The Mistress's Secret

And she went. Just like that. Without thought, without question. Closing up the shop and following him out into the hotel lobby as meekly as a lamb. The only thing she managed to say, half terrified that it would make him change his mind, was, "I'm not properly dressed!"

He paused and glanced at her neat gray pencil skirt, her crisp white high-necked blouse.

His eyes washed over her, draining even more breath from her.

"You look very…demure." The expression in his eyes changed minutely, and she felt heat flushing through her. "It has its own allure." He nodded imperiously. "Come."

And so it had begun. He had seduced her that very night, wining and dining her in the finest restaurant, where every bite had tasted like ambrosia, then taking her back to the hotel, back up to his suite, removing her crisp white blouse, button by button, slipping her narrow skirt down over her slim hips and slender thighs. And when she had been naked, completely naked, he had taken her to bed — and paradise. A paradise that had lasted for six exquisite months before the bitter, bitter end had come.

And now, nearly five long years later, a single glance from Leon Andreakos's night-dark eyes could relight the ashes of passion she had thought quenched forever.

Then the flash of fire was gone, and he thrust her from him.

On legs like jelly Alanna stumbled away from him, desperate to escape. Shock was shooting through her, making her heart seize up, her every movement jerky and uncontrolled. How she got out of there she didn't know, but as she gained the escalator lobby, felt the soft carpet give way to the clack of stone beneath her winter boots, she felt as if a tank had just rolled over her. Crushing the life from her.

As she stepped onto the up escalator, clutching the hand rail for support, her whole body still trembling, heart racing, chest heaving, she quite failed to notice a suited, inconspicuous figure following her out of the dress department.

Under clear orders from Leon Andreakos.

Chapter Four

Leon Andreakos glanced at the out-of-town address printed on the memo his security agency had forwarded to him, then let the paper drop again.

No, he would not follow it up. Would never again have anything to do with the woman who had destroyed his brother Nikos.

Just Nikos?

The question mocked at him, and he crushed it aside. No, he had not let Alanna Richards destroy him! He had felt nothing for her but desire — that was all.

She had been his mistress — that was all.

True, she had been different — engagingly different — from his usual female fare. It wasn't just that her natural, unforced beauty had caught his connoisseur's eye the first time he had seen her in that hotel gift shop, or that her wide-eyed gaze had reflected her immediate response to him. It was that usually his mistresses were seductive, sophisticated and very sexually experienced. Alanna had been none of these things.

Oh, there had been some fumbling boy, so he had learned from her faltering lips, who had taken her virginity in a tipsy teenage congress, but all she had learned from the experience was how not to have sex. At his skilled hands she had learned the art of pleasure from a master — and had proved an apt and ardent pupil. He had enjoyed teaching her — had enjoyed taking her on that journey to the paradise of the senses, had found, indeed, that she had extended that paradise for him in ways he had never previously experienced.

He had not expected that. He had seduced her simply because her predecessor had foolishly chosen to try to manipulate him, something he never tolerated in a woman, and because Alanna had been such a refreshing contrast.

Memory flickered at him — how she had gazed in wonder at him, her dark hair a cloud around her lovely face, blue eyes huge, pupils dilated, body trembling whenever he touched her….

Roughly he pushed the memo away from him, and stood up. It hadn't just been him she'd gazed in wonder at, but at the things he'd bought her, too! His mouth tightened. He'd been amused at first — amused by her stunned reaction to his showering down his wealth on her. Buying her beautiful clothes, taking her to beautiful places, bestowing a luxury lifestyle on her. She had reveled in it, adored it!

A hard light glinted in his dark eyes.

She had become greedy. Wanted more. And hadn't been fussy how she'd got it. First she'd tried to trap him, and then, when he'd made it clear he wasn't about to hand her a lifetime's golden meal ticket, she'd made Nikos her target.

Screwed up, malleable, vulnerable Nikos — and she'd got her greedy little claws into him and hadn’t let go. Not until he had married her. And then she had destroyed him.

Betrayed him within weeks of their wedding — and it had killed Nikos. Killed his brother…

He thrust the memo unread into his desk drawer and strode out of his office. Seeing Alanna again had been nothing more than chance — ill chance.

So what if he'd felt, like the blade of a knife, desire stab through him at the sight of her, standing there, as lovely as she ever had been, her hair a cloud around her face, her eyes as wide and as brilliant for him as they had ever been? Making every other woman he'd been with since seem cloying, boring — pointless.

He would not remember it. Would not remember her. He'd worked her out of his system, and she was gone now. History. She'd taken Nikos's money and had cleared out nearly five long years ago — and good riddance to her! He would never think about her again.

* * *

Alanna emptied out the washing-up bowl and rinsed round the sink. Then she turned her attention to drying the dishes. Nicky was asleep in bed, tired out from an afternoon spent with his pal Ben at the municipal swimming pool. She gave a fond smile. Money might be punishingly tight, but her son was having a good childhood, for all that. She was making sure of it.