Читать книгу Irresistible Bargain With The Greek / His Forbidden Pregnant Princess - Julia James - Страница 15

CAREFULLY, TALIA SAT herself down in the wide leather first-class seat on the plane, feeling tense and strained. Luke had taken the window seat and had immediately snapped open his laptop. He was taking as little notice of her as he had when she’d joined him in the First-Class Lounge, where he had merely glanced at her and nodded briefly.

Inside her chest she could feel her heart thudding. Seeing him again, even knowing who he was and what he had done, was still an ordeal.

But it’s an ordeal I’m going to have to bear. I have to bear it just as I have to bear everything else. Because I don’t have any choice in the matter.

She didn’t—and she knew she didn’t. She had known all through that gruelling twenty-four hours Luke had allowed her to make her decision that there was only one answer she could give. She had to take his job offer. If it was the only way to stop herself and her mother being summarily evicted from the Marbella villa she had to take it. That was all there was to it.

And when she’d broken the news to her mother she had only felt that decision reinforced.

As she fastened her seat belt she deliberately made herself remember the expression on her mother’s face when, on her return from Switzerland, she’d sat down on her mother’s bed and told her that they could stay on in the villa for the time being. As her mother’s fearful and haggard face had lit with relief Talia had gone on to tell her the exciting news that she’d been offered an interior design job. The only downside was that it would take her to the Caribbean for a fortnight.

Her mother’s expression had faltered momentarily, then she had rallied. ‘You mustn’t worry about me a bit! Maria will look after me while you’re away. And it’s just what you need—a chance to use your talents! I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time—it won’t be all work, will it? Oh, I do envy you!’ Maxine Grantham’s eyes had softened. ‘It’s such a romantic place, the Caribbean! Of course your father never liked it…’

Her voice had wavered for a moment, and then she’d become momentarily reminiscent.

‘I had a boyfriend once, you know, when I was a teenager. He talked of sailing to every island there—’ She had broken off, then made her tone suddenly hopeful. ‘Oh, my darling, perhaps you’ll meet someone special there! Oh, that would be too wonderful! To be romanced beneath a tropical moon!’

Talia had changed the subject, but she’d not been able to banish her mother’s words from her head.

‘Romanced beneath a tropical moon…’

Memory had struck her again—but they were memories of what had never happened. She had never flown off with Luke that morning after their searing night together—never fled with him as she had so longed to do.

She had felt her thoughts shift and rearrange themselves. If she took this job with him, flew to the Caribbean… Hope, like a beguiling spirit, had welled within her. Was it possible? Could it be possible…?

Could I have a second chance with him? Dare I hope for the romantic escape we should have had?

She had felt hope strengthen, take wings. Longing had filled her.

Yet now, as she sat beside him on the plane, only anguish filled her. Her mother’s words mocked her. Indeed, her own longings were mocking her.

At her side, Luke was focussed on his laptop, a faint frown of concentration between his eyes, clearly not paying the slightest heed to her presence. She felt the anguish stab at her. She knew she must subdue these dangerous, forbidden thoughts that came unbidden, but they were impossible to banish—especially the one thought that lingered, with a temptation that she felt clinging to her like a fine mesh of gold.

What if being in the Caribbean with Luke could bring them together again? What if what had happened after that party could happen again? What if he turned to her now and, instead of cold indifference, she saw in his eyes the warmth she longed for…?

‘Champagne, madam?’

A stewardess was hovering with pre-flight drinks. With a start, Talia shook her head, taking an orange juice instead. Luke merely waved the tray away, not even looking up. That ache of anguish came again, silencing the pointless flare of hope that had fluttered so uselessly just a second ago.

With a silent sigh, she reached for her paperback, wanting her thoughts silenced, wanting to be diverted by something—anything that might get her through what lay ahead.

Hope was impossible—only torment was certain. Torment and regret.

I threw it away. I threw away my chance of seizing the happiness he promised me. And I walked out back to my prison.

The print in the paperback hazed and blurred. But what use was it for her to weep for what she had done? She had had to do it—nothing else had been possible.

Bleakly, she went on reading, numbing herself as best she could through the long flight. Luke barely spoke to her, and she was grateful—and yet his silence hammered nail after nail into her, showing her just how great was the distance between them.

No trace of intimacy. No trace of anything at all.

The same impersonal indifference continued once they had landed, and Talia spent the journey from the airport gazing out through the window of the chauffeur-driven car they’d climbed into.

The lush green of the island entranced her, along with the vivid glow of the setting sun, and when, after forty minutes or so, the car wound its way along a paved drive to draw up at a large house, she was happy to get out and gaze around her, feeling the humid warmth engulf her like a soft cashmere shawl after the chill of the climate-controlled car interior.

‘Oh, this is beautiful!’ she could not stop herself exclaiming as she gazed around at the lush gardens, with splashes of vivid colour from the tropical flowers all about.

She got no acknowledgement from Luke, who was striding indoors, so she followed him in. She’d wondered if they were heading for a hotel, but this was clearly a private villa. The large atrium-style hall reached up to high rafters, a reception room opened beyond, and there was a mahogany staircase sweeping upstairs. Staff appeared out of nowhere, murmuring in an island lilt, taking their suitcases upstairs, and Talia’s bulky portfolio case and art kit.

She hesitated, not knowing what she should do, and Luke, striding towards a door at the side of the hall, turned his head.

‘We’ll be dining in an hour. Don’t keep me waiting.’

It was all he said before he disappeared into a room in which Talia could glimpse a desk and IT equipment. He shut the door behind him with a decisive click.

With a sigh, Talia followed the luggage upstairs.

Bleakness filled her, and a weariness that came not only from the long flight. It went much deeper than that…

I’ve lost him—lost him for ever… And I must abandon any hope of winning him back.

She had to accept what Luke was making so chillingly clear—he had no interest in her any longer. Not as the woman she’d been at that party. There could be no second chance.

Wearily, she showered and started to get ready. A maid had unpacked for her, and as Talia selected a dress to wear she deliberately chose one her father had approved of. He had always wanted her to wear only fussy, over-styled clothes, and this knee-length dress in a pastel shade of pale blue did not suit her—but it would signal to Luke that she was well aware she was no longer of any personal interest to him. From now on she must remember that she was here only to work. Nothing more than that.

A tightness clutched around her heart, but there was nothing she could do about it.

He doesn’t want me any more.

That was the truth—bleak, unvarnished—and she had to face it.

Luke sat at the head of the long table in the villa’s dining room, his gaze focusing down the table to where Talia was sitting, immobile and expressionless. His face tightened. Inside him he felt the emotions he’d become all too familiar with, scything inside him. How could he still find her so beautiful?

Just as she had that day in his office in Lucerne, she looked nothing like the way she had at that party—there was no wanton wildness about her at all, no tightly sheathed body, no exposed shoulders and bare arms, no swaying walk from five-inch heels.

Now, she was dressed for the evening, in a knee-length cocktail dress that was high-necked and long-sleeved—as if, he thought with an illogical spurt of anger, she were deliberately hiding her figure from him. Her hair was caught in the same plain coil at the back of her head that it had been in on the flight, and she had not put on any make-up, let alone jewellery.

A thought flickered in his mind. Maybe there wasn’t any jewellery left for her to wear…

After all, she couldn’t even afford to pay rent on a single one of Gerald Grantham’s many properties. There probably wasn’t much jewellery these days.

She would be feeling the lack of it.

His eyes flickered over her, unconsciously changing her concealing gown to something much more to his taste. Something that would show her voluptuous cleavage, ripe for adornment with something glittering and expensive.

He tore his mind away. She wasn’t here to look alluring. That was the last thing he should want her to do. It had been hard enough to have her sitting beside him hour after hour on the flight over and make himself blank her presence. It had been next to impossible not to turn his head and drink in that beauty that had caught his breath as it did again now, even when she was wearing the unflattering dress. But he must not yield to such a dangerous temptation.

She’s here to work, to earn the right to go on living in a villa she can no longer afford.

It was time to remind her of that. Even more, to remind himself.

The staff were setting plates in front of them and pouring wine as Luke spoke. ‘I’ll be visiting the site first thing tomorrow morning,’ he said abruptly, lifting his fork and starting to eat. He was hungry after the change in time zone and it was past midnight on his body clock. ‘Because of the heat and the jet lag we’ll make an early start.’

He saw her swallow and take a drink from her glass. ‘Where is the site?’ she asked. ‘And what kind of property is it?’

It seemed to be an effort for her to speak, and that annoyed him. Why she should be radiating tension on all frequencies was beyond him. She was the one who’d rejected him. It had been her choice to leave, not his.

It was pointless to wonder, yet again, whether he was clinically insane to have brought her out here with him. He’d oscillated continuously in the twenty-four hours he’d given her to make her mind up, between cancelling his impulsive offer and raising the stakes on it. When she’d walked up to him in the airport lounge he’d felt that toxic mix of emotion writhe in him again, and he’d been plunged into confusion once more.

It filled him still, but he was hammering it down, refusing to face it. He had been insane to bring her here—truly mad to subject himself to her presence—but it was too late to change his mind. She was here and he would have to deal with it. Whatever strength of mind it took, he had to make this Caribbean project work and then get on with the rest of his life.

I can make myself indifferent to her. I can expose myself to her presence and get her out of my damn system.

His jaw set. That was what he must focus on. This time he would set the finish date: she’d stay here for a fortnight, work solidly to pay her rent, and would leave when he dismissed her. This time he would call the shots—not her.

And by the time she left—had been dismissed by him—he would have worked her out of his system. She would mean nothing to him and he would watch her being despatched from his life, on his terms, with all the indifference he was currently trying to present to her. But by then it would be genuine indifference—not the feigned, deliberate impassivity he was treating her with now.

He answered her finally, in the same clipped tone of voice he’d used for all their brief exchanges so far.

‘It’s a hotel in the south of the island, where the Caribbean coastline meets the Atlantic. It’s where the hurricanes hit if they reach this far. As they did last year.’

She’d started to eat, but looked up as he spoke.

He went on dryly. ‘Don’t worry, we’re out of hurricane season now. But last year the tip of the island was struck by a particularly vicious one—climate change is, as you probably know, fuelling their force and their frequency. The area we’re visiting got a hammering.’

‘Is the hotel still worth refurbishing?’ she asked frowningly.

‘That’s what I’m checking out,’ he said. Dryness had turned to terseness.

She was speaking again, her voice diffident, as if she were unsure whether to speak at all, and that irritated him more.

‘How badly damaged is it?’ she asked.

‘The external construction has borne up well—it was built to resist wind shear. But the interior has been blasted totally. It needs complete renovation.’

For the first time there was a spark of animation in her face, lightening her features. ‘What do you have in mind?’ she asked.

Luke’s mouth thinned. ‘Surprise me,’ he said flatly.

He was aware that he was supressing a stab of emotion he did not want to allow admittance. That the spark of animation in her expression which had brightened her eyes, giving her a glow for the first since she’d joined him in the airport lounge, had kicked at something inside him. For a few seconds she had looked as she had that first evening—with her eyes alight, responding to him, desiring him…

He repelled the memory. No point remembering that night, however much it hammered in his brain. It was over. Done. It wasn’t coming back.

She was replying. ‘I have to work to the client’s brief,’ she said tightly. There was no animation in her reply to his crushing rebuff.

Her father, the only client she’d been allowed to have, had been exacting in his briefs, and she had learnt long ago not to challenge him on what he wanted, or even suggest any modifications. Her father had not wanted creative input—he’d wanted docile compliance. She had produced only what he’d wanted, whatever her own opinions.

‘Well, my brief to you is to come up with your own ideas,’ Luke said indifferently.

Talia subsided, focussing once more on her meal. From the far end of the table Luke watched her close down again as she continued eating, and he said nothing more to her. She looked tired, he realised, and he felt the same way himself, jet lag having settled in.

When coffee arrived, Luke addressed her again. ‘We’ll make an early start for the site visit tomorrow morning before the day heats up too much. Wear suitable clothing—shoes for walking, not posing.’ He paused, wanting to make the point clear. ‘Remember you are here to WORK, Talia, if you want to stay on at the villa in Marbella.’

He saw her tense at the sharpness of his reminder, and something more. Had that been fear he’d just seen flash in her eyes? But why should it? He almost asked the question, his expression softening instinctively. Then that blank-eyed look was back in her face, expressing only tiredness.

‘Finish your coffee and go to bed,’ he instructed.

She did not need to be told twice. Draining her cup, she made her escape, heels clicking on the tiled floor. Luke watched her hurry out and that now familiar jab of anger came again.

She couldn’t wait to get away from him, could she?

It wasn’t the first time she hadn’t been able to wait to get away from him, was it?

The memory only reinforced his determination to use her presence in order to become indifferent to her.

But what if it makes you want her more…?

Talia stared around her at the scene of devastation. There were palm trees felled by the hundred-mile-an-hour winds that had uprooted them like matchsticks, and the ground was strewn with branches and vegetation, including seaweed and sand from the beach.

The hotel itself looked as if it had been blasted. Roof tiles lay smashed on the ground, window frames were hanging loose, mosquito screens falling off. She was glad that she was wearing strong rubber-soled shoes and long olive green trousers. There was shattered glass in places, too, and thick palm fronds with sharp edges.

Silently, Luke handed her a hard hat, donning one himself.

‘Take care,’ was all he said to her as he headed indoors.

He’d taken little notice of her on the way here—this time in a high-wheeled four-by-four—just as he had the previous day. It was as if he were blanking her deliberately, and she could do nothing but accept it—and respond in kind. She was grateful, if nothing else, that she was able to mirror his obvious indifference to her. He was treating her as someone he’d hired to do a job of work for him. Nothing personal…nothing intimate.

There was a heaviness inside her that was not just tiredness or jet lag. It had been so stupid of her to have any idiotic hope that Luke might be willing to make a fresh start with her. No, whatever they’d had was over. All that was important now was earning the rent to keep her mother at the villa at Marbella. The doctor’s warning meant she could not risk her mother’s health—she was too fragile, in body and mind. And her dangerously weakened heart—

She sheered her mind away, felt anguish slicing through her with a painful jagged edge.

She had lost all claim to anything personal with Luke. That was all over now—brief as it had been. She’d walked out on him. Now all she was to him was a temporary employee. And that was what she had to remember. She was here to sell her interior design skills in exchange for rent, that was all.

Keep it professional. He doesn’t want anything else than that. He’s made that brutally clear.

As she trailed after him, picking her way through the debris, and then stepped inside the building, she heard herself gasp in shock and dismay at the ravages within. Furniture was overturned, curtains were hanging off their rails, crockery was smashed, and there was a fetid smell of hot, humid, overpowering damp. The place had clearly been drenched, both by the pounding rain and the storm-surge of the sea, and even in the months since the hurricane it had not dried out.

She followed Luke across the huge atrium, her heart sinking at the destruction all around her, stepping carefully through the debris on the floor—bits of furniture, shards of crockery, shreds of curtains, wind-strewn sand—gritty under the soles of her shoes. Dismay filled her. How could anyone think to make something of this place again? Surely the wreckage was complete and it was impossible to restore?

All she wanted to do was get out of there as fast as she could. There was nothing worth saving. The whole place was rotting.

Gingerly, watching every step she took across the littered broken flooring, trying not to inhale the gagging smell of damp and decay, she made her way towards the arching curve of the far side of the atrium where it opened onto the gardens—or what had once been the gardens.

Avoiding a louvered ceiling-height shutter, hanging from its hinges, she stepped out onto the terrace beyond, lifting her eyes and blinking in the bright light after the odoriferous gloom of the interior.

And her breath caught again, her eyes widening in amazement.

The garden might be strewn with palm trees, and vegetation had been hurled across the paths and lawns, but in this lush climate Nature had reclaimed her domain, throwing out vines and foliage to soften the fallen trunks, and vivid blossoms, crimson and white and vermillion pink, to festoon the emerald greenery. And beyond—oh, beyond glistened the brilliance of the azure sea, dazzling in the hot sun. The whole scene was radiant with light and vivid colour.

‘It’s fantastic!’ she breathed in wonder.

She could see in an instant why the hotel had been built here, right at the sea’s edge, fringed with sand so silver she could barely look at it in the bright sunlight. The contrast with the rank, ruined interior could not have been greater. Talia could feel her spirits lift, her face light up with pleasure at the sight.

‘Not bad, is it?’ Luke had stepped up beside her. His voice was dry and he was gazing around.

She turned to him. There had been something in his voice, in its very understatedness, that made her exclaim, ‘I can see why you want it! It’s worth any price!’

His eyes came to rest on her and she could see that for a second, just the barest second, he reeled. But then his gaze shuttered and she could tell that he was deliberately blanking her again.

‘I don’t get sentimental over projects,’ he said tersely. ‘That doesn’t make me money. What makes me money is buying something at a good price and adding value. That’s the opportunity here. The company that owns it wants shot of it, and if I can get it at the right price, and get the refurb costings right, it will make me money. That’s all I’m interested in.’

How sad, Talia thought. What a shame that this place would be all about money. Where was his heart? Where was his soul? Where was the man she’d spent that incredible night with? The one who had lit up her whole world with his ideas, his passion, his determination?

‘Even at the lowest possible cost a refurb will be expensive. More so than a new build because of the clearance costs.’

He glanced at her again. ‘Go around the place—and watch your step. Meet me back here in forty-five minutes. Don’t keep me waiting.’

He strode off, heading down to the shore, already on his phone.

Talia watched him go, watched his assured, powerful stride carving through the debris in the devastated gardens. There was a heaviness inside her. His blunt words had had a bleak familiarity to them. She knew that attitude, all right. It was her father’s. Minimum cost, maximum profit. That was all he’d cared about, too.

It was chilling to see it echoed in Luke.

Then, with a little shake of her head, as if to clear all such thoughts from it, she went back inside and started her tour.

She fished out her notebook from her tote and started to jot things down—rough measurements to begin with, and then a sketchy layout of the ground floor guest areas as she walked, watching her step, through the desolate rooms.

As she did so her mood changed. She wasn’t quite plunged automatically into professional mode, but she did find that, despite the desolation and destruction, the same lifting of her spirits was hitting her as when she’d seen the vista of the sea beyond the gardens.

If she looked past the devastation and ruin to the structure of the building she could see that this was, indeed, a beautiful space. With imagination and enthusiasm it could be made impressive again.

Ideas started to flow and her pen moved faster over the paper. She turned pages one after the other, and took copious photos on her phone of rooms and vistas.

She headed upstairs, ideas still pouring through her, a sense of excitement filling her. For the first time she was being given an opportunity to use her own creativity, to craft her own vision! Being allowed to give her ideas full rein and not have them ignored and dismissed by her father was a liberation.

Time flew by, and only when she saw Luke waiting for her down in the desolate atrium, with a dark expression on his face, did her mood crash again.

‘When I say forty-five minutes that is what I mean,’ he informed her tightly.

Talia’s apology died on her lips.

‘I’ve got some letters to dictate to you,’ he continued. ‘While you’re here you might as well do some secretarial work for me, as well. We’ll do it in the car.’

‘Er… I don’t take dictation,’ she said. It wasn’t a refusal, only a description of her secretarial limits.

‘Tough,’ he said.

She stared after him, her heart sinking. His mood was black, that was obvious, and she could only assume it was because the state of the hotel was worse than he’d realised.

As for acting as his secretary, well… She sighed inwardly. If that was what he wanted she would do her best. After all, to have stayed on at the villa paying rent would have cost her a fortune—whatever work she did here for him he was therefore entitled to, even if it wasn’t what she was trained for.

So she did the best she could, taking down his dictation as he drove. But not only did the SUV jolting over the potholed roads make it difficult to write, but the complex legalese and financial figures he dictated at high speed tested her meagre abilities to the limit. The fact that she was only exacerbating his bad mood by asking him to slow down or repeat himself was patently visible.

By the time they finally arrived back at the villa there was a headache around her skull like a steel band in full swing.

Luke turned to her. ‘There’s a government minister I have to see. Those letters need to be typed up this afternoon. There’s an office set up in the villa somewhere—the staff will show you.’

Talia nodded dumbly, heading up to her room to shower and change. Was this distant, terse man really the same man as the one she had encountered that fateful evening at the party? How could he be?

She felt her throat catch and hurried into the bathroom. Beneath the flow of water, she was only too conscious of her nakedness—a nakedness she had so briefly gloried in with the man who now looked right through her…

Memories rushed back into her head of when his gaze upon her had not been cold, nor indifferent. But these were memories she did not want and could not afford. She sighed grimly. She couldn’t afford much at all.

Enveloping herself tightly in a bath towel, she emerged, steeling herself. What did it matter if Luke now looked right through her and gave her orders and instructions as if nothing had ever happened between them? It would simply remind her of what she shouldn’t forget, even for a moment. That she was here for one purpose only—to work as he directed, so that her mother could have some reprieve from the loss of the final piece of her stricken life to which she was still so desperately clinging.

A knock sounded at the door and she went to open it. One of the soft-footed maids came in with a lunch tray, carrying it through to the balcony, on which a little table and chair had been set up under an awning. Talia threw on a sundress, and followed her.

She felt her spirits lift again in the heat and brightness after the dim cool of the air-conditioned bedroom.

Thanking the maid, she felt suddenly hungry and fell to eating. She’d hardly had time for breakfast—which had been served up here in her room—before she’d been informed that Mr Xenakis was waiting for her, and jet lag had also confused her hunger cues. Now they were fully restored, and she ate with relish the food that had been provided for her: chicken salad, cane juice, and fresh fruit.

As she ate, she gazed out at the vista. And such a vista! Now, for the first time, she could really appreciate where she was.

The villa was set on a slope, high above the sea, which was several miles away across lush countryside, and the beautiful gardens she’d seen from the carriage sweep were wrapped around the back as well.

Was that…? Ah, yes. Her eyes lit up. There was a large turquoise pool, glinting at the rear of the villa. And as she gazed in delighted appreciation she knew, instinctively, that the colour palette for her design ideas was right in front of her: the deep cobalt sea, the turquoise pool, the emerald vegetation, the vivid crimson of the bougainvillea and fragrant frangipani. All would be called upon.

Enthusiasm fired her, and she longed to make a start on her colour boards and sketch out the vision that danced inside her head. Her ideas began to fizz and bubble in her imagination.

But that was not what she’d been instructed to do this afternoon. There were Luke’s letters to type up first.

The office she was shown into by the stately butler—whose name, he informed her upon enquiry, was Fernando—was chilled with air-conditioning and had no outside light coming in. The windows were high set, with venetian blinds over them. An array of high-tech equipment hummed to one side, and a huge PC sat on the desk.

She took her place in front of it and got out her notebook. She sighed, hoping she would be able to decipher what she’d scrawled so hectically.

It proved hard going, and she knew, with a sinking heart, that she was making a poor fist of it. She did her best, all the same, though she was painstakingly slow, not being able to touch-type, and found the keyboard complicated to operate when it came to tabulating the many figures Luke had thrown at her.

Finally, she was done, though there were gaps and queries in every letter and attachment. She could only hope that Luke would make allowances for the fact that she was not a trained secretary and they had been going over a bumpy road while she was trying to write it all down.

The headache, which had cleared over lunch in the fresh air, was now back with a vengeance. With a final sigh of abject relief, she closed down the word processing software and got up, her back stiff and sore from hours of hunching over the keyboard.

Then her face brightened.

The pool! She would freshen up with a dip—that, surely, would clear her head and loosen her stiff limbs. And she would ask the Fernando if she could have a coffee, and a long juice drink.

A handful of minutes later she was plunging head-first into blissfully warm water, joyfully dipping her head under the water to feel her hair stream wetly down her back. Her spirits soared. Oh, this was joyous! She splashed around, frolicking like a child, delighting in the diamond sprays of water catching the late-afternoon sunshine, then pushed off the side, plunging in a duck-dive to the tiled bottom of the pool, dappled with sunlight. Then:

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’