Kate Proctor - No Mistress But Love

It was when two of the waiters arrived to clear things away and place a tray of coffee inside for them that Lindy began to see things with a troubling clarity. She began wondering what the waiters were making of all this—the manager nowhere to be seen, and his wife now ensconced in the private suite of a member of the Leandros family. The only shred of consolation she managed to derive from her tortured thoughts was that true friendship with any other member of staff had been denied her…and that was hardly any consolation at all, because all she wanted to do was curl up and die from the humiliation of it all.

‘Are you familiar with Greek coffee?’ he asked, having escorted her inside as the waiters had bustled out and now reaching over to pour the coffee.

Lindy nodded. ‘Though I’m afraid I learned the hard way,’ she admitted, remembering the mouthful of coffee grounds she had almost swallowed as she had attempted to drain that first cup she had sampled—needless to say, Tim hadn’t warned her and had been waiting for her to do just that.

He smiled as he handed her a cup, a smile that turned her heart over violently, then filled it with an aching sadness as it suddenly recognised this man’s total unattainability.

‘Mr Leandros——’ she broke off as he pulled a comically protesting face and felt the sadness embed itself deeper into her heart ‘—Niko,’ she conceded with the ghost of a smile, ‘if…if you’re right and Tim doesn’t show up——’

‘I’d say the likelihood of his showing up is extremely remote now—wouldn’t you?’ he enquired, his eyes, usually so alert and watchful, trained on the coffee-cup in his hand.

‘Yes…well, what I was going to say was that…well, naturally I’d work whatever notice is required of me…and then I’d like to go home.’

‘I have no idea what is required of you contractually; I’d guess the contact was solely with your husband and you were no more than an appendage—my late uncle tended to have a pretty chauvinistic attitude to women.’

‘Your late uncle?’ queried Lindy, having difficulty remaining civil; the very idea of any woman, let alone herself, being regarded as an inconsequential appendage to a man made her see red.

‘Yes—late,’ he snapped. ‘He was the member of the family—a great-uncle, to be precise—who owned this island and, thereby, the hotel.’

‘And he must have died recently…I’m sorry to hear that,’ muttered Lindy, offering her condolences more out of politeness than any feeling they would be appreciated.

‘You knew him?’ he drawled.

‘You know I didn’t,’ she replied, her hands clenching in fury in her lap.

‘I can’t say I did either,’ he startled her by admitting. ‘One of his eccentricities—of which he had many—was to have as little to do with his relatives as possible. He used to take off whenever any member of the family showed up here.’

Lindy made no reply, though it did occur to her that regarding it as perfectly normal to win a woman in a game of poker would probably be described by most as an example of outright eccentricity.

‘Unfortunately I was incapacitated shortly after his death, and the family’s financial advisers decided to go ahead and find a replacement for the management team already here but due to leave in August. Personally I’d simply have wound down the entire operation then and there—a hotel geared solely to being a holiday haven throughout the year to a couple of dozen exceptionally wealthy clients is an anachronism in this day and age.’

‘Perhaps it’s just as well for the staff that you didn’t have a say in the matter,’ retorted Lindy. ‘Because they’d all be out of jobs.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he murmured sarcastically, ‘that abundant compassion of yours leaps once more to the fore. The fact is that I have rather a large say in all matters—since I’m the one the old boy left all this to.’

Mentally kicking herself for having walked straight into such a put-down, Lindy picked up her cup and took a mouthful from it—a mouthful, as it turned out, mainly of coffee grounds. Praying the floor would open up and swallow her, she was reduced to spitting what she could back into her cup and hating her companion, who simply stared at her in disdainful silence for several seconds, before leaping to his feet and leaving the room.

It served him right for mixing with someone he found so painfully his inferior, she thought angrily, running her tongue over her clogged teeth and feeling slightly nauseous as she succeeded only in spreading the grounds more evenly.

‘Here, rinse out your mouth with this,’ ordered Niko, returning to shove a glass of water under her nose.

Lindy took a mouthful and washed it around.

‘Now—spit it into this,’ he instructed with barely concealed impatience, handing her the coffee-cup into which she had already spat once.

‘I’m perfectly capable of rinsing out my mouth without you standing over me and giving me blow-by-blow instructions!’ she exclaimed irritably once she had obeyed, deciding to put up with the residual grounds in her mouth rather than go through that humiliating performance again. ‘To get back to what we were discussing,’ she continued as he returned to his seat and resumed drinking his own coffee, ‘if you own this damned——’

‘Spare me the adjectives,’ he drawled languidly.

Resisting an almost overwhelming urge to pick up the coffee-pot and brain him with it, Lindy took a deep breath and started again.

‘If you own this hotel, surely whatever you say goes?’

‘Yes.’

‘So—whether or not I work notice before leaving is entirely up to you.’

‘Yes.’

Lindy waited, confidently expecting him to say more. Gradually it dawned on her that she was in for an exceptionally long wait.

‘So?’ she prompted with reckless aggression. This time her vain wait lasted mere seconds before she made another try. ‘So when may I leave?’

‘You may not leave,’ he replied. ‘I won you and you’re now mine—remember?’

‘ Nobody owns me!’ shrieked Lindy, her control snapping as she leapt to her feet. ‘And nobody ever will! I realise that gambling debts are regarded as sacrosanct among hardened gamblers such as you—so, if you would be good enough to let me know how much it is that Tim Russell owes you, I’ll see about getting it repaid.’

‘Tim Russell?’ he queried, batting his eyelids with their profusion of outrageously long lashes at her in a parody of surprise. ‘What an extremely odd way for a bride to refer to her husband—even one married on the rebound.’

‘How much does he owe you?’ Lindy almost screamed at him.

‘He owes me nothing,’ he replied, smiling as he tilted his head to look up at her, arrogant self-assurance oozing from his every pore. ‘He had something I wanted…and now it’s mine.’

Knowing she would end up gibbering if she didn’t get a grip on herself, Lindy took a ragged breath before speaking.

‘Mr Leandros—though I know none of the details, I do know that you were involved in a very serious accident.’

‘Which ruined my once legendary looks,’ he sighed theatrically, the mocking look accompanying his words bringing her blood instantly back to the boiling-point.

‘And I realise how difficult convalescence must be for someone as used to the jet-setting social scene as you so obviously are,’ she continued through noticeably clenched teeth. ‘I realise too——’

‘Being a woman of such compassion,’ he slipped in mockingly.

‘—that you’re the type who finds it next to impossible to exist without his playthings,’ Lindy ploughed on determinedly. ‘So I suggest that you have a selection of them sent here—instead of trying to rope me in as a substitute. Because, as you’ve already witnessed for yourself tonight, I’d make an absolutely abysmal substitute for the type of women you’re used to.’

BY THE time her eyes had finally begun drooping with the sleep that had so long eluded her, Lindy was already frustratedly aware that her normal waking time was little over an hour away.

She awoke at twenty minutes past eleven and spent several minutes gazing in groggy disbelief at her watch, convinced that there was something wrong with it.

She was showered and dressed within fifteen minutes of waking, her bemused mind still fretting over the lateness of the hour instead of accepting how painfully little sleep she had had during the past two nights.

Two uniformed security guards barred her entrance to the office as she arrived there, her limbs leaden and her temples throbbing with a vicious headache, shaking their heads implacably as she tried to pass them.

Eventually one of the guards opened the door and called to whoever was inside. A few seconds later Niko appeared at the door, his expression grim.

‘Yes?’ he barked, his eyes contemptuously dismissive as they took in her slightly dishevelled appearance.

‘These men seem unwilling to let me into the office,’ she explained, annoyed to feel the colour rising hotly in her cheeks.

‘They’re following my instructions,’ he informed her brusquely. ‘You no longer work here.’ As he uttered those last words he turned back into the room.

‘Does that mean I can leave?’ she called after him defiantly.

‘Whether or not you’ll be leaving remains to be seen,’ he replied without turning to face her. ‘But, if you do, it certainly won’t be for England.’

He hadn’t even had to raise his voice for the threat in his words to reach her and make her blood run suddenly cold, and it was with an almost sickening feeling of apprehension that she returned down the corridor and out into the sunlit spaciousness of the foyer, the fear within her shadowy and undefined.

‘These men are asking to speak to Mr Russell,’ Maria, one of the receptionists, called over to her as she arrived.

Lindy walked towards the two men standing at the reception desk.

‘I’m afraid Tim—Mr Russell—isn’t here,’ she apologised.

One of the men immediately began addressing her in rapid Greek.

‘I’m very sorry, but I don’t speak Greek,’ she said, while the second of the men rounded on the Greek girl.

Though she couldn’t understand a single word of what was being said, she could tell by their tone and demeanour that neither man was in the least happy, something they were conveying to the startled receptionist in no uncertain terms.

‘Maria, what on earth was all that about?’ she asked, her heart thudding with alarm as one of the two men now walking towards the door gave her a grim-faced backward glance.

The dark-haired girl glanced quickly around her before leaning discreetly towards Lindy, her eyes eloquent with shocked sympathy.

‘Mr Russell owes them money,’ she whispered. ‘And also to a friend of theirs.’

Lindy leaned weakly against the marbled desk, the thought scurrying through her mind that she couldn’t take much more of this.

‘Gambling?’ she asked in a tight, strained voice.

Maria nodded. ‘Those men are from the mainland—and they’re the sort who will keep coming back until they’ve been paid.’ Again she glanced around her before leaning even closer towards Lindy. ‘This morning the security men came from the bank to collect the receipts.’

‘Oh, heck!’ groaned Lindy. With Tim away yesterday, none of the necessary cashing up would have been done! ‘I’d better go and see to it.’

The Greek girl placed a gently restraining hand on Lindy’s arm, shaking her head vigorously as she did so.