For now, though, he’d use work to drown out his clamouring pulse. He would not let her see the roiling waves of frustration that gripped him and tossed him like a tiny boat in a thundering storm. When she came and sat down opposite him, and that sensual womanly smell that was so at odds with her prim appearance teased his nostrils and made his arousal even more acute, he almost groaned.
He looked up for a second. Predictably, she was looking down, immersed in papers. He saw what she’d done to her hair and the firmly reinstated glasses. He felt a surge of adrenalin and thought to himself, Fine, if that’s the way you want it.
He pulled out his laptop and fired off a curt but informative e-mail to his assistant in Athens, instructing her to have everything ready by the time they landed in two hours. For someone with his wealth and resources, what he’d just asked for shouldn’t be hard to pull off, and as he sat back he realised with a jolt that once again he felt more alive than he’d done in months.
The fact that the merger was once again relegated to second place raised just the dimmest clanging bell in his consciousness.
CHAPTER FIVE
A fEW hours later, Lucy sat on the bed of a palatial suite in one of the most expensive hotels in Athens. She’d never seen such opulence and luxury in her life. Everyone here seemed to talk in hushed tones. She’d even found herself almost whispering thank you to the concierge who’d shown her to her room.
Her mouth quirked dryly. Needless to say, the manager himself had shown Aristotle to his room. She’d seen that they were more or less next door to each other, he in the Royal Suite and she in a smaller adjoining one, although she had no intention of using the interconnecting door that had been pointed out to her. She was already far too close to her boss for comfort.
Feeling antsy, she got up and wandered about the room for a bit, looking out of the window, taking in the view of Syntagma Square and its elegant lines and trees. She hadn’t expected Athens to be so … elegant. She’d seen the Acropolis in the distance and felt a lurch of joy; even though she’d travelled extensively due to her peripatetic childhood, she never tired of seeing famous monuments.
Her thoughts went inward. She hadn’t failed to notice that the closer they’d got to Athens, the more tense Aristotle had grown—until by the time they’d been walking through the airport, his hand tight on her elbow, he’d been positively radioactive. She knew it had nothing to do with her. She suspected it had something to do with the way that, whenever he had to deal with his stepmother or half-brother, he always seemed to go inwards and become monosyllabic. Clearly there was no love lost between him and his family or his ancestral home, and it made Lucy wonder about that—before she realised what she was doing and put a halt to her wayward thoughts.
She checked her watch. They were due to have informal drinks with Parnassus and his team in one hour and she had to wash and change, but there was still no sign of her luggage. Lucy called down to Reception, and what the girl said made her frown.
‘I’m sorry? You say my clothes are here? But I’m still waiting for my case.’
The hotel receptionist’s tone was smooth, as if she was used to dealing with recalcitrant hotel guests. ‘I think if you check your wardrobe, Miss Proctor you’ll find everything hanging up and ready for your use. The chest of drawers is also full.’
Lucy thanked her faintly and put the phone down. She knew that Aristotle’s wealth could just about do anything, but surely it couldn’t magically conjure up her suitcase, unpack and store all her clothes without her even noticing? With a snaking feeling of something slithering down her spine, Lucy threw open the ornate door of the wardrobe in the corner and gasped.
It was full, heaving with a myriad assortment of every piece of clothing any one woman could possibly hope for. Day-wear, casual wear, evening-wear. Lucy flicked past dresses and suits and trousers and shirts and wraps and capes, feeling more and more dizzy as she did so. All sorts of shoes were lined up below the hanging clothes.
She backed away from the wardrobe with something like horror in her chest, and went to open the drawers of the chest beside the wardrobe. She pulled out T-shirts, shorts, casual trousers, capri pants … They all fell from nerveless fingers. There was thousands of euros’ worth of clothes in front of her and not one stitch was hers. A deeply scooped-neck T-shirt fell from her hands and she looked at it and shuddered at the thought of how much cleavage that would expose. Suddenly realisation struck. Aristotle.
Without thinking, galvanised by pure anger, she marched over to that adjoining door between their rooms and yanked it open. To her surprise his own door was already open, leading into a room that made her own opulent one look like a prefab.
He strolled out at that moment from what she presumed must be his bedroom, naked except for a small towel around lean hips. All Lucy could see was a magnificently bronzed muscled chest, a light smattering of dark hair and long, long muscled legs. His hair was wet and slicked back, making him look somehow more approachable, vulnerable.
Seeing him like this completely scrambled her brain and defused her anger.
‘I …’ She realised she was breathing hard.
He stopped and looked at her enquiringly, and then she watched him lift his wrist to look at the heavy platinum watch.
‘A little longer than I thought it might take, but still … not bad.’
It took a few precious seconds for what he said to sink in. He’d planned this. He’d orchestrated this and had been waiting for her to react exactly as she had. Sheer fury and impotence rushed through Lucy in a wave so strong she shook.
‘Where is my case, please?’
Aristotle folded his arms and that was worse—because where his shirt might have hidden those biceps, now she could see them in all their olive-skinned, bunched glory. Lord, but he was beautiful, and her body was reacting like the Road Runner, seeing his mate in the distance.
‘Your case is somewhere safe. I’ve taken the liberty of removing the items I think you’ll need, like your toiletries. I didn’t want to presume to know what products you like to use.’
‘Yet you can presume to know what clothes I may like and my size?’ Her voice fairly crackled with ice.
His gaze drifted down over her body, and she cursed herself for inciting him. His eyes met hers again and he drawled, ‘I think you’ll find that everything … fits.’
She cursed him under her breath. She wouldn’t be surprised to find them all a size too small, and if they were …
But he wasn’t finished. ‘I also decided that from what I’ve seen you’re more than capable of choosing your own underwear. You’ll find the items I’ve taken out there, in that bag.’
He gestured to a table nearby, where one of the hotel bags was sitting, a lacy bra strap dangling provocatively from the top. Blind rage and humiliation at the thought he’d handled her intimate clothes, and at remembering that he’d seen her changing, almost made Lucy stumble as she stalked over to get it. But in that instant she vowed she would not react as he was expecting her to. She would not give him the satisfaction.
So she merely walked back to the door, turned and, avoiding his eye, said grimly, ‘I’ll see you in the lobby in forty-five minutes.’
‘I’m looking forward to it, Lucy.’
It took an awful lot of restraint not to slam both interconnecting doors as Lucy went back into her own room, but under a steaming hot shower minutes later she vented her anger