The Billionaire's Cinderella Contract Read online

  ‘Not really.’

  He waited for her to elaborate.

  She sighed. ‘After Dad died...things at home...they changed.’

  ‘Understandable.’

  Her eyes met his. ‘It was awful,’ she said softly. ‘We all pulled together to begin with but then I guess we all got lost in our own pain for a while. I signed up for the school production of Romeo & Juliet on a whim. I couldn’t believe it when I was given the role of Juliet, and I still don’t know if I got it because they felt sorry for me or if they saw some kind of talent in me. Whatever...it doesn’t matter. I got the part and...’ Her throat moved before she continued. ‘It’s hard to explain but being on that stage... By inhabiting Juliet, I lost myself. I stepped into her shoes and for that short time all my worries and pain were gone. It was an escape. I knew that, even then. But it helped me.’

  He digested this. ‘Then why did you turn to drugs?’

  Her eyes widened fractionally and suddenly he realised what it was he saw whenever he mentioned her criminal past. Fear. A rabbit momentarily frozen in the headlights.

  She stretched an arm out for her drink. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s too personal.’

  More personal than discussing her father’s death?

  Somehow she managed to drink from her gin and tonic while laying flat out without choking or spilling a drop. When she laid her cheek back on the cushion she rested her hand beneath it and drew her knees in before her eyes locked back onto his.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me about the drugs if you don’t want to,’ he said. ‘But I’m glad you’re clean now. That must have taken a lot of strength.’

  Her face contorted and she pressed her face into the cushion. ‘Please, Damián,’ she said. ‘I can’t talk about it.’

  A lump formed in his throat at the distress he detected in her muffled voice.

  ‘We need never speak of it again,’ he promised quietly while his mind raced as to why she wouldn’t talk about it and why she found it so distressing. ‘Not unless you want to.’

  Her shoulder blades rose before she turned her cheek to face him again. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  He stared closely at her. ‘Are you okay?’

  Her lips drew in tightly but she nodded.

  ‘Okay.’ He drank a third of his pint, then, in a lighter tone, said, ‘Tell me your long-term plans. What do you want from life?’

  He read the gratitude in her eyes at his change of subject. Her voice back to its usual melodious strength, she said, ‘Another role would be a good start.’

  ‘Haven’t you got anything lined up after this tour?’

  She pulled a face. ‘Nada. I’ve got an audition Monday morning—and, before you get cross about it, it’ll be over before you get back to London—but I know who I’m up against so I don’t rate my chances.’

  ‘Why so negative?’

  ‘Realistic,’ she corrected.

  ‘If you were being realistic you would know you have an excellent chance. Remember, I have seen you on stage, mi vida. Twice. You are a natural.’

  ‘That’s nice of you to say but I like to prepare myself for the worst and hope for the best. That way I’m not disappointed when things don’t go my way.’

  ‘It will. One day I will walk past a billboard of the hottest movie and your face will be on it.’ The image flashed vivid in his mind. Mia had the talent and the looks, plus she had that rare star quality.

  She gave a theatrical shudder. ‘Never going to happen.’

  He threw her a stern look that he was gratified to find her lips twitching at. ‘Don’t be so negative.’

  ‘In this case, I’m not being negative. I don’t want that life. I have no wish to become public property.’

  ‘An actress who doesn’t want to be a star?’ he said cynically.

  ‘It’s being on stage that I love. I love the sense of family you get being part of troupe... I love everything about it.’

  ‘Maybe one day I will see you on Broadway.’

  She pulled a rueful face that turned into a wide yawn that she hastily covered with the back of her hand. ‘Not going to happen. I don’t want to leave England and, even if I did, I wouldn’t have much chance getting a visa to the US, not with my record. And that really is me being realistic.’

  Making a mental note to make some discreet enquiries about this, he stared into her eyes. He could see the lethargy taking over her. The cynical part of him, which he fully admitted constituted the major part, wondered if it was shame over her drug-dealing past holding her back from pursuing a career in TV or the movies rather than her love of the stage as she professed. But then he thought of his reaction to seeing her on the stage and thought of the comments whispered from the other audience members, all of whom had raved about how fantastic she was, and he knew she was right. Mia belonged on the stage.

  She yawned again, pulled herself upright and stretched, inadvertently pushing her breasts forward. ‘I need to get some sleep.’

  With his blood thickening all over again at her innocent movement, Damián got straight to his feet. ‘I’ll show you to your room.’

  Overnight bag and envelope in hand, she followed him up the hallway to the apartment’s sleeping quarters.

  He opened her door briskly and stepped in. ‘This is your room,’ he said, doing his damnedest to keep his tone no-nonsense. ‘You have a private bathroom. Help yourself to anything you need or want. If you need me, I’m in the room opposite.’

  She kept her eyes on the floor and gave a murmured, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Right... I’ll leave you to sleep.’

  She nodded before raising her gaze to his. ‘Damián?’

  His heart slammed. His chest tightened. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sorry. For how I behaved earlier.’

  He swallowed hard. ‘It was understandable.’

  Their eyes stayed locked for a moment that seemed to last an age before he took a deep breath and broke it. And then he made the fatal mistake of stepping out of the room at the exact same moment she chose to step into it.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘No, excuse me.’

  And then they were past each other on the opposite sides of the threshold to where they’d started but not without Mia’s breasts brushing against his arm in the process.

  For one final time their eyes locked.

  The colour flaming her face was unmistakable.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Goodnight, mi vida.’

  Her whispered goodnight in response was lost as he closed the door sharply behind him.

  * * *

  Arms covering her tingling breasts, the beats of her heart a painful staccato, Mia closed her eyes and dragged air into her lungs. A door closed and then there was silence.

  Once she felt reasonably in control of herself, she sat on the edge of the huge bed and covered her burning face.

  Intensely private about her personal life, she’d just unloaded things to Damián that she never spoke about. She talked about her dad with her mum and sister all the time but not with strangers. The pain of his death had eased through the years but it never really went away, was always carried in her heart.

  The most unsettling part was the yearning to tell Damián the truth. The past had seen her develop a thick skin but every mention of her conviction made her want to scream the facts at him. She hated him thinking such things about her, which was a frightening notion in itself. Why should she care what he thought?

  It was the unflinching intensity of his stare, she thought, cheeks burning afresh remembering how it made her feel: as if he were stripping her naked with his eyes and reaching deep inside to touch her in a place no one had ever been before. Nothing had ever made her feel like that, and she’d had to bury her face in th
e cushion to break the spell.

  After a quick shower she crawled into bed. But it wasn’t fear of Damián slipping into the room that had her wrapping the duvet around her like a cocoon. It was the fear that she might be the one to slip out of bed and seek him out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MIA SHOOK THE director’s hand, thanked him for the opportunity then pulled the strap of her handbag around her neck and headed for the theatre exit. There’d been nothing in the director’s demeanour to suggest she’d overly impressed with her audition. The tour was over and she had nothing lined up...apart from the role she was currently playing for Damián.

  She’d already spent most of the hundred thousand he’d transferred to her but had a little left over for emergencies. She’d bought herself a second-hand car—no point blowing it on a brand-new car when a decent second-hand one did the job—paid a large chunk of her mortgage off, ordered a new boiler for the flat and spent a small fortune on damp resistant paint. Sometimes she thought she should have rented rather than use the small inheritance she’d received from her father’s insurance pay-out as a mortgage deposit, but she’d wanted security. Finally, she had it. She was going to save the next hundred thousand after the weekend in Monte Cleure. She’d worked it out and, so long as she was careful with the remainder, she could live off it for at least five years even if she failed to get another role.

  Bright sunlight greeted her when she stepped outside with two of the other actresses who’d auditioned, the three of them discussing where they should get some lunch. Mia lifted her face to the sky, greedy to feel the sun’s warmth on her face after the darkness of the theatre’s interior.

  About to reach into her bag for her sunglasses, she suddenly noticed a large figure propped against a nearby wall.

  She blinked to clear the vision. He remained against the wall, arms folded across his considerable chest, dressed in dark grey trousers and a black shirt, top button undone, the sleeves rolled up. A sardonic smile played on the wide, firm lips.

  ‘Mia?’ Tanya, one of the other actresses, nudged her. ‘Where do you think we should go?’

  Swallowing, she finally managed to get her mouth working. ‘I’m sorry. I’m going to have to give it a miss. My boyfriend’s here.’

  She would not call him her lover. That was not the language she or her friends used.

  Two sets of eyes followed her gaze. From the periphery of her vision, Mia saw Tanya’s mouth drop open. ‘That’s your boyfriend?’ she asked faintly.

  She nodded, her heart too full for words to form.

  Even with the considerable distance between them she caught the glint in Damián’s eyes before he strode towards her.

  Knowing exactly what was expected of her, Mia forced her legs to walk towards him.

  Except that was a lie. She didn’t have to force her legs to walk. She had to force them not to run. Or skip.

  She hadn’t seen him since they’d shared a quick coffee for breakfast in his apartment before he’d left for Argentina five days ago. But those five days had not been without his presence in her life. He’d messaged her before every performance, including the weekend matinees, with wishes that she break a leg. And he’d called her after every performance too, asking how it had gone.

  She knew the messages and calls were for show because he suspected his brother of hacking his communications. That hadn’t stopped her heart skipping to see his name flash on the screen of her phone.

  Their conversation last night had gone on for thirty minutes. To Mia, it had passed in the blink of an eye. She’d snuggled into her sofa and allowed his wonderful voice to infuse her senses, safe that he was thousands of miles away and unable to see the pleasure she took from speaking to him.

  And now, even though they had an audience to perform for, she found she didn’t have to fake pleasure at seeing him.

  How had that happened? She hated him...didn’t she?

  Their eyes stayed locked. The smile on her face widened by the second as they closed the distance until he was right in front of her.

  Mia found she needed to dredge none of her acting skills to loop her arms around his neck and tilt her face to his.

  His dark eyes glinted as he wrapped his arms around her waist. ‘Now this is what I call a welcome greeting, mi vida,’ he murmured. The warmth of his breath whispered against her lips and then his mouth fused onto hers.

  At the first touch it felt as if a thunderbolt had gone off in her heart.

  The sigh she expelled came from nowhere but, before she could melt into him, the kiss was over. She had the delicious sensation of his lips brushing over her cheek before he stepped back and she found herself gazing at him and finally having to use her acting skills to mask the disappointment ricocheting through her.

  What was happening to her?

  She cleared her throat quietly then injected brightness into her voice. Her colleagues were watching and, no doubt, listening intently. ‘This is a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting you back until the evening.’

  A smile played on his lips but a shutter had come down in his eyes. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

  ‘You succeeded.’

  ‘Can I buy you lunch?’

  ‘That would be great.’

  Waving a quick goodbye to Tanya and Eloise, Mia let her hand be enveloped in Damián’s much larger one and fell into step with him.

  ‘Where would you like to eat?’ Damián asked, striving to keep his voice casual. But Dios, never in his wildest dreams had he imagined a greeting like the one Mia had just given him.

  She’d sighed into him. He hadn’t imagined it. It had been a cold reminder of what a great actress she was. If he’d been an outside observer he would have believed she was thrilled to see him. He’d have believed her affection to be genuine.

  ‘Surprise me,’ she said. Now their audience was gone he thought she’d drop his hand. But she didn’t.

  Mia Caldwell was an actress. She played make-believe for a living. He’d given her a role to play and she had stepped up and thrown herself into her performance.

  If only he could explain his own thrill at seeing her again as easily.

  His five days home in Argentina had dragged by, which was unusual as his life was so busy. He tended to stick to the same daily routine when in Buenos Aires: an early workout in his gym and then business for anything between ten and fifteen hours before calling it a day. His hunt for an actress these past few weeks had eaten into his precious time so he’d had catching-up to do on top of his daily routine. Despite the snail-like pace his life had taken, he’d assumed his brief return to normality was going fine until his PA had asked if everything was okay with him. That was something he’d never asked him before.

  If, as he suspected, Emiliano was monitoring his movements and communications—and someone was because his crack team of experts had found spyware installed in his personal devices—then it was best he play the lovelorn fool. That was the only reason he’d taken to calling Mia daily and sending her messages. That he’d ended their conversations needing to take a cold shower was irrelevant.

  That he felt the need for a cold shower now too was also irrelevant. But Dios, not only had she greeted him with a smile that made his chest expand to titanic proportions but she smelled fantastic and the summer dress she wore was enough to raise even a celibate’s blood pressure. White with tiny red roses patterned over it, it fell to mid-thigh and had buttons running down its length. Flat Roman sandals gave glimpses of her pretty feet and now he kept catching glimpses of smooth golden leg to complement them, which raised his blood pressure that little bit higher.

  ‘How did the audition go?’ he asked, determined to ignore the darts running through his skin at the warmth of her hand. Holding Mia’s hand like this did not feel like acting.

  ‘Rubbish. I don’t think I impressed.’

  ‘Being negative
, mi vida?’

  ‘Being realistic,’ she countered.

  They stopped amongst a crowd at a road crossing. Someone jostled into him, pushing him into Mia.

  He held his breath until the lights turned green.

  Why the hell hadn’t he studied the pictures of the four shortlisted actresses more closely and chosen the one who’d jumped out at him the least? He needed to be focused, not walking the streets of London fighting the sensation in his loins from turning into anything obvious, a task made harder when the object of his desire’s hand was enclosed so tightly in his. Thankfully, they soon arrived at the hotel and he could legitimately drop it.

  The hotel’s restaurant was busy but Mia wasn’t the least surprised that the management were able to fit them in. Damián carried such an air of authority about him that even if he wasn’t a gazillionaire she had no doubt they would have been squeezed in regardless.

  The bad mood she’d detected developing in Damián during their walk to the hotel continued at the table. Damián studied the menu tight-lipped, not looking at her. It was a complete contradiction to her own mood, which had lightened with every step she’d taken. She decided the glorious weather was the cause of it because who could fail to be cheered with warmth on their skin and bright blue skies above their head? Holding the hand of the sexiest man to walk the earth and who, she’d been discovering, wasn’t quite the bastard she’d initially thought had nothing to do with it.

  He could easily have kept hold of her criminal record to use as a weapon to ensure she did exactly as she was told. But he hadn’t. He’d recognised her distress and given it back to her. For that alone she would give the performance of her life.

  ‘Damián?’

  He didn’t look up from his menu. ‘What?’

  ‘What happened to soft and loving?’

  ‘I’m deciding what to eat.’

  She reached for his hand and tried not to be hurt when he flinched at her touch. When all was said and done, Damián was paying her to play a role. So long as she played her part, he could have no complaints if it all went wrong.