‘Just that you’re exactly what you look and sound like, Miss Harrington. A high-maintenance, shallow, self-important wannabe celebrity. And so naturally you would think that the world revolves around you and your family, when in fact I couldn’t care less about the Harringtons, much less which room one of them is put in, in a hotel I’m only managing for two weeks. Goodnight.’
And with her mouth hanging inelegantly open, Olivia could only stare as Ben swam away from her, his lithe body cutting quickly through the water. He hauled himself up on the other side of the pool and then strode into the men’s changing room, slamming the door behind him.
* * *
All right, he should not have said all of that. Any of that. Yet it had felt good to let a little of his anger out, even if a lot of it wasn’t directed at Olivia Harrington.
Ben closed his eyes as he stepped under the changing room’s shower and let the hot spray hit him full in the face.
Maybe he’d been a little unfair.
And Olivia Harrington was just the type of person to create a huge fuss about how she’d been treated. She could go to the papers and create an enormous brouhaha about it. The media would have a field day.
Ben leaned his head against the marble tile and swore. What had he been thinking?
Well, he hadn’t been thinking. He’d just been reacting—to the stress of his day and the nearness of Olivia Harrington, to the fact that he’d been able to see her nipples through the thin fabric of her bikini top, and to being back at The Chatsfield, struggling to keep from reverting to the boy he’d once been or the man he knew he really was.
All of it had made him speak without consulting his brain first. And while it had felt good at the time, he wasn’t so keen on the possible repercussions.
He could, he supposed, apologise. He doubted it would do much good but he ought to at least make the effort. Sighing, he switched off the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. He dressed quickly in the workout shorts and T-shirt he’d worn to the pool and then went back in search of Olivia.
Unfortunately, when he entered the pool area, it was empty. Olivia Harrington was gone.
* * *
Olivia sat shivering on the edge of the pool as Ben’s words reverberated through her. Her mouth was still hanging open in shock. No one had ever talked to her like that before. Well, not since sixth grade, when she’d been bullied by a bunch of mean girls.
Not that a bit of name-calling had hurt her much back then. She’d been too focused on the far more consuming matter of her mother dying.
And as for now...well, sticks and stones, Olivia told herself firmly. Sticks and stones, that was all. She wasn’t going to be hurt by Ben Chatsfield’s scathing assessment of her, or the contempt she’d seen blazing in those hazel eyes.
And she wasn’t self-important. Or shallow. As for high maintenance, well, she was an actress. She did have an appearance to maintain. And wannabe...well, that was just plain insulting.
Her expression hardening, and her mouth thankfully closing, Olivia scrambled up from the edge of the pool and stalked towards the women’s changing room.
Okay, so maybe she’d overreacted a little about the room, she acknowledged as she showered and changed back into her clothes. But was she seriously meant to believe that it had been an accident? She doubted that such a tiny room was even on the reservation system. But Ben had given her a huge suite, and a night’s free accommodation, so...
She could be the bigger person here. She’d apologise to him for her accusation, and then give him a chance to apologize for all those insults. Tomorrow morning she’d graciously accept his grovelling, Olivia decided. She was looking forward to Ben offering her a little bit of the legendary Chatsfield customer service.
Just six hours later Olivia was up and ready to go, dressed to kill or at least to impress in a lavender dress with a cinched-in waist and flared skirt. She left her hair artfully tousled around her shoulders, spent half an hour on her understated make-up and wore a single silver bangle on her wrist, as well as the silver heart pendant she never took off; her mother had given it to her just before she’d died. She looked professional but pretty, and ready, Olivia hoped, to nail a day full of interviews as well as Berlin’s arctic February winds. She’d brought a matching coat, at any rate.
She managed to choke down some fruit and coffee—she forewent the traditional German breakfast of cold meats—and then went in search of Ben before she headed out for her first interview. It was just a little past seven in the morning, but Ben was already at his desk, already looking deliciously rumpled, one hand driven carelessly through his hair.
Olivia experienced a little pulse of attraction and squashed it firmly. She was going to apologise like the professional, non-shallow person she was, and then she was going to graciously accept his apology, and then she was going to move on and never think about Ben Chatsfield again.
‘Hello.’
He looked up from his computer, his hazel eyes narrowing to glints of grey-green as he registered her presence. ‘Please tell me there isn’t a problem with your suite.’
‘No, it’s completely amazing actually.’ She paused, unsure how to have an at least somewhat normal conversation with this man. He sat very still, but she still sensed that barely leashed energy and emotion emanating from him, and wondered at it. Okay, normal conversation. ‘I can’t believe that suite was available. I was under the impression that all the rooms were booked.’
Ben pressed his lips together and glanced back at his computer screen. ‘Not that one.’
Olivia straightened, gave him her well-practised I’d-like-to-thank-the-Academy smile. ‘Well, I came here to thank you, really, for letting me stay in it. I appreciate the effort you must have gone to, and I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions about why I had my original room. So thank you for addressing my concern.’ She kept smiling as she waited for his reciprocal apology.
Ben’s gaze flicked back to her for a millisecond. ‘You’re welcome.’ Olivia stared. That was it? No apologies for calling her shallow and self-important and wannabe? ‘I looked into the room confusion,’ he continued without taking his gaze from the computer screen, ‘and it seems that one of our newer reception staff gave your original room away to a rather intimidating guest. He put you in that room, thinking it had already been renovated. That wing of the hotel is undergoing renovations, but as you could see, they haven’t finished yet.’
‘Ah. Right.’ And that did seem like a believable excuse, Olivia supposed. So yes, she had overreacted. But so had he. Yet he obviously didn’t feel the need to apologise for his litany of insults last night.
And then, just when she was ready to consign Ben to permanent jerkdom, he said abruptly, one hand curling into a fist on top of his desk, ‘I’m sorry for losing my temper last night. It shouldn’t have happened. I certainly shouldn’t have insulted you. Please accept my apology.’ Each word was bitten out, and his expression was unaccountably grim. Olivia watched as he carefully, deliberately, unclenched his fist, palm flat against the desk.
‘Apology accepted.’ She managed a teasing smile. ‘Although that wannabe comment was completely uncalled for.’
To her surprise his mouth kicked up in a tiny, answering smile and the tension that had been keeping him so still seemed to flow out of him, at least a little. ‘I thought that might annoy you the most.’
‘Well spotted.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Were they actually flirting? It kind of felt like it, which was...weird. But also rather stimulating. ‘Just out of curiosity,’ she asked, ‘why did you have one of the largest suites in the hotel empty? I thought the hotel was fully booked. You didn’t kick anyone