‘You’ll need every bit of it, so eat up and don’t wait for me.’ His eyes raked over her and her skin prickled under his gaze. ‘You’re going to need your strength.’
She shivered as he disappeared into the bathroom. Why did she get the impression he wasn’t only talking about her upcoming appointments?
He needn’t have worried about her not eating. Room Service arrived with the heavily laden trolley a minute or two later, and the aroma threatened to drive her crazy. The porter had hardly finished serving the breakfast up on the dining table in the next room before she practically fell upon the feast. There was yoghurt and jam, pastries and rolls and toast, along with two massive platters of English breakfast. It was a feast. The coffee was smooth and rich with just the right amount of bitterness to wash it all down. She couldn’t remember enjoying a meal more.
Andreas emerged from the bathroom while she was still eating, a towel lashed low around his hips and barefoot, moisture still clinging to his chest and beading in the hair that curled into his neck.
‘That’s what I like to see,’ he said, sitting alongside her at the table. ‘A woman with a healthy appetite.’
She managed to swallow her mouthful but it was hard to think about food after that. He was so close she could smell his freshly washed skin, the scent of fine soap and clean flesh challenging her appetite, steering it in another direction completely He uncovered a platter of croissants, still steaming hot from the oven, and offered it to her.
Turning towards him was one mistake. Looking at him rather than the plate of croissants was a bigger one. His olive skin glistened with moisture under the lights and even as she watched a bead of moisture ran down over his sculpted chest, pausing at the bud of one tight nipple only to sit there, poised on the brink.
She could feel that droplet as if it were on her own skin, feel it rolling down her breast and teetering at her nipple, turning it tight and hard against the soft flannelette of her pyjamas.
She should reach out a fingertip and release it from the tension that kept it hovering. She could at least stretch out one hand and capture the doomed droplet in her palm.
She was too late for either. Gravity won and the droplet fell, swallowed up into his towel. ‘Would you care for something?’
She blinked and raised her eyes to find his watching hers, amusement creasing their corners. ‘A croissant, or perhaps there’s something else you might enjoy more?’ Now even his lips had turned up. He was laughing at her and she’d brought it on herself. Nothing unusual in that; she was used to making a fool of herself. It was just she wasn’t used to making a fool of herself over a naked chest and a single droplet of water.
‘N…No, thank you,’ she managed, holding her pyjamas together at the neck as if that would defend her against…Against what? Throwing herself bodily at him? ‘I should have my shower. Thank you for breakfast.’
‘One thing,’ he said, grabbing one hand as she made a desperate bid for freedom, his thumb making lazy circles on her palm as he held her. ‘You don’t have to thank me for anything. We have a deal. You will act like a mistress and take what is offered you, and I will take what is offered to me. Understood?’
Her hand was dwarfed by his, and so much paler now she’d lost her Aussie year-round tan, and the contrast seemed so much like the contrast between them. Andreas was strong and wealthy and darkly dangerous and she was broke and pale and reduced to making deals to survive. But did he really expect her to offer herself to him? He’d slept out here, the sofa bed still unkempt, sheets and blankets littering the floor, but from the moment he’d awakened her this morning, with his unashamed display of his naked body and his thinly veiled comments, she’d had the sense that sex wasn’t far from his mind. With her? Surely not.
She swallowed. ‘I’ll do my job in accordance with the terms of our contract. I can’t think what else I could possibly have to offer that would interest you.’
‘Exactly what I meant,’ he said, his words at odds with the look in his eyes as he let her go.
The rest of the morning passed in a whirlwind. She was ferried down to the salon and secreted away in a private room where it seemed a dozen staff were fully employed in transforming her into someone worthy of being seen on Andreas’ arm. Nobody seemed to think it odd, or, at least, nobody made her feel that way and she wondered if Andreas had been right, that the staff were paid far too much to sit in judgement or to care about anything but the service they provided.
Before long, their skilful hands had her relaxing so much that she didn’t care. How often did she have a treat like this? Never. She was determined to enjoy it.
In no time it seemed her hair was transformed into a thousand tiny tinfoil packages. A manicure and pedicure followed, along with waxing and a treatment over her new colour before she relaxed into a facial. She felt like a new woman even before the hairdresser studied her, reading her newly coloured hair as a sculptor read the stone, before a make-up artist took her attention, leaving the hairdresser to perform his art.
And finally they were finished. The team gathered around her smiling and waiting for her reaction, but she was too staggered to give one. In the mirror her once-mousy hair gleamed back at her in what looked like a dozen shades of copper to blonde to gold, the skilful cut using her natural wave for fullness while the artful layering somehow seemed to add inches to its length.
And that was just her hair. The make-up artist had turned her eyes into those of a seductress, their blue colouring intensified the shadows beneath banished, and a woman who had never been pretty felt beautiful for the first time in her life. Tears pricked her eyes and she bit down hard on her lip, trying not to cry, not wanting to ruin all their good work. ‘I can’t believe what you’ve all done, thank you so much.’ And to the make-up artist, she pointed to her eyes and asked, ‘Can you show me how to do this?’ and the girl nodded, her smile widening.
‘I’d love to. You have such extraordinary eyes to work with. You just have to make more of them. They were just lost in your face before.’
Lost in her face? Or just lost? It could have been the story of her life. But a quick lesson later, Cleo was on her way back to the suite, armed with all the products and cosmetics she would need to reproduce the artists’ work.
This time as she walked through the lobby towards the bank of lifts she didn’t cringe, didn’t expect Security to come running. She was still only clad in jeans and a casual top, but she held her head up high and moved with a confidence she’d never known. One or two heads turned as she passed, and it gave her an unfamiliar buzz. She couldn’t keep the smile from her face. Likewise she couldn’t wait to show Andreas the transformation.
Except he wasn’t in the suite. She shoved aside a stab of disappointment Of course, he was a busy man; he wasn’t going to sit around waiting for her. Besides which, the suite had been turned in her absence into some kind of boutique, with racks of casual, resort and evening wear lining the walls and a stylist named Madame Bernadette who clearly took her job very seriously No wonder he’d made himself scarce.
Mme Bernadette took one look at Cleo over the top of her glasses, and clucked her tongue. ‘Hmm, let’s get to work. This may take some time.’ She snapped her fingers at an attendant, who meekly bowed and handed Cleo a robe. ‘Put that on,’ Mme Bernadette instructed. ‘We have work to do.’
Two hours later, Cleo was exhausted. She’d lost count of how many times she’d changed, how many times the stylist had poked, prodded and pulled various bits of whatever she had on, analysing the fit, whether it was the sheerest lingerie or the most figure-hugging gown. But she obviously knew her craft, because by the end of it the racks had been depleted. Everything not still hanging was going with them. There wasn’t a whole lot left hanging.
For someone who’d survived on the contents of one backpack for six weeks and lately just one pair of jeans and a couple of T-shirts, an entire couture wardrobe for one month seemed like overkill, but Andreas was clearly calling the shots as Mme Bernadette would not be swayed by any talk of moderation
The dilemma of how it was supposed to fit in her luggage was soon taken care of, as another knock on the door heralded a trolley carrying a suite of designer luggage and two maids who curtsied as they entered—actually curtsied her—before getting on with the business of packing, letting her get on with her own preparations.
It was almost twelve. She had no doubt Andreas would expect her ready on the dot and had no doubt he would also expect to see the new collection put to good use. For that reason she’d chosen a creamy silk blend trouser suit with a silk camisole that skimmed her new shape, no doubt ably assisted with a new bra that was as sexy as it was an engineering masterpiece. It gave her both cleavage and support yet it looked sexy as sin and felt as if it were barely there. With the new sling-backs that added four inches to her height and showed off her newly pedicured toes to perfection, and a blue scarf Mme Bernadette had pressed upon her because it accented her eyes, she felt more feminine than she ever had, as if she’d grown up and made the transition from a child into a woman in the space of just a few hours. She couldn’t wait to show Andreas the new her.