Greek Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress

Atreus was stunned by Lindy’s behaviour. From the outset of their affair he had enjoyed the fact that she didn’t throw tantrums or suffer from petulant moods. She was calm, laid-back in temperament and sensible, not given to making unreasonable demands or staging arguments. She only revealed her passion between the sheets, where he found her eagerness for him insanely, brilliantly sexy.

He sprang out of bed, crossed the floor and lifted her off her feet without further ado.

‘What the heck do you think you’re doing?’ Lindy demanded furiously.

‘I’m taking you back to bed in the hope that you regain your senses, glikia mou,’ Atreus imparted in an aggrieved tone.

‘I’m not getting back into bed with you!’ Lindy hissed, swatting away his hands and sliding straight back off the bed again. ‘We’re finished!’

CHAPTER FIVE

WITH a groan of disbelief, Atreus lay back against the tumbled pillows and studied Lindy’s flushed and resolute face. ‘I don’t expect this kind of silly melodrama from you. You find out that we’re not heading to the altar and that’s it? It’s all over? Doesn’t that strike you as more than a little unreasonable?’

‘No. Every word you’ve said makes it clear that you don’t respect me or take me seriously in any way!’ Lindy argued vehemently. ‘I’m just someone you sleep with at weekends and never take out in public, and that’s not enough for me.’

Atreus sat up in a sudden movement, anger stamped into every angular line of his hard, handsome face. ‘It’s been more than enough to keep you happy all this time—and do I have to remind you that you’re the one who did not want to be seen out with me in public?’

‘I’m your mistress!’ Lindy condemned with a shudder of disgust. ‘Aren’t I?’

‘That’s an old-fashioned label and I’m not an old-fashioned guy,’ Atreus fired back at her, seeing just how welcome candour would be at that precise instant.

‘Can’t you even admit that that’s what I am?’ Lindy shouted, her hands coiling into tight fists as she fought to get a grip on her self-control again.

Atreus lodged scorching golden eyes full of censure on her. ‘Okay, you’re my mistress.’

Eyes welling with stinging tears of shame and hatred, Lindy stared at him. She wanted to throw things and scream. She had wanted him to deny that she was his mistress, because that title struck her as the final humiliation.

‘But that doesn’t mean that you’re not an important part of my life,’ Atreus delivered with measured cool. ‘You are important to me.’

‘For sex, amusement…a woman to spice up your country weekends who doesn’t cause you any hassle,’ she completed bitterly, her heart beating so fast and so loudly in her ears that she feared she might be on the edge of a panic attack, even though she had never had one before. But then she had never been in such pain. Pain that flailed her with self-loathing and anger and the most appalling sense of loss, for Atreus was so much a part of her life that she could barely muster the courage to even imagine a future without him.

His mistress—that was all she had ever been. All these months she had deceived herself with wishful thinking, imagining a deeper connection and assuming an equality that had never existed between them. A mistress: a woman who gave discreet sexual pleasure, stayed in the background of her lover’s life and looked for nothing more than his approbation and financial support. No wonder he had been so determined to make her accept the car he had bought her, and no wonder he had refused her rent payments! After all, a mistress was supposed to be rewarded and even supported by her lover. That was the deal. Awkward questions such as she had just asked were not part of that deal.

‘I do value you,’ Atreus breathed in a raw undertone. ‘I’ve never stayed with one woman as long as I have stayed with you.’

But Lindy had another angle entirely on the surprising longevity of their affair. Without challenging him with words of love, she had adored him, admired him and lived to please him. She had asked for nothing. Why would he have walked away from so convenient an arrangement? He said he valued her. But even when telling her that she was important to him he was careful to employ dispassionate words which promised nothing deep or lasting. The caution with which he spoke also warned her that Atreus Dionides had never had any doubts about her exact status and place in his life. A mistress was all she had ever been, and that she could ever have believed she might mean more to him now struck her as pathetic and laughable.

As the door thudded shut on her silent departure, Atreus ground out a roughened curse. What had got into Lindy? He would have sworn that he knew her inside out, but she was behaving like a stranger. Where had that temper come from? Where had those damnable questions come from? Out of the blue? Or was it Ben Halliwell he should be thanking for this denouement?