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

‘Because I’m curious.’

‘Or because you know that deep down I could be telling the truth?’

‘Not in this case.’ His lips curved into a cruel smile. ‘You see, I don’t screw around with waitresses.’

It hurt. Oh, how it hurt—but presumably that had been his intention. Laura forced herself not to hit back at the slur, nor to let herself wither under his blistering gaze. ‘Maybe you don’t now—but I can assure you that wasn’t always the case.’

Something in her calm certainty—in the way she stood there, facing up to him, despite her cheap clothes and lowly demeanour—all those things combined to make Constantine consider the bizarre possibility of her words. That they might be true. He looked deep into her eyes, as if searching for some hint of what this was all about, but all he saw was the stormy distress lurking in their pewter depths, and suddenly he felt his heart lurch. Eyes like storm clouds.

Storm clouds.

Another memory stirred deep in the recesses of his mind. ‘Take down your hair,’ he ordered softly.

‘But—’

‘I said, take down your hair.’

Compelled by the silken urgency of his voice, and weakened by the derision in his eyes, Laura reached up her hand. First, off came the frilly little cap, which she let fall to the floor—she certainly wouldn’t be needing that again. Then, with trembling fingers, she began to remove the pins and finally the elastic band.

It was a relief to be free of the tight restraints and she shook her hair completely loose, only vaguely aware of Constantine’s sudden inrush of breath.

He watched as lock after lock fell free—one silken fall of moon-pale hair after another. Fine hair, but masses of it. Hair which had looked like a dull, mediocre cap now took on the gleaming lustre of honey and sand as it tumbled over her slight shoulders. Her face was still pale—and the dark grey eyes looked huge.

Storm clouds, he thought again, as more memories began to filter through, like a picture slowly coming into focus.

A small English harbour. A summer spent unencumbered by the pressures of the family business. And a need to escape from Greece around the time of the anniversary of his mother’s death—a time when his father became unbearably maudlin, even though it had been many years since she had died.

His father had promised him far more responsibility in the Karantinos shipping business, and that summer Constantine had recognised that soon he would no longer be able to go off on the annual month-long sailing holiday he loved so much. That this might be the last chance he would get for a true taste of freedom. And he’d been right. Later that summer he’d gone back to Greece and been given access to the company’s accounts for the first time—only to discover with rising disbelief just how dire the state of the family finances was. And just how much his father had neglected the business in his obsessive grief for his late wife.

It had been the last trip where he was truly young. Shrugging off routine, and shrugging on his oldest jeans, Constantine had sailed around the Mediterranean as the mood took him, lapping up the sun and feeling all the tension gradually leave his body. He hadn’t wanted women—there were always women if he wanted them—he had wanted peace. So he’d read books. Slept. Swum. Fished.

As the days had gone by his olive skin had become darker. His black hair had grown longer, the waves curling around the nape of his neck so that he had looked like some kind of ancient buccaneer. He’d sailed around England to explore the place properly—something he’d always meant to do ever since an English teacher had read him stories about her country. He’d wanted to see the improbable world of castles and green fields come alive.

And eventually he’d anchored at the little harbour of Milmouth and found a cute hotel which looked as if it had been lifted straight out of the set of a period drama. Little old ladies had been sitting eating cream cakes on a wonderful emerald lawn as he strolled across it, wearing a faded pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Several of the old ladies had gawped as he’d pulled out a chair at one of the empty tables and then spread his long legs out in front of him. Cream cakes which had been heading for mouths had never quite reached their destination and had been discarded—but then he often had that effect on women, no matter what their age.

And then a waitress had come walking across the grass towards him and Constantine’s eyes had narrowed. There hadn’t been anything particularly special about her—and yet there had been something about her clear, pale skin and the youthful vigour of her step which had caught his attention and his desire. Something familiar and yet unknown had stirred deep within him. The crumpled petals of her lips had demanded to be kissed. And she’d had beautiful eyes, so deep and grey—a pewter colour he’d only ever seen before in angry seas or storm clouds. It had been—what? Weeks since he had had a woman? And suddenly he’d wanted her. Badly.

‘I’m afraid you can’t sit there,’ she said softly, as her shadow fell over him.

‘Can’t?’ Even her mild officiousness was turning him on—as was the pure, clean tone of her accent. He looked up, narrowing his eyes against the sun. ‘Why not?’

‘Because … because I’m afraid the management have a rule about no jeans being allowed.’

‘But I’m hungry,’ he murmured. ‘Very hungry.’ He gave her a slow smile as he looked her up and down. ‘So what do you suggest?’

As a recipient of that careless smile, the girl was like putty in his hands. She suggested serving him tea at an unseen side of the hotel, by a beautiful little copse of trees. Giggling, she smuggled out sandwiches, and scones with jam and something he’d never eaten before nor since, called clotted cream. And when she finished work she agreed to have dinner with him. Her name was Laura and it made him think of laurels and the fresh green garlands which ancient Greeks wore on their heads to protect them. She was sweet—very sweet—and it was a long time since he’d held a woman in his arms.

The outcome of the night was predictable—but her reaction wasn’t. Unlike the wealthy sophisticates he usually associated with, she played no games with him. She had a vulnerability about her which she wasn’t afraid of showing. But Constantine always ran a million miles from vulnerability—even though her pink and white body and her grey eyes lured him into her arms like a siren.

In the morning she didn’t want to let him go—but of course he had to leave. He was Constantine Karantinos—heir to one of the mightiest shipping dynasties in the whole of Greece—and his destiny was not to stay in the arms of a small-town waitress.

How strange the memory could be, thought Constantine—as the images faded and he found himself emerging into real-time, standing in a luxury London penthouse with that same waitress standing trembling-lipped in front of him and telling him she had conceived a child that night. And how random fate could be, he thought bitterly, to bring such a woman back into his life—and with such earth-shattering news.

He walked over to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a tumbler of water—more as a delaying tactic than anything else. ‘Do you want anything?’ he questioned, still with his back to her.

Laura thought that a drink might choke her. ‘No.’

He drank the water and then turned round. Her face looked chalk-white, and something nagged at him to tell her to sit down—but his anger and his indignation were stronger than his desire to care for a woman who had just burst into his life making such claims as these.

A son ….

‘I wore protection that night,’ he stated coldly.