The man could kiss. That wildness that Olivia had suspected hid under his controlled exterior? She’d just had a taste of it and it had left her mind whirling and her lips—and other parts of her body—throbbing.

Bemused, Olivia followed Ben towards the limo. She barely heard the shouts of the reporters, or saw the flashbulbs going off.

She’d never been kissed like that before. She’d hardly been kissed at all.

Not, of course, that she was going to tell Ben that.

But it had been some kiss. And one she’d wanted, had been thinking about all night. Even longer, if she were honest with herself. And when the reporters had asked for a kiss… well, Olivia hadn’t been about to say no. She’d wanted to kiss him too much and the request was no more than an excuse to touch him. Taste him.

And he’d tasted good.

She slid into the limo, saw that Ben was sitting with his face turned determinedly towards the window.

Olivia thought about making some wry comment about the kiss, joking about it even, but she couldn’t quite make herself do it. The kiss had been wonderful, but the way he’d thrust her away from him afterwards…

Well, that had been a little ego-bruising. She wasn’t sure why he’d done it and she’d didn’t think she could pull off the breezy confidence to ask. Not when she had so little experience with kisses and especially kisses like that.

Virgin’s Sweet Rebellion

Kate Hewitt

www.millsandboon.co.uk

After spending three years as a die-hard New Yorker, KATE HEWITT now lives in a small village in the English Lake District with her husband, their five children and a golden retriever. In addition to writing intensely emotional stories, she loves reading, baking and playing chess with her son—she has yet to win against him, but she continues to try. Learn more about Kate at www.kate-hewitt.com.

To Suzy Clarke— thanks for being such a great editor.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

The Chatsfield

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Harrington Family Tree

Chatsfield Family Tree

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Extras

Extract

Endpages

Copyright

PROLOGUE

‘YOU KNEW.’ BEN CHATSFIELD stared at his brother Spencer and tried to suppress the sudden surge of rage that threatened to overwhelm him. His hands clenched into fists at his sides and words—angry, bitter words—bubbled to his lips. He swallowed them down. He swallowed it all down, as he always had, and gave a wry quirk of a smile, as if Spencer’s revelation was nothing more than amusing. ‘So. How long have you known?’

‘That I was illegitimate?’ Spencer’s mouth tightened and he gave a little shrug. ‘Five years. Since my twenty-ninth birthday.’

Five years. Ben blinked as he tried to take that in. For the past five years he’d been estranged from his brother, from his whole family, and for what?

For nothing apparently.

‘It’s a nice place you’ve got here,’ Spencer offered, and Ben didn’t answer. Spencer gazed round the relaxed yet elegant dining room of Ben’s flagship bistro in Nice, where he’d shown up out of the blue, walking through the tinted glass doors, his sunglasses slid onto his forehead, as if he were for all the world just another tourist.

Not Ben’s older brother, the leader of their Three Musketeers, once adored, always missed. When Ben had rounded the corner from the kitchen and come to a standstill, Spencer had smiled easily, as if they’d seen each other last week instead of fourteen years ago.

‘Hey, Ben,’ he’d said, and somehow Ben had found his voice and answered back, his voice clipped.

‘Spencer.’

And now his brother was telling him that he’d known for five years the secret Ben had discovered when he was just eighteen years old, the secret that had broken his heart and forced him to leave home, severing all ties with his family. The secret that had cost him so much, maybe even his own soul, and still Spencer just smiled.

‘It’s old history now, Ben,’ he said, and Ben could tell Spencer was trying to be conciliatory. Five years too late. ‘Water under the bridge. I always knew there was something that made Michael treat me differently from you and James, and I’m just glad I finally found out it was because he always knew I wasn’t his biological son. I’ve made peace with that.’

‘Glad you have,’ Ben answered. He kept his voice even despite the tangle of emotion that had lodged in his chest: regret and guilt, sorrow and happiness at seeing his beloved brother again, but one trumped all the others. Anger.

The old anger still burned red-hot, a molten river inside him, boiling over everything. So Spencer thought he could just stroll back into Ben’s life as if he’d never left. No apologies, no explanations, just a waving aside of fourteen years.

‘What are you doing here, Spencer?’ Ben asked, and his brother raised his eyebrows, looking slightly startled at Ben’s flat tone, the blunt question.

‘Aren’t you glad? It’s been a long time, Ben...’

‘You’ve known where I’ve been.’

‘You’ve known where I’ve been,’ Spencer countered. and Ben stared at him evenly.

‘I didn’t know that you knew the truth.’

‘Would that have made a difference?’ Spencer asked, his eyes narrowing, and Ben flicked his gaze away.

‘Maybe.’ Would he have come back into the Chatsfield fold if he’d known Spencer knew about his bastard birth? Hard to say. He didn’t have a lot of happy memories of being a Chatsfield. ‘So you haven’t actually answered the question,’ he told Spencer. ‘What are you doing here?’

Because he was realising, with another white-hot shaft of anger, that Spencer had only come looking for him because he wanted something from him.

‘I decided it was time to reunite the Three Musketeers,’ Spencer said. ‘James is in Nice too, just for the weekend, and he wants to see you. We can finally all be together again, Ben, for the good of The Chatsfield.’

The Chatsfield. The hotel empire that his father had lived for, that would have been Spencer’s legacy if he hadn’t been illegitimate. Except, of course, it was his legacy, because their uncle Gene had agreed to let Spencer step up as CEO after their cousin Lucilla had resigned. Ben had heard that much through the news at least. He tried not to read anything about The Chatsfield, but bits of news still reached him.

And now it seemed Spencer wanted Ben to work for the good of The Chatsfield. Fall in with his plans as if half of their lives hadn’t been spent apart.

‘You don’t care about reuniting the Three Musketeers,’ he told his brother, a sneer entering his voice. ‘Give me a break, Spencer. What you really want is for me to do something for you. For The Chatsfield. Don’t you?’

Spencer drew back, surprised and perhaps affronted. I’m not the brother he remembers, Ben thought. The puppyish, eager to please brother who had tried to make everyone so damn happy, and had always failed. Failed spectacularly. He was done with that, done with pleasing other people for no real purpose. And he wasn’t about to work for Spencer or The Chatsfield.

‘I’m a little busy already, as you can see,’ he told Spencer, lightening his words with another wry smile. Joking was his default, the better and easier option than what he really felt like doing, which was punching something, maybe even Spencer.

‘I know, I know, you’ve done a great job here,’ Spencer said quickly. ‘I heard you were awarded a Michelin star. Congratulations. How many restaurants do you have now?’

‘Seven.’

‘Amazing.’

Ben said nothing. He could feel his jaw bunch, his teeth grit. He didn’t need Spencer’s patronising praise.

‘The thing is, you might have heard about the deal with The Harrington in the news...’

‘That it didn’t go through? Yeah, I might have heard that.’ The two hotel empires had been all over the news lately, what with all the conflict over The Chatsfield’s proposed buying out of The Harrington, and then his brother James’s engagement to Leila, the princess of Surhaadi. James had proposed to Leila in front of The Chatsfield’s hotel in New York, after first taking out a billboard in Times Square declaring his love for her. The whole thing had become the kind of media circus Ben hated, but the public had lapped it up and The Chatsfield’s popularity had soared.

‘The Harringtons are going to have to come around at some point,’ Ben told Spencer, his tone dismissive. ‘They don’t have as big an operation as The Chatsfield. They don’t have the resources to withstand you.’

‘The negotiations are going to be delicate,’ Spencer answered. ‘I have some of the shareholders on board, but not all of them. Yet.’

Ben shrugged. He didn’t care about either of the hotels, not any more.

‘Look,’ Spencer said. “I need to be on-site, in New York and London, dealing with this buyout. It’s at a critical stage just now, and I’ve got to be there.’

‘So be there.’

‘And I’m meant to be in Berlin starting next week, overseeing the hotel during the Berlinale.’

‘The what?’

‘The film festival.’ Ben just stared, nonplussed, and Spencer continued. ‘Most of the Hollywood types stay at The Chatsfield for the festival. It’s an important time for the hotel, and for the company as a whole.’

‘I’m not sure why you’re telling me all this,’ Ben told him, even though he was starting to have a suspicion.

‘I need someone on-site,’ Spencer explained. ‘A Chatsfield.’

And he was a Chatsfield. ‘So you expect me to drop my own business, my whole life, and head over to Berlin to help you out?’ Ben filled in, his voice dripping disbelief. ‘And all this after fourteen years of silence?’

Spencer’s eyes flashed with sudden temper. ‘You’re the one who left, Ben.’

Ben nearly took a swing then. He felt his hands bunch into fists and his heart start to race. The desire to hit Spencer felt almost overwhelming, but he choked it down, as he always did. Once his anger had left a man nearly dead. Now he forced himself to breathe evenly, to relax his clenched fists.

‘So I did. And I’m not coming back for you or your hotel, Spencer.’

Spencer’s gaze flicked over him. ‘You’ve changed,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes.’

‘But you’re still my brother, Ben,’ Spencer continued with a small, sad smile. ‘And I’m still yours. Maybe I should have got in touch before now. Hell, I know I should have. But you could have too. We’re both to blame, aren’t we?’

The old Ben would have tripped over himself to accept the blame, to apologise, to make it right. To do whatever it took to make Spencer happy, his whole family dancing a damned jig. This Ben, the man who had had fourteen years of work-focused isolation and suppressed bitterness and rage, just shrugged.

‘Please,’ Spencer said. He tilted his head to one side, gave Ben the whimsical, lopsided smile he remembered so well from their childhood, a smile that felt as if it catapulted him back in time, back to the boy he’d once been. ‘I need you, Ben.’

Still Ben shook his head, resisted that tug towards the past. ‘I just opened a restaurant in Rome that I was planning on visiting...’

‘Two weeks, Ben, that’s all. We need to be a family again in this, stand united behind The Chatsfield. I want that more than anything.’

A united family. That was all he’d wanted when he’d been a kid. He’d suffered his parents’ arguments, his father’s rage, and had tried over and over again to make it all better. He’d sacrificed himself on the altar of his family once already, and here he was coming back for more. Because he knew then that he was going to agree. He’d regretted leaving all those years ago, even though it had felt like the only choice he could make. Regretted being the one to tear their family apart, and now he wondered if he could actually make amends. Make things better.

Ever the peacemaker.

‘Two weeks,’ he said neutrally, and relief broke over his brother’s face like sunlight.

‘Yes...’

‘I’m a chef, not a front-of-house man. I leave all that to other people.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Spencer assured him. ‘It’s just a lot of smiling and handholding, honestly.’

Right. Ben shook his head, still wanting to refuse, knowing he wouldn’t. Knowing he hadn’t changed as much as he thought he had. He was just angry about it now.

‘I haven’t had anything to do with The Chatsfield for fourteen years,’ he reminded Spencer. Reminded himself. ‘Nearly half of my life.’

‘All the more reason to come back to it now,’ Spencer told him, and Ben heard the throb of sincerity in his brother’s voice. ‘I’ve missed you, Ben. I’m sorry you ran away all those years ago. I know you were trying to protect me...’

‘Forget it.’ Ben felt his throat close up, although whether from anger or grief or just pure, nameless emotion he couldn’t say. He didn’t want to talk about the past. He didn’t even want to think about it.

‘I appreciate what you were trying to do,’ Spencer insisted, and Ben cut him off with a quick shake of his head. He really didn’t want to talk about this.

When he finally trusted himself to speak, he said, ‘Fine. I’ll deal with the Berlin hotel for you. But I want something in return.’ His brother wouldn’t get his unquestioned loyalty any more. Things had changed too much for that. He’d changed.

Spencer raised his eyebrows, waiting. ‘Okay. What do you want?’

‘I want you to open a branch of my bistro in The Chatsfield, London.’

Spencer blinked, started shaking his head. ‘London already has a Michelin-starred restaurant...’

‘And the chef is about to retire. He’s been losing his touch for years anyway.’ Ben raised his eyebrows in cool challenge. ‘So?’

Spencer stared at him for a long moment, and Ben stared back. Tension simmered in the air between them, tension and resentment that was decades old that neither of them had ever acknowledged.

Finally Spencer nodded. ‘Fine. Oversee the film festival and I’ll look into opening your restaurant in London.’

‘More than just look into it,’ Ben replied evenly. ‘I want a signed contract.’

Spencer arched an eyebrow, gave a small smile. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘This is business.’

‘Fine.’ Spencer nodded his assent. ‘Send something to my office and I’ll sign it. Now are we good?’

Ben nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, we’re good.’

Spencer let out a laugh as he shook his head. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Ben. You’ve toughened up since I last saw you.’

When he’d been eighteen and utterly naive? Yeah, he’d changed just a little. But for the first time it really hit Ben that Spencer was here, that his family had, at least in part, been restored to him, and through the anger he felt something else, something clean and cool and welcome. Happiness.

CHAPTER ONE

OLIVIA HARRINGTON STARED at the standard room she’d booked at The Chatsfield and suppressed a groan. She’d seen broom cupboards that were bigger. By a lot.

Letting out a weary sigh, she kicked off the heels she’d worn for her red-eye flight from LA, and let go of her suitcase before sinking onto the edge of the narrow bed. Reaching one foot out, she swung the door shut and stared again at the prison cell she was supposed to call her home for the next week or so.

All right, she hadn’t been expecting the Presidential Suite. She wasn’t an A-lister by any means, but she was here for the film festival and a standard room at the best hotel in town surely meant more than this tiny closet? She didn’t even have an en-suite bathroom, and the window was facing a concrete wall that she could reach out and touch if she were so inclined. She was not.

Plus it didn’t look as if the room had been cleaned properly since the last guest—or should she say inmate?—had stayed here. There were crumbs on the carpet and the bed covers were decidedly rumpled and, peering closer, she saw, stained.

Ugh.

With a gusty sigh she leaned forward and opened the door of the tiny fridge wedged under the tinier TV. This called for a drink.

Except the minibar had been raided by some former disgruntled or desperate guest; the only thing left in it was a bottle of water and an already opened bar of chocolate with two bites missing. Olivia stared at the chilled expanse of emptiness in disbelief. Could today get any worse?

She’d had two flights cancelled from LA, had been wedged into an economy seat with a mother with a screaming baby on one side and an officious businessman who hogged the armrest on the other. She’d been dressed to impress, knowing the paparazzi loved taking photos of stars without make-up as they stumbled off a plane, and her feet had been killing her now for a good thirteen hours. Sleep was a distant memory.

And this pathetic excuse for a hotel room was the last straw. Fired by indignation, Olivia rose from the bed, jammed her aching feet back into her heels and refreshed her lipstick, squinting into the tiny square of mirror above the bureau. She was not a diva, but this was ridiculous. She could barely breathe in a room this size, much less get ready for film premieres and networking parties. And she knew exactly why she had been given a broom cupboard.

Because she was a Harrington. Because her sister Isabelle had refused Spencer Chatsfield’s offer to buy her shares in The Harrington, and let the Chatsfields swoop in and take over their family business. And mostly, she suspected, because Spencer Chatsfield thought it would be amusing to see a Harrington crammed into a Chatsfield cupboard.

Ha bloody ha ha.

All right, maybe she shouldn’t have booked into The Chatsfield, knowing the current tension between the two families. But everyone who was everyone at the Berlin Film Festival stayed at The Chatsfield, and Olivia wasn’t about to miss out simply because of family pride. She had too much riding on this festival, had worked too hard for too long to lose the first chance she’d had of actually proving herself simply because she wasn’t staying at the right hotel. She knew how these things worked. It was all schmooze, schmooze, schmooze, and kiss, kiss, kiss. Networking. And she needed to do it. She’d do just about anything to secure her film career. To prove she’d made the right decision, sinking everything she had and was into being an actress. To honour her mother’s memory, and make her proud.

Besides, Isabelle was the one who couldn’t say the name Chatsfield without spitting; Olivia had never been that involved with the family business or its competitors.

But damned if she was going to sit by and let anyone, especially a Chatsfield, walk all over her.

With one last determined glance at her reflection, she wrenched open the door of her hotel room and stormed out, slamming it satisfyingly behind her as she went in search of the man who had thought it would be amusing to see a Harrington brought low.

Downstairs in the lobby of the hotel, actors, actresses and media types swarmed the lobby, all soaring gilt and marble and art nouveau glamour. Olivia saw a few people she knew, and she worked her way across the room, air-kissing and finger-waggling with the best of them, before she finally reached the concierge desk.

‘I’d like to speak to the manager, please.’

The coiffed woman at the desk raised elegant eyebrows in polite incredulity. ‘I’m afraid Mr Chatsfield is busy, Miss...?’

‘Harrington. Olivia Harrington.’ The receptionist looked decidedly unimpressed, and Olivia gritted her teeth. Okay, so she wasn’t recognisable. Yet. But she had a supporting role in one of the films being shown this week, and the promise of an even bigger role in a film she really cared about, the kind of film that would touch hearts and win awards. She didn’t need this receptionist to know who she was, but she did need her to cooperate.

‘I’m sure Mr Chatsfield is busy,’ she told the woman with honeyed sweetness, ‘but considering I’m a Harrington, of the Harrington Hotel, I think he’ll see me, don’t you?’

Uncertainty wavered across the woman’s face and Olivia leaned forward, still smiling. ‘Trust me on this one,’ she said.

Irritation chased after uncertainty on the woman’s face, but with one tight nod she turned from the desk. ‘I’ll see if Mr Chatsfield is available,’ she said, and Olivia nodded back, blowing out a breath of relief even as tension coiled more tightly inside her. First hurdle passed. Too bad there were only about a gazillion more.

* * *

‘Olivia Harrington?’

Ben stared blankly at the receptionist standing in the doorway of his office behind the lobby area. He had a million and two problems to deal with, namely a truckload of A-list celebrities who thought requests like a magnum of pink champagne and fresh flowers—but no lilies or roses—in every room of their suites were reasonable. He’d already had half a dozen bouquets sent back down because each one contained a rose. Singular.

Ben had been more than ready to tell the self-important starlet just where she could put all those flowers. Fortunately he’d managed to restrain himself, if only just. But when he next saw Spencer he was going to tell him where he could put the flowers. His brother had told him it would be a lot of handholding, but the level of attention these Hollywood types needed was unbelievable. And being back at The Chatsfield—any Chatsfield—with all of the memories and anger and pain—made him even less willing to deal with these outrageous requests. There was a reason he stayed in the kitchen.

Now he eyed the receptionist wearily, managing to remember her name after a few endless seconds. “You mean a Harrington, of The Harrington, is asking to see me, Anna?’

Anna nodded. ‘She requested to see the manager. She was quite...forceful.’

Ben closed his eyes briefly. Perfect. A forceful Harrington who wanted to see him. What the hell was a Harrington doing in Berlin? Weren’t all of these delicate negotiations meant to be taking place in London and New York?

‘Thank you,’ he said, forcing a smile for the receptionist. ‘Send her in.’

* * *

The receptionist kept Olivia waiting for ten excruciating minutes—those stupid heels really hurt—before she finally returned with an icy smile.

‘Mr Chatsfield will see you, Miss Harrington,’ she said, her eyes like flint. ‘Please come this way.’

‘Thank you,’ Olivia answered, unable to keep an edge of sarcasm from creeping into her voice. Wasn’t The Chatsfield supposed to be number one in customer service? If this woman’s behaviour was anything to go by, not to mention her shabby room, Olivia didn’t think much of the luxury hotel’s treatment of guests. But then, she was a Harrington. Maybe they reserved the rudeness and squalor especially for her.

With that unpleasant thought in the forefront of her mind, she followed the receptionist into an office behind the lobby, and stared at the man who sat behind the desk, one hand driven carelessly through his messy brown hair.

Was this Spencer Chatsfield? Olivia hadn’t remembered from the few tabloid photographs she’d seen of him that he was quite so...hot. Wasn’t Spencer buttoned-up and corporate-looking? The man in front of her was anything but. All right, yes, he was wearing a suit. A very nice suit in grey pinstripe, but he had the kind of body, the kind of attitude, that made him seem as if he’d be more at home in worn jeans and a faded T-shirt, maybe a leather motorcycle jacket. Yes, she could totally see that.

And way too late Olivia realised she was staring. Maybe even ogling. She drew herself up, kept her chin tilted high. Time to play the icily outraged guest.

‘Spencer Chatsfield?’ she said, her voice cool and clipped, and the man in front of her—he had stubble, she saw, glinting on his jaw...so, so sexy—arched an eyebrow.

‘No. Ben Chatsfield. And you are?’

‘Olivia Harrington.’

His eyes narrowed, his expression not even bordering on courteous. He looked...bored. ‘And what can I do for you, Miss Harrington?’ he asked in a voice that came close to a drawl.

He knew about the room, Olivia thought. She could see it in his hazel eyes, narrowed so knowingly, the way he lounged in his chair seeming relaxed yet emanating a barely leashed energy. He so knew.

She hadn’t been aware of Ben Chatsfield’s existence before a few seconds ago—Spencer was the one Isabelle had mentioned the most, and of course James was in the news—but Olivia knew one thing already. Ben Chatsfield was an ass.

She planted her hands on the desk and thrust her face towards his, deliberately invading his personal space. Ben Chatsfield didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid.

‘You may think it’s amusing,’ she said in a steely voice, ‘to put a Harrington in a room that resembles a broom cupboard, but I happen to think it’s poor customer service. Very poor customer service, Mr Chatsfield, and as I am a paying customer, I don’t think highly of you or your hotel. At all.’ She was huffing a bit by the end of this little speech, and Ben Chatsfield hadn’t even changed expression.

‘Am I to take it,’ he asked after a long beat, ‘that you’re not satisfied with your hotel room?’

Olivia let out a rather inelegant laugh of disbelief. ‘Yes, you are to take it, Mr Chatsfield. My room is completely appalling.’

‘Appalling,’ he repeated neutrally. He’d leaned back in his chair, his thumb and forefinger flexed to brace the side of his face, his eyes still narrowed.

Why, Olivia wondered in irritation, did he have to be so darned sexy? She straightened, folding her arms, waiting for him to—what? Justify his behaviour? Pretend that giving her that wretched room had been some sort of oversight?

As if.

‘And what,’ Ben asked in a voice of deliberate, and likely deceptive, mildness, ‘is so appalling about your room...Miss Harrington?’

She simply gaped at him for a moment, utterly amazed by the sheer gall of him. ‘Everything,’ she finally said, glaring at him. ‘Absolutely everything.’

In one quick and fluid move of powerful grace Ben leaned forward and started clicking away at his computer. Olivia waited, her temper barely held in check.

‘I see from your reservation that you have booked a standard room.’

‘Nothing,’ she told him through gritted teeth, ‘is standard about the broom cupboard I’m currently in.’

‘The Chatsfield,’ he told her coolly, ‘does not run to broom cupboard.’

‘Then maybe you should have a look at my room.’

He stared at her for a moment, his eyes still narrowed, his mouth thinned. And now that she was looking at his lips, Olivia had to admit they were sexy too. Surprisingly full and mobile and, well, lush. Lush lips on a very masculine man. He had long eyelashes too, she noticed. So unfair.

‘Perhaps you’re right. I should see this appalling room for myself,’ he told her, his voice edged with sarcasm, ‘and address any concerns you have.’

Olivia threw an arm out to gesture towards the door. ‘Be my guest.’

‘Ah,’ Ben answered as he rose from behind his desk. ‘Now that’s my line.’

* * *

So a Harrington heiress decided to make a stink about her room. Suppressing a stab of irritation, Ben wondered just what had put Olivia’s nose out of joint. Thread count not high enough on the sheets? No flowers in the bathroom? As much as he would have relished telling her to suck it up and deal, Ben knew he wouldn’t. Or at least he’d do it nicely.

He turned back to Olivia, who was still looking at him with such obvious outrage that he almost wanted to roll his eyes. She was definitely putting it on a little thick, and for what? To amuse herself that she could stick it to a Chatsfield?

This wasn’t his fight, he reminded himself. He might have agreed to help Spencer out, because...well, because his feelings for his family were complicated. But he didn’t care about The Harrington, or whether The Chatsfield swallowed it whole or not. He certainly didn’t care about this spoilt heiress.

‘Would you care to show me your room?’ he asked, his voice coolly polite, and with another huff she flounced past him and out into the lobby.

She was a beautiful woman, he had to acknowledge, although it was the kind of shiny, polished beauty that made him cynical. Too manufactured. Too fake. And after all the lies he’d swallowed in his past, he didn’t like fake anything.

Still, shiny, brown hair in carefully tousled locks that reached to the middle of her back. Big brown eyes. A dynamite figure, all willowy grace, encased in a jewel-green shift dress and high heels that drew Ben’s reluctant admiration to her long, trim legs, and the tempting curve of her calves.

He yanked his gaze upwards and it fell on her butt. That was nice too. Up again, and he finally made contact with her shoulder blades as she marched ahead of him. Good. He’d keep his eyes trained there.

She stabbed the button for the lift with one French manicured fingernail, her body quivering with tension as they waited for it to arrive.

‘When did you arrive in Berlin?’ he asked, deciding solicitude was his best bet. Not that anything would impress this kind of high-maintenance woman, but at least he would have tried.

She turned to give him an icy stare. ‘About an hour ago. I’ve been flying all night, Mr Chatsfield.’

And that was his problem how? Ben gave her a smile of bland equanimity. At least he hoped it was, and not the sneer he felt in his soul. ‘Please, call me Ben.’

She didn’t respond.

Thankfully the lift arrived and they stepped inside. At the last second before the doors closed a blowsy blonde woman in a bright pink designer tracksuit and sparkly high-tops squeezed in. She gave an obviously fake double take as she registered Olivia.

‘Olivia. I didn’t know you were coming to the festival.’ Insincerity dripped from the woman’s words and next to him Ben felt Olivia Harrington stiffen. After only a second she forced herself to relax, gave the woman what looked like a genuine smile but Ben knew in his gut was false.

‘Amber. So nice to see you. Yes, I’m here. I have a role in Blue Skies Forever. The indie film?’

‘Oh, right.’ The woman, this Amber wrinkled her nose. ‘A walk-on part?’

‘A supporting role,’ Olivia corrected, her smile not slipping so much as a millimetre. The lift doors pinged and she stepped past Amber her head held high. ‘See you around, I’m sure.’

So she was an actress. Ben eyed her thoughtfully as she walked down the thickly carpeted hall, her chin lifted defiantly, her shoulders thrown back. It didn’t really surprise him, he decided. She certainly had a flare for the dramatic. And actresses, he acknowledged, tended to be high maintenance, difficult and fake. Olivia had already shown she was all three. No, he wasn’t surprised at all.

She took him down another hall, this one narrower than the hotel’s main corridors, and then through a fire door that had Ben frowning. He didn’t think there were any guest bedrooms in this part of the building. It was staff accommodation and storage.

‘Here we are,’ she announced sunnily, and with a deliberate flourish she produced her old-fashioned key—not one of the hotel’s signature key cards—and unlocked the door to her room. Ben stepped inside, his shoulder brushing Olivia’s because the room was that small.

It really was a broom cupboard. Or close enough to one.

‘Would you call this appalling?’ she asked with acid sweetness. She pointed to the rumpled, stained bed. ‘I don’t think the sheets have been changed in, oh, maybe a year? Plus the minibar has been raided, and there’s no en-suite bathroom despite the fact that The Chatsfield’s standard rooms are all meant to have them.’ She whirled around to face him, her hands on her hips, her body, and in particular her breasts, quite close to his own anatomy. The room was small.

Ben held his ground, conscious of the way her hair had brushed his cheek when she’d whirled around, and how even after a thirteen-hour flight she smelled like strawberries. And vanilla.

He took a deep breath, kept his voice even and his gaze on her furious face. ‘I’m sorry. Clearly there’s been a mistake.’

‘A mistake? You’re going to pretend putting me in this—this sty was a mistake?’

Fury, all too familiar a feeling, spiked. All right, she was pretty, but what was her problem? She seemed determined to get the most mileage out of what clearly had to be an accident.

‘Yes, a mistake,’ he answered, all solicitude gone from his voice. ‘You don’t actually think someone would intentionally put a guest in a room like this?’

She planted her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowed to chocolate-brown slits. ‘That’s exactly what I think, Ben.’

He stared at her, first incredulous, then scornful. ‘You think I put you in this room because you’re a Harrington?’

‘It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.’

Ben let out one short, sharp laugh. ‘You’re no rocket scientist, sweetheart.’

Temper flashed in her eyes, turning them almost to gold. ‘Don’t patronise me...’

‘I could say the same. You must think you’re pretty damn important, for me to waste my time irritating you.’

She shrugged defiantly. ‘If the shoe fits...’

‘So you think I trawled through the guest list during the film festival,’ he cut her off, his voice dripping disbelief, ‘when the hotel is completely booked, hoping that a Harrington might have made a reservation, just so I could make this petty power play?’ He thought of the sugar-laced venom of the woman in the lift. ‘Because, sorry to break it to you, Miss Harrington, but your presence in Berlin hasn’t been plastered all over the news.’ He raised his eyebrows, curved his mouth into a mocking smile. ‘Actually, I’m not sure if the media have even twigged you’re here.’

Fury blazed colour onto each high, lovely cheekbone and her eyes narrowed further. ‘I don’t know how you found out, but...’

‘Oh, give it a rest.’ He was so tired of prima donnas and their outrageous demands. The last thing he needed was a Harrington breathing down his neck. ‘It was an honest mistake, and that’s all. I didn’t even know a Harrington was in Berlin. I assumed your whole family was in New York, working on the negotiations with my brother.’

‘What negotiations?’ Olivia demanded sharply. ‘My sister refused...’

‘I don’t think corporate takeovers are quite that simple,’ Ben answered dryly. ‘But honestly, it has nothing to do with me. I have nothing to do with The Chatsfield.’

Olivia arched an incredulous eyebrow. ‘Yet you’re managing The Chatsfield, Berlin.’

Something that he still couldn’t quite believe he’d agreed to. Didn’t want to think about why he had. ‘So I am,’ he responded, his voice as even as he could make it. ‘But only for the duration of the festival.’

‘So the Chatsfields are close,’ Olivia observed, her gaze sweeping over him, and Ben tensed. Close? He’d thought so. Once.

‘We’re family,’ he said now, his voice toneless. ‘Just like the Harringtons.’

Olivia pursed her lips and they stared at each other, anger simmering, along with something else. Something Ben was reluctant to admit to but could easily name. Attraction.

Olivia Harrington, personality aside, was a lovely woman. A beautiful, vibrant, sexy woman. With her eyes sparkling with all that self-righteous indignation, her hair tousled about her flushed face, she looked both angry and turned on.

And maybe she was both.

Ben knew he was.

He shifted where he stood, conscious that now was a pretty inconvenient time to show evidence of that attraction.

‘I’ll arrange for you to be moved to a different room,’ he said in a tone of finality. ‘And as an apology for our error, you can have one night’s stay free of charge.’

Olivia’s eyes widened in surprise but then she gave a curt nod, as if she expected no less. Of course. ‘Thank you,’ she said with some grace, and rather grimly Ben nodded back. The sooner he was quit of this woman, the better.

‘Any time,’ he said, and turned to leave the room.

CHAPTER TWO

LESS THAN AN hour later Olivia stepped into one of the executive suites of The Chatsfield, Berlin, and felt her jaw drop. This was definitely not a standard room. Not even close.

A bellhop had already brought her suitcase into the foyer, and now Olivia closed the door before slowly walking around the soaring suite of rooms: foyer, living area, kitchen, bedroom and a huge bathroom with a sunken marble tub. Amazing. Just looking at that tub made her yearn to climb into it and soak in a sea of fragrant bubbles for about, oh, a lifetime.

And yet as amazing as it all was, a tiny sliver of uncertainty needled her. Not only was she getting a night free of charge, but she was staying in a suite that had to cost about a quadrillion more euros than the standard room she’d originally booked.

Was Ben Chatsfield just providing the kind of stellar customer service expected from The Chatsfield, or was he feeling guilty because he really had put her in that broom cupboard on purpose?

She decided not to overthink it. Either way, she had a fabulous room and was spending less money than she’d budgeted, which was a good thing since she didn’t use Harrington money to fund her life or her dreams.

She unpacked, hanging up her carefully coordinated outfits in the enormous wardrobe before running the huge tub she’d been fantasising about and loading it with half the bottle of complimentary bubble bath. She stripped off her clothes and slipped inside all that fragrant warmth. Bliss.

Yet even as she leaned her head back against the marble tub and closed her eyes, she felt that uncertainty needle her again. Although maybe it wasn’t actually uncertainty. Maybe it was just...awareness.

Ben Chatsfield had no right to look that attractive. That hot. With her eyes closed she could picture him perfectly: the slightly messed brown hair, the glinting hazel eyes, the strong, stubbled jaw. Gorgeous. But even more alluring than his good looks, Olivia decided, had been his energy. Raw and barely restrained. Wild. Real.

She laughed softly, because even if Ben Chatsfield had ever been interested in her, she knew she wouldn’t know what to do with a man like that. Her handful of relationships so far had been carefully controlled, stage-managed affairs that bore little resemblance to reality—or wildness.

She didn’t even want wild. Or real. Any depth of emotion was anathema to her, and had been since she was twelve. She hadn’t handled it then, and she couldn’t handle it now. She chose not to, and had kept herself from anything intimate or emotional or real with anyone. She’d certainly keep herself from it with someone like Ben Chatsfield.

And yet as she slid deeper into the tub, she still wondered what he would be like if he gave in to that wildness and let his exterior slip just a little. What she would be like with him.

Sighing, she slid deeper into the water until the bubbles came right up to her nose. No point thinking about Ben Chatsfield, because nothing was going to happen there. She’d make sure of it. Tonight she’d wear comfy pyjamas and watch mindless rom-coms on the huge TV in the bedroom and then sleep for at least eight hours. Tomorrow she had a full day of interviews lined up for her upcoming film, and she’d have to be on the whole time. One huge twelve-hour performance, which was fine, because it was far easier to be Olivia Harrington, the up-and-coming actress, than anyone else. Like herself.

* * *

Ben gritted his teeth as the A-list actress pouted prettily at him. She was gorgeous, this woman whose name he’d forgotten, he’d give her that, but she was also irritating as hell. Almost as irritating as Olivia Harrington.

‘I’m afraid the lobby is not able to be reserved,’ he told the actress, his voice clipped, bordering on abrupt. Standing in the lobby of The Chatsfield was hard enough without having to kowtow to a rich bimbo. Memories assailed him everywhere he turned, and he’d never even been to Berlin before. But he’d been to The Chatsfield. As soon as he’d stepped through the lobby doors he’d felt as if he’d stumbled into a time machine. The clink of crystal, the smell of leather and furniture polish, the ping of the lifts...all of it had brought him right back to the boy he’d been, spit-shined and eager, waiting in the lobby for his father to be finished with work. Hoping that this time his father would smile at him. Smile at Spencer.

‘But it would be the perfect venue for my birthday party,’ the actress insisted, and Ben was brought back to the present, which was both a relief and an annoyance. She dropped the pout, offering him a sultry smile instead. It made for a change at least, as did the hand she laid on his arm. The woman didn’t provoke even a quarter of the reaction Olivia Harrington had. ‘Please?’ she asked breathily, fluttering false eyelashes.

‘The lobby is a public place,’ Ben answered, and deliberately removed his arm from her hand. ‘And other guests need to use it to access their rooms. Unless you don’t mind having them all go through the service entrance?’ He’d said it sarcastically enough, unable to help himself, but he could see the woman had taken him seriously. From behind her he saw a staff member smother a smile, and he was glad someone was enjoying this conversation. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s absolutely not possible,’ he told the woman firmly. ‘We would be happy to accommodate the needs of your event in any of The Chatsfield’s reception rooms.’ He took a step back, tilting his head to indicate the concierge desk. ‘Shall I have someone show you the options? The Parisian Salon is particularly stunning.’

He grimaced as he turned away, hating the honeyed falseness that was starting to come to him all too easily. For fourteen years he’d thrived on a reputation of being honest to the point of bluntness. People knew what they were getting with Ben’s Bistro. It was only stepping back into The Chatsfield, into the web of deceit his parents had woven since infancy, that he’d become a flatterer. Which was what Spencer had asked him to be.

‘Nicely handled, Mr Chatsfield.’ The bellhop who had overheard his conversation came up to him with a grin. ‘That woman was seriously annoying. She had eight pieces of luggage and she didn’t even tip.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Ben answered even though he knew a regular manager would have given the bellhop a smack-down for talking about guests that way. He wouldn’t. He’d taken the measure of most of the staff within the first few days, and he knew he needed to draw a line between stellar customer service and surrendering your dignity. This bellhop had been nothing but courteous to all the guests. No wonder he needed to let off some steam.

He offered him a quick smile before he nodded towards the luggage trolleys and had the boy hurrying back to his place. Order still needed to be kept.

‘Mr Chatsfield?’ Heels clicked behind him and he turned to see his PA, Rebecca, smiling uncertainly at him.

‘Rebecca. What can I do for you?’

‘A reporter from the entertainment network wanted to interview you for their piece about catering to the stars?’

‘Oh. Right.’ And that was something he really felt like doing. Trying not to grimace, Ben followed Rebecca to the waiting reporter.

Twelve hours later, with it heading on to midnight, Ben was finally able to relax. He’d put out more fires—including an actual one when a guest had knocked over one of the two hundred aromatherapy candles she’d scattered around her suite—and soothed more giant egos than he cared to remember. And he hadn’t lost his temper. He hadn’t lost his temper in fourteen years, but he was holding on to it now by a thread. Tension knotted his shoulders and his head throbbed.

He shouldn’t have come back to The Chatsfield, he acknowledged as he headed to the rooftop pool for a swim. He shouldn’t have thought he could handle the memories, the emotions. Sighing, he stripped off his suit in the men’s changing room and headed into the pool area.

The Chatsfield’s swimming pool was one of the highlights of the hotel, an Olympic-size pool on the roof, glassed in on all sides, with a panoramic view of the city. Swimming laps had always been one way Ben liked to relax, to burn off the excess emotion and stress.

The pool was thankfully empty at this late hour, and Ben could see the city stretching out in every direction, sparkling under the night sky. He could make out the Bellevue Palace as well as the iconic Victory Column, and the dark expanse of the Tiergarten now covered in a thin dusting of snow. He’d never been to Berlin before now, and he didn’t think he was going to have much time to see the sights during the two weeks he was here.

Not that he cared. He just wanted to get back to France. To his life.

And if Spencer asks you to open restaurants in all the Chatsfield hotels?

It was a question that had dogged Ben since he’d made the demand of his brother because the truth was he wasn’t even sure he wanted to open restaurants in all of the hotels. He didn’t need the money or the publicity, and the thought of linking himself so closely to The Chatsfields—and to the Chatsfield family—made his gut churn.

You couldn’t go back. Ever. Even if you wanted to.

But did he want to?

Shoving the question aside, Ben dove into the pool. The water felt cool and refreshing and his head started to clear. The tension between his shoulder blades loosened and he did a couple of laps before flipping onto his back and staring up at the domed ceiling as he let his mind empty out.

A door squeaked open and Ben lifted his head from the water; he could only see a pair of trim ankles and curvy calves coming towards the pool. Someone had clearly had the same idea as he had.

He flipped back onto his stomach and started to swim towards the edge. His fifteen minutes of relaxation were clearly over.

He was about a metre from the pool’s side when he saw something in his peripheral vision, too late for him to do anything about it, and then he felt the breath leave his body in a rush as the female guest who had just entered the pool area dove straight into him.

* * *

Olivia felt as if she’d just dived into concrete. Stars danced through her dazed mind and she let out an undignified shriek, her head pounding from the impact, before arms clasped her shoulders like bands of iron.

‘Do you always,’ a familiar, masculine voice asked in disgust, ‘leap before you look?’

Olivia blinked the water from her eyes and shook her wet hair from her face. And stared into the angry, arrogant face of Ben Chatsfield.

His eyes blazed and his cheeks were slashed with colour and for a moment, her mind still dazed, Olivia thought he looked like some ancient water god emerging from the sea, water dripping off his perfectly formed pecs.

Then sanity returned and she started to sputter.

‘I didn’t see anyone in the pool,’ she said, and her sputtering erupted into a coughing fit. She’d swallowed several mouthfuls of pool water when she’d made contact with Ben Chatsfield’s chest.

A chest that was now pressed alarmingly close to hers. Ben was still gripping her by the shoulders, their legs tangled together in the water. Her heart was thudding from the shock of the encounter, and something else as well.

Something she had no intention of acknowledging. In any case, she was coughing too much to say or even think anything.

Ben muttered something under his breath and with one arm under her armpits and across her breasts he started towing her to the side of the pool as if she were unconscious.

‘Just a second...’ she began, and started coughing again.

He hauled himself up onto the pool’s ledge and then unceremoniously hauled her up next to him. She lay slumped against him, his arm around her shoulders, as she attempted to cough up a lung.

Thankfully her coughing finally subsided and she drew in several agonised but much needed breaths. ‘Thank you,’ she mumbled. ‘I must have swallowed some pool water.’

‘Must have,’ Ben agreed tonelessly, and Olivia wondered why, out of all the people in the hotel, she had to dive straight into Ben Chatsfield.

She looked up at him, tried not to notice the water droplets that clung to his eyelashes and his chin...and his chest. Her gaze dropped down of its own accord and she swallowed hard at the sight of Ben Chatsfield’s well-toned six-pack. Nice.

Okay, looking up again. She smiled weakly and Ben smiled back, a cold curving of his mouth that told her she was so busted. Well, fine. A girl could look.

‘What did you mean, do I always leap before I look?’ she demanded, his words coming back to her rather belatedly.

‘Exactly that. You dived into a pool without checking if someone was swimming in it.’

‘I didn’t see you,’ she snapped.

‘Because you didn’t look.’

All right, maybe she hadn’t looked. She’d been tired and distracted and pretty darn grumpy because the first day of the festival had basically sucked. Two interviews cancelled, another reporter claiming she wasn’t interesting enough because her role in the film that was going to be her big breakthrough wasn’t yet confirmed, and she’d learned that twelve of her thirty-two lines had been cut from Blue Skies Forever, the indie film that was being shown at the festival.

And so she hadn’t done all her Girl Scout safety checks before jumping into the pool. Whatever.

‘I meant,’ she asked Ben now, ‘what you meant when you said always. As if you had experience of me jumping you in the pool before.’ Too late she realised what she’d said. ‘I mean, jumping on you.’

‘I know what you meant,’ Ben answered, and Olivia wanted to slap that knowing smirk right off his face. Or maybe kiss him. Both, probably, one after the other. Not good. Ben was out of her league, in a whole lot of ways.

She edged away from him and after a tiny pause Ben slipped his arm from her shoulders. She shivered, and then wished she hadn’t.

‘I said always,’ Ben told her, ‘because you pretty much leaped before you looked yesterday, when you came into my office with all your guns blazing, having made the assumption that I put you in that room on purpose.’

Olivia folded her arms across her chest. She had just remembered that she was wearing a skimpy hot-pink bikini. She’d forgotten to pack a normal swimsuit for exercise, because she’d been so focused on clothes she would be seen in. The wardrobe of a future Hollywood star.

‘I think it was a fair assumption to make,’ she told Ben coolly. ‘In fact, I’m far from convinced that you didn’t do it on purpose.’

Temper flared in Ben’s eyes, quickly tamped down, but even angry, especially angry, he looked hot. ‘Of course you are.’

‘Now what is that supposed to mean?’ she demanded, straightening in affront even as attraction jolted her insides in little lightning streaks. Ben slipped back into the pool, turning to face her with eyes that blazed and a mouth twisted downwards in derision.

‘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 out on my account, did you?’

He hesitated, then said, ‘No.’

‘So it was empty?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Why do I feel like you’re not telling me something?’

He shrugged and then admitted tersely, ‘I was staying there.’

‘You were?’ Shock scorched through her, followed by a horrified remorse. She’d kicked Ben Chatsfield out of his room. ‘Where are you staying now?’

His sardonic gaze met hers. ‘Guess.’

The penny dropped with a clunk. ‘Not...’

‘I had the sheets changed, at least. But the hotel, as you noted yourself, is fully booked.’

She simply stared, utterly discomfited by his admission. He was staying in the broom cupboard? And he hadn’t even been going to mention it until she’d pressed. Now she really did feel self-important and high maintenance and all the rest of it, except wannabe, of course ‘Thank you,’ she said yet again, lamely, and Ben just stared at her with that inscrutable expression, his eyes reminding her of a tiger or a panther or some other wild and dangerous animal. Okay, enough with the fanciful thoughts. He was waiting, she realised, for her to go. And so she did, hightailing it out of his office with an unsettling mixture of relief and disappointment.

An hour later Olivia had managed, mostly, to put the whole episode with Ben Chatsfield out of her mind as she answered questions about the upcoming drama that was going to be her ticket to the A-list. She laughed, she chatted, she even winked once. All of it a performance, and one that she was doing remarkably well, if she did say so herself.

Then, just after she’d told a witty joke and let out a sparkling laugh, a reporter came back with, ‘Would you care to comment on your relationship with Benjamin Chatsfield?’

What the what?

The expression of laughing ease dropped from Olivia’s face like the mask it was as she stared at the woman from the entertainment website with whom she’d got on very well until this moment.

Her relationship with Benjamin Chatsfield? How on earth had the woman come up with that one? After an endless moment her brain finally stuttered into gear. ‘I don’t care to comment at this time,’ she said crisply. And wasn’t that an understatement. She didn’t have a relationship with Ben Chatsfield. How did this woman even know she’d spoken to Ben Chatsfield?

‘Not even on this photo?’ the woman asked with a smile that was starting to look smug. Olivia looked down at the newspaper she’d laid on the table, opened to a two-page spread of...

Oh, dear heaven.

How had someone seen them? And how had they looked so...intimate? Some paparazzi had captured them at just the right—or wrong—moment, with Ben’s hands on her shoulders, his face thrust close to hers, looking for all the world as if he were going to kiss her when in fact he’d been about to yell at her. Again.

And there were other photos...one of them sitting by the edge of the pool, Ben’s arm around her shoulders. She’d been recovering from a coughing fit but it looked...it looked as if they were cuddling.

And then the headline: Celebrity Chef Ben Chatsfield Gets Up Close and Personal with Starlet.

Starlet? They didn’t even know her name! She swallowed her pique and glanced back up at the smirking woman.

‘Like I said, no comment.’

Every interview she’d had scheduled that day was the same. Each reporter asked a few hurried questions about the upcoming film or her career, and then went for what they were really interested in.

Her relationship with celebrity chef Ben Chatsfield. Starlet she might be, but she’d been recognised.

Olivia kept up the ‘no comment’ line for five interviews, enduring smirks, chuckles and some pretty blatant innuendo. By late afternoon, when a jowly man from a tabloid her agent had insisted she grant an interview to asked her what she thought Ben Chatsfield saw in her, an insulting question if she’d ever heard one, she replied frostily, ‘The truth is Ben Chatsfield and I have been seeing each other since The Chatsfield tried to take over The Harrington.’ She gave him a glittering smile. ‘It’s a bit like Romeo and Juliet, don’t you think?’

And without waiting for a response, she stalked out of the room.

Her agent, Melissa, followed her with a click of stiletto heels. ‘Now that will get them talking,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘I didn’t know you were seeing Ben Chatsfield. That’s great press.’

Olivia kept her back to Melissa, unsure of the expression that would be on her face. Horror, probably. Or maybe hysteria. ‘I’m not,’ she said after a moment, her voice toneless.

‘What was that?’

‘I’m not seeing him!’ She whirled around, gave her agent what she hoped was an insouciant look. Come on, Olivia, play the devil-may-care ingénue. It’s just another role. ‘I just said that because the man was so odious.’

‘Oh.’ Melissa frowned, and Olivia let out a careless little laugh.

‘What? It’s just Hollywood gossip. Tomorrow they’ll move on to something else.’

‘Yes, but...’ Melissa was still frowning, and everything in Olivia prickled with annoyance—as well as a little alarm. She didn’t like seeing her agent look so...disapproving.

‘It’s not a big deal,’ she said, still trying for airy.

‘You just confirmed a relationship,’ Melissa pointed out. ‘So it’s not just gossip or rumour, Olivia. It’s a fact, confirmed by a primary source.’

‘Oh. Well.’ Her mind raced even as her face flushed. Why had she said such a stupid thing? She’d just been so fed up, being treated like Ben Chatsfield’s eye candy all day instead of an actress in her own right. No one had been interested in her upcoming film, just who they thought Ben Chatsfield was seeing. ‘I could explain,’ she suggested to Melissa. ‘Tell them I just said it because that reporter was so annoying...’ She trailed off as Melissa shook her head.

‘That would just make you look like an idiot. An unstable idiot who lies in public.’

Which basically meant she was an unstable idiot who lied in public. Ben Chatsfield’s mocking question echoed through her mind.

Do you always leap before you look?

Apparently so. Which was surprising, because she’d never thought of herself as impetuous. She’d planned her acting career with the resolute focus of a military general. Yet in the space of twenty-four hours she’d been acting like a crazed person. She was just so stressed. Isabelle was on her case about wanting to buy her shares in the hotel, and while Olivia had no real ties to the hotel, she still felt reluctant to step away from her family’s business so completely. Her real focus, though, was on securing this film role which could make—or break—her career. She had not, Olivia acknowledged, been at her best.

No wonder Ben thought so little of her. And he was going to think even less of her when he heard about this latest mishap. Which he most certainly would, since she’d just said it to a voracious reporter.

This was bad.

‘I screwed up, clearly,’ she told Melissa. Honesty was the best policy, right? ‘What can I do to make it better?’

‘I’m not sure. What is your relationship with Ben Chatsfield, Olivia?’

‘I told you, I don’t have one...’

‘Then why were the two of you in a clinch in The Chatsfield’s pool?’

‘It was an accident.’

‘An accident?’

Olivia sighed. ‘I didn’t look before I leaped,’ she said. ‘Literally.’

At least Melissa gave a small smile when Olivia explained just how she and Ben had ended up tangled together in the deep end. But then she sighed and frowned again.

‘I think the best thing, for now anyway, is to go along with the ruse.’

‘The ruse?’

‘That you’re seeing Ben Chatsfield. Assuming you can get him to agree, of course.’

‘Oh. Uh. Sure.’ Not.

‘At least until the Berlinale is over and we have this film role confirmed. After that you can just say the two of you broke up.’

‘Right.’ Ben was so not going to be on board with this. Olivia pictured the look of disbelief on his face when she explained what she wanted—needed—him to do. Not just disbelief, but disdain. Derision. All those nasty D words.

‘So you guys are friends, right?’ Melissa asked. ‘He’ll agree to play along for a little while?’

Olivia gave her agent a breezy smile. She wasn’t an actress for nothing. ‘Oh, sure,’ she said, and held up two crossed fingers. ‘We’re like that. Not a problem at all.’

Uh-huh.

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