‘I don’t want it,’ she ventured, not entirely sure if she meant just the contract or the sex or both. Because there was something about Andreas’ touch that sent her senses into overdrive, something about his touch that made a secret part of her ache in ways it shouldn’t, especially not for a man she’d only just met, a man she knew nothing about.
‘It’s a good offer,’ he continued, as gently and convincingly as a parent trying to get a child to drink its milk. ‘It’s a fixed-term contract and in one month you go home. All expenses paid. First-class travel naturally.’
He watched her face, searching for the crack in her resolve. ‘And no sex, if that’s what you want. Though if it did happen, I can guarantee it wouldn’t mean anything.’
His words blurred. “It wouldn’t mean anything.” And all she kept hearing was the echo of the words Kurt had said to her when she’d told him she loved him. And he’d just laughed as he’d yanked up his jeans. “What’s your problem? It didn’t mean anything. You really are stupid.”
And all she had felt was the bottom falling out of her world as her newly discovered heart had lain shredded. She’d made a pointless journey, thrown what she’d always believed to be special away on a deadbeat who’d taken everything he could get and left her high and dry.
‘You have had sex? Can we be clear on that?’ Andreas’ uncertain voice came from a long way away and still it brought her hackles up. What did he think now, that she was a complete loser?
‘Oh, sure, loads of times.’ Once. But then why should it matter if he thought her a complete loser? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought the same thing herself.
‘Then it’s all settled.’
Her head snapped up. ‘Hang on, what’s settled?’ She had a feeling she’d missed something somewhere. Had she said yes and somehow forgotten?
‘Tomorrow you will fly with me to my home on Santorini.’
She knew the name. Kurt had wooed her with his promises of travel and sunsets, of short breaks they could take to the Mediterranean, to Corfu and Mykonos and Santorini, of crystal-clear waters and lazy summer days. It had sounded so romantic, but of course, it had all been lies designed to convince her that they had a future together in order to lure her to London. She’d all but given up any hope of seeing anything at all of Europe.
But now she had the chance to go there with Andreas. Was it enough of a reason to say yes?
A buzzer sounded and Andreas moved swiftly to the door, pulling it open to the porter at last with her luggage. ‘We will leave at twelve. The morning will be busy with appointments so we will have to start early.
‘In the bedroom, thank you,’ Andreas directed the porter, pressing a note into his hand.
‘No!’ she called, surprising them both and causing the porter to wheel around. ‘I’ll take that.’ She grabbed one of the shoulder straps.
‘Leave it, Cleo.’
‘But there’s no point. I was just leaving anyway.’
The porter looked nervously from one to the other, Cleo tugging on the pack, knowing it was her hold on reality and on control, and Andreas glowering until finally the porter decided that discretion was the better part of valour and withdrew, uttering a rushed, ‘Call me if you need anything more,’ before making himself scarce.
Cleo heaved the backpack onto her shoulder.
‘I thought we had a deal.’
‘You thought wrong. I never agreed to anything. And I’m leaving.’
‘But you have no job, nowhere to go.’
‘I’ll find something. I’ll manage.’ She retrieved her Driza-Bone from the back of a chair and bundled it in front of her before being game enough to steal one last glance at him.
Impossibly good-looking. That was how she’d remember him. Eyes of midnight-black and hair that waved thick and dark to collar length, an imperious nose and a passionate slash of mouth it was almost a crime for any man to possess. And a face like slate, just like she’d thought in the hotel, until it heated up and the angles took on curves she’d never seen coming.
But so what? She was leaving. It might be a huge amount of money to give up and already she could hear the girls from her high school singing out a familiar chorus of “loser, loser, Cleo’s a loser”. But she’d been hearing that chorus a long time and she was used to it. She’d been an object of pity ever since her father had walked out on her pregnant mother, never to be seen again.
And besides, she knew she was doing the right thing. For Andreas’ proposal was flawed. She didn’t want the chance of ‘sex as a by-product’ of anything. She’d had sex that didn’t mean anything and she’d hated herself in the aftermath. It had made her feel cheap and disposable and had hurt her more than she wanted to admit. She didn’t care for the chance of more, no matter how much he might be paying.
‘I’ll see myself out.’
‘I need you,’ he said as she turned for the door.
She halted, her fingers around the door handle. ‘I get the impression, Mr Xenides, that you don’t need anyone.’ She twisted and pulled. She didn’t belong here. Now she’d made up her mind, she couldn’t wait to get away. Had to get away.
The door was open just a few inches when his palm slammed it shut. ‘You’re wrong!’
She turned to protest but the words sizzled and burned in the heat she saw coming from his eyes. ‘How much will it take, then? How much do you want? I thought you didn’t care about money, but you’re just like the rest, one whiff and you want more. You’re just a better actress. Which tells me you’re exactly the woman I need.
‘So how much, sweet, talented Cleo? How much to secure your services for a month? One hundred thousand clearly isn’t enough, so let’s say we double it. Two hundred thousand pounds. Four hundred thousand of your dollars. Would that be enough?’
The numbers went whirling around her brain, so big they didn’t mean anything, so enormous she couldn’t get a grip on them. Four hundred thousand dollars for a month of pretending to be Andreas’ companion? Was she nuts to even think about giving that up? She could go home, pay back her nanna, pay for repairs to the farm’s leaking roof that her mother always complained about but there was never enough money to repair, and she’d still have enough left over to buy a place of her own.
More than that, she’d be able to go home and hold her head up high. And for once, just once in her life, she didn’t have to be a loser.
But could she do it? Could she pretend to be this man’s lover and all that entailed and simply walk away in the end?
She shook her head trying to work it all out. She truly didn’t know. If she just had some time to think it all out. ‘Andreas, I—’
‘Five hundred thousand pounds! One million of your dollars. Will that be enough to sway your mind?’
She gasped. ‘You have to be kidding. That’s an obscene amount of money.’
‘Not if it gets me what I want. And I want you, Cleo. Say yes.’
She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, only one note of clarity spearing through the fog of her brain.
One million dollars.
How could she walk away from that? It was unthinkable, unimaginable, like winning the lottery or scooping the pools. And she’d even get to live on Santorini for a whole month, the island she’d longed to visit, the island Kurt had only talked about visiting for a day or two. Wasn’t that some kind of justice? She licked her lips, once more feeling her hold on the world slipping, swaying. ‘Just for a month, you say?’
The