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‘Any idea why you’re here?’ he questioned idly.
She gave a little shrug, telling herself she had nothing to feel nervous about. ‘Not really. I’ve been racking my brains about it on the way here, but no.’ There was a pause as she met the pewter gleam of his eyes. ‘I hope you’re not dissatisfied with my work, Mr Constantinides?’
Zak noted the faint flush which had stained her cheeks and the pale blond lashes which framed her green eyes, interested to note that she wasn’t wearing make-up. Wouldn’t it be easier if he was dissatisfied? If he could just pay her off with the obligatory inflated fee and tell her to get the hell out of his brother’s life?
He’d inherited her when he had taken over the hotel two years earlier and had seen no reason to change. He’d bought the Granchester because it had been his life’s ambition to do so—not because he wanted to alter what was already a very successful concept. Not for him the expensive makeover, just for the sake of it. He’d learnt that fortunes could go just as quickly as they came—and, although he was generous, he rarely squandered money. Emma Geary was good at her job and had done a very successful job decorating the landmark hotel—and Zak was too much the consummate businessman to want to sacrifice talent, unless it was absolutely necessary.
Only now it seemed that maybe it was.
Because now it seemed that this woman with the pale hair and the coral nails had got her hooks into his baby brother.
The curious thing was that she wasn’t what he’d been expecting. He was aware that he’d met her before but could barely remember doing so. He ran across scores of women every day of the week and this one was most definitely not his type—even if he hadn’t been programmed to distrust curvy blondes with long legs and soft lips. The photos of her which had been sent to him by the private investigator had been old photos—of a vibrant and colourful creature who bore little resemblance to the woman who sat in front of him now in her old work-clothes.
She didn’t look a bit like his brother’s usual type, either. Not with that fragile, English appearance and skin so fine and delicate that it seemed it might bruise if you so much as breathed on her.
Maybe that was what had set the alarm bells ringing … along with reports of Nat’s increasingly documented appearances with her. Because hadn’t he been worried about how his brother was going to cope with the massive inheritance which was due to come his way any day now? And hadn’t his worst fears been confirmed when he’d had his new and serious-sounding girlfriend checked out and discovered what kind of woman Emma Geary really was?
On the top of his polished desk, his hands clenched into fists and then slowly unflexed again, so that his long fingers lay splayed across its shiny surface. ‘No, I am not dissatisfied with your work,’ he said slowly. ‘In fact, your work is excellent.’
‘Thank heavens for that!’ she replied. Be keen, she told herself. Make sure he knows how enthusiastic you are about his hotel. How much you value being an employee. ‘We got a pretty decent write-up in the press for the new bar—I don’t know if you saw all the clippings I sent out to your New York office? Oh, and I’ve got lots of plans for the refurbishment of the Garden Room. Big plans! I thought we could do a tie-in with the Chelsea Flower Show—that would be very prestigious. In fact …’ But her eager words died on her lips as he held up an imperious hand to silence her.
‘I haven’t brought you up here to discuss refurbishment, Miss Geary,’ he said coolly. ‘It’s a little more personal than that. You see, I’ve been speaking to my lawyers about your contract.’
‘Your lawyers?’ Emma stared at him in confusion, not caring that she sounded like a parrot as she repeated his words. ‘My contract?’
He frowned, as if to indicate that he didn’t welcome the interruption. ‘And they told me something rather interesting. You see, it’s highly unusual for an interior designer to be contracted exclusively to a hotel, rather than as a self-employed consultant.’
Still slightly concerned as to why he’d been talking to his lawyers about her, Emma guessed he was owed some sort of explanation. ‘It is a little unusual,’ she conceded. ‘But it was your predecessor who gave me the permanent contract.’
Zak frowned. ‘You mean Ciro D’Angelo?’
‘Yes.’ Emma remembered the handsome, thirty-something Italian hotelier who’d been so kind to her when she was at her lowest ebb. When she had arrived in London feeling as if her world had reached rockbottom and Ciro D’Angelo had stepped in and offered her what had seemed like a heaven-sent opportunity. And she had seized the unexpected security he had offered her, like the lifeline it had been. ‘Ciro really liked my work. Liked it enough to make me an in-house designer for the Granchester. He said it would give me security. He’s a very … a very kind man.’
‘He is also,’ said Zak repressively, because ‘kind’ was not a word he had ever heard associated with the ruthless Neapolitan businessman who dated some of the world’s most beautiful women, ‘a very attractive and exceedingly rich man—as well as being an international playboy.’
Tempted to say, And so are you! Emma blinked at him in confusion. ‘I’m sorry. Am I missing something? I don’t see what Ciro’s status has to do with anything.’
‘Don’t you?’ Zak gazed at the tremble of her lips and wondered if that glimpse of very feminine fragility was contrived. Was it supposed to make him melt, as other men had undoubtedly melted? In which case, wouldn’t it be best that she realised it was completely wasted on him—and that maybe he should start being straight with her? ‘Then perhaps I ought to enlighten you. You see, I’ve been doing a little bit of research on you, Miss Geary.’ He paused, and when he spoke again his voice had grown steely. ‘And it seems that you have something of a reputation as a femme fatale.’
Emma stared at him, a whisper of fear beginning to shimmer over her skin as long-suppressed echoes of the past began to stir. ‘I don’t … I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Really?’ He heard the lie in her voice and a steely determination entered his body as he noted that all the blood had drained from her face, leaving it almost translucent in its whiteness. He could see the fine blue tracery of veins at her temple and, for some bizarre reason, he found himself wondering whether the skin on the rest of her body was as delicate.
Furious with himself for his wayward thoughts, he hardened his voice. ‘You just happen to persuade one of the world’s sharpest businessmen to give you a permanent contract in his hotel? A lot of people might wonder why that had happened and then leap to the very obvious solution.’
Emma flinched at the insinuation. ‘Then a lot of people wouldn’t know what they were talking about!’
‘They say there’s no smoke without fire.’
‘“They” say a lot of things, Mr Constantinides—but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the right things.’
‘But now Ciro D’Angelo is off the scene. He sold me this hotel and has gone back to live in Naples,’ he continued, leaning forward by a fraction because he wanted to see just how she would react to his next charge. ‘And since then, you have grown increasingly close to my younger brother.’
Emma felt her body stiffen as the distance between them diminished and she caught a faint but intoxicating drift of sandalwood. Was he aware of the impact which his powerful proximity could have on people? she wondered. And did he use it like a weapon in order to intimidate them, as he was intimidating her now? She suspected he did. ‘You mean Nathanael?’
‘I have only one brother, Miss Geary.’
Her heart was beating very fast, but she was determined not to crumble. What had Nat told her? That his older brother was used to getting whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. And he didn’t care who he had to squash in order to accomplish that. ‘And what if I have? Surely getting close to someone isn’t a crime?’
‘Not a crime, no,’ he agreed evenly. ‘Although when a woman who makes it her business to cultivate relationships with rich men, starts hitting on Nat—it doesn’t exactly fill me with joy.’
She looked at him steadily. ‘I don’t intend to rise to your insulting inference that I’m some kind of gold-digger. Surely your lawyers didn’t advise you to take that line of questioning, Mr Constantinides?’
Her cool defiance made his hackles rise and he tightened his knuckles against the shiny surface of the desk. Had Nathanael been foolish enough to blurt out just how much money he was due to inherit? And wouldn’t a woman with a track record like hers have seen the green light beckoning and rushed straight in?
Zak felt his mouth tense, felt the painful thunder of his heart as he thought about the little brother he had protected all his life. Whom he had done his best to shield from the harsher aspects of existence after the heartbreaking start he’d had. Only now he was discovering that it was impossible to protect someone completely unless you locked them in a room and threw away the key … and nobody could ever do that to Nat. ‘You’re wasting your time, Miss Geary.’
‘Wasting my time?’ she repeated blankly.
‘That’s right.’ His voice lowered and he could feel the breath thicken in his throat, could feel it pushing the words out as if they were dry stones. ‘You see, it doesn’t matter how wide you open those big green eyes or shake your pale hair—Nathanael isn’t in the market for any kind of serious relationship.’
If his whole demeanour hadn’t been so deadly serious, Emma might have laughed at just how wrong he had got it. Yes, she’d grown close to Nat and, yes, she counted him as one of her dearest friends. Since his older brother had taken over the Granchester, they’d hit it off like peaches and cream and had always been there for each other. True, he had once made a pass at her—but she suspected that had been more out of habit than desire. Almost as if he’d thought it was expected of him. And once she’d batted him away and told him that she wasn’t interested—just as she’d once told Ciro she wasn’t interested—they had gone on to forge a friendship which was relaxed simply because there was no sexual tension.
Emma had found comfort and solace in their innocent companionship. So what right did this tyrant brother have to tell her to lay off?
She found herself wishing she’d been able to speak to Nat before she’d come up here—but he’d been in a meeting. And suddenly Emma found herself wondering whether her urgent summons had been timed to coincide with Nat’s temporary absence.
‘And is Nat aware of what you’re saying to me?’ she questioned slowly. ‘Does he know that you’re making decisions on his behalf? Because although he works for the family business—I really think he should be the one to decide on his fate and the people with whom he associates, not you.’
‘He is not in the market for any kind of relationship,’ he repeated as if she hadn’t spoken—although the spark of fire in her eyes made him realise that she would not easily be deterred. And that maybe it was time to let her know the truth. Or rather that he knew the truth. And perhaps then she would start seeing things his way, the way that people inevitably did. ‘But especially not with a woman like you.’
Emma stilled, all her bravado crumbling as the fear she’d suppressed now started rising. Rising and rising and skittering over her skin. Making her feel all dark and icy as she read something dangerous in the depths of his steely eyes. And something told her that she had been rumbled. That you could try to run from the past but you could never completely escape from it. ‘A woman like me?’ she whispered.
He saw her guilt and a vice-like clamp of triumph gripped him. ‘I wonder why you don’t work under your married name. Is there a reason for that? A reason why you seem to have airbrushed your past from your CV?’ he questioned, looking down at one of the sheets of paper before him. ‘Because isn’t your real name Emma Patterson—and weren’t you once the wife of the rock-star Louis Patterson?’
Emma felt the blood drain from her face and the fingers which had been loosely clasped in her lap now dug painfully together. Yes, it was the past all right—come back to haunt her just as she’d always feared it would. Had she been naive to suppose that she could lose herself in the present—like everyone said you were supposed to—when the dark tentacles of an earlier life were always waiting to pull you back?
‘Aren’t you?’ he persisted.
She swallowed. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘Yes, I am.’
He lifted his gaze—only now it was cold and condemnatory as it sliced through her like a pewter sword. ‘Your ex-husband died through drug abuse,’ he said harshly. ‘So tell me this, Mrs Patterson. Are you a junkie, too?’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_913814e4-3fd2-59d0-9af3-3fb3db6afa37)
THE words of Zak Constantinides hit Emma like a hail of bullets. Words she thought she’d left behind a long time ago. Words like junkie and abuse—and all the terrible associated memories which came with them.
Fighting against a rising tide of nausea, she stared at her boss as the Greek angrily repeated his charge against her.
‘Do you take drugs, Miss Geary?’
‘No—no! I’ve never touched them—never! You’ve got no right to accuse me of something like that!’
‘Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve got every right to protect my brother from women with dodgy pasts!’
With an effort, Emma sucked in a deep breath in an attempt to control her ragged breathing but she could do nothing about the wild acceleration of her heart. ‘I was married to a man who abused drugs and alcohol, Mr Constantinides,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I had no idea of that when we met. I was very young and I made a mistake. Have you never made a mistake?’
Grimly, Zak shook his head. Not with relationships he hadn’t, no—he made sure of that. And the occasional slip-up in business had been far too minor to ever qualify as a true mistake. But this was different. Very different. He was known for his old-fashioned and traditional values and he was proud of them. And a woman who had lived the life that Emma Geary had lived would certainly never be welcomed into the arms of his family.
He began to pull a series of photos from an envelope on his desk and Emma’s face blanched as she fixed her eyes on them. They were old photos. Very old photos—but she recognised them instantly.
‘Recognise these?’ drawled Zak Constantinides.
She forced herself to look at the image which was on top of the gleaming pile he had spread over the desk, like a croupier fanning out a pack of cards. It was of her and Louis on their wedding day.
The press had gone mad—but then, it had been a big story at the time. A nineteen-year-old nobody marrying a rock-star more than twice her age. Emma flinched as she looked at her face in the photo, marvelling at how young she’d been. She’d worn a garland of wildflowers in her hair and a floaty dress of silk chiffon. Her blond hair had hung almost to her waist and the overall effect had been that of some kind of flower fairy who had wandered into the city by mistake. Or at least, that was what Louis had said. He’d even written a song about it on their honeymoon, between slugs of the bourbon bottle, which was never far from his side.
‘Of course I recognise it,’ she said flatly, her fingers straying to the other pictures—forcing herself to confront them as if to demonstrate to Zak Constantinides that she wasn’t afraid.
But she was afraid. She was afraid of the pain which the past could still provoke. She studied the familiar images of her and Louis leaving restaurants—with her supporting her husband and trying desperately not to let the waiting press see his lurching stagger. Some of the shots were of the interiors of once-iconic nightclubs, which had long since disappeared. The blonde girl in the thigh-skimming dress dancing wildly on the podium now seemed like a stranger to her. She had tried so hard to please Louis. To be what he’d wanted her to be. It was what her mother told her that men desired. It was only afterwards, at the sordid end to the marriage, that Emma realised that her mother was the worst possible role model she could have adopted.
‘You must have gone to a lot of trouble to get these,’ she said, praying that her voice wouldn’t betray her with a tremble. ‘It’s nearly ten years ago.’
‘Ten years is nothing—and information is always easy to find if you look in the right places.’ Slightly appalled at his own sudden jerk of lust, he pushed one of the photos out of sight—the one which showed the disturbingly distracting image of her shaking her bead-covered bottom in time to the music. He swallowed. ‘But you must admit that you aren’t my number-one choice as prospective sister-in-law.’
She saw the sudden tightening of his features and knew that she could not let him browbeat her like this. ‘Do you always assume that marriage is on the cards whenever your brother dates? Isn’t that what’s known as jumping the gun?’
‘I base my assumptions on experience,’ he responded acidly. ‘And I know women well enough to understand the lure of vast amounts of money. The Constantinides name is usually enough to guarantee instant devotion from the opposite sex.’
‘Even in your case?’ she flared.
‘Even in mine,’ he conceded.
She heard the sarcasm in his voice and was just about to leap to her own defence. To tell him that he’d got it completely wrong and that she and his brother were nothing more than good friends. But something stopped her and she recognised it as the desire to want to hurt him back. To attack him as he had just attacked her by delving into her painful past. It bothered him to think she was in a relationship with his brother, did it? Well, good! Let it bother him a bit more until she had the chance to speak to Nat herself.
‘It’s very difficult for me to tell you exactly what I think of your outrageous accusations since you happen to be my employer,’ she said quietly. ‘And you seem draconian enough to try to fire me if I speak my mind.’
‘On the contrary.’ He scowled. ‘Your English employment laws seem designed to protect the employee instead of the boss and therefore I can’t give myself the satisfaction of firing you unless you do something so outrageous that you really give me no choice.’
Briefly, she wondered whether hurling the pottery jar of pencils at his smug face would qualify as grounds for dismissal, but she kept her hands planted firmly in her lap.
‘Then, unfortunately, you seem stuck with me,’ she responded and saw his face darken in response to the studied sweetness in her voice.
‘Unfortunately, I do,’ he agreed, and leaned back in his chair. ‘Unless we could come to some mutually agreeable arrangement?’
‘Such as?’
He shrugged. ‘I could offer to buy out your contract?’
Emma made her eyes widen even though inside she was burning with rage. Did he think his money could buy him whatever he wanted? ‘Make it worth my while to leave, you mean?’
‘Of course.’ He wondered how much it would take to guarantee her departure and his voice dipped as he now found himself around the familiar territory of the negotiating table. ‘I can be very generous if I need to be.’
His quiet boast appalled her but what appalled her even more was her body’s instinctive response to the velvet caress of his voice. For a moment her breasts began to prickle in a way which was alien to her and, disbelievingly, she acknowledged it as the ache of sexual desire.
Self-recrimination flooded through her and Emma prayed that it would dull the hot, melting tightness in her stomach. How could she possibly find him sexy—him of all people? She didn’t find any men attractive—and especially not the kind of men who thought so little of women in general and her in particular that he thought he could just buy her out, like some sort of commodity.
For a moment she was tempted to play along with him. To name a sum outrageous enough to shock him and then to tell him that she had been testing him. But instinct told her to proceed carefully. Already, Zak Constantinides didn’t like or approve of her and, while she wasn’t looking for either of those things from him, she’d be unwise to make him an outright enemy, unless she had some sort of industrial death wish.
Instead she sat back in her chair and fixed him with a steady look—because she’d seen off worse things in her time than some bullying tycoon with a mistaken belief that he had the right to vet his brother’s friends. ‘I hate to disappoint you, Mr Constantinides, but I’m perfectly happy with my job—and as long as I continue to perform it to everyone’s satisfaction, then I’d prefer to carry on just as I am, if it’s all the same with you.’
Staring into her pale green eyes, Zak saw the light of determination and recognised that she had a streak of stubbornness which would not be swayed by the force of his will. She was an employee and she was a woman and she was daring to defy him! And yet his sense of outrage was pacified by the prospect of a looming battle—for he liked nothing more than a fight.
Because he liked to win. He enjoyed the sweet taste of victory. Wasn’t that what drove his ambition—what fired up his constant need to acquire new businesses? For a man in his position, there was little that could not be had for the asking—or the taking—yet it seemed that Miss Emma Geary was determined to hang on to her job, even though he wanted her to go.
For a brief moment he thought of sacking her and daring her to sue him—for he had never known anything but triumph in the courtroom. But Zak had neither the time nor the appetite for a courtroom drama—nor any of the attendant publicity. Wouldn’t it satisfy him more if he could drive her away by making her realise that it was pointless trying to oppose him?
‘I can see that you are a very obstinate woman, Miss Geary,’ he said slowly.
‘Obstinacy is probably something you’re well qualified to recognise, Mr Constantinides.’
He nodded, as if conceding the point. ‘You might be interested to know a little more about the chat I had with my lawyers.’
Emma stared at him suspiciously. ‘Should I be?’
‘I think you should. Because they informed me that there’s nothing in your contract which stipulates that you must work in my London hotel.’
It was the expression on his face as much as the sudden change in tone which warned Emma that there was trouble ahead. The granite-hard line of his lips suddenly became the smug little curve of a smile. She fixed him with a questioning look, determined not to show any weakness even though inside her heart was now pounding with fear.
‘But I’ve always worked here,’ she objected, her voice rising on a protest. ‘At the Granchester.’
‘I know you have—and that’s why I thought it might be considerate to offer you the chance to work at one of my other hotels. As you know, the Constantinides brand is represented on every continent. Wouldn’t it be fun to go abroad?’ He raised his eyebrows at her in arrogant question. ‘And I’m sure it would do your design career nothing but good to get a little experience elsewhere.’
Furiously, Emma realised exactly what he was doing. He was going to offer her a job as interior designer in one of his Caribbean hotels—or maybe one of the smart city ones. It would be the kind of job which most people in her profession would bite off his hand to be offered—and she would look a complete fool if she turned it down. But she knew what the truth behind such a supposedly generous offer really was.
‘You want to get me away from Nat,’ she said dully. ‘At any cost.’
‘Bravo, Miss Geary,’ he answered softly. ‘You’ve got it in one.’
‘Does Xenon know what you’re proposing?’
‘Why, have you got him in your pocket, too?’ he accused.
‘I’m not going to dignify that remark with an answer, Mr Constantinides.’
‘Xenon’s in charge of the day-to-day running of this hotel!’ he snapped. ‘But ultimately I’m the one who decides what happens. If I want changes made—then those changes will be made, without me having to run it past anyone else.’
‘And if I refuse?’
