The Secret His Mistress Carried

Billie had dug out the phone for him and slotted it into his hand. He had fumbled with buttons and cursed. ‘No, you do it.’

But the contacts list had been written in some weird script that was definitely not the alphabet and most probably a foreign equivalent. She had had to shake his shoulder to bring that to his attention and with some difficulty at focusing he had stabbed out the name for her and she had had to make the call to the doctor for him. Mercifully the doctor had spoken English and, sounding very concerned about the male he’d referred to as ‘Gio’, he had promised to be with them in twenty minutes.

Feeling uncomfortable but knowing she had to wait to let the doctor into the apartment, Billie had got on with the cleaning while Gio had lain there on the floor. She had felt helpless and useless because he was simply too big and heavy in build for her to lift him in an effort to make him more comfortable. The doctor, young and fit, had been shocked to see Gio lying on the floor and had immediately hauled him up and practically carried him into the first bedroom off the corridor.

Ten minutes later, the doctor had sought her out in the kitchen. ‘He’s a workaholic and he’s exhausted, which is probably why he’s ill. It’s a bad dose of the flu and he won’t go to hospital. I’ll bring back his prescription and look into getting a private nurse...in the short term, can you stay for a while? He shouldn’t be alone but I’m on emergency call—’

‘I’m only here to clean and I’m already behind,’ Billie had explained apologetically. ‘I should be starting on the apartment next door—’

‘Gio owns the building. He’s probably the man who signs your pay cheque through the management company. I wouldn’t worry about the place next door,’ the doctor had told her drily. ‘He asked for you to go in and see him—’

‘But why?’

The doctor had shrugged on his way out. ‘Maybe he wants to thank you for being a good Samaritan. You could’ve run and left him lying there.’

She had knocked on the bedroom door and when it wasn’t answered had peeped in, seeing Gio sprawled naked but for a pair of black silk pyjama trousers on the biggest bed she had ever seen. Even ill, pale below his olive skin and fast asleep, he had been the most beautiful specimen of masculinity she had ever seen, from his ruffled black curly hair to his unshaven chin and his incredibly impressive bronzed and muscular torso and flat stomach.

She had cleaned the guest bathrooms, waited an hour and then gone back into the bedroom, finding him awake.

‘Do you need anything?’

‘Water would be welcome...what’s your name?’ he had asked limply, breathing heavily as he’d tried to sit up but had lurched sideways instead.

‘Billie.’

‘Short for?’

‘Billie. Do you want me to fix your pillows?’

And she had fixed the pillows and straightened the sheet and fetched him a glass of water. He had seemed stunned by the discovery that she cleaned his apartment regularly sight unseen.

‘There’s never much to do here,’ she had admitted. ‘You don’t seem to use the kitchen.’

‘I travel a lot, eat out or order in when I’m here.’

The bell had buzzed. ‘That’ll be the nurse the doctor mentioned,’ she remarked.

‘I don’t need a nurse.’

‘You’re too weak and sick to be left alone,’ Billie had informed him bluntly.

‘I was hoping you’d hang around...’

‘I have other apartments to cleanI’ll be working late tonight as it is,’ she had said before she hurried to answer the door to a beautiful uniformed blonde with the face of a madonna.

The next morning when she had clocked in, her manager had emerged from his office to say, ‘You’ve been seconded full-time to Mr Letsos’ apartment until further notice.’

‘But how...why on earth? Full-time?’ she had queried in astonishment.

‘The order came down from higher up. Maybe the guy had a party last night and needs the place gutted,’ he had muttered without interest. ‘It’s not our business to question why.’

She had used the bell but nobody had answered and she had let herself in with her pass key, moving quietly round the silent apartment before knocking on the bedroom door.

‘Where’s the nurse?’ she had asked straight away.

Even more badly in need of a shave and still flat on the pillows, Gio had given her a wry look. ‘She tried to get into bed with me... I told her to leave.’

Thoroughly disconcerted by that bald admission, Billie had surveyed him wide-eyed, recognising the level of his primal male attraction even in sickness. He was gorgeous. Just looking at him had made butterflies take flight in her tummy.