Читать книгу Bound to the Greek - Кейт Хьюит, Kate Hewitt - Страница 6

‘COME right this way, Mr Zervas. You’re going to meet with Eleanor, our top planner.’

Jace Zervas stilled his stride for no more than a second as the word reverberated through him. Eleanor. He hadn’t heard that name in ten years, hadn’t let himself think it.

Of course, it had to be a coincidence. There were certainly more Eleanors in the United States—in New York City—than the one who had broken his heart.

The assistant who had led him through the elegantly sparse lobby with its designer sofas and modern art now stopped in front of a door of tinted glass, gave a perfunctory knock, then pushed it open.

‘Eleanor? I’d like to introduce you to—’

Jace didn’t hear the rest. For as the woman in the office swung round to face him, his mind buzzed, blanked. It was Eleanor.

His Eleanor. Ellie.

He knew she was as surprised as he was that he was here, that they were here, face to face. Although her expression didn’t really change, he was aware of the slight widening of her eyes, the parting of her lips.

Then she drew herself up, gave him a professional smile that managed to irritate him with its coolness, and said, ‘Thank you, Jill. That will be all.’

The assistant, surely aware of the current that crackled through the air, glanced speculatively between them. Jace ignored her, his gaze fixed on Eleanor Langley, so utterly, appallingly different from the Ellie he’d once known. ‘Shall I bring coffee?’

A tiny pause. ‘Certainly. Thank you.’

The assistant left, the door clicked shut, and Jace’s mind kicked back into gear.

Of course he should have expected this might happen. He’d known Ellie was from New York, and her mother was an event planner. Why shouldn’t she have followed the same career path?

Because the Ellie you knew hated her mother’s career, her mother’s world. The Ellie you knew—or at least thought you knew—wanted to open a bakery.

Clearly much had happened in the last ten years.

‘You’ve changed.’ He didn’t mean to say it, yet it was impossible not to notice it. The Ellie he’d known ten years ago had looked nothing like the shiny, polished woman in front of him.

His Ellie had been relaxed, natural, fun, so different from this woman with her tailored black power suit, her highlighted hair barely brushing her cheekbones in an elegant chestnut bob. Her hazel eyes, once warm and golden, now seemed darker, sharper, and were narrowed into assessing slits. As she moved back around to her desk Jace saw her shoes: black three-inch stilettos. His Ellie had never worn heels. His Ellie had never worn black.

Yet why was he even thinking this way? His Ellie hadn’t been his at all. He’d realised that all too terribly when he’d last seen her… when she’d lied to him in the worst way possible. When he’d walked away without another word.

Eleanor Langley stared down at the burnished surface of her desk and took a deep breath. She needed the moment to regain her poise and control. She’d never expected this moment to happen, although she’d fantasised about it many times over the last decade. Coming face to face with Jace Zervas. Telling him just what she thought of him and his cowardly creeping away.

She’d envisioned herself slapping his face, telling him to go to hell, or, in her more dignified moments, sweeping him with one simple, disdainful glance.

She had not pictured herself trembling, both inside and out, unable to think of a single thing to say.

Stop. She’d worked too hard for too long to let this moment defeat her. Taking another breath, Eleanor lifted her head and settled her gaze coolly on the man in front of her.

‘Of course I’ve changed. It’s been ten years.’ She paused, letting her gaze sweep over him, although she had a feeling it wasn’t as disdainful as she might have wished. ‘You’ve changed too, Jace.’ It felt strange to have his name on her lips. She never spoke of him. She tried not to think of him.

He had changed; his ink-black hair was now streaked with grey at the temples and his face looked leaner, longer. Harder. Eleanor noticed new lines from nose to mouth, and the faint fanning of crow’s feet by his eyes. Somehow those lines didn’t age him so much as give him an air of dignity and experience. They even emphasised the steely grey of his eyes with their silvery glints. And his body hadn’t changed at all, it seemed: still long, lithe, and powerful. The grey silk suit he wore only emphasised his muscular shoulders and trim hips; he wore it, as he had the cashmere sweatshirts and faded jeans of his college days, with ease and grace.

He looked, she thought a bit resentfully, great. But then, she reminded herself, so did she. She spent a lot of time and effort making sure she looked great; in her job a professional and even glamorous appearance was a must. She was grateful for it now. The last thing she wanted was to be at a disadvantage. She straightened, smiled even, and flicked her hair back from her face in one quick movement. ‘So you’re my two o’clock.’

Jace smiled back, faintly, but his eyes were hard. He looked almost angry. Eleanor had no idea what he had to be angry about; he was the one who had left. If anyone should be angry—She stopped that thought before her resentful mind gave it wings. She wasn’t angry. She was over it. Over him. She no longer cared any more, at all, about Jace Zervas.

She turned to her planner, still open on her desk, and trailed one glossily manicured finger down the day’s appointments. ‘You’re here on behalf of Atrikides Holdings?’ she asked. ‘It says Leandro Atrikides was supposed to have been coming.’ She looked up, eyebrows arched. ‘Change of plans?’

‘Something like that,’ Jace agreed, his voice taut. He sat down in one of the leather armchairs in front of her desk and crossed one leg over the other.

‘Well.’ She made herself smile and sat down behind her desk, hands neatly folded. ‘How can I help?’

Jace’s lips tightened, and Eleanor wondered if that was going to be it. Ten years of anger, bitterness, and overwhelming heartache reduced to nothing in a single sentence. How can I help? Yet what other choice was there? She didn’t want to rake over the past; it would be messy and uncomfortable and far too painful. She wanted to pretend the past didn’t exist, and so she would. She’d treat Jace Zervas like a regular client, even though he was far from one, and she hardly wanted to help him. She didn’t even want to talk to the man for another second.

The sane thing, of course, would be to respectfully request a colleague to take Jace as her client, and step away from what could only be an explosive situation. Or if not explosive, then at least angrily simmering. She could see it in the hard steel of his eyes. She could feel it bubbling in herself.

Yet Eleanor knew she wouldn’t do that. Her boss wouldn’t be pleased; Lily Stevens didn’t like changes. Messes. And Eleanor could certainly do without the gossip. Besides, there was another, greater reason why she’d face Jace down in her own office. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of making her run away. As he had.

‘Well,’ Jace replied after a moment, ‘obviously I’m here because I need you to plan an event.’

‘Obviously,’ Eleanor agreed, and heard the answering sharpness in her tone. This was not going well. Every little exchange was going to be pointed under the politeness, and she didn’t think she could take the tension. The trouble was, she didn’t know what else to do. Talking about the past was akin to ripping the bandages off old wounds, inflaming the scars that still remained on her heart. Her body. Even remembering it hurt.

She clamped her mind down on that thought. Jace Zervas was just another client, she told herself again. Just a regular client. She let her breath out slowly and tried to smile.

‘What I meant,’ she said evenly, ‘was what kind of event are you hosting?’ She gritted her teeth as she added, ‘Some details would help.’

‘Isn’t there some form that’s been filled out? I’m quite sure my assistant did this all on the telephone.’

Eleanor glanced through the slim file she had on Atrikides Holdings. ‘A Christmas party,’ she read from the memo one of the secretaries had taken. ‘That’s all I have, I’m afraid.’

A knock sounded on the door, and Jill came in with a tray of coffee. Eleanor rose to take it from her. She didn’t want her assistant picking up on the tension that thrummed angrily through the room. God knew how she’d try to use it; Jill had been jockeying for her position since she arrived, fresh from college, two years ago.

‘Thanks, Jill. I’ll take it from here.’

Surprised, Jill backed off, the door closing once more, and Eleanor set the tray on her desk, her back to Jace. She still heard his lazy murmur.

‘You didn’t used to drink coffee. I always thought it was so funny, a girl who wanted to open a coffee shop and yet didn’t drink coffee herself.’

Eleanor tensed. So he was going to go there. She’d been hoping they could get through this awkward meeting without referencing the past at all, but now Jace was going to talk about these silly, student memories, as if they shared some happy past.

As if they shared anything at all.

A single streak of anger, white-hot, blazed through her. Her hands shook as she poured the coffee. How dared he? How dared he act as if he hadn’t walked—run—away from her, the minute things got too much? How dared he pretend they’d parted amicably, or even parted at all?

Instead of her going to his apartment building, only to find he’d left. Left the building, left the city, left the country. All without telling her.

Coward.

‘Actually, I think it was enterprising,’ she told him coolly, her back still to him. Her hands no longer trembled. ‘I saw the market, and I wanted to meet it.’ She handed him his coffee: black, two sugars, the way he’d always taken it. She still remembered. Still remembered brewing him a singleserve cafétière in her student apartment while she plied him with the pastries and cakes she was going to sell in her little bakery. While she told him her dreams.

He’d said everything was delicious. But of course he would. He’d lied about so many things, like when he’d said he loved her. If he’d loved her, he wouldn’t have left.

Eleanor poured her own coffee. She took it black now, and drank at least three cups a day. Her best friend Allie said so much caffeine wasn’t good for her, but Eleanor needed the kick. Especially now.

She turned back to Jace. He still held his mug, his long, brown fingers wrapped around the handle, his expression brooding and a little dark. ‘That’s not how I remember it.’

Disconcerted, Eleanor took too large a sip of coffee and burned her tongue. ‘What?’

Jace leaned forward. ‘You weren’t interested in meeting a market. You weren’t even interested in business. Don’t you remember, Ellie?’ His voice came out in a soft hiss. ‘You just wanted to have a place where people could relax and be happy.’ He spoke it like a sneer, and Eleanor could only think of when—and where—she had said that. In Jace’s bed, after they’d made love for the first time. She’d shared so many pitiful, pathetic secrets with him. Poured out her life and heart and every schoolgirl dream she’d ever cherished, and he’d given her—what? Nothing. Less than nothing.

‘I’m sure we remember quite a few things differently, Jace,’ she said coolly. ‘And I go by Eleanor now.’

‘You told me you hated your name.’

She let out an impatient breath. ‘It’s been ten years, Jace. Ten years. I’ve changed. You’ve changed. Get over it.’

His eyes narrowed, the colour flaring to silver. ‘Oh, I’m over it, Eleanor,’ he said softly. ‘I’m definitely over it.’

But he didn’t sound over it. He sounded angry, and that made Eleanor even angrier despite all her intentions to stay cool, not to care. He had no right, no right at all, even to be the tiniest bit furious. Yet here he was, acting as if she’d been the one to do something wrong. Of course she had done something wrong, in Jace’s eyes. She’d made the classic, naive mistake of accidentally getting pregnant.

Jace stared at her, felt the fury rise up in him before he choked it all down again. There was no use in being angry. It was ten years too late. He didn’t want to feel angry; the emotion shamed him now.

Yet even so he realised he wanted to know. He needed to know what had happened to Eleanor in the last ten years. Had she kept the baby? Had she married the father? Had she suffered even a moment’s regret for trying to dupe him so damnably? Because she didn’t look as if she had. She looked as if she was angry with him, which was ridiculous. She was the guilty one, the lying one. He’d simply found out.

‘So.’ She sat down again, behind the desk, so it served as a barrier between them. Not that they needed one. Time was enough. Putting her coffee carefully to one side, she pulled out a pen and pad of paper. Jace watched the way her hair swung down in a smooth, dark curtain as she bent her head. Everything about her was so different from the Ellie he had known, the Ellie he remembered. The woman in front of him was no more than a polished, empty shell. She gave nothing away. She looked up, her hazel eyes narrowing, her mouth curving into a false smile. ‘Can you give me a few details about this party?’

Damn the party. Jace leaned forward. ‘Did you have a boy or a girl?’ God only knew why he wanted to ask that question. Why he even wanted to know. Surely there were a dozen—a hundred—more relevant questions he could have asked. When did you cheat on me? Why? Who was he? Did he love you like I did?

No, he wasn’t about to ask any of those questions. They all revealed too much. He had no intention of letting Eleanor Langley ever know how much she’d hurt him.

His voice was no more than a predatory hiss, an accusation, yet Ellie’s expression didn’t change. If anything it became even more closed, more polished and professional. The woman was like ice. He could hardly credit it; the Ellie he’d known had reflected every emotion in her eyes. She’d cried at commercials. Now Ellie—Eleanor—simply pressed her lips together and gave her head a little shake.

‘Let’s not talk about the past, Jace. If we want to be professional—‘Her voice caught, finally, and he was glad. He’d almost thought she didn’t feel anything and God knew he felt too much. So this icy woman could thaw. A little. Underneath there was something, something true and maybe even broken, something real, and for now that was enough.

He leaned back, satisfied. ‘Fine. Let’s be professional. I want to hold a Christmas party for the remaining employees of Atrikides Holdings.’

‘Remaining?’ Ellie repeated a bit warily.

‘Yes, remaining. I bought the company last week, and there has been some unrest because of it.’

‘A corporate takeover.’ She spoke the words distastefully.

‘Yes, exactly,’ Jace replied blandly. ‘I had to let some of the employees go when I brought in my own people. Now that there is a new workforce, I’d like to create a feeling of goodwill. A Christmas party is a means to that end.’

‘I see.’

Yet Jace could see from the flicker of contempt in her eyes, the tightening of her mouth, that she didn’t see at all. She was summing him up and judging him up based on very little evidence—the evidence he’d given.

Yet why should he care what she thought of him? And why should she judge at all? She’d been just as ruthless as he was, as enterprising and economical with the truth.

And he’d judged her with far more damning information.

Eleanor wrote a few cursory notes on the pad of paper on her desk. She wasn’t even aware of what she was writing. Her vision hazed, her mind blanked.

Was it a boy or a girl?

How could he ask such a question now, with such contempt? His child. He’d been asking about his child.

She closed her mind on the thought like a trap, refusing to free the memory and sorrow. She couldn’t go there. Not now, not ever. She’d kept those emotions locked deep inside herself and even seeing Jace Zervas again wouldn’t free them. She wouldn’t let it. She drew in a deep breath and looked up.

‘So what kind of Christmas party are we talking about here? Cocktails, sit-down dinner? How many people do you anticipate coming?’

‘There are only about fifty employees, and I’d like to invite families.’ Jace spoke tonelessly. ‘Quite a few have small children, so something family-friendly but elegant.’

‘Family-friendly,’ Eleanor repeated woodenly. She felt her fingers clench around the pen she was holding. She could not do this. She could not pretend a moment longer, even though she’d been pretending for ten years—

Was that all her life had been? Pretending? Pretence? And she hadn’t realised it until she’d come face to face with Jace Zervas.

Stop, she told herself yet again. Stop thinking, feeling. Another breath. Somehow she made herself nod as she wrote another note on the pad of paper. ‘Very well. Now—’

‘Look,’ Jace exhaled impatiently, ‘I don’t really have time to go over every detail. I came here as a favour, and I have a lot to do. I’m only in New York for a week.’

‘A week—’

‘I need the party to be this Friday,’ Jace cut her off.

Eleanor’s mouth dropped open before she quickly closed it. That hadn’t been on the memo. ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. Venues are booked, I have a complete client list—’

‘Nothing is impossible if you throw enough money at it,’ Jace replied flatly. ‘And I chose your company because I was assured you could make it happen.’ His gaze, cold and contemptuous, raked over her. ‘I was told the top event planner would see to me personally. I suppose that’s you?’

Eleanor merely nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

‘Then email me a list of details to go over by tomorrow morning.’ Jace rose from his chair. ‘You’ve done very well for yourself, Ellie,’ he said softly. ‘I wonder how many people you had to climb over to get to this lovely little spot.’ He glanced out of the window at her view of Madison Square Park, the leafless trees stark against a grey winter sky.

His comment was so blatantly unfair and unwarranted that Eleanor could only gasp. And fume. What right did he have to make such a judgment? If anyone should be judging—

Jace headed for the door. ‘I don’t think I’ll need to see you before the party,’ he said, and somehow this bored dismissal stung her more than anything else had.

He was going to leave, just like that, after raking up the old wounds, after asking about her baby—their baby—

‘It was a girl,’ she burst out, the words like staccato gunfire. Her chest burned, and so did her eyes. Her fingers clenched into a fist on her desk. Jace stilled, his hand on the door. ‘A girl,’ she repeated tonelessly. ‘Since you asked.’

He turned around slowly, lip curled in an unpleasant sneer. ‘So I did,’ he replied. ‘But actually I really don’t care.’

And then he was gone.