Constantine's Defiant Mistress

‘Wrong? No, nothing’s wrong, darling.’ She smiled brightly, and watched as he ran into the playground, praying that the head teacher’s recent lecture on bullying might have had some effect on the little savages who had picked on him.

She was lost in thought as she walked back to the shop. Hanging up her damp coat in the little cloakroom at the back, she grimaced at the pale face which stared back at her from the tiny mirror hung on the back of the door. Her grey eyes looked troubled, and her baby-fine hair clung to her head like a particularly unattractive-looking skull-cap. Carefully, she brushed it and shook it, then crumpled it into a damp pleat on top of her head.

Pulling on her overall, she was still preoccupied as she walked into the shop, where her sister was just putting on the lights. Five minutes until they opened and the first rush of the day would begin—with villagers keen to buy their freshly baked bread and buns. Laura knew how lucky she was to have the life she had—lucky that her sister loved Alex as much as she did.

The two girls had been orphaned when Sarah was still at school, after their widowed mother had died suddenly and quietly in the middle of the night. A stricken Laura had put her own plans of travelling the world on hold, unsure what path to take to ensure that Sarah could continue with her studies. But fate had stepped in with cruel and ironic timing, because Laura had discovered soon after that she was carrying Alex.

Money had been tight, but they had been left with the scruffy little baker’s shop and the flat upstairs, where they had spent most of their childhood years. They had always helped their mother in the shop, so Laura had suggested modernising it and carrying on with the modest little family business, and Sarah had insisted on studying part-time so that she could help with Alex.

Up until now the scheme had worked perfectly well. And if the shop wasn’t exactly making a huge profit, at least they were keeping their heads above water and enjoying village life.

But recently Sarah had started talking longingly of going to art school in London, and Laura was horribly aware that she was holding her back. She couldn’t keep using her little sister as a part-time child-minder, no matter how much Sarah loved her nephew—she needed to get out there and live her own life. But then how on earth would Laura cope with running a business and being as much of a hands-on mum as she could to Alex? To Alex who was becoming increasingly curious about his background.

Sarah was giving the counter a final wipe, and looked up as Laura walked into the shop. ‘You still look fed up,’ she observed.

Laura stared down at the ragged pile of rock-cakes and boxes of home-made fudge under the glass counter. ‘Not fed up,’ she said slowly. ‘Just realising that I can’t go on hiding my head in the sand any longer.’

Sarah blinked. ‘What are you talking about?’

Laura swallowed. Say it, she thought. Go on—say it. Speak the words out loud—that way it will become real and you’ll have to do it. Stop being fobbed off by the gatekeepers who surround the father of your son. Get out there and fight for Alex. ‘Just that I’ve got to get to Constantine and tell him he has a son.’

Sarah’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why the new fervour, Laura?’ she asked drily. ‘Is it because Constantine is finally settling down? You think that he’s going to take one look at you and decide to dump the Swedish supermodel and run off into the sunset with you?’

Laura flushed, knowing that Sarah spoke with the kind of harsh candour which only a sister could get away with—but her words were true. She had to rid herself of any romantic notions where the Greek billionaire was concerned. As if Constantine would even look at her now! He certainly wouldn’t fancy her any more—for hadn’t hard work and a lack of time to devote to herself meant that her youthful bloom had faded faster than most? At twenty-six she sometimes felt—and looked—a whole decade older than her years. And even if the fire in her heart still burned fiercely for the father of her son she had to douse the flames completely.

‘Of course I don’t,’ she said bitterly. ‘But I owe it to Alex. Constantine has got to know that he has a son.’

‘I agree. But aren’t you forgetting something?’ questioned Sarah patiently. ‘Last time you tried to contact him you got precisely nowhere—so what’s changed now?’

What had changed? Laura walked slowly towards the door of the shop. She wasn’t sure—only that perhaps she’d realised time was running out, that maybe this was her last chance. And that she was no longer prepared to humbly accept being knocked back by the tight circle which surrounded the formidable Greek. She was fired up by something so powerful that it felt as if it had invaded her soul. She was a mother, and she owed it to her son.

‘What’s changed?’ Slowly, Laura repeated Sarah’s words back to her. ‘I guess I have. And this time I’m going to get to him. I’m going to look him in the eye and tell him about his son.’

‘Oh, Laura, exactly the same thing will happen!’ exclaimed Sarah. ‘You’ll be knocked back and won’t get within a mile of him!’

There was a pause. Laura could hear the ticking of her wristwatch echoing the beating of her heart. ‘Only if I go the conventional route,’ she said slowly.

Sarah’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you talking about?’

Laura hadn’t really known herself up until then, but it was one of those defining moments where the answer seemed so blindingly simple that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. Like when she’d decided that they ought to start making their own loaves on the premises rather than having them delivered from the large bakery in the nearby town—thereby enticing their customers in with the delicious smell of baking bread.

‘The radio said he’s giving some big party in London,’ she said, piecing her whirling thoughts into some kind of order. ‘In a hotel.’

‘And?’

Laura swallowed. ‘And what industry has the fastest turn-over of staff in the world? The catering industry! Think about it, Sarah. They’ll…they’ll need loads of extra staff for the night, won’t they? Casual staff.’

‘Just a minute…’ Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘Don’t tell me you’re planning—’

Laura nodded, her heart beating faster now. ‘I’ve done waitressing jobs at the local hotel for years. I can easily get a reference.’

‘Okay, so what if you do manage to get on the payroll?’ Sarah demanded. ‘Then what? You’re going to march over to Constantine in your uniform, in the middle of his fancy party, and announce to him in front of the world, not to mention his soon-to-be wife that he has a seven-year-old son?’

Laura shook her head, trying not to feel daunted by the audacity of her own idea but her fervour refused to be dampened. ‘I’ll try to be a bit more subtle about it than that,’ she said. ‘But I’m not going to leave until he’s in full possession of the facts.’

She reached up and turned over the sign on the shop door from ‘Closed’ to ‘Open’. Already there was a small cluster of shoppers waiting, shaking off the raindrops from their umbrellas as they filed into the shop.

Laura pinned a bright smile to her lips as she stood behind the counter and took her first order, but the irony of her plan didn’t escape her. After all, she had been waitressing when she’d first met Constantine Karantinos, and had tumbled into his arms with embarrassing ease.

Afterwards she had looked back and wondered how she could have behaved in a way which had been so completely out of character. And yet it had been such a golden summer in those carefree months before her mother had died, and she’d felt as if she had the world at her feet as she saved up to go travelling.

She had been an innocent in every sense of the word—but a few months of waitressing in a busy little harbour town had trained her well in how to deal with the well-heeled customers who regularly sailed in on their yachts.

Constantine had been one of them, and yet unlike any of them—for he’d seemed to break all the rules. He’d towered over all the other men like a colossus—making everyone else fade into insignificance. The day she had first set eyes on him would be imprinted on her mind for ever; he had looked like a Greek god—his powerful body silhouetted against the dying sun, his dark and golden beauty suggesting both vigour and danger.

She remembered how broad his shoulders had been, and how silky the olive skin which had sheathed the powerful muscle beneath. And she remembered his eyes, too—as black as ebony yet glittering like the early-morning sunlight on the sea. How could she have resisted a man who had seemed like all her youthful fantasies come to life—a man who had made her feel like a woman for the first and only time in her life?

She remembered waking up in his arms the next morning to find him watching her, and she had gazed up at him, searching his face eagerly for some little clue about how he might feel. About her. About them. About the future.

But in the depths of those eyes there had been…nothing.

Laura swallowed.

Nothing at all.

CHAPTER TWO

‘YES, Vlassis,’ Constantine bit out impatiently, as he glanced up at one of his aides, who was hovering around the door in the manner he usually adopted when he was about to impart news which his boss would not like. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s about the party, kyrios,’ said Vlassis.

Constantine’s mouth flattened. Why had he ever agreed to have this wretched party in the first place? he found himself wondering. Though in his heart he knew damned well. Because there had been too many mutterings for much too long about people in London wanting to enjoy some of the legendary Karantinos wealth. People always wanted to get close to him, and they thought that this might give them the opportunity. And it was always interesting to see your friends and your enemies in the same room—united by those twin emotions of love and hate, whose boundaries were so often blurred.

‘What about it?’ he snapped. ‘And please don’t bother me with trivia, Vlassis—that’s what I pay other people to deal with.’

Vlassis looked pained, as if the very suggestion that he should burden his illustrious employer with trivia was highly offensive to him. ‘I realise that, kyrios. But I’ve just received a message from Miss Johansson.’

At the mention of Ingrid, Constantine leaned back in his chair and clasped his fingers together in reflective pose. He knew what the press were saying. What they always said if he was pictured with a woman more than once. That he was on the verge of marrying, as most of his contemporaries had now done. His mouth flattened again.

Perhaps one of the greatest arguments in favour of marriage would be having a wife who could deal with the tiresome social side of his life. Who could fend off the ambitious hostesses and screen his invitations, leaving him to get on with running the family business.

‘And?’ he questioned. ‘What did Miss Johansson say?’

‘She asked me to tell you that she won’t be arriving until late.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘Something about her photo-shoot overrunning.’