any hassle.
But then, of course, she acknowledged, with part relief and partly a little pang, the closest she got to a beauty treatment these days was filing a hang nail…
But what did she care? she thought fiercely. Joey didn’t give a hoot if her hair was just tied back in a utilitarian plait, or if her face was bare of make-up. All he wanted was her attention—and her love.
And he got both in infinite amounts.
Even as she thought of Joey her hand automatically went to her apron pocket. Her mobile was on, but there had been no peep from it. Vi still found it tricky to use a mobile, but she’d made a gallant effort to learn, and had faithfully promised to call Clare if Joey surfaced and was distressed at her absence in any way. But, with luck, Joey was a good sleeper now, and once he went off he was usually fine until morning.
She handed round the drinks she’d just collected from the bar, spotted another of her tables starting to disperse, and kept an eye on them to see if she was going to get a tip. The wages, like all in this line of work, were hardly brilliant, and tips were important, like it or not. Every penny counted, and every penny was going into the Holiday Jar that would, she fervently hoped, take her and Joey and Vi to the seaside in the summer.
A shadow formed in her eyes.
If fate had dealt her a different card there’d be no such thing as the Holiday Jar…
But it was no use thinking that way. She had made the right choice, the only choice.
This way, though Joey might only be the fatherless child of yet another impoverished single mother, wearing clothes out of charity shops and eking a living, that was still infinitely better than being the alternative—the unwanted bastard of a Greek tycoon and his discarded, despairing mistress…
CHAPTER ONE
XANDER ANAKETOS stifled his impatience with a civil, if brief smile at the man beside him. Richard Gardner was of the school of businessmen who considered that every deal should be sealed with a drink and an expensive meal. Xander had no time for such niceties. The investment he’d just agreed in principle to make in Gardner’s company would be mutually profitable, and the details would be hammered out by their respective subordinates. Now Xander was eager to be gone. He had plans for the evening which did not include making small talk with Richard Gardner. However, he had no wish to snub the older man, and besides, his ‘other business’ would wait for him.
They always waited for him.
Sonja de Lisle was no exception.
Oh, she might pout for a few minutes, but it wouldn’t last. Soon she would be purring all over him. He pulled his mind away. Best not to let his thoughts go to Sonja when he had dinner to get through first.
And before that a drink in the cocktail lounge while they perused the menu.
As the guest, Xander let Gardner choose where to sit, and took his place accordingly. He glanced round, concealing the disparagement in his eyes. This was not a hotel he would have chosen to patronise, but he could appreciate that it was convenient for the business park where Gardner’s company was sited near Heathrow. But, for himself, he preferred hotels to have more class, more prestige—usually more antiquity. He liked classic, world-famous hotels, like the Ritz, Claridges, the St John.
Memory flickered. He rarely went to the St John now.
Like a stiletto sliding in between his synapses, an image came into his mind. Blonde hair, curving in a smooth swathe over one shoulder, diamond studs set into tender lobes, long dark lashes and cool grey-green eyes.
Eyes that were looking at him without emotion. A face held very still.
A face he had not seen again.
He thrust the image aside. There was no point remembering it.
Abruptly he reached for the menu that had been placed on the low table in front of them and flicked it open, making his selection without great enthusiasm. Snapping it shut, he tossed it down on the table again and looked around impatiently. He could do with a drink. Did this place not run to waitresses?
There was one a table or so away from them with her back to him. He kept his eye on her, ready to beckon. He could see her nodding, sliding her notepad into her pocket.
She turned towards the bar. Xander held up an imperious hand. She caught the gesture and altered direction.
Then she stopped dead.
Clare could feel the blood and all sensation slowly draining out of her body. It emptied from her brain, her limbs, every part of her, draining down through every vein, every nerve.
And in its place only two things.
Disbelief.
And memory.
Memory…
Poisonous. Toxic. Deadly.
And completely overwhelming.
She was dragged in its wake, down, down, down through the sucking vortex of time.
Down into the past…
Xander was late.
Restlessly, Clare paced up and down. She should by now be used to him arriving when he wanted to, but this time it was harder to bear. A lot harder. She could feel nerves pinching in her stomach. Every muscle was tightly clenched.
Am I really going to tell him?
The question stung in her mind for the thousandth time. For two weeks it had been going round and round in her head. And with every circulation she knew that there was only one answer—could only be one answer.
I’ve got to tell him. I can’t not.
And every time she told herself that she would feel the familiar flood of anxiety pooling in her insides—the familiar dread.
If—she corrected herself—when she told him, how would he take it? Automatically, in her head, she felt herself start to pray again. Please, please let him take it the way I so desperately want him to! Please!
But would he? Like a lawyer, she tried to shore up her position as best she could, mentally arranging all her arguments like ducks in a row.
I’ve lasted longer than the others. That has to be a good sign, doesn’t it?
Xander Anaketos never kept his mistresses long. She knew that. Had known it since before that fateful night when she had joined their long, long list. But she hadn’t cared. Hadn’t cared that her shelf-life in his bed was likely to be in the order of six months, if that. Hadn’t cared even that she’d got that fact from one of the most reliable sources for such information—her predecessor. Aimee Decord had warned her straight. The woman had been drunk, Clare knew, though it had hardly showed except for the slightest swaying in her elegant walk, the slightest lack of focus in her dark, beautiful eyes.
‘Enjoy him, cherie,’ she’d said to Clare, taking yet another sip of her always full champagne flute. ‘You’ll be gone by Christmas.’
