Australia: Wicked Mistresses(34)

‘Then why don’t you just buy yourself a ticket home?’

‘And you think that if I could afford my fare home, I’d be working in a dump like this?’

‘Do you need to be so melodramatic?’

‘No. I don’t need to. I’m just doing it for laughs.’She dragged in a breath and threw her arms out by her sides. ‘Look, why can’t I stay here? Just for tonight. I’ll go tomorrow morning, first thing. I promise. Maybe it will have stopped raining by then.’

‘The hotel is closing,’ he reiterated. ‘It will be locked down tonight in preparation for the builders and redecorators coming in tomorrow. The deal was the hotel would be delivered empty.’

‘Nobody made a deal with me!’

‘I’m making it now.’

It didn’t sound like much of a deal to her. ‘So where are the guests going? Why can’t I go there?’ She held up her hand to stop his objection. ‘Not as a guest. Surely they could do with a cleaner, with this sudden influx of additional guests.’

He uttered something in Greek, something that sounded to her dangerously like a curse. ‘I’ll call and ask. No guarantees. Meanwhile you get your things together. I assume that won’t take long.’

She sniffed. ‘And if they don’t have a job?’

‘Then you’re on your own.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that.’

She put her hands on top of her head and sighed, locking her fingers together, and turning her head up high, as if to think about it.

But Andreas couldn’t think about it. He was too busy following the perfect shape of her breasts, her nipples pulled up high, their shape so lovingly recreated by the thin cotton layer that was all that separated him from them. Her waist looked even smaller now. Almost tiny in comparison as she pulled her arms high, the flare of her hips mirroring the curve above. His mouth went dry.

Damn it all! He yanked his eyes away, rubbing them with his fingers. Anyone would think he’d never had a woman. She was a cleaner. It wouldn’t work. Clearly the day had taken more out of him than he’d realised.

‘And what about my wages?’ She was looking at him, her eyes wide, her arms unhooking. ‘Demetrius owes me for more than a week! And surely I’m entitled to some kind of severance pay, even if he was paying me cash, seeing you’re the one to terminate my job!’

Silently he cursed Darius again, along with his own team that had failed to pick up this stray employee. ‘How much are you owed?’

Cleo did some rapid sums in her head. Math had never been her strong point, so the calculations were a bit rough, but an entire week and a half, less board, that was a considerable sum. ‘Fifty quid,’ she said, rounding it off, hoping he wouldn’t balk.

He pulled a money clip from his pocket, withdrew a handful of notes and then added a fistful more before handing the bundle to her.

Her eyes opened wide as she took in the high-denomination notes and the number of them. Her math was still lousy, but it was more than clear he’d given her way too much. ‘I can’t take this! There’s heaps more than that here.’

‘Then consider it a bonus for doing what I ask and getting out of here. Call it your redundancy package, if you like, with enough for your accommodation tonight and probably for an entire week if you play your cards right. Now, it’s time you started packing.’

She looked as if she’d rather stay and keep arguing, her mouth poised open and ready to deliver another salvo, but she must have thought better of it. She jammed her lips shut and wheeled around, marching purposefully towards the door, shoving the wad of notes into her jeans pocket as she went. Not that it was any distraction. He was already looking there, admiring the way her denim jeans lovingly caressed the cheeks of her behind as she went. But she stopped before the door and turned, and he was forced to raise his eyes to meet hers.

‘I’ll go and pack,’ she said, colour in her cheeks and fire spitting from her eyes, ‘and I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure meeting you, but I’m afraid that isn’t possible. I’ll leave my key in the door. Not that you need it, apparently.’

And then she swept out with her head held high like the princess on her eye mask rather than a redundant cleaner.

There was no need for him to stay. But he sat there, leaning against the desk, thinking that he’d been wrong. She wasn’t pretty by any measure, she wasn’t tall and elegant like his usual choice of woman, but there was something about her, a fire in her eyes as she’d protested his closure of the hotel, something that had almost burned bright in the seedy air between them. Would she be as passionate in the bedroom, or would she go back to being the bedraggled mouse he’d seen lurking in the corridor?

Damn! Trust Darius to leave him to clean up his rubbish. But he should have expected it.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, hating the way his thoughts were going. The woman had a point. He, more than anyone, knew what it was like to be left with nothing and without even a roof over his head. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

He slid open his cell phone, found the direct number for the manager of the hotel the guests here were being transferred to and hit ‘call’. It answered within a moment. ‘It’s Andreas. Have you a position for another cleaner or kitchen hand? There is one here who requires a position, preferably live-in.’

There was a moment’s hesitation, but no argument, no question as to qualifications or referees from the manager. That Andreas himself had enquired was all the assurance the manager required, the moment’s hesitation all the time he needed to make the necessary rearrangements. Of course, they could use the help, came the answer. And there would be a bed the person could use in a shared room.

Andreas breathed deep with relief. When he’d thought of getting even with Darius, he’d thought they’d covered all the bases with everyone on the payroll. He’d not thought about any other fallout, the ones Darius had been paying on the sly. But now that fallout was well and truly taken care of. His father had been avenged and nobody had been inadvertently left homeless in the deal. It was the best of all worlds.

He tried to recapture the joy, the exhilaration of the day’s events. After what he’d achieved after a lifetime of wanting, he should feel better than this, surely. But something still didn’t sit right with him. Maybe it was just the adrenaline let-down now that he’d achieved his goal?

Or maybe it was because he wasn’t sure that he wanted someone else taking care of fallout that came complete with sweet curves and lush breasts?

He sighed. He might as well go give her the good news. His car was waiting and he had work to do.

She was already struggling out of her room with an oversized pack when he emerged and he wondered how she’d walk if ever she got it onto her back. It looked almost as big as her. He leaned down and took it from her, lifting its weight easily. Their fingers brushed and she pulled her hand away, tucking it under her other arm. ‘So you pack as quickly as you get changed?’

She looked up at him, her cheeks flaring with colour again as he looked down at her, surprised by the extent of her reaction. Did she not want to touch him that desperately, or was it something else she was feeling? Resentment perhaps, or even hatred that he’d bowled her out into such a night. But she’d dragged on some kind of all-weather jacket and her breasts’ reaction was hidden from him. ‘Please, you don’t have to take that. Not after—all those things I said about you. It was very ungracious after you were so generous. I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.’

‘I found you a job.’

Her eyes opened wide. ‘You did?’ They were blue, he realised for the first time, the kind of blue that came with the first rays of light on a misty Santorini morning showing all the promise of a new day. And then she smiled. ‘But that’s fantastic Thank you so much. Is it a cleaner’s job at the other hotel? Can I stay there?’

He’d never seen her smile. He got the impression she didn’t use it a lot around this place, but it was like switching on a light bulb and for a moment it switched off his thought processes. He coughed, his mind busy rewinding, rethinking. ‘The job comes with accommodation, yes.’

‘Oh, I can’t believe it. I’m so sorry for all those things I said back there. I really am.’ She reached into her back pocket and hauled out the stash of notes he’d given her, pressing them into his free hand. ‘Here. I can’t take this now. I won’t be needing your money.’

A woman who wouldn’t take money when it had been given her? He didn’t know many women who wouldn’t be hanging around for more, not handing it back. So she worked as a cleaner—maybe she was better qualified than he’d assumed.

A month.

That was all he’d need. She wouldn’t be the kind of woman to expect to hang around. She wouldn’t want more than he was prepared to give.

A month would work out just fine.





CHAPTER FOUR


‘KEEP it,’ Andreas said, pushing her hand back, curling his fingers around it. ‘You’ll probably need some new clothes in your new job.’

Cleo solemnly regarded the notes still curled in her palm, her hand small and warm in his. ‘Oh, you mean a new uniform.’