Constantinou's Mistress by Cathy Williams

bristle for a few seconds, leaning against the pillar with his suit carrier propped up next to him.
    Even dressed down as he was, in khaki-coloured trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, he still exuded a frightening aura of powerful, expensive sexuality.
    Alongside him, Lucy felt ill-dressed and naïvely unsophisticated in her simple, straight, light grey skirt and pale blue cotton top. Any one of his admiring females would have dressed for the part and would have been looking as ultra-casually elegant as he was.
    He was still smiling indulgently at her as he led her to the first class check-in desk, where there was no queue and where they were treated with a subservience that bordered on fawning.
    Then on to a special lounge, where Nick was impressively at ease while she tried hard not to appear too wide-eyed and gawking.
    â€˜Are we allowed to talk in here?’ she half joked in a subdued voice. ‘It’s more deathly quiet than our local library.’
    â€˜Oh, we can talk,’ Nick replied gravely, ‘just so long as we keep it down. We wouldn’t want to raise the dead, would we?’ He looked over to where two middle-aged businessmen were happily sleeping, and Lucy, following his eyes, shared his joke and grinned.
    Nick felt as if he was seeing a thousand intriguing facets of her for the very first time. The way she tilted her chin up in a manner that tried and failed to appear haughty, the way her mouth had a habit of parting to reveal a glimpse of her pearly front teeth, the way the little sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose seemed to darken when she blushed.
    â€˜So was Robert all right with your leaving him behind at such short notice?’ he asked the minute they were sitting on the plush, huge chairs.
    â€˜Why shouldn’t he be?’ Lucy asked a little testily. Did he think that she was one of those women who prepared a week’s supply of food for their boyfriends and invited them to bring their ironing and dirty washing round whenever they wanted?
    â€˜No reason.’ Nick left enough of a silence to hang between them to be ensured of her attentiveness when he next spoke. ‘It’s just that some men think that an engagement ring allows them to start calling the shots.’ He made a show of glancing at her finger. ‘Oh, you’re not wearing an engagement ring!’
    â€˜No, I’m not.’
    â€˜Have you not bought it as yet?’
    â€˜No. I…’
    Nick inclined his head to one side with a show of lively interest.
    â€˜I’m still thinking about it,’ Lucy eventually admitted.
    â€˜Very wise,’ Nick said solemnly, ‘very sensible.’ Then he laughed. ‘I would not like to see my eminently efficient secretary quit so that she can retire from life and start having babies…’
    â€˜Oh, no. Robert…’ Lucy paused, finding herself in a trap. Quitting work to start a family was precisely what Robert had in mind for her. ‘We haven’t discussed any of that as yet. Like I said, nothing has been finalised.’
    â€˜And have you told him about…?’
    â€˜About…?’ Their eyes met and Lucy had a heady sensation of being pulled under by the sheer magnetic force of his dark stare. He raised his eyebrows in apparent surprise that she didn’t seem to know what he was talking about.
    â€˜About us, naturally,’ he inserted silkily.
    â€˜There is no us.’
    â€˜Well, perhaps I phrased it badly. I meant…have you told him that you and I slept together…?’
    â€˜Once!’ A steady pulse seemed to beat inside her head.
    â€˜So…I take it nothing has been said…’
    â€˜There’s no reason to…’
    â€˜Is he the jealous type?’ Nick raised one eyebrow questioningly.
    â€˜No!’
    â€˜No, I suppose not, or else he might have kicked up a bit of a fuss at your spending one week on a tropical island with your