‘Look, Stacey,’ she said, glancing at the clock in panic. ‘I have to give a speech in about three minutes.’
Stacey turned to her makeshift bed and began to bend down. ‘That’s all right. I’m just going to have a quick nap before I move on.’
‘No!’ Charlotte pulled her to her feet. ‘No, Stacey, you can’t possibly sleep here. I might be ages and if anyone should find you in here…’
Stacey shrugged off Charlotte’s hand and pouted. ‘I get it,’ she said with a downturn of her lip. ‘You’re ashamed of me. I’m not posh enough for your highbrow crowd.’
‘That’s not true…It’s just that tonight’s very important to me,’ she said, trying to ignore the clock ticking on the wall, which seemed to be speeding up.
‘Come on, Charlie,’ Stacey cajoled. ‘I only need a couple of hours sleep and I’ll be on my way. I’ve got another client at eleven.’
Charlotte felt physically ill at the thought of her sister sleeping with whoever would pay her the money to do so.
‘How can you do this to yourself?’ she asked. ‘Look at you, Stacey. You’re stick-thin and so pale. You’re slowly killing yourself and I swear to God I won’t stand by and watch it keep happening.’
‘I’ll be fine in a couple of days…I just wanted one more taste before I give it up.’
One more taste.
How many times had Charlotte heard that empty promise? ‘What about giving the detox clinic another go?’ she asked.
Stacey pulled a rude face. ‘That cruddy place. I wouldn’t go there again if you paid me.’
‘You get paid to go to lots of other cruddy places and to do God knows what cruddy things with no doubt totally cruddy men,’ Charlotte pointed out irritably.
Her sister’s lip curled. ‘You’re just jealous because you haven’t had sex in close to four years.’
‘Yes, well, look at the trouble it got me into when I did,’ Charlotte said and bit her lip as she thought of what Damon would do if he ever found out who had taken his wallet.
He was a flight of stairs away, waiting with all the other guests to hear her speak…
She released her bitten lip and said, ‘There’s a new private clinic in the Blue Mountains that’s supposed to be getting good results. I read something about it the other day. It’s frightfully expensive but would you agree to go there if I can rustle up the necessary funds?’
Her sister gave a non-committal shrug and slipped down even further on the floor. ‘Maybe…maybe not.’
‘Will you at least think about it, please?’ Charlotte pleaded, tears of frustration beginning to sting her eyes. ‘I don’t want Emily to grow up without her aunt. You’re all we’ve got, Stacey. Mum would be devastated to have seen you like this, especially after what happened to Dad.’
Her sister laid her head back on the cushion on the floor and closed her eyes. ‘All right, I’ll think about it,’ she said grudgingly. ‘But I’m not making any promises.’
No, none that you are likely to keep, Charlotte felt like saying, but instead quietly opened the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and took out the bunny rug she kept for when Emily sometimes came in to work with her. She placed it over her sister’s gaunt form, gently tucking in the edges to keep it in place.
Stacey made a soft sound and nestled down deeper, her sunken cheeks and lacklustre hair churning the dread in Charlotte’s already tortured stomach.
Once she was certain Stacey was asleep, she retrieved the wallet from inside her bag. She looked at the photograph again, reeling under the flood of memories Damon’s too-handsome features evoked.
Those black eyes had burned with desire from the first moment they had locked with hers. She suppressed a little shiver when she thought of how that determined mouth had fed so greedily off hers. How his hands had known every curve and plane of her body and how his hard male presence had filled her with the explosion of his passion, taking away her innocence and leaving in its place an ongoing hunger that in spite of time and distance had never quite gone away.
She closed the wallet and suppressed a shuddering sigh. She would post it back to him anonymously at his hotel first thing in the morning.
Hopefully he would never find out exactly who had stolen it…
CHARLOTTE had only just closed her office door when a tall figure stepped out of the shadows of the corridor. She felt her heart leap upwards as the dark penetrating gaze of Damon Latousakis hit hers.
Oh, God, she thought in escalating despair. Please, Stacey, don’t make a sound.
‘I was wondering where you had got to,’ he drawled as he came to stand right in front of her, his expression as inscrutable as a mask.
‘Um…I had to see to some…er…paperwork,’ she said, her throat feeling too tight to even swallow her rising panic.
‘Is this your office? ’he asked, indicating the door she was blocking with her body.
‘Er…yes.’
‘Why don’t we go in and have a little chat?’ he suggested. ‘We have a few minutes before the board assembles.’
Her eyes popped in alarm and she pressed her back against the door. ‘Chat about w-what?’
She stood stock-still as he picked up a long wayward strand of her chestnut hair and ran it through his fingertips as if examining the quality of a skein of silk.
‘About us,’ he said, his eyes burning with something she remembered all too well.
She felt the tremors of reawakened desire rearrange her insides, the hot lava of longing anointing her intimately and her breasts tightening as if they could already feel that hard male mouth sucking on them demandingly.
‘Th-there’s no us, Damon…’ Her voice sounded like a rusty hinge opening. ‘You ended our relationship four years ago, remember?’
‘I remember everything,’ he said, still playing with her hair, his coal-black eyes holding hers. ‘And so do you. I see it in your eyes.’
The silence seemed to throb with memories, dangerously seductive memories that had the ability to destroy Charlotte’s self-control all over again. She had thought herself immune to his devastating allure but, from the first time his dark eyes had sought hers that evening, she had felt the lethal tug of attraction in every one of her pulsing veins.
She suddenly heard the sound of a muffled cough from inside her office. ‘I—I have to p-prepare for the meeting now…’ she said hurriedly and with increased volume in case Stacey coughed again. ‘I—I can meet you later, if you like,’ she tacked on without thinking of the consequences. ‘We can talk afterwards. You know…have a drink…or something…’
He released her hair and stepped back from her with an enigmatic smile. ‘I will look forward to it, Charlotte,’ he said.
She peeled herself from her office door once he began to walk back up the corridor, her chest almost collapsing with relief when he turned the corner for the stairs.
Agreeing to have a drink with Damon Latousakis had been her mistake four years ago; God knew what damage it would do to her now, she thought as she made her way to the boardroom on leaden legs.
Charlotte looked around the museum boardroom a few minutes later and wondered if she was going to need more than a glass of champagne for courage. The way she was feeling, a couple of bottles wasn’t going to be enough to dull the panic racing