And she never wanted to see him again.
Cecelia’s staid aunt and uncle, who had always sniffed in disapproval at Harriet’s rather bohemian existence, had, on her death, taken in the child. With tangled curls and sparkling green eyes, little Cecelia had been a mini replica of her mother, but in looks only.
The little girl had craved routine.
In fact, it had been a very young Cecelia who had kept any semblance of order in her mother’s life.
She had put out her own school uniform and taken money from her mother’s purse to ensure there was food, and she’d always got herself up in the morning and made her own way to school.
After an unconventional start, Cecelia now lived a very conventional life and was efficient and ordered. Even though she travelled the globe with her work, she was generally in bed by ten on weekdays and eleven at weekends.
She had perfectly nice friends, though none close enough to remember her birthday, and this time last year she had been engaged.
Gordon and the break-up had been the only problem she had caused for her aunt and uncle, who could not fathom why she might end things with such a perfectly decent man.
It hadn’t been Gordon’s fault, and she had told him so when she’d ended it.
It was bloody Luka’s!
Though of course Cecelia hadn’t told Gordon that.
Still, there wasn’t time to dwell on it this morning.
She pulled on her flesh-coloured underwear and then glanced out of the window where the sun split a very blue sky, and found she simply could not face putting on the navy linen suit that she had laid out last night.
To hell with it!
Given that Luka wouldn’t be in the office today, and that she wouldn’t now be sitting in on meetings, Cecelia made an unplanned diversion to her wardrobe.
She wasn’t exactly blinded by colour. But there was the dress she had bought to wear to a friend’s wedding she had recently attended.
It had been a rare impulse purchase.
It was a pale cream halter neck, which Cecelia had decided as soon as she’d left the boutique was too close to white and might offend the bride.
She loved it, though, and, maybe because it was her birthday, she decided to wear it.
While it showed rather too much of her back and arms, she took care of that with the pale lemon, sheer, bolero-style cardigan she had bought on the same day.
The dress was mid-calf-length so she didn’t bother with stockings, and then she tied on some espadrilles.
Yes, perhaps because Cecelia knew she would soon be leaving Kargas Holdings she was finally starting to relax.
As she closed the front door to her flat, Cecelia decided that despite Luka’s absence she would still be giving in her notice today. It would be far easier to do it over the phone or online.
‘You’re looking very summery,’ Mrs Dawson, her very nosy neighbour, said as she passed her in the hall. ‘Off to work?’
‘I am.’
The pale lemon bolero didn’t even make it past the escalators to the underground. It was hot and oppressive and as she stood, holding a rail, she saw that Luka’s weekend escapades had made headlines on the newspaper a commuter held.
She looked at the photo beneath the headline. It was of Luka on the deck of his yacht moving in on a sophisticated, dark-skinned beauty. His naked chest and thick black hair were dripping water over the woman and though their bodies did not touch it was an incredibly intimate shot.
Cecelia tore her eyes from the picture and stared fixedly ahead but that image of him seemed to dance on the blacked-out windows of the Tube.
Having left the underground, Cecelia walked towards the prominent high-rise building that housed Kargas Holdings. She smiled at the doorman and then entered the foyer and took the elevator. She had a special pass that allowed her to access the fortieth floor, which was Luka’s in its entirety.
There weren’t just offices and meeting rooms, there was also a gym and pool, though Cecelia couldn’t recall him using them—they were more a perk for the staff.
And there was a suite that was every bit as luxurious and as serviced as any five-star hotel. When in London, Luka often slept there when he chose to work through the night or had a particularly early morning flight.
Yes, it was his world that she entered, but knowing that he wasn’t there meant Cecelia breathed more easily today.
It was just before eight and it would seem that she had beaten Bridgette, the receptionist, to work. There were a couple of cleaners polishing windows and vacuuming and the florists had arrived, as they did each morning to tend the floral displays.
Cecelia made a coffee from the espresso machine before heading to her desk that was housed in a large area outside Luka’s vast office.
The gatekeeper, Luka called her at times, though she felt rather more like a security guard at others.
As well as greeting his clients and guests, Cecelia was the final hurdle for his scorned lovers to negotiate if they somehow made it past the security in place downstairs.
Occasionally it happened, though generally Cecelia fielded them by phone.
And there it was again, springing to mind—the sudden image of him, wet from the ocean and dripping water, and Cecelia shook her head as if to clear it.
She hung her little cardigan on a stand and was just about to take a seat when his voice caught her completely unawares.
‘Is that coffee for me, Cece?’
Cecelia swung around and there, strolling out of his office, was Luka. Apart from being unshaven there was little evidence of his wild weekend on display. He wore black pants and a white fitted shirt that showed off his toned body and his thick black hair, which, though perhaps a little tousled, still fell into perfect shape.
And he was not supposed to be here.
‘I thought you weren’t coming in today,’ Cecelia said.
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Because you texted me in the middle of the night and told me you weren’t.’
‘So I did.’
He looked at the usually poised and formal Cece caught unawares. To many it might seem no big deal—she was simply holding a coffee and wearing a summer dress. Usually she was buttoned to the neck in navy or black, but it wasn’t just her clothing that was different today.
‘Thanks,’ he said, and took from her hand the coffee she had made.
‘It’s got sugar in it,’ she warned as she took a seat at her desk, ‘and, please, it’s Cecelia, not Cece.’
‘Habit,’ he said.
‘Well, it’s a very annoying one.’
Good, Luka thought.
Her cool demeanour incensed him.
His choice of name for her was deliberate, for he loved to provoke a reaction, even if it was only mild.
‘How was your weekend?’ she asked politely, pretending of course that she had heard nothing whatsoever about it.
‘Much the same as the last,’ he answered, and then came over behind Cecelia’s desk and, to her intense annoyance, he lowered himself so that his bottom was beside her computer. ‘Do you ever get bored?’ he asked.
‘Not really,’ Cecelia lied, for she