R
OCK
bottom.
Cleo Taylor was so there.
Her head ached, her bruised shin stung where the vacuum cleaner had banged into it, and three weeks into this job she was exhausted, both mentally and physically. And at barely five o’clock in the afternoon, all she wanted to do was sleep.
She dropped the machine at the foot of her bed and sank down onto the narrow stretcher, the springs that woke her every time she rolled over at night noisily protesting her presence.
Karma.
It had to be karma.
How many people had tried to warn her? How many had urged her to be careful and not to rush in? And how many of those people had she suspected of being jealous of her because she’d found love in the unlikeliest of places, in an Internet chat room with a man halfway around the world?
Too many.
Oh, yes, if there was a price to pay for naivety, for blindly charging headlong for a fall, she was well and truly paying it.
And no one would say she didn’t deserve everything that was happening to her. She’d been so stupid believing Kurt, stupid to believe the stories he’d spun, stupid to believe that he loved her.
So pathetically naïve to trust him with both her heart and with her nanna’s money.
And all she’d achieved was to spectacularly prove the award she’d been given in high school from the girls whose company she’d craved, but who never were and who would never be her friends.
Cleo Taylor, girl most likely to fail.
Wouldn’t they just love to see her now?
A barrage of sleet splattered against the tiny louvred window high above the bed and she shivered. So much for spring.
Reluctantly she thought about dragging herself from the rudimentary bed but there was no way she wanted to meet that man in the hallway again. She shuddered, remembering the ice-cold way his eyes—dark pits of eyes set in a slate-hard face—had raked over her and then disregarded her in the same instant without even an acknowledgment, as if she was some kind of low-life, before imperiously passing by. She’d shrunk back in-stinctively, her own greeting dying on her lips.
It wasn’t just that he looked so out of place, so wrong for the surroundings, but the look of such a tall, powerful man sweeping through the low-ceilinged space seemed wrong, as if there wasn’t enough space and he needed more. He hadn’t just occupied the space, he’d consumed it.
And then he’d swept past, all cashmere coat, the smell of rain and the hint of cologne the likes of which she’d never smelt in this place, and she’d never felt more like the low-life he’d taken her to be.
But she had to get up. She couldn’t afford to fall asleep yet, even though she’d been up since five to do the breakfasts and it had taken until four to clean the last room. She reeked of stale beer and her uniform was filthy, courtesy of the group of partying students who’d been in residence in the room next door for the last three nights.
She hated cleaning that room! It was damp and dark, the tiny en suite prone to mould and the drains smelling like a swamp, and if she hadn’t already known how low she’d sunk that room announced it in spades. The students had left it filthy, with beds looking as if they’d been torn apart, rubbish spilling from bins over the floor, and an entire stack of empty takeaway boxes and beer bottles artfully arranged in one corner all the way from the floor to the low ceiling. ‘Leaning Tower of Pizza,’ someone had scrawled on the side of one the boxes, and it had leant, so much so that it was a wonder it hadn’t already collapsed with the vibrations from the nearby tube.
It had been waiting for her to do that. Bottles and pizza boxes raining down on her, showering her with their dregs.
No wonder he’d looked at her as if she were some kind of scum
. After the day she’d had, she felt like it.
She dragged herself from the bed and plucked her towel off a hook and her bag of toiletries, ready to head to the first-floor bathroom. What did she care what some stranger she’d never see again thought? In ten minutes she’d be showered, tucked up in bed and fast asleep. That was all she cared about at the moment.
The bright side, she told herself, giving thanks to her nanna as she ascended the stairs and saw rain lashing against the glazing of the ground-floor door, was that she had a roof over her head and she didn’t have to go out in today’s weather.
“There’s always a silver lining”, her nanna used to tell her, rocking her on her lap when she was just a tiny child and had skinned her knees, or when she’d started school and the other girls had picked on her because her mother had made her school uniform by hand and it had shown. Even though her family was dirt poor and sometimes it had been hard to find, there’d always been something she’d been able to cling to, a bright side somewhere, something she’d been able to give thanks for.
Almost always.
She sighed as the hot water in the shower finally kicked in and warmed her weary bones. A warm shower, a roof over her head and a bed with her name written on it. Things could always be worse.
And come summer and the longer days, she’d have time to see something of the sights of London she’d promised herself before she went home. Not that there was any hurry. At the rate she was paid, after her board was deducted, it would be ages before she could even think about booking a return airfare to Australia. God, she’d been so stupid to trust Kurt with her money!
A sudden pang of homesickness hit her halfway back down the stairs. Barely six weeks ago she’d left the tiny outback town of Kangaroo Crossing with such confidence, and now look at her. If only she could go home. If only she’d never left! She’d give anything to hug her mum and half-brothers again. She’d even find a smile for her stepfather if it came down to it. But when would that be? And how would she be able to face everyone when she did?
She would be going home humiliated. A failure.
The bright side
, she urged herself,
look at the bright side
, as she pulled her eye mask down and snuggled under the covers, the cold rain lashing at her tiny window. She was warm and dry and she had at least ten hours’ sleep before she had to get up and do it all over again.
‘But you can’t close the hotel,’ Darius protested. ‘There are bookings. Guests!’
‘Who will be catered for, as will the staff we have on file from your finance application.’ Andreas snapped open his phone, made a quick call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. ‘I’m sure the guests won’t mind being transferred to
the four-star hotel we’ve chosen to accommodate them in and you can be assured the employees will be paid a generous redundancy.’
He cast a disdainful eye around the room. ‘I don’t foresee any complaints. And now I want you off the premises. I have staff coming in to take over and ensure the changeover is smooth. The hotel will be empty in two hours.’
‘And what about me?’ Darius demanded. ‘What am I supposed to do? You’re leaving me with nothing. Nothing!’
Andreas slowly turned back, unable to stop his lips from forming into a sneer. ‘What about you? How many millions did you steal from my father? You happily walked away and left my family with nothing. What did you care about anyone else then? So why should I care about what happens to you? Just be grateful you’re able to walk out of here with your limbs intact after the way you betrayed my father.’
A buzzer sounded, the security monitor showing a team of people waiting on the front step. ‘Let them in, Darius.’ The older man’s hand hovered over the door-release button.
‘I can help you!’ he suddenly said instead, pulling his hand away to join the other in supplication. ‘You don’t need all these people. I know this hotel and I…I’m sorry for what happened all those years ago. It was a mistake…A misunderstanding. Your father and I were once good friends. Partners even. Isn’t there any way you might honour that?’
Andreas dragged much-needed air into his lungs. ‘I’ll honour it in the same way you honoured my father. Get out. You’ve got ten minutes. And then I never want to see you again.’
Darius knew when he was beaten. Sullenly he gathered his personal possessions, the form guide included, in a cardboard box and slunk away even as the team filed into the office. Andreas took two minutes to go over the arrangements. Someone
would email all forward bookings and advise of the change of hotels while the rest of the team would meet guests as they returned to expedite their packing and transfer to the new hotel. New guests would simply be ferried to the alternative premises nearby. There was no reason for the operation not to go like clockwork.
His cell phone beeped again as he dismissed the team to their duties and he reached for it absently, taking just a second to savour what he’d achieved. The look on Darius’ face when he’d realised the truth, that he had lost everything and to the son of the man he’d cheated of millions so many years ago, was something he would cherish for ever. Doubly so because his father never could.
He frowned when he looked at the phone. Petra calling again?
Kolisi
, maybe there really was an emergency.
‘Ne?’
Half a continent away, Petra’s voice lit up. ‘Andreas!’ She sounded so bright he could almost hear the flashbulb.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Oh, I’ve been so worried about you. How is it in London? It is all going to plan?’
Andreas felt a stab of irritation. No emergency, then. Merely Petra thinking she had some stake in what was happening here. She was wrong. ‘Why are you calling, Petra?’
There was a pause. Then, ‘The Bonacelli deal! The papers are here ready to be signed.’
‘I expected that. I told you I’ll sign them when I get back.’
‘And Stavros Markos called,’ she continued at rapid pace, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘He wants to know if they can book out the entire Caldera Palazzo for their daughter’s wedding next June. It’s going to be huge. They only want the best and I told them it should be fine, though I have to put off another couple of enquiries—’
‘Petra,’ he cut in, ‘you know they can. You don’t have to ring me to confirm. What’s bothering you? Is there something else?’
There was silence at the end of the line, and then she laughed, an uncomfortable tinkle. Or at least, it made him feel uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, Andreas,’ she continued. ‘It probably sounds silly, but I miss you. When do you think you’ll be back?’
Something clenched in his gut, the pattern of her constant phone calls making the kind of sense he didn’t want them to make. But there was no other option. She’d been checking up on him, making sure nobody else was occupying his bed or his attentions while he was in London and she was holding the fort back on Santorini.
He murmured something noncommittal before sliding his phone shut. What was wrong with her? He didn’t do relationships. Petra, more than anyone, should have understood that. She’d witnessed the parade of women through his life. Hell, she’d been the one to organise the flowers for them when they were on the inner, the trinkets for them when they were on the outer. But he’d made one fatal mistake, broken his own rule never to get involved with the staff.
Drunk on success and the culmination of years of planning, he’d let his guard down when he’d heard the news that Darius had been found and the trap set. He’d been the one to insist Petra go out to dinner with him to celebrate. He’d been the one to order the champagne and he’d been the one to respond when she leaned too close, all but spilling her breasts into his hands. He’d wanted the release and she’d been there.
What a fool! He’d always assumed she was as machine-like and driven as he was. He’d always thought that she’d understood it was always just sex to him. And yet every time Petra called him now, he could almost feel her razor-sharp nails piercing his skin all over again. But why she’d want to be his mistress when she knew which way they invariably went…
Cold fingers crawled down his spine.
Or did she have something else in mind? Something more permanent she thought she was due after working alongside him for so many years?
Sto thiavolo!
What had his mother been telling him in her recent phone calls? That maybe it was time for him to settle down and find a wife?
And who did his mother like to talk to first, calling the office line instead of his cell phone, because ‘her own son never bothered to tell her anything’?
Petra.
Had his mother also confided the news with her good friend’s daughter that it was time for her only child to settle down? He’d just bet she had.
Damn. He didn’t want to have to find a new marketing director. Petra was a good operator. The best at marketing the package of luxurious properties that Xenides Exclusive Property let to the well-heeled looking for a five-star experience in some of the most beautiful places in the world. She’d single-handedly designed the website that made his unique brand of five-star luxury accommodation accessible to every computer on the planet and made it so tempting that just as many booked through the website alone as booked by personal referral.
He didn’t want to lose her; together they made a good team. But neither did he want her thinking she was destined to be anything more to him than a valued employee.
He sighed. What would she do when he found someone else, as he inevitably would? Would she leave of her own accord?
Andreas made up his mind on a sigh. It was a risk he would just have to take. Petra’s departure from the business, while inconvenient, was preferable to her making wedding plans. All of which meant one thing.
He wouldn’t be returning to Santorini without a woman on his arm and in his bed.
She would have to be somebody new, somebody different, someone who could step into the role of his mistress and then step out when he no longer needed her. No strings. No ties.
A contract position. A month should be more than enough.
Now he just had to find her before his flight back to Greece tomorrow.
He looked around the dingy room and sighed, the weight of years of the need for vengeance sloughing from his shoulders. His work here was done, an old score settled and Darius vanquished. There was no need for him to linger; his team knew what to do. He could hear them now knocking on doors and explaining the move, smoothing any objections with the promise of four-star luxury and their bill waived for the inconvenience. They would make the necessary transfers and see to the stripping bare of the furnishings in preparation for the builders and decorators that would turn this place into something worthy of being included in the Xenides luxury hotel portfolio.