The Mistress Contract

‘They only got married four weeks ago, for crying out loud; they’re still in the first flush of married bliss,’ he said with a cynical, mocking smile. ‘And Brian’s rich enough to satisfy her.’

‘She still wants you,’ she repeated flatly.

The sapphire eyes narrowed and hardened, and then he shrugged off-handedly, his face taking on the sardonic, derisive expression Sephy hated. ‘So?’

‘Don’t you care?’ she asked painfully. This woman and Conrad had shared total intimacy, explored each other’s bodies, probably d

one all sorts of things that she only dared to think about in the quiet darkness of her bed at night, and he could be so stone-cold about her. She didn’t understand him; she really didn’t.

‘I told you, it was over a long time ago.’ It was dismissive and curt and told her the conversation was over, but she couldn’t leave it alone. She knew she ought to, and that the only person she was going to hurt was herself, but nevertheless she had to ask—even if she didn’t really want to hear the answers.

‘And you finished it, right?’ She stared at him bravely.

The downward quirk to his bottom lip told her she was venturing on to thin ice but she found she didn’t care. ‘Didn’t you?’ she pressed tightly. ‘You finished with her?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And you finish all your affairs.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘The second anyone might get close or try to break out of the mould you deem acceptable, you terminate the liaison.’

He shrugged again. ‘Don’t waste any time feeling sorry for Katie, if that’s how it is,’ he said scornfully. ‘The main thing she wanted in life was a generous meal ticket and that’s what she’s got. She was determined to live well, whatever it took.’

Sephy stared at him, her mind whirling with a hundred things she wanted to say but which suddenly seemed pointless in the face of his cold indifference.

The taxi ride home had been difficult and the conversation stilted—on her part at least—and she had barely slept all night. Her head was thumping now, and she felt weary and drained, but for the first time for months she was listening to what her subconscious had been trying to tell her all along.

There had been a part of her, a tiny core in her innermost being, that had hoped… Hoped he would mellow, that he would start to open up a little, that he would fall in love with her despite the bad odds. Fool! She slumped back in the chair, her eyes staring blankly straight ahead without seeing anything. She had been lying to herself all through this fiasco. Conrad wouldn’t just give up and get tired of the chase; he wasn’t like that. He was a hunter; she’d seen him in operation in the cut-throat world of business too often not to know that. And he always had to win.

The only way he would finish their liaison would be after she had become his and the chase was over, and if that happened she would never recover from the pain of it. If she gave herself to him it would be completely and for ever; he would drain her of everything she needed for the future, everything she had to give, and leave her empty and crushed and useless. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t, let that happen. This was self-preservation in its rawest terms.

At first she was too lost in her misery for the sound of the buzzer to register, and then, as it penetrated the blackness of her thoughts, she dragged herself up from the chair and walked into the hall. Conrad often sent her flowers at the weekend; no doubt it was a delivery.

‘Yes?’ Her voice was flat as she spoke into the intercom.

Then, as a deep, husky voice said, ‘Sephy?’, her heart started pounding before she warned herself to take control.

‘Conrad? What are you doing here?’ He was due to pick her up later that afternoon for an evening barbecue with some friends of his who lived in Windsor, and she had been meaning to use the day to pretty herself up. Her hair needed washing, the flat was a mess—why was he here now? And then, as the panic subsided, she thought numbly perhaps this was for the best, after what the night before had shown her. Maybe it was better like this.

She could let this farce limp on for another few days or weeks or she could finish it now, and suddenly the second option was the only bearable one. He was never going to change; life with Conrad would be a savage cycle of highs and lows until the final low. And one day, when it was long over, he might catch a glimpse of her somewhere or other and his beautiful blue eyes would be as empty and cold as they’d been when he’d looked at Katie last night.

The last months had been nothing but moves on a chess-board to him, a means to an end, and it hadn’t even seemed as though he had had much of a struggle to keep his hands off her.

She heard him say, a touch of amusement in his voice, ‘I’m here to see you, of course,’ and then she pressed the buzzer, indicating for him to come up, but she just couldn’t speak.

‘What’s the matter?’ The second he walked into the flat, his arms full of flowers, his eyes focused on her ashen face. ‘Are you unwell?’ he asked quietly, his voice concerned.

She was dying. It was melodramatic, but exactly how she felt, and she wondered what his reaction would be if she said it out loud. As it happened she was beginning to feel a bit dizzy, and odder by the minute, but she merely said, ‘I have to talk to you.’

His eyebrows rose enquiringly even as the blue gaze wandered down the length of her. She had the flimsiest of summer nighties on under her robe, but she blessed the fact the robe was thick towelling and covered her down to her knees as she pulled the belt tighter. Nevertheless her cheeks were burning.

‘Tousled and barefoot. It suits you,’ he said huskily as he dropped the flowers on to an occasional table and came towards her. ‘You’d be nice to wake up next to in the morning, Sephy Vincent.’

If she was stupid, really stupid, she could believe that look in his eyes meant something, she told herself bleakly. But last night had solidified all her buried doubts and fears and this was truth time. ‘For how long, Conrad?’ she asked quietly.

‘What?’ She had caught him off guard and he stopped just in front of her, his arms freezing for a second as they reached for her waist and then continuing until he was holding her just a few inches from his hard chest. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I said for how long?’ she repeated with a calm born of the numbness that had taken her over. ‘How long would I be around?’

He was dressed in a suit and tie rather than casual clothes, which meant he was probably going into work for a few hours, and he confirmed this in the next moment when he said, his eyes slightly puzzled as they stared into hers, ‘Look, I can’t really stop now, there’s some sort of crisis I need to sort out in the office for an hour or two, but I just wanted to give you the flowers and say I’ll pick you up at three this afternoon, okay?’