Thankfully the room was large enough that she could put some distance between them. A lot of distance. She’d been expecting a bedroom, a typical hotel room. She found anything but.
The room looked more like a drawing room in a palace than any hotel room she’d ever seen, a dining table and chairs taking up one end of the room, a lounge suite facing a marble mantelpiece at the other with the dozen or so windows dressed in complementary tones of creams and crimsons.
But she wasn’t here to appreciate the fine furnishings or the skilful use of colour. She didn’t want to be distracted by the luxury she could apparently so easily take advantage of. Would it be easy? She wondered.
She dropped her jacket over a chair and turned, dragging in oxygen for some much-needed support. ‘Okay, I’m here. What’s going on?’
She almost had the impression he hadn’t heard her as he headed for a sideboard, opening a crystal decanter and pouring himself a slug of the amber fluid it contained. ‘You?’ he offered.
She shook her head. ‘Well? You told me I had a cleaning job at some hotel.’
Still he took his sweet time, taking a sip from the glass before turning and leaning against the dresser. ‘While it’s not exactly what I said, it is what I intimated. That much is true.’
‘You lied to me!’
‘I did not lie. I found you a job cleaning at another hotel. And then I decided better of it.’
‘But why? What for?’
He drained the glass of its contents and placed it on the dresser in the same motion as he pushed himself towards her. ‘What if I offered you a better job? More pay. Enough to buy your return ticket to Australia and a whole lot more. Enough to set you up for life.’
She licked her lips. If she could pay back her nanna what she’d borrowed…But what would she be expected to do to get it? ‘What kind of job are you talking about?’
He laughed, coming closer. ‘You see why I knew you would be perfect? Any other woman would ask how much money first.’
She sidestepped around the dining table, until it was between them. ‘That was my next question.’
He stopped and started moving the other way, slowly circling, step by step. ‘How much would be enough? One hundred thousand pounds? How much would that be in your currency?’
She swallowed, too distracted to concentrate on keeping her distance. Her maths might be lousy but even she had no trouble working that one out. Double at least. Her mouth almost watered at the prospect. But she’d heard plenty of stories about travellers being offered amazing amounts of money to courier a box or a package. And equally she’d heard of them getting caught by the authorities and much, much worse. She might have done some stupid things in her life, but she was so not going there. ‘I don’t want any part of drug money. I’m not touching it.’
He was closer than she realised, his dark eyes shining hard. ‘Cleo, please, you do not realise how much you insult me. This would be nothing to do with drugs. I hate that filthy trade as much as you. I assure you, your work would be legal and perfectly above board.’
Legal. Above board. And it paid in the hundreds of thousands of dollars? Yeah, sure. There were jobs in the paper like that for high-school dropouts every other day. ‘What is it, then?’ she asked, circling the other way, pretending to be more interested in an arrangement of flowers set upon a side table. The red blooms were beautiful too, she thought, touching her fingers to the delicate petals, just like everything else in this room. Did he really expect her to share it with him? ‘So what’s the job?’
He didn’t move this time, made no attempt to follow her, and because she was ready for it, expecting it, the fact he stayed put was more unnerving than anything. ‘It’s really quite simple. I just need you to pretend to be my mistress.’
‘PRETEND to be your what?’ Cleo started to laugh. If ever there was a time for hysterical laughter, this moment was tailor-made, but shock won out in the reaction stakes, choking off the sound and rendering her aghast. ‘You must be insane!’
‘I assure you I’m perfectly serious.’
‘But your mistress? Who even uses that word any more?’
‘Would you prefer it if I used the word lover?
‘No!’ Definitely not lover. And definitely not when it was said in that rich, curling accent. She didn’t want to think about being Andreas’ lover, pretend or otherwise. ‘I don’t know where you got the impression that I might say yes to such a crazy proposition, but I’m afraid you have the wrong impression of me, Mr Xenides. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to turn down your generous proposal.’
‘Call me Andreas, please.’
She looked over her shoulder anxiously, watching the door, before she looked back. ‘And why would a man like you even need someone to act as his mistress anyway? It makes no sense.’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe I just don’t like to be seen as available.’
‘Maybe you should just put out a press release.’ She looked longingly at the door again. ‘When is my bag supposed to arrive? I want to go.’
‘At least think about it, Cleo. It’s a lot of money to throw away. Can you afford that?’
‘You’re crazy. Just look at me.’ She held her arms out at her sides, her heart jumping wildly in her chest, her words tumbling over her tongue. ‘I’m a cleaner. I muck out bathrooms and rubbish bins and have the split nails and red hands to prove it. I’m short and dumpy and have never once in my life been called so much as pretty, and you’re suggesting I could pretend to be your mistress? Who’s going to believe that for a start? They’ll think you’ve gone mad and they’d be right.’
He answered her with a raised eyebrow and a half-hearted shrug as he eased closer. ‘I think you underestimate your charms.’
Charms? What planet was this man from? ‘Why me? You could have any woman in the world. You probably already have.’
He turned her implied insult to his advantage. ‘Exactly. Which is why I don’t want just any woman in the world.’ He was close now, so close she could see the individual lashes that framed his dark eyes, close enough to see his pupils flare as he held out his fingers to her cheek. She flinched but he kept coming, tracing the line of her cheek with the backs of his fingers. ‘I want you.’
Her heart missed a beat or two. She tried to shake her head but still his fingers remained, his touch feather-light and yet bone-shudderingly deep in effect.
‘I don’t…I can’t…’
And he pulled his hand away, concern muddying his eyes as if something had just occurred to him. ‘You’re not a virgin?’
The intimacy of the question threw her for a moment. She could feel her cheeks burning up as she fought to find an answer. ‘I thought this was about pretending. Why should whether or not I’ve ever slept with anyone even be an issue?’
He shrugged. ‘Because there will be nights we are forced to share a bed to keep up appearances. And it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that as a man and a woman, together, we might wish to seek mutual pleasure in each other’s bodies.’
Help! ‘So you expect sex, then, as part of this deal?’
He frowned and drew away, as if the very idea of her asking offended him. ‘Not necessarily. Just that it may well be a by-product of our arrangement.’