His Mistress for a Million. Trish Morey
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a job somewhere and she didn’t even know his name. When would she learn? What the hell kind of mess was she heading for now? ‘Oh, My God, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I don’t even know your name.’
He smiled and dipped his head. ‘I assure you, you have nothing to fear. Andreas Xenides at your service.’
Her eyes narrowed. She was sure she’d heard the name, maybe even read something in one of the papers back home before she’d left. But that man had been a billionaire. She didn’t tend to meet many of them in her line of business. Maybe this man was related. ‘I think there’s someone called Xenides with a huge hotel up on the Gold Coast in Queensland.’
He nodded. ‘The Xenides Mansions Hotel. One of my best performers.’
She swallowed. ‘That’s your hotel? You own it?’
‘Well, one of my companies. But ultimately, yes, I own it.’
She didn’t so much sink back into her seat as collapse against it.
He frowned. ‘Does that bother you?’
‘Bother me? It terrifies me!’ She put a hand to her wayward mouth. Oh, my, the man was a billionaire and she’d thrown a slipper at his head, right before she’d bawled him out in the basement and insisted he pay her wages and find her a replacement job. As a cleaner. And the amazing thing about it was that he had.
Mind you, the way people were running around after him at the hotel ready to do his bidding, he could probably have found her a job as an astronaut if he’d put his mind to it.
What must it be like to wield that much power? She glanced over at him, her eyes once more colliding with his dark driven gaze. So he was a billionaire. That answered a few questions. But it didn’t answer all of them.
‘There’s something I don’t understand.’
‘Oh.’ He tilted his head to one side, as if almost amused. ‘What is it?’
‘Why would you care about a tiny dump of a hotel three blocks from Victoria Station? Why buy it? There must be plenty of other hotels better suited to a posh outfit like yours.’
And his eyes glistened and seemed to focus somewhere behind her and Cleo got the impression he didn’t even see her. ‘I had my reasons.’
She shivered at his flat voice as if the temperature had just dropped twenty degrees. Whatever his reasons, Andreas Xenides struck her as a man you wouldn’t want to cross.
Cleo looked away, wanting to shake off the chill, and was surprised to see how far they’d come. She’d expected a lift to another small hotel somewhere close by, as he’d intimated, but she could see now that the limousine was making its way towards Mayfair.
His cell phone beeped and she was grateful he had a distraction. She was happy just to watch the busy streetscape, the iconic red double-decker buses, the black taxi cabs all jockeying for the same piece of bitumen and somehow all still moving. ‘Petra, I’m glad you called. Yes, I’m finished in London.’
She wasn’t trying to listen to his call, but there was no way she couldn’t hear every word, especially when he made no attempt to lower his voice, and it was a relief when he dipped into his native language and she could no longer understand his words and she could just let the deep tones of his voice wash over her. When he spoke English his accent gave his words a rich Mediterranean flavour, a hint of the exotic, but when he spoke in Greek his voice took on another quality, on the one hand somehow harsher, more earthy and passionate on the other.
Much like Andreas himself, she imagined, because for all his civilised trappings, the cashmere coat and the chauffeur-driven limousine, she’d seen for herself that he could be harsh and abrupt, that he was used to making the rules and expecting people to play by them. And definitely passionate. Hadn’t he set her own body to prickly awareness with just one heated gaze?
It made sense that a man like him would have a Petra or someone else waiting for him. He was bound to have a wife or a girlfriend, maybe even both; didn’t the rich and famous have their own rules? She looked around at the car’s plush interior, drinking in the buttery leather upholstery with her fingers and wanting to apologise to the pristine carpet for her tired boots. She gazed out of the tinted windows and caught the occupants of passing cars trying to peer in, looks of envy on their faces, and sighed, committing it all to memory. What would it be like to be one of the Petras of this world? To move in such circles and consider this all as normal?
She smiled philosophically. This was not her world. Any minute now he’d drop her at the hotel to take up her new cleaning position and he’d be gone for ever, back to Petra or another, whoever and wherever she was.
‘We’re flying back tomorrow,’ she heard Andreas say, abruptly switching back to English. ‘Expect us around five.’
Cleo wondered at the sudden change of language but continued peering out at the scenery outside her limousine’s windows, the magnificent park to their left, the lights from buildings and streetlamps making jagged patterns on the wet roads. Even on a dark, wet night the streets of London fascinated her. It was so different from the tiny town of Kangaroo Crossing, where the main street was dusty and almost deserted after six at night. Here it was so vibrant and filled with life at whatever time of the day or night and she would never get sick of craning her neck for a look at the everyday sights here like Buckingham Palace, sights she’d only ever dreamed about one day seeing.
‘Us, Petra?’ Andreas continued. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I should have mentioned. I’m bringing a friend.’
Something about the way he said those last words made Cleo turn her head, some loaded quality that spoke of a message she didn’t quite understand. She didn’t mean to look right at him, she intended to swing her head around as if merely choosing to look out of the nearside windows, but her eyes jagged on his and held solid. ‘That’s right,’ he said, holding her gaze and her heartbeat, it seemed, in his. ‘A friend. Please ensure Maria has my suite prepared.’
He clicked the phone closed and slipped it away, all the while still holding her gaze.
‘Is it much further?’ she asked with false brightness, wondering what it was she was missing and why she was so suddenly breathless and why he needed to look at her that way, as if she were about to be served up for his next meal.
‘No. Not much.’
As if on cue the limousine pulled off Park Lane into a wide driveway and rolled to a gentle stop. She looked up at the hotel towering over the car. ‘But this…This is Grosvenor House.’
‘So it is.’
The door opened and cold air swept into the warm interior as the concierge pulled open the door. ‘But why are we here? I thought…You said…’
‘We’re here,’ he simply said, sliding one long leg out and extending his hand to her. ‘If you care to join me.’
‘But I can’t go in there. Not like this. I look like I’ve just stepped off the farm.’
‘They’ll think you’re an eccentric Australian.’
‘They must have a staff entrance!’ But still, she was already moving towards him, inexorably drawn by his assuredness.
‘Come,’ he said, taking her hand to help her out. ‘These people are paid not to take any notice.’
It was no consolation. She felt like someone who should be staying at some backpackers’ hotel, not the poshest hotel in Mayfair. She caught sight of her reflection in the glass frontage and grimaced. She looked like a total hick. Why couldn’t he have warned her? But Andreas didn’t seem to care. The concierge staff swarmed like foot soldiers around him, taking orders, trying to please, while others ferried her backpack onto a trolley as lovingly as if it were the finest Louis Vuitton luggage.
She followed in his wake uncertain, sure someone was about to call Security and send her on her way, but worry soon gave way to wonder.
She