Constantinou's Mistress by Cathy Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

past eight months. She had seen a side to him that had never been revealed to the public eye, had seen him at his most vulnerable, and some demon in him now drove him to punish her for that.
    Lord, he knew that he should just have her transferred to another department. There were enough of them to choose from. He could raise her pay extravagantly to make the move justified and irresistible, but whenever he thought of walking into the office and not being able to see her he weakened and told himself that he needed to hang on to her, that she was the best secretary he could ever hope for.
    â€˜I don’t believe I pay you to be sarcastic,’ he informed her coolly and, without waiting for an answer, proceeded to give his undivided attention to the Rawlings fax in front of him. ‘This doesn’t make any sense,’ he continued, while she simmered away in the chair, hating him and hating herself even more for the fact that he couldget to her every time. ‘The hotel should be harvesting money. It is on an island, in the sun, good airline connections from the US, no political instability. So what the hell is going on? Dammit, I should have handled this one myself instead of handing it over to Bob. What does he have to say about this? No, better still, I’ll get him on the line. Stay here so that I can dictate a letter to you when I’m through with Bob.’
    Lucy let her eyes wander as she listened to Nick speak curtly down the phone to his financial director. She was aware of him leaning forward as he spoke, his brows meeting in a slight frown, his black hair shorter than it was when she had run her fingers through it, and combed neatly back. His restless energy manifested itself in the tapping of his fountain pen on the sheaf of paper in front of him. After a few minutes he dropped the receiver back in its handset and sat back in the leather swivel chair to look at her.
    â€˜Take this letter,’ he ordered. His dictation was always faultless. He composed fluently and without any need for her to make revisions. He was one of the few people whose clarity of thought was translated into clarity of speech without any hesitancy or confusion along the way.
    When she stood up to leave he snapped impatiently, ‘Sit back down. I haven’t finished with you as yet.’ God, but he could shake her out of that docility! His eyes involuntarily moved to her breasts, totally hidden behind her neat shirt with its severe little row of buttons and prim rounded collar, and he looked away immediately. Unwelcome thoughts had a nasty habit of creeping up on him when he was least expecting it, thoughts of ripping off her shirt and scooping those breasts out of their constraints so that he could taste them once again, proveonce and for all whether their lovemaking had been as magnificent as his hazy memory recalled, or whether that had been an illusion.
    â€˜I want you to order some flowers to be sent for me.’
    â€˜Flowers?’ Lucy’s hand froze momentarily over her notepad, then she plastered her usual bland smile on her face.
    â€˜You heard me. Flowers.’
    â€˜Right. What kind of flowers?’
    Nick shrugged nonchalantly. ‘You tell me…what kind of flowers does a woman like? Roses? Violets? Orchids? Anything, but make it expensive.’
    â€˜And should there be a message to accompany the flowers?’ She knew that there had been women in the past few months. He had made no effort to conceal his love life from her, and from what she had deduced his love life was very hectic indeed. But never before had she been requested to act as a link between him and any of his women and the thought of that made her feel ill.
    â€˜Just “Thanks for the good times.” ’ He had pushed his chair back so that his profile was to her and he was staring out of the window.
    â€œâ€˜Thanks for the good times,’” Lucy repeated. ‘Nothing else?’
    â€˜What else