Книга - Taken By Her Greek Boss

Taken By Her Greek Boss
CATHY WILLIAMS


Nick Papaeliou dates beautiful women, so his attraction to frumpy Rose is a mystery.Maybe it's because she's not falling at his feet! Rose wants to detest her arrogant Greek boss, but she needs the job. As his ruthless seduction weakens her resolve, she reminds herself that after the seduction she'll be discarded.Nick's in for a surprise–for underneath Rose's shapeless clothes hides a more alluring woman than he could ever imagine. . . .









Cathy Williams

TAKEN BY HER GREEK BOSS










TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN




CHAPTER ONE


FOR Nick Papaeliou, the evening was beginning to take on a bizarre, surreal air.

For starters, he was not a man who enjoyed public scenes. He liked to exercise control over every aspect of his life, not least his emotions. And yet, what had happened less than an hour previously? His girlfriend, now relegated to the position of ex-girlfriend, had drunkenly initiated a confrontation that had heralded the demise of their relationship. Of course, he had known for a while that he would have to break off with Susanna, had heard the warning bells begin to ring when her hints had moved from the general arena of proper relationships to the more specific one of wanting to climb off the merry-go-round and settle down before her biological clock began really ticking. But had he listened? No. The intention to finish with her had hovered on the periphery of his consciousness, but he had been in the middle of a highly complex deal and he had stupidly relegated it to the back-burner.

And then the party tonight. Not just the usual boring model bash to which he had grudgingly agreed to go, knowing that it would be the last with her, but a lavish, private dinner hosted by a fashion-designer couple with a passion for social climbing.

The wine had flowed freely and how true it was that alcohol loosened tongues.

He thought back with distaste to Susanna, the tears, the shouting, the pleading—all conducted in front of an audience of roughly forty people.

Naturally he had left, with every intention of heading back to his penthouse apartment in Mayfair where he would be able to forget the nightmarish previous two hours in front of his laptop computer. It would have been the preferred conclusion to an aberrant evening, but…

He looked sideways at the young woman sitting in the back of the taxi alongside him. Here he was. Waylaid by a fresh-faced blonde who had been waitressing at the party and had coincidentally been leaving at the same time as he had.

He had found himself joining her for a coffee at the café close by and over his cup of strong black coffee, with his defences momentarily lowered after his bruising public bust-up with Susanna, had engaged in the rare pastime of sitting opposite a beautiful woman to whom he was not in the slightest bit attracted and actually listening to what she had to say, even though much of what she had told him amounted to a story he had heard a thousand times. The beautiful young woman whose dream was to be an actress. Optimism was written all over her youthful face and flowed around him in waves in her excitable conversation and earnest body language.

God, she had made him feel jaded. When he had told her, as kindly and as tactfully as he could, that he was off limits, he had felt, literally, a hundred years old.

How long, he had wondered, could he continue living the bachelor lifestyle? His father had died when he was still a young man in his twenties and his mother had followed him eight years ago. Was that why? Lack of parental pressure to do the expected thing and father the obligatory two point two kids? Or had his single minded and meteoric rise through the ranks provided him with everything wealth and power could buy while, perversely, creating a world into which no one was allowed to take up residence for any period of time?

He honestly didn’t know. What he did know was that Lily, the part time model who made ends meet however she could while still believing in her dreams, had stirred an unexpectedly almost paternal interest in him.

Which was why, he now contemplated, he was in this taxi with her, having agreed to accompany her back to her place for a nightcap, amused at her palpable horror when he told her that he should really be going back to his place to do a bit of work.

‘No one works on a Saturday in the middle of winter at midnight!’ she had exclaimed, shocked, and he had almost laughed at her naïveté. She thought, he knew, that she was doing him a good turn in making sure that he had some company after his unpleasant incident at the party, to which she, as everyone else, had been witness. She was also, and he could see this in her wide blue eyes, in awe of him. As most people were. It was something he had become accustomed to taking for granted although, at least in this case, he was pretty sure there was no hidden agenda. She didn’t want anything from him and that was refreshing.

The taxi, having wound its way through a myriad deserted streets, all identical in their never-ending rows of unlit terraced houses, finally drew to a stop and, to his further amusement, Lily refused to let him pay, even though she would certainly know him for the billionaire he undoubtedly was.

‘It’s not much…’ she apologised, fumbling in her bag for her front door key.

Nick murmured something suitably polite as she finally opened the front door, but really she was absolutely spot on. It was a house in an area that might, possibly once, have been considered a fairly decent location, but which the passing years had rendered shabby and depressingly uninviting, and stepping inside only served to cement that first impression.

Nick hadn’t been to a place like this for a very long time. He had dragged himself up by his bootlaces, worked like a slave so that he could accumulate the necessary qualifications that would enable him to escape a life of mediocrity in the Home Counties, where his father had eked out a living doing manual work at the Big Houses, as he had liked to call them, the likes of which he would never be able to afford. He had been an uneducated Greek and had never dared to aspire beyond his modest sphere.

Nick had had no intention of following his father’s footsteps. A first at university had been the start and followed by a rise through the financial world that had left his peers, most of whom came from a background of Big Houses, gaping and speechless. Now, he no longer worked for anyone. He had his own financial empire and called his own shots. When he opened his mouth, the world listened and paid heed.

And with vast power and wealth had come all the trappings. The place in the sun, rarely visited. The country house that he visited occasionally, whenever the ferocious demands of work allowed him the time off. The chauffeured car, the helicopter for those times when he needed to be somewhere faster than a train or car could take him, the lavish apartment in the heart of one of the most expensive areas in London.

He had long ago left behind the type of place now confronting him, with its tiny handkerchief of a front garden and, even in the forgiving cover of darkness, its signs of disrepair. And here in the small hallway, although much effort had obviously been made to brighten the interior, the cheerful primrose-coloured paint was fighting a losing battle with dodgy woodwork and carpeting that was no longer tired, but downright exhausted.

While Lily bent to unzip her boots, sighing with relief as she yanked the first one off, Nick turned to shut the front door. He was unaware of the sound of footsteps and only realised that there was someone else in the house when he heard Lily give a little yelp.

‘Rosie! What are you doing up?’

‘Who—’ the voice was unusually husky for a woman ‘—is that?’

Nick turned around and found himself staring into a pair of narrowed blue eyes, which were glaring at him. Then he took in the rest of her—small, especially standing next to Lily, and no model’s figure, although it was hard to tell because she was swamped in a fairly unflattering ensemble of dressing gown behind which peeked what appeared to be some kind of hideous novelty pyjamas.

‘Honestly, Rose, I keep telling you not to wait up for me! I’m a big girl now. I can take care of myself!’

The Rose character, whoever she might be, wore the expression of someone who seriously doubted that statement.

‘I have no idea how you can say that, Lily, when you’ve just waltzed through the door with a complete stranger in tow. At nearly one in the morning. I thought you told me that this was going to be an early one?’

‘It was early…but…Rose, this is Nick. Nick Papaeliou. Maybe you’ve heard of him?’

‘Of course I haven’t heard of him,’ Rose snapped. ‘You know I don’t know a thing about these models you hang around with.’

‘Model?’ Nick couldn’t believe his ears. Nor could he quite believe the way those ferocious blue eyes were scornfully dismissing him. ‘You think I’m a model?’

‘What else?’

‘Oh, Rosie. You have to excuse her, Nick. Rose is very, very protective of me. She thinks I’m going to be gobbled up by a big bad wolf one of these days. But that’s cool. Hey, what else do big sisters do?’

‘She’s your sister?’ Nick stared at the small, round woman who was still glaring at him, although he noticed a faint pink colour crawl into her cheeks.

‘There’s no need to look so stunned,’ Rose said coldly.

‘We’re stepsisters actually,’ Lily explained, smiling. ‘Isn’t it amazing? I mean, you hear so many stories about step-siblings not getting along but Rose and I couldn’t be closer if we were proper sisters.’ She gave Rose an affectionate squeeze. Even without shoes, she was at least six inches taller. ‘Rosie, Nick’s just popped by for a nightcap…would you mind? I’ve got to go to the bathroom.’

Yes, actually, she would mind, but Lily was already vanishing up the stairs, still taking them two at a time, the way she always had even as a kid. Sweet, sunny-natured Lily who thought the best of everyone, even the ones who had Health Hazard written all over their faces. Like this one staring at her, still incredulously digesting the fact that the leggy blonde with the waist-length hair, the one whom he had probably expected to escort home to a suitably empty house, was related to someone who was physically as different from her as chalk from cheese.

Rose stared right back at him. He towered over her and was dangerously good-looking, with a strong, harshly sensual face and black, black hair to match the long black lashes and brooding eyes. It took a lot of will-power not to quail before that singularly unblinking stare. She told herself that he was probably nothing more than a B-grade actor who was accustomed to playing the lead role in hammy TV dramas and didn’t know when to drop the act. She didn’t know why she had originally assumed he was a model. Definitely not pretty enough.

‘So, stepsister Rose, do you always wait up for Lily when she goes out?’

Rose favoured him with a look of haughty disdain. She detected the sarcasm in his voice but she wasn’t going to rise to it. She spun round on her heel and headed for the kitchen.

‘I’m not going to apologise for being rude, Mr Papaeliou,’ she said, the minute they were in the kitchen and he had taken up position on one of the chairs by the pine kitchen table, ‘but Lily’s been messed around by too many shallow, good-looking men and I’m not going to allow it to happen again…’ She must have only just finished making a hot drink for herself because there was no need to boil the kettle. His nightcap, far from being a glass of port or a liqueur, was a mug of coffee handed to him in the manner of someone eager to see him off the premises. She stood in front of him, arms folded. ‘She may not think that she needs looking after, and, sure, she’s more than capable of running her own life, but when it comes to emotions my sister can be very trusting. She doesn’t need to get involved with a two-bit actor on the make.’

Nick, for the first time in his life, felt himself struggling to get a handle on the situation.

‘Two bit actor?’

‘What else? You might play the action hero in whatever third-rate movies you’ve been in, but you can drop the macho act. It doesn’t wash with me. All I know is that Lily is a sucker when it comes to a good-looking man with a few chat-up lines, but they never stay the course and she’s had her heart broken too many times…’

Two-bit actor? Action hero? The woman had the barefaced audacity to make him sound like a comic-book character! But he was certainly not going to allow himself to be dragged into a stand-up fight with a woman with the personality of a Rottweiler. ‘Hence you’re her self-appointed watchdog. That’s very noble of you,’ Nick said coolly. ‘Does Lily appreciate your over-zealous concern? Or do you save these little speeches for when her back’s turned?’ He placed the mug on the table without drinking any of the coffee. ‘I hate to burst your bubble, but I’m not an empty-headed male model out to sleep with the nearest attractive woman, nor am I a two bit actor with an identity problem.’

‘No? Well, it doesn’t matter. Model, actor…creative director with an empty casting couch…it’s all much of a muchness. Lily’s just emerged from a relationship that ended badly and I’m making sure that she doesn’t get taken in by another man with too much looks and too few scruples for his own good. I wish there were a more polite way of warning you off, but there isn’t.’

Nick was accustomed to women pandering to him, hanging onto his every word, courting him with their feminine wiles. Could his night go any more off course? From a showdown that, inevitably, would reach the gossip pages in some rag, to a confrontation with a perfect stranger who was either partially unhinged or just too plain bloody outspoken for her own good.

Before he could reply to that blazing, generalised condemnation, Lily burst into the kitchen, apologising profusely and winningly for taking so long, but she’d just had to have a quick shower because she’d felt hideously grubby and knew, just knew that she’d stunk of cigarette smoke because everybody, but everybody there had been smoking and not all of it the run-of-the-mill tobacco.

Even in the early hours of the morning and after a long day doing a tiring job, she still managed to look incredibly fresh and vital and hopelessly young. It was ludicrous that her sister could imply that he, Nick Papaeliou, who could have any woman he wanted, would be attracted to Lily.

‘Have you two been getting to know one another?’ Lily asked brightly and Nick, looking at Rose from under his lashes, saw her glance with muted antagonism at him. Lily helped herself to some water from the tap and then turned around and perched against the counter so that she could look at them both.

‘Oh, absolutely,’ Nick drawled smoothly, giving Rose a slow, meaningful smile. ‘Like a house on fire…’

‘Oh, great!’ She turned to Rose. ‘Poor Nick broke up with his girlfriend tonight and it’s always nice to be in company when you’re down in the dumps.’

The meaningful smile slowly disappeared as Rose raised her eyebrows and nodded her head slowly.

‘I was far from down in the dumps, Lily.’ He tried to smile that one off, but he was irritably conscious of her sister’s eyes fastened on his face. ‘In fact, our relationship was on its way out. Susanna only did what I myself would have done the following day.’ How was he now having an inappropriately private conversation with two women he had never seen in his life before tonight?

‘Why would you go to a party with someone you wanted to ditch?’ Rose asked innocently and Nick gritted his teeth together. ‘I mean, the poor woman probably thought that you really cared about her.’

‘If you knew Susanna, the very last word you would use to describe her would be poor.’

‘Still…’ Rose allowed that one little word to drop into the silence.

Looking at her, Nick momentarily forgot Lily’s presence. ‘Still…what?’

‘Must be awful to break up with someone you care about in front of other people. I always think that when I open the newspapers and they’re full of some poor celebrity couple who end up being forced to wash all their dirty linen in public. And in a way, that’s not even as bad as the dirty linen being washed in front of friends…she must have been feeling pretty desperate…’

Lily was watching this interchange with a certain amount of bewilderment.

‘And on that note…’ Nick stood up. Surprisingly, exchanging barbs with Rose had so completely absorbed his attention that nothing else had occupied his mind. Not Susanna, not work, and he had completely forgotten Lily’s presence even though she had been standing in his direct line of vision.

‘Oh, dear…leaving so soon? Well, shall I call a cab for you? You won’t find one here, you know. It’s not central enough. Lily…’ Rose looked at her sister ‘…you look done in. Why don’t you hit the sack and I’ll wait up until Nick leaves?’

‘Don’t be silly, Rose.’ She yawned widely. ‘How can I invite Nick here for a nightcap and then disappear off to bed?’

‘I have already given him a nightcap. It was called a cup of coffee.’

‘Rose doesn’t do an awful lot of drinking…’ Lily smiled at Nick ‘…do you, Rosie?’

‘I’m sure Mr Papaeliou isn’t interested in my alcohol consumption.’ Lord, but she sounded prim and proper.

‘The name’s Nick,’ Nick said irritably.

Rose ignored him. ‘There. You’re falling asleep on your feet, Lily. Go to bed. I’ll see Mr Pa…Nick…out.’

‘Well…’

‘I can lie in in the morning,’ Rose insisted. ‘You know you always go to the gym first thing.’

‘S’pose…’

Rose guided her sister in the direction of the staircase so that the temptation of bed was just a little more irresistible. ‘Well nothing. You’ve been on your feet for the better part of the day while I’ve been here, just lolling around and taking it easy.’

‘If you’re sure…’

Oh, boy, Rose was absolutely sure. She gave Nick a gimlet-eyed stare, but as soon as Lily had vanished up the stairs he removed his jacket and lounged against the wall, looking at her.

Rose, all at once and unbidden, became acutely conscious of her inappropriate garb. Something about the subdued lighting in the hall, the knowledge that Lily was upstairs, probably about to crawl into bed, the way he was looking at her in that perfectly still way…She tightened her dressing gown around her and clung onto her virtuous sense of authority. Revealing even a glimpse of her nightwear, namely pyjamas patterned with prancing reindeer, which had been given to her as a Christmas present by a friend who specialised in silly gifts, would undermine everything she now wanted to convey.

‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, moving towards her, which, for some reason, she found horribly disconcerting, ‘you’re about to resume your attack, having frogmarched Lily to bed.’

‘I did not frogmarch her.’

‘As good as. So come on, then, let’s call a taxi and get it over and done with.’ He followed her into the kitchen, watched as she sat down and scrolled through the address book on her mobile phone, then made the call. While she did, she looked at Nick and tried not to let his presence overwhelm her, because even after such a brief spell in his company she knew, could just sense, that he was the sort of man who could inspire abject fear should he want to. Not exactly a people person, she thought nastily. The sort of man who picked up women and dropped them without a backward glance or a twinge of guilt. Like the poor Susanna who had been fired up enough to make a fool of herself in front of her friends.

They had fifteen minutes to talk and Rose wasn’t going to waste a single one of those minutes, but before she could utter a word Nick strolled towards her, cornering her in her chair so that she could feel the full, undiluted power of his personality.

‘But before you say anything, I think it’s my turn, don’t you?’ He smiled.

Rose refused to be intimidated. Just who did he think he was anyway? She made herself breathe evenly. Up close like this, his eyes were the deepest of greens, the colour of the fathomless sea. Right now the fathomless sea was revealing some very icy depths.

‘I think you should get a life,’ Nick said grimly, ‘and let your sister lead her own. Is it natural for you to wait up for her like a mother hen? Making sure she gets home safe and sound? You may think it natural. I, on the other hand, consider it sad, as would most people.’ He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. Did he care what this woman thought of him? Did he care what anyone thought of him? True freedom, he had always thought, was the freedom from caring about other people’s opinions. So why the hell was a pair of defiant blue eyes making him want to justify himself?

Rose blushed and for a few seconds was lost for words. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she knew that he was making sense, but looking out for Lily was a habit born of time and one that she couldn’t seem to let go. Their parents, her mother and stepfather, had died when they were still very young and they had gone to live with their aunt and uncle who were, as they were fond of saying, travellers in search of the meaning of life. Rose had discovered that this basically meant that they moved from pillar to post at a whim, with the practical concerns of two young people being only a minor technical hitch.

Nearly seven years older than her stepsister, Rose had been the sensible one who had made sure that Lily had someone grounded to whom she could turn and so, from the age of ten, she had become accustomed to looking out for her sister. But now Lily was twenty-two. Did she really still need the sensible older sister to wait up for her?

‘I don’t care what you think.’

‘What do you think your sister would say if she knew that you were warning me away?’

‘I think she would see it for the loving gesture that it is.’

‘Or maybe she might see it as an infringement of her right to lead her life the way she sees fit.’

‘Who are you,’ Rose spluttered, ‘to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do?’

‘Well, not a male model nor an actor, nor, for that matter, a seedy film director with an empty casting couch.’ He moved away from her chair and sat down, but pulling the kitchen chair close to hers so that there was no escaping his stifling presence. Where was he going with this particular piece of justification? he wondered.

‘I don’t care what job you do, Mr Papaeliou…’

‘I’m in finance, as a matter of fact. And believe me, when it comes to women, I don’t need to entice them with an empty casting couch.’

‘Whatever you do doesn’t change the fact that you’re a man who can break up traumatically with a woman, look around you, and within minutes be on the trail of another notch for your bedpost.’

Nick was enraged. Never had he been the object of such an unprecedented attack by someone who didn’t know him. Without vanity or pride, he could say that people tiptoed around him, the only exceptions being women at the end of a relationship who could, like Susanna, become hysterical and accusatory, but that was something he had always easily dealt with because, and his conscience was utterly clear on this point, he never made the mistake of making promises he would later fail to keep. He never spoke of love or allowed ideas of permanence and commitment to blur the edges of a relationship. He was speechless now at her sweeping assumptions, but absolutely through with defending himself and he stood up and began walking out of the kitchen while Rose gathered herself and followed him.

She had exhausted her argument and now there was nothing left to be said. Nick obviously thought the same thing because he stuck on his coat in silence, only looking at her when he was about to leave, with his hand on the door knob, in fact.

Rose pulled her dressing gown even tighter around her. In the half light, the man was frighteningly sexy and she felt an unwelcome shiver race down her spine, like the light, trailing touch of a finger. No, he certainly wouldn’t need an empty casting couch to attract women, she thought. He just had to look at them. She harnessed her thoughts back to her sister and primly congratulated herself on spotting a heartbreaker and trying to do something about it.

‘Thanks for the coffee,’ he said coldly, ‘and the warning. Take a tip from me—get a life, spend your Saturdays doing something and then maybe you wouldn’t work yourself up into a lather over your sister and what she’s getting up to. I’ll wait outside for the cab.’

With that he opened the door and, with perfect timing, the taxi pulled up.

Infuriated and insulted he might be, but Nick was hardly aware of the drive back to his house. There was a message on his answering machine. He played it back to discover that it was from Susanna, apologising in a trembling voice. He erased it without bothering to hear it fully out.

Damned Rose! Lurching out of nowhere like a furious little avenging angel, and now he couldn’t erase her from his mind. Experienced as Nick was in compartmentalising his personal life, he was sourly aware that the abrasive woman had rubbed him the wrong way to such an extent that he spent the better part of what remained of the night brooding and not even thoughts of work were sufficiently tantalising a distraction.



The furious avenging angel, less furious now as she lay in bed some twenty minutes after she had slammed the front door behind him, stared up at the ceiling and glumly admitted to herself that the man had got under her skin. Get a life. The taunt rankled because it had hit its target with the unswerving accuracy of a guided missile. Twenty-nine years old, as good as, and here she was, wearing ridiculous pyjamas and still playing caretaker to a sister who no longer needed caretaking.

Where had all the party times gone? Had there been any? Tony and Flora, as her aunt and uncle had insisted they be called, had done everything to encourage a wild and carefree lifestyle. Life, she had been told so often that she knew the script off by heart, was a wonderful and exciting place to be approached with curiosity and zest. Education was fine within reason, but the greater education was the Education of Life, which could loosely be translated into The Lifestyle of a Nomad. It had suited Tony and Flora but to Rose it spelt sickening upheavals and she had fought a rearguard action through her quiet rebellions. She had developed an aversion to pulses and soya and had insisted on burgers and fries, had immersed herself in her books, studying until her aunt and uncle had finally stopped telling her to go out and have some fun, had refused to wear the gypsy skirts and patchwork coats garnered from Oxfam shops, more through a healthy sense of self-preservation than personal dislike, and had made sure that Lily was as grounded as it was possible for her to be considering their weird lifestyle.

And in between all that, the parties had never happened and by the time Tony and Flora had zoomed off in their camper van, headed for the Cornish coast, where they still now lived, the ability to abandon herself to the freedom of youth had slipped past her. She had gone to university, worked hard and set her sights on achieving everything that she felt she had lacked in her formative years. Security.

Very important. For her. And for Lily. Even if Lily gave no thought to it. With the sort of lifestyle that she led, doing jobs off and on, trying out for parts in plays or commercials, most of which she never got, she needed at least one area in her life upon which she could rely and, having seen her sister on her roller-coaster rides with unsuitable men, Rose was determined to make sure that she at least provided Lily with a core of emotional stability in her chaotic world.

Of course, rushing in with dire words of warning the day after wasn’t going to work, so Rose prudently decided to leave the matter alone for a while and then, on one of the rare nights when they were both in and sharing a bowl of pasta without Lily having to rush off or Rose having to work late, she said, tentatively, ‘Seen anything more of that guy…can’t quite remember his name…the one who brought you back after that party a couple of weeks ago…?’

Lily, twirling some spaghetti round her fork, looked at Rose and grinned. ‘You mean Nick, Nick Papaeliou…how on earth could you have forgotten his name, Rosie? I don’t think anyone’s ever forgotten his name before. I’ve seen him twice, actually.’

Rose spluttered on a mouthful of pasta and cleared her throat with some water. ‘Twice! That’s twice more than I thought you had, considering you never mentioned a word to me.’

‘I meant to tell you, Rosie, but…’

‘But what?’ she asked casually, thinking of that dark, cynical face and stabbing an errant mushroom with her fork. She was reading guilt in the way her sister’s eyes shifted away from her.

‘I just thought you might give me a hard time. Nick got the impression that you didn’t much care for him.’

‘Me?’ Rose laughed carelessly. ‘Rubbish—the man’s obviously paranoid.’

‘Oh, Nick wouldn’t be paranoid about anything, Rosie. I mean…he’s got everything anyone could ever want or need. Apparently you thought that he was a two-bit actor.’ Lily giggled. ‘Wish I could have been a fly on the wall to have seen his expression when you said that. He looked outraged even when he repeated it to me.’

‘I admit I may have mistaken him for someone in the acting profession,’ Rose said carefully. ‘I don’t mean to sound the alarm bells unnecessarily, Lily, but he didn’t strike me as the most reliable man in town.’

‘What do you mean—“reliable”?’

‘Oh, the steady-as-a-rock kind. I just think that it’s so easy to be impressed by someone for all the wrong reasons. They may be good looking or rich…and in fact they could just be bad news.’

‘And I do have a history of going with the wrong guys,’ Lily admitted ruefully, which was Rose’s cue to breathe a sigh of relief and nod her head in vigorous agreement. ‘But you’re quite mistaken about Nick, Rosie. Honestly, I’m not impressed by how he looks or what he has…he’s just a very nice guy.’

Nice? Nice? Were they talking about the same human being?

Then it occurred to her that he probably was a very nice man to Lily. A stunning face and a sexy body probably turned him into a very nice man indeed. On the other hand, he had had no reason to be nice to her and so had shown his true colours. He could give lessons on arrogance if her sister only but knew.

‘If you got to know him a little bit better, then you would agree with me, you really would. In fact…’

‘Um?’

‘Well, I was going to actually mention this to you later…but…and this is the sort of guy he is, really cool…he’s invited both of us to a bit of a bash next Saturday. Even though you called him a two bit actor…’ another mini fit of giggles giving Rose a breather in which to digest this bolt from the blue ‘…he still stressed that he wanted us both to go along. Isn’t that sweet? We’ll have to go shopping. Apparently he’s having something small at a very exclusive club he owns…anybody who’s anybody’s going to be there. And us! How exciting is that?’

‘Not very,’ Rose said, panicked. ‘I mean…I’m not sure at all…I don’t think…’ Just the thought of something small at a very exclusive club owned by Nick Papaeliou was enough to bring her out in a cold sweat.

‘I won’t let you just write him off without a second chance, Rosie.’ Then Lily pulled out the most ancient emotional trump card in the deck. ‘If you really cared about me the way you say you do, then you’ll come…’




CHAPTER TWO


NICK HELPED HIMSELF to another drink. He felt restless. The party that had been arranged specifically for the benefit of Lily, though that was something she would never know, was in full swing. He had asked all the movers and shakers in the world of theatre, teased their palates by throwing in a few big names in business, the sort of men and women who were interested in promoting the Arts and were willing to put their money where their mouth was, and the supermodels were really the icing on the cake.

Not a single person had declined the invitation, even though it was very much a last-minute affair. Parties thrown by him were few and far between and had enough cachet to attract even the most sought-after celebrities.

Unfortunately, the belle of the ball, so to speak, had still not arrived. Nor had her sister.

Nick’s gaze strayed once more to the door and he looked at his watch. It didn’t take a genius to work out why they were late. Rose had either decided not to come or else had employed delaying tactics. It would have been a hell of a lot easier if he had not asked her along, but his memory of their last encounter had preyed on his mind and eventually he had worked out that inviting her, letting her see for herself how little he needed to pursue a woman because of her looks, would even out the score. She had dismissed him and Nick Papaeliou didn’t like being dismissed. He particularly didn’t like being dismissed for the wrong reasons.

He was still staring at the door when it opened. He saw Lily first, exquisite in a pale blue dress that was very simple, just a short silky shift with a very respectable round collar, saw her look round the room, searching him out, and he found himself trying to stare behind her to see whether Rose had come or not.

He finished his drink and headed towards them and as he neared them he saw her, half ducking behind the door.

‘You’re here.’ A warm smile for Lily and then he stepped around her to where Rose was nervously hovering just out of sight of the crowd. ‘And so are you. I’m surprised. I thought you might decide that this wasn’t the sort of thing you were interested in attending.’

How right he was. Over four days, Rose had made several futile attempts to wriggle out of her sister’s rash promise that they would both be overjoyed to attend whatever posh party Nick had arranged. She had valiantly plugged the Nothing To Wear excuse, which had been overruled before it had even had time to gain the necessary momentum, then had come a pious, self-sacrificing But I Wouldn’t Want To Get In Your Way, and when that had fallen on deaf ears she had resorted to the truth, which was that she was totally uninterested in those sorts of things, big parties full of people talking at one another and peering around to see if somebody more interesting happened to be lurking on the horizon.

The truth was that she didn’t want to see Nick. She disapproved of his involvement with her sister and she bitterly resented his arrogant, insulting response to her perfectly reasonable request that he take his attentions elsewhere.

Now, as she looked at him, she felt all that resentment gathering pace, like a snowball turning into an avalanche.

He looked magnificent. White shirt, black trousers, but instead of looking conventional he looked darkly, broodingly, raffishly sexy. Something about the way he had rolled the sleeves to his elbows. Or maybe it was his colouring that did it.

Rose shuffled away from the comforting wall that separated her from the rest of the crowd inside and tried not to scowl.

‘It isn’t,’ she said shortly.

‘Well, don’t hide away out here, you two. Come inside and meet all the beautiful people.’ Okay, he knew that that would probably send her nervous system into furious overdrive, but he couldn’t help himself.

Lily, of course, responded with predictable enthusiasm, happily taking the arm he offered, while her sister looked at his other arm, also being proffered, and ignored it.

She felt awkward enough in her outfit without having to suffer the indignity of everyone looking at them, puzzling out who the short, dumpy woman in the black dress was. Lily might hang off his arm and look as though that was her rightful place. Rose, on the other hand, knew that were she to hang off his other arm the effect would be just the opposite. So she walked a little distance apart, grateful that Lily was keeping up the conversation with her bubbly chatter.

‘I’ll get you two a drink, shall I?’

‘Ooh. A glass of champagne would be great, Nick.’ Lily’s eyes were everywhere, like a kid in a toy shop.

‘And for you?’

Rose met his amused eyes steadily. ‘I’m fine just at the moment.’

‘No, you’re not. I’ll get you a glass of wine. It’ll help you to relax.’

‘I’m perfectly relaxed,’ Rose lied, and he grinned broadly at her.

‘In that case, you’re giving an excellent imitation of someone who would rather be anywhere else in the world but here.’

He disappeared, feeling suddenly invigorated. He had never prided himself on his altruism. Sure, he gave massive donations of money to charity, but all of that he left to his financial department. In the case of Lily, he was doing a good deed for which he would get nothing in return. Except her gratitude, most probably, although gratitude was something he never requested from anyone and rarely appreciated. Yes, indeed, being Mr Good Guy was proving to be a very enjoyable novelty.

Of course, he mused, a little gratitude from her sister might be pretty satisfying.

He caught himself scanning the room, making sure that Rose was where he had left her and, sure enough, she was, although Lily was beginning to look a little edgy. By the time he made it back to Rose, it was to find her standing on her own.

‘Lily’s disappeared,’ she greeted him.

‘So I see.’

‘She recognised some people from her last stint in the theatre.’

‘Rude of her not to introduce you to them.’

‘I…I told her to go ahead.’ Rose looked at him defiantly. ‘It’s important that she tries to make a few connections. Apparently, that’s how it works in the acting business. You can’t come to a do like this and huddle on the sidelines.’ She accepted her glass of wine while he deposited the unwanted champagne on one of the many handy chest-height tables that dotted the room. Tall bar stools were positioned by some of the tables, but most of these were unused. Rose supposed that sitting down wasn’t conducive enough to mingling.

‘No. It’s all about networking,’ Nick agreed.

‘And I really don’t want to keep you from that.’

‘I have no need to network.’ He shrugged. ‘There’s nothing I need from anyone here. They are my guests and a good time will be had by all because they offer each other opportunities. The people in the acting profession will be networking with the businessmen who make their world tick financially, the businessmen will be lusting after the models, the models will be intrigued by the celebrities—’

‘And you will observe them all.’

Nick returned his gaze to her face, which was cool and assessing. He frowned.

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘You’re like a scientist looking at the rest of the world through a microscope, examining interesting little bugs.’

‘You know,’ he drawled, ‘maybe I shouldn’t let you loose in the room, not with that knack you have of rubbing people up the wrong way.’

Rose flushed. ‘I didn’t realise that I was rubbing you up the wrong way. I was just making an observation.’

‘The only way to succeed in life is to develop the ability to read other people.’ He looked at her carefully and realised that he was intrigued by her personality, proving yet again to himself that he needed a little novelty in his life. First Lily and now her sister. Making money was predictable. Closing deals brought an adrenaline rush, yes, but it was something that was over quickly. And women…hardly any surprises there. Until now. He decided that he would spend a few more minutes with her, sparing her the trauma of mixing, in other words doing her a good deed.

‘Oh, yes?’ she enquired politely and he frowned at her, unimpressed with that hint of mild boredom in her voice.

‘Take yourself, for example.’ Oh, yes, that did the trick. He could almost see her begin to bristle. ‘Here you are, hating every minute of this party, dragged along by Lily who, in her own sweet way, is as stubborn as a mule—’

‘I’m not sure where you’re going with this. I’ve already told you that this isn’t my sort of thing—’

‘And you would love to put yourself firmly above everyone here, but I’ll just bet you feel awkward and gauche. Am I right?’ Since when did a woman find his company boring? It was inconceivable.

‘No. No, I don’t…’ She should never have worn this black, shapeless dress. Tall, skinny people could pull off shapeless because everyone would know that, underneath, they had rangy, slender bodies. And, yes, she did feel awkward and gauche, but there was no need to have the fact pointed out to her. ‘Anyway, why did you ask me along if you knew that I wasn’t going to enjoy myself? If you’re such a brilliant reader of people, you must have known that I wouldn’t fit in with this crowd.’

‘It’s always good to face your fears.’

‘Oh, so you are doing me a favour, in other words.’

‘And I notice you aren’t suitably grateful.’

Rose downed the remainder of her wine and snorted in an appropriately unfeminine way. She picked up the champagne that he had left on the table and swallowed a mouthful, drawing in her breath as the bubbles went down. The little glittery black bag that she had borrowed from Lily, and which she was clutching in her left hand, seemed a ridiculous accessory. Her skin crawled at the thought that he was laughing at her, finding her awkward and gauche. The champagne seemed to be finished and she seriously contemplated another drink.

‘I’m going to have to circulate now.’

‘Don’t let me stand in your way.’

‘Oh, but you are,’ Nick drawled smoothly. Two glasses on the trot had brought a pink flush to her cheeks. ‘I’m running this show and it’s my duty to make sure that no one is left standing next to the wall on their own, quietly drinking themselves into a stupor.’

Rose felt the colour crawl into her face as her role loomed before her in all its unmistakable hideousness. She was Lily’s chaperone and her host’s burden. He would fob her off on one of his guests or else deliver her back to her sister because he thought that if he didn’t, she would end up making a fool of herself. Mortification replaced the light headed sensation induced by the wine and champagne and brought her crashing back down to the reality crowding around her.

‘I’m not going to drink myself into a stupor,’ she snapped. ‘You needn’t worry that I’m going to embarrass you in front of your glittering guests.’

‘Embarrass me?’

‘By drinking too much and falling into a heap on the floor.’

‘Why would I be embarrassed if you make a spectacle of yourself?’ He sighed impatiently and led her to one of the bar stools at the table closest to them. The woman was difficult and tactless and of course he shouldn’t concern himself with her, but he felt an irrational need to take her under his wing. Because, he told himself, she was Lily’s sister and while he might not be embarrassed if Rose got drunk and made a fool of herself, her sister almost certainly would. So, gentleman that he was, he would forgo his duty to circulate and spend a little time with her instead. No hardship. The crowd seemed to be doing splendidly without his input. The wonders of limitless alcohol, he thought. And of course the seduction of preening and strutting in front of people who counted. He had been keeping a watchful eye on Lily. Next to some of the more seasoned networkers, she was holding her own and drinking, he noticed, remarkably little. A wise head on young shoulders.

‘I thought you were going to mingle with your guests,’ Rose said, then, as if giving things a second thought, she sighed into the glass of orange juice that had mysteriously appeared in front of her. ‘I’m not being a particularly nice person, am I?’

Nick shook his head, relaxing and slinging one arm over the slatted back of his bar stool.

‘Well, nor are you!’

He smiled and raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s the worst apology I’ve ever heard.’

‘It wasn’t meant to be an apology.’

‘Oh. You mean you were just making an observation about yourself.’

Rose decided to change the subject altogether. When he looked at her she felt simultaneously incredibly self-conscious, which was maddening, and resentful of him for making her feel that way.

‘It’s a very nice place you have here.’

‘Oh, don’t tell me you’re going to go all polite on me now.’ This happening party of his seemed to be a long way away.

‘How on earth did you make so much money?’

‘Ah. That’s more like it. Crashing through those flimsy barriers called tact and really speaking your mind without bothering to gift-wrap anything.’

‘You did tell me not to be polite.’ Rose, who was not accustomed to flirting, was uneasily aware of a certain undercurrent between them that was thrilling and frightening at the same time. As were those amazing eyes of his, resting thoughtfully on her face. She knew that she was just being stupid but her heart was thudding inside her like a hammer and everything, all her senses, seemed heightened, stretched taut like a piece of elastic.

‘So…?’ she persisted.

‘Worked my way up.’ Nick nodded to one of the waiters who were invisibly collecting empty glasses and asked him for a whisky and soda.

‘Up from where?’

‘This is really a very boring story.’

‘You mean you don’t like other people observing you under their microscope even though you enjoy observing them under yours.’

Meaning that personal confidences were not part of his routine when it came to women. However, his history was no secret. Anyone could access its bare bones from the thousands of entries to be found on him on the Internet. Where was the harm in saving her the bother of looking him up, if her curiosity got the better of her?

‘A simple tale of a Greek immigrant who fell in love with an English beauty,’ he said casually. Did anyone know how his parents had sustained him? Had faith in him? ‘They worked all the hours God made to make ends meet and to put me through private school.’ Well, that was no big confidence. It was there in his profile somewhere.

‘That’s wonderful.’

‘Is it?’

‘Of course it is.’ She rather thought that he would have done just fine whatever school he had attended, but, compared to her background, it must have been marvellous to have had parents who would have been willing to do whatever it took for their child to pursue a proper education.

‘Where are they now?’

‘No more. They both died a long time ago.’ He looked away, annoyed because this was all in the past and why the hell was he talking about it anyway?

‘I’m sorry.’

‘And I do need to actually mingle with the people I have invited here.’ He stood up and looked down at her. ‘I can introduce you or I can leave you here on your own. Take your pick.’

So that brief truce between them was over. Rose was quietly relieved. Just then, she had felt something sneak up on her, something unwanted that had made her feel giddy and out of control.

‘I’m fine,’ she told him with a distant smile. ‘You go mix. I’ll have a hunt around for Lily. Sorry for having taken up too much of your valuable time.’ When it came to sarcasm, she was as good as him any day.

Anyway, it was much easier now. Nearly everyone there was mellower by a fair few glasses of champagne. They barely noticed her skirting through them. In fact, Rose felt virtually invisible.

She found Lily in the middle of a small group of men, not saying much but paying a lot of attention, and very sober. That was good. For Rose, she would leave this evening behind and return to her normal life. For Lily, this was a chance to meet people, to get her face known and, for her sake, Rose hoped that the evening would turn out to be a success.

She hovered briefly on the fringe, then wandered through the crowd and, after a couple more glasses of wine, found that chatting to them wasn’t the nightmare she had predicted. Somewhere Nick was lurking, although she couldn’t actually see him anywhere.

Like Cinderella, she was ready to leave by the stroke of midnight. She seemed to be in a minority of one. The drink was still flowing, her sister was absorbed talking to a couple of guys, her face fresh and animated, and Rose had had enough. She had listened to people talk about other people, had eavesdropped boring conversations about scripts that had never got off the ground and arguments with directors who didn’t know what they were talking about and lottery grants that should have gone to art projects but had ended up going to crazy organisations that wasted the money and went bankrupt within two years. She had eaten the most amazing finger food she had ever tasted, served by the most attentive staff she had ever seen, and refused enough glasses of wine or champagne to fill a cellar.

After fifteen minutes of trying to attract Lily’s attention, Rose gave up and headed out of the room in search of a breath of fresh air.

Outside was a corridor that circled the club area and off which, like little nodules from a main stem, were rooms behind which were probably offices, although Rose couldn’t tell because the doors were all shut. The floors were pale cream marble, merging into the pale cream marble of the walls, along which hung abstract paintings that looked particularly unappealing in the subdued lighting.

She drifted along, deciding to give her sister precisely half an hour more networking time before dragging her out of the place, and was about to head back when she spotted the light from under the door. It was just a narrow strip, but in the relative darkness of the corridor as bright as a beacon and she didn’t hesitate. She walked right towards it and pushed open the door. She hadn’t known what to expect but she certainly hadn’t expected to find Nick there, installed in front of his computer and surrounded by all the paraphernalia of a home office.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, backing out, but he had already pushed his chair away from the desk and was pinning her in her tracks just by looking at her. A further, more elaborate apology formed somewhere in her mind but didn’t quite manage to connect with her vocal cords, which seemed to have seized up.

In the intervening silence, he propped his feet up on his desk and relaxed back, hands folded behind his head.

‘Looking for something?’ His dark eyebrows rose in amused enquiry and Rose cleared her throat.

‘No. I just happened to be…’

‘Escaping all the fun and laughter? Come in and close the door behind you.’ He paused. ‘Well? I don’t bite. At least, not unless I’m invited to.’

Rose, calm, efficient, always-in-control Rose, was beginning to feel very addled. Of course, she ought to graciously thank him for inviting her to his private function, politely turn down his offer to step inside, which had the vaguely dangerous undertones of what the spider had said to the fly, and hunt down Lily pronto.

She found herself obeying him, however, and shutting the door behind her, although once she had done so her legs refused to cooperate by propelling her towards the chair that he was now indicating.

‘Sit.’

‘I…I’m really on my way out, actually.’ Vocal cords found. Thank heavens! ‘I came outside to get a breath of fresh air and saw…well, the light under the door. What on earth are you doing?’ This was much better. Her brain was beginning to function. She made it to the chair and sat down.

‘What does it look like I’m doing?’

‘Isn’t it a bit rude for the host to be working at his own party?’

‘I think everyone can manage fine without me for half an hour.’ Nick shrugged and continued to look at her, his expression unreadable. She looked awkward in her dress, as if wearing dresses was not something that came naturally to her but having found herself cornered into buying one, she had opted for the least flattering. Every single woman at the party had made a very special effort to wear something that would make them stand out in the crowd. Rose, on the other hand, had worn something that shrieked background. Briefly, Nick wondered what she would look like underneath the shapeless black garment and drew his breath in sharply, surprised at the thought.

‘Besides, there was no choice. I had an urgent phone call from Australia requesting some information to be emailed to them.’

‘Do you ever stop working?’

‘Occasionally.’ He lowered his eyes. Something about the shape of her breasts, just discernible under the dress, was kick-starting his imagination. ‘Lily seems to be enjoying herself.’

‘Yes. Yes, she does.’

‘But I guess you probably found the whole thing a little…boring…’

She shrugged. ‘Not at all,’ she told him politely.

‘You looked bored every time I saw you.’

‘You were watching me?’

Nick didn’t like the intonation in her voice when she said that. ‘It’s my duty to make sure that my guests are having a good time.’

‘Then I’m surprised your keen sense of duty allowed you to sneak off to this office and work.’ Yet again, she had the nagging, unpleasant suspicion that she was a charity case. ‘Anyway, it was very interesting. It always is, meeting people from different walks of life.’

‘Now why do I get the feeling that you don’t really mean that?’ When she didn’t answer, he added, interested against his will, ‘What’s your walk of life?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘What do you do for a living?’

‘I…I work in computers.’ God, that sounded dull, especially when she considered the flamboyant, beautiful people who cluttered his life. How on earth, as a businessman, was he so well connected with the media set? she wondered. Then the question was answered virtually before it was posed. He dated cover girls. Money and looks would always be attracted to money and looks.

‘That’s very interesting.’

‘There’s no need to patronise me.’

‘I’m not. What exactly do you do? In computers?’

‘Nothing very exciting.’

At this point, Nick knew that he should just give up. Getting anything out of this woman was about as rewarding and straightforward as pulling teeth, and if it was one thing he didn’t do, it was to work at making small talk with a woman. But her awkward response was like an invitation to press harder. In front of him, the screensaver came up on the computer and he switched it off.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Look—’ Rose looked at him steadily ‘—I know you probably feel sorry for me…’

‘Why should I feel sorry for you?’

‘Because I don’t slot into your category of an interesting woman.’

‘As you quite rightly pointed out, it’s always an eye opener meeting people from different walks of life.’

‘Well, if you really want to know, I pretty much do everything with computers. Programming, updating systems, designing websites…’ She heard herself rattling off a curriculum vitae that sounded deadly dull. ‘It’s actually very absorbing,’ she stressed.

‘I’m sure it is,’ Nick agreed. ‘Odd that you and your sister should have ended up in such completely different worlds. Computing and acting…’

Rose shrugged and stood up. ‘I’ve got to go and find Lily. It’s late. Time to head back.’

Nick met his fair share of clever, career-oriented women in his working life. He had frequently sat opposite top female lawyers in the early hours of the morning closing deals. Several of them had even tried to flirt with him, but he had never been interested in developing a relationship with any of them outside the boardroom. Put simply, nothing could compete with the archetypal brainless bimbo when it came to relaxation. Who needed to be mentally challenged twenty four seven? He had derived enough mental challenges in his working life.

Or so he had always maintained.

Right now, he was beginning to feel inordinately curious about what the computer whiz kid did in her spare time.

‘Is this a late night for you?’ he asked blandly.

Rose was suitably riled by the question. ‘Not particularly,’ she lied. ‘But there’s a limit to how long I can carry on chatting to people I don’t know about things I’m not particularly interested in.’

‘What would you rather be doing?’

‘Going to bed, as a matter of fact.’

‘With anyone in particular?’

Rose’s mouth dropped open at the sheer audacity of the question, which had sprung from nothing but, once voiced, seemed to fill the room with thick, electric tension.

‘I really don’t think that’s any of your business,’ she finally managed to stutter, red-faced. She turned and began walking towards the door, head held high. He might be a millionaire many times over, but that didn’t give him the right to say whatever he wanted to say and ask whatever he wanted to ask, without reserve.

She was aware of him behind her before she had even reached the door and when he stood in front of her, blocking her exit, she had to clench her hands at her sides to steady her nerves.

‘I like things that aren’t my business,’ Nick murmured lazily. ‘So tell me what you do in your spare time. When you go out until the early hours of the morning.’

He towered over her and she felt as if she were suffocating. Was he laughing at her? She rather imagined that he was because he certainly wasn’t interested in anything she had to say. He was bored with his own party and had decided to have a little fun at her expense. She was sure of it.

Having worked all that out, it still left her with the little problem of how to get out of the room when he was standing in front of the door like a prison warden with a taste for sadism.

The man was loathsome. Yes, he was sinfully good-looking and, yes, she could see those flashes of charm that turned women into mindless robots ready to do whatever he asked them to do, but to her he was someone who was happy to play with other people, in much the same way as a cat played with a mouse. No serious harm intended, just a spot of good fun.

‘I don’t have to do anything,’ Rose told him coolly. ‘Lily’s always been the clubber.’

‘And you’ve always been…what?’ Hand it to her, he thought, she wasn’t going to let herself be daunted by him, even though her mounting colour signalled her discomfort. Nor was she flattered by his interest. In fact, he would have been hard-pressed to think of any woman less flattered by his undivided attention. That in itself was an interesting concept.

‘I talk when I go out with my friends,’ Rose said quietly. ‘And I don’t need to drink to excess or have loud music blaring in the background to feel as though I’m having a good time.’

Nick could hear the implicit sarcasm in her voice and was amused by it.

‘Sounds like fun.’

‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

‘And what do you do afterwards?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When you’ve had fun setting the world to rights?’

‘I don’t set the world to rights.’ Rose gritted her teeth together and reminded herself that he was just goading her and that the last thing she should do was play into his hands by reacting. ‘And even if we did sit around setting the world to rights, it would still be a heck of a lot more fun than slowly getting drunk and bitching about everyone and everything.’

‘Referring to anyone in particular?’

‘Several in general,’ she said waspishly, ‘and they’re all out there. I believe they’re called your friends.’

If she had hoped to insult him, then she had been mistaken, because instead of being suitably offended he just burst out laughing.

When he laughed, really laughed…

Rose’s skin prickled and she felt jumpy and weak at the same time, as if her bones were turning into hot liquid, no longer able to support her body.

‘I’m glad you find that funny,’ she said, and wondered if he, too, could detect the high-pitched panic in her voice. She wasn’t quite sure why, but she badly needed to leave the room.

‘Oh, I do…but you still haven’t answered my question.’

‘I didn’t realise you’d asked one.’ She gave a deep, exaggerated sigh, which she hoped would convey to him just how fed up she was with their conversation.

‘About what you do after you finish discussing deep and meaningful things with your friends. In quiet rooms. Over some invigorating glasses of mineral water.’ Nick grinned. In actual fact, he had headed to the office to have a break from the noise of the party, which was an event he had arranged solely for Lily’s benefit. What an altruist he was turning out to be.

Work was always an absorbing diversion, but right now he couldn’t care less about work because he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was also more curious than ever to find out just a little bit more about the woman in front of him who was, right at this moment, barely managing to restrain herself from hitting him as hard as she could. He imagined that she could probably throw a pretty good punch. None of the usual female face-slapping before bursting into tears. More a sock to the jaw and then, when he was rubbing his face, another for good measure.

‘I don’t know what you’re going on about and I think you should head back before they send out a search party.’

‘Hardly likely considering most of them are far too inebriated to have even missed me, and what I’m going on about is whether, when your crazy late nights are over, you head back to your place for wild sex…do you?’

‘I told you—that’s none of your business.’ Now she really needed to get out because something was happening and, while she didn’t quite know what, she did know that it was…dangerous for her. And thankfully he stepped aside. He even opened the door for her, but before she could make a break to the safety of the crowded club he was leaning down to her; she could feel the warmth of his breath against her ear and it made her shiver.

‘I take it that means no?’

She wanted to run but she didn’t. She walked away, head held high, without bothering to dignify his smirking remark with an answer.




CHAPTER THREE


WHEN Rose looked at the screen of her computer terminal she had the strangest sensation. Instead of seeing her programme run, she saw a face. His face. It was infuriating. Not only had the man got under her skin at the party nearly a week ago, but he was continuing to get under her skin when she should be concentrating on her work. She couldn’t figure it out because she had pointedly avoided mentioning him to Lily and out of sight should have meant out of mind.

Just as well her office wasn’t the sort of cosy little place where people might notice that she had been staring at the same code for the past fifteen minutes. In fact, the big pull about Fedco, when she had joined it five years previously, had been its size. Squatting like a giant patriarch on a retail site just outside London, it had been easily accessible by car, thereby enabling Rose to avoid the vagaries of the London transport system, and, once inside, she had been able to lose herself in the enormity of the building. Her friends all joked about leaving it behind, moving on to somewhere small, chic, designer and innovative where they could really exploit their talents, but in truth the thought of being at the cutting edge of technology in some small, upwardly mobile company terrified her. Small and cutting edge, in her head, spelt insecurity, whereas Fedco was as secure as they came, never mind that you were more a number than a face.

And where else could she sit scowling without someone telling her to get on with her work?

In between her scowls, she kept a sharp eye on the clock. She had never been one to clock-watch but she couldn’t wait to leave the building and get back home, where she could put her feet up and drag her thoughts away from her sister’s high-handed, arrogant boyfriend by watching a couple of hours of mindless television.

With fifteen minutes to go and just as she was finally beginning to get into her stride, an excited Maggie flew to her desk and announced, sotto voce, that there was a man waiting in Reception for her.

‘What man?’ Rose asked suspiciously, using the interruption as an excuse to switch off her computer and begin gathering her belongings.

‘A dishy one.’

‘I don’t know any dish…Hang on, what exactly does he look like?’ She could feel the colour crawling into her face.

‘Oh, you know, tall and dark and drop dead gorgeous.’

‘What the heck is he doing here?’

‘He who?’ Maggie looked as if swooning would become a real possibility within the next few minutes.

‘He my sister’s boyfriend.’ Rose slammed some files into her briefcase and banged it shut. ‘He the most arrogant man on the face of the earth…he the person with the manners of a wild boar…that he…’

‘Oh. Trust Lily to snap up another good one.’ Maggie visibly wilted. ‘Must be tough having a sister it’s impossible to compete with…not that I meant…not that I mean…’

‘I know what you meant, Mags, and you’re right—on the looks front she’s a hard act to follow…and she’s nice with it…’ Rose stood up, stuck on her coat and felt her stomach clench at the prospect of seeing Nick. ‘Although I’ve got to say that this is the sort of man that no woman in her right mind would dream of competing for. One of those “love ’em and leave ’em” types of guys who see women as notches on their bedpost, the more the merrier.’ The office was beginning to thin out as everybody began the exodus, off to enjoy the beginning of their weekend. ‘I mean—’ she leaned towards Maggie who gave a little yelp and stepped back ‘—the man is everything a woman should steer clear of—’

‘Thanks for the endorsement.’

Nick’s voice was so close to her that for a few seconds Rose didn’t believe that she had actually heard him. He was standing right behind them. She turned around slowly and hoped that she was more composed than she felt. At any rate more composed than Maggie, who had launched into an awkward introduction followed by some stuttering apologies about having to dash, simultaneously backing away from Nick’s unsmiling figure. Rose longed to do the same.

‘What do you think you’re doing here?’ Attack, she decided, was the best form of defence. ‘Is Lily with you?’

‘No. Should she be?’

‘Why are you here? Sneaking around?’ He had obviously come straight from work and he looked amazing, unfairly sexy considering he had probably spent his day at a desk somewhere. Wherever it was that very rich people spent their days. At the end of a tiring working day, she always seemed to look like something the cat dragged in. Rumpled hair that had spent the day progressively rebelling against clips and elastic bands, lip gloss that had disappeared some time between her morning snack and lunch-time baguette, face that was shiny under the fluorescent lighting.

‘We need to…have a chat about your sister…’

‘Why?’ Panic slammed into her. From experience, whenever someone had said to her that they needed to have a little chat, the little chat had never heralded good news. When she was growing up, Tony and Flora had always preceded their next, big, new adventure with a little chat. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Shall we take this conversation somewhere else?’ He would return to those insults of hers later. For the moment, he would see to it that they leave the bustling confines of her office. He didn’t have to glance around to know that he was attracting some very curious stares and, while this didn’t bother him in the slightest, he suspected it would give her ample ammunition to attack him for disrupting her life.

He wondered what he was doing here. In fact, he wondered how his highly ordered existence had become so embroiled, in such a short space of time, with two sisters whom he had not known from Adam a month ago. The one, yes, he could understand. Lily was beautiful, sweet-natured and helping her had been a balm for him after the annoyance of his last relationship.

But her sister?

‘No. I don’t want to go with you anywhere. Whatever you have to say can be said right here.’ Drugs? Debt? Pregnancy? Lord, what if Lily was pregnant with his child and too embarrassed to break the news herself? Rose tried to remember just how long Nick had been on the scene.

‘Come on.’

‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’

‘Right. In that case, I’ll just stroll out and leave you to stew in your own stubborn stupidity, shall I? You would rather make a point than listen to anything I have to say.’

‘That’s not true. It’s just that I…can’t leave yet. I still have heaps of work to do.’

‘Wearing your coat? With your computer switched off?’

Rose flushed and looked away. The more she argued with the man, the more she sensed a lively interest from the dwindling number of her colleagues still around. ‘Why didn’t Lily come herself? Is she in trouble?’

‘She…just seemed reluctant to tell you…this herself so I volunteered to do it on her behalf…Now, let’s get out of here.’





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