Memoirs of a Millionaire's Mistress

‘I want to see if you’re as beautiful as I remember,’ he muttered, and tugged her T-shirt over her head. Tossed it over his shoulder. Dragged the bra cups down and filled his palms with warm female flesh.

Her skin was rich cream against his darker hands, delicate and fragrant, her nipples pale and tight. Impossible not to taste. He captured one, scraped over it with teeth and tongue. She hauled in a whimpered breath, tracked fingernails through his scalp. Urgency pinched at his flesh. He wanted those fingers on other, more needy parts.

‘And…?’

She tugged his head away from her breast with the palms of her hands and he fell into her eyes. ‘You’re…’ not what I expected ‘…enchanting.’

What was happening here? Was this more than sex?

He thrust the questions from his mind. It would not be more. Peeling them both away from the door, he lifted her off her feet and quickstepped them to the foot of the bed.

He grabbed his wallet from his jeans as he toppled her onto the mattress and followed her down, hot, impatient, wild for her. His fingers fumbled with the leather a moment, then closed over the foil package. He held it up in front of her face. ‘The only condom I have with me.’

Her hand snapped up to cover his, eyes dark with a wicked promise of approaching turbulence. ‘Better make the most of it, then.’

Cameron caught her hand before it slid off his sweat-slick belly. He didn’t want to move yet; he was enjoying the feel of her body tucked against his. ‘So…you said you’ve seen it all before.’

‘I’ve always felt an obligation to try and help out where I can. There was a halfway house for those undergoing drug rehab…’ She moved her head side to side against his shoulder, her fragrant hair tickling his chin. ‘Well, you know how it is.’

He did. And the fact that she did too was a connection he hadn’t anticipated. He was still mulling that over when she rolled onto her stomach, tugging the sheet with her, and traced a finger down the centre of his chest.

‘But you…You let me believe all you were interested in was money.’

He hesitated. ‘For a long time it was. Because growing up I didn’t have it.’ He should have moved. He should have known she’d ask questions. And he should have thought before he answered. Even in the semi-darkness he felt the incredulity in her eyes.

‘What? Money?’

‘Surprised, Didi?’ His private smile was humourless. ‘Seems we’ve traded places.’

She was silent a moment. ‘You know about my family, tell me about yours.’

His lips turned numb, the black hole that had been his life yawned before him. A life that distanced him for ever from Didi’s world. He pushed her hand away. ‘You don’t want to hear about my family.’

‘I want to know what motivates a man to build a centre for runaways,’ she said quietly. ‘To invest not only money but time and interest. I saw how you were with those kids. Why?’

He shrugged, turned away from those perceptive eyes. But Lizzie’s collapse tonight had wrung his emotions dry. He expelled a long sigh. ‘Because I keep hoping that one day my sister will walk through those doors.’

‘You have a sister?’

His body tensed as the old pain around his heart clenched its fist. ‘Listen, can we just drop this?’

‘No. Tell me about her.’

He’d already discovered Didi’s tenacity and since he’d already opened his mouth…‘Amy. I don’t know where she is, or even if she’s still alive. The last time I saw her I was eighteen and doing what I could to keep us together, she was seventeen and on drugs.’

‘Where were your parents?’

‘Dead.’ His voice sounded flat and devoid of emotion. Experience had taught him emotion made one vulnerable. He didn’t intend to be vulnerable, to anything, or anyone ever again.

‘Oh, Cameron. I’m sorry.’

That old cliché. ‘Don’t be.’ He clenched his jaw against a rising anger that had nothing—and everything—to do with Didi. What the hell would she know with her childhood of opportunities? ‘It’s the familiar story of drugs and domestic violence.’

‘It might help if you t—’

‘Leave it alone, Didi. It’s ancient history and nothing to do with you.’

Wanting distance, he rolled out of bed and crossed to the window. He didn’t need the woman with her sympathy and sad eyes. Instead he watched the reflections in the river, a late train snaking into Flinders Street Station. For the first time in years he desperately craved a cigarette.

But memories of a childhood he kept ruthlessly buried flashed before him. Wanted fugitive, Bernie Boyd had died during a police chase, Cam’s mother of a prescription drug overdose a few months later.