Constantine's Defiant Mistress

Putting the tray down on a table before she dropped it, Laura looked up at him, her voice low and trembling. ‘I need to talk to you.’ She glanced over at the model, who was glaring at her. ‘Alone, if that’s all right.’

‘Who the hell is this?’ snapped Ingrid.

He had absolutely no idea, and for one moment Constantine wondered if the insipid little waitress was some kind of set-up. Were her male accomplices about to burst in with cameras? Or did her uniform conceal some kind of weapon? Hadn’t kidnap attempts been suspected enough times in the past?

But he remembered her from the ballroom—her pinched, pale face and her inappropriate babbling on about some type of water. She didn’t look like the kind of woman capable of any kind of elaborate subterfuge. And her expression was peculiar; he had never seen a woman look quite like that before—and it made him study her more closely.

Her cheeks were pale but her grey eyes were huge, and she looked as if she was fighting to control her breathing. Her breasts—surprisingly pert breasts for such a tiny frame, he thought inconsequentially—were heaving like someone who had just dragged themselves out of the water after nearly drowning.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded hotly. ‘And what do you want?’

‘I told you,’ answered Laura quietly. ‘I need to talk to you. Alone, if I may.’

Constantine’s eyes narrowed as some primeval instinct urged him to listen to what this woman was saying. And something in her strange urgency told him to ensure that they had no audience. He turned to the supermodel, praying that she wouldn’t make the kind of scene which some women revelled in when a man had just ended a relationship.

‘I think you’d better leave now, don’t you, Ingrid?’ he questioned quietly. ‘I have a car which will take you wherever you want to go.’

For a moment Laura felt eaten up with guilt and shame as she saw the supermodel’s stricken face, and her heart went out to her. Because what woman wouldn’t be able to identify with the terrible battle taking place within the gorgeous blonde? Anyone could see she wanted to stay—but it was also easy to see from the obdurate and cold expression on Constantine’s face that he wanted the supermodel out of there.

Oh, this was just terrible—and it was all her fault. Awkwardly, she shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Look, perhaps I can…come back.’

‘You are not going anywhere,’ snapped Constantine as he flicked her a hard glance. ‘Ingrid was just leaving.’

At this, Ingrid’s mouth thinned into a scarlet line. ‘You bastard,’ she hissed, and marched out of the suite without another word.

For a moment there was silence, and Laura’s heart was pounding with fear and disbelief as she lifted up her hands in a gesture of apology. ‘I’m sorry—’

‘Shut up,’ he snapped, two fists clenching by the shafts of his powerful thighs as a quiet fury continued to spiral up inside him. ‘And don’t give me any misplaced sentiments. Do you think you can hysterically burst in here making veiled threats and then act like a concerned and responsible citizen who cares about the havoc she’s wreaked along the way? Do you?’

Nervously, Laura sank her teeth into her bottom lip. She supposed she deserved that—just as she supposed she had no choice other than to stand there and take it. Maybe if she let him vent his anger then he would calm down, and they could sit down afterwards and talk calmly.

His black eyes bored into her like fierce black lasers. ‘So who are you?’ he continued furiously. ‘And why are you really here?’

Brushing aside her hurt that he still didn’t recognise her, Laura tried again. ‘I It sounded so bizarre to say it now that the moment had arrived. To say these words of such import to a man who was staring at her so forbiddingly. But then Alex’s face swam into the forefront of her mind, and suddenly it was easy.

She drew a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry it has to be this way, but I’ve come to tell you that seven years ago I had a baby. Your baby.’ Her voice shaking with emotion, she got the final words out in a rush. ‘You have a son, Constantine, and I am the mother of that son.’

CHAPTER THREE

CONSTANTINE stared at the trembling waitress who stood before him, and who had just made such a preposterous claim. That she was the mother of his son. Why, it would almost be laughable were it not so outrageous.

‘That is a bizarre and untrue statement to make,’ he snapped. ‘Especially since I don’t even know you.’

Laura felt as if he had plunged a stiletto into her heart, but she prayed it didn’t show on her face. ‘Then why didn’t you have the guards take me away?’

‘Because I’m curious.’

‘Or because you know that deep down I could be telling the truth?’

‘Not in this case.’ His lips curved into a cruel smile. ‘You see, I don’t screw around with waitresses.’

It hurt. Oh, how it hurt—but presumably that had been his intention. Laura forced herself not to hit back at the slur, nor to let herself wither under his blistering gaze. ‘Maybe you don’t now—but I can assure you that wasn’t always the case.’

Something in her calm certainty—in the way she stood there, facing up to him, despite her cheap clothes and lowly demeanour—all those things combined to make Constantine consider the bizarre possibility of her words. That they might be true. He looked deep into her eyes, as if searching for some hint of what this was all about, but all he saw was the stormy distress lurking in their pewter depths, and suddenly he felt his heart lurch. Eyes like storm clouds.

Storm clouds.

Another memory stirred deep in the recesses of his mind. ‘Take down your hair,’ he ordered softly.