What?
As if he could trust her?
What a fool he was. A hormone-crazed, stupid fool. Hadn’t he learnt his lesson a long time ago? That women were the last species on the planet who could be trusted?
He’d spent years building up a fierce but fair persona in the business world. His reputation was of someone who was tough, assertive and professional. He was known for his vision and his dependability. He despised the ‘celebrity’ culture and valued his privacy. He chose his friends and lovers carefully. He didn’t let them get too close and nobody ever gave interviews about him. Ever. Even the redhead—supposedly broken-hearted at the time—had possessed enough sense to go away and lick her wounds in private.
But Ellie Brooks had betrayed him. A waitress he’d treated as an equal and then made the mistake of kissing had given some cheap little interview to a journalist. How much had she made? His heart pounded because he hadn’t even had the pleasure of losing himself in that soft body of hers. He’d mistakenly thought she was too sweet and then she’d gone and sold him down the river. He’d behaved decently and honourably by sending her chastely on her way and look at all the thanks he’d got.
His mouth hardened in conjunction with the exquisite aching in his groin.
Maybe it wasn’t too late to do something about that.
I’M SORRY, ELLIE—but we have no choice other than to let you go.
The words still resonating painfully round in her head, Ellie cycled through the thundery weather towards the staff hostel and thought about the excruciating interview she’d just had with the personnel manager of The Hog. Of course they’d had a choice—they’d just chosen not to take it, that was all. Surely they could have just let her lie low and all the fuss would have died down.
Negotiating her bike along the narrow road, she tried to take in what they’d just told her. She would be paid a month’s salary in lieu of notice, although she would be allowed to keep her room at the hostel for another four weeks.
‘We don’t want to be seen as completely heartless by kicking you out on the street,’ the HR woman had told her with a look of genuine regret on her face. ‘If you hadn’t chosen to be indiscreet with such a high-profile guest, then we might have been able to brush over the whole incident and keep you on. But as it is, I’m afraid we can’t. Not after Mr Sarantos made such a blistering complaint about the question of guest confidentiality. My hands are tied—and it’s a pity, Ellie, because you showed such promise.’
And Ellie had found herself nodding as she’d left the office, because, despite her shock, hadn’t she agreed with pretty much every word the manager had said? She’d even felt a bit sorry for the woman who had looked so uncomfortable while terminating her employment.
She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. She had behaved inappropriately with a guest and had then compounded her transgression by talking about it to a woman who had turned out to be a journalist for some low-end tabloid. A journalist! Clutching on to the handlebars with sticky palms, she stared fixedly at the road ahead.
And that had been at the root of her sacking, apparently. The fact that she had broken trust with a valued client. She had blabbed—and Alek Sarantos was seething. Apparently, the telephone wires had been practically smoking when he’d rung up to complain about the diary piece which had found its way into a national newspaper.
The day was heavy and overcast and she heard the distant rumble of thunder as she brought her bike to a halt outside the hostel which was home to The Hog’s junior staff. Ellie locked her bike to the railings and opened the front door. Next to one of the ten individual doorbells was her name—but not for very much longer. She had a month to find somewhere new to live. A month to find herself a new job. It was a daunting prospect in the current job market and it looked as if she’d gone straight back to square one. Who would employ her now?
A louder rumble of thunder sounded ominously as she made her way along the corridor to her small room. The day was so dark that she clicked on the light and the atmosphere was so muggy that strands of her ponytail were sticking to the back of her neck. The day yawned ahead as she filled the kettle and sat down heavily on the bed to wait for it to boil.
Now what did she do?
She stared at the posters she’d hung on the walls—giant photos of Paris and New York and Athens. All those places she’d planned to visit when she was a hotshot hotelier, which was probably never going to happen now. She should have asked about a reference. She wondered if the hotel would still give her one. One which emphasised her best qualities—or would they make her sound like some kind of desperado who spent her time trying it on with wealthy guests?
Her doorbell shrilled and she gave a start, but the sense that none of this was really happening gave her renewed hope. Was it inconceivable to think that the big boss of the hotel might have overridden his HR boss’s decision? Realised that it had been nothing but a foolish one-off and that she was too valuable a member of staff to lose?
Smoothing her hands over her hair, she ran along the corridor and opened the front door—her heart clenching with an emotion she was too dazed to analyse when she saw who was standing there. She blinked as if she’d somehow managed to conjure up the brooding figure from her fevered imagination. She must have done—because why else would Alek Sarantos be outside her home?
A few giant droplets of rain had splashed onto the blackness of his hair and his bronze skin gleamed as if someone had spent the morning polishing it. She’d forgotten how startlingly blue his eyes looked, but now she could see something faintly unsettling glinting from their sapphire depths.
And even in the midst of her confusion—why was he here?—she could feel her body’s instinctive response to him. Her skin prickled with a powerful recognition and her breasts began to ache, as if realising that here was the man who was capable of giving her so much pleasure when he touched them. She could feel colour rushing into her cheeks.
‘Mr Sarantos,’ she said, more out of habit than anything else—but the cynical twist of his lips told her that he found her words not only inappropriate, but somehow insulting.
‘Oh, please,’ he said softly. ‘I think we know each other well enough for you to call me Alek, don’t you?’
The suggestion of intimacy unnerved her even more than his presence and her fingers curled nervelessly around the door handle she was clutching for support. Now the rumble of thunder was closer and never had a sound seemed more fitting. ‘What...what are you doing here?’
‘No ideas?’ he questioned silkily.
‘To rub in the fact that you’ve lost me my job?’
‘Oh, but I haven’t,’ he contradicted softly. ‘You managed to do that all by yourself. Now, are you going to let me in?’
Ellie told herself she didn’t have to. She could slam the door in his face and that would be that. She doubted he would batter the door down—even though he looked perfectly capable of doing it. But she was curious about what had brought him here and the rest of the day stretched in front of her like an empty void. She was going to have to start looking for a new job—she knew that. But not today.
‘If you insist,’ she said, turning her back on him and retracing her steps down the corridor. She could hear him closing the front door and following her. But it wasn’t until he was standing in her room that she began to wonder why she had been daft enough to let him invade her space.
Because he looked all wrong here. With his towering physique and jewelled eyes, he dominated the small space like some living, breathing