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‘Do you want an answer to your question?’ she asked quietly. ‘Or are you just going to sit there insulting me?’
A hint of a smile tugged at the edges of his lips, but just as quickly it was gone. ‘Carry on,’ he said.
She drew in a deep breath, like one which used to fire her up just before she began a service game. ‘You know I tore a ligament, which effectively ended my career?’ She stared into his face, but any sympathy she might have been hoping for was absent. His cursory nod was an acknowledgment, not a condolence. There was no understanding in the cold gleam of his eyes. She wondered if he knew that her father had died.
‘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 often wondered whether it would make a difference if you were rich. His mouth hardened. And it did. Oh, it did. He felt the acrid taste of old-fashioned disapproval in his mouth as he recalled the variety of extras women had offered him since he’d become a billionaire in his own right. Did he like to watch? Did he want threesomes? Foursomes? Was he interested in dressing up and role play? It had been made clear to him that anything he wanted was his for the taking and all he had to do was ask. And he had tried it all. He would have tried anything to fill the dark emptiness inside him, but nothing ever did. He’d cavorted with women with plastic bodies and gorgeous, vacuous faces. Models and princesses were his for the taking. So many things had been dangled in front of him in order to entice him, but he had been like a child let loose in a candy store who, after a few days of indulging himself, had felt completely jaded.
And that was when he had decided that you couldn’t move on until your life was straightened out. Until you’d tied up all the loose ends which had threatened to trip you up over the years. His mother was dead. His brother was found. Briefly, he closed his eyes as he thought about the rest of that story and felt a painful beat of his heart. Which left only Jessica Cartwright. His mouth hardened. And she was a loose end he was going to take particular pleasure tying up.
He turned his chair back around. She was still sitting there, trying to hide her natural anxiety, and he allowed himself a moment of pure, sadistic pleasure. Because he wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t appreciated the exquisite irony of seeing how much the tables had turned. How the snooty tennis prodigy who’d kept him hidden away like a guilty secret—while he serviced her physical needs—was now waiting for an answer on which her whole future would be decided.
How far would she go to keep her job? he wondered idly. If he ordered her to crawl under the desk and unzip him and take him in her mouth—would she oblige? He felt the hard throb at his groin as he imagined his seed spilling inside her mouth, before changing his mind. No. He didn’t want Jess behaving like a hooker. What he wanted—what he really wanted—was for her to be compliant and willing and giving. He wanted her beneath him, preferably naked. He wanted to see her eyes darken and hear her gasp of disbelieving pleasure as he entered her. He wanted to feed her hunger for him, until she was dependent on him. Until she couldn’t draw a breath without thinking of him.
And then he would walk away, just as she’d done.
The tables would be turned.
They would be equals.
He looked into her aquamarine eyes.
‘You’re going to have to change,’ he said.
CHAPTER TWO
JESSICA’S HEART WAS pounding loudly as she looked across the desk at Loukas, who in that moment seemed to symbolise everything which was darkness...and power. As if he held her future in the palm of his hand and was just about to crush it.
He had begun removing the jacket of his beautiful suit. Sliding it from his shoulders and looping it over the back of his chair and that was making her feel even more disorientated. He looked so...intimidating. Yet the instant he started rolling up his sleeves to display his hair-roughened arms, it seemed much more like the Loukas of old. Sexy and sleek and completely compelling. Her thoughts were skittering all over the place and suddenly she was having to try very hard to keep the anxiety from her voice. ‘What do you mean—I have to change? Change what, exactly?’
His smile didn’t meet his eyes. In fact, it barely touched his lips. He was enjoying this, she realised. He was enjoying it a lot.
‘Everything,’ he said. ‘But mostly, your image.’
Jessica looked at him in confusion. ‘My image?’
Again, he did that thing of joining the tips of his fingers together and she was reminded of a head teacher who’d sent for an unruly pupil and was just about to give them a stern telling-off.
‘I can’t believe that nobody has looked at your particular advertising campaign before,’ he continued. ‘Or why it has been allowed to continue.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘A variation of the same old thing—year in and year out. The agency the company have been using have become complacent, which is why the first thing I did when I took over was to sack them.’
‘You’ve sacked them?’ Jessica echoed, her heart sinking—because she liked the agency they used and the photographer they employed. She only saw them once a year when they shot the Lulu catalogue but she’d got to know them and they felt comfortable.
‘Profits have been sliding for the past two years,’ he continued remorselessly. ‘Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing—because it meant I was able to hammer out an excellent price for my buyout. But it does mean that things are going to be very different from now on.’
She heard the dark note in his voice and told herself to stay calm and find the strength to face her fears. Like when you were playing tennis against a tough opponent—it was no good holding back and being defensive and allowing them to dominate and control. You had to take your courage in your hands and rush the net. Face them head-on. She met his cold, black eyes.
‘Is this your way of telling me that you’re firing me?’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘Oh, believe me, Jess—if I was planning on firing you, you would have known about it by now. For a start, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because it would be a waste of my time and my time is very precious. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Yes, she understood. She thought how forbidding he seemed. From the way he was behaving, nobody would ever have guessed they’d once been lovers. She had seen his ruthless streak before—it had been essential in his role as bodyguard to one of Russia’s richest men. But around her he had always been playful—the way she’d sometimes imagined a lion might be if it ever allowed you to get close enough to pet it. Until their affair had finished, and then he had acted as if she was dead to him.
Was that why he was doing this—to pay her back for having turned down his proposal of marriage, even though at the time she had known it was the only thing she could do?
She must not let him intimidate her, nor allow him to see how terrified she was of losing her livelihood. Because Loukas was the ultimate predator...he saw a weakness and then moved in for the kill. That was what he had been trained to do. She clasped her hands together and looked at him. ‘So why are we having this conversation?’
‘Because I have a reputation for turning around failing companies, which is what I intend to do with this one.’
‘How?’
He was looking at her calculatingly, like a butcher weighing a piece of meat on a set of scales. ‘You are no longer a teenager, Jess,’ he said softly. ‘And neither are the girls who first bought the watch. You are no longer a tennis star, either—you are what’s known in the business as a has-been. And there’s no point glowering at me like that. I am simply stating a fact. You were taken on because of who you were—a shining talent whose dreams were shattered. You were the tragic heroine. The sporty blonde who kept on smiling through the pain. Young girls wanted to be you.’
‘But not any more?’ she said slowly.
‘I’m afraid not. You’re trading on something which has gone. The world has moved on, but you’ve stayed exactly the same. Same old shots of you with the ponytail and the pearls and the Capri pants and the neat blouses.’ His eyes glittered. ‘I get bored just thinking about them.’
She nodded, her heart beating very hard, because it hurt to have him talk to her this way. To have her life condensed into a sad little story which left him feeling ‘bored’. She met his black eyes and tried to keep the pain from her face. ‘So what are you planning to do about it?’
‘I am giving you the opportunity to breathe some life back into your career—and to boost Lulu’s flagging sales.’
She wished she’d taken her raincoat off, because her body was beginning to grow hot beneath that scorching stare. She tried to keep her voice calm. To forget that this was Loukas. To try to imagine that it was the previous CEO sitting there, a man with a cut-glass accent who used to ask her for tennis tips for his young daughter. ‘How?’
He leaned back in his chair, his outward air of relaxation mocking the churned-up way she was feeling inside.
‘By giving you a new look—one which reflects the woman you are now and not the girl you used to be. We make you over. New hairstyle. New clothes. We do the whole Cinderella thing and then reveal you to the public. The nation’s sweetheart all grown up. Just imagine the resulting publicity that would generate.’ His eyes glittered. ‘Priceless.’
She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘You make me sound like a commodity, Loukas,’ she said, in a low voice.
He laughed. ‘But that’s exactly what you are. Why would you think any differently? You sell images of yourself to promote a product—of course you’re a commodity. You just happen to be one which has reached its sell-by date, I’m afraid—unless you’re prepared to mix it up a bit.’
She met the hard gleam of his eyes and a real sense of sadness washed over her. Because despite the way their affair had ended, there had still been a portion of her heart which made her think of him with...
With what?
Affection?
No. Affection was too mild a description for the feelings she’d had for Loukas Sarantos. She had loved him despite knowing that they were completely wrong for each other. She had loved him more than he’d ever known because she’d been trained to keep her feelings locked away, and she had taken all her training seriously. The way they’d parted had filled her with regret and she’d be lying if she tried to deny that sometimes she thought about him with a deep ache in her heart and a very different kind of ache in her body. Who didn’t lie in bed at night sometimes, wondering how different life might have been if you’d taken a different path?
But now? Now he was making her feel angry, frustrated and stretched to breaking point. He made her want to pummel her fists against him, but most of all he made her want to kiss him. That was the most shameful thing of all—that she was still in some kind of physical thrall to him. She wanted him to cover her mouth with one of his hot kisses. To make her melt. To feel that first sharp and piercing wave of pleasure as he entered her and have it blot out the rest of the world.
She stared into his mocking eyes, telling herself that her desire was irrelevant. More than that, it was dangerous, because it unsettled her and made her want things she knew were wrong. No good was ever going to come of their continued association. He wanted to change her. To make her into someone she wasn’t. And all the while making her aware of her own failures, while he showcased his own spectacular success.
Was that what she wanted?
‘Why are you doing this, Loukas?’
‘Because I can.’ He smiled. ‘Why else?’
And suddenly she saw the Loukas of old. The man who could become as still as a piece of dark and forbidding rock. Foreboding whispered over her skin as she rose to her feet. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ she said. ‘I just can’t imagine having any kind of working association with you. I’m sorry.’
‘You should be.’ His voice was silky. ‘I’ve had my lawyers take a good look at your contract. Refuse this job and you aren’t in line for any compensation. You leave here empty-handed. Have you thought about that?’
Briefly, Jessica imagined Hannah, happily backpacking in Thailand. Hannah who had defied all expectations to land herself a place at Cambridge University. Her teenage half-sister on the other side of the world, blissfully oblivious to what was going on back home. What would she say if she knew that her future security was about to be cut from under her, by a black-eyed man with a heart of stone?
But as she bent to pick up her handbag she told herself that she would think of something. There were opportunities for employment in her native Cornwall—admittedly not many, but she would look at whatever was going. She could turn her hand to plenty of other things. She could cook and clean or even work in a shop. Her embroidery was selling locally and craftwork was becoming more popular, so couldn’t she do more of that? Better that than to stay for a second longer in a room where the air seemed to be suffocating her. Where the man she had once loved seemed to be taking real pleasure from watching her squirm.
Her fingers curled around the strap of her handbag. ‘You might want to think about changing your own image rather than concentrating on mine,’ she said quietly. ‘That macho attitude of yours is so passé.’
‘You think so?’ he drawled, leaning back in his chair and surveying her from between narrowed eyes. ‘I’ve always found it particularly effective. Especially with women. Most of them seem to get turned on by the caveman approach. You certainly did.’
With his middle finger, he began to draw a tiny circle on the contract and Jessica found herself remembering when he used to touch her skin that way. The way he used to drift his fingertip over her body with such light and exquisite precision. She’d been unable to resist him and she wondered whether any woman would be capable of resistance if Loukas Sarantos had them in his sights.
And suddenly he looked up and smiled—a cruel, cold smile—as if he knew exactly what was running through her mind.
‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘I still want you, Jessica. I didn’t realise quite how much until I saw you today. And you’d better understand that these days I get everything I want. So I’ll give you time to reconsider your decision, but I’m warning you that my patience is not infinite. And I won’t wait long.’
‘Don’t hold your breath,’ she said, meeting his eyes with a defiant look which lasted only as long as it took her to walk out of his office, her heart pounding as she headed for the elevator.
He didn’t follow her. Had she really thought he would? Had there been a trace of the old Jessica who thought he might rise to his feet and cover the distance between them with a few purposeful strides, just like in the old days? Yes, there had. And wasn’t part of her still craving that kind of masterful behaviour? Of course it was. What woman could remain immune to all that brooding power, coupled with the steely new patina which his wealth had given him?
She shook her head as she left the building, realising that Suzy had been right. He was dangerous and the way he made her feel was more dangerous still. Far better that she walked away now and left him in the past, where he belonged.
Hurrying through the emerging rush hour, she caught the train to Cornwall with seconds to spare, but the usually breathtaking journey was shrouded in darkness. The January evening was cold and rain lashed against the carriage windows, seeming to echo her gloomy mood.
She leant her head back against the seat, wondering if she was crazy to have turned her back on a job which had been her security for so long. Yet surely she’d be crazier still to put herself in a situation where Loukas held all the power.
Her love for him might have been replaced by a mixture of anger and frustration—but she was far from immune to him. She couldn’t deny the sharp kick of desire when she looked at him, or her squirming sense of frustration. And if that frustration had been unexpectedly powerful, was that really so surprising? Because there had been nobody else since Loukas. No other lover in eight long years. He had been her first man and the only man. Wasn’t that ridiculous? And unfashionable? He’d accused her of being stuck in a rut, but he didn’t know the half of it.