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He probably wouldn’t be around much, she told herself again soothingly as she smiled in acknowledgement to the few people who spoke to her. He’d be at his head office here in London or in NewYork, or maybe his office in Athens…
‘Perhaps you would like to proceed, Katie?’ he invited smoothly. ‘Run us through your findings.’
‘Thank you.’ She forced herself to smile coolly at him as she got to her feet. This was horrible—truly horrible. But she had to be businesslike and focus her attention away from him, she told herself firmly.
Alexi sat back and watched her with interest. She gave a very confident performance, running through her assessment of the company’s position within the holiday market, running through her proposals for increasing their slice of that market. She’d obviously done a lot of research before starting work here today. No wonder she had been so shocked to see him. He’d managed to keep his ownership of the company out of the financial news so far, mainly because he’d wanted to be one step ahead of his competitors, but it was an added bonus that he’d managed to snare Katie back into working for him in the process. He’d wanted her for this job all along—he’d known she would be perfect for it.
For a moment his eyes slipped down over her body.
OK, that wasn’t all he wanted; he acknowledged the truth as he felt the sudden fierce pull of attraction for her. She had a fantastic figure, and he remembered all too well how much he had enjoyed exploring those sensational curves. Beneath that strait-laced exterior he had found her to be hot and passionate, and he had wanted her from the first moment she had looked at him with those innocently come-hither, violet-blue eyes.
And he still wanted her now.
That fact was eating him away. It was crazy—there were other beautiful women he could replace her with, women who were only too eager for him. Why did Katie haunt his thoughts? Why, from the first moment when she’d told him it was over, had he wanted her back? It wasn’t like him. Since his divorce eight years ago he hadn’t got emotionally tied up with anyone. Nor did he plan to—he would never get serious about a woman again.
Yet he hadn’t wanted to let Katie go. He’d had to force himself to walk away and continue as normal. And despite the fact that he’d been gaining control of two new companies, and had been up to his neck in work, she’d been on his mind morning, noon and night…especially night.
The answer had come to him today when he’d looked at her again. She’d haunted him because she’d dented his ego; it was as simple as that. Usually he was the one who ended relationships; he was used to calling the shots. As soon as things started to get complicated or he’d had his fill of someone he moved on. But Katie had ended things before he was ready. They had unfinished business. It was called lust.
It was a relief to finally know why she had unsettled him so much. And there was an easy remedy for lust. All he had to do was get her back into his bed again and take his fill of her.
She looked over at him at that moment, and he smiled. Then he watched the blaze of fire in her eyes, noted the way her skin heated up as she moved her attention away.
She wasn’t as coldly indifferent to him as she acted. It shouldn’t be too difficult to have her back on his terms, he told himself confidently. Acquisitions had always been his strong point. And this time he would be the one to finish things.
‘So, has anyone got any questions?’ she asked briskly.
As he’d predicted a few members of the board gave her a tough time, started to grill her more intensely, but she more than held her own. After a few more minutes he could see that there was a shifting change of attitude and she was winning them over.
‘Well, I think you have just about covered everything, Katie, thank you,’ he said smoothly.
She nodded and started to close her notes. ‘Then, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to the rest of your meeting, gentlemen, and I’ll press on.’
‘Certainly.’
Relief coursed through her. She couldn’t wait to get out of here.
‘Just one last thing,’ Alexi added nonchalantly. ‘There is another meeting at the office in New York tomorrow, and I will need you to attend.’
She looked up and he held her eyes.
‘Tomorrow?’ Apprehension clutched at her stomach. ‘That’s rather short notice, isn’t it?’
‘One of those things.’ Alexi shrugged.
‘What time is the meeting?’ She wrenched her gaze away from him, picked up her pen and looked back at her notepad.
‘No need to sort flights; you can come with me on the company jet later.’
Katie’s head jerked up. She felt like she was already on that plane and it had just dropped into free fall from thirty-five-thousand feet. Her whole body was telling her that being alone with him for hours was not a good idea! She wanted to say, no way, but how unprofessional would that look?
‘I think it would be sensible to sort things out in the USA as soon as possible,’ Alexi continued coolly.
A few of the people around the table were starting their own conversations now, and under cover of the sudden babble of noise she wanted to lower her voice and tell him that she didn’t think it was a sensible idea at all. That she didn’t want to be alone with him—that she couldn’t handle this situation, couldn’t act as if nothing had happenedbetween them!
But she didn’t say any of those things—she had her pride. Instead her eyes remained locked with his, and her heart thundered so hard that it felt like it might break out of her chest. ‘I suppose so.’ She said the words tightly.
‘Good. I’ll pick you up at seven this evening.’
Was it her imagination or was there a gleam of triumph in those dark eyes?
She looked away from him and picked up her notes with hands that were not entirely steady.
‘I’ll see you later.’ What else could she say or do? she wondered furiously. This was about work. He had her in an impossible situation.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS almost seven in the evening, and Katie was pacing her apartment. Her weekend case was packed, and the professional side of her was ready to go—but emotionally she was reluctant.
In fact when Alexi had rung her at her desk earlier, to confirm flight times and the time for picking her up, she’d tried her best to get out of it.
‘Is this trip really necessary so soon?’ she’d demanded heatedly. ‘Don’t you think it would be better for me to get to grips with the job here and get on top of a lot of this paperwork before sorting out the US side of things?’
‘You can sort some of the paperwork out on the flight. I need to press ahead as fast as possible with this,’ he’d answered without hesitation. ‘So be ready and waiting for me.’
Then the line had just gone dead. He’d hung up on her.
The nerve of the guy! OK, he was her boss—but that didn’t mean he owned her twenty-four-seven. He at least owed her the courtesy of some advance warning!
Her mobile phone zinged with a message now as she tried to pull herself together. She took it out of her pocket and opened it. It was from Alexi. It was strange, seeing his name on the screen after all this time. She’d thought he’d probably deleted her number from his phone weeks ago. She’d certainly meant to delete his, she’d just… Well, she hadn’t got round to it.
Quickly she read the message: I’m outside—don’t belong. Anger twisted inside her. Four weeks of nothing and then a curt summons. Then she bit down on her lip and reminded herself that this was about work, nothing else. She couldn’t let emotions cloud the issue.
She went across to the window and looked out, and sure enough his limousine was sitting next to the kerb. Just the sight of it made her heartbeat start to accelerate. She had a choice—she could either forget this job and tell him to go to hell, or she could put work first and get on with it. When she thought about it like that she didn’t really have a choice, she told herself wryly. Her job and her independence were the most important things to her, and she’d always acted in a professional manner. She snapped up her jacket and her bag and headed for the door. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be preoccupied by something that had happened in the past. She had to put work first.
Alexi had just taken his phone out to ring her when she appeared on the street. He smiled to himself and put the mobile away again. Things were going extremely well. Businesswise, he had Katie exactly where he wanted her, and before they returned to London he would have her back in his bed as well. He watched as his driver got out to help her with her bag and to open the door for her.
‘Hi.’ She acknowledged him with a nod as she slid into the seat opposite. He could smell the familiar scent of her perfume, flowery and light, and yet somehow incredibly sexy. She was wearing black jeans with a white shirt, and she had tied her hair back from her face. She looked good. Possibly too good, considering the fact that he had to get some work done during this journey.
‘You’re late,’ he told her sardonically.
‘I was five minutes!’ Her beautiful blue eyes seemed to simmer. ‘And you’re lucky I’m here at all. This is very short notice, I could have had other plans.’
‘But you don’t,’ he concluded.
‘That’s not the point. I really need at least a few days’ notice for business trips away like this.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind for the next time.’
‘The next time?’ She sounded suddenly flustered. ‘Do you think we will have to make many more trips like this?’
He inclined his head. ‘Definitely. We’ll need to iron out as many teething problems up front as possible, and there is no better way than the personal touch.’
‘I see.’ She looked away from him, out of the windows.
What was causing that flutter of panic? he wondered. It couldn’t be work—she was well used to travelling between different offices; she’d done it at Demetri Shipping. Was it the thought of being alone with him?
What had made her finish things with him? he wondered angrily. She had always been passionately compliant and eager for his kisses…what had changed that?
The briefcase she had placed next to her on the seat fell over as the car made a U-turn at a junction. Alexi reached to catch it at the same time as Katie, and for just a second their hands touched on the leather strap.
She pulled away as if she had been burnt, allowing him to place it safely back beside her.
‘Thanks.’ She could barely look at him now.
‘Everything OK, Katie?’ he enquired casually.
‘Of course.’ She glanced at him, but there was a blush over the high cheekbones that said differently and her eyes were over-bright.
If he could make her skin heat up with just the brush of his fingertips, make her eyes sparkle with fire, what would happen if he really touched her? In the past it had always been spontaneous combustion.
He itched to find out now if the old magic was still there. He wanted to lean forward and take hold of her hand, find her lips and devour her.
His eyes moved to the buttons on her blouse. He imagined himself unbuttoning them; he remembered how firm and willing her body had been.
With difficulty he forced himself to sit back against the comfortable leather seat and bide his time. The chase was on, but he couldn’t rush it. When he took Katie again he wanted her to be wild for him…desperate for him. He was going to make her want him so badly she wouldn’t know what day it was.
‘Did you get the paperwork we need to sort out?’ he asked casually.
‘Yes, I brought it with me—it isn’t finished, obviously, but…’ She started to unzip her bag.
‘We’ll go through it on the plane.’
‘Oh! OK.’ She fastened the bag back up.
Silence stretched between them. Her eyes darted over to him. He looked powerfully dynamic in the dark business-suit, every inch the successful business-tycoon. For a moment it was hard to believe that he had once been her lover, that he had once held her so tenderly, made love to her so passionately. He looked over at her and her eyes veered hurriedly away again. Thoughts like that were not helping her!
‘So how have things been with you, Katie?’
The sudden personal question made her look back at him warily. ‘Absolutely fine—why do you ask?’
There was a glimmer of amusement in the darkness of his eyes now. ‘Because I’m interested to know how you are; what other reason would there be?’
‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged and forced herself to try and relax. But the confined space and the memories he conjured up were sending her blood pressure soaring. Even the touch of his fingertips against her hand a few moments ago had sent her senses into a spin. ‘Let’s face it. You’ve never been one for making small talk, Alexi.’
‘Haven’t I?’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sure we had our moments.’
She kept her composure with difficulty. She really didn’t want to think about what moments he might be referring to—not now.
‘It wasn’t all work between us—there was quite a bit of play time,’ he continued nonchalantly.
Her eyes snapped with sudden fire. ‘I really don’t think we should be discussing that!’
‘Don’t you?’
She allowed her eyes to hold firmly with his. ‘We’ve moved on, remember?’
‘Ah, yes.’
His gaze flicked down towards her lips and she found herself remembering the way he could kiss her and caress her and make her feel truly alive.
The intensity of the memory stirred up a painful need inside her, and she wrenched her eyes away from him and looked out of the window again. She needed to forget the past. He wasn’t the type of man to get serious about; they’d had their fun. It was over.
‘But it’s good that we can move on and work together, without any discord, don’t you think?’ he said smoothly.
‘Yes, of course.’
He noticed that her hands had curled into tight fists at her side, and he smiled.
‘So, tell me, what have you been doing with yourself since you moved on?’ he invited conversationally.
She shrugged and tried desperately to just treat him like any other work colleague. ‘I went to visit my sister in France for a week.’
‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’
‘Didn’t you?’ She couldn’t stop herself from flicking him a pointed look. ‘Perhaps because our conversations always revolved around work; in fact, you don’t know a lot about me at all.’
Something about the way she said that struck a cord in him. To a certain extent she was right; he’d tended to focus on their work connection more than anything else. He didn’t do deep and meaningful; he’d been happy with the equation the way it was—but so had she. He’d noticed on more than one occasion that she’d used work to hide behind.
He’d noticed the way she had looked sometimes—the unguarded vulnerability in her eyes when she thought he wasn’t watching her. ‘I know that when we met you’d been hurt by some guy in the past.’
The observation took her by surprise. She had mentioned Carl once very briefly at the start of their relationship—but she hadn’t thought he was paying that much attention.
‘Now, what was it you said…?’ He frowned. ‘Ah…I know. You said you’d been in a serious relationship and had had enough hearts and flowers, and that sex and straight talking would do nicely instead.’
Katie looked at him in consternation. She couldn’t believe she had said that—but she had, the first time he’d taken her to bed. It had felt so good in his arms, and afterwards when he had reiterated something about ‘not doing hearts and flowers’ she’d made that glib reply.
‘Trust you to remember that!’ she murmured with acute embarrassment. ‘But you can’t remember I have a sister!’
He gave her a teasing look that made her want to melt inside. With difficulty she zoned out from the feeling. Melting around Alexi wasn’t recommended.
Alexi smiled. ‘By the way, remind me later to look out the figures we were discussing at the meeting this morning,’ he remarked casually as he glanced at his watch. ‘We need to fine-hone any problems with the timetable.’
She’d almost forgotten the way he was always able to switch back to business at a snap. How one moment he could play the consummate, arousing lover and the next the steel shutters of his mind could come crashing down to the focus of his real agenda, the real heart of his life: business.
‘Yes, of course.’ She nodded and tried to make herself sound as cool as he did.
They were arriving at the airport. She noticed that the warm June evening looked grey and wintry through the tinted glass. Amazing how your senses could be deceived by an illusion.
