Charlotte glared at him, her chest rising and falling in anger at his assumptions about her character.
She had worked so hard to get her final qualification. Her pregnancy had been a nightmare and her mother’s sudden diagnosis of an aggressive type of breast cancer had made a difficult situation unbearable. She had studied into the early hours, existing on a minimum of sleep in order to get her thesis written, all the while nursing her rapidly failing mother and doing her best to keep her younger sister out of the trouble she seemed intent on drifting into with an unfortunate choice of friends.
Charlotte still blamed herself for Stacey’s current problems. She had been too preoccupied with juggling her pregnancy and completing her degree to do what should have been done. Stacey had been steadily heading down the same destructive pathway as their father but she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. It had been too painful.
‘You can think what you like, but I can assure you my qualifications are all above board,’ she bit out.
‘Nevertheless you have used them to your advantage, have you not?’ he observed. ‘You handle daily some of the most priceless artefacts in the world. Tell me, Charlotte, have you been tempted to steal something from the museum and sell it on the black market yet?’
She threw him a caustic glare. ‘I am not even going to dignify that question with an answer.’
‘Why did you not tell me your father served a considerable time in prison for armed robbery?’ he asked after a small but carefully timed pause.
Charlotte could feel shame weighing her shoulders down but forced herself to hold his obsidian gaze. ‘My father died behind bars several years ago. I don’t even think of him now.’
If he was in any way taken aback by the cold, unemotional delivery of her statement he showed no sign of it.
His eyes bored into hers for another beat or two before he continued in a tone that contained an unmistakable threat. ‘It would be rather unfortunate if I were to be forced to reveal to your employers your little indiscretion of four years ago. They might not like the thought of harbouring a thief in their midst.’
Charlotte knew he would do it. She could see the ruthlessness in his dark-as-night gaze as it challenged hers.
‘You are all I most despise in a man,’ she said through tight lips. ‘I cannot think of a man I hate more.’
‘Then it will make our relationship all the more exciting, don’t you think?’
‘It will make it disgusting and unbearable,’ she shot back.
‘I will make sure you are adequately compensated,’ he said and reached for his cheque book in the inner pocket of his coat. ‘You will need an array of glamorous clothes, for which I do not expect you to pay for yourself.’
She watched in sinking despair as he slashed his distinctive signature at the bottom and handed it to her.
‘It’s blank,’ she said, glancing down at it without taking it from him.
‘That is because you can name your price, agape mou,’ he said. ‘I am willing to pay you whatever you want. You, of all people, know I can afford it.’
Charlotte felt like asking for a totally outrageous sum but her pride wouldn’t allow it. He had wrapped his proposition in the euphemistic term of mistress but she knew exactly what he was expecting in return.
A vision slipped into her mind of her sister taking money off strangers to feed her habit. Night after night Stacey rented her body and yet here was a chance for Charlotte to put an end to that for ever.
She skittered away from the thought of being Damon’s lover again but the images came creeping back into her brain: his long, hair-roughened legs entwined with her smooth ones, his body pumping its frantic passionate response into the tender sheath of hers.
Her stomach gave a funny little somersault at the thought of feeling that level of sensuality again.
No.
She would not, could not, do that again.
‘Since you are having such difficulty deciding on the amount, I will leave you to fill it in yourself,’ he said and, before she could stop him, he took her bag from her shaking fingers and opened the clasp.
Charlotte’s breath screeched to a halt in her chest, her face feeling as if a bonfire had been lit in each cheek as he took out his wallet, his long tanned fingers seeming to her as if they were moving in slow motion.
‘I—I was going to give it back to you…’ she said as his dark accusing eyes locked on to hers.
The white tips of anger about his mouth distorted his arrestingly handsome features into harsh lines of revenge. ‘You lying, thieving little bitch,’ he ground out. ‘You are working as a team with your sister. I should have guessed.’
‘No! That’s not true!’ she said. ‘I’ll g-get your money back for you…’
His brows snapped together in time with the closing of his wallet. ‘Indeed you will,’ he said. ‘But in the meantime you can pay me back in kind.’
Charlotte swallowed convulsively. ‘I can’t do this, Damon,’ she said brokenly. ‘Please don’t ask me to.’
‘I’m not asking you, Charlotte—I’m telling you. If you do not agree to be my mistress, then your sister will face the authorities as she so clearly deserves.’
She felt her shoulders drop in defeat. It seemed there was going to be no way out of this.
‘How much do you want?’ he asked again, each hard-bitten word driving a stake through her heart.
She stared at the floor and mumbled what she thought would be enough to cover the cost of Stacey’s rehabilitation—her face fiery red with shame at what she was committing herself to in agreeing to be his short-term mistress. It was a pathway to heartbreak all over again, but what other choice did she have? She could hardly tell him the truth about her motives. Stacey’s issues aside, if he found out he had a child he would stop at nothing to take Emily away from her.
He wrote the figure on the cheque and handed it back to her. ‘I can see how you have perfected the art of camouflaging your real motives. You give every appearance of being uncomfortable accepting money from me, but I know that is all a clever little ruse of yours to get me to lower my guard.’
‘I feel uncomfortable accepting a glance from you, let alone anything else,’ she said in arctic tones. ‘The thought of sharing my body with you sickens me to my stomach.’
His black gaze visibly hardened, his jaw tensing as he fought for control. ‘It did not seem to sicken you a short time ago in the limousine. We both know I could have taken you then and there.’
She knew it was foolish but she couldn’t resist retorting, ‘It would have been by force.’
He gave a mocking laugh. ‘You think so?’
She sent him a fulminating look. ‘I hate you, Damon Latousakis. I hate you with every breath and bone in my body.’
‘I am sure you do, but perhaps I should make it clear at this point that your hatred and loathing is to be kept strictly private. In public we will be like any other couple who have nothing but the highest regard for each other.’
‘And if I don’t comply?’
‘I am surprised you have the gall to even ask me that,’ he said.
She lowered her gaze in case he saw the desperation she was feeling. ‘How do you wish to…er…conduct our…relationship?’
‘I would like to see you on a regular basis.’
Charlotte felt her insides twist in anguish. Her little daughter