and her panicked thoughts must have been laid bare in her eyes. He covered the handset with one hand and pointed to a sofa. ‘I’m sleeping there,’ he growled. ‘The bedroom is all yours.’
She retraced her steps to the bedroom and dug through her bag until she found her pyjamas and toilet bag and ducked into the bathroom, feeling embarrassed and stupid and relieved all at the same time. Of course he didn’t want to sleep with her! What the hell had she been thinking? Their deal was for her to pretend to be his mistress, not be the real thing. One kiss had scrambled her brain completely. One kiss and she was practically expecting him to make love to her.
She adjusted the water temperature and stepped into the cloudburst of a shower. The pounding of the steamy water was like a salve to her weary muscles and tired body, but still she was out in record time, simultaneously pulling on her pyjamas and cleaning her teeth in case Andreas needed the bathroom. Her stomach rumbled and she realised she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. But she was used to that. It was the one reason her jeans fitted her now, rather than stretching at the seams like when she’d first arrived in London. At least her mad job had achieved what ten years of New Year’s resolutions had failed to deliver. Anyway, she was too tired to eat now. All she wanted to do was collapse into bed.
She pulled the hair tie from her hair, shaking the damp ends free as she surveyed the object in question. Compared to the camp bed she was used to, the bed seemed to stretch an acre in every direction. And it was all for her. But which side was his? Or did his lordship like to occupy the middle? He might be going to sleep on the sofa outside, but just the knowledge that he’d slept here last night and she could be sharing that same place seemed too intimate, too personal. She hovered at the side a while, before exhaustion got the better of her and she climbed into the closest side, finding herself enveloped in cloud-soft luxury, the scent of Andreas on her pillow, the comforter so soft and warm around her it was like a hug from her nanna.
The bright side, she thought dreamily, was that sooner than she’d expected she’d be home and hugging her nanna again. There was always a bright side.
She pulled her mask over her eyes to shut out the ribbon of light seeping under the door, feeling sleep tugging at her so hard that nothing could keep her awake tonight, not the occasional burst of Greek she could hear coming from the room outside, not regret at making the deal she’d done and not even the fear that, despite his assurances, at any moment Andreas Xenides could walk through that door and climb into this bed.
She yawned. She knew she should care. She wanted to. But not right now. In the morning she’d be able to think straight. In the morning they could set any necessary boundaries.
In the morning…
Andreas was still on the phone when Room Service arrived with the meal he’d ordered in between calls to his lawyers and to the concierge to arrange the round of appointments Cleo would need in the morning. He was hungry and he figured she must be too, and until she’d been thoroughly made over there was little point being photographed with her in any of the restaurants or bars. Before and after shots wouldn’t help his cause. In any event, there was something to be said for taking a few hours in private to get to know one another. For, as much as he expected she’d be perfect for his purposes, the contracts needn’t be signed until he’d made absolutely certain.
He pushed open the door to the bedroom to let her know their meal had arrived and found the room in darkness, lit only with the light spilling in from the room behind. And there she lay, looking tiny in the big wide bed, her flannelette pyjamas buttoned almost all the way up to her neck like a suit of armour with the quilt pulled up almost as high, and that damned Princess mask hiding her eyes.
The blood in his veins heated to boiling point. She was sleeping? He’d just agreed to pay her a million dollars and she was sleeping as if it were no big deal and she could start earning her money tomorrow?
He was just about to rip the damn mask off when she stirred on a sigh and settled back into the mattress, her breathing so slow and regular that he paused, remembering.
She’d been asleep when his staff had woken her hours ago, he recalled, after being awake since the very early hours, the shadows under her eyes underlining her exhaustion. Maybe he should give those shadows a chance to clear and give the makeover experts a fighting chance to turn her into the woman he needed her to be?
Maybe he should just back out of here and let her sleep?
And maybe he should just climb right in there with her and make the most of his money? She’d said she didn’t want sex but he’d never known a woman to turn him down. That she’d been so adamant grated.
There was a knock at the door outside. Housekeeping, no doubt, come to make up the sofa bed, and he turned and pulled the door closed behind him.
He had no need to take any woman. He had an entire month. She would come to him; he knew it.
IT WAS a strange dream, where people faded in and out of focus, the girls from school with their taunts of loser, her half-brothers hugging the father who looked on her as excess baggage, and Kurt laughing at her, his white chest quivering with the vibrations. From somewhere Cleo could hear the sound of her nanna telling her to look for the silver lining. She spun around trying to find the source of her voice, trying to pull her from the shadows and hang onto her message and drown out the chorus behind her, when a different shape emerged from the mist, tall and broad and arrogantly self-assured.
“I’m scared.” It was her voice, even though she’d not said a word, and she wanted to run, tempted to turn back to the mocking chorus behind her, back to the world she knew and understood so well, back to the familiar, but her legs were like lead and she couldn’t move and he kept right on coming until he stood head and shoulders above her. And he smiled, all dark eyes and gleaming white teeth. ‘You should be,’ and then he’d dipped his head to kiss her and she heard nothing but the buzzing in her ears and the pounding of her heart, and from somewhere in the shadows, the sound of her nanna’s voice.
‘Rise and shine.’ The words made no sense until the blow to her rump, cushioned with the thick quilt but enough to bring her to consciousness with a jump. ‘You’ve got a busy morning.’
The alarm on the bedside table alongside snapped off and she drank in the scent of bed-warmed flesh. His bed-warmed flesh. So the alarm was the buzzing in her ears? But what was causing the fizzing in her blood?
She sat up and pushed her mask above her eyes, and then, remembering his comment about dressing like a clown, swiped it from her head. A moment later she wished she’d kept it on. He was naked. Unashamedly naked as he strode to the wardrobe and pulled out a robe. Too late she averted her eyes and, oh, my. She felt the blush rise like a tide as the truth sank in—he was huge! Only to have the blush deepen with the next wayward thought.
And if he looks that big now?
She swallowed, pulling her legs up like a shield, wondering why she should be suddenly tingling down there. How big he could be had nothing to do with her. It wasn’t something she was planning on finding out.
‘Hungry?’ he asked casually, but her brain had ceased to function on that level. ‘You missed dinner,’ he explained, slipping into a robe and thankfully tying it at his waist. ‘I thought you might be hungry. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for both of us. You looked like you could have slept until noon.’
