Constantinou's Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’m saying…’
    â€˜No? It sounds that way to me.’
    â€˜And you can say, with your hand on your heart, that you can behave as though none of this had ever happened?’
    â€˜Yes.’ She managed to find sufficient resources of control to utter the lie with a perfectly bland expression. ‘As you said, it happened and, yes, it never should have, but it did.’
    â€˜Perhaps because you wanted it to?’ Nick asked slyly, and his suggestion was so close to the truth that for a split-second she could feel her body freeze, then a sudden, flaring heat thawed it out and galvanised her into action.
    â€˜If you really want to know,’ she said coldly, ‘I did it because I felt sorry for you.’
    Nick had thrown out his taunt like an arrow in the dark, never thinking that he might hit the target. Obscurely, the idea that she might have wanted him, have actively wanted to sleep with him, had had the astounding effect of turning him on. Her reply now stopped him in his tracks.
    She had felt sorry for him. Of course. It made perfect sense. He had shown up unexpectedly, in a pathetic state, and she had been overwhelmed by pity. Thethought cut through every ounce of pride he had and his expression hardened.
    â€˜I was overcome and I acted stupidly. I just got carried away with…with pity—pity and compassion for the pain I knew you must be feeling.’
    â€˜No one has ever pitied me in my life before,’ Nick said harshly. He linked his fingers together and pressed his thumbs into the palms of his hands. Pity. The word conjured up images of vulnerability and weakness that he found revolting. At least when applied to him.
    â€˜Perhaps because you’ve never been in a position to incite such an emotion,’ Lucy told him, warming to her subject now that she had found herself unexpectedly saved from having the truth forced out of her. ‘You were in a black hole and…’
    â€˜And, out of the goodness of your heart, you thought you might shine a little ray of light.’
    â€˜No,’ she denied, ‘not out of the goodness of my heart. It just seemed natural at the time. But I can see that it was wrong, all wrong, and for that I apologise.’
    He wondered savagely whether she had enjoyed dispensing her cure or whether she had simply been swept away by the emotion of the moment.
    Well, he could hardly ask her to resign now. That would have been tantamount to declaring that he was too weak to deal with what had taken place.
    â€˜Yes, it was wrong,’ he said, forcing some semblance of calm assurance into his voice, ‘and I want you to know that under normal circumstances there is no way in the world that I would ever dream of sleeping with you.’ It was an aggressively phrased remark, taut with implications, and he knew that he was hitting below the belt. In truth, he had had no idea that this meeting would progress along these lines. He’d thought that he wouldsubtly find out what he needed to know, namely that he had not forced himself upon her, and then he would close the book and lay that particular chapter to rest.
    He had not reckoned on being drawn into this type of discussion. He had pressed for the truth, though, not satisfied with the obviously genuine reassurances she had given him, and he had discovered that the truth was not to his liking.
    Now, obscurely, he was not prepared to lay the matter to rest. He stood up and began prowling restlessly around the room, looking at her from various angles while she kept her head perfectly still and staring straight towards the window behind his desk.
    â€˜Of course,’ he said lazily, pausing to inspect the rows of books that he kept on the shelves on one side of the office; he ran his fingers delicately along the hardbound spines, then turned to face her, ‘I hope you do not misinterpret this in any way. I merely want you to know that there will be no repetition of what took