Шантель Шоу – Eligible Greeks: Tycoon's Revenge: Proud Greek, Ruthless Revenge / The Power of the Legendary Greek / The Greek Millionaire's Mistress (страница 13)
She disappeared through a door and Thanos followed, glancing curiously around her bedroom. He had expected something more…seductive, he mused. The soft lemon walls, pale carpet and floral curtains and bedspread were fresh and pretty, but he could not imagine her entertaining a stream of lovers here.
A hissing sound like a kettle coming to the boil came from under the dresser, and he stared in surprise at the fat ginger cat whose yellow eyes were fixed menacingly on him. Tahlia was on her knees, dangling a rubber toy in front of the cat to tempt it into the carrier.
‘Come on, Charlie,’ she crooned. ‘Come and play.’ The hissing grew louder, and the cat suddenly sprang, hooking its claws in Tahlia’s hand. ‘Quick—grab him!’ she yelled.
‘You must be joking.’Instead Thanos manoeuvred the carrier over the cat, and after a brief tussle Tahlia managed to deposit the ball of orange fur inside and hastily secured the door. Blood was running down her hand and the cat was still spitting furiously.
‘He’s just a bit sensitive,’ Tahlia told him seriously. ‘I got him from the cat rescue centre, and I think he was badly treated by his previous owners. He’s a sweetie, really.’
‘I’ll take your word for it. You’d better put some antiseptic on that scratch.’ Thanos frowned. Giving a home to a stray cat with homicidal tendencies did not fit in with his image of Tahlia, he brooded irritably. He picked up her suitcase and cast another look around her room, pausing at the photograph on the bedside table. ‘Is this your brother?’ he asked curiously, as he studied the picture of Tahlia and a tall man with bright red hair.
‘No, I don’t have any siblings.’ She slipped on her jacket and flicked her hair back from her face. ‘That’s Michael. We met on my first day at university, when he told me that redheads should always stick together.’ She smiled softly at the memory. ‘Michael was studying to be a vet, but he died of meningitis a few months before he graduated.’
Thanos heard the sudden huskiness in her voice. ‘Was he your boyfriend?’ he queried abruptly, irritated with himself for his curiosity. Tahlia’s personal life had nothing to do with him.
She shrugged. ‘We’d been dating for a few months.’ Over the years she had come to terms with losing Michael, but only her closest friends knew how devastated she had been by his death. She had no intention of confiding in Thanos. She picked up the cat-carrier and glanced at him. ‘I’m ready to leave now.’
Tahlia’s tone warned Thanos that she did not want to continue the conversation, and he was suddenly impatient to leave. He did not want to hear that she had suffered a tragedy in her past. For the past six months he had envisaged her as a cold-hearted bitch, and he refused to contemplate any possibility that he might have been wrong.
‘I hope you’re not planning to try and smuggle that cat through Customs?’he said tersely as they walked out to the car.
‘Of course not. Hobson is going to look after him. He used to be my parents’ butler, but he’s semi-retired now, and lives in an annexe of Carlton House,’Tahlia explained. ‘We’ll have to take Charlie over to him.’
‘Is the house on the way to Gatwick?’
‘The opposite direction, I’m afraid. But I can’t leave Charlie to fend for himself. I guess it’s a case of love me, love my cat,’ she quipped, as Thanos deposited the cat carrier on the back seat and opened the front passenger door for her.
‘Hell will freeze over before I do either,’Thanos said violently.
He fired the ignition and pulled away from the kerb, but his scathing comment hung in the air between them, and Tahlia quickly turned her head and stared out of the window, wondering why her eyes were stinging with stupid tears. Thanos could not make it plainer that he hated her, but she was shocked at how much his contempt hurt.
She said nothing more, apart from giving him directions to Carlton House, and only glanced at him when he drove through the gates and gave a low whistle.
‘I see why your parents are so keen to hang on to the house,’ he said dryly, as he stared up at the ivy-covered walls and the three storeys of mullioned windows glinting in the sunlight. ‘It’s spectacular.’
‘For many generations it was passed down to the oldest son of the family, but my mother was an only child so she inherited it,’ Tahlia explained. ‘It’s a Grade I listed building, and to be honest the cost of its upkeep is a nightmare. My parents do their best to maintain it, even though it’s a drain on their resources, and Mum is very proud of her heritage. She loves Carlton House. It would break her heart to leave it—’
She broke off, blushing at the knowledge that she had agreed to become Thanos’s mistress to keep Carlton House safe. The front door of the house suddenly swung open, and an elderly, impeccably dressed man walked slowly down the front steps.
‘Who is that?’
‘That’s Hobson.’
Thanos frowned. ‘He can’t still work for your parents, surely? He must be ninety.’
‘We think he’s in his late seventies, although he won’t actually admit his true age,’ Tahlia explained as she climbed out of the car and took the cat-carrier from the back seat. ‘He started working here as a butler for my grandparents; my parents feel that Carlton is as much his house as it is theirs. My father has promised Hobson that he will always have a home here.’ Her smile faded as the implication of her words struck her. If Carlton was repossessed, where would Hobson go? He had no family, and he would be as distraught as her parents if he had to leave the house that had been his home for fifty years.
It wasn’t going to happen, she reassured herself as she walked up the drive to greet the butler. Thanos had promised to buy Reynolds Gems, Carlton would be safe, and she would take the secret that she had sold herself to him to her grave.
‘I was wondering how you had booked me onto a flight at such short notice,’ Tahlia murmured an hour later, as she followed Thanos across the tarmac at Gatwick airport. ‘I suppose I should have guessed you own a plane.’
‘I travel extensively for my business, and the Lear jet is more convenient than relying on scheduled flights,’ he replied, his eyes narrowing on her faintly stunned expression as she followed him onto the plane. His lip curled into a sardonic grimace as he watched her glance around at the plush leather seats. Women were always impressed by the jet, and several of his ex-lovers had been eager to join the mile-high club. He could spend the flight to Greece enjoying Tahlia’s gorgeous body in the luxurious bedroom at the far end of the plane—she was hardly likely to object, he mused cynically. She had made it clear she would do whatever pleased him in return for him shelling out a lot of money for Reynolds Gems.
He could not deny he was tempted, he thought irritably, and he skimmed his eyes over her, from her silky red-gold hair—worn loose today, and falling in a smooth sheet down her back—to her elegant cream skirt and jacket teamed with a sapphire-coloured blouse which matched the startling blue of her eyes, finally to her shapely legs sheathed in fine hose, their slender length emphasised by her three-inch stiletto heels. She looked cool and classy, and he felt a violent urge to lower his head and kiss her until her lips were no longer coated in a pale gloss but were red and swollen, as she parted them invitingly beneath his, as she had done in his hotel suite the previous night. Beneath her haughty façade this aristocratic English rose was hot, and she had already shown her willingness to explore the sexual chemistry that simmered between them. But he wanted to enjoy her at his leisure. He would have to curb his impatience until they reached Greece.
Four hours later, Tahlia stared out of the window as the plane swooped low over a cobalt-blue sea sparkling beneath a cloudless sky, dotted with several emerald islands. ‘I hadn’t expected the land to be so green,’she murmured, her spirits lifting as she absorbed the spectacular view of the Cyclades Islands.
‘That’s Mykonos just ahead of us.’ Thanos’s deep voice sounded close to her ear, and she jerked her head around to find that he had closed his laptop, which he had been working on for the entire flight. ‘The smaller island closest to it is Delos. It is uninhabited, but it’s one of the most important archaeological sites in Greece, and is believed in Greek mythology to be the birthplace of the goddess Artemis—hence the name of my new hotel,’ he added with a faint smile.
Tahlia’s eyes were drawn to the sensual curve of his mouth and her heart flipped. She had been agonisingly conscious of him during the flight, but as soon as the jet had taken off he had become absorbed in his work and not spared her a word or glance. He had not brought her to Greece for her conversational skills, she reminded herself heavily. Her sole duty for the next month was to please him in bed—but considering her lack of experience in that department she feared he was going to be disappointed.