At the Greek Tycoon's Bidding

by Cathy Williams

  Theo frowned and opened his mouth to issue an instruction that all meetings should be off the agenda until he advised otherwise, but Jackie was already continuing in a firm voice, ‘It’s the annual company do.’ She handed him the standard invitation which he had, naturally, committed to memory. ‘Everyone will be expecting you to attend.’

  Theo knew what the event would be like. His employees would all be waiting to see which bombshell he brought, and far too much alcohol would be consumed, but the food would be good, and as far as morale-boosting went the annual event was always a winner. He would give a short but salutary speech about company profits and bonuses in the pipeline, and would make sure that he stayed for the duration, even though his dates invariably got bored halfway through and began making complaining little noises shortly after dessert was served.

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Theo murmured, pocketing the invitation.

  ‘And will you be bringing one of your gorgeous dates?’

  ‘Wait and see, Jackie. Now, clear off. You have diaries to maintain, a husband to feed and children to sort out.’

  ‘I know! Don’t I lead a wildly exciting life?’

  On the way home, Theo mused on his own less than wildly exciting life. Under normal circumstances he would have left the office no earlier than eight, and would have probably been looking forward to dinner with some extravagantly stunning creature followed by all the sex his heart could desire.

  Normal circumstances were lying just round the corner, as far as he was concerned, but in the meantime…

  By the time he arrived at the apartment his head was full of images of Heather, who would probably have cooked something and would be waiting for him with his mother, doubtless absorbed in one of those intensely irritating reality shows which seemed to cross all language barriers.

  He was whistling as he let himself in.

  Heather rose from the chair to greet him, her face wreathed in smiles. ‘You mother is much better today, Theo.’ She reached up to kiss him, enjoying the lingering feel of his mouth on hers. ‘We went for a walk and stopped off at the corner shop to buy some stuff. I’ve been showing her a typical English meal.’ She looked over her shoulder to Litsa, who was smiling at them from the comfort of the sofa. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’d like a bit later on, when we’re alone.’ He brushed his hand casually across her breast and watched her face go bright red.

  Heather happily contemplated the night ahead. Life was so wonderful at the moment! A few weeks and whatever rebellious spark she’d had had been extinguished under Theo’s lazy caresses at night, his magical, sensitive, amazing lovemaking. She adored his mother, who was brave and wise and gentle…and that said something, didn’t it? How many women actually liked their boyfriend’s mothers?

  Because that was what she told herself she was. Theo’s girlfriend. And, yes, it had started off as a pretence, but that was then and this was now. And right now she fell into his arms at night, loving every bit of him, and he found her irresistible. He’d told her so himself.

  Life couldn’t be better!

  She had put her career on hold, at least for the moment, and had managed to fob off Beth’s exasperation at her lack of direction. The flat, apparently, was still available, but Heather wasn’t in the least interested.

  She was just too busy enjoying the bliss of living the dream.

  When, later, Theo invited her to his company do, Heather closed her eyes with pure happiness and accepted.

  Amused at the rapturous expression on her face, Theo felt obliged to tell her that she could expect a very prosaic event. Lots of food and drink and the usual horseplay between the younger members of staff.

  Heather barely heard. ‘What shall I wear?’

  ‘Go out and buy yourself something,’ Theo told her, fast losing interest. He had been looking forward to getting her into bed all evening, and had no intention of wasting time in a pointless female conversation about clothes.

  He levered himself up so that he was looking down on her, and really the sight was one he could not get enough of.

  He kissed her lingeringly, taking his time. Tonight he would take her to the limits, and then, when she had eventually climbed down, he would carry her there again. He trailed delicate feathery kisses across her neck, and as he bent to lose himself in the wonder of her breasts she tugged him gently by his hair,

  ‘You could come shopping with me…’

  ‘Mmm. Why not?’ Theo murmured, breaking his stride to give her one of those ravishing sexy smiles that could turn her limbs to water.

  Heather sighed with pure pleasure and gave herself over to enjoying the night.

  Theo awoke to find her staring at him intently from the other side of the bed, and he grinned. He had never known a woman so open in her sexual attraction, and it pleased him.

  ‘What time is it?’ He flung back the covers and Heather watched, fascinated as always by the sinewy strength of his body. Morning light lovingly showed every flex and movement of his limbs as he slung his legs over the side of the bed before lying back down and pulling her towards him.

  ‘Not quite late enough,’ Theo growled, as the covers slipped down, exposing rosy nipples just perfect for sucking.

  ‘Uh-uh.’ She primly yanked the covers back up, half tempted to dump the promised shopping expedition in exchange for an hour longer in bed with the man of her dreams. ‘Shopping. Remember?’

  ‘Remember what?’

  ‘You said that you would come shopping with me today. I haven’t got anything I could possibly wear to a company do, and I’m no good at shopping on my own. I always end up buying the wrong clothes.’

  ‘Did I promise to do that?’ Theo frowned, perplexed. ‘I honestly don’t remember.’ He drew back, hating himself for having to dash cold water over her but knowing that taking a day out to shop with a woman, however sexy that woman was, was just a bit too much. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Heather. I really can’t.’

  Heather smiled. At least she tried very hard to. He didn’t even remember! He had been so caught up in the business of wanting her that he couldn’t even recall something he had said to her, something he had promised. She had gone to sleep wrapped up in the warm, comforting glow of thinking that the following day would bring him out with her, doing something normal couples did, maybe even having lunch out somewhere, and he had gone to sleep, sexually sated and without a thought of her in his head.

  ‘Okay. No problem.’ She rolled over, climbed out of bed, and walked self-consciously to the bathroom, her back towards him and tears gathering at a pace in her eyes.

  She returned twenty minutes later to find him dressed and waiting for her.

  For a heartbeat of a second she hoped that he had had a change of mind, even though she knew that nurturing such a hope was no more than yet another sign of her weakness. Instead he handed her a credit card and told her to go to Harrods, buy whatever she wanted, and put it on his account. He would phone ahead and let them know that she would be coming.

  ‘Right.’ Heather took the card, although she had no intention of using it. Hadn’t she enough money in her bank account, thanks to him?

  ‘Maybe I can meet you somewhere for lunch,’ Theo compromised. For once he was having a struggle with his conscience—although she seemed fine now. He had had an uncomfortable feeling earlier on that she was going to burst into tears, but fortunately he had been mistaken. Tears were not Theo’s thing.

  ‘No.’ Heather smiled brightly. ‘I’ll see if I can meet Beth for lunch. I’d like to take your mother, to shop for a few things before she goes back to Greece on Sunday, but I don’t think the crowds would do her any good.’

  Litsa was going back and Heather wondered what was going to happen to them. Without having to keep up the pretense, would he expect her to return to her jack of all trades status? An hour earlier she would have denied any such possibility, but doubts were beginning to break through the rosy, unrealistic haze of
her dreams.

  She stood, willing him to try and talk her out of that, but instead he smiled and moved over to her so that he could kiss her on the mouth, and with a pathetic moan of surrender she tugged the lapels of his jacket, pulling him into her.

  Satisfied, Theo smiled and wondered where that chill of unease had come from earlier on. He was as safe in the knowledge that she wanted him as much as any man could be safe about anything in this life.

  Three hours later Heather left the apartment, and ran full-tilt into the full-blown storm of Beth’s misgivings.

  ‘It’ll end in tears,’ she warned, which was just the thing Heather didn’t want to hear. ‘If you’d had any sense at all you would never have gone into any ridiculous pretend relationship with the man. He’s bad news.’

  ‘It’s not a pretend relationship now,’ Heather defended herself half-heartedly. ‘I love him, and I know he feels something for me…’

  ‘Because you were stupid enough to sleep with him?’ Beth laughed, but not unkindly. ‘Look, Heather, you’ve got to come back down to Planet Earth and realise that what you have is no more real than any of the other relationships he’s had in the past, with all those glamorous women you lost sleep over. Do you remember them? The ones with legs to their armpits and IQs roughly on a par with their ages? Remember them? You should, you know. You bought the goodbye bunches of roses for most of them.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but…’ But she was different—wasn’t she? She spent nights with him in his bed, in his apartment…she had met his mother…didn’t that count for anything? She remembered the way he had dismissed her earlier on, and the burgeoning doubts pushed a little harder against the romantic dreams she had so optimistically and hopefully spun in her head.

  ‘I’m just saying that you’ve got to be realistic, Heather,’ Beth said, determined that she would carry the torch for realism even if her friend was reluctant to. Heather was sweetly and endearingly disingenuous, but Beth had had sufficient experience of men like Theo to know that they could be seriously hazardous to a woman’s health.

  Beth’s version of reality was to drop all stupid notions about for ever after with Theo, and living in his big country house—which, she reminded Heather, she had never been invited to visit—with the happy sounds of kiddies’ footsteps clattering across the floors. Reality was to stop spinning fantasies and to start thinking ahead, and the way forward was to include the probability that once Litsa had gone her role with Theo would be effectively over.

  ‘You make him sound like a monster,’ Heather cried, appalled because she knew that the man she had fallen in love with could be tremendously funny and thoughtful when he chose to be. She wished that she hadn’t bothered to enlist Beth’s help in choosing her outfit. She had hoped for some sound advice about colours and styles, maybe a bit of shared excitement that she was going somewhere with Theo—somewhere that involved the people he worked with. She had hoped to find support for her theory that it meant something. Instead, she had opened up by confessing that Theo had reneged on his promise to accompany her and it had been downhill ever since.

  Beth had taken the afternoon off to help her out, which was very good of her because her lifestyle was frantic, and, having committed to the gesture, she now seemed determined to control the time booked as efficiently as possible.

  Heather would have got annoyed, but annoyance was something she only ever attained when pushed to the absolute limit and she knew that her friend was just rooting for her.

  So, once lunch and the sermons were over, she greeted the afternoon’s shopping spree with a little sigh of resignation.

  ‘First off,’ Beth said, after insisting on paying the bill—presumably, Heather thought, in advance sympathy for the chucking out and inevitable poverty which was due to come to her shortly, ‘you tell me what sort of clothes you have in mind, and then I’ll tell you what I have in mind.’

  Heather gave the matter careful thought. A dark colour, she decided, would be right for her figure. Something elegant and straight, so that she didn’t stand out. She would be meeting people she didn’t know from Adam, and her take on the situation was to blend effortlessly into the background, which she had usually found the safest place to be. She voiced her suggestions hesitantly, making sure to qualify each suggestion with a foolproof reason.

  ‘Wrong, wrong—all wrong,’ Beth said with satisfaction, making Heather feel as though she had been unwittingly led into a trap.

  Right, right, all right turned out to be a cunning selection of clothes that Heather quailed at the thought of trying on, never mind actually wearing. Shoes would be purchased for style and wow factor, not for comfort. Her hair was going to be tamed, possibly even trimmed, and make-up was going to make a statement—and that statement did not include the concept of looking as though none had been applied. In other words, Heather heard with a sinking heart, a total makeover was on the cards.

  ‘And what’s more,’ Beth announced, one hand imperiously outstretched to attract a taxi as she looked at her friend over her shoulder, ‘you’re going to surprise the bastard with this get-up, which means you’re going to meet him at the venue. You can change at my place and I’ll drop you.’

  ‘Theo’s not a bastard.’ The rest of the sentence was slowly filtering into her brain with sickening remorselessness.

  Beth was on a roll, and once in the taxi she ticked off all the reasons why Heather should follow her lead. She needed to strike out for herself, to prove to Theo that she was her own woman and not the doormat he assumed she was. She needed to break her habit of a lifetime of always, but always, dressing down, because the sea was actually teeming with fish—colourful, playful, easygoing fish—and there was no need to get tied up to the biggest shark in town. The day was coming, Beth warned, in the tones of a soothsayer ominously forced to predict the inevitable, when she would be out there on her own, when she could no longer hide away and make do with fairytale dreams. Where would she be if she took flight from reality and cowered inside her flat? Only emerging in clothes that made her invisible? Would she ever be able to find a partner?

  Heather was suitably alarmed at the picture painted. ‘I don’t look good in bright colours,’ she ventured. ‘And I can’t camp out at your place until it’s time to go.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because…’ The thought of confidently walking into a venue packed with people she didn’t know terrified her. She had managed to live her entire life without ever having to undergo the experience. At least if she arrived with Theo she could hide behind him.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Beth said encouragingly. ‘Better than fine. Trust me. Go on. Phone Theo now, before you chicken out.’

  Beth’s voice was the consistency of honey, and Heather shot her a wry look, but really what she said—everything she had said—made sense in a way Heather had always recognised but had never confronted. As soon as she stepped away from her emotional interpretation of the scenario, she could see it for what it was. A pretend relationship that hadn’t become real at all. Because Theo hadn’t fallen madly in love with her. The pretend relationship had simply become one that involved sex. Apparently, and for reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom, he was physically attracted to her. But that meant nothing. As Beth had very kindly pointed out, Theo was attracted to any manner of woman and saw nothing wrong in having sexual relationships that were utterly devoid of significance.

  Heather wanted significance. She had been willing to pretend that making love with him was just step one in attaining it. Maybe it was, but probably it wasn’t—and anyway, surely it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Theo had a wake-up call? She indulged in the pleasant fantasy of shocking him and realised that Beth had thrust her mobile phone into her hand.

  The call to Theo only served to harden her resolve. What had seemed a horrific idea at the time now offered distinct advantages. She was put through to Theo at what was obviously a highly inconvenient time. His voice, when he picked up, was curt. Heather got the fe
eling that she could have taken a rocket and landed on the moon for all he cared. He was in a meeting, he had no time to talk, and he wasn’t about to make time.

  ‘I probably won’t be able to get back to the apartment in time to leave with you…’

  She could feel herself straining to hear him reject any such thing out of hand, but he didn’t. All he said was, ‘Fine, you can meet me there. You’re a big girl now anyway.’

  A mountain of defeat settled on her shoulders like lead, although she fought to give him the benefit of the doubt in her mind. He was busy. He literally had no time to reassure her or even to chat. And that wasn’t his fault. She had hovered around him long enough to know that work was an all-consuming force in his life. She depressed the ‘end call’ button, blinking away the urge to burst into tears.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m in your hands!’

  Beth grinned broadly. ‘Good. And don’t expect any rest breaks.’

  There were none.

  Clothes came first. Of course with restrictions on the price, because there was no way that Heather was going to touch the Harrods account card that nestled like a bad omen in her purse. But price restrictions were of no matter to Beth, who confidently declared that youth was all about getting away with wearing cheap because youth could pull it off.

  When Heather tried to argue the challenges of her generous figure she was waved down and pulled into shops where clothes of every hue and every cut were tried on and dismissed, or tried on and considered, maybe to return to later.

  After dress three, Heather gave up squealing with horror at the amount of flesh being exposed and gave herself over to the experience of being transformed. By outfit six she was beginning to think that she really didn’t look too bad with less on. The breasts she had shamefully hidden from the age of thirteen suited the low cut necks of the trendy dresses, and her legs weren’t half bad. Yes, her figure was hourglass, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Claire had the model figure, but she had her own physical charm.