He would have to go to London.
It would take no time. A day. Two at the most. Cleo could come with him.
‘I love you so much.’
Her words came back to him in stark relief. Sure, she’d tried to explain it away, to get him to accept it was some kind of Australian equivalent for thank you. But he wasn’t buying that.
There was no way he could take her. As much as he wanted her and hungered for her, as much as he’d wished she’d been already incubating his child—maybe it was better that she didn’t come with him.
Maybe, he thought with a tinge of reluctance, maybe it was even better that he sent her home early. He’d never wanted to get involved with virgins and with good reason.
Cleo had been the closest he’d got to having a virgin and maybe this experience had proven him right. Virgins and almost virgins. They were looking for someone to love, looking for someone special to make this huge physical leap they were taking into something emotional. Even if there was nothing there.
Except that his mother wanted a grandchild.
Cleo would be beautiful pregnant, her body rounded and blooming, her belly swelling with his seed, but she didn’t want to stay and now he wasn’t sure she should.
Maybe his trip away would do them both good, and put things into perspective, a perspective he was admittedly having trouble with himself. And then it would all make sense when he came back.
The idea appealed. Logic appealed.
Although, strangely, leaving her again didn’t.
She’d blown it. Whatever sense of camaraderie had been building between them, she’d blown it with a few thoughtless and ill-timed words. He’d told her he was leaving in one breath and he was gone in the next, with barely a backward glance and even less warmth. She hadn’t even rated a peck on the cheek.
It hurt, his physical withdrawal from her. It hurt more than the fact he would be gone for a day or two, because eventually he would return to Santorini, but things would be different between them.
At least it would be easier for her now to leave. Now there was no way he would want her to stay.
Restless and unable to settle into her books, she wandered into the town, to a small travel agent she’d seen tucked away alongside a heaving souvlaki shop. There was no reason why she shouldn’t make enquiries about flights to Australia, the two weeks she had left would soon pass, but still she felt guilty, as if she were going behind Andreas’ back. Which was ridiculous, she told herself as she forced herself to enter the narrow shopfront It was not as if he didn’t know she was going to leave. Not as if he didn’t know when. What harm would it do to ask?
Then she saw it on the cover of one of the faded and tatty brochures that lined the walls, a picture of Ayers Rock amid a sea of red dust, and a wave of homesickness crashed over her. That was her world, a dusty, hot land where it never seemed to rain. That was where she belonged, not this island paradise, with its to-die-for-views and romantic sunsets and a man who would never really be hers.
A little over two weeks and she could be home.
Maybe it would be wise to make a booking now.
She found Petra in their suite, rifling through the drawers on Andreas’ side of the bed. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Ha!’ the woman said, clearly not feeling guilty in the least as she turned, holding up a fistful of papers. ‘There was nothing in the office but I knew I’d find it here.’
‘What is it?’ she asked, while fear uncurled in her stomach like a viper, hungry and hissing. ‘What have you got?’ But Cleo knew what it was. Andreas’ copy of the contract. Their contract. And she remembered being out on the terrace and discussing an extension and them turning to see Petra watching them. Listening. She swallowed as the woman’s greedy eyes drank in the details. ‘That’s none of your business.’ She marched across the room and tried to snatch it from Petra’s hands, but Petra whipped it away, staring at Cleo with such a look of triumph that Cleo was momentarily afraid.
‘One million dollars! He’s paying you one million dollars to sleep with him?’
‘No, he’s not! Give that back!’
‘What does that make you? Some kind of high-priced whore?’ Her eyes raked her as effectively as a blast of burning-hot Kangaroo Crossing dust. ‘More like an overpriced one.’
‘It’s not like that. I didn’t have to sleep with him.’
‘No? But you are, aren’t you? I’ve seen the way you look at him. I know what you’re doing. How is that not selling yourself? How is that not whoring?’
‘Get out! It’s nothing to do with you.’
‘Isn’t it? I wondered where Andreas had dredged you up from, acting more like some frightened schoolgirl than one of his women. I knew something was up the minute you stepped from the plane. It was all a charade, all for my benefit.’
‘What are you talking about? Why should it be for your benefit?’
‘Because Andreas was my lover, until you showed up!’
Cleo reeled, feeling blind-sided. ‘What?’
‘And he didn’t know how to tell me it was over. So he employed you—’ she gave a theatrical toss of her head ‘—to be his whore.’
‘Andreas wouldn’t do that.’ But even as she put voice to the words, the doubts she’d had from the start doubled and redoubled in her mind. Why had he needed someone to act as his mistress? To deflect gold-diggers generally, or one woman in particular? She couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.
‘But why couldn’t he just tell you? Why go to so much trouble?’
‘To totally humiliate me, why else?’
The other woman glared at her, as if she belonged here in this place and Cleo didn’t, and a wave of revulsion rolled over her. Had Petra occupied this bed in this room before her arrival? Had Petra spent the nights lacing her long legs around Andreas’ back as he drove himself deep into her? She closed her eyes, trying to block the pictures out.
No wonder the woman didn’t like her. She’d been right from the start: Petra’s edgy friendship had been laced with hidden meaning and snide digs.
But whatever his tactics and however repugnant they might be, Andreas had clearly made up his mind. It gave Cleo a much-needed foothold in the argument. ‘So Andreas didn’t want you, then.’ It was her turn to smile. ‘And you just can’t take no for an answer.’
‘You bitch! Do you really think he wants you, a woman who is so stupid she falls for someone over the Internet and loses everything? Do you really think he would prefer your type than someone who can talk business with him and understands his needs?’
Even while Cleo berated herself for revealing so much to this woman—too much—she was so grateful she hadn’t revealed absolutely everything. And at least she had the advantage of knowing Andreas wanted her, at least for now. ‘Clearly,’ she countered, ‘you ceased being one of his needs some time ago! Did you overhear while you were eavesdropping on the terrace that he’d asked me to stay longer? Tell me then, who is it he needs—you, who are so loyal to your boss that you skulk around in his bedroom looking for dirt, or me, who he would happily part with another million dollars to have stay?’
And Petra pulled out her trump card. She collapsed on the bed and burst into tears, the contract slipping from her fingers onto the coverlet. Cleo reached down and snatched it up, although the damage had already been done, the cat well and truly let out of the bag. But as for what to do next? Comfort the hysterical woman after the things she’d said and the names she’d called her? Not likely.
‘Do you want me to call a doctor?’
Petra sniffed and shook her head, for once her perfect hair unravelling at her nape like the woman herself. ‘There’s no point. I know what’s wrong with me.’ She snatched a tissue from the holder on the bedside table and blew her nose.
Maybe she really was heartbroken, thought Cleo. Maybe she’d really loved Andreas and thought he’d loved her back and she couldn’t bear the thought of someone else having him.
‘I guess it wasn’t easy seeing me here.’ She wasn’t hoping for conciliation. She still hadn’t sorted out how she felt about being used by Andreas to ward off his previous lover.
Petra responded with a snort. ‘You could say that.’
‘It’s always hard when the person we want doesn’t want us.’ Hell, she’d been there herself. ‘But sometimes it’s for the best. Sometimes they’re not the right choice for us after all.’
The woman looked sideways at her, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. ‘So now you’re giving me advice. How sweet. Perhaps you might give me advice on another matter?’
Okay, so she probably wasn’t the best person to be comforting this particular woman. But at least she was trying. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Do you think I should have an abortion?’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LIGHTS swam behind her eyes, blood crashed in her ears and Cleo felt the urge to run. Run as fast and as far as she could. Run till her lungs burst and her legs collapsed under her. Run till she hurt so much she couldn’t feel any more pain.
‘You’re pregnant, then.’ It all made sense, Petra’s morning queasiness by the pool, her dizziness this morning and her mood swings and tears.