Magnate's Make-Believe Mistress Read Online Free Page B

backed up in her lungs, she slumped into a chair. It was as though his departure had sucked the life force from the air and the stuffing from her legs. Ridiculous, she told herself. And when she ran that last exchange back over, she kicked herself for the missed opportunity.
    If she’d been on her game, she would have asked why he was paying her the extravagant wage. Who had recommended her so glowingly that he would accept no substitute? Those were not questions she could ask Miriam Horton. At Your Service had a strict policy on discussing clients, but given that the client himself had brought it up, she could have angled in a polite query. Especially since he was pushing for informality in their working relationship. Next time the subject came up, she would not miss the opportunity.
    Fortified by that decision, she cleared away the untouched afternoon-tea spread and did a run to the shops for breakfast supplies. Specifically, his requested blend of coffee. She thought about circling around to her home. It was only a ten-minute drive, and she could pick up some comfortable, non-grey clothes. It wasn’t as though she needed to be in situ tonight. She didn’t expect she would see her client—she could not bring herself to think of him as Cristo—again until breakfast.
    But then she thought about her sister and the questions she was likely to ask, and turned her car back toward Mt Eliza. Tomorrow would be soon enough to face Chessie’s inquisition.
    She should have known her sister better.
    Her call came late. No greeting, just an economical “Well?”
    Isabelle didn’t need any further explanation. They’d spent a lot of years with only each other; they spoke fluent sisterly shorthand. Chessie wanted details, a blow-by-blow of her first afternoon back at work and her impression of Cristiano Verón, but Isabelle found herself unaccountably shy for words.
    â€œCan you not talk?” Chessie asked into the lengthening silence. “Is he there? Are you still working?”
    Isabelle contemplated taking the coward’s way out, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t lie to Chessie; she could only prevaricate. “No, he’s not here, but I don’t have anything toreport. He arrived this afternoon and went out to a business meeting soon after.”
    â€œAnd?” Chessie persisted. “You must have formed some impression.”
    A tumult of impressions tumbled over each other in Isabelle’s mind, but only one singled itself out as relevant. “He’s exactly like his name.” Exotic, expensive, exclusively designer label. “He is Cristiano Verón.”
    â€œYou did it? You took my advice and checked his passport?” Chessie sounded both shocked and impressed. “Outstanding!”
    Isabelle pinched the bridge of her nose. “I did not look through his things,” she said tightly. “I do not want to lose my job.”
    â€œYou sounded so certain.”
    â€œI am. Don’t ask me why, just trust my instincts on this,” she said, struggling to sound reassuring when her stomach churned with uncertainty. She could have shared those feelings, but then Chessie was such a wild card. Isabelle did not need her arriving to suss the situation in her impulsive, to-hell-with-the-consequences way. She’d jeopardised Isabelle’s position with At Your Service once already; she was not allowing her a second chance. “One thing I do know, he is not Hugh Harrington.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean he’s not a lackey,” Chessie countered.
    Releasing a short, humourless laugh, Isabelle shook her head. “Believe me, Chess, Cristiano Verón is nobody’s lackey. I really do think this is a coincidence of timing, that he’s a genuine client here on business. Anyone could have recommended me. The Thompsons, for a start.”
    â€œIf you say so,” Chessie said with a distinct lack of