Read Online Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire's Pleasure by India Grey - Free Book Online Page A

bitter laugh. ‘You think so?’
    His coldness took her by surprise. Suddenly she was aware that she was naked, and she felt foolish and exposed. It was as if the closeness that they had just shared had never existed. The barriers had gone back up.
    ‘I’m sorry…I don’t know anything about it. I’m a pianist, not a psychologist,’ she muttered, getting up and looking around for her discarded nightdress.
    He turned slowly round to face her, moonlight silvering his devastating, chilly face, firelight gilding his massive shoulders. Once again she was reminded of some gladiatorial warrior from mythology, and she wondered what had hurt him so badly. What—or whom.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were a pianist before? I didn’t understand about your hands—I thought you were being vain.’
    He heard her soft exhalation. ‘I don’t know…maybe I thought you’d know. Some people do, you know—recognise me. Carlos’s PR people did a huge poster campaign for my first CD.’
    And in that instant, in a flash as bright, as dazzling as the glowing colours he’d seen earlier, he saw in his mind’s eye the girl in the picture that day outside Andrew Parkes’ office. Realisation hit him like the lash of a whip—sudden and shocking.
    ‘I’m a philistine,’ he said bluntly, turning back to the fire. ‘I hardly ever leave this place—I’m far too wrapped up in work. The last time I attended a musical recital was in the officers’ mess; it featured songs that I hope you’ve never heard, and it ended with the piano having petrol poured over it and being set alight.’
    Rachel gasped. ‘No! Why?’
    ‘It’s an RAF tradition. It happens every year.’
    ‘But that’s terrible! How could you bear to do it?’
    He looked into the flames. ‘It’s just a piano,’ he said simply, and the implications of his words seemed to drift and settle in the moonlit room.
    ‘You’re right. I forget. Sometimes I feel like it’s my only friend.’ She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and made an attempt at a laugh. ‘In fact, let’s face it, it is my only friend. I think it really hit me this afternoon, when I was all alone in that room, waiting to be taken to the church, that the only good relationship I’ve ever had in my life has been with the piano.’
    Her loneliness was palpable. Orlando was struck by the irony: he had spent the last year brutally trying to shut out the outside world, while this girl was reaching out to it. He felt the ice around his frozen heart crack open a little.
    ‘What brought you here? To a tiny place in the middle of nowhere like Easton?’ He had to make an effort to keep the frustration out of his voice, but he needed to ask the question. Why had fate brought her here, to scrape the tender flesh off scars that were still healing, still hurting?
    She sank back down onto the fur rug and pulled her knees up again, wrapping her arms protectively around them. ‘Carlos’s PR people found The Old Rectory, and thought it would be the perfect place for the wedding. Very English, very quietly grand—which all fitted in with the brand they created for me. They took out a six-month lease on it, but until the day before yesterday I’d never seen it. It could have been anywhere.’
    The fire stretched long fingers of warmth into the room and painted her skin in peach and gold. Orlando had heard about the brain compensating for what the eye couldn’t see, but until now he had never experienced it, or believed it was possible. But in that instant he could picture vividly the sadness in her amber eyes, the gentle swell of her upper lip, her delicate chin.
    She got up slowly and walked towards him, her head bent so that the firelight made her hair glow like vintage cognac. Standing beside him, she pressed a hand against his chest, over his heart.
    ‘I’m so glad it wasn’t anywhere else,’ she said with quiet ferocity. ‘I’m so glad it was here.’
    He took a deep breath and very gently