The Greek's Blackmailed Mistress

‘Elvi!’ he called when he saw her standing at the lift, hugging her handbag as if it were a comforter.

Eyes flying wide, she spun and he handed her the jacket.

‘Oh...thanks,’ she mumbled in disconcertion, suddenly uncomfortably aware that every employee in the area had stilled to watch them.

That was the instant when Xan saw the tears glimmering in her eyes and wished he hadn’t followed her. It made him feel like an ogre who kicked puppies, a complete bastard. But he was what he was and he had never been soft in heart or deed, he reasoned harshly. She needed to toughen up because the world was a thoroughly nasty place.

* * *

Still shell-shocked by that encounter with Xan, Elvi went home and found her mother in tears at the kitchen table. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get work anywhere without a reference from my last job,’ she confided chokily. ‘And I can’t tell the truth either. Nobody wants a light-fingered employee!’

Elvi paled. ‘We’ll think up something,’ she said soothingly. ‘Is Daniel at the restaurant?’

‘Yes. Thank goodness he got that bar job. At least it gets him out of his room,’ his mother remarked unhappily. ‘He’s so depressed, Elvi. He feels so guilty—’

Elvi nodded, trying not to think that, had she been of a different persuasion, she might have been able to make the whole nightmare go away. It would be indecent, though, for her to have sex with Xan Ziakis in return for him dropping the theft charge. Totally disgustingly indecent, she told herself squarely. Surely she didn’t have to sink that low to help her family?

She lay awake half the night thinking about it. The irony was that before she had met Xan Ziakis he was the only man she had ever thought of having sex with. Well, in her dreams, her imagination, that was, because he was the first man she had ever been strongly attracted to. Of course, she had met very few men. Few men went into craft shops; customers who liked to knit, crochet and embroider were mostly of the female persuasion, although not exclusively. Throughout most of her teen years, while other young girls were flirting and dating, Elvi had been looking after her little brother and tucking her comatose mother into bed at night. She had missed out on a large chunk of her supposedly carefree youth, having to be responsible, having to be the adult for as long as Sally had been incapable of meeting that challenge.

By the way, I’m still a virgin, she tried to picture herself telling Xan Ziakis. Unexpectedly, her body shook with sudden laughter at the image. No doubt Xan had assumed that she was experienced when he’d made that crack about women enjoying sex as well. No doubt he also believed she would be mistress material with the sort of sexy tricks a more practised lover would provide. But she had no tricks, no clue, nothing to give in that department, and she was quite sure that that would have disillusioned him, maybe even put him off.

Although, how would that have helped them? He had only made that ridiculous offer because he found her attractive. For a split second, she cherished the knowledge of that startling truth. Xan Ziakis found her attractive as well. It was a fact that bolstered her ego even though she knew it shouldn’t. Probably the boobs again, she thought wryly. As an adolescent, who had been tormented at school by the boys once she began developing way beyond what she had deemed an acceptable size, she had always loathed her large breasts and ample hips. Joel, her best mate since primary school, told her she looked lush and feminine, but then that was exactly the sort of comforting comment a friend was supposed to make, so she hadn’t paid any heed to it.

The following morning, Joel sent her a text asking her to meet him at lunchtime. She smiled at the prospect, knowing she could tell her friend the truth about her mother and her brother, although she had no intention of mentioning Xan’s proposition.

‘How could a boy as smart as Daniel be that dumb?’ Joel demanded, smoking while they sat outside a bar close to where she worked.

‘Clever people don’t always have common sense,’ Elvi pointed out, leaning across the table to add, ‘You’re getting eyed up by that beautiful blonde over there. I think it’s time I went back to work—’

‘No!’ Joel protested, closing an imprisoning hand over the one she had braced on the tabletop to rise. ‘I’m not interested—’

‘You haven’t even looked yet,’ Elvi rebuked as she met his brown eyes and wondered how his could be so different from Xan’s, because they did not make her melt or heat up to even the smallest degree. Yet, Joel was tall and attractive with tousled dark curls. He was also an up-and-coming successful painter, already being singled out for his talent with portraits. But then Joel’s life had gone much more smoothly than her own, she reflected ruefully, and sometimes she marvelled that he still stayed in touch with her because they now led such divergent lives.

‘All I want to do right now is give you some cash to help out,’ Joel told her ruefully. ‘You earn a pittance and with Sally out of work—’

‘No, thanks,’ Elvi cut in hastily. ‘Thanks for offering but no, thanks—’

‘Don’t you ever just want to walk away from the two of them and their problems?’ her friend enquired ruefully. ‘You could’ve been so much more without them holding you back—’

‘You’re talking about my mother and my brother,’ Elvi reminded him tartly. ‘I love them and they love me and you don’t turn your back on that kind of love and support—’

‘But you’re always supporting them, not yourself!’ Joel argued.

He didn’t understand, he never had understood, Elvi reflected wryly, because his was not a close family. Elvi, however, knew that, no matter what happened to her, her mother and her brother would always be there for her just as she was for them. That made her feel warm and complete inside herself in a way she couldn’t have described even to her longest-standing friend.

‘I’m wasting my breath,’ Joel recognised impatiently as Elvi slid back into her black jacket. ‘For some bizarre reason you don’t want the stuff other women want...the new clothes, the parties, the fun—’

‘I’d give anything to own a dog,’ she confided, and not for the first time.

‘A dog would just be another burden,’ Joel reproved.

Didn’t stop her wanting one, Elvi reasoned wryly as she got off the bus to go home that evening. A dog to walk and cuddle when she felt lonely. A cat was a possibility but cats weren’t necessarily cuddly, being more independent. As usual the lift was out of service and she had to climb flight after flight of stairs to the tenth floor, telling herself all the while that the exercise was keeping her fit even if she was wheezing like an old lady by the time she walked into the kitchen. That lighter mood didn’t last once she saw her mother and brother standing there, clearly in the middle of a rare argument.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked tightly.

‘Look, what I did wrecked everything for all of us,’ Daniel declared forthrightly. ‘Mum can’t find work now, and you hardly earn anything. How are we going to live? Obviously I have to find a permanent job—’

‘No, that’s not what this is all about,’ Elvi cut in hastily. ‘That would make what Mum did pointless, Daniel. We want you to go to university and train to be a doctor—’

‘I did this. This is my responsibility and I’m old enough to behave like a man,’ her little but very tall baby brother announced. ‘A man doesn’t turn his back on his family and just go off and become a student without thinking about how they are going to survive!’

Elvi thought a very rude word inside her head, her shoulders slumping, and passed on by into the bedroom to sink down on her bed. Daniel was like a mule when he set his heart on anything and now he too was in full sacrificial mode, just like her mother. What now? If Daniel threw away his chance, it wouldn’t come around again, and if he did that Sally Cartwright would self-destruct because her son going to medical school was the one thing she had in life to focus on and be proud of.

Xan Ziakis had won, Elvi reflected wretchedly, because her family was falling apart before her very eyes. From the kitchen she could hear the distressing noise of her mother and her brother having a major row as Sally tried to dissuade him from his plans and he fought back loudly. She pulled the business card out of her bag and reached for her phone. She didn’t want to speak to a man she hated, a man who was forcing her into a choice that went against everything she had ever valued, so she texted him instead.

Rethink on mistress as you forecast. Need to discuss conditions of servitude.

Across London, Xan checked his phone and laughed out loud, something he didn’t do very often and which spooked him with its unfamiliarity. He had won. He always won, he reminded himself with satisfaction. But even so there was a sweeter taste to this victory than most.

Meet you for dinner at eight...

And he gave her the address, telling her to ask for his table.

CHAPTER THREE

ELVI WENT INTO her slender wardrobe to withdraw a pair of black velour leggings and a black, rather glittery festive top she had received for Christmas the year before. The outfit would have to do because she didn’t have anything else to wear.

‘Where on earth are you going dressed like that?’ Sally Cartwright demanded boldly as her daughter passed through the kitchen, wearing actual lip gloss and mascara to her mother’s wonderment.

‘I’ve got a date for dinner,’ Elvi admitted, having reasoned that she had to make a start on her cover story.

‘A...date?’ her mother exclaimed in astonishment.

‘Yes, he’s handsome, he’s rich, he can give me a good time, what’s not to like?’ she asked the older woman wryly. ‘I’m twenty-two and I never go out. Isn’t it time I got a life?’

‘Of course, it is,’ Sally agreed uneasily. ‘I was only surprised, not questioning you.’

‘I don’t know if I’ll be back tonight,’ Elvi announced uncomfortably, her face flaming, but she had to work on her cover story.

‘Elvi...?’ her mother pronounced in a shaken tone, but she compressed her lips and said nothing more, accepting that her daughter was an adult woman.

Only Elvi felt nothing like an adult woman as she entered an exclusive restaurant, maddeningly conscious that she was underdressed, and where she was looked up and down in open dismissal before the mention of Xan’s name produced a very different reaction and suddenly she was ‘Madam...’ and being escorted by the head waiter to the promised table where Xan was already seated, perusing the extensive wine list.

Xan leapt upright. He was a four-letter word of a man but someone some time had trained him well in courtesy, Elvi acknowledged, bending to set down her bag before deigning to take a seat in the chair pulled out for her occupation.

Xan was transfixed by his view of her. She was very poorly clothed, but the instant she bent down and he caught a glimpse of her rounded derriere outlined in clinging velour he became a spontaneous fan of clingy leggings that outlined the female form. A bottom as deliciously curvy and ripe as a peach met his attention and the stirring at his groin was even more immediate. He asked himself how he could possibly have reached thirty years of age without appreciating that he found curvaceous women more sexually appealing than their thinner cousins. Or was it only her? Something weird about her? That mane of long hair?

‘Elvi,’ he murmured in welcome. ‘What would you like to drink?’

‘I don’t drink. Water, please,’ she told him, settling into her seat, seemingly unaware that he was riveted to his, locked there by the equally clingy glittery top that showcased her breasts. The smooth pale expanse of soft firm flesh and only the merest hint of cleavage sent the pulse below his belt to throbbing discomfort and a level of arousal that set his even white teeth on edge, because he was neither a horny teenager nor a sex-starved man and anything excessive in any personal field set off Xan’s caution alarm.

She didn’t drink. That didn’t bother Xan at all because he had had the experience of several women who liked to drink a little too much and turned into public embarrassments. An alcoholic in the family, he recalled; naturally she was careful. He ordered wine for himself and ordered meals for both of them, as was his habit with companions.

Elvi sipped her water and watched food selections she hadn’t ordered brought to the table with great pomp and ceremony. She wasn’t that surprised by his failure to offer her a personal choice or a menu. He was a control freak. He was accustomed to commanding what other people did, even, it seemed, what they ate. He would probably be hell in bed, she found herself thinking ruefully, imagining what that innate selfishness would translate to in terms of sex with another person. But then what did she know about it? Maybe that was the norm for a rich man like him. A woman of her status was simply a new toy for him to play with, nothing more.

Elvi cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘So, this arrangement...how long would it last exactly?’

‘Three months,’ Xan heard himself declare, although he had never before mentioned anything longer than two. He was being practical, he told himself, ensuring he could keep her until he got bored, and he could get bored the very first month, couldn’t he? That had happened on a couple of occasions and could well happen with her.

Elvi studiously stared down at her water. ‘And how often...er, would I...see you?’

‘I doubt if there’s a virile man in the world who would answer that question in advance,’ Xan quipped, amusement flashing through him as he wondered how many one-night stands she had enjoyed. At her age, that was the norm, wasn’t it? Or was it? He had no idea because he had never made use of that kind of freedom, reluctant to follow in the footsteps of a father who had been a notorious womaniser and playboy. He had never slept around, never been attracted by indiscriminate casual sex with strangers.

Elvi reddened, heat coursing through her as she met brilliant dark eyes alive with the kind of powerhouse energy he had kept in abeyance during that interview in his office. Stupid question, she conceded uneasily, insanely aware of the tightening of her nipples and the bizarre flush of warmth rising from her pelvis. Both sensations were unhappily familiar, echoes of what she had felt every time she’d seen Xan walk past her months earlier. She hadn’t known attraction could make her feel like that about a man and she hadn’t appreciated the yearning sense of vulnerability it infused her with.

‘I will provide you with an apartment and a new wardrobe. You need clothes,’ Xan intoned with a casualness that shot her straight back out of her reverie.

An apartment. Elvi swallowed hard, reminding herself that it would only be for a few months and that she could hardly act the mistress while sharing a bedroom with her adoptive mother.

‘Why do I need you to buy me clothes?’ she queried rather sourly.

‘When I need a partner to attend a social engagement, you will be my companion,’ Xan informed her, startling her afresh because she had assumed that being a mistress was a very discreet role in a back room some place where she would be hidden from public view.

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