Sabrina Philips - Mistress - Taming the Playboy - Constantine's Defiant Mistress / Androletti's Mistress / Valenti's One-Month Mistress

‘Hello, Constantine.’

‘Ah, you recognised my voice,’ he observed softly.

‘Funny that, isn’t it? Yet, strange as it may seem, there aren’t scores of Greek men growling down the telephone at me.’

Detecting a distinctively spiky note in her voice, Constantine frowned. Was she daring to be sarcastic—to him ? And under such circumstances, too? ‘You know why I’m calling?’

‘Yes.’

‘You will agree to the DNA test?’

Laura gripped the phone tightly. What choice did she have? ‘I suppose so.’

‘Good.’ Leaning back in the sumptuous leather of his chair, Constantine surveyed the broad spectrum of the glittering London skyline. ‘I’ve been making some enquiries and I can either arrange for you to have it done at my lawyer’s office here in London—or he tells me that he can arrange for you to use somewhere closer to you, if that’s more convenient.’

She heard an unexpected note of silky persuasion in his voice, and suddenly Laura was glad that she had done her research, glad that she wasn’t just going to accept what the powerful and autocratic Greek was telling her. What it was in his best interests to tell her.

‘I’m not using a lawyer’s office,’ she said quietly.

There was a disbelieving pause. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I believe that doing so carries all kinds of legal implications,’ she said. ‘This test is being done to establish paternity to your satisfaction; it is not a custody claim. So I’m doing the test at home on a purely need-to-know basis.’

Another pause, longer this time. Constantine had not been expecting her to query his wishes—to be honest, he had expected her simply to accept his agenda. Because people always did; they bowed to the dominance of his will. So just who did this mousy little waitress think she was to dare to oppose his wishes? He lowered his voice. ‘And if I object?’

‘You aren’t in any position to object!’ she declared, refusing to let that silky tone intimidate her. ‘You’re the one who wants this damned test—who is going to force me to take a swab from my seven-year-old son’s mouth. Have you thought what I’m going to tell him? How I’m going to explain that to a seven-year-old boy?’

‘And didn’t you think through any of this before you came to me?’ he flared back.

The terrible truth was that she hadn’t thought through all the repercussions—instead she had been swept along by feelings which had been too primitive to allow any room for reason. She had felt an overpowering sense of injustice—because Constantine might be about to marry another woman and have a family with her without realising that he had another son who might know nothing but penury and spend his life living in the shadows. And she had thought he would recognise her—remember the night they had spent together with surely a bit of fondness. And then, in true fairy-tale fashion, she had imagined him acknowledging his son with a certain amount of Greek pride.

And it was about you, too, wasn’t it? prompted the uncomfortable voice of her conscience. Aren’t you forgetting to put that into the equation? You were unreasonably jealous of the woman you thought was going to share his life—even though you had no right to be. And your actions

helped contribute to the fact that the supermodel stormed out of the hotel suite, didn’t they?

‘Or did you think I was just going to roll over like a pussycat and sign you a big, fat cheque?’ he persisted.

She had been about to admit her hastiness and lack of forethought, but his hateful remark made her bite it back. What an unremittingly cruel man he could be. Perhaps she had opened a whole can of worms, and Alex might be about to discover what kind of man his father really was. ‘I—I’ll organise the test,’ she said shakily.

Constantine heard the faint tremble in her voice, and unwillingly he frowned. He remembered the photo of the little boy with the stubborn curls and the wariness which had peeped out from his black eyes. Could he really put the child through the worry of a test? Had she not proved herself by now? Because surely if she had been bluffing then she would not have dared sustain such a fiction for so long. And the fact that he had been trying to block from his mind now came slamming into focus—that little boy was his little boy.

‘Forget the test,’ he said suddenly.

Staring out at Milmouth high street, where the hazy sunshine spilling onto the cobbled streets seemed to mock at her dark mood, Laura froze. ‘F-forget it?’ she questioned incredulously. ‘Why?’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said slowly.

Laura’s lips parted—she was scarcely able to believe what she’d just heard. Constantine magnanimously telling her that the test was unnecessary when he was the one who had insisted on it in the first place—like a teacher at school deciding to let her off a hastily handed-out detention. He has all the power, she realised bitterly. And she still wasn’t clear what the motives were for his sudden about-face.

‘But you said you wanted proof.’

‘I no longer need it. I believe you,’ he said unexpectedly.

‘You believe that he’s your son?’

‘Yes.’ There was a long silence as Constantine acknowledged the power of the single word of admission which would now change his whole life—whether he liked it or not. ‘Yes, I believe he’s my son,’ he said heavily, as if the full statement would reinforce that fact to both of them. He had known it the moment he had stared at the photo and seen those disobedient curls—and on some subliminal level he had accepted it even before that. Because some instinct had told him to—an instinct he had not understood at the time and probably never would.

‘But … why?’ Her confused words cut into the turmoil of his thoughts. ‘Why now, after all you said? All you accused me of?’

Constantine curled his hand into a tight fist and stared at it. All he had said had been rooted in denial; he hadn’t wanted to believe her. He had been reluctant to accept the enormity of the possible consequences if what she said had been true. But suddenly he allowed himself to see that this news could have all kinds of benefits—and perhaps it had dropped into his life at just the right time. A solution had begun to form in his mind—as perfect a solution as such circumstances would allow. All he needed was to convince her to go along with it.

The determination which had driven him to rebuild one of the most powerful companies in his native Greece now emerged in a different form. A form which could be used to tackle a private life which had suddenly become complicated. Constantine’s mouth hardened, and so did his groin as he remembered the way she had let him kiss her in that scruffy little hotel corridor last night. Of course she would go along with his wishes! She wasn’t exactly the kind of woman who was going to turn down a golden opportunity if it fell into her lap, now, was she?

For a moment he was tempted to put his proposition to her there and then—until he was reminded that she had shown signs of stubbornness. Better to have her as a captive audience and to tell her face to face. Better to allow his lips and his body to persuade her if his words couldn’t.

‘Your co-operation has convinced me that you are telling the truth,’ he said silkily. ‘A woman like you would be unlikely to pit herself against an adversary like me if she was lying.’

The unexpected reprieve made Laura blink her eyes rapidly. ‘Th-thank you,’ she said, after taking a moment to compose herself—though when she thought about it afterwards she realised that she had completely missed the sting behind his words.