Constantinou's Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  Lucy felt a surge of anger and she lowered her eyes to hide the fiery glint in them.

  She was going on a date and he made it sound as though she were making arrangements for a bank robbery. Had he imagined all these months that she had been hankering after him? Did he think that he could sleep with however many countless women he wanted but that she was too dull to expect more than a one-night stand with a man who had had too much to drink and was wrapped up in the throes of mourning?

  Robert might not be the most scintillating of companions but they had a laugh together and their relationship had a certain gentle quality that was soothing to her raw nerves.

  ‘Yes, I’m going on a date.’

  ‘And how long has this been going on?’

  ‘How long has what been going on?’ Lucy asked incredulously.

  ‘How long have you been seeing this man? It is just the one man, I take it? Or are there more lurking in the background?’ Nick knew how he sounded. Like an arrogant bore poking his nose into something that was no business of his. In fact, he should be delighted that she was dating. If nothing else it would kill for once and for all that niggling suspicion that she had somehow managed to crawl under his skin and was lodged there waiting for him to make the next move. He had spent the past few months in total control of the situation, never referring to their little mistake. He was back to controlling his love life, picking up and discarding women with admirable ease. With a lover in the background, his secretary would be out of bounds and his mind, which had a habit of straying at inappropriate times, would be harnessed.

  Unfortunately, he felt not in the slightest bit relieved.

  ‘There’s just the one man,’ she snapped back, unable to resist. ‘I don’t make it a habit to play the field.’

  ‘Is that a comment on my lifestyle?’

  Lucy focused intently on the redundant notepad on her lap. Her skin was crawling with a painful, heightened sensitivity to the man glaring down at her. How could Robert ever hope to compete with what this man did to her? she wondered with anguish. The prepared answer sprang to mind: Robert might not be the charged powerhouse that Nick Constantinou was, but his very muted affability was far more suited to her. The thought gave her the courage to meet his eyes squarely.

  ‘No, it’s not.’ Yes, it was, but she’d be damned if she would become embroiled in a discussion about his love life. It had caused her enough sleepless nights as it was, knowing that he was seeing someone, connecting calls from women, reading about him in the gossip columns in which he appeared to have gained the dubious status of London’s most desirable bachelor. He was trying to forget his wife in the arms of a succession of women, all of whom, from what she had glimpsed, were of the statuesque-model category. Good for him.

  Nick could quite happily have wrung her neck. Instead he fulminated in silence for a few minutes before reining in his straying mind.

  ‘So, what is this lucky man’s name?’

  ‘Robert.’

  ‘And how did you meet him? Don’t surprise me further by telling me that you met him in a nightclub.’

  ‘Because nightclubs are a little risqué for me?’ Lucy enquired tartly. ‘I met him at a dinner party. He was introduced to me and we hit it off.’

  ‘You hit it off.’ He casually strolled back to his chair and sat down. ‘And what does this Robert fellow do?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘For a living,’ Nick embellished with a little spurt of intense irritation. ‘I take it he has a job and doesn’t spend his days sitting on a park bench feeding the ducks?’

  ‘He’s a financial controller at a large company.’

  ‘Ah. An accountant.’

  Lucy gritted her teeth and decided not to pursue the argumentative carrot being dangled in front of her. Every word he was saying was making her hackles rise a little bit more and she was determined not to explode.

  ‘At any rate, that’s the reason I can’t stay behind to work this evening. I’ll get Terri sorted out. What time do you want her to be here?’

  ‘Quarter to six. Enough time for me to fill her in a bit about this little problem.’ He paused and rested his elbows thoughtfully on the desk. ‘What play are you going to see?’ he asked conversationally, his attention already appearing to stray as he flicked through a file in front of him.

  ‘Oh, that musical at the Apollo. It’s very popular at the moment.’ She stood up and added with a spurt of malice. ‘Robert has one or two connections in the theatre world, hence the tickets.’

  ‘Oh, how nice. And where are you going to eat afterwards? Anywhere exciting?’

  Exciting? Me? Lucy wanted to exclaim, Good heavens, no. My heart might collapse under the strain of anything exciting. ‘There’s a French restaurant in Covent Garden. Café Benedict. We’re going there. I’ll tell Terri about this evening.’ She hovered, waiting for some last command, but he seemed to have forgotten her presence in the office and she quickly exited, back to the relative sanctuary of her own four walls and computer terminal.

  He was still submerged in work when she left the office at five, barely looking up to glance at her, and Lucy scuttled off before he could tear himself away from his computer long enough to decide that he preferred her note-taking abilities to Terri’s. Over the past eight months she had assumed more responsibility with their clients than she had before, and as a source of information she was far superior to the other secretary, whose duties were more heavily tied in with the accounting side of the business.

  As a reaction to the effect Nick had had on her earlier on in the day, Lucy made a special effort with her dress for Robert. It was balmy outside, so there was no need for a jacket, and instead she wore a clinging long-sleeved jersey dress in a rich coffee colour that fell just to mid-thigh, and a pair of high, backless sandals. Hell to walk in for any distance but charmingly appropriate to the occasion.

  And Robert was gratifyingly pleased with the result. He greeted her at the door with a bunch of white carnations and gave her a long, low wolf-whistle that made Lucy burst out laughing.

  ‘Wrong response,’ Robert said, following her into her living room and waiting while she stuck the flowers into a vase of water, fiddling with the stems until she had manoeuvred them into a satisfactory display. ‘You should have swooned.’

  ‘I will in a minute,’ Lucy teased back, ‘just as soon as I’ve finished with these flowers.’

  This was more like it, she told herself firmly as she sat in the darkened theatre, her fingers loosely entwined with his. She had been seeing Robert for only three months, but she knew that he was a gentleman. He had not forced himself upon her once, allowing her to take the lead. They conversed easily, with no uncomfortable lapses in the conversation, and although they had only kissed she was sure that when the time came and it was right to make love to him it would be as gentle and fulfilling as she hoped. Nothing like the searing roller-coaster ride she had had with Nick.

  Just the memory of that was enough to make her shiver, and Robert squeezed his fingers affectionately around hers, leaning across to murmur something about the play.

  ‘We should do this more often,’ Robert said to her later as he hailed a black cab to take them to the restaurant they had booked. ‘Somehow the theatre is exciting in a way the cinema never could be.’

  Lucy looked at him and smiled. He really was very good-looking, she thought. Quite a catch. Her parents would definitely approve. They had always approved of anyone who shared the same genes of respectability that they had. She wickedly wondered what they would make of Nick and decided that they would probably reel out the garlic, cross themselves and call for a priest to send him away.

  ‘It’s just so bloody difficult getting away from work,’ Robert was saying, holding the cab door open so that she could slide past him into the back seat.

  ‘Tell me about it. I had to put my foot down about working late tonight. My boss had decided that he needed me to stay behind and sit in on a meeting with one of the directors
of the company.’

  Robert nodded sympathetically. ‘He should always give you notice if he needs you to work late. That’s what I do with my secretary. After all, they’ve got lives too.’

  ‘I guess,’ Lucy said, feeling oddly defensive, ‘it’s a bit different with Nick. I think it’s the way he’s built. He thinks nothing of working until three in the morning if the need arises, and so he just assumes that his staff share his feelings about overtime.’ In fact, she had twice arrived at work at eight-thirty to find him unshaven and drinking black coffee, having stayed at the office all night. More impressively, he had still been able to function for the remainder of the day.

  ‘Workaholic.’ Robert nodded as though it was a concept with which he was fully familiar. ‘You get some of those in my profession,’ he confided, dipping his fair head towards hers in a gesture of shared understanding, ‘work all the hours God made and forget what it’s like to enjoy themselves.’

  Lucy thought with a smirk that if there was one man on the face of the earth who knew what it was like to enjoy himself, then it was Nick Constantinou. After what seemed to her an indecently short period of mourning, he had thrown himself into London’s élite social circles with grim determination.

  ‘Me,’ Robert said in a satisfied voice, ‘I prefer to afford my working life just as much as I absolutely need to without, of course, jeopardising my promotional chances, and then spend the rest of my time relaxing. Like tonight.’

  Lucy could feel his bright eyes on her but her mind was too busy buzzing with images of her boss and his ability to burn the candle at both ends.

  ‘Theatre,’ he mused, gently pulling her to him and putting his arm around her shoulders, ‘supper and a beautiful companion. Does it get better?’

  ‘Hardly beautiful, but thank you very much.’ She smiled and tilted her face up to his, closing her eyes as his mouth softly touched hers.

  ‘Beautiful. It’s what I told my mother, who’s dying to meet you. I think she can already hear wedding bells ringing.’

  Lucy sat up and looked at him quizzically. ‘Wedding bells? We’ve only known each other for a few months!’

  ‘Which is what I told her, but you know mothers. I’m thirty-one and she’s already beginning to think that if I don’t get a move-on she might not live to see the grandchildren she wants.’

  Lucy laughed unsteadily. ‘I thought only women worried about their biological clocks!’

  ‘Oh, quite so, although I would prefer to be a father in my thirties than in my sixties.’ His voice was lightly teasing but there was a gravity in his expression when he looked at her that made her suspect that his mother’s wishes might not be too far removed from his own. ‘What’s the point fathering a child if you’re too old to lift him up?’

  Lucy laughed and turned away. ‘Point taken. Anyway, tell me about this restaurant we’re going to. Have you been there before? I hope it’s not one of those pretentious little French places where you have to spend hours trying to decipher the menu. My French is hopeless.’

  ‘No need to worry. I’m fluent in French. I can translate for you. Now admit it: I’m a pretty good catch.’

  ‘I admit it, you’re a pretty good catch.’ With a certain amount of relief she realised that the taxi was slowing in front of the restaurant and there was no further opportunity to continue their conversation.

  ‘It’s a club?’ Lucy turned to him questioningly as soon as they were inside. Tables were ranged in semi-darkness around an intimate dance floor and, on a raised podium behind, a jazz band was softly playing a familiar number. ‘You didn’t tell me you were taking me to a club! I would have dressed a little more…’

  ‘Sexily?’ Robert grinned and held her against him for a moment so that he could breathe into her hair. ‘You don’t know how sexy you look in that dress, Luce. It’s very conventional, very elegant, but also very figure-hugging—and believe me that’s a very sexy combination. Besides, it’s not quite a club. More a restaurant with a little something extra.’

  ‘So we can trip the light fantastic after we’ve eaten? Burn off some calories?’

  ‘If I didn’t have two left feet.’

  His unassuming modesty made her laugh and on impulse she curved her arms around his waist and rested her head lightly on his shoulder as they were shown to their table. She felt relaxed and contented, and even more so after a couple of glasses of wine and the very good halibut steak she had ordered. The band had jazzed up its tempo, Robert was saying all the right flattering things in between chatting about the various plays he had seen over the past year, and she was feeling rather sexy when he nuzzled against her neck and slipped his arm over her flat stomach, caressing it through the fine, flimsy material.

  ‘So,’ he murmured, ‘you never answered my question…’

  ‘Question? What question?’

  ‘The one about us making this a permanent thing.’

  ‘Permanent?’ Lucy squeaked and then cleared her throat. ‘Robert, we’ve only known each other for a few months!’

  ‘Which is long enough for me to know that I’ve found the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.’

  She edged away from him.

  ‘You did say that I was a good catch,’ he pointed out, smiling.

  ‘You are a good catch.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  ‘It’s a…a…’ Her words petered out in a welter of confusion and she looked at him objectively from under her lashes. Fair hair, blue eyes, a body that benefited from his frequent games of squash, a smiling face that promised just the sort of thoughtful kindness she had imagined would be the ideal antidote to the senseless cravings of her heart. He would make an ideal husband. He would always be dependable, would help out with the children, cook meals when she was tired. He was restful.

  ‘It’s a…?’ he prompted, interrupting her private contemplations.

  ‘It’s an I shall have to think about it,’ Lucy answered truthfully. ‘You know me, Robert, you know how sensible I am. I just don’t think I can give you an answer on the spot…’

  ‘An answer to what?’ The familiar, darkly velvety voice was such an unexpected intrusion that for a few seconds Lucy thought that she had imagined it, then Nick circled their table so that he was within their line of vision.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Lucy gasped. She had to speak loudly to make herself heard above the music and she looked around quickly to see whether she could spot his party but he appeared to be on his own.

  He had changed out of his work clothes and was in a pair of cream trousers with a pale-coloured shirt that emphasised his dark colouring, and she could feel her heart begin to pound.

  This was just the sort of reaction that had made her so determined to find someone, someone she could love and who could love her in return. She didn’t need to deal with this wild, irrational attraction on a daily basis. It wasn’t doing her any good.

  ‘Oh, I ended up staying at the office longer than I anticipated, and then I thought that I’d try the food here. I remembered you had mentioned this place and, actually, I thought that you might have left already.’

  ‘Robert.’ Lucy turned to the bemused man sitting next to her. ‘I seem to have forgotten my manners. This is Nick Constantinou, my boss.’

  Comprehension dawned in Robert’s blue eyes and he smiled happily, extending his hand. ‘So you’re the big, bad wolf who keeps my girl working all the hours God made.’ He had half risen from his chair to shake the other man’s hand, and with a little start Lucy realised that the two men must roughly be the same age, although it was hard to imagine. Robert looked like a fresh-faced young boy next to Nick.

  ‘Is that what she tells you?’ Nick looked at her with a lazy smile.

  ‘Are you here with anyone?’ Lucy asked politely by way of response and he shrugged vaguely in the direction of the opposite side of the room, which was so crowded that it was impossible for her to follow the direction of his gaze.

  ‘You are n
ot dancing,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Blame me.’ Robert laughed and looked affectionately at Lucy. ‘Luce wanted to dance but I told her that I was born with two left feet. If we went on the dance floor, I think Management would be forced to chuck us out for being a health hazard to the other dancers.’ He laughed and Lucy smiled nervously back at him. Her feeling of relaxation had disappeared. First had been Robert’s astounding marriage proposal and now this, Nick Constantinou showing up here, obviously with the intention of seeing the man who had had the temerity to have a date with her on a night when she had been asked to work overtime. Maybe he thought that she had been lying about her movements and he had decided to check it out himself, like a headmaster phoning a pupil’s house just to make sure that he wasn’t playing truant.

  Or maybe he was just curious to see what sort of man she could get.

  ‘You’re far too modest, Robert,’ she said, half turning away from the dark figure towering over them and linking her fingers through Robert’s.

  ‘At any rate,’ Nick said smoothly, ‘this music is not to be ignored. May I?’ He held his hand out to her, requesting her to dance with him.

  ‘I’d rather not, actually. I’ve only…um…just finished eating and I’d really rather sit and let my food digest before I go anywhere near a dance floor. Anyway, won’t your…party be missing you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure my party can do without my scintillating company for a few minutes.’ His eyes did a leisurely appraisal of her, managing to eliminate Robert totally from his line of vision. ‘Would you,’ he said, finally turning his attention to the other man, ‘be able to do without your…girlfriend for the duration of a dance? I promise I will take very good care of her, make sure that I return her to you in one piece.’

  ‘I think I might be able to spare her for a little while,’ Robert said, following Nick’s lead.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! Will both of you please stop talking over my head? I can make my own decisions!’

  Nick raised his eyebrows in apparent offended surprise.