‘I heard you pulled out on the eve of a big tournament,’ he said.
‘I did.’ She nodded. ‘Obviously, there was a lot of publicity. I was...’
‘You were poised on the brink of international success,’ he interjected softly. ‘Expected to win at least one Grand Slam, despite your precocious age.’
‘That’s right,’ she said, and this time no amount of training could keep the faint crack of emotion from her voice. Didn’t matter how many times she told herself that worse things had happened to people than having to pull out of a career before it had really begun—it still hurt. She thought of all the pain and practice. Of the friends and relationships she’d lost along the way. Of the disapproving silences at home and the way her father had pushed her and pushed her until she’d felt she couldn’t be pushed any more. The endless sacrifices and the sense that she was never quite good enough. All ended with the sickening snap of her ligament as she ran across the court for a ball she was never going to reach.
She swallowed. ‘The papers ran a photo of me leaving the press conference after I’d been discharged from hospital.’ It had become an iconic image, which had been splashed all over the tabloids. Her face had been pale and edged with strain. Her trademark blonde plait falling over the narrow shoulders on which a nation’s hopes had been resting.
‘And?
His bullet-like interjection snapped Jessica back to the present and she looked into the rugged beauty of his olive-skinned face. And wasn’t it a mark of her own weakness that she found herself aching to touch it again? To whisper her fingertips all over its hard angles and hollows and feel the shadowed roughness of his jaw. Couldn’t he blot out the uncomfortable way she was feeling with the power of one of his incredible kisses and make everything seem all right? She swallowed as she met the answering gleam in his eyes. As if he had guessed what she was thinking. And that was a mistake. It was the most important lesson drummed into her since childhood, that she could never afford to show weakness, not to anyone—but especially not to Loukas. Because hadn’t he been trained to leap on any such weakness, and exploit it?
‘Lulu noticed in the photo that I was wearing a plastic wristwatch,’ she continued. ‘And it just so happened that they were launching a sporty new watch aimed at teenagers and thought I had the ideal image to front their advertising campaign.’
‘Yet you are not conventionally beautiful,’ he observed.
She met the dark ice of his gaze, determined not to show her hurt, but you couldn’t really blame someone for telling the truth, could you? ‘I know I’m not. But I’m photogenic. I have that curious alchemy of high cheekbones and widely spaced eyes, which makes the camera like me—at least, that’s what the photographer told me. I realised a long time ago that I look better in photos than in real life. That’s why they took me on. I think they were just capitalising on all the publicity of my stalled career to begin with, but the campaign was a surprise success. And then when my father and stepmother were killed in the avalanche, I think they felt sorry for me—and of course, there was more publicity, which was good for the brand.’
‘I’m sorry about your father and stepmother,’ he said, almost as an afterthought. ‘But these things happen.’
‘Yes, I know they do.’ She looked into his hard eyes and it was difficult not to feel defensive. ‘But they wouldn’t have kept me on all these years unless I was helping the watches to sell. That’s why they keep renewing my contract.’
‘But they aren’t selling any more, because you are no longer a teenager,’ he said slowly. ‘And you no longer represent that age group.’
She felt a beat of disquiet. She told herself to forget they’d been lovers and to forget that it had ended so badly. She needed to treat him the way she would any other executive—male or female. Be nice to him. He’s your sponsor. Charm him. ‘I’m twenty-six, Loukas. That’s hardly over the hill,’ she said, managing to produce a smile from somewhere. The kind of smile a woman might use on a passing car mechanic, if she discovered her car had developed a puncture on a badly lit road. ‘Even in these youth-obsessed times.’
She saw the flicker of a nerve at his temple—as if he was aware of her charm offensive. As if he didn’t approve of it very much. She wondered if she came over as manipulative but suddenly she didn’t care, because she was fighting for her livelihood. And Hannah’s, too.
‘I don’t think you understand what I’m saying, Jess.’
Jessica felt her future flash before her as it suddenly occurred to her why she was here. Why she’d received that terse email demanding her presence. Of course he had her contract on his desk. He now owned the company and could do anything he pleased. He was about to tell her that her contract wouldn’t be renewed—that it only operated on a year-to-year basis. And then what would she do—a burnt-out tennis player with no real qualifications? She thought about Hannah and her college fees. About the little house she’d bought after she’d paid off all her father’s debts. The house that had become their only security. About all the difficulties and heartbreak along the way, and the slow breaking down of barriers to arrive at the workable and loving relationship she had with her half-sister today.
A shiver whispered its way down her spine and she prayed Loukas wouldn’t notice—even though he’d been trained to notice every little thing about other people. Especially their weaknesses.
‘How can I understand what you’re saying when you’ve been nothing but enigmatic?’ she said. ‘When you’ve sat there for the entire time with that judgemental look on your face?’
‘Then perhaps I should be a little clearer.’ He drummed his fingertips on the contract. ‘If you want your contract extended, you might want to rethink your attitude. Being a little nicer to the boss might be a good place to start.’
‘Be nice to you?’ she questioned. ‘That’s rich. You’re the one who has been hostile from the moment I walked into this office—and you still haven’t told me anything.’ There was a pause. ‘What are you planning to do?’
Loukas swivelled his chair round, removing the distraction of her fine-boned face from his line of vision and replacing it with the gleam of the London skyline. It was a view which carried an eye-watering price tag. The view which reinforced just how far he had come. The space-age circle of the Eye framing the pewter ribbon of the river. Jostling for position among all the centuries-old monuments were all the new kids on the block—the skyscrapers aimed at the stars. A bit like him, really. He stared at the Walkie-Talkie building with its fabled sky garden. Whoever would have thought that the boy who’d once had to ferret for food at the back of restaurants would have ended up sitting here, with such unbelievable wealth at his fingertips?
It had been his burning ambition to crawl out of the poverty and despair which had defined his childhood. To make right a life steeped in bitterness and betrayal. And he had done as he had set out to, ticking off every ambition along the way. He’d done his best for his mother, even though... Painfully, he closed his eyes and refocused his thoughts. He’d made the fortune he’d always lusted after when he’d worked as a bodyguard for oligarchs and billionaires and seen their lavish displays of wealth. He’d always wondered what it would be like to carelessly lose a million dollars at a casino table and not even notice the loss. And he’d discovered that he used to get more pleasure from the food he’d been forced to steal from the restaurant bins when his belly was empty. Because that was the thing about money. The pleasure it was supposed to give you was a myth, peddled by those who were in possession of it. It brought nothing but problems and expectations. It made people behave in ways which sickened him.
Even when he’d been poor he’d never had a problem finding women, but he’d