’
‘Niko, honestly, I——’ She felt her teeth jar with the sudden force with which she clamped her mouth shut. This was a subject over which she was far too sensitive, she warned herself angrily; she knew perfectly well he was merely amusing himself at her expense, yet she had just been on the verge of trying to console him with the fact that she found his looks little short of perfect!
‘No—don’t try to salve my pride, Lindy,’ he murmured with mocking innocence. ‘You can’t imagine how intriguing I find it to come across a woman repulsed by my marred looks.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I didn’t mean to imply I found you repulsive!’ she blurted out spontaneously, and immediately regretted her outraged forcefulness. ‘Well, not really,’ she added, desperately seeking a face-saving balance, but all too aware that she had not succeeded.
‘Don’t worry,’ he murmured, reaching out with both hands to clasp her head, his fingers twining into her hair. ‘The challenge you present excites me more than you can imagine.’
With his fingers now playing in blatant sensuality in her hair, and with the fresh after-shower aroma of him bombarding her senses, Lindy was having more than a little difficulty concentrating on his words. She was having considerable difficulty concentrating on anything. She was as good as in his arms, she thought dazedly—all she had to do was raise her own, now hanging limply at her sides, and she would be in the embrace of the most exciting, most desirable…
‘I’ve always been a firm believer in the saying ‘beauty is only skin deep",’ he continued, his words cutting off the torrid meandering of her thoughts.
‘So have I,’ she agreed in strangled tones—the ugly duckling in a family as good-looking as hers tended to set great store by such sayings.
‘And, as you’ve only seen me in my present unfortunate state, you’ll just have to take my word for it that women used to find my looks irresistible before my accident.’
Lindy’s eyes flew to his, filled with suspicion. He had to be joking—hadn’t he?
‘I see what difficulty you’re having in believing how incredibly beautiful I once was,’ he murmured, his facial expression and his tone equally deadpan.
It was the infinitesimal chance that he actually might be serious that made her pause to take stock before verbally tearing into him. He was Greek, she reminded herself, and from what she had heard Greek men were a pretty macho lot…but one thing she had never heard of was a macho man describing himself as beautiful! Ah—but she had heard something of his having an English mother…or was it grandmother? She let out an involuntary groan of pure exasperation with herself. Since when were Englishmen given to extolling their own physical attributes so extravagantly? Any fool would have accepted immediately that he was joking at her expense!
‘And that’s what I find so exhilaratingly novel about all this,’ he murmured, the now open caress of his fingers in her hair and the huskiness entering his tone scattering her angry indignation and reawakening the throb of excitement in her with a heady vengeance. ‘Knowing that, when you decide to give yourself to me, it won’t be because you’re dazzled by my pretty face, but because——’
‘When I what?’ shrieked Lindy, her sudden and violent attempt to escape curtailed as his hands slid from her hair to her shoulders and clamped her into immobility.
‘Lindy, I realise that the mere idea of your making love with a man as grossly disfigured as I am——’
‘You’re not disfigured and you damn well know it!’ she accused angrily. ‘And you also know damn well that you can probably have any woman who takes your fancy!’
‘Including you?’
‘That’s not what I meant!’ she groaned in exasperation. ‘Damn it——’
‘That’s the third time in succession you’ve just sworn,’ he snapped, suddenly jerking her body closer to his. ‘And I don’t like my women swearing.’
‘I’m not one of your women, and, anyway, “damn” isn’t swearing!’
‘Yes, you are, and yes, it is, as far as I’m concerned. And, believe you me, you’re more mine than any other woman I can think of—you’re the first I’ve owned outright, thanks to the turn of a card.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, you can’t own a person!’ she exclaimed witheringly. ‘Slavery was abolished some time back—or hadn’t you heard?’
‘Well, I’ve just reinstated it on this island, which I happen to own—or hadn’t you heard?’
He was laughing as he spoke, displaying strong white and, needless to say, perfect teeth as he did so. And his hands had begun sliding slowly down from her shoulders and were now caressing her back in a way that was affecting both her mind and body quite disastrously.
‘But all that’s completely irrelevant,’ he whispered seductively, drawing her body another fraction closer while stopping short of actual contact. ‘You see, I’m not the sort of man who would ever dream of forcing his attentions on a woman.’
Hardly something for him to be boasting about, thought Lindy fuzzily, her head swimming with the almost unbearable tension of the excitement gripping her—the problem was far more likely to be one of women forcing their attentions on him.
‘And, of course, you’ll have your own bedroom in this suite until such time as you start sharing my bed—a time which will come only when you choose.’
‘If that’s the case, that time will never come,’ retorted Lindy, trotting out the words in which she had little or no faith simply because she felt the occasion demanded them, and also because they afforded her a few seconds’ distraction from the overwhelming effect his nearness was having on her.
‘Perhaps I’ll remind you of those words when you come, eager and impatient, to my arms…or perhaps then I’ll be too distracted even to recall them.’
‘Stop it,’ she pleaded, the words coming out in a high-pitched squeak that dismayed her.
‘Of course I’ll stop,’ he placated her, while at the same time his head lowered to hers. ‘But first I should like to kiss you.’
‘Why?’ she squeaked inanely, and emitted an even stranger sound as she attempted to clear her throat.
‘Because I’d like to; perversely, perhaps, given that I know you’ll derive no pleasure whatever from it. But, as I say, there’s nothing I enjoy more than a challenge, and your lack of response now will make the passion I shall soon taste on your lips all the sweeter.’
It was then that he drew her fully into his arms, and then that her own rose instinctively to cling around him. Her immediate reaction was of disappointment, and one she instantly transformed into a more acceptable feeling of surprise. It was the unexpected chasteness of his kiss that she found so disconcerting and that made her realise just how terrified she had been of how she might respond. Almost light-headed with relief at finding her fears ungrounded, she felt her rigid muscles relax as the crippling tension that had gripped her for so long swiftly left her. And it was then that he made his move; his arms sliding down her body, his touch electrifying as he moulded her to him, his lips parting hers till his tongue gained entry to plunder and explore the melting guilelessness of her mouth.
And it was in that one fatal moment of relaxation that his body began dictating with impunity to hers; inflaming it into a violence of response far more powerful than anything she had feared. So totally attuned had her body instantly become to his that the urgent swiftness with which potent desire leapt in him neither shocked nor alarmed her. From the start there had been a primitive instinct within her, something that had tried to warn her of what this man was capable of awakening in her and which she was capable of comprehending only when it was too late. But now her body was singing out in reckless joy, marvelling in its magical ability to evoke so unbridled and powerful a response in his.
When, without so much as an instant of warning, he wrenched her from his arms and strode across the room to the huge plate-glass doors leading out to the balcony her reaction was one of such profound disorientation that the only thing she was even vaguely aware of was the sound of her own laboured breathing rasping in her ears.
‘Well, as I said,’ his disembodied and only marginally breathless voice came to her, ‘the next time you’ll enjoy it…perhaps a little more.’
The sarcasm oozing from his every syllable brought the stinging heat of humiliation crawling over her body. Never in her entire twenty-three years had she experienced anything like this…anything as utterly degrading as this! She had allowed herself to be manipulated by an experienced man of the world and had actually thought she was affecting him as devastatingly as he was her!
Anyone would have thought she had never been kissed before! But she had, and with some men had thoroughly enjoyed it…yet never once had she come close to losing control of herself, and nothing she had ever experienced could have prepared her for what had happened to her just now.
She raised her hands and pressed them against her burning cheeks as the sickening thought occurred to her that it wasn’t even a question of having allowed herself to be manipulated by him…she had been nothing more than putty in his hands.
‘My, my, don’t tell me you found kissing me so nauseating that you’re incapable of speech,’ he taunted. ‘Never mind, there’s always next time to look forward to.’
‘Don’t bank on it!’ she flung at him in childish despair, then, wishing she had had the sense to keep her mouth shut and simply leave, she turned and walked from the room, tears of rage and humiliation stinging her eyes as the sound of his mocking laughter floated softly to her ears.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_0bd3fc76-7d1e-5f96-b9a8-f45aed3fba24)
‘JUST where the hell have you been?’ demanded Lindy, her aggressive words bringing Niko’s complaint about her language flashing back to her as she confronted Tim Russell on opening the door to the office.
‘Close the door,’ he ordered sharply, glancing furtively past her.
‘I have every intention of closing it,’ she retorted, slamming the door hard behind her. ‘Because I don’t intend the guests hearing the earful I intend letting you have, you low-down creep! I——’
‘I suggest you shut up and listen to what I have to say, because I’ve only a few minutes.’
‘What do you mean—you’ve only a few minutes?’ she demanded, her eyes sweeping contemptuously over his bleary-eyed, ill-shaven features. ‘You’ll just——’
‘It means I’ve a boatman waiting to take me off this damned island,’ he informed her, crouching down to the holdall at his feet and closing it.
Lindy’s eyes widened in startled disbelief. In the two months she had been here, as his petty moodiness had hardened to vindictive hectoring and she had lost all memory of the man she had once believed him to be, she had grown to despise him. As for his qualifications for the job, she had yet to puzzle out whether he was very good at hotel management or simply adept at delegating most things, as he invariably did, to the highly trained staff at his disposal. Her friends had been right in their belief that he was expecting more from her than he had admitted, and she recognised his unpleasant behaviour towards her as his way of trying to punish her for so naively having believed him—behaviour she responded to with open contempt. This vindictive specimen of manhood she could handle with ease, she told herself, but Niko Leandros was another matter altogether, and for that reason Tim Russell was going nowhere without her!
‘Right—let’s go,’ she stated, anger searing through her as he began laughing derisively. ‘If you’re worried about honouring your gambling debts I suggest you send Mr Leandros a fiver when we get back to England—that should just about cover my worth, shouldn’t it?’
‘If I’d known Leandros was likely to be part of it I’d never have got involved in that particular card school,’ he muttered, rising to his feet and hooking the holdall over his shoulder. ‘Unfortunately I’d had a bit too much to drink by the time he put in his unexpected appearance.’
‘Oh, I see. You were drunk, and that makes it perfectly all right for me to be left to the mercies of a self-opinionated playboy, is that it?’
‘Who do you think you’re kidding, Lindy?’ he jeered. ‘You fancy him like mad and make no effort to hide it—a fact that makes me see red when I think of the “I wish men would leave me alone” routine you’ve been dishing out to me. But I’d say Leandros can’t exactly be described as impervious to you, as he’s the one who suggested I stake you.’
‘And how many of you were there in this card game?’ demanded Lindy frigidly, refusing even to acknowledge his opening gibes. ‘Tell me, Tim, how many other of the degenerate gambling fraternity had the opportunity to win me?’
‘He bought the rest of them out of the game—it was just the two of us.’ His gaze hardened visibly. ‘Damn it, Lindy, none of this would have happened if you’d behaved like a normal woman towards me. And don’t try telling me you expected things to carry on between us as they had in England, because even I refuse to believe you could be that stupid!’
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ she rounded on him, trying desperately not to lose her temper, ‘but that’s exactly what I believed—and what you led me to believe. And to blame me for your bouts of drunkenness, your womanising and your——’
‘I hate to interrupt this litany of praise,’ he snapped, ‘but I really have to get a move on.’
‘We have to get a move on,’ she informed him coldly.
‘I’m afraid you’re going nowhere while Leandros has your passport.’
Lindy’s eyes flew to the safe, in which her passport should have been, uncertainty mixed with horror filling them.
‘Sorry, but Leandros insisted on sending one of his henchmen back here for it as a sort of bond,’ explained Tim with no discernible trace of remorse.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she croaked weakly. ‘My God, you really are the most loathsome apology for a man I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across!’
He gave a harsh laugh. ‘And how would you describe the dashing young Leandros heir?’ he sneered. ‘I’m sure you’ll be only too willing to drop your virginal airs where he’s concerned and wheedle your way——’
‘I shan’t need to wheedle,’ she informed him, her’ words hoarse with disgust. ‘Because I intend going to him right this minute and telling him the truth.’
‘Oh, yes?’ he enquired, his expression mocking. ‘You fancy a spell in a Greek gaol, do you? Because that’s where he’d have the two of us slapped, make no mistake about that.’
‘We haven’t broken any laws!’ exclaimed Lindy, thrown by a momentary flash of fear darting through her. ‘None that could warrant gaol, anyway,’ she added uncertainly.
‘You have some experience with Greek law, have you?’ he sneered, then paused as though savouring an idea. ‘Mind you, if the pair of us ended up inside perhaps I’d get an uninterrupted chance to show you exactly the lines along which I’d planned our relationship to develop …though I can no longer guarantee my intentions would be as honourable as they once were.’ He smiled wolfishly, hitching the holdall more securely on his shoulder as he did so. ‘So yes, why don’t you go ahead and confide all in Leandros? It might just have some very interesting repercussions.’
‘Get out of here!’ she spat at him, trembling with rage, yet startled to detect fear flashing through her once more.
‘Yes—I suppose I should, if that’s your answer.’ He sighed with false regret. ‘And I really shouldn’t keep that boatman waiting, even though I am paying him a small fortune to get me discreetly over to the mainland…your entire share of our salary, in fact. But I’m sure that, if you play your cards better than I did with Leandros, money won’t be one of your worries—the guy’s loaded.’
He had actually managed to frighten her with his talk of prison, she admitted bemusedly to herself as the door closed behind him and silence began filling the room with an almost palpable oppressiveness. She frowned, trying to examine that fleeting, puzzling fear, only to find it had disappeared along with the loathsome Tim. Her frown deepened as she remembered how her friends had tried to warn her of how na?ve she was being where Tim was concerned. She gave a small shudder as she wondered what their reaction would be to the way things had now turned out—not one of them, she was certain, would have envisaged anything remotely as bad as this. How could she have been so incredibly pig-headed?
‘With embarrassing ease,’ she gloomily answered herself aloud, suddenly acutely conscious of how completely bereft she was of someone to confide in. Her status as the manager’s wife had erected an intangible barrier between herself and the rest of the staff, most of whom spoke quite good English and were unanimously friendly—but it was a friendliness that stopped short of allowing her to seek the actual friendship someone of her open and outgoing nature would naturally have sought. And she had to admit that it had troubled her, she thought unhappily, gazing around the room and frowning suddenly as her attention was caught by the unusual dimness of the light.
She turned and looked behind her, her gaze falling on the graceful marble-pillared lampstand in the corner, the single source lighting the room. She walked over to it, her frown deepening as she removed the heavy manila file balanced on top of the shade which had so dimmed the amount of light being emitted. So, she pondered, mystified and wary, Tim had been sneaking around almost in the dark—obviously intent on slipping in and out unnoticed.
After a few moments’ bemused thought she gave a dismissive shrug and tossed the file on to one of the cabinets, gazing around her once more in the now improved light. One thing was for sure, she thought wryly: she wouldn’t be taking on the little amount of work Tim hadn’t managed to delegate—her lack of Greek ensured that. In fact, though she had found plenty to do in the way of work to keep herself occupied, there had been few specific duties for her to perform. At first, Tim had taken delight in delegating menial tasks to her whenever an opportunity had arisen, though his pleasure had soon diminished with the unconcerned enthusiasm with which she would turn her hand even to something as dull as making beds.
But what was she to do now he was gone? she wondered apprehensively…Her job, non-existent though it was, had been part and parcel of his.
But what was very much more to the point…what was she going to do right now?
Pulling a small face, she switched off the lamp and stumbled her way in the dark to the door—trying to comfort herself with imagining Tim Russell barking his shins on the furniture as he had made the same journey in reverse.
She took the lift to the top floor, her heart thudding painfully in her chest and her thoughts drifting everywhere except to the man she was about to face once more. Had Tim taken only the holdall he had been carrying, or had he had his other things stashed away, ready for a speedy departure? She managed to keep her mind on similarly dredged-up thoughts until the lift doors had opened, knowing that the answers didn’t interest her in the least.
Resisting a strong urge to step back into the lift and ride up and down in it all night if it came to it, she strode to the door of Niko’s suite and knocked loudly on it before she had a chance to weaken.
‘It was unlocked anyway,’ he informed her as he opened the door. ‘In future, all you have to do is walk in.’
‘How was I to know that?’ she demanded icily, allowing her eyes to rise no higher than his silk-shirted shoulder-line as she stepped inside. ‘Which is my room?’
‘I’ll take you to it,’ he murmured, his face coming disconcertingly into her line of vision as he gave a small, mocking bow. ‘I don’t suppose your errant husband has turned up, has he?’ he asked as he led her through an archway and down a corridor, his words bringing a startled flush of guilt to her face.
‘I’ve really no idea,’ she muttered, her words sounding alarmingly strained and reluctant to her ears.
He drew to a halt outside one of the panelled oak doors leading off the corridor.
‘When did you last see him?’ he asked, turning to face her.
Lindy had begun lowering her eyes the moment they had spotted him turning. ‘I can’t remember,’ she lied, without the slightest glimmer of hope of being believed. ‘After what he’s done to me, I honestly wouldn’t care if I never saw him again!’
‘And I doubt very much whether you will—at least, not on this island,’ he murmured, his shrewdly watchful eyes never once leaving her face.
‘Good,’ muttered Lindy. ‘Now—is this my room?’
She took a step towards the door outside which they had stopped and found her path blocked by the bulk of his body.
‘How long have you been married?’
Lindy bit back an exclamation of irritation, yet as she did so she also experienced the niggling beginnings of alarm. She should have prepared herself for this, she thought nervously. The need for her and Tim to provide any details of their alleged marriage had never arisen, and they had never really discussed concocting any. If she started lying off the top of her head in her present state of tense exhaustion she knew she was perfectly capable of forgetting every lie she had uttered come tomorrow…detailed lying had never been her forte, even at the best of times.
‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather we didn’t even mention the man’s name,’ she said, striving to sound blaså.
She flinched as his hands descended on her shoulders, and promptly closed her eyes—simply because she couldn’t trust them not to betray her one way or another.
‘Russell stated in his application form that you were getting married around the middle of August. Given that we’re now approaching November, I can’t honestly say your attitude reflects that expected of a bride of just over two months.’
With considerable difficulty Lindy forced her mind not to dwell on this further evidence of Tim’s calculating duplicity.
‘If you already knew—why did you ask?’ she snapped, then, realising that that sort of retort would get her nowhere, added hastily, ‘If you must know, I married Tim on the rebound.’
She felt like awarding herself a medal for such a gratifying display of mental dexterity.
‘Really? Yet you and Russell applied for the job in the spring—I was under the impression that marriages on the rebound took place within a matter of days rather than months.’
‘Well, you were wrong,’ Lindy retorted, still not daring to open her eyes—especially not now that the faint yet distinctive aroma that was so unmistakably his had started working its way past her nostrils and into her senses. It was a smell that was no more than the vague fragrance of freshly laundered silk, combined with a delicate spiciness, far too subtle to be aftershave—yet it was a smell that was exclusively his and which now seemed to have the power to affect her like a seductive caress.
‘Lindy, if you insist on standing here with your eyes closed I shall only kiss you.’
She opened her eyes, not as quickly as she had intended simply because they had reacted to her efforts as though held together by glue. By the time they were fully open his features were a blur before them and her lips were already unconsciously parting to savour the impact of his.
Her arms reached out to embrace him as her mouth leapt to eager life beneath the intoxicating ministrations of his. But it was only her hands that made contact with his silk-shirted torso, and as she attempted to draw nearer, her arms straining to encircle him, realisation slowly began penetrating the fog of excited confusion clouding her mind that she was being deliberately held at arm’s length. And it was that belatedly dawning realisation that stung her into finding the strength to break free. What she found doubly humiliating was that he made no effort to stop her, merely lifting his hands from her shoulders as she twisted away from him, and it was with considerable difficulty that she restrained herself from burying her face in her hands in utter mortification.
‘It’s not fair,’ she panted hoarsely in an attempt to salvage at least a shred of her tattered pride. ‘You’re taking advantage of me when I’m practically dead on my feet with nervous exhaustion!’
‘Why on earth should you be in a state of nervous exhaustion?’ he asked, his tone amused as he opened the door, then swung her round and propelled her through it. ‘Surely not over that husband of yours, whose name you don’t even wish to hear?’
‘No doubt you find this all highly amusing,’ she flung at him, then found herself having to stifle an exclamation of sheer delight as the room was suddenly bathed in soft light.
It was a large room, airy and uncluttered, and with delicate splashes of buttery yellow here and there warming the dazzling whiteness of it. As in the main living area, this room had an outer wall consisting entirely of huge plate-glass sliding doors, one of which was opened to let the soft night breezes billow and dance through the curtains now drawn across them.
In the middle of the room was a huge canopied bed, its crocheted cotton covering so exquisitely worked that it was as though the bed had been shrouded in dazzling white lace.
Suddenly aware that she was being watched, Lindy brought the infatuated rovings of her eyes to an abrupt halt.
‘Why should I find any of this in the least amusing?’ he enquired, as though prompting her to continue her onslaught.
‘Because you’re not a poor defenceless woman who’s been used as a poker chip—that’s why!’ she instantly obliged, anger flashing in her eyes as she spun round to face him. ‘You wouldn’t find it nearly amusing if you were me, I can assure you!’
The expression on his face proclaimed all too clearly his undoubted amusement and the struggle he was having concealing it, which made her suspect that her ‘poor defenceless woman’ claim might have been overdoing it a little.
‘If I happened to be you I suspect I’d be thanking my lucky stars I’d been won by a man with whom I’m so obviously sexually compatible.’
Lindy was stunned into stupefied silence…she couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly!
‘And I’d be shuddering at the thought of all the other men who could have won me—none of them, admittedly, as grossly disfigured as I am, but several of them old enough to be your grandfather.’
‘You liar! You——’ She bit back the words with a ferocity that could have amputated her tongue. She had just been about to let slip she knew it had been a game between himself and Tim alone!
‘You were saying?’ he drawled, the anger blazing in his eyes a startling contrast to the total lack of expression on his face.
‘I was saying you were a liar,’ croaked Lindy, suddenly very frightened. ‘You…you wouldn’t be thinking any of those things if you were me, you’d just be terrified and…and nervously exhausted,’ she finished off lamely.
‘I’d say you were the liar,’ he informed her in chillingly quiet tones, ‘because you’re not in the least terrified of me…something that could turn out to be a dangerous error of judgement on your part.’ He turned and walked to the door. ‘There are some matters I should like to discuss with you later, so I’ll have food brought up for us in half an hour and I shall expect you to join me then. There’s a bathroom leading off the dressing-room—and, if there’s anything you find you need, just ask and it will be provided.’
His head dropped in the most minimal of bows before he closed the door behind him.
That bow was typical of him, thought Lindy dazedly, taking leaden steps towards the bed; it was the sort of gesture that only the super-confident—and usually abundantly wealthy—could afford to make. In the lowly, a bow was an act of obeisance—in men such as Niko Leandros it was a none too subtle statement of their feelings of total superiority.
She gazed down at the bed, on which she had been about to sit, and decided its coverings were far too grand for such treatment; instead she made her way over to the dainty gondola chair in front of the dressing-table and sat down.
The sight of her own possessions neatly arranged before her sent a small frisson of alarmed awareness winging through her. She opened a couple of the drawers and again found her own possessions neatly stacked inside.
With a groaned sigh she propped her elbows on the dressing-table top, cupping her chin in her hands and gazing despondently at her reflection. Her hair was a mess, she noted half-heartedly—but the streaks of sun in it and the tan she had acquired definitely suited her, she realised with a twinge of surprise. She straightened, picking up a hairbrush and trying to bring some order to her hair.
Suddenly she flung down the hairbrush—was she completely out of her mind? She must be, to be sitting here, twittering away to herself about her appearance and behaving like some sort of concubine in a gilded cage. She shook her head furiously, as though trying to dispel the confusing mixture of emotions the very thought was evoking in her, then glanced down at her watch and leapt to her feet.
Niko Leandros might have a few matters to discuss with her—but so had she one or two she intended discussing with him!
She made a rapid examination of her surroundings and found her rather meagre wardrobe hung neatly away in a spacious dressing-room. What summer clothes she had were several years old and looking decidedly shapeless, but, having lent Tim all her money, she had had no option but to make do with them. She had actually had hopes of a shopping spree in Athens once he had paid her back, she reminded herself resentfully—a resentment that somehow struck her as peculiarly mild, given the mind-boggling thoroughness with which he had deceived her. Probably because she now had so much else to occupy her mind, she decided somewhat irrationally as she entered the bathroom.
Ruthlessly closing her mind to the breathtaking opulence of her surroundings as she took her bath, she concentrated on what she would say to Niko. It was pointless going over the top and frightening herself with thoughts of concubines, she told herself firmly. Moving her into his apartment like this obviously had to be some sort of warped joke on his part, she reasoned calmly—a joke directed at Tim, who was no longer around to respond to it.
‘…you’re not in the least terrified of me…something that could turn out to be a dangerous error of judgement on your part.’
With those words ringing in her ears, she leapt from the bath and began drying herself vigorously. And, despite the glow of warmth burnishing her skin, she felt herself shiver as she remembered Tim’s claim that Niko would be quite likely to have the pair of them slapped in gaol.
‘Damn you, Tim Russell!’ she groaned frustratedly into a huge, fluffy white towel.
The chances were that Tim had only said that to frighten her…and he had succeeded. And there was no getting away from the fact that Niko Leandros too had frightened her—something for which she should be thankful, because now there was no way she would be tempted to risk telling him the truth.
She entered the dressing-room, a luxury she had heard of but never before experienced, and began riffling through her clothes, vague plans beginning to form in her mind. She would simply suggest that, as Tim was gone…
‘For heaven’s sake, Lindy, you’re not supposed to know he’s gone!’ she groaned aloud. What she would simply suggest was that if he was right, and Tim had gone, she would work whatever notice was required of her and then return to England.
It was only when she had finished dressing that she became aware of the almost obsessive care she had taken over it—and it was an awareness that had an acutely depressing effect on her already flagging spirits.
She might as well accept the fact that she was attracted to Niko Leandros in a way she had never been attracted to any other man, she told herself despondently. And another fact she might as well face, she informed herself ruthlessly, was that, even had they met under the most ideal of circumstances, he wouldn’t have given her even so much as a passing glance.
Having notched the belt of her sea-blue dress as far as it would go, she then dragged her fingers angrily through her hair and undid all the painstaking taming to which she had so assiduously subjected it.
Niko was nowhere to be seen when she reached the drawing-room, and she was gazing anxiously around, wondering if the apartment included a dining-room, when he stepped through the gently billowing curtains now drawn across the balcony doors.
‘I usually eat outside,’ he announced, his eyes flickering over her in a manner Lindy found deflatingly noncommittal.
And obviously he had no intention of making any concession to her preferences, she thought, having to force her legs to do the necessary to propel her across the room. Because her preference would have been to eat under the stars anyway she began dredging her mind for some other aspect of him with which to find fault…and came up with nothing. It was just that he was the most disgustingly attractive man imaginable, she admitted defeatedly, giving up refusing to acknowledge the painfully breathtaking surge of excitement that had started up in her at the mere sight of him and which seemed to be getting worse the nearer she drew to him.
‘I had no idea what you like to eat,’ he said, holding aside the curtain for her as she stepped out on to the balcony. ‘So I asked for a selection of dishes you’ve shown a preference for to be sent up.’
He drew out a chair, on which Lindy seated herself with all the aplomb she could muster—which was precious little, given that her every instinct was to cry out in childlike wonderment at the perfection of her surroundings.
The balcony was large and paved with jewel-like mosaics: huge earthenware and marble urns spilled out a profusion of flowering plants, the delicate scents of which had mingled to float in the air with a softly heady fragrance.
The white pedestal table at which she was seated was set for two, crystal wine goblets and heavy silver cutlery glittering and gleaming in the soft light cast by clusters of candles in marble holders of varying heights and positioned in such a way as to enable the two diners to face one another, unimpeded by their presence. To the side of the table was a white trolley, on which sat several silver-canopied dishes and a napkin-wrapped opened bottle of red wine.
‘The chef seemed to have no knowledge of your preferences in wine,’ he said, taking the seat opposite her, ‘so I selected something that should blend in with your culinary tastes…though I wouldn’t necessarily bet money on that,’ he murmured drily, reaching over and removing the covers from some of the dishes.
Unsettled by his tone, Lindy glanced nervously across the table at him. He was laughing at her, she thought uncomfortably, suddenly acutely conscious of how completely out of her depth she was in such exotic surroundings and in such sophisticated company.
‘It’s just that you have such…how can I put it?…unusual tastes in Greek food,’ he murmured, obviously having intercepted her look of discomfort and feeling obliged to offer a token panacea. ‘Anyway, do help yourself.’
Feeling about as at ease as a peasant might, having been invited to dine at a king’s table, Lindy helped herself to small portions from a few of the dishes. Her tastes in Greek food probably did add up to the equivalent of steak and kidney pie and custard, she thought self-consciously, but that was only because she had never had anyone to guide her. In a fit of petty vindictiveness soon after their arrival Tim had informed her she was not to mingle with the guests, so she had only twice eaten in the hotel’s superb dining-room. She had taken to selecting her meals from whatever took her fancy in the kitchen—the cosy, paternalistic chef giving her little tasters from one dish or another and often chuckling with undisguised mirth at the selections she made…had he been able to speak even a few words of English he would no doubt have explained what he had so frequently found amusing about her selections. Far from finding her ignorance amusing, Niko Leandros plainly found it repellently primitive!
‘I’m sorry—I’ve been unforgivably rude,’ he said, cutting across her mortified thoughts and startling her with the genuine contrition in his tone. ‘Greek food isn’t necessarily to everyone’s taste.’
‘Oh, but I love it!’ exclaimed Lindy. ‘It’s just that…well, anyway…I enjoy the dishes I’ve tried very much.’
‘It’s just that what?’ he probed, frowning when she explained her sorties into the kitchen. ‘I can’t understand why you haven’t been eating in the dining-room,’ he said. ‘There you’d have been served conventionally balanced meals.’
‘I…I just preferred not to,’ she stammered.
Every time she opened her mouth she seemed to be stepping into a potential minefield, she thought wearily, wondering how long it would be before she tripped herself up irrevocably.
It wasn’t the most relaxed of meals she had ever participated in, and certainly not in the remotest way romantic, despite the fairy-tale surroundings and her princely companion…probably because of him, she thought morosely, for her Adonis of a companion had lapsed into a decidedly uncompanionable silence which had lasted throughout a meal patently not to his taste.
It was when two of the waiters arrived to clear things away and place a tray of coffee inside for them that Lindy began to see things with a troubling clarity. She began wondering what the waiters were making of all this—the manager nowhere to be seen, and his wife now ensconced in the private suite of a member of the Leandros family. The only shred of consolation she managed to derive from her tortured thoughts was that true friendship with any other member of staff had been denied her…and that was hardly any consolation at all, because all she wanted to do was curl up and die from the humiliation of it all.
‘Are you familiar with Greek coffee?’ he asked, having escorted her inside as the waiters had bustled out and now reaching over to pour the coffee.
Lindy nodded. ‘Though I’m afraid I learned the hard way,’ she admitted, remembering the mouthful of coffee grounds she had almost swallowed as she had attempted to drain that first cup she had sampled—needless to say, Tim hadn’t warned her and had been waiting for her to do just that.
He smiled as he handed her a cup, a smile that turned her heart over violently, then filled it with an aching sadness as it suddenly recognised this man’s total unattainability.
‘Mr Leandros——’ she broke off as he pulled a comically protesting face and felt the sadness embed itself deeper into her heart ‘—Niko,’ she conceded with the ghost of a smile, ‘if…if you’re right and Tim doesn’t show up——’
‘I’d say the likelihood of his showing up is extremely remote now—wouldn’t you?’ he enquired, his eyes, usually so alert and watchful, trained on the coffee-cup in his hand.
‘Yes…well, what I was going to say was that…well, naturally I’d work whatever notice is required of me…and then I’d like to go home.’
‘I have no idea what is required of you contractually; I’d guess the contact was solely with your husband and you were no more than an appendage—my late uncle tended to have a pretty chauvinistic attitude to women.’
‘Your late uncle?’ queried Lindy, having difficulty remaining civil; the very idea of any woman, let alone herself, being regarded as an inconsequential appendage to a man made her see red.
‘Yes—late,’ he snapped. ‘He was the member of the family—a great-uncle, to be precise—who owned this island and, thereby, the hotel.’
‘And he must have died recently…I’m sorry to hear that,’ muttered Lindy, offering her condolences more out of politeness than any feeling they would be appreciated.
‘You knew him?’ he drawled.
‘You know I didn’t,’ she replied, her hands clenching in fury in her lap.
‘I can’t say I did either,’ he startled her by admitting. ‘One of his eccentricities—of which he had many—was to have as little to do with his relatives as possible. He used to take off whenever any member of the family showed up here.’
Lindy made no reply, though it did occur to her that regarding it as perfectly normal to win a woman in a game of poker would probably be described by most as an example of outright eccentricity.
‘Unfortunately I was incapacitated shortly after his death, and the family’s financial advisers decided to go ahead and find a replacement for the management team already here but due to leave in August. Personally I’d simply have wound down the entire operation then and there—a hotel geared solely to being a holiday haven throughout the year to a couple of dozen exceptionally wealthy clients is an anachronism in this day and age.’
‘Perhaps it’s just as well for the staff that you didn’t have a say in the matter,’ retorted Lindy. ‘Because they’d all be out of jobs.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he murmured sarcastically, ‘that abundant compassion of yours leaps once more to the fore. The fact is that I have rather a large say in all matters—since I’m the one the old boy left all this to.’
Mentally kicking herself for having walked straight into such a put-down, Lindy picked up her cup and took a mouthful from it—a mouthful, as it turned out, mainly of coffee grounds. Praying the floor would open up and swallow her, she was reduced to spitting what she could back into her cup and hating her companion, who simply stared at her in disdainful silence for several seconds, before leaping to his feet and leaving the room.
It served him right for mixing with someone he found so painfully his inferior, she thought angrily, running her tongue over her clogged teeth and feeling slightly nauseous as she succeeded only in spreading the grounds more evenly.
‘Here, rinse out your mouth with this,’ ordered Niko, returning to shove a glass of water under her nose.
Lindy took a mouthful and washed it around.
‘Now—spit it into this,’ he instructed with barely concealed impatience, handing her the coffee-cup into which she had already spat once.
‘I’m perfectly capable of rinsing out my mouth without you standing over me and giving me blow-by-blow instructions!’ she exclaimed irritably once she had obeyed, deciding to put up with the residual grounds in her mouth rather than go through that humiliating performance again. ‘To get back to what we were discussing,’ she continued as he returned to his seat and resumed drinking his own coffee, ‘if you own this damned——’
‘Spare me the adjectives,’ he drawled languidly.
Resisting an almost overwhelming urge to pick up the coffee-pot and brain him with it, Lindy took a deep breath and started again.
‘If you own this hotel, surely whatever you say goes?’
‘Yes.’
‘So—whether or not I work notice before leaving is entirely up to you.’
‘Yes.’
Lindy waited, confidently expecting him to say more. Gradually it dawned on her that she was in for an exceptionally long wait.
‘So?’ she prompted with reckless aggression. This time her vain wait lasted mere seconds before she made another try. ‘So when may I leave?’
‘You may not leave,’ he replied. ‘I won you and you’re now mine—remember?’
‘Nobody owns me!’ shrieked Lindy, her control snapping as she leapt to her feet. ‘And nobody ever will! I realise that gambling debts are regarded as sacrosanct among hardened gamblers such as you—so, if you would be good enough to let me know how much it is that Tim Russell owes you, I’ll see about getting it repaid.’
‘Tim Russell?’ he queried, batting his eyelids with their profusion of outrageously long lashes at her in a parody of surprise. ‘What an extremely odd way for a bride to refer to her husband—even one married on the rebound.’
‘How much does he owe you?’ Lindy almost screamed at him.
‘He owes me nothing,’ he replied, smiling as he tilted his head to look up at her, arrogant self-assurance oozing from his every pore. ‘He had something I wanted…and now it’s mine.’
Knowing she would end up gibbering if she didn’t get a grip on herself, Lindy took a ragged breath before speaking.
‘Mr Leandros—though I know none of the details, I do know that you were involved in a very serious accident.’
‘Which ruined my once legendary looks,’ he sighed theatrically, the mocking look accompanying his words bringing her blood instantly back to the boiling-point.
‘And I realise how difficult convalescence must be for someone as used to the jet-setting social scene as you so obviously are,’ she continued through noticeably clenched teeth. ‘I realise too——’
‘Being a woman of such compassion,’ he slipped in mockingly.
‘—that you’re the type who finds it next to impossible to exist without his playthings,’ Lindy ploughed on determinedly. ‘So I suggest that you have a selection of them sent here—instead of trying to rope me in as a substitute. Because, as you’ve already witnessed for yourself tonight, I’d make an absolutely abysmal substitute for the type of women you’re used to.’
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_cc5634bf-7b5e-5e8d-bedb-a515f4f59708)
BY THE time her eyes had finally begun drooping with the sleep that had so long eluded her, Lindy was already frustratedly aware that her normal waking time was little over an hour away.
She awoke at twenty minutes past eleven and spent several minutes gazing in groggy disbelief at her watch, convinced that there was something wrong with it.
She was showered and dressed within fifteen minutes of waking, her bemused mind still fretting over the lateness of the hour instead of accepting how painfully little sleep she had had during the past two nights.
Two uniformed security guards barred her entrance to the office as she arrived there, her limbs leaden and her temples throbbing with a vicious headache, shaking their heads implacably as she tried to pass them.
Eventually one of the guards opened the door and called to whoever was inside. A few seconds later Niko appeared at the door, his expression grim.
‘Yes?’ he barked, his eyes contemptuously dismissive as they took in her slightly dishevelled appearance.
‘These men seem unwilling to let me into the office,’ she explained, annoyed to feel the colour rising hotly in her cheeks.
‘They’re following my instructions,’ he informed her brusquely. ‘You no longer work here.’ As he uttered those last words he turned back into the room.
‘Does that mean I can leave?’ she called after him defiantly.
‘Whether or not you’ll be leaving remains to be seen,’ he replied without turning to face her. ‘But, if you do, it certainly won’t be for England.’
He hadn’t even had to raise his voice for the threat in his words to reach her and make her blood run suddenly cold, and it was with an almost sickening feeling of apprehension that she returned down the corridor and out into the sunlit spaciousness of the foyer, the fear within her shadowy and undefined.
‘These men are asking to speak to Mr Russell,’ Maria, one of the receptionists, called over to her as she arrived.
Lindy walked towards the two men standing at the reception desk.
‘I’m afraid Tim—Mr Russell—isn’t here,’ she apologised.
One of the men immediately began addressing her in rapid Greek.
‘I’m very sorry, but I don’t speak Greek,’ she said, while the second of the men rounded on the Greek girl.
Though she couldn’t understand a single word of what was being said, she could tell by their tone and demeanour that neither man was in the least happy, something they were conveying to the startled receptionist in no uncertain terms.
‘Maria, what on earth was all that about?’ she asked, her heart thudding with alarm as one of the two men now walking towards the door gave her a grim-faced backward glance.
The dark-haired girl glanced quickly around her before leaning discreetly towards Lindy, her eyes eloquent with shocked sympathy.
‘Mr Russell owes them money,’ she whispered. ‘And also to a friend of theirs.’
Lindy leaned weakly against the marbled desk, the thought scurrying through her mind that she couldn’t take much more of this.
‘Gambling?’ she asked in a tight, strained voice.
Maria nodded. ‘Those men are from the mainland—and they’re the sort who will keep coming back until they’ve been paid.’ Again she glanced around her before leaning even closer towards Lindy. ‘This morning the security men came from the bank to collect the receipts.’
‘Oh, heck!’ groaned Lindy. With Tim away yesterday, none of the necessary cashing up would have been done! ‘I’d better go and see to it.’
The Greek girl placed a gently restraining hand on Lindy’s arm, shaking her head vigorously as she did so.
‘The money has all gone,’ she whispered urgently. ‘I overheard Mr Niko talking to the head barman…I know they weren’t aware I could hear them.’
Dazed and ghostly pale from shock, Lindy tried desperately to assimilate what her mind was equally desperately attempting to reject.
‘I…I…’ She shook her head in a reflex attempt to clear it. ‘Don’t worry, I promise I shan’t say a word about your having told me,’ she vowed hoarsely, patting the girl’s hand to give emphasis to her promise before turning and walking, as though in a trance, towards the lift.
Her movements like those of an automaton, she went to her room, changed into a brief black bikini and then belted her beach robe securely around her. On her way back down in the lift the thought occurred to her that it might have been wiser to slip out by a back entrance, but she had dismissed the thought with a small shrug of indifference by the time the lift had deposited her once more in the foyer. Her need for time on her own, time away from people and complete isolation from their sounds, was one no one on this earth was going to deprive her of. Marching straight through the foyer in total oblivion of Maria and the startled glance the girl gave her, Lindy headed for the sea.
She made her way through the tranquil order of the gardens and down the winding, gently sloping steps to the beach. She had discovered the beach on the day of her arrival and had visited it almost daily ever since. Because it was an area rarely used by the guests—the younger ones usually taking off to the more remote islands in the motor launches provided and their elders content to meander through the extensive grounds or play bridge in the peaceful coolness of one of the hotel’s many recreation-rooms—this small, idyllic stretch of golden sand had become her own private haven.
Kicking off her mules and slipping out of her robe, she made her way to the water’s edge, the soothing sensation of the jewel-like waters of the Aegean Sea lapping around her slim, tanned legs lulling her into almost believing that this was a day no different from any other. And, despite everything, she had been inexplicably happy here. It was hardly a job and it would lead her nowhere from a career point of view—but then, neither had the temping she had been doing in London while optimistically waiting for her dream job to present itself. Yet, in spite of her rude awakening to Tim’s true nature and the cringing embarrassment that realisation of her own blind stubbornness had brought her, being here had, more often than not, been like an interlude of almost cleansing peacefulness in her life and one she would never have imagined herself appreciating until she had begun experiencing it.
Êîíåö îçíàêîìèòåëüíîãî ôðàãìåíòà.
Òåêñò ïðåäîñòàâëåí ÎÎÎ «ËèòÐåñ».
Ïðî÷èòàéòå ýòó êíèãó öåëèêîì, êóïèâ ïîëíóþ ëåãàëüíóþ âåðñèþ (https://www.litres.ru/kate-proctor/no-mistress-but-love/) íà ËèòÐåñ.
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