The Millionaire's Mistress

by Miranda Lee

  Attention? He’d ring her up twice a day.

  Presents? He’d send her flowers. Bring chocolates and perfume every time he called. Whoops, no! He didn’t want to give the impression he still thought her a gold-digger. Just flowers, then. And nothing over the top.

  Flattery? He didn’t need to use flattery. He would just tell her the truth—that he thought she was the most beautiful, clever, witty, entertaining, wonderful, fantastic sexy female who’d ever drawn breath!

  But what about that old standby...telling her he loved her every other sentence?

  Now why was it that Marcus feared that particular truth wouldn’t work? No, he would keep those three little words in reserve till the moment was right, till something happened and Justine would see that he really meant them. Then and only then would that tack have a chance of striking home!

  Marcus’s jaw jutted out stubbornly. He’d overseen plenty of mergers and takeovers in his life. But none as crucial as this. Nothing inspired him more than a difficult challenge. And he had a feeling that making Justine fall in love with him was going to be just that. But making her believe he loved her back might prove to be the emotional equivalent of Mission Impossible!

  But when Marcus Osborne set his sights on an objective, it had better watch out. He wasn’t the youngest bank president around for nothing!

  He was bending to scoop up his own clothes when he heard the shower running.

  The thought infiltrated that showers were filled with all sorts of erotica. Naked bodies, warm water, shower gel, sponges, back scrubs...

  Marcus dropped his trousers and strode towards the bathroom door.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘I’LL BE sad to lose you,’ Pat said over their eight-thirty cup of tea the following Friday night. ‘You’re a good little worker, Justine. Make someone a good little wife one day.’

  Justine rather agreed with her. But she doubted Marcus ever would. He hadn’t repeated his first impulsive proposal of marriage. He’d been too busy taking advantage of her offer to provide him with sex. Gratis. Naturally he had no idea she was in love with him. He thought she was just in lust with him—which, of course, she was as well.

  On Sunday evening he’d returned to take her out to dinner again, and they’d actually made it to the restaurant this time. They’d eaten a couple of courses, though for the life of her Justine could not remember what. The sexual tension between them had been distracting in the extreme, both of them falling awkwardly silent during the drive back to Marcus’s place.

  They hadn’t made it to the bed. Marcus had pounced on her in the hallway. She’d had great difficulty finding her clothes afterwards. They’d been scattered through the house. Her panties by the front door. Her lime-green dress beside the leather sofa in the lounge room. Her soggy bra out on the terrace.

  Monday, he’d talked her into meeting him for lunch—only of course it had been she who was on his menu. She’d chided him when he’d headed home instead of to any eating establishment, but any mild reproach on her part had soon changed to a passion as driven and conscienceless as his.

  Tuesday, she’d been breathlessly waiting for him outside his house when he drove up shortly after one, as arranged. The day had been steamingly hot and they’d spent two hours in the pool, making love. It was after three by the time Marcus went back to the bank, with an exhausted Justine left to wonder at his amazing stamina and imagination.

  Wednesday, she’d refused to meet him for lunch, a perverse jab of pride demanding she not be so easy. But it had been darned difficult. She’d been on edge all day, the continuing hot weather not helping. She’d kept thinking how she would prefer being in Marcus’s pool, with a deliciously naked Marcus, rather than washing sheets and making up beds for the coming boarders. By the time she’d arrived at work that night she’d been deeply regretting her decision. Why deny herself the pleasure Marcus could give her? If she couldn’t have his love, then at least she could have his lovemaking.

  When she’d wheeled her cleaning trolley into his office to find him sitting at his desk, looking supersexy, despite his wearing that stuffy pin-striped suit of his, she’d surrendered to the devil’s whispers and seduced him on the spot. She still blushed at the thought of what she’d done under his desk, with people walking down the corridor a few feet away.

  As much as Justine had enjoyed these erotic encounters, nothing compared to what had happened on Thursday.

  Thursday, Marcus had taken her to an extravagant lunch in a swanky hotel on the Harbour, then up to a room afterwards—‘For some leisurely afternoon lovemaking,’ he’d said. His call to Grace to excuse his presence from the bank for the rest of the day had been a classic of double entendre. He’d told his secretary that he’d run into a valued client over lunch who had an exciting new proposition for him, and that he’d be all tied up for the afternoon.

  Justine had had no idea at the time that he’d meant it literally. He’d seen it in a movie once, and found the idea a serious turn-on.

  ‘Provided, of course, one’s partner can be totally trusted,’ he’d murmured as he’d kissed her into compliance against the hotel room door.

  Justine shook her head as she thought of that afternoon. Having him at her total mercy had been corruptingly exciting. And surprisingly informative. She’d revelled in being able to tease him, in taking him to tantalising and probably torturous edges, at which point she’d coaxed answers to questions he would probably have sidestepped if he hadn’t been desperate with desire. Acute frustration had allowed her to strip away the controlled facade he usually hid behind, and all sorts of interesting facts had come tumbling out of his groaning mouth.

  During the course of the afternoon Justine had elicited quite a chunk of his life story. She’d been both fascinated and moved. Born to a drug-taking teenage runaway—father unknown—he’d been taken from his mother at a tender age by welfare and well-meaning relatives, and put into a wonderfully warm and welcoming state institution.

  There had been no hope of adoption with his mother refusing to sign any papers, although he’d been fostered out several times to people who’d seemed more interested in their government cheques than the emotionally deprived boy. Finally he’d been consigned to the home for wayward boys after a bout of bad behaviour which came after news of his mother’s death through an overdose—news which had shattered his secret dream of one day having a family of his own.

  Naturally, as soon as he’d finished school he left the boys’ home, to make his own way in the world. He’d worked his way through university, after which he’d joined the bank as a trainee loans officer. Twelve years later, he’d become the president of said bank.

  Justine smiled ruefully at the memory of Marcus’s modestly succinct description of his success. To rise to his present position in such a short time had been quite spectacular.

  Actually, she knew more about his working history than he knew she did. Trudy had played detective for her this past week, finding out from various sources all she could about Marcus Osborne, banker extraordinaire.

  Apparently, during the eighties, he’d been one of the only investment executives to advise his bank not to lend money to the scores of flashy entrepreneurs who’d besieged most of the major banks and glibly conned them into handing over massive loans for speculative deals, but without proper security. When the property crash had come, Marcus had become his bank’s golden boy, having saved them a fortune in bad loans. He’d been rapidly promoted, first to vice-president at the age of twenty-eight, then to president at thirty.

  His only failure during those years, it seemed, had been his marriage, which had occurred soon after his promotion to president. According to Trudy’s sources, Stephany had been the only daughter of another bank president, who hadn’t been so fortunate in his decisions and had subsequently been sacked.

  Suddenly impoverished, the spoilt only daughter of the family had turned her greedy eyes on the banking man of the moment. Marcus had married her before he knew the
selfish soul behind those big and reportedly beautiful brown eyes. Their marriage had lasted only twelve months, with no children.

  Justine was no psychologist, but she believed anyone with a brain in their heads could see Marcus’s deprived upbringing had been the perfect breeding ground to produce a driven personality with an intense need to succeed in life. But resting alongside his tunnel-vision ambition would lie a deep well of emotional vulnerability.

  Love would always present itself as a two-edged sword. He would distrust it, yet crave it as one always craved what one had never had. The only problem would be that he might not know what true love was. The poor darling had had little experience of it, after all.

  How easy to confuse lust with love. Or to be fooled by a gorgeous young woman who lavished him with false affection and flattery while hiding her mercenary motives behind a beautiful and distracting facade. Stephany had obviously been just such a woman.

  Justine frowned. Marcus had thought she was tarred with the same brush for a good while. She hoped he didn’t still think that. Hopefully, he didn’t. Surely her rejecting his proposal of marriage had shown him she wasn’t after his money?

  The one subject Justine hadn’t been able to coax Marcus into talking about in any detail on Thursday was his marriage, other than admitting he’d divorced Stephany for adultery. Most of what she knew of Marcus’s ex was what she’d learned from Trudy—which wasn’t all that much. A sudden thought occurred to her, and she glanced at the woman opposite.

  ‘Tell me, Pat, did you ever meet Marcus’s... er...Mr Osborne’s first wife?’

  ‘Did I ever! Now there was a one. We all cheered the day the boss got rid of her, I can tell you.’

  ‘How long ago was that, exactly?’

  ‘Gosh, it must be nearly two years ago now. Yep. Two years. Heavens, how time flies!’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Lovely to look at. Tall and blonde, with a spectacular figure. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth around Mr Osborne and any of his business colleagues, but she was a right cow to anyone she considered didn’t rate. A snob through and through. I used to clean the seventh floor back then, and I ran into Madam quite a few times times in the evenings. She always looked right through me, as though I didn’t exist. Poor Grace used to complain about the way she was treated as well.’

  ‘Do you know what broke up the marriage?’

  Trudy had told her rumour claimed there had been more than one affair on Stephany’s part, but Trudy hadn’t known the particulars.

  ‘No secret there, love. The boss caught her in bed with the pool-cleaning man. He tossed her out on the spot. Threw all her clothes—and her--out into the street, then had the locks changed.’

  ‘Goodness! But how do you know that for sure? I mean, I can’t imagine Mar... Mr Osborne telling anyone anything so personal.’

  ‘Heard it all with my own little ears. Mr Osborne had come back to the bank that evening to work, as was his habit most evenings back then, when Lady Muck came storming into his office and let fly. I was cleaning the boardroom at the time, and the adjoining door was slightly ajar. My ears went bright red, I can tell you. I’ve never heard such filthy language from a woman in all my life!

  ‘I was right proud of Mr Osborne, though. He never raised his voice once. Just told her quietly to leave. It wasn’t till she started screaming out really shocking details of all the other lovers she’d had since their marriage that he called Security and had her forcibly removed. We all felt so sorry for him, being publicly humiliated like that. Everyone on the floor must have heard. We’re not surprised that there hasn’t been anyone else since then. Mr Osborne is the sort of man who would feel something like that very deeply. I doubt he’ll ever marry again. Before his disillusionment, the poor man was totally besotted with that creature.’

  Justine’s heart sank into a black pit. It was as she’d feared. Marcus would never get over his first wife enough to trust another woman, or to risk his happiness again. But it was crazy to be so upset about something she’d always known. Hadn’t Trudy told her ad nauseam?

  Justine sighed her dismay. Her silly romantic soul must have been secretly hoping that some day Marcus would fall in love with her and repeat his offer of marriage.

  ‘Why did you want to know, love?’ Pat asked. ‘Are you interested in our Mr Osborne?’

  Justine was taken aback, although it was a fair enough question. ‘Oh. Er...well, he is a very good-looking man, isn’t he?’

  ‘Oooh.’ Pat eyed her knowingly. ‘Now here’s a turn-up for the books. Of course you’re a very good-looking girl, too. Don’t tell me the boss’s been giving you the eye while you’ve been up there cleaning his office?’

  ‘He has given me the odd second glance occasionally,’ she said, and tried not to look guilty. If only Pat knew. The things that had gone on in the boss’s office on Wednesday night would have turned more than her ears bright red!

  Justine had expressly forbidden Marcus to work late tonight. She wanted to do a really good cleaning job on her last night, or Gwen would be complaining when she came back the following Monday and found poorly cleaned rooms.

  But it had been lonely cleaning his empty office. She missed Marcus. Not just his lovemaking, but the man himself.

  Her heart lurched at the sudden unbearable thought that since he would never fall in love with her, then one day he’d be gone from her life. He would tire of her sexually and that would be that!

  How on earth would she survive without him? He’d become as essential to her as breathing.

  Suddenly she wanted to cry. But that would never do. Not in front of Pat. Plastering a false smile on her face, she jumped up from the tea table. ‘Must get back to work,’ she announced brightly.

  ‘But what about Mr Osborne?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I mean... what are you going to do about you and him? I mean... this is your last night working here, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I do realise that. I’m afraid I have to accept that Mr Osborne and I aren’t meant to be, Pat,’ Justine said, her heart catching.

  Pat sighed. ‘I think you could be right, love. That Stephany piece did a right good hatchet job on him. I wonder what happened to the rotten cow? Probably sailed on to some other rich sucker without a backward glance. Them types don’t have a heart. Not like our Mr Osborne. Now, he’s soft as mush under that stiff upper lip he likes to put on. Do you know, he sent Gwen flowers, and even visited her personally at home with the biggest box of chocolates? She was quite overcome. Not many bosses would do that for a cleaner.’

  ‘No,’ Justine said thoughtfully. ‘They certainly wouldn’t. Well, I’d better get back to work, Pat. See you later.’

  ‘Yes, see ya, love. And don’t be too upset about Mr Osborne. There’ll be plenty of fellas for you in the years to come.’

  But none that I’ll want as I want Marcus, she thought wretchedly as she rode the lift up to the seventh floor. None that I’ll love half as much. Justine knew in her heart that there would only ever be one true love for her.

  Her mood lifted when she recalled what Pat had said about Marcus being soft as mush under his stiff upper lip. Maybe Pat and Trudy were wrong about his being so damaged that he would never fully trust or love a woman again. He’d asked her once what she wanted of him, but she’d never asked him what he wanted of her. Maybe because she’d been too afraid of the answer. Was it just sex he was looking for? Or could she hope he wanted more?

  Trudy had told her to just enjoy the moment and not to hope for anything permanent. But Trudy was a bit of a cynic. She’d also insisted Justine not tell Marcus she was in love with him.

  ‘He’ll treat you like a doormat if he knows that,’ she’d pronounced on the telephone earlier in the week. ‘Truly, Jussie. I did warn you that you’d fall in love with the man once you went to bed with him, didn’t I? You’re like a babe in the woods when it comes to men and sex, especially men like Marcus Osborne. They eat little girls lik
e you for breakfast. Now, you listen to your old friend, and hopefully you might get out of this affair relatively unscathed, plus a whole lot wiser. Don’t go saying anything you shouldn’t. That way, when he dumps you, you’ll at least have your pride intact.’

  Pride.

  What was pride in the scheme of things if Marcus was no longer in her life?

  Be damned with her pride! she decided.

  The lift doors opened and she hurried down the corridor. Wasn’t honesty worth a try? What if Marcus felt more for her than he’d let on and was just waiting for her to admit the same?

  It was a possible scenario, given his background. He’d be wary of committing himself to another woman, especially one with a spoilt upbringing similar to Stephany’s. His offer of marriage the other night might not have been a mad impulse of the moment. It might have been a blurted out expression of his deepest desire.

  Maybe Marcus loved her...

  Truly loved her.

  Her heart swelled, then raced with the possibility. She had to know. And she had to know now! It would not wait another moment.

  Bursting back into his office, she strode over to his desk and swept up his telephone. Punching in the number for an outside line, she then added his home number. She clutched the handpiece to her ear, counting the number of rings at the other end. Five. Six. Seven. Oh, please don’t let him be out!

  ‘Marcus Osborne.’

  Now that he’d answered, Justine froze. This was a stupid idea. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  ‘Hello? Anyone there?’

  ‘Marcus?’ she squeaked.

  ‘Justine? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes...’

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong? Where are you? Aren’t you supposed to be at work at the bank?’

  ‘I am. I’m in your office.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I... I had to ring you.’

  ‘Well, I’m flattered. Not to mention frustrated,’ he added dryly. ‘Dare I hope you want me to dash over for a rendezvous in the storeroom? No? Damn. Guess I’ll have to wait till tomorrow.’