The Billionaire's Secret Love Child(14)

''Ah. Nice to meet you, John,'' she went to shake his hand.

''No, he's a butler, and apparently they don't shake hands'' Ryan said, still amused by John's standoffish nature.

''No sir, we don not. It's not our place.''

Alina almost burst out laughing. Was he being serious? What kind of world did he live in?

''Okay, I'll let John show you to your room. I'm sure you'll want to freshen up.'' After the long journey, the thought of a hot bath or shower was too much to turn down. She nodded gratefully. ''When you're ready, come back down, we're having a party around the pool.''

''Sure.'' Alina wondered what form one of his parties took. She didn't imagine he was the type to sit around the dinner table, drinking wine and talking politics. No, she was sure the type of party he enjoyed involved much more than that.

The room John showed her too was so beautiful, she stood in the middle of it and held her breath. How the other half lived. Her room was bigger than the whole upper floor of her parents home. How did people get so rich? She hoped to find out in the coming weeks.

She allowed herself to fall back onto the king sized bed and almost disappeared into the softness of it. Don't close your eyes or you'll fall asleep. Get a shower and go to the party. Although she was only twenty, she wasn't much of a party animal. She preferred sitting around a table with friends and talking. She heaved herself off the bed and walked to a door, behind which she assumed there was a bathroom. She was right, only it wasn't a bathroom as she knew them. This bathroom was more like a Roman bath house. Black granite on all surfaces, a huge bath on lions feet and a shower behind glass. It had the most enormous shower she'd ever seen. She was torn. Bath or shower? Shower, she'd fall asleep in a bath.

She got undressed and stood under the powerful jet of warm water. She took the shampoo and began to wash her hair. If Alina had known at school she'd been most boy's masturbation fantasy; she wouldn't have been quite so dissatisfied with her body. She liked her legs and thighs but hated her stomach. To her, it sagged and bulged in all the wrong places, and her breasts were too large. She was sick and tired of men staring at her chest when they should be looking at her face. She was reasonably satisfied with her behind although she often looked at in the mirror searching for the tiniest evidence of cellulite. There was none, and her dissatisfaction with her stomach was ill-founded. Any boy who had ever seen it, and not many had, thought it was soft and seductively feminine.

Her room had everything. She'd brought her own hair dryer, but when she switched on the one in the room, she was almost blown away. It fanned her dark hair and dried it in no time. She had long hair. It swept down to the center of her back, in long shiny waves. She didn't wear much makeup. She didn't need much. Her skin was unblemished and fresh. She applied a little eye shadow and gloss lipstick.

Hell, it's all creased, she thought as she fished around in her bag for something to wear. The only thing that had escaped the baggage handlers wrath was a tiny black circle skirt. She wondered it she dare appear in it. She had no choice, she thought. She added a black silk top with spaghetti straps and stood in front of the mirror. She was pleased she had; her nipples were sticking through the material, making her look like a cheap hooker. She gave a whoop of frustration. Then it came to her. All the Regency British movies she'd seen. The butler with an iron in his hand. John was very obliging and in no time returned to her room with her knee length skirt and a navy blouse, impeccably pressed.

Feeling more comfortable in conservative clothes, she went downstairs. Ryan had pointed to a door when he'd mentioned the party. She could hear music and decided to follow it. The door took her from the entrance hall into a huge living room. Although the house was probably built in the nineteen twenties, the room was contemporary in decoration. When she looked out of the window, she found herself looking at the back yard. There was a large well-manicured lawn with the kind of stripes her father always tried to get on his lawn but never did. At each side of the lawn were flower beds with a dazzling array of colorful foliage.

The French windows were open, and Alina stepped outside. It was then that she noticed the music was coming from a separate building across the lawn. When she was halfway across the turf, she heard the sound of water and screams.

''Hi, welcome to one of my famous parties,'' Ryan said. His white pants were gone, and he was wearing a pair of tight-fitting swimming shorts and no shirt. Obviously just out of the pool, his body was covered in tiny drops of water. Keep your eyes up she told herself, painfully aware of the considerable bulge down below.

''Come on, let's get you a drink,'' he said. The pool was large, as big as most municipal pools. It was housed in a building with an arched roof and glass doors that opened to the lawn.

''Are they....?'' she exclaimed.

Ryan followed Alina's eyes. He laughed. ''Yer, looks like it.'' In one corner there were a number of sun beds covered in red leather mattresses. A couple was making love, both totally naked, in full view of everybody. The strange thing to Alina was nobody seemed to care, or for that matter even be looking. She, on the other hand, couldn't take her eyes away. The man, on top, was a so good looking, she instantly wanted to swap with the women whose moans were getting louder by the second.

She hurriedly turned away and looked at the pool. It was full of topless women, and a few men, who she assumed were Ryan's friends. She counted five guys and sixteen girls. The guys looked so happy; it made Alina wonder if any of them would ever be able to settle down with just one woman. Most of them looked to be in their thirties, and she was sure they'd spent the last ten years fooling around with dozens of women at parties like this. She'd have to be careful she didn't get involved with a man like that. There was no way she was ever going to share her husband with anybody. She closed her eyes in embarrassment as the woman in the corner reached her climax.