Taken for His Pleasure

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘I thought you were asleep.’

  ‘I thought that was the idea.’ Anton shrugged. ‘But if I’m about to meet my maker, I’d at least like to be aware of the fact!’

  Wriggling from his embrace, Lydia jumped free, busying herself by sugaring her coffee. She deliberately avoided looking at him as he jumped from the bed, yawning and stretching, and pulled on his bathers.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lydia blinked.

  ‘I’m going for my swim, as I always do.’ Anton shrugged. ‘I assume you’ll be joining me?’

  ‘You assume wrong!’ Lydia answered, putting on her massive white robe and slippers, then carefully placing her gun in the pocket, her fingers coiling around the cool metal. ‘This time I’ll just be watching—supposedly in rapt admiration.’

  ‘Supposedly?’ Anton gave a knowing smile, and without a word headed out the door.

  With some difficulty Lydia feigned nonchalance, relaxing on a lounger that faced the pool’s entrance. But Anton was wrong for once—there was no time to admire his toned body as he dived into the pool and started his arduous swim. Well, maybe a second or two, but the pool and gym were far busier this morning and Lydia’s attention was focussed instead on the hotel patrons. She carefully observed their movements, ensuring that no one was taking more than a vague interest in the man whose life she was guarding, and it was a relief to get Anton safely back to his room.

  Whatever profit the hotel might make because Anton didn’t like the intrusion of a butler they would lose in their water bill. The full half-hour he spent in the shower gave Lydia plenty of time to dress, hoping that the black pants and sheer top that she’d normally go out on the town in would suffice for breakfast with Anton.

  God, he was taking for ever! She spent ages on her make-up—there was even enough time to plug in her ceramic hair straighteners and attempt to recreate the sleek, glossy look Karen had achieved so easily until finally he came out. The steam following him from the bathroom made him look like an angry genie emerging from a bottle, and the collar of his robe was turned upwards, as if he were about to step out into the snow. His eyes were two slits in his swarthy face as he took in her clothes.

  ‘I’ll take you shopping later.’

  ‘How rude!’ Without Karen’s magic green powder Lydia blushed an unflattering shade of pink, utterly appalled at his rudeness. Because even if her top and trousers didn’t suffice, how dared he say it? Anton didn’t appear remotely bothered by her angry reaction, just gave an easy shrug and turned on his computer.

  ‘What’s rude?’

  ‘Saying that my clothes are inadequate.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Anton replied easily, then ran a lazy eye over her as she stood there, simultaneously bristling and mortified. ‘But now you come to mention it…’ He gave another easy shrug before continuing, ‘I always buy my girlfriends’ clothes—and till now not one of them has complained. I thought women liked shopping. Anyway, you were the one who said I should carry on as normal—and normally, if my date only had four items in her wardrobe, I’d do something about it. Not that it often happens. I’ll ask Angelina to ring a couple of boutiques, so they can close.’

  ‘Close?’ Lydia frowned. Somehow he’d boxed her into yet another corner. Somehow he’d left no room for manoeuvre. Anton Santini could be as rude as he damn well liked and it was her job to take it!

  ‘I hate crowds when I shop.’ Anton smiled. ‘And, given the nature of your job, so should you! What time is it?’ he added, clearly bored with the conversation.

  ‘Six-thirty,’ Lydia answered through pursed lips, though she wasn’t entirely sure the question had been directed at her. She watched as Anton fiddled with his heavy-looking watch for a moment, before facing his computer.

  ‘So it’s mid-afternoon in New York and night-time in Italy?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Lydia admitted. ‘I assume you’re not asking because you need to ring your mother and don’t want to wake her?’ She expected a smart retort, but instead she got a smile, and somehow it melted her—somehow she forgave him.

  ‘Do you want to ring down for some fresh coffee?’

  ‘Can we go back to bed for when the maid arrives?’ Anton asked hopefully.

  ‘No.’ Lydia grinned as he turned back to the computer. He tapped out responses to seemingly hundreds of red-flagged e-mails, then delivered rapid messages into his Dictaphone—no doubt Angelina would have to decipher them later—before tapping into a calculator impossibly long numbers without even looking. She could only admire his staying power. On less than four hours’ sleep, Anton had dealt with almost a day’s work before he had eaten breakfast.

  ‘Do you always get so many e-mails?’

  ‘Always.’ Anton rolled his eyes. ‘I hate them—people expect an instant response.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sounding sorry for myself.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ Lydia nodded knowingly. ‘I know exactly what you mean. Take the telephone—I hate it.’

  ‘You hate the phone?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Lydia nodded. ‘And I dread the day we all have video phones, when you can’t pretend that your flat doesn’t look like a bomb just hit it when someone rings you, or that they didn’t just wake you, and have to peel off your face pack…It’s just so invasive,’ Lydia finished weakly, but Anton was smiling now, clicking off his inbox and swinging around on his chair to face her.

  ‘What are you going to do with yourself today?’

  ‘Sleep, hopefully,’ Lydia offered. ‘After breakfast I’ll come back to the room and have a shower—assuming you haven’t drained the entire hotel of hot water—and then I’ll crawl into bed. When I wake up I’ll get my hair and make-up done, so I can look suitably gorgeous to hang on your arm for the night—it’s hell being rich.’

  ‘Do you come down to breakfast with me?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Lydia nodded.

  ‘And if I need to leave the meeting? If there is an adjournment—?’

  ‘I’ll be told,’ Lydia broke in, glad that he was finally taking her being here seriously. ‘If there isn’t time for me to come down and meet you in the bar, or if that would look too suspicious, then just come up to your room as you normally would. One of the detectives you first met will take the lift with you.’

  ‘Your boyfriend?’

  ‘My ex-boyfriend,’ Lydia corrected, unplugging her beloved ceramic hair straighteners and standing up. ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Easy,’ Anton answered. ‘It’s supposed to be me he’s watching, but he cannot take his eyes off you. Take it from me—he doesn’t want to be your ex!’

  ‘Then he’d better get used to the fact that we live in the twenty-first century and realise that women are capable of holding down a demanding job,’ Lydia snapped.

  Anton deftly swooped. ‘Another chauvinist?’ He raised a knowing eyebrow, and, tongue firmly in cheek, he terminated the discussion. ‘My God, Lydia, the world’s full of them!’

  As Lydia raced for a suitably crushing response, Anton swiftly changed the subject. ‘Why don’t you have your shower now, then you can just go straight to bed after breakfast? I’ll let the desk know and they can service the room straight away. You must be tired.’

  ‘I am,’ Lydia admitted, the wind taken out of her sails, surprisingly touched by his thoughtfulness. ‘But if I even so much as step into that bathroom my hair will frizz, and any attempt to look like your sophisticated lover will evaporate as quickly as my hair serum!’ Her rapid English must have been too fast for him, because from the expression Anton gave her he clearly had no idea what she was talking about. ‘I’ll shower after breakfast.’

  ‘As you wish.’ Anton nodded and went to turn away but changed his mind, clearly something on his mind. ‘Won’t it look suspicious?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You are supposedly in Melbourne to work. If you just come back to bed—’

  ‘After your little display yesterday,’ Lydia broke in, a tight smile on her lips, ‘I’m
sure the staff will all assume that I have been working—all night! They’ll be expecting me to crawl into bed exhausted.’

  ‘I really am sorry about that.’

  ‘I know,’ Lydia replied, though not particularly graciously.

  ‘I was embarrassed,’ Anton admitted. ‘And I overreacted.’

  ‘I know.’ This time her response was kinder. Perhaps for the first time she was seeing things from his side—the humiliation he must have felt when he had found out their entire meeting had been engineered, that the woman he had practically made love to was in fact being paid to be with him. ‘Let’s just forget it, shall we?’

  ‘I’m trying to.’ Anton shrugged. ‘I’ll get dressed, then.’

  ‘Fine.’ Lydia nodded.

  ‘Fine,’ Anton agreed.

  Not for the first time an appalling awkwardness descended, the Presidential Suite diminishing in size as Anton located his clothes and Lydia turned her back and feigned nonchalance. She picked up that blessed magazine and tried reading again how to shape her eyebrows as he pulled off his robe and began to dress. She tried not to imagine that gorgeous body stripped naked, had to actually concentrate on not turning her head for even a second, and wondered for the millionth time how she was going to get through this—how she could possibly keep her mind on the job when her body screamed out for Anton.

  ‘Done.’

  ‘Good,’ Lydia responded, placing her gun in her handbag before turning to face him, wondering how, dressed in yet another white shirt and dark suit, he could still make her catch her breath. ‘Ready, then?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  No wonder he always smelt gorgeous, Lydia thought, as practically half a bottle of cologne was splashed on his cheeks.

  ‘I’ll always be able to find you.’ Lydia smiled. ‘If I lose you, I mean.’

  ‘I do not know what you are talking about,’ Anton replied, raking a comb through his damp hair, then filling his pockets with his swipe card and wallet. He picked up his laptop and placed it under his arm, and Lydia noted that he didn’t even check his final appearance in the mirror—but then again there was no need to. He looked, as always, completely immaculate.

  ‘There’s no greater shame in my job than losing someone you’re supposed to be watching—but all I’d have to do is follow your scent, or, at worst, wave that bottle under a sniffer dog’s nose. Though it would probably render him unconscious.’

  ‘Do you always talk so much in the morning?’

  ‘Always.’ Lydia grinned, stepping out of the suite and into the corridor, having to half run to keep up with his incredibly long stride.

  But despite the casual chit-chat she felt incredibly shy when they were in the lift, nervous of being back on show with him, for the act to resume…Because it had been on hold, Lydia realised as the lift swooped down to the first floor. Yes, she’d been on duty, and yes, there had been a gun by her side and a two way radio, but for a while there it had been about them—about a man and a woman mutually attracted and getting to know each other a bit better.

  ‘Anton—over here!’ Angelina waved a heavily jewelled hand as they entered the restaurant, signalling them over to where she sat with a rather pained-looking Maria. ‘Join us!’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Anton muttered out of the side of his mouth. ‘That’s all I need.’

  ‘Looks like you’re going to have to learn how to be sociable in the morning.’ Lydia laughed as Anton managed a brief wave and smile and headed over to their table.

  He did no such thing! In fact Maria and Lydia were completely forgotten as an impromptu breakfast meeting ensued, with Angelina and Anton commandeering most of the table, pulling out their laptops and mobile phones, talking loudly. Had she really been his girlfriend, Lydia would have walked off in a matter of minutes, but instead she took the opportunity for a quick catch up with her colleague.

  ‘You have no idea what I’m going through,’ Maria groaned.

  ‘Nor you of what I’m going through.’ Lydia sighed, but, catching Maria’s expression she felt a smile break out on her tense mouth. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Maria shook her head. ‘Anyway, we shouldn’t be seen talking.’

  ‘Ah, we can be seen talking now,’ Lydia corrected. ‘Angelina called Anton and I over—we certainly didn’t engineer this meeting. We’re just two women who’ve been introduced and are having a gossip—no one can hear what we’re saying. So come on, Maria, tell me what the problem is.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with…’ Maria’s voice trailed off. Words like ‘the case’ or ‘bribes’ were clearly out of bounds, even if it appeared that no one was listening, but Lydia got the unspoken message.

  ‘Salacious gossip isn’t my forte,’ Lydia reminded her.

  ‘I know.’ Reaching over to the bread basket, Maria selected a croissant before finally talking, her voice so low Lydia had to strain to catch it. ‘They should have made us sisters.’

  ‘Sisters?’ Lydia frowned. ‘But you’re way too young to be her sister. It would have looked…’ Her voice trailed off as she remembered to keep the conversation vague.

  ‘I’m not talking about being her sibling.’ Maria shuddered. ‘I mean…’As Maria broke open a croissant Lydia saw that her hands were shaking. Her jaw dropped a mile.

  ‘She fancies you?’

  ‘I think so.’ Maria’s face was scarlet, clearly in serious need of a green-based foundation and Lydia did the only thing she could—burst into a fit of giggles. Finally, Maria joined in.

  ‘Something amusing?’ Anton glowered across the table.

  ‘Just chatting, honey,’ Lydia said sweetly, blowing him a kiss and enjoying the flicker of annoyance that passed over his face before he turned back to his computer.

  ‘There is a glimmer of hope.’ Using her serviette to dab her face, Maria let her giggles fade and she sounded like any PA’s assistant from the world over as she carried on talking. ‘Apparently Anton raced through things yesterday. The hotel’s figures tally with his external audit, so, with a bit of luck, they’ll be finished by the day after tomorrow and then they can head back to Italy.’

  It was as if a bucket of water had been thrown over Lydia. The laughter that had been so therapeutic faded in an instant, realisation shrinking her momentary good humour.

  ‘The day after tomorrow?’ Lydia checked.

  ‘Hopefully,’ Maria countered, spreading jam on her croissant, so relieved to have shared her predicament she didn’t even notice Lydia’s rigid expression. ‘And then we can all go back to our lives.’

  ‘I’m going to the meeting room.’ Closing his computer, Anton stood up and made his way around the table.

  ‘You should slow down a touch—at least enjoy your breakfast properly,’ Angelina chided. ‘You work far too hard.’

  ‘I pay you to assist me,’ Anton clipped. ‘Not mother me.’

  ‘Come, Maria, we have work to do,’ Angelina said, not remotely fazed. Clearly she was used to being snapped at by Anton.

  As he stood up Lydia held her breath, wondering what he was going to do this time—kiss her possessively on the mouth again, as he had last night, perhaps? Remind her to get a lot of sleep because she’d be needing a lot of energy? She was sure, given his previous exploits, that he’d do something, anything to embarrass her, but she shivered inside with excitement all the same.

  She was way off with her predictions—he didn’t even bother to say goodbye, just stalked out of the restaurant without a backward glance, followed by his entourage. And Lydia realised, as she sat there with cheeks flaming, stinging from his dismissal, with the heavy scent of him lingering long after he’d gone, that she’d rather have been humiliated than ignored.

  Swiping her card to open the door to the Presidential Suite, Lydia understood a little more where Anton was coming from—every trace of him, of them, had been erased. The clothes that had littered the floor were all back in the closet, coffee cups and glasses had been washed and replaced, the rumpled bed was
made and taut. All this Lydia took in as she carefully performed her routine check, noting that even the heady scent of Anton had been erased. Opening the heavy glass bottle of cologne, she inhaled his fragrance and shivered a touch at the images his scent conjured.

  She didn’t want to go back to her life.

  Didn’t want this fairytale to end before it had even begun.

  And it had nothing to do with the clothes and the hair, nothing to do with luxurious surroundings or having eager staff at her beck and call.

  It had everything to do with Anton.

  The real Anton—not the brash, chauvinistic version she had encountered so many times, but the deep, sensitive, incredibly sensual man she had glimpsed.

  Her exhausted, sleep-deprived brain waged a weak argument.

  Anton hated her job as much as Graham did.

  But Anton had the guts to admit it, Lydia countered; Anton didn’t hide his sentiments in the way most men did.

  He made her feel like a woman. Not the weak, pale version Graham and the men before him wanted—a woman who needed protection, a woman who needed a strong partner—instead he made her more.

  More.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, Lydia buried her tired face in her hands and tried to qualify what she was thinking. More feminine, more sexy, more vibrant. He made her feel more than she had ever felt in her life. In one day and a night it was as if her life had been transformed—as if he’d dipped her in some wonderful primer, bringing out the best, the shiniest, the most beautiful qualities she held, not attempting to hold her back or reel her in.

  She was literally drooping with exhaustion now, ready for a quick warm shower and hoping that it wouldn’t revive her. The last thing Lydia wanted was a second wind. Her few precious hours alone needed to be used wisely, and sleep was her top priority if she was going to stay alert over the next couple of days.

  The bliss of hot water on her tired body was unrivalled. She washed away the conditioner, the hair serum, the subtle yet heavy make-up, stripping away the chic woman she was portraying. Her hand reached out for the shampoo bottle, a gurgle of laugher escaping when, as Anton had predicted, it was full!