MELANIE MILBURNE – Mistress: Taming the Playboy: Constantine's Defiant Mistress / Androletti's Mistress / Valenti's One-Month Mistress (страница 13)

‘Why—Alex, of course,’ she shot back. ‘Do you really think I can just announce to him that I’m marrying his father—whom he’s never even met—and that we’re all going off to Greece to live happily ever after?’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not? Don’t you know anything about children?’

‘Actually, no, I don’t,’ he snapped. ‘Since I’ve been denied that opportunity up until now!’

Laura swallowed as she stared into the shadowed flint of his features. Be reasonable, she told herself as she worked out what to say. Because if she expected him to come round to her way of thinking then she was going to have to be convincing. And convincing a man like this about anything wasn’t going to be easy. She had to show him how it would look from a little boy’s point of view.

Her voice softened. ‘Alex’s life is here in England—it’s all he’s ever known. Don’t you think that suddenly landing all this in his lap would be overloading him with too much, too soon? Tearing him away from his home and his school? A new father who turns up out of the blue and a new life he has no say in? What if Greece doesn’t work out?’

‘We will make it work out,’ he vowed grimly.

And in a way that stubborn insistence only reinforced her determination. Laura suddenly got an ominous vision of the finality of being trapped in a loveless marriage with a man like Constantine, and a shiver ran down her spine. ‘You can’t make things happen like that,’ she said. ‘Human beings aren’t puppets that you can play with and control. I don’t think you realise the impact of taking a child who’s never even been abroad and plonking him in a foreign land.’

His body tensed as if she had hit him, and he clenched his fists. ‘Don’t ever … ever … refer to Greece as a “foreign land” in front of me or in front of my son,’ he hissed. ‘It is the land of his forebears with a rich and glorious heritage. And one which I intend that he will learn about.’

The fingers which had tightened into two fists now slowly unfurled, and Laura found herself watching them with a horrible kind of fascination.

‘I want contact with Alex,’ he continued inexorably. ‘And I want him to meet his grandfather. Those two things are non-negotiable—so how do you intend to let me go about doing it, Laura?’

And Laura knew then that she didn’t have to be stuck on an island to be trapped. Entrapment could be emotional as well as geographical, she realised—and in a way her fate had been sealed from the moment she had made contact with him again. She could see the determination etched on his face, and she realised that there was no way she was going to be able to escape his demands. Which meant that she had to fashion them to best suit her and Alex’s purpose. And no one could deny that it was in a child’s best interests to learn about his father—no matter what she thought about him.

She laced her fingers together. ‘I think it’s best for Alex to get to know you … gradually.’

‘And how do you suggest I do that?’ he demanded. ‘Start coming into that bread shop you run and buying some damned bun every morning?’

If the circumstances hadn’t been so fraught then Laura might almost have laughed, because the image of this powerful Greek going into her little village shop was both bizarre and amusing. But there was no place for humour here; this was deadly serious. Yet neither was there was any need for him to be so scathing about her method of earning a living. Working in a shop wasn’t up there with being a supermodel, but it was honest and it was decent—even if it didn’t reap the huge kind of rewards which he obviously considered essential.

‘Of course I don’t,’ she said stiffly.

‘My life and my work are in Greece,’ he clipped out.

‘I realise that.’ Just as hers and Alex’s was here—a cultural and geographical world away. Laura’s mind starting spinning as she searched desperately for some sort of solution to their dilemma, when suddenly a thought occurred to her. Unseen in the folds of her cheap summer dress, her fingers tightened as an idea of breathtaking simplicity came to her. ‘But the long summer holidays are coming up,’ she said slowly.

Constantine stilled. ‘And what has that got to do with anything?’

‘I could come to Greece,’ she said carefully. ‘But not as your wife. A complete lifestyle change would unsettle Alex—but he could cope with the kind of situation he’s used to.’

‘You aren’t making any sense,’ he snapped.

‘Well, I … I presume that your father employs staff at his home in Greece?’

‘Of course he does.’

‘How many?’

‘I am not in the habit of keeping an inventory,’ he drawled. But her eyes continued to regard him steadily and he gave an impatient kind of sigh. ‘There is a permanent housekeeper who lives within the complex, and several people who come in from the village to help out.’

‘And do … do any of them have children?’

‘Not young children, no—but there are plenty of those in the village.’ He frowned. ‘What the hell does that have to do with anything?’

Laura let out a long breath. ‘I know exactly what we can do,’ she breathed. ‘You take me on for the summer as a temporary member of staff. I can work in your father’s house—’

‘Work in my father’s house?’ he roared in disbelief, staring at her as if she had taken complete leave of her senses. ‘Doing what?’

Laura lifted her chin up, determined not to be intimidated by the fierce blaze from his eyes. ‘The skills of which you’ve already been so very critical—I can clean and make beds. I can serve food. I can even cook—though not to any cordon bleu standard.’

Constantine stared into her face. ‘Such lowly and subservient pursuits!’ he bit out. ‘What kind of a woman would want this?’

A woman with pride, thought Laura ardently. And a woman with dignity—or rather one who was trying to claw back some of the poise which always seemed to fly out of the window whenever Constantine was around.

‘Meanwhile, Alex gets a few weeks in the sun,’ she carried on, her enthusiasm growing now. ‘If he plays with other children he can learn a little Greek, and they can learn English. It’ll do him good to have a holiday—and in that relaxed environment he can get to know you.’

There was an ominous kind of silence while Constantine mulled over her words—there was no doubt that he was surprised by the humbleness of her request. She wanted to come to his house as a servant! And yet maybe it would work out better this way—for wouldn’t it place strain on his father’s heart to suddenly produce a seven-year-old grandson out of nowhere? And wouldn’t she be more expendable as a servant than as a wife? Easier to dispose of afterwards, if her presence began to grate on him, without having to go through all the publicity and disruption of a divorce?

He stared at her, aware that her impudent idea was distracting him from the most important question of all. ‘And when do you propose telling Alex that I’m his father?’ he asked softly.

The eyes she turned to him were huge. ‘Can we … can we wait until the moment is right?’

He hardened his heart against the tremulous appeal in her voice. ‘I will not wait for ever, Laura,’ he warned.

‘No. No, I can understand that. We will tell him as soon as it’s appropriate. I promise. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Constantine.’ She flashed him a grateful smile, but the look he gave in response was like ice.

‘This is not a situation I am happy with,’ he bit out.

How hard the years had made him, she thought fleetingly. He was a completely different person from the ruffle-haired man who had sailed in and out of her life all those summers ago.

And what about her? Had she changed that much? Laura bit her lip. Quite honestly, that brief period of freedom and sexual awakening had been so unlike anything she had known since that she had almost completely forgotten it. Or maybe she had just blocked it from her mind. Maybe it was too painful to remember being carefree and unencumbered by worry.

She forced her mind back to practicalities. ‘The only problem I can think of is that I’m going to need a replacement to help my sister in the shop while I’m away—but I assume you’d be able to help me sort that out?’

The only problem? he thought. Was she crazy? He could see a few more than that.

‘I can fix that,’ said Constantine heavily—because for the first time in his life he had not got what he wanted. Despite her reduced circumstances and tiny stature, he could see that here was a woman who had her mind set on something, and nothing he could do or say was going to change her mind. Was this a unique version of mother-love? he wondered bitterly. A mother fighting tooth and nail for what was best for her child?

Briefly, Constantine found himself wondering what it must be like to have a mother who felt like that about you. A mother who cared about your welfare more than she cared about her own—but he vetoed the thought instantly. He never wasted time thinking about things which were beyond his own comprehension.

It was one of the reasons behind his success.

CHAPTER SEVEN

LAURA was aware of a surprisingly green oval rising up to meet them as the helicopter landed with the agility of a large moth. Ringed with silver-white sand, from the sky the island had looked like a jewel in the middle of a sea so intensely blue that she’d felt quite shaken with the beauty of it all.