She yawned. She knew she should care. She wanted to. But not right now. In the morning she’d be able to think straight. In the morning they could set any necessary boundaries.
In the morning…
Andreas was still on the phone when Room Service arrived with the meal he’d ordered in between calls to his lawyers and to the concierge to arrange the round of appointments Cleo would need in the morning. He was hungry and he figured she must be too, and until she’d been thoroughly made over there was little point being photographed with her in any of the restaurants or bars. Before and after shots wouldn’t help his cause. In any event, there was something to be said for taking a few hours in private to get to know one another. For, as much as he expected she’d be perfect for his purposes, the contracts needn’t be signed until he’d made absolutely certain.
He pushed open the door to the bedroom to let her know their meal had arrived and found the room in darkness, lit only with the light spilling in from the room behind. And there she lay, looking tiny in the big wide bed, her flannelette pyjamas buttoned almost all the way up to her neck like a suit of armour with the quilt pulled up almost as high, and that damned Princess mask hiding her eyes.
The blood in his veins heated to boiling point. She was sleeping? He’d just agreed to pay her a million dollars and she was sleeping as if it were no big deal and she could start earning her money tomorrow?
He was just about to rip the damn mask off when she stirred on a sigh and settled back into the mattress, her breathing so slow and regular that he paused, remembering.
She’d been asleep when his staff had woken her hours ago, he recalled, after being awake since the very early hours, the shadows under her eyes underlining her exhaustion. Maybe he should give those shadows a chance to clear and give the makeover experts a fighting chance to turn her into the woman he needed her to be?
Maybe he should just back out of here and let her sleep?
And maybe he should just climb right in there with her and make the most of his money? She’d said she didn’t want sex but he’d never known a woman to turn him down. That she’d been so adamant grated.
There was a knock at the door outside. Housekeeping, no doubt, come to make up the sofa bed, and he turned and pulled the door closed behind him.
He had no need to take any woman. He had an entire month. She would come to him; he knew it.
IT WAS a strange dream, where people faded in and out of focus, the girls from school with their taunts of loser, her half-brothers hugging the father who looked on her as excess baggage, and Kurt laughing at her, his white chest quivering with the vibrations. From somewhere Cleo could hear the sound of her nanna telling her to look for the silver lining. She spun around trying to find the source of her voice, trying to pull her from the shadows and hang onto her message and drown out the chorus behind her, when a different shape emerged from the mist, tall and broad and arrogantly self-assured.
“I’m scared.” It was her voice, even though she’d not said a word, and she wanted to run, tempted to turn back to the mocking chorus behind her, back to the world she knew and understood so well, back to the familiar, but her legs were like lead and she couldn’t move and he kept right on coming until he stood head and shoulders above her. And he smiled, all dark eyes and gleaming white teeth. ‘You should be,’ and then he’d dipped his head to kiss her and she heard nothing but the buzzing in her ears and the pounding of her heart, and from somewhere in the shadows, the sound of her nanna’s voice.
‘Rise and shine.’ The words made no sense until the blow to her rump, cushioned with the thick quilt but enough to bring her to consciousness with a jump. ‘You’ve got a busy morning.’
The alarm on the bedside table alongside snapped off and she drank in the scent of bed-warmed flesh. His bed-warmed flesh. So the alarm was the buzzing in her ears? But what was causing the fizzing in her blood?
She sat up and pushed her mask above her eyes, and then, remembering his comment about dressing like a clown, swiped it from her head. A moment later she wished she’d kept it on. He was naked. Unashamedly naked as he strode to the wardrobe and pulled out a robe. Too late she averted her eyes and, oh, my. She felt the blush rise like a tide as the truth sank in—he was huge! Only to have the blush deepen with the next wayward thought.
And if he looks that big now?
She swallowed, pulling her legs up like a shield, wondering why she should be suddenly tingling down there. How big he could be had nothing to do with her. It wasn’t something she was planning on finding out.
‘Hungry?’ he asked casually, but her brain had ceased to function on that level. ‘You missed dinner,’ he explained, slipping into a robe and thankfully tying it at his waist. ‘I thought you might be hungry. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for both of us. You looked like you could have slept until noon.’
She unplastered her tongue from the roof of her mouth. ‘I was tired.’
‘Apparently. You slept like the dead. Breakfast will be here in a few minutes and then your first appointment is in under an hour.’
‘What appointment?’
‘Downstairs in the spa salon. You’re booked in for the works by which time the stylist will be here with a selection of outfits. You won’t have much time to decide. We’re flying out at noon.’
Cleo glanced at the clock; it was only just after seven. ‘That’s hours away.’
‘You’ll need every bit of it, so eat up and don’t wait for me.’ His eyes raked over her and her skin prickled under his gaze. ‘You’re going to need your strength.’
She shivered as he disappeared into the bathroom. Why did she get the impression he wasn’t only talking about her upcoming appointments?
He needn’t have worried about her not eating. Room Service arrived with the heavily laden trolley a minute or two later, and the aroma threatened to drive her crazy. The porter had hardly finished serving the breakfast up on the dining table in the next room before she practically fell upon the feast. There was yoghurt and jam, pastries and rolls and toast, along with two massive platters of English breakfast. It was a feast. The coffee was smooth and rich with just the right amount of bitterness to wash it all down. She couldn’t remember enjoying a meal more.
Andreas emerged from the bathroom while she was still eating, a towel lashed low around his hips and barefoot, moisture still clinging to his chest and beading in the hair that curled into his neck.
‘That’s what I like to see,’ he said, sitting alongside her at the table. ‘A woman with a healthy appetite.’
She managed to swallow her mouthful but it was hard to think about food after that. He was so close she could smell his freshly washed skin, the scent of fine soap and clean flesh challenging her appetite, steering it in another direction completely. He uncovered a platter of croissants, still steaming hot from the oven, and offered it to her.
Turning towards him was one mistake. Looking at him rather than the plate of croissants was a bigger one. His olive skin glistened with moisture under the lights and even as she watched a bead of moisture ran down over his sculpted chest, pausing at the bud of one tight nipple only to sit there, poised on the brink.
She could feel that droplet as if it were on her own skin, feel it rolling down her breast and teetering at her nipple, turning it tight and hard against the soft flannelette of her pyjamas.
She should reach out a fingertip and release it from the tension that kept it hovering.