Mistress for a Month

by Miranda Lee

  He stood up, walked round and took her trembling body into his arms. ‘I don’t just think I love you, Renée. I know I love you. I’ve always loved you. I love you and I want you to be my wife. To hell with your not being able to have children. They’re secondary to what I feel for you.’ And he meant it. How could he possibly do what Roberto had done? Marry some other woman, just to have children, when all the while his heart belonged to this woman, this incredibly brave, beautiful, proud, stubborn woman?

  ‘No, they’re not,’ she wept. ‘They’re not secondary. They’re one of the most important things to you. And you don’t love me. Not really. It’s just sex. Give you a solid month of sleeping with me, night after night, and this so-called love you feel will burn a little less brightly and you’ll be grateful that I didn’t say I’d marry you tonight. Even if you did really love me, any marriage between us is still doomed. You’d end up hating me.’

  ‘I doubt that. I’ve already tried hating you and it didn’t work. It didn’t work for you, either. We love each other, Renée, and nothing is ever going to change that. We love each other and we should be together as man and wife. As for children…we can adopt them. I know there aren’t many children up for adoption in Australia but there are other parts of the world where poor, neglected orphan kids are crying out for a good mum and dad. And we’ll make very good parents.’

  She stared up into his face, her green eyes luminescent with tears, and something else. It was wonder. Wonder and awe.

  ‘You really mean that, don’t you?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Oh, God, how…how can I say no? Yet I should say no. I know I should. This is all too quick. Too soon. You…you aren’t thinking quite straight at the moment. Look, I’ll make you a new deal. I’ll be your mistress for the next month, as agreed. A month of wild, uncontained and constant sex, Rico. And then, after that month is up, if you still want me to marry you, I will.’

  ‘No kidding?’ Rico had difficulty containing his elation over her agreement, not about her promise of all that wild, uncontained and constant sex. Although, damn it all, that sounded pretty good too.

  ‘No kidding.’

  ‘You won’t go back on that?’ he growled, sweeping her up off the floor into his arms.

  ‘Not unless you do something really terrible in the meantime.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Turn into a serial killer or start shaving on the weekends, perhaps,’ she murmured, reaching to run her hand over his very stubbly cheek and chin. ‘I think my nipples have become addicted to this…’

  ‘Only your nipples?’ he said wryly.

  ‘Perhaps some other sensitive little bits as well.’

  ‘You know nothing about addiction, lady,’ Rico growled and started to carry her towards her bedroom. ‘Let me show you what serious addiction is, and the only way to deal with it.’

  Rico was making love to her for a second time when he suddenly remembered those reports he had commissioned.

  ‘Rico,’ she moaned softly when he stopped moving.

  He kissed her shoulder. ‘Just taking a breather, darling.’

  God help him, he thought, if she ever found out. Should he ring Keith up tomorrow and cancel them? Not much point, really. What difference would that make now? Besides, he still wanted to know who she’d been sleeping with. And no way would Renée tell him that. As far as her finances were concerned…maybe he should put his mind totally at rest there as well.

  ‘Rico…please…’ Her hips wriggled against his, her breasts jiggling under his hands.

  He groaned. Impossible to think of other things right at this moment.

  His right hand slid down to splay over her stomach, his left staying clamped to her left breast. He pressed her back against him till they were two perfect spoons, curved around each other, their flesh as one. When she wriggled again, sharp flashes of electric pleasure shot through him. He was close to coming again. He rolled over onto his back and took her with him, his penetration not as deep now. When her legs moved restlessly apart and she continued her wriggling, he stayed very still inside her. Only his hands moved, his left playing with her fiercely erect nipples, his right moving down to where he knew she would be equally swollen.

  Just the slightest touch there, and she gasped. A firmer stroke and she froze. A squeeze, and she cried out, then splintered apart.

  ‘Mine,’ he muttered, then came just as violently.

  Mine…till death us do part.

  Or until…

  No, no, Rico vowed despairingly. That could not happen. He would not let that happen. Not now. Not ever! It would be his secret, carried with him to the grave.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  RICO left the two reports on his glass-topped coffee-table and walked over to the corner bar to pour himself a drink. Selecting a heavy-based glass from the built-in shelves under the black granite bar-top, he half filled it with Glenfiddich, then added a few cubes of ice from the tray in the bar bridge. His hands shook as he did so.

  Nerves.

  Glass in hand, he made his way out onto the terrace, where he leant on the railing, sipped the whisky and tried to pull himself together. Dusk was falling and the city lights were rapidly blinking on. The evening promised to be coolish, with the night sky clear and dark and star-filled.

  The quay below was still very busy with ferries leaving at regular intervals, carrying city workers home across the harbour. It was Friday, so lots more people had probably stayed on in town for end-of-week drinks and general carousing.

  Renée was due home soon from a business trip to Melbourne. Unavoidable, she’d told him late last Monday as she’d headed for the airport. A staff emergency in the Victorian branch. He’d wanted to go with her but she’d said no, definitely not. Business and pleasure did not mix. Besides, she’d be back in a day or two. Each morning this week she’d promised to return that night, and each time something else had delayed her. But there would be no delay tonight, she’d assured him from Tullamarine Airport. She was on the six-o’clock flight and would catch a taxi straight from Mascot.

  He’d missed her terribly these last four days. Renée had been virtually living with him since the beginning of their month’s agreement three weeks back, only returning to her place to feed her goldfish and replenish her wardrobe. Her absence this week had highlighted to him how much he’d already come to depend on her company every night. And he didn’t mean just the sex, although that continued to be incredible.

  Rico understood, however, that their mutual urges to make love several times a night—or at regular intervals during the day at weekends—would eventually fade. They would not spend the rest of their lives unable to keep their hands off each other. Their love life would settle down to a more normal routine. Eventually.

  That was why he was thrilled with how well they got along during their other times together. Charles and Dominique were astounded when they went to dinner at their place recently and didn’t throw a single verbal dagger at each other, although Renée still liked to stir him a bit during their poker-playing evenings. They even behaved themselves at the races, not a difficult task so far, considering Ebony Fire had won brilliantly the last two Saturdays. Renée’s pride and pleasure in her beloved Blackie had been touching to see. She’d cried with happiness. Rico understood that her horses were like the children she would never have, a situation he aimed to remedy. He’d already instructed his solicitor to investigate countries where legal adoptions could be fast-tracked.

  Yes, all Rico’s plans were falling into place. He had no doubt that Renée loved him, although she never said she did. And he had no doubt she would say yes to his proposal at the end of the month.

  That was why, Rico realised as he downed his whisky in agitated gulps, he was so nervous at this moment. The woman he loved more than life itself would walk in the front door shortly. And what was he going to do? Risk his future with her by showing her those two reports, by confessing what he’d done.


  He’d tossed and turned over this decision for the last few nights and found he could no longer live with the secret. Or his own curiosity. Frankly, the reports from the detective agency had created as many questions as they had solved. Not that they revealed anything bad. Just the opposite. The woman had to be a damned saint.

  Yet Renée wasn’t a saint. Who was?

  The sound of the glass door sliding back behind him had Rico whirling round, the ice clinking in his glass.

  ‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ he said, aware that he sounded strained.

  Renée stayed standing in the doorway. ‘I can see that. What’s that you’re drinking. Bourbon?’

  ‘No, whisky. Would you like one?’

  ‘Mmm. That would be nice. Flying always makes me strung-up.’

  He felt her puzzled eyes on him as he brushed past and hurried over to the bar, where he mixed her a drink the way she liked it before dinner in the evenings. Whisky and ice, with a little soda.

  ‘So what’s made you so strung up?’ she asked when he handed her the drink. ‘Something go wrong with your shooting schedule this week?’

  ‘No. It went off like clockwork. Come and sit down, Renée. I have something I want to tell you and I don’t think it can wait.’ He knew if he procrastinated at all, he might wimp out. And that just would not do.

  ‘Mmm. Sounds serious. Let me just get out of this jacket first,’ she said, putting her drink down on the coffee-table right next to the reports and taking off the very tailored navy pinstriped jacket that went with the equally tailored trousers she had on. Underneath was a three-quarter-sleeve white shirt, which still looked crisp and smart, despite her travelling. Her hair was pulled back into a tight roll, and she was wearing a single string of pearls around her throat, along with simple matching earrings.

  She looked chic and sexy, and Rico wanted desperately to change his mind and not do this and make love to her instead. But that would be the coward’s way out.

  ‘What’s all this?’ she asked, nodding towards the two reports as she picked up her drink again.

  ‘It’s what I wanted to tell you about,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’ Before he could stop her she’d put down her drink again, picked up the top report and started reading.

  ‘Renée, please don’t be angry,’ he jumped in just as her head whipped up and around, her eyes blinking wide.

  ‘You had me investigated,’ she said disbelievingly. ‘Like you had poor Dominique investigated.’

  ‘Not quite.’ With Dominique he’d asked them to go right back, to the day the woman was born. ‘There were just a few things I needed to know.’

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ she raged, shaking the report at him. ‘Why, you…you…’

  ‘Listen to me before you go off at half-cock,’ he ground out, hoping to sound firm and not panic-stricken. ‘This was something I put into motion the morning after our first night together, immediately after I found out you’d asked me to marry you. That threw me, Renée. I couldn’t work out why you’d ask for marriage. I was worried that your motive might have been money. I didn’t know the real you then. Hell, I knew next to nothing about you. I still believed you’d married your last husband for money.’

  ‘So what do you believe now?’ she asked him with cold fury in her eyes. ‘Are you satisfied after seeing this that I have enough money of my own? Or do you think I’m still looking for another gravy train to jump onto?’

  ‘I’m satisfied you are a very wealthy but wonderful woman who gives heaps of money to charities and chooses to live reasonably simply. Other than the racehorses, of course. They cost a pretty penny. Try to understand, Renée, this was more about my emotional baggage than you. After Jasmine, I’d lost faith in beautiful women. When I met Charles’ wife-to-be, and you, all I saw were two more mercenary gold-diggers willing to trade their bodies for financial security. You have to be honest, Renée. Both you and Dominique had bad track records. You can’t blame me entirely for thinking what I did in the first place.’

  She grimaced, then sighed, most of the anger leaving her face, replaced by reluctant agreement. ‘No, I guess not. But you could have asked me, Rico, not set some professional to snoop into my finances and…and…’ She broke off suddenly, then spun round to snatch up the next report, starting to read it before Rico had a hope of stopping her. He waited with trepidation for the next explosion.

  It wasn’t long in coming. Her head shot up, her face flushed. ‘My God, you even had my personal life investigated! My…my sex life!’

  ‘Only for the last five years,’ he said apologetically.

  ‘There is no only about this, Rico. This is unforgivable!’ she said, throwing both reports onto the coffee-table and sweeping her drink back up with shaking hands. ‘You must know that. Quite unforgivable. And downright typical.’ She took a swift swallow of the whisky and soda. ‘Bloody Italian men. You just can’t trust them. Not a one. They don’t love or trust you. They just want to own you and know all your sexual secrets and…and…’

  ‘But you don’t have any sexual secrets, Renée,’ he pointed out, trying to stay calm in the face of her fury. ‘You haven’t had a sex life. Not since your husband died. There have been no men in your life during that time. Why, Renée? I want to know.’

  ‘Oh, do you, now? Well, bully for you! I would have thought, being typically Italian, that you’d be pleased as punch that I’d been celibate all this time. I could almost qualify as a born-again virgin. You Italians like virgins, so I’ve gathered. Roberto wasn’t at all pleased when I wasn’t a virgin, though God knows how he expected me to be. Once the poor darling realised, he wanted to know the ins and outs of every boyfriend before him. And do you know what was even more pathetic? I thought his insane jealousy was evidence of the extent of his love for me. I thought he was crazy about me, and that he’d never look at another woman. I was so stupid. So abysmally, stupidly stupid!’

  She began to pace the living room, taking swigs of the whisky as she did so. ‘But I didn’t stay stupid,’ she threw over at Rico, who decided he’d best stay where he was. ‘Post-Roberto, I knew exactly what men wanted from me and what they felt when they looked at me. Not love, Rico. Never love,’ she sneered. ‘Till Jo came along. I knew he really loved me. I knew it wasn’t a question of lust with him.’

  Rico snorted, his pretend calm finally giving way to his own emotional mayhem. If he was going to lose everything, then he would not go quietly. He’d go down fighting. ‘Oh, really?’ he scoffed. ‘What makes you think that a man of sixty is any different from one of thirty? He wanted you all right. And he bought you, lock, stock and barrel. Don’t start kidding yourself that all he was interested in was your mind, Renée. That’s bull and you know it.’

  ‘For your information, Jo was dying of prostate cancer when I met him,’ she countered, stopping Rico in his tracks. ‘His treatment had already left him impotent. Sex was never a part of our lives together. All he wanted from me was affection and caring and companionship. After Roberto and all the other sleazebags I’d been involved with, that seemed like heaven. OK, so I wasn’t madly in love with the man,’ she confessed. ‘But I liked and respected him. He gave me a lot of happy moments. And he taught me how to give again. He was a nice guy and I won’t have you saying he was some kind of dirty old man because he wasn’t!’

  Rico scooped in then let out a ragged sigh. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But it might have been nice if you’d trusted me with that information, Renée. Then I wouldn’t have just put my big foot in my mouth again, or had you investigated in the first place. You can’t blame me for trying to find out some facts about you. If I waited for you to volunteer things about yourself, I’d wait a bloody eternity!’

  At least his forcefully pointing out this truth stopped her in her tracks as well. Now her expression was a mixture of confusion and guilt. ‘I…I’m not used to confiding in people,’ she said defensively.

  ‘Then it’s time you learned. And I’m not people. I
’m Rico, the man who loves you, damn it! The man who’s going to marry you.’

  Her chin whipped up, her eyes glittering once more. ‘You think I could marry a man who had me checked out by a private detective?’

  ‘Yes!’ he roared back at her. ‘You can and you damned well will!’

  Her mouth dropped open and she stared, wide-eyed, at him. He glowered back, his knuckles white as they lifted his glass and downed the watery remains of his whisky and melted ice. ‘I’m taking no more nonsense from you, Renée Selinsky,’ he grated out as he slammed the glass down on a side-table. ‘I’m not waiting till the end of the month, either. Tomorrow I’m going out and buying you an engagement ring, and we’re going to go over to your place and move those rotten goldfish in here. Then, as soon as we can make the proper arrangements, we will be getting married. That’s the new deal and I’m not asking you, I’m telling you!’

  Her mouth finally snapped shut and a slow, almost shy smile tugged at her lovely mouth. ‘My, but when you’re forceful, Rico, I…I just go to water.’

  Rico almost went to water himself at that moment. His bluff had worked. Holy hell!

  ‘Time you saw some sense,’ he grumped. ‘Now, get yourself over here, woman, and give your fiancé a proper hello kiss.’

  She obeyed him, and kissed him, and he wanted to weep. His hands tightened around her and the kiss deepened, his hunger not sexual so much as emotional. He needed to hold on to her and never let her go.

  ‘Rico,’ she murmured against his mouth when he lifted his lips briefly for some air.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘There’s something I have to tell you, too…’

  His stomach instantly reverted to panic mode. His head lifted further, his eyes searching hers. ‘What now?’ he asked tautly.

  She looked worried. No doubt about that. She pulled back to arm’s length.

  ‘Now, I don’t want you to be angry with me,’ she said somewhat hesitantly.