Confessions of a Millionaire's Mistress

by Robyn Grady

  His voice lowered. ‘I can’t, and I don’t think you want me to either.’

  The conviction in his eyes…the temptation of his suggestion…

  She found the strength to turn away. She couldn’t survive another round battling Ben’s magnetism.

  ‘What I want doesn’t count. I’m concerned with what I need.’ What was best, which was to put their affair from her mind and down to experience.

  She couldn’t regret the time she’d spent with Ben; what woman could? But on Saturday he’d made it clear: their relationship was going nowhere. If she relented now, she was as good as telling him she was prepared to be his mistress. It was an old-fashioned term, but well suited the situation he obviously preferred. No ties. No hassles. Just good times, including very good sex. But, she’d learned, sometimes good sex had big consequences.

  His hands cupped her shoulders. A tingling moment later, his warm breath stirred her hair. ‘I spent some soul-searching time with my family yesterday and I’ve come to a decision. You need me, Celeste. And I need you.’

  Soul-searching?

  She set her teeth and shrugged away to face him. ‘Here’s a newsflash, Ben. Sex isn’t everything.’

  ‘I’m not talking about sex.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Well, not only sex.’

  She huffed. Nothing had changed.

  She lifted her chin at the door. ‘Please leave. I’m opening the store next week and I’m busy tying up loose ends.’

  She needed to concentrate her efforts here—on her business and building her own niche in the world, not wasting time vacillating over a silver-tongued playboy who had all the answers but wasn’t interested in putting his heart where his mouth was.

  ‘Celeste, I’ve thought a lot about us. I’ve had no sleep these past days, going over every aspect of our relationship.’

  Her hands curled at her sides. ‘We don’t have a relationship.’

  He ignored that. ‘And I kept coming back with the same answer. I want long term. I want to marry you.’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘It’s that simple.’

  The cogs in Celeste’s brain seized as every element of time seemed to screech to a halt. She waited for the brackets to form around that oh-so-kissable mouth. But he didn’t grin.

  This wasn’t a joke?

  But a proposal from a man who two days ago had shuddered at the prospect of settling down, even while dictating how it should be done? It didn’t fit.

  Unless…

  The chain mail went back up around her emotions. She shook her head. ‘It won’t work.’

  He frowned. ‘What won’t work?’

  ‘A fake engagement that’s designed to get me back beneath your sheets.’

  His brow creased more. He was a good actor—good enough to appear as if her suggestion had stung. ‘That’s not it.’

  Wasn’t it? When had he said that he loved her? She’d have thought those words would play an important role when a man asked a woman to spend the rest of her life with him. If he’d thought so hard about this, where was the ring? This was clearly a scam, Benton Scott digging extra deep to work his ticket into her bedroom. Well, sorry, but that train had left the station.

  She crossed her arms over the empty ache expanding beneath her ribs and arched a brow. ‘So you’ve had some kind of revelation?’

  His head cocked. ‘If you want to call it that.’

  She called it something else.

  Seduction.

  She wouldn’t go there again. ‘Sorry, but I’m not convinced.’

  He moved towards her, his arms out. ‘Celeste—’

  She shot her arms out too, but warning him away. ‘I asked you to leave me alone.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Can’t you respect me that much?’ He was breaking her heart all over again. She’d had her hopes raised before. She didn’t need to have them crushed still more.

  He held her gaze for a heart-rending moment, then he pushed out a breath. ‘I need to admit you were right. I had this vision of what a family should be, but I was too much of a coward to test the theory. And part of the reason was that I knew I would never find my perfect home-sweet-home package. But yesterday I learned that I don’t need perfection. I need to work every day on what means more to me than anything.’

  He was referring to her?

  She wound her arms tighter. She would not be swayed by his entrancing blue eyes and deadly brand of charm. ‘I can think of at least one thing that means more to you than me.’

  ‘PLM?’ She nodded. He handed over a large envelope he’d been carrying.

  She flipped it over. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Documents to release the proprietorship of PLM into your name.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

  ‘I won’t pretend it wasn’t great fun…to own that company…to be a boy but be in charge. But PLM will always be far more than that to you.’

  Her heart pounded high in her throat.

  He couldn’t be serious.

  This wasn’t right.

  She shoved the envelope back. ‘I can’t accept this.’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘Take it, even if you eventually find you want to sell it again.’

  She swallowed hard, trying to make sense of it all. ‘But this must be worth…well, at least the debt you paid.’

  ‘Money isn’t the issue.’

  He’d told her he wanted to marry her. Now he was handing back something that had meant so much to both of them: to her because it had encompassed where she’d come from and who she’d thought she needed to be, and to Ben because when a person hadn’t been given love, they naturally sought out some other source of power. More than anything, PLM had represented power over his lost childhood. Now he was giving that power up.

  For her.

  Her tongue was still tied when he dropped a kiss on her brow. ‘Take it,’ he murmured. ‘It was never mine.’

  As he turned to leave her cell phone rang and he turned back. ‘You should get that. Could be your first big Star Arrangements client.’

  Right now—with her mind in turmoil—she didn’t care if it was.

  He concentrated on her, then on the phone ringing on the counter. He moved to collect it and handed it over.

  Her rubber lips worked enough to say hello. When she hung up a few seconds later, the world seemed to have tilted. She dropped the envelope as her legs threatened to collapse beneath her. She heard Ben’s voice, though distantly.

  ‘Celeste? What’s wrong?’

  She touched her clammy forehead. ‘Suzanne had the baby but she’s haemorrhaging. I’ve never heard Dad sound like that before.’ Thick with unshed tears. But she had heard him like that—when her mother had passed away.

  Ben secured her cold hands in his. ‘Which hospital?’

  She dug through the fog and came up with a name. He grabbed her purse off the counter and ushered her out the door, through the busy city pedestrian traffic and into his building’s underground car park.

  By the time they were in the car and on their way, Celeste had settled enough to explain. ‘The baby’s fine but Suzanne’s in a bad way. The doctor’s examined her. She’s on medication to help stem the bleeding. But her vital signs are far from stable. If it doesn’t stop, she’ll need a transfusion.’

  And surgery if the situation didn’t improve. Celeste didn’t want to think beyond that and yet she couldn’t help but worry about that new tiny baby—her own little sister—growing up without her mum as she had done from the age of ten. As she held her knotting stomach another thought struck. She fixed her eyes on Ben, whose face was more set than she’d ever seen.

  He was here for her; he obviously wanted Suzanne well, but surely he was pondering the fact that he’d lost his mother in similar circumstances.

  He reached for her hand and shot her a determined smile. ‘She’ll be fine.’

  Her chest grew warm. She’d never felt closer to him than at this moment. He was a man anyone could rely on in an emergency to keep h
is head and get everyone through. She knew that as well as she knew her own name. And he’d said he wanted to marry her and had proven it the best way he knew how. By giving her back her past.

  But what of their future?

  Her free hand gripped in her lap as she took in his strong profile.

  Was he sexist? Was she too much the feminist? Was theirs a volatile and ultimately toxic combination? Or could there be a compromise on their thinking?

  When they entered the hospital ward, a nurse at the station let them know which room.

  They fast-tracked it down the corridor and into the private maternity suite. Suzanne lay asleep—or unconscious—in a crisply made bed, a drip in her arm. Rodney sat in a chair beside her, holding close a small wrapped bundle.

  He looked up as they entered and his suntanned face beamed. ‘Sweetheart, you’re here.’

  She felt Ben’s arm steadying her, but she didn’t dare speak. Was Suzanne any better? Had she had a transfusion? Gazing down again at his new little daughter, her father appeared relaxed.

  Suzanne’s heavy eyes opened. She wet her lips and attempted a smile. ‘Here’s big sister.’

  Her heart belting against her ribs, Celeste moved closer. ‘I thought…Dad, you said…’

  Her father groaned on a nod. ‘I shouldn’t have phoned when I did. It was a scary time. I’m sorry now that I worried you. Suzanne was wheeled back in ten minutes ago. The doctor’s happy with how she’s responded to the medication.’

  Her face pale but content, Suzanne took in her family—husband and child. ‘I wasn’t worried. We have the best obstetrician in Sydney. And the baby’s healthy. She cried almost the second she was delivered.’

  Celeste smiled, then felt a flicker of disloyalty that she was happy this woman was alive when her own mother was dead. But that, she realised fully, wasn’t the way it should be. She had wonderful memories of her mother. And now she had a thoughtful stepmother, who wanted them all to be a family. She also had a father who had his faults, but loved her nonetheless and deserved a second chance as much as anyone.

  And what about this new addition?

  Celeste drifted towards the bundle in her father’s arms. She gazed down and her heart brimmed with immediate unconditional love.

  She swallowed against rising emotion. ‘She’s so tiny. And beautiful.’ Delicate rosebud mouth…jet-black hair and lashes…bunched above the wrap, fingers that were so small and perfect, each and every one was a miracle.

  Rodney nodded. ‘I think she looks a little like you.’

  ‘Same nose,’ Suzanne offered.

  Celeste remembered the week when she’d wondered if she was pregnant. She laid a hand atop this sleeping baby’s head and knew when the time was right, it would happen.

  ‘We named her Tiegan,’ her father said. ‘It means little princess.’

  Ben’s low voice rumbled behind Celeste. ‘Every girl deserves to be a princess. Congratulations.’

  Celeste looked over her shoulder and let her gaze roam Ben’s face—his genuine smile as well as the faint line drawn between the dark slashes of his brows. Seeming to convey some message with his eyes, he reached to take her hands and press his lips to each one.

  ‘Want a hold?’

  Her father’s offer brought Celeste back. Nodding, she positioned herself in a comfortable chair. Her father stood and carefully placed the baby in her arms.

  A rush of wonderment had Celeste muffling a laugh. The baby was so real and warm and somehow heavier than she’d expected. ‘I thought she’d be lighter.’

  ‘Like the dolls you used to carry around.’

  She studied her father. ‘You remember?’

  Chuckling, he sat on the bed and laid his hand over his wife’s. ‘You were doll crazy. Every Christmas, every birthday, you only wanted to add to your collection. Your mother and I would joke you’d have twelve children some day.’

  Suzanne smiled. ‘There’s still time.’

  Twelve children! Celeste wanted to hoot, but the moment was too special…the kind of moment a person remembered and treasured for ever. Then she knew.

  She didn’t need to be visible or prove herself in her father’s, or anyone’s, world any more. She simply wanted to share and be a part of it. Of this.

  ‘Does this mean we have a babysitter?’ Rodney asked.

  Tiegan yawned and Celeste’s heart melted more. ‘Whenever you need me, I’ll be there.’

  It might’ve been all the emotion in the room, but didn’t it follow that if she’d found her way here—to a place where she could wholeheartedly accept this new phase in her life—maybe she could accept a little more? Should she give Ben the benefit of the doubt just one more time? Would it be foolhardy, or her own chance to find lasting happiness?

  She looked up from the baby’s peaceful face, searched the room, then frowned. ‘Where’s Ben?’

  Her father threw a glance around; Suzanne opened her eyes and blinked into the corners too.

  ‘He’s probably popped out for some air,’ Rodney decided.

  Without saying a word?

  Celeste swallowed the dread creeping up her throat.

  She had another theory. Having understood that everything was squared away here—including her relationship with the baby, Suzanne and her father—Ben had ducked out quietly without putting her through yet another goodbye.

  Should she go after him?

  She blew out a breath. ‘Dad, can you take Tiegan?’

  ‘Sure, sweetheart.’

  He scooped the baby up and Celeste headed for the door. ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’

  ‘Go where?’

  She was halfway out. ‘Hopefully home.’

  While her father looked at her oddly, Suzanne’s smile said she understood.

  Celeste passed the unattended station, then came across a nurse checking a chart. ‘Did you see a very tall, very good looking man pass by here?’

  The nurse grinned. ‘Did I ever.’ She pointed her Bic at the lifts. ‘He went down.’

  When Celeste jumped out of the lift a few moments later and made her way outside, the air had turned unseasonably cool. The nippy air wrapped around her shoulders and inched up her skirt. She hunched, then rubbed her hands. She wished she’d brought a jacket. She’d always kept one in Ben’s car—

  Her focus honed in on the car park. His Mercedes was zooming off down the road.

  Her hand shot up as she called out, ‘Ben!’

  Celeste’s hand slowly lowered.

  He was gone. But should she have expected anything more? He’d told her that he wanted to marry her and she’d said she didn’t believe him. And yet he’d still acted to get her here in record time. Without making a scene, he’d kissed her hands and had said a final goodbye. Should she leave it at that? Would she only be opening a tin of worms to want to see him again?

  With a thousand questions buzzing through her brain and her heart thudding low in her chest, she dragged herself around to face the hospital entrance. But Suzanne must need rest, and her father would want time on his own with baby Tiegan—it was only natural.

  So…where to now?

  Hugging her chilled arms, she walked aimlessly down the path, along a back street and eventually came across a field, set up with a lively long weekend carnival. A slow spinning Ferris wheel, enthralled children on merry-go-rounds, a juggling clown with baggy striped pants riding a unicycle and tooting a horn…

  She wandered in, waving off a man who offered five balls to knock down the cans and win a giant doll. She couldn’t throw for peanuts. But she wouldn’t tell Ben that.

  Her eyes misted over.

  She’d missed him so much. Now she felt that sense of loneliness like a hot lance through her heart. What should she do?

  ‘Approach and have your fortune told.’

  Celeste edged around. An old woman, fitted out in green and purple classic gypsy garb, crooked a gnarled finger, beckoning her near.

  ‘You’re lost,’ the gypsy predicted abo
ve the carnival din, ‘but you’ll soon find your way.’

  Celeste grinned. Of course she looked lost, wandering around, her chin on the ground. Still…

  Spotting the crystal ball—much larger and more impressive than the one in the window that day—Celeste drifted over. ‘What else do you see?’

  The woman’s dark eyes gleamed. She dramatically cast age-worn hands over the globe once—twice.

  ‘I see warmth…then cold and hard walls of ice.’ Still looking into the glass, her grave expression eased. ‘Now I see great warmth return. You think it will burn, but don’t be afraid of the new and exciting.’ Her eyes slid up to meet Celeste’s and she whispered, ‘Listen to friendly ghosts.’

  Fixed to the spot, Celeste shivered at the same moment the breeze picked up, blowing the hair over her face. When she threw her hair back and turned into the wind rather than against it, Ben was standing there.

  He leaned forward.

  ‘Boo.’

  Celeste jumped out of her skin.

  Listen to friendly ghosts?

  She spun around. The gypsy straightened her fake wart nose before collecting a rag from under the table to polish her ball. She smiled. ‘I do teacup readings too. Otherwise that’s two-fifty, hon.’

  Feeling like Alice in Wonderland, Celeste rotated back. Gingerly she touched Ben’s black crewneck sweater and sighed her relief. He was real.

  ‘Where did you get to?’ she croaked, setting a hand against her racing heart.

  ‘I went out to find a café that made a decent coffee. Have you ever tasted hospital instant?’ He visibly shuddered. ‘I asked the nurse at the station to tell you if I was missed.’

  The tension locking Celeste’s muscles eased a fraction. He’d left a message but she’d obviously seen a different nurse—the one with the chart.

  ‘When I pulled back into the car park,’ he went on, ‘you were wandering off down this way. I left the coffees in the car and followed.’

  Absorbing each detail, she stroked the sweater he hadn’t worn earlier. ‘You’ve changed.’

  ‘I heard on the radio a cold snap’s set in. I brought your jacket with me.’ He presented it, then walked around to help her into the sleeves. He gave her shoulders a rub and the chill left her bones.