‘Something like that,’ he said, turning away quickly. ‘Come on, my car’s waiting outside, I’ll give you a lift.’
He hauled her bag up the stairs as if it were a handbag and not stuffed full with all her worldly possessions and from there someone else took one look and relieved him of it, following in their wake, holding an umbrella over their heads as they emerged into the wet night. Who is this man, she wondered, to have his own people to fetch and carry and clean out an entire hotel at his say-so? A line of minibuses waited at the kerb outside, their exhaust turning to fog in the cold evening air. She recognised some of last night’s guests being bundled with their luggage into one of the vans.
She started walking to the one behind. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This one’s ours.’
She looked where he indicated and did a double take. He had to be kidding. The black limousine stretched for what looked an entire frontage if not the whole block! She swallowed. She’d never travelled in such a vehicle in her life. She flashed a look down at her outfit. Worn farm boots, denim jeans and an old Driza-Bone coat. She looked longingly at the line of minibuses. She’d feel much more comfortable in something like that.
But the chauffeur had the door open, waiting. ‘Are you sure we’ll both fit?’ she asked, but her companion didn’t crack a smile, just gestured for her to precede him, and she had no choice but to enter the car.
It was like being in another world as the vehicle slipped smoothly into the traffic. It was bigger than her bedroom in the hotel and she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it boasted its own en suite. The plush leather seats were more like sofas with not a squeak of springs to be heard and they felt and smelled divine. A cocktail bar sprawled along one side, boasting spirits of every colour imaginable, a row of crystal-cut glasses held delicately in place, and then, just when she thought it couldn’t get more amazing, there were stars, or at least tiny coloured lights twinkling all over the ceiling. And even as she watched they changed from blues and greens to oranges and reds and back to blues again.
And then there was him. He sprawled on the seat opposite, his back to the driver, one arm along the back of the seat, and with one leg bent, the other stretched long into the space between them. He’d undone his coat and the sides had fallen apart. Likewise the suit jacket underneath, exposing an expanse of snow-white cotton across his broad chest, all the whiter against the olive skin of his face and hands.
He was watching her, she realised. Watching her watching him. Her skin prickled. How could he do that with just his eyes? But it wasn’t just his eyes, it was the slightly upturned mouth, the sculpted jaw and the attitude. Oh, yes, he had attitude to burn.
She pressed herself back into the seat, trying to look less overwhelmed, more relaxed. ‘I guess you’ve never met anyone who hasn’t been in a stretch limousine before. My reaction must have been quite entertaining.’
‘On the contrary,’ he said, without moving his eyes from hers, ‘I found it charming.’
Charming. Nobody had ever used that word around her before. She wouldn’t have believed them if they had. He was no doubt being polite. More likely thinking gauche. She felt it. Maybe she should steer the conversation, such as it was, to safer territory.
‘Is it far to the hotel?’
‘Not far.’
‘Do you know what kind of job it is?’
‘I think you will perform a variety of tasks. I’m sure you will find them to your liking.’
‘Oh.’ She wished he could be more specific. ‘But it’s a live-in position?’
Across the vast interior he nodded, his dark eyes glinting in the light of a passing streetlamp, and for some reason she suddenly felt uncomfortable, as if she’d almost glimpsed something in their otherwise shadowed depths.
‘There is just one catch.’
‘Oh?’ There had to be though, she thought. Why should her life suddenly turn around without there being a catch? ‘What is it?’
‘The position has a fixed contract. This job will last only one month.’
‘I see.’ She sank back in her seat. Well, a month was better than nothing. And at least she’d have time to sort something else in between now and then.
‘But you will be well compensated.’ She blinked up at him. ‘Thank you again for your generosity, Mr…’ and she was left floundering, speechless. She was in a car heading who knew where with a man who’d promised her a job somewhere and she didn’t even know his name. When would she learn? What the hell kind of mess was she heading for now? ‘Oh, My God, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I don’t even know your name.’
He smiled and dipped his head. ‘I assure you, you have nothing to fear. Andreas Xenides at your service.’
Her eyes narrowed. She was sure she’d heard the name, maybe even read something in one of the papers back home before she’d left. But that man had been a billionaire. She didn’t tend to meet many of them in her line of business. Maybe this man was related. ‘I think there’s someone called Xenides with a huge hotel up on the Gold Coast in Queensland.’
He nodded. ‘The Xenides Mansions Hotel. One of my best performers.’
She swallowed. ‘That’s your hotel? You own it?’
‘Well, one of my companies. But ultimately, yes, I own it.’
She didn’t so much sink back into her seat as collapse against it.
He frowned. ‘Does that bother you?’
‘Bother me? It terrifies me!’ She put a hand to her wayward mouth. Oh, my, the man was a billionaire and she’d thrown a slipper at his head, right before she’d bawled him out in the basement and insisted he pay her wages and find her a replacement job. As a cleaner. And the amazing thing about it was that he had.
Mind you, the way people were running around after him at the hotel ready to do his bidding, he could probably have found her a job as an astronaut if he’d put his mind to it.
What must it be like to wield that much power? She glanced over at him, her eyes once more colliding with his dark driven gaze. So he was a billionaire. That answered a few questions. But it didn’t answer all of them.
‘There’s something I don’t understand.’
‘Oh.’ He tilted his head to one side, as if almost amused. ‘What is it?’
‘Why would you care about a tiny dump of a hotel three blocks from Victoria Station? Why buy it? There must be plenty of other hotels better suited to a posh outfit like yours.’
And his eyes glistened and seemed to focus somewhere behind her and Cleo got the impression he didn’t even see her. ‘I had my reasons.’
She shivered at his flat voice as if the temperature had just dropped twenty degrees. Whatever his reasons, Andreas Xenides struck her as a man you wouldn’t want to cross.
Cleo looked away, wanting to shake off the chill, and was surprised to see how far they’d come. She’d expected a lift to another small hotel somewhere close by, as he’d intimated, but she could see now that the limousine was making its way towards Mayfair.
His cell phone beeped and she was grateful he had a distraction She was happy just to watch the busy streetscape, the iconic red double-decker buses, the black taxi cabs all jockeying for the same piece of bitumen and somehow all still moving. ‘Petra, I’m glad you called. Yes, I’m finished in London.’
She wasn’t trying to listen to his call, but there was no way she couldn’t hear every word, especially when he made no attempt to lower his voice, and it was a relief when he dipped into his native language and she could no longer understand his words and she could just let the deep tones of his voice wash over her. When he spoke English his accent gave his words a rich Mediterranean flavour, a hint of the exotic, but when he spoke in Greek his voice took on another quality, on the one hand somehow harsher, more earthy and passionate on the other.
Much like Andreas himself, she imagined, because for all his civilised trappings, the cashmere coat and the chauffeur-driven limousine, she’d seen for herself that he could be harsh and abrupt, that he was used to making the rules and expecting people to play by them. And definitely passionate. Hadn’t he set her own body to prickly awareness with just one heated gaze?
It made sense that a man like him would have a Petra or someone else waiting for him. He was bound to have a wife or a girlfriend, maybe even both; didn’t the rich and famous have their own rules? She looked around at the car’s plush interior, drinking in the buttery leather upholstery with her fingers and wanting to apologise to the pristine carpet for her tired boots. She gazed out of the tinted windows and caught the occupants of passing cars trying to peer in, looks of envy on their faces, and sighed, committing it all to memory. What would it be like to be one of the Petras of this world? To move in such circles and consider this all as normal?
She smiled philosophically. This was not her world. Any minute now he’d drop her at the hotel to take up her new cleaning position and he’d be gone for ever, back to Petra or another, whoever and wherever she was.
‘We’re flying back tomorrow,’ she heard Andreas say, abruptly switching back to English. ‘Expect us around five.’