Джеки Браун – Greek Bachelors: Tempted To A Fling: A Greek Escape / Greek for Beginners / My Sexy Greek Summer (страница 24)

‘How have you been?’

She didn’t answer but, aware that Josh and Lorna were still around somewhere in the building, moved over and closed the door. She’d been too hurt and ashamed of herself even to tell them that she had met someone in Greece, and she didn’t want them finding out about it now.

‘What do you want?’

‘I’d like to see you.’

‘Why?’ she asked, breathless from the dark and sick responses suddenly surging through her.

‘I would have thought that was obvious after the way you ran out on me that day,’ he remarked dryly. ‘So suddenly. Without a word.’

‘What did you expect me to do?’ she asked pithily, in spite of the way her heart was thudding. ‘Stick around so you could make an even bigger fool of me?’

‘It was never my intention to make a fool of you.’ His voice had dropped a semi-tone to become almost caressing, reminding her of how treacherously it had excited her when she’d been deceived into believing he was someone else.

‘No?’ It came out sounding more wounded than she’d intended. ‘I’d like to know what you’d have done if you’d really been trying.’

‘Yes, well...’

His words tailed away on a heavily drawn breath while Kayla pictured him, wherever he was, his hair wild and untamed, looking as casual as he sounded in his automatic assumption that she would even consider seeing him again.

‘I know you’re still angry....’

‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ It came out on a shrill little laugh.

‘Have dinner with me,’ he suggested, amazing Kayla with his unerring confidence.

Even so, her heart leaped traitorously in response.

‘Why?’

In the moment’s silence that followed she imagined a masculine eyebrow tweaking at her challenging response.

With more composure than she was managing to retain, he answered, ‘Because we have things to discuss.’

‘Oh, really? Like what?’ She could hear Lorna and Josh still working in the conference room above—moving chairs, closing windows for the night—as she pushed her loose hair behind an ear with a shaky hand. ‘Like why you made a complete idiot out of me in Greece? Like why you pretended to be somebody you weren’t when I was in trouble and needed help? And why you kept pretending even when I was taken in by you and offered you suggestions of what you could do with your life to improve your lot? Or is it the other thing you want to apologise for? For having sex with me when you were lying through your teeth and thinking I’d simply forgive you if I found out? Because you’re the idiot if you think I’d go anywhere and discuss anything with you after what you did.’

‘And that’s all you have to say?’ His voice was toneless now, devoid of any emotion.

‘Why? Do you really want to hear some more?’ She could feel the bite of tears behind her eyes but she willed them back. She couldn’t cry. Couldn’t let him hear how brutally he had hurt her and make an even bigger fool of herself into the bargain. ‘Because there’s a whole barrelful where that came from!’ Resentment defended her from the pain he had inflicted upon her, the hurt to her pride, her trust and her emotions.

‘I think I get the message,’ he rasped under his breath. ‘As the saying goes, see you around.’

He had rung off before she could even regain her wits.

* * *

Kayla was at the office early the following morning, to prepare the conference room for the important meeting. She had slept very little for thinking about Leonidas, but she hid her tiredness behind a bright façade as she put out pens and paper, tumblers and a jug of water, arranged fresh flowers for the centre of the long table and generally helped Lorna to stay calm.

Her friend was flitting around in a state of anxious excitement. Worried for her, Kayla insisted that she sat down and took a few deep breaths before the man from Havens arrived.

‘Supposing after all this they don’t think we’re solid enough and change their mind about giving us their business?’ Lorna said worriedly. ‘Or they think we don’t have enough expertise and decide to go with a company that’s bigger and better?’

‘Bigger, maybe—but not better,’ Kayla assured her, meaning it. ‘Anyway, you said yourself the contract’s as good as in the bag. This meeting’s only a formality, so stop worrying,’ she advised gently. But secretly she was concerned.

Lorna was nearly six months pregnant now, and Kayla knew how much this coming baby meant to her and Josh. Lorna had to stay free from stress if this pregnancy wasn’t to end in the same traumatic way as her previous two pregnancies had, and getting overwrought about anything was bad news.

Havens had said that they might require some extra financial information, and Kayla was pleased, therefore, that as their bookkeeper she had been asked to attend the meeting. It would help take the pressure off Lorna.

‘You’ll also serve as our charm offensive,’ Josh had joked.

Consequently, when he rang down to her office at ten o’clock sharp and asked her to join them, Kayla slipped her charcoal-grey tailored suit jacket on over her sleeveless blue blouse and, checking the French pleat she’d carefully styled her hair in that morning, took the lift to the first floor, prepared to charm the Havens man for all she was worth.

‘Come in, Kayla.’ A quiet-voiced Josh—mousy beard neatly trimmed and looking unusually smart today in a jacket and tie—was standing at the top of the table. Lorna was sitting on his right. But it was the man who had been sitting opposite her and was now getting to his feet that made Kayla feel she’d suddenly been gripped by some hideous hallucination. Until Josh said, ‘Kayla, this is Mr Vassalio. Mr Vassalio, this is our invaluable bookkeeper, Kayla Young.’

She wasn’t sure how she managed to walk around the table to take the hand Leonidas was holding out to her. She felt stiff-backed and winded, and in the four-inch heels she hadn’t given a second thought to wearing that morning, suddenly in danger of over-balancing.

‘Miss Young.’

She didn’t know what automatic response gave her the emotional strength to take his hand in the outward appearance of a formal handshake, or whether he could feel the way her fingers were trembling as he held them in his warm palm a fraction of a second too long.

‘Mr Vassalio.’ It came out as a croak from between lips that felt as dry as kindling, while flames seemed to be leaping through her blood—not just from the shock of his being there, but from his devastating appearance too.

Since she had last seen him he seemed to have changed his whole persona. The designer stubble was gone, as was the long, unruly hair. Now expertly cut, the jet-black layers waved thickly against a pristine white collar, although the mid-grey suit he wore, with its fine tailoring, could do nothing to tame the restless animal energy of the man beneath.

Clean-shaven, he looked harder—and even more dynamic, if that were possible. The evidence of the high-octane lifestyle he had disguised so well on the island was emblazoned on every hand-sewn stitch of his designer clothes. She had often thought him totally out of place in the run-down environs of the farmhouse. Today he was exactly where he belonged. Here, in the halls of business, he cut a figure of formidable power in his dress, his manner, and in the overwhelming authority he exuded.

Kayla couldn’t think, paralysed by the dark penetration of his gaze and the mockery touching his stupendous mouth. When she did eventually manage to drag her gaze from his it was with a confused look at Josh, and she blurted out the first thing that came into her head.

‘Not Mr Woods...?’

It was the wrong thing to say, and she realised it when she saw the dismayed look on Lorna’s tense and nervous features. But it was with a Mr Woods that the appointment had been made.

‘Woods couldn’t make it.’

Leonidas’s response drifted down to Kayla as though through a thick fog. She was hot and perspiring. Her clothes, so fresh and cool only minutes before, now seemed to be sticking to her.

‘Mr Vassalio’s the main man. Havens Exclusive is one of the companies within his group. He wanted to see us for himself,’ Lorna told her. ‘Isn’t that right, Mr Vassalio?’

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