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Now, she didn’t have that—he was getting married, and to the toxic Ariana!
At least she had her pride intact. Andreas had no idea that she had been smitten from that very first smile; Beth comforted herself with this crumb. If she had had a scrap of sense, of course, she reflected miserably, she would have walked back out through the door that first day, but better late than never, she decided, patting the reprinted letter that lay safe in her pocket.
It might not seem like it now but Andreas had done her a favour—it was about time she got a real life, even a real boyfriend, she told herself, struggling to work up much enthusiasm for the idea.
She had to start thinking about the future as a place full of exciting possibilities and step one was handing in her notice. Another job might even leave her time for that night class in business studies she had wanted to do for ages.
‘Be positive, Beth,’ she told herself as she made a fresh attempt to retrieve the information that Andreas had asked her to have on his desk by Friday.
Despite her best intentions, she lifted her head, a wistful expression forming on her soft features as she heard the familiar warm tones of her boss’s voice; she heard him laugh, a warm sound, then heard the deeper, more vibrant tone of his brother.
Her expression hardened as an image of Theo Kyriakis flashed into her head. It always amazed her that the brothers, separated by only five years, could be so dissimilar. How could their shared gene pool produce two men who were opposites in every way imaginable?
The only thing they did share, apparently, was a weakness for one particular blonde model.
When Andreas had been spotted leaving the building with Ariana the day before, the place had started buzzing with speculation. Everyone had wanted to know—were they an item, was Andreas dating the woman who had dumped his elder brother so publicly?
When asked, Beth had diplomatically pretended ignorance but, like everyone else, she had wondered how a man with Theo’s ego would react to such a situation. Though, unlike the majority of people she spoke to, she understood totally why Ariana, or any woman, would prefer Andreas to his elder brother.
Her expression softened as she thought of Andreas. Why did people constantly have to compare him to his autocratic brother? It was so unfair. Andreas was a good-looking man by any standards. Athletic, six-foot, he had regular features, warm brown eyes, wavy brown hair and a gorgeous smile. Taken feature for feature, he was actually far more conventionally good-looking than his elder brother but even Beth, who didn’t like the man, had to admit that it was Theo Kyriakis who commanded attention and lustful female glances when the two brothers entered a room together.
People did not notice the slight irregularity of his features; they were too busy noticing his startling eyes, carved cheekbones, bronzed skin and the almost indecent sensuality of his wide mobile mouth.
Of course the man had the advantage of several inches on his brother, six five with broad shoulders, long legs and a sleek athletic body. He was an extraordinarily attractive man if you went for the dark, brooding type, which she didn’t.
The sound of female laughter drove the lingering image of Theo Kyriakis’s dark features from her head. She clenched her teeth. Ariana might be beautiful but her laugh was borderline shrill—not that Andreas appeared to mind, but then men were in general willing to overlook such details when they were dazzled by pouty lips, long blonde hair and a body that made even the most outrageous style look fantastic.
Get a grip, Beth.
‘See you at eight, Theo?’ Beth heard Andreas say as the door opened. She tensed and trained her eyes on the blank computer screen.
She glanced up in time to see Andreas place a possessive arm around his fiancée’s slim waist as he steered her towards the door. ‘The entire family will be there.’
‘With such a treat in store, how can I resist?’
The dry response drew a good-natured chuckle from his brother. ‘Bring someone, if you like.’
His brother bowed his head in ironic acknowledgement of the generous offer and watched, his expression unreadable, as his younger brother turned briefly to the young woman seated silently at the big desk beside the door.
‘I can leave the paperwork on the Crane contract to you, can’t I, Beth, sweetheart? And those figures—you will have them ready for the morning?’ Without waiting for a reply, he added, ‘They really need the paperwork from this morning’s meeting by close of play today. You’re an angel. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
Beth looked up, feeling an uncharacteristic surge of resentment and thought, Well, you’ll soon find out.
‘So eight, Theo?’
Beth wondered if Theo Kyriakis had heard the note of challenge and almost instantly felt foolish. Theo Kyriakis was not a man who missed anything, unless it was a secretary, not that she’d minded that he acted as if she were invisible—until today.
Actually, today had made her realise that she preferred it that way.
Beth watched through her lashes as Theo Kyriakis inclined his closely cropped dark head, whether in acknowledgement of the challenge or the invitation she couldn’t tell, but then her boss’s elder brother was not a man who gave a lot away.
‘I’ll be there.’
The couple left the office, leaving the echo of their laughing voices and the heavy scent of the fragrance that the future Mrs Kyriakis favoured.
Did the perfume evoke painful memories for Theo Kyriakis?
Anyone else and her tender heart would have ached but Beth felt no twinge of empathy at the possibility that Theo Kyriakis found it painful, maybe even heartbreaking, to see the woman he had once planned to marry wearing his brother’s ring.
The man just didn’t invite sympathy, she decided, studying his dark lean face. Perhaps he was hiding the pain; if so, he was doing pretty well!
Beth moved an already neat stack of files from one side of the desk to the other and waited for Theo Kyriakis to leave.
He didn’t.
She risked a look up at him and was startled to discover that his heavy-lidded dark stare was trained directly on her own face.
Beth shifted uncomfortably in her seat and pushed her glasses up her nose before venturing a faint vague smile in his general direction and returning her attention to her desk.
She started a little as he placed an untouched glass of champagne on her desk. ‘There’s more in the bottle if you’d like to join me to toast the happy couple?’
Beth would have found an invitation to jump into the Thames more alluring but she kept her manner polite. ‘This is the middle of a working day for me, Mr Kyriakis, and I’m just the hired help,’ she reminded him, addressing her response to the middle button of his beautifully tailored grey jacket.
‘But you would like to be more than that?’
The unexpected question made her stiffen—actually, it was not a question; it was a statement.
Before she could respond to it, he said abruptly, ‘Why do you dress that way?’
Her defensive glance swung upwards from his beautifully tailored designer suit to discover that he was studying her own grey flannel suit with an expression of fastidious distaste written on his lean face.
‘What way?’ Beth, who had three identical ones in her wardrobe and a selection of plain blouses to wear with them, asked.
Gran had always advised her to go for quality when selecting clothes and Beth followed her advice, though she stopped short at the matching gloves and handbag that Prudence Farley considered essential for a well turned out lady.
In the long-term, Gran had counseled, it was cheaper to choose quality rather than buy trendy junk and she was right, but the junk did look fun, Beth sometimes thought wistfully.
She lifted her chin defiantly as her hand went to her throat, where her cream blouse was buttoned up to the neck. After three years of not noticing she existed, he was suddenly interested in her clothes?
‘Is there something I can help you with, Mr Kyriakis?’ Had he been drinking?
The scandal-hungry media had never suggested a weakness for drink, just for tall leggy blondes, but who knew, she thought, curiosity drawing her eyes to his face. The arrogant cast of his strong features did not suggest weakness or lack of control, if you discounted the sensual fullness of his upper lip.
Conscious of a sinking shivery sensation low in her stomach, Beth tore her strangely reluctant gaze from his mouth and found it wandering straight into the path of his dark eyes and she immediately dumped the drinking idea.
There was nothing blurry or unfocused about his manner. Drinking implied a human weakness and the elder Kyriakis brother didn’t appear to tolerate those in himself or other people.
Theo doesn’t tolerate fools gladly, Andreas was fond of observing. In her own mind, Beth translated this as code for the fact that he was impatient and intolerant.
‘Quite possibly.’
Beth’s polite smile grew wary as she watched his wide, sensually sculpted lips curve into a smile that did not reach his dark eyes; the speculative light in their obsidian depths was making her feel deeply uneasy.
‘But of course you didn’t mean that, did you? Do I make you feel uncomfortable?’
‘No, of course not,’ Beth lied. ‘I didn’t intend to be rude, but I have a lot of work to do.’ She would be lucky, Beth reflected, to make it home before seven—actually, eight—she corrected, recalling the meeting she had scheduled with the manager at the nursing home.
The request to see her had worried Beth, especially as the manager had been reluctant to elaborate further on the phone, but he had reassured her that there was no problem with her grandmother.
She had a horrid feeling that the news might involve a fresh hike in the fees.
The move to the nursing home had been Gran’s idea; she had not even informed Beth that she had booked herself in until the arrangements were made. Beth had been horrified by the idea but her doubts had been soothed when Prudence Farley had said she only intended staying a few weeks.
That had been six months ago and Gran showed no inclination to move back home. The place, she confided to Beth, was like a five-star hotel. At home, she could go a week without seeing anyone but Beth and the vicar’s wife; here, there was never a dull moment and she had made so many new friends.
Beth loved her new zest for life but she was worried; the place was not only run like a five-star hotel but they charged similar rates. Her gran remained cheerfully oblivious to the fact that her savings had run out in the first three months and, when the subject came up, Beth, concerned about worrying her grandmother, was deliberately vague.
It was a constant battle to meet the costs and keep the house going. Beth was only living in three rooms of the big sprawling Victorian mansion that her grandmother had come to as a new bride, but the upkeep was a financial drain that gave her nightmares.
She called it a nightmare; the bank manager called it her get out of jail card.
When she had pointed out that she wasn’t in jail, he had said darkly, ‘Not yet.’
Beth wasn’t sure if he was joking or not but none of his dire predictions had made her change her mind. She was not selling up to a developer; the house would be there when Gran decided to come home.
The bank manager had been visibly frustrated by her intransigent attitude.
‘Miss Farley, your attitude does you credit but it is hardly practical. Let me be blunt. Your grandmother is a very old lady; it seems unlikely she will ever come home. And these figures—’ he sighed as he flicked through the papers laid out in front of him ‘—I’m afraid they suggest you cannot pay for your grandmother’s care and eat.’
Beth, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, had joked, ‘I need to lose weight.’
He had not seen the joke. ‘I would suggest there is no choice. When your grandmother gave you Power of Attorney it was a situation like this that she had in mind.’
Beth had thanked him for his advice because she knew he meant well but she had remained adamant she would not sell up or contemplate the possibility of her gran not coming home.
She knew that Gran loved the place as much as she did. The sprawling Victorian house had, in estate agent speak, a wealth of original features but very little in the way of modern conveniences. Beth had lived there since her parents’ death in a train crash when she was seven.
‘You want me to leave so that you can weep in privacy?’
The casual question made her stiffen and brought her eyes back to his lean face. How did a man who had not given her the same degree of attention he afforded the office furniture on his visits come to know about the knot of misery lodged like a lead weight in her aching throat?
‘I don’t know what you mean…’
He cut her off with an impatient gesture. ‘You’re in love with my brother.’
Chapter Three
BETH felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at him in horror. ‘That’s totally ridiculous!’
He raised his brows in mock surprise. ‘I did not realise it was meant to be a secret. My apologies.’
It took a massive amount of willpower not to drop her gaze. Tired of pushing her glasses back up her nose, she took them off and placed them on the desk before fixing him with a glare of thinly disguised loathing.
‘You know what you can do with your apologies and your sick sense of humour!’
The transformation was nothing short of incredible. She still wasn’t a raving beauty but if his brother saw her with her cheeks flushed, her small bosom heaving and her eyes glittering with anger he would have noticed her.
‘Andreas has just got engaged to a beautiful woman. You wish to wallow in self-pity and perhaps look at the photo you keep in your wallet.’ The cynicism in his smile deepened as he watched her eyes fly to her handbag. ‘No, it was a lucky guess—I have not been going through your bag.’
‘Is that some sort of joke?’ The joke, she realized, feeling sick, was herself. Did everyone know…? The idea of being the butt of gossip, maybe even pity, made her feel physically sick.
She gathered her dignity around her and lifted her chin, inadvertently winning Theo’s admiration for her gutsy effort, and said coldly, ‘I work for your brother. We do not have a personal relationship…unlike you and…’ She broke off guiltily, her eyes widening in dismay.
She had never kicked anyone when they were down—not that he looked down—but, under his nasty cold exterior, Theo Kyriakis had to have his normal share of emotional vulnerability…Their eyes connected, his glittered with a combination of amused contempt and challenge that made her rapidly rethink her vulnerability theory as antagonism traced a path down her spine—all this man had was an overreaching ego and stone as dark and cold as his eyes where his heart should be!
‘Unlike me and…?’
She shook her head and straightened a pile of already straight papers. ‘I really am very busy.’ She aimed her smile at some point over his left shoulder.
‘You possibly refer to my relationship with the delightful Ariana…?’ He arched a questioning brow.
The dratted man. Why wouldn’t he just let it drop? Beth thought. ‘That was a long time ago.’ Had it been a lucky guess or was she really that obvious? And, if he had guessed, did that mean that Andreas knew as well?
A film of hot mortification washed over her pale skin at the thought. Hot, she slipped the top button of her blouse and then the second because her chest felt tight.
Theo felt his eyes drawn to the bare few inches of flesh at her throat; he could actually see the blue-veined pulse spot on her neck vibrating. ‘The past is frequently relevant to the present.’
Having delivered this seemingly unrelated philosophical observation, he pulled a chair from the wall, dragged it to her desk and straddled it, placing his hands along the back of it before he returned his attention to Beth.
Beth, who no longer wanted an explanation for this conversation, lowered her gaze as far as his hands, curved lightly over the back of the designer chair. He actually had good hands—elegant but strong, with long tapering fingers—and sent up a silent prayer for him to leave.
She needed to think—not a possibility while he was enjoying his cat-and-mouse game with her—the man clearly got some twisted pleasure from seeing her squirm.
‘I suspect that part of Ariana’s attraction for my little brother is our previous relationship; he’s very competitive.’
Beth’s shaking hand knocked down the neat stack of files on the desk as her head came up with a jerk. ‘He’s competitive!’ She scanned the dark features of the man seated opposite with open incredulity. It obviously didn’t even occur to him that she just preferred Andreas to him. My God, this man’s ego was simply unbelievable.
After a slight pause Theo conceded her comment with an amused quirk of his lips, the action drawing Beth’s attention to the overtly sensual curve. The shivery sensation in her tummy intensified.
‘All right, we—it’s a brother thing,’ he revealed casually.
Beth dragged her oddly reluctant eyes from his mouth. Even when he had ignored her totally she had felt uncomfortable being in the same room as Theo Kyriakis; now he wasn’t ignoring her, now he was having what in his twisted mind probably passed for a conversation the feeling had intensified to a point where all she wanted to do was run from the room.
Get a grip, Beth. ‘It may be your thing but it’s not Andreas’s.’
Frustrated by her inability to place the shadow of an emotion that moved at the back of his eyes, Beth found herself unfavourably comparing his cold, sardonic temperament with Andreas’s open, approachable, sunny character.
It was a struggle to believe they were even related. Andreas was a sunny day and this vile man was night, dark, impenetrable and full of hidden dangers.
