“Mr. Drake.” She smiled in a way that she hoped conveyed professionalism and not the fact that she’d somehow gone quite breathless.
“My apologies, Miss Rose. I’m on the phone.” He opened the door wider and beckoned her inside. “Do come in.”
Ophelia had never seen such a large hotel room. She could have fit three of her apartments inside it, and it was absolutely stunning, decorated in cool grays and blues, with sleek, modern furnishings. But the most spectacular feature was its view of Central Park. Horse drawn carriages lined the curb alongside the snow-covered landscape. In the distance, ice skaters moved in a graceful circle over the pond.
Ophelia walked right up to the closest window and looked down on the busy Manhattan streets below. Everything seemed so faraway. The yellow taxicabs looked like tiny toy cars, and she could barely make out the people bundled in dark coats darting along the crowded sidewalks with their scarves trailing behind them like ribbons. Snow danced against the glass in a dizzying waltz of white, drifting downward, blanketing the city below. The effect was rather like standing inside a snow globe. Absolutely breathtaking.
“Um-hmm. I see,” muttered Artem, standing a few feet behind her with his cell phone pressed against his ear.
Ophelia turned and found him watching her.
He didn’t so much talk to whoever was on the other end as much he talked at them. He sounded rather displeased, but even so, he never broke eye contact with her throughout the call. “Despite the fact that this seems a rather...questionable...time to make such a donation, we must honor our commitment. I know you don’t like to involve yourself with the press, brother, but think about the headlines if we backed out. Not pretty. And might I add, it would be my face they’d print a photo of alongside the negative chatter. So that’s my final decision.”
The person on the receiving end of his tirade was clearly Dalton. Ophelia felt guilty about overhearing such a conversation, so she averted her gaze. No sooner had she looked away than she caught sight of an enormous bed looming behind Artem.
My God, it’s a behemoth.
She’d never seen such a large bed. It could have fit a dozen people.
Her face went hot, and she looked away. But as Artem wrapped up his call, her gaze kept returning to the bed and its sumptuous, creamy-white linens.
“Again, my apologies.” Artem tossed his phone on the nearby sectional sofa and walked toward her. “Please, let me take your coat. Do make yourself comfortable.”
She took a step out of his reach. “Mr. Drake, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong impression.”
“Do I?” He stopped less than an arm’s length away, just close enough to send a wave of awareness crashing over her, while at the same time not quite crossing the boundary of respectability. “And what impression is that?”
“This.” She waved a shaky hand around the luxurious room, trying—and failing—to avoid looking at the bed.
Artem followed her gaze. When he turned back toward her, an angry knot throbbed in his jaw. He lifted an impetuous brow. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Miss Rose. Do you care to elaborate?”
“This room. And that bed.” Why, oh, why, had she actually mentioned the bed? “When I said I wanted to show you my designs, that was precisely what I meant. I’ve no idea why you arranged to rent this ridiculous suite. The hourly rate for this room must be higher than my yearly salary. It’s absurd, and thoroughly inappropriate. I have no interest in sleeping with you. None. Zero.”
She really wished she hadn’t stammered on the last few words. She would have preferred to sound at least halfway believable.
Artem’s eyes flashed. “Are you quite finished?”
“Yes.” She ordered her feet to walk straight to the door and get out of there. Immediately. They willfully disobeyed.
“I live here, Miss Rose. This is my home. I did not, as you so boldly implied, procure a rent-by-the-hour room in which to ravage you on your lunch break.” He paused, glaring at her for full effect.
He lived here? In a penthouse at the Plaza?
Of course he did.
Ophelia had never been so mortified in her life. She wanted to die.
Artem took another step closer. She could see the ring of black around the dreamy blue center of his irises, a hidden hint of darkness. “For starters, if my intention was to ravage you, I would have set aside far more than an hour in which to do so. Furthermore, I’m your employer. You are my employee. Despite whatever you may have heard about my father, sleeping with the staff is not the way I intend to do business. Occasionally, the apple does, in fact, fall farther from the tree than you might imagine.”
Ophelia had no idea what he was talking about, but apparently she’d touched a nerve. For the first time since setting eyes on Artem Drake—her boss, as he took such pleasure in pointing out time and time again—he looked less than composed. He raked an angry hand through his hair, mussing it. He almost looked like he’d just gotten out of bed.
Stop. God, what was wrong with her? She should not be thinking about Artem in bed. Absolutely, definitely not. Yet somehow, that was the one and only thought in her head. Artem, dark and passionate, tossing her onto the mammoth-sized bed behind him. The weight of him pressing down on her as he kissed her, entered her...
Her throat grew tight. “Good, because I have no interest whatsoever in sleeping with my boss.”
Been there, done that. Got the T-shirt. Never again.
Artem narrowed his gaze at her. “So you mentioned.”
Ophelia nodded. She wasn’t sure she could manage to say anything without her voice betraying her. Because the more she tried to convince him that she didn’t want to sleep with him, the more she actually wanted to. Assuming it was possible to want two very contradictory things at the same time.
But apparently he did not want to sleep with her, which was fine. No, not merely fine. It was good. She should be relieved.
Then why did she feel so utterly bereft?
“Now that we’ve established how ardently opposed we both are to having sex with one another—” His gaze flitted ever so briefly to her breasts, or maybe she only imagined it, since her nipples felt sensitive to the point of pain every time he looked at her “—perhaps you should show me your designs.”
Her designs. The very reason she’d come here in the first place. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Yes, of course.”
He motioned toward the sleek, dark table in the center of the room. Ophelia opened her portfolio and carefully arranged her sketches, aware of his eyes on her the entire time. She felt every glance down to her core.
He picked up the first of her four large pages of bristol paper. “What do we have here?”
She took a deep breath. This is it. Try not to blow it any more than you already have. “Those are a collection of rings. I call them ballerina diamonds.”
The subtlest of smiles came to his lips. “Ballerina diamonds? Why is that?”
“Each ring has a large center stone. See? That stone represents the dancer. The baguettes surrounding the center diamond are designed to give the appearance of a ballerina’s tutu.” She gestured around her waist, as if she were wearing one of the stiff classical tutus that she once wore onstage.
“I see.” He nodded.
She allowed herself to exhale while he studied her drawings. She hadn’t realized how exposed she would feel watching him go over her designs. These pieces of jewelry were personal to her. Deeply personal.