At the Greek Tycoon’s Bidding

Cathy Williams

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

COMING NEXT MONTH

CHAPTER ONE

THEO was in the middle of reading a financial report when he heard the crash. The sound catapulted through the empty corridors of the office with ear-splitting intensity. Any other person would have reacted in shock, and probably fear. After all, it was late, and even with security guards there was no building in London that could be termed fully safe from someone determined to break and enter. Not Theo Miquel. Without bothering to arm himself with the prerequisite heavy object, dark brows knitted into an impatient frown at being interrupted, he strode out of his plush designer office, activating the switch that flooded the darkness outside with brilliant fluorescent light.

Theo Miquel was not a man to run scared of anything, least of all a would-be intruder who was clumsy enough to signal his arrival by crashing into something.

It didn’t take long for him to pinpoint the origin of the interruption, for sprawled in the corridor was a trolley, the contents of which were scattered across the marble-tiled floor. Cleaning fluids, broom, mop—and a bucket of water which was slowly spreading along the tiles towards the carpeted offices on either side.

As his eyes took in the chaotic sight he heard the clamour of feet pounding up the stairs, and then the security guard was there, out of breath and bristling with apologies. They converged at the scene of the crime at roughly the same time, although it was Theo who was the first to kneel next to the inert body of the girl who had collapsed on the floor.

‘So sorry, sir,’ Sid stammered, watching as Theo felt for a pulse. ‘I came as fast as I could—as soon as I heard the noise. I can take over from here, sir.’

‘Get this stuff cleared away.’

‘Of course, sir. I’m very sorry…She looked a little pale when she came in this evening, but I had no idea…’

‘Stop babbling and tidy this mess up,’ Theo commanded sharply.

He barely registered the flustered guard squeezing dry the mop and soaking up the spilt water before it could intrude into the expensive offices and wreak yet more havoc.

At least the girl hadn’t been inconsiderate enough to die on his premises. There was a pulse, and she might be as pale as hell but she was breathing. She had fainted—probably pregnant. A symptom of the times. Controlling his irritation, he scooped her up, oblivious to the frantic worry pasted on the security guard’s face. He was dimly aware that his employees, whatever their rank, treated him with a certain amount of subservience. He was unaware that this subservience teetered precariously on the brink of downright fear, so he was vastly exasperated when he glanced across to find Sid virtually wringing his hands.

‘I can take care of her, sir…No need for you to get involved…Not a problem…’

‘Just make sure this place is cleaned up and then you can return to duty. If I need you, I’ll call.’

This was an interruption he could well have done without. It was Friday. It was after nine in the night and there was still half a report to get through if he was to e-mail the corrected copy to his counterpart on the other side of the world before their high-level meeting the following Monday.

He kicked open the door to his office and deposited the now stirring body on the long burgundy sofa which occupied one entire wall of the large room. He had not had a hand in designing the décor of his office. If he had, he would probably have chosen the barest of furnishings—after all, an office was a place to work and not a cosy sitting room in which to luxuriate—but he had found over the years, and to his surprise, that the grand, heavy opulence of the room was strangely conducive to concentration. The oak-panelled walls would have been more at home in a gentleman’s club, but there was still something warm about them, filled as they were with books on finance, economics and naturally the accounts of the vast shipping empire that was the very basis of his huge inherited wealth. His desk, fashioned in a time before computers, lacked the convenient set-up to accommodate modems and fax machines and all the various appendages of twenty-first-century living, but it was pleasing to look at and did its job. The windows were floor to ceiling, and lacked the smoked glass effect of the taller, more modern offices all around, but they were charming. In the crazy rush of the city his offices, housed in a grand Victorian house, were a touch of old-world sanity.

It was more than he was currently feeling as he stared down at the girl, whose eyelids were beginning to flutter as consciousness crawled back.

She was solidly built beneath the blue and white striped overalls which covered a choice of clothing Theo would have found offensive on any woman. A thick cardigan of some indiscriminate brown colour and jeans that were frayed at the hems, their only merit being that they partially concealed heavy-duty shoes that would have been more suitable for a man working on a building site than a woman.

He waited, standing over her, arms folded, his body language informing her in no uncertain terms that, while he might have rescued her, he wasn’t about to allow the act of charity to overstay its limited welcome.

And while he waited, impatience mounting, his eyes roved over her face, taking in the short, straight nose, the wide mouth, and eyebrows that were surprisingly defined and at odds with the pale curly hair that had escaped its restraints.

As her eyes fluttered open he could only assume that he had been taken by surprise, because for a few seconds a confusing surge of awareness rushed through him. She had amazing eyes. The purest and deepest of blues. Then she blinked, disoriented, and the moment was lost as reality took over. The reality of his work being interrupted when time was not on his side.

‘It would appear that you fainted,’ Theo informed her as she struggled into a sitting position.

Heather gazed up at the man staring down at her and felt her throat tighten. For the past six months she had worked in his offices, coming in at six-thirty when she could begin cleaning, after the bulk of the employees had left. From a distance, she had watched him out of the corner of her eye, watched as he worked behind his desk, his door flung open—although she knew, from snatches of conversation she had overheard over the months, that very few would risk popping in for a light chat. She had felt herself thrill to the tones of his dark, deep voice when he happened to talk to one of his employees. He intimidated everyone, but as far as she was concerned he was the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on.

The lines of his face were strong—harsh, even—but he possessed a classic beauty that was still aggressively and ruggedly masculine. Midnight-dark hair swept back from his powerful face, curling against the nape of his neck, and even though she had never had the courage to look him in the face she had glimpsed enough to know that his eyes were dark and fathomless, and fringed with lashes that most women would have given their eye teeth for. She supposed that if she had worked for him she might well have found him as forbidding as everyone else seemed to, but he had no influence over the course of her life and so she could appreciate him without fear.

Not that she was by nature the type of girl who cowered in the presence of anyone. By nature she was of a sunny disposition, and was a great believer that she was equal to everyone else, whatever her social standing might temporarily be and however broke she was. What counted lay inside and not in the outer packaging.

While her mind had been wandering down the extraordinary path that had found her lying on the sofa in his office, Theo had taken himself to his drinks cabinet and returned with a small glass of brown liquid.

‘Drink some of this.’

Heather blinked and tried not to stare too hard at him. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Brandy.’

‘I can’t.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I can’t. It’s against company policy to drink while on the job. I could get the sack and I need the money.’

As far as Theo was concerned this was far too much information. All he wanted was for her to guzzle a bit of the brandy, which would have her up and running, leaving him with sufficient time to get through what he had to do if he were to avoid an argument with the latest of his dates, whose temper had already been tested to the limit by the frequency of his cancellations.

‘Drink,’ he ordered, holding the glass close to her lips, and Heather nervously obeyed, taking the tiniest of sips and flushing with guilt.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Theo exclaimed. ‘You’ve just fainted! One sip of brandy isn’t selling your soul to the devil!’

‘I’ve never fainted before,’ Heather said. ‘Mum used to tell me that I wasn’t the fainting sort. Fainting was for undernourished girls, not for fatties like me. Claire fainted a lot when we were growing up. Well, not exactly a lot, but a few times. Which is a lot by anyone’s standards…’

Theo experienced the novel sensation of being bombarded on all fronts. For a few seconds he literally lost the power of speech.

‘Perhaps I’m coming down with something,’ Heather remarked, frowning. She sincerely hoped not. She couldn’t afford to start taking time off work because of ill health. Her night job with the cleaning company was on a temporary basis. No sick leave. And her day job as assistant teacher at a school near where she lived just wasn’t sufficient for her to really make ends meet. She felt the colour drain away from her face.

Theo watched, fascinated by this transparent display of emotion, before urgently pressing the glass to her lips. The last thing he needed was another attack of the vapours.

‘You need more than just a sip of this. It’ll restore some of your energy.’

Heather took a bigger mouthful and felt the alcohol burn pleasantly in the pit of her stomach.

‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’

‘Recognise you? Why on earth should I recognise you? Look,’ Theo said decisively, ‘I have a lot of work to get through before I leave here tonight. You can sit on the sofa till you feel rested enough to leave, but if you’ll excuse me I’m going to have to return to work.’ He was struck by a bright idea. ‘If you like I can get that security guard chap to come and take you downstairs.’

‘Sid.’

‘Sorry?’

‘His name’s Sid. The “security guard chap”. Shouldn’t you know that?’ Heather asked curiously. ‘He’s been working for you for over three years!’ But, like with her, he would have seen him and not registered his face. To a man like Theo Miquel he was literally invisible.

Not liking the accusatory tone to her voice, Theo momentarily forgot the half-read financial report lying on his desk.

‘It beats me why I should know the name of every security guard who’s ever worked here…’

‘You employ him!’

‘I employ lots of people. And anyway, this is a ridiculous conversation. I have work to do and…’

‘I’m an interruption. I’m sorry.’ Heather sighed and felt tears well up as she contemplated the disappearance of her job should she be ill. It was the middle of January. There were a million and one viruses flying about, most of them apparently winging their way from the Far East in an attempt to find more victims.

‘You’re not about to cry, are you?’ Theo demanded. He fished into his trouser pocket and extracted a handkerchief, cursing himself for his good nature in carrying the girl into his office. A complete stranger, no less, who now seemed intent on chatting to him as though he wasn’t a very important man—a man whose valuable time was money!

‘Sorry.’ Heather took the handkerchief and sniffled miserably into it. She blew her nose, which made her feel light-headed all over again. ‘Perhaps I’m just hungry,’ she offered, thinking aloud.

Theo ran his fingers through his hair and cast one despairing glance at the report on the desk. ‘Hungry?’ he said flatly.

‘Doesn’t that sometimes bring about fainting spells?’ Heather asked, looking at him questioningly.

‘I haven’t quite got to that part of my nutrition course as yet,’ Theo said with thick sarcasm, and she smiled. It was a smile that lit up her face. Could have lit up an entire room, for that matter. He felt inordinately pleased at having engineered this response in her. With a stifled sigh of resignation, he decided to put the report on hold for few minutes.

‘I have a call to make,’ he said, walking away even as he took his mobile phone from his pocket. ‘I’m going to give you the land line. Use it to call for some food.’

‘Oh, no! I couldn’t just order food in!’ She shuddered at the cost involved.

‘You can and you will.’ He looked across at her in the middle of handing her the telephone. ‘If you’re hungry then you have to eat something, and there’s no fridge in my office with a handy supply of food. So just order whatever you like. Call the Savoy. Tell them who I am. They’ll deliver whatever you want.’

‘The Savoy?’ Heather squeaked in consternation.

‘On the house, Miss…Miss…I don’t know your name…’

‘Heather. Heather Ross.’ She smiled shyly at him, marvelling at his patience and consideration, especially when you considered that from what she’d gathered, people found him scary.

Theo, she noticed, did not bother to give her his name, but perhaps he assumed that she would already know it—as indeed she did. She saw it every evening in gold plate on his door. Buoyed up by the kick from the brandy, and the realisation that hunger had brought on her unaccountable loss of strength, Heather dialled through to the Savoy, even though the practical streak in her knew that it was a ridiculous nonsense when all she probably needed was a cheese sandwich and a bottle of water. She was vaguely aware, in the background, that an urgent and hushed conversation was being conducted, one to which he clearly did not want her to be a party, and as soon as he was off the phone she turned to him with stricken eyes.

‘I’ve messed up your arrangements for this evening, haven’t I?’

She could tell that this line of conversation was not falling upon fertile ground, but her tendency to blurt out what happened to be in her head did not go hand in hand with the silent approach he clearly wanted. He would order in food for her, or rather get her to order in her own food—which she had sensibly confined to sandwiches, astounded at the effect his name had had on whoever was in charge of the reception desk at the Savoy—but beyond that he did not want her chatter.

‘No matter.’ He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t make it anyway.’ Not that Claudia had seen it in quite that light. In fact, his ears were still ringing from the sound of the telephone being banged down at the other end, and he could hardly blame her. He consoled himself with the absolute fact that the minute a woman started making demands on his time it was almost certainly the time to dispose of her. In this case, the woman in question had disposed of herself.

‘Was it important?’ Heather asked anxiously.

‘What’s important is lying on my desk, waiting to be read, so if you don’t mind…’ He half expected her to launch into another conversation, but to his relief she maintained an obedient silence, though he couldn’t stop his eyes from straying towards her every so often, distracting him from the task at hand.

By the time the food arrived—couriered over—Theo had abandoned all hope of finishing the report, at least until he had escorted her out of the building.

‘Why have you not been eating?’ he asked, watching as she plunged into her sandwich with the gusto of someone suddenly released from a starvation diet.

‘There’s no need for you to make polite conversation,’ Heather said, tucking into sandwich number two. ‘I know you have heaps of work to do. These sandwiches are fantastic, by the way.’

‘I’ll get back to work once you’ve gone.’

‘Oh, I feel fine now. I might as well finish what I came to do.’ She glanced across at him and then quickly reverted her attention back to the diminishing pile of sandwiches, just in case she found herself staring again.

‘And encourage another fainting fit? I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘You mean in case I cause more hassle?’

Theo didn’t immediately answer. He was mesmerised by the sight of a woman eating so much. Judging by the women he knew, eating was fast becoming a dying art form. They nibbled at salad leaves or else pushed food around their plates as if one calorie too many might lead to sudden obesity.

‘I’m hungry,’ Heather said defensively. ‘Normally I’m a very light eater, as a matter of fact. I should really be rake-thin. But I have a very stubborn metabolism. It refuses to do its job.’

‘What’s the name of this firm you work for? I’ll call them and let them know that you’re in no fit state to continue here tonight.’ He reached for the telephone and was halted by her sudden squeak of panic.

‘You can’t do that!’

‘Why not?’ Black eyes narrowed shrewdly on her face. ‘I take it you are legally registered with the company, and not involved in any moonlighting as a tax dodge…’

‘Of course I’m not moonlighting!’ Heather denied hotly.

‘Then what’s the problem?’

‘The problem is that I need to complete this job because I need my time sheet to be signed downstairs! I can’t afford to go home just because I felt a little sick!’ Awareness of her situation rushed through her and she slung her legs over the side of the sofa. All at once, released from the temporary daze of being in his presence and no longer feeling light-headed, she realised what an unappealing sight she must make. Hair everywhere, her robust frame encased in the least flattering garment known to mankind. She hardly presented the storybook image of a fragile, appealing damsel in distress. She ran her fingers self-consciously through her hair, feeling for the elastic band that had gone a bit askew and repositioning her ponytail back to where it should be, along with all the other rebellious curls that had managed to fall out.

‘Give me a minute,’ she said, sucking in a few deep lungfuls of air, ‘and I’ll be on my way.’ She stood up, and sat back down. She looked at him miserably. ‘Maybe I need a few minutes,’ she suggested. ‘I can wait outside. I don’t mind sitting on the ground—just till I gather myself. Honestly, I don’t know what the matter is…’

‘Are you pregnant?’ Theo asked abruptly.

Heather raised horrified eyes to him. ‘Pregnant? Of course I’m not pregnant! Why on earth would you think that? Oh…I know why. I’m young, I fainted, and I’m involved in manual work…therefore I must be a brainless bimbo who’s stupidly managed to get herself pregnant…’

‘That wasn’t my reason for suggesting it…’ Theo lied, discomfited by her accurate assessment of his thought processes.

‘Well, then…’ Another thought lodged in her head and she blushed painfully. ‘It’s because I’m fat, isn’t it?’

Not wanting to encourage this line of conversation, and seriously concerned that getting rid of the girl might prove more difficult than he had anticipated, Theo adroitly changed the subject.

‘I can’t have you collapsing on my premises.’ He walked over to her and looked down at the discreet name label pinned to the front of her overall. Distantly he registered that she certainly was on the plump side. Her breasts, pushing against the unyielding fabric, appeared to be voluminous. In every respect she was physically the antithesis of the women he dated, who were always leggy, brunette, flat chested and ultra-glamorous. ‘Hills Cleaning Services,’ he murmured to himself. ‘What’s the telephone number?’

Heather reluctantly provided him with the information and waited with a sinking heart as he called and explained the situation to her employer at the other end of the line.

‘I’ve been sacked, haven’t I?’ she asked gloomily, the minute he was off the phone.

‘Apparently there have been two incidents recently…?’

‘Oh, not fainting incidents,’ Heather expanded quickly, just in case he began thinking that she was one of those pathetic women who couldn’t take care of themselves. ‘You haven’t told me what they said…’

‘I thought I just had. In a roundabout way.’ Unusual for him to say anything in a roundabout way, but he was reluctantly beginning to feel sorry for the woman. Overweight, insecure, and clearly ill equipped to do any other job. Thanks to him, she would now have to find alternative employment. He felt an uncustomary twinge of guilt. ‘They seem to think that you’re a liability…’

‘That’s silly,’ Heather said miserably. ‘I’m not a liability. I admit a couple of times I got home from work and fell asleep. I just meant to put my feet up for five minutes with a cup of tea, but you know how it is. I nodded off, and by the time I woke up it was too late to do the cleaning job…’

‘You do two jobs…?’ Theo asked in astonishment.

‘I’m sorry. I know you thought you were doing the right thing, and I know you mightn’t have wanted me around just in case I fainted again—which I wouldn’t have, by the way—but thanks to you I’m now out of pocket. They probably won’t even pay me for the hour and a half I’ve been here.’ She stared despondently into the abyss of imminent poverty. Of course there were other night jobs. She could always do that bar one at the local pub. Tom would have her in a minute. But bar work was gruelling and exhausting. At least with the cleaning job she could switch to automatic and get through her work with her mind pleasantly drifting off to a comforting fantasy land in which she actually completed the illustration course she wanted and became famous designing the covers for children’s books.

‘What’s the day job?’ Theo asked curiously. She was now strong enough to sit up. He wasn’t really interested in hearing the ins and outs of her life, but a few minutes’ chat wouldn’t kill him, and it would give her a bit more time to gather her resources. Her hands rested limply on her lap and she was staring into the distance, no doubt contemplating the horror of not earning minimum wages by doing a job that was draining her of all her energy. Thus far, only two women he had dated had held down jobs, and neither had actually seen their jobs as anything more than an interruption of their leisure time—something to do as an amusing distraction from the daily grind of shopping, self-pampering and lunches with their friends.

‘Oh. Day job.’ Heather refocused on the man looking at her and was hit by the realisation that this would probably be the last time she had the pleasure of seeing him. She felt an uncomfortable little void open up in the pit of her stomach. ‘I’m an assistant teacher at the school just around the corner from me,’ she said dully.

‘You’re an assistant teacher?’

His shocked tone managed to raise a smile from her. She could easily have been offended by the implied insult, but she knew that from the Olympian summits which he occupied he would simply have assumed that, as a cleaner, she would be incapable of achieving much else—just as he had assumed that her fainting fit had been brought on by pregnancy.

‘I know. Incredible, isn’t it?’ she replied, grinning, regaining some of her lost spirit. Now she just wanted to drag the conversation out for as long as possible, bearing in mind that she wouldn’t be clapping eyes on him again.

‘Why do you clean offices if you have a perfectly viable daytime job?’

‘Because my “perfectly viable daytime job” just about manages to pay the rent on my room and the bills and I need to save some money up so that I can afford to carry on with my studies.’ Well, he might not have known her from Adam before, but he certainly appeared confounded by her revelation now—the revelation that she actually had a brain. ‘You see,’ she continued, enjoying his undivided attention while she had it, ‘I left school quite young. At sixteen, as a matter of fact. I don’t know why, but all my friends were doing that—leaving to get jobs. Not that there were a whole heap of jobs for school-leavers in the Yorkshire village I came from. But, anyway, it seemed a good idea at the time, and earning money was great. It helped out with Mum, and Claire couldn’t help out there. She wanted to head to London and get into acting…’

‘Claire…?’

‘My sister. The skinny, beautiful one I mentioned to you?’ Heather’s eyes misted over with pride. ‘Long blonde hair…big green eyes…She needed all the money Mum could spare so that she could get started in her career…’

This woman, Theo thought, was an open book. Had no one ever told her that the allure of the female sex lay in the ability to be mysterious? To stimulate the chase with teasing pieces of information dropped here and there? Her frankness was beyond belief. Now she was telling him all about her sister and the fabulous career that had taken her across the Atlantic, where she was now modelling and already getting bit parts in daytime soaps.

Theo held up his hand to put a stop to the deluge of personal chatter.

He hardened himself against the immediate dismay that brought a flush of pink colour to her cheeks.

‘You seem to be fully recovered,’ he informed her. ‘I’m very sorry that you no longer have your job with the cleaning firm, but it’s probably for the best if you’re physically not up to it…’ He stood up, decisively bringing her presence in his office to an end, and waited until she had followed suit. Her hair was still continuing to rebel against the clips and elastic band, and now she was standing up he could see that she was shorter than he had thought—at best five foot four. She smoothed down her unflattering overall and he resisted the urge to give her a piece of good advice. Namely that she would probably be able to get a decent well-paid job if she paid a bit more attention to how she looked. Employers tended to look at the general appearance of their employees and were often influenced by it, unfair though it was.

‘Maybe you’re right. I guess I shall just have to go and work for Tom. He won’t mind if I oversleep now and again. He likes me, and he’ll pay me just so long as I give him what he wants…’

Theo paused in mid-stride, holding the door open while Heather walked past him, oblivious to the horror on his face. Ever the optimist, she was already working out the pros of the job she had previously dismissed out of hand. For starters, it was close, and would involve no public transport travel—which was always a concern to her, bearing in mind what you read in the newspapers. Also, Tom would be much more lenient than the cleaning company if she accidentally skipped an evening’s work. And maybe, just maybe, she could drop the name of the pub into this conversation and casually mention that Theo might like to come along and patronise it some time.

She opened her mouth to voice that tantalising suggestion, only to discover that she had been walking towards the elevator on her own. He was still standing by his door and staring at her as though she had mutated into another form of life.

‘Oh!’ Heather blinked, disappointed that he wasn’t at least walking her to the lift, then she chastised herself for being silly. Prior to this evening the man hadn’t even known of her existence, even though he must have at least glimpsed her off and on over the previous months! He had been good enough to look after her in his office, interrupting his own busy work schedule, which he had not been obliged to do. Crazy to think that he would accompany her on her journey down! She gave him a little wave. ‘Thank you for being so kind and looking after me,’ she said, raising her voice to cover the yawning distance between them. ‘I’ll just be off!’

Theo had no idea how he had managed to become unwittingly embroiled in the concerns of a perfect stranger, but, having been instrumental in getting her the sack, he felt morally obliged to question her decision about taking on a job that sounded very insalubrious indeed. Who was this Tom character? he wondered. Probably some sad old man who thought he could pay for the services of a naïve young girl in desperate need of cash. And naïve she most certainly was. Theo couldn’t remember a time when he had been confronted by someone so green around the ears.

‘Give me a minute.’ He returned to the office, hesitated for a few seconds in front of his computer before shutting it down, grabbed his coat, his laptop and his briefcase and then exited, switching off the light behind him before closing and locking his door.

Heather was still there by the lift, looking utterly bemused. A revelation of his own sentiments, he thought wryly. No time to fulfil his commitment to Claudia, but now perversely driven to accompany this stranger to her house because she had succeeded in rousing some kind of a sense of duty in him. He likened it to the sentiment someone might feel when confronted by a defenceless animal accidentally caught under the wheels of a car and in need of a vet.

‘Are you leaving work?’ Heather asked in surprise, looking up at him, wishing, for once, that she wasn’t quite as short as she was. Short and stocky and stupidly thrilled just to be taking the elevator down with him. ‘It’s just that you don’t normally leave this early.’

Theo paused to stare at her.

‘You know what time I leave work in the evenings…?’ He pressed the elevator button and the doors opened smoothly, as though the lift had been sitting there, just waiting for him to appear and summon it into immediate action.

Heather blushed. ‘No! I mean,’ she continued, dragging out the syllable, ‘I just know that you usually leave after I’ve finished cleaning most of the directors’ floor.’ She laughed airily as the lift doors shut on them, locking her into a weird feeling of imposed intimacy. ‘When you do something as monotonous as cleaning, you start paying attention to the silliest of details. I guess it just makes the time go past a little quicker! I know you’re usually the last to leave in the evenings, along with Jimmy and a couple of others who work on the floor below.’ Best change the subject, she thought. She was beginning to sound sad. ‘Do you know,’ she confided, ‘that sandwich has done me the world of good? I feel fantastic. Do you often send out for food from the Savoy?’ She sneaked a little sideways glance at him and found that he was looking at her in a very odd manner. ‘Sorry. I’m chatting too much. Have you got plans for this evening?’

‘Only ones that involve dropping you back to wherever it is you live…’

Heather’s mouth dropped open.

‘Deprived of the power of speech?’ Theo said dryly. ‘That must surely be a first for you.’

‘You’re dropping me back to my house?’ Heather squeaked. Now she really did feel guilty. ‘Please don’t. There’s no need.’ She laid her small hand tentatively on his arm as the doors opened and they stepped outside. The contact with his forearm, even though it was through a layer of shirt, sent a burning sensation running through her and she quickly removed her hand. ‘I’m not as feeble as you seem to think I am. Can’t you tell from my girth that I’m a bonny lass?’ She laughed self-deprecatingly but he didn’t laugh back. Didn’t even crack a smile.

Theo was not a man accustomed to delving into the female psyche. He had always prided himself on pretty much knowing how women operated. They expressed their interest in a certain way—the lowered eyes, the coy smile, the slight inclination of the head—and then came the game of hide and seek, a game he thoroughly enjoyed. It was only after that things took a downturn, when inevitably they began questioning the amount of time he put into his work, insinuating that he would be far better amused if he paid them more attention, because after all wasn’t that what relationships were all about? They were all about trying to build a relationship with him, trying to pin him down. Insecurities never raised their heads, although in truth none of them had ever had anything much to be insecure about.

Now it occurred to him that this girl had insecurities about her weight and Lord only knew what else. Insecurities that had made her the sort of gullible woman who might be tempted by a man for all the wrong reasons.

‘Your coat,’ he said, ‘and then I shall take you out and feed you…’

CHAPTER TWO

BECAUSE there was no convenient underground car park for the office, most of the employees who chose to drive in—willing to pay the Congestion Charge because it gave them flexibility to leave London at the drop of the hat to attend meetings elsewhere—parked at the nearest multi-storey car park.

Theo, however, had a chauffeur permanently on call. Within minutes of speaking into his mobile phone, a long, sleek Mercedes had pulled up outside the building, engine gently throbbing as it waited for them to get in.

Heather had moved on from protesting about the need to be dropped home to protesting about his invitation to dinner, which was unnecessary considering she had just eaten sandwiches courtesy of the Savoy.

She found herself ushered into the back seat of the car and slid across to make space for him.

‘It’s very good of you, Mr Miquel…’

‘Considering you fainted on my doorstep, so to speak, I think you can call me by my first name—Theo.’

‘Well, all right. But I still don’t need taking anywhere. You don’t have to feel responsible for me, although I’m very grateful for your help…’

Theo turned to look at her, his massive body lounging indolently against the car door.

‘I can’t remember the last time I was so comprehensively turned down for dinner by a woman.’

Heather squirmed, and wondered how she could temper her protests in case he thought that she was being offensive and ungrateful after all he had done for her. And she had to admit that the thought of having dinner with him was disconcerting but also exciting.

‘I’m not exactly dressed for dinner,’ she said, staring down at her workmanlike shoes and the thick black coat which did its job very efficiently but which also made her look a little like a ship in full sail.

‘No, you’re not,’ Theo agreed, ‘but I’m sure Henri won’t mind.’

‘Henri?’ So he agreed she looked a complete mess. Well, her success rate with the opposite sex had never been that sparkling. At least not when it came to the sexual side of things. She had grown up in the shadow of her beautiful sister and from an early age had resigned herself to the inevitability of always taking second place. Boys had been her best mates, but they had been enthralled by Claire. That was simply life, and she had never let it get her down.

Right now it was getting her down.

‘The proprietor at a little French bistro I go to quite often,’ Theo was explaining. ‘We go back a long way.’

‘Oh, yes? How’s that?’ She wondered whether she might be able to sneak into the bathroom at the ‘little French bistro’ and do something with her hair, somehow glue it into submission.

‘I helped him out a long time ago—financed him for the restaurant he wanted to open.’

‘I knew you had a soft side!’ Heather exclaimed impulsively, smiling at him.

Good Lord, Theo thought, the woman needed protecting from her own good nature!

‘It was a sensible business arrangement,’ Theo corrected, not much liking the image of him as having a soft side. If he had, he’d certainly never seen evidence of it, nor had any of those kings of finance who deferred to him the minute he opened his mouth. ‘To dispel the myth, I made money out of the deal.’

‘But I’m sure you would have invested in him even if you hadn’t thought that you were going to. I guess that’s what friendship’s all about, isn’t it?’

‘I really have not given it much thought,’ Theo said deflatingly. ‘We are here.’ He nodded as the car slowed down, and Heather glanced around to see that the little bistro was more of a chic restaurant—the sort of place that gathered trendy people who all sat around with glasses of white wine looking at everybody else.

She groaned aloud and shot him a frantic look.

‘I can’t go in there.’

‘Why not?’ Theo asked with a trace of irritation. He was beginning to wonder what demonic urge had impelled him into taking this dippy woman out. Yes, sure he was concerned by her ominous remarks about her future job—but, really, what business was it of his? Adults chose to do what they wanted to do with their lives. He decided right there and then that this would be his one truly good deed for the year.

‘Look at me!’ Heather squeaked, her face flushed with panic.

Theo looked. ‘No one will pay you the slightest bit of attention.’ That was the best he could do at consoling her without resort to outright lying.

‘Everyone is going to look!’ Heather contradicted in a high voice. ‘I mean, just look at the people in there.’ The wide goldfish-bowl-style restaurant offered an obliging view of a crowd of people smartly dressed and relaxing in an atmosphere of self-congratulation. They seemed to be making the statement that they were all beautiful, and thank goodness for that.

The car had now stopped and Theo’s chauffeur had smoothly moved round to the passenger door, which he was opening for her.

Next to Theo, Heather felt even more of an embarrassment. She raised imploring eyes to him and he shook his head impatiently.

‘You’re too self-conscious about your appearance.’

‘That’s all right for you to say,’ she informed him. ‘You happen to be blessed with amazing good looks.’

‘Do you always say what’s on your mind?’ Theo asked, a little taken aback by her blunt statement.

Heather ignored that. She was too busy hovering. He had to propel her through the door, and he might not notice a thing, but she certainly did. All those faces turned in their direction. The women sniggered, she was certain of it, before feasting their eyes on the man by her side.

The men shot her quick disparaging looks, and then they, too, looked at Theo, wondering whether they should recognise him. Heather felt worse than invisible. Indeed, invisible would have been a much more acceptable option. As it was, she stared down at the shiny wooden floor which made the most of highlighting her practical line in footwear.

‘We’re over there,’ Theo murmured, bending down. ‘Would you like me to lead you or are you prepared to look up and make your way to the table unaided?’

‘Very funny,’ Heather whispered back at him. ‘Do you notice how everyone’s staring at me, wondering what on earth I’m doing here?’

‘No one’s staring at you.’

‘Well, they were,’ Heather informed him, reaching her chair with deep relief and sinking into it.

‘Your mother has a lot to blame herself for in letting whatever complexes you have about your sister get out of hand.’ He picked up the menu on the table but gave it only a scant perusal, obviously knowing in advance what he intended to order.

Heather leaned forward and looked at him earnestly. ‘It wasn’t Mum’s fault that she happened to give birth to a swan and an ugly duckling.’

‘Point proved. Is she aware that you constantly make comparisons between yourself and your sister?’

‘Mum died seven years ago.’ She waited for the meaningless expressions of regret but none were forthcoming. Instead, Theo held her gaze thoughtfully before giving her a quick nod. ‘She was ill for about two years before she finally passed away. That’s why I never finished my education. I needed to get working.’

‘And what was your sister doing at the time?’

‘Claire was in London, doing an acting course and some waitressing.’

‘And you were left no assets that would have helped you with your own ambitions?’ Against his will, he was curious about the dynamics of her family. Without looking away from her, he ordered a bottle of wine and the fish of the day, which she ordered as well.

Heather flushed. ‘Claire needed what little there was far more than I did at the time. She promised that when she made it big she would pay me back—not that the money ever mattered. Mum was gone and I didn’t really care about dividing what she’d left us, which wasn’t very much anyway.’

‘And has she made it big?’ Theo asked casually, knowing what answer he would receive. Sure enough, it was no surprise to discover that dreams of stardom were languishing across the Atlantic. No surprise either to discover that the money had never managed to wing its way back to its original owner, who seemed stunningly content with the situation.

‘So you are happy to compare yourself unfavourably to someone whose only claim to fame apparently lies in her looks?’ Theo mused over a glass of wine.

‘She also happens to be a very warm person,’ Heather defended hotly. Mostly, she conceded to herself, when she was getting her own way. Her selfishness had always been a combination of infuriating and endearing. It had been hard to lose her temper with Claire, and the few times that she had she had met with a brick wall of plaintive incomprehension. ‘Anyway, I don’t compare myself to Claire. I just admire her looks. Don’t you have brothers you sometimes compare yourself to?’ It was such a ridiculous notion that she couldn’t help but grin. ‘No. I can’t picture you comparing yourself unfavourably to anybody. You’re way too self-confident for that. I guess you’d expect people to compare themselves to you.’

‘No siblings,’ Theo informed her flatly, his tone of voice warning her away from any further probing into his personal life, but Heather was gazing at him thoughtfully.

‘That’s very sad for you. I know that Claire doesn’t live here, but it’s just good knowing that she’s with me in spirit, so to speak. What about your parents? Where do they live? Over here? They must be very proud of you, what with you being so successful in your job…’

Women didn’t make a habit of probing into Theo’s personal life. In fact, women knew when to back off without having to be told. Something in his expression had always been very good at warning them about the boundaries he laid down. He wined them and dined them and treated them with extravagant gestures that were wildly out of most people’s orbit. In return he asked only for relationships without complications. His life was hectic enough without having to deal with demands from the opposite sex.

Heather didn’t appear to have the correct instincts warning her to drop the subject. In fact, she was looking at him with the keen enthusiasm of a puppy dog waiting for a treat.

Just as well she was of no interest to him sexually. Theo was convinced that if you fed women with too much personal information, it engendered illusions of permanence. They thought that they had somehow crawled under your skin and were therefore in the right position to stage a complete takeover.

Since this woman was not in the category of a fisherman trawling a net in the hope of netting the fish, he didn’t immediately succumb to the automatic instinct to shut down. Instead, he returned her gaze and shrugged.

‘My father died when I was a boy and my mother does not live over here. She lives in Greece.’

‘Which, of course, is where you’re from…’

Theo permitted himself a faint smile. ‘Why of course…?’

‘Oh, all those stereotypes of Greek men being tall, dark and handsome.’ Heather grinned at the bemused expression on his face. She was just teasing, but she wondered how many times in his life he had ever been teased. ‘Does your mother come and visit you often?’

‘You ask a lot of questions.’

Their food arrived and was placed in front of them; their glasses were refilled with wine which Heather felt quite free to drink considering she was now out of a job.

‘People have interesting stories. How else do you find out who they are if you don’t ask questions?’ Her appetite, which should have been sated after the sandwiches, stirred into life. Naturally she wasn’t going to guzzle the lot, but it wasn’t often that she found herself sitting in a restaurant of this calibre. Somehow it would have seemed rude to be dismissive of the food.

‘So does she?’ Heather persisted.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Your mother. Does she come over and visit?’

Theo shook his head in pure exasperation. ‘Occasionally,’ he finally conceded. ‘She visits my country house, and when she does I commute to London. She hates the city. In fact, she has never been here. There—satisfied?’

Heather nodded. For the moment, she wanted to say, before remembering that there would be no more moments, that in fact she was only here because he felt duty-bound to send her on her way with a bit more concern than he would probably otherwise have shown because he had effectively cost her her cleaning job. Which suddenly brought her back down to earth and the reality of losing an income, small though it was, which was necessary to her. She closed her knife and fork on the half-eaten plate of food and cupped her chin in one hand.

‘You’re finished?’ Theo asked in amazement.

Heather felt a little jab of hurt coil deep inside her. Through the shield of her naturally sunny disposition she suddenly had a bleak vision of an alternative reality. The reality that was coldly pointing out that while she had nurtured pleasant fantasies about this tall, aggressively handsome man, while she had always made sure to clean his floor when she knew that he was going to be around, he had never once glanced in her direction—would not have recognised her if she had landed opposite him on a desert island. And while she luxuriated in the thrill of being in his company now, unexpected as it was, the thrill was not mutual. To him she was nothing but an overweight woman whose company he was probably itching to get away from.

‘Did you think that I would carry on eating till I exploded?’ Heather said, far more sharply than she had intended. She softened her uncharacteristically sarcastic reply with a rueful smile. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking about what I shall do now that I no longer have a job to go to in the evenings.’

‘I can’t believe that you really have to hold down two jobs to survive. Surely you can cut back on one or two luxuries…make ends meet that way…?’

Heather laughed. Rich, warm laughter that had a few heads turning in her direction.

‘You don’t live in the real world, Mr Miquel…’

‘Theo…’

‘Well, you don’t. I don’t have any luxuries to cut back on. Friends come over for meals and we watch television and maybe drink a couple of bottles of wine on a Saturday night, and in summer we go on picnics in the park. I don’t do theatres or restaurants or even cinemas very often. Actually, I don’t have an awful lot of free time anyway, which is probably a good thing when it comes to balancing my finances…’ The look of horror on his face was growing by the second, but Heather was unfazed by that. Of course he wouldn’t understand the world she lived in. Why should he? She probably only had a vague inkling of his. ‘I prefer to save up for my course rather than blow money on clothes and entertainment.’

‘And I thought being young was all about being reckless,’ Theo drawled. With a spurt of surprise, he realised that he was having fun. Not quite the same fun that he normally had in the company of a woman, but he felt invigorated. Maybe his jaded palette needed novelty more often.

Heather lifted one shoulder dismissively. ‘Maybe it is, if you can support a reckless lifestyle. Anyway, I’m not a reckless kind of person.’

‘Then perhaps you should reconsider your job with this man…’

‘Tom?’ She looked at him in surprise. ‘What’s so reckless about working behind a bar a few nights every week? Just so long as I laugh a lot and chat to the punters, Tom will be more than happy with me.’

Theo looked down and did a rapid rethink on his original assumption, which seemed ridiculous now that he thought about it. ‘Long hours?’ was all he said, and she nodded.

‘Very long and very tiring, which was why I turned down his offer all those months ago. But needs must. There aren’t that many jobs a girl can do at night, and I can’t fit anything else into my days.’ She sighed. How helpful it would have been if Claire had been true to her word and sent back some of that money she had borrowed all that time ago. But it had been two months since she had spoken to her sister, and a lot longer since they had physically met up. It would be crazy when contact was so limited and precious, to start asking for her loan back.

‘Anyway, no point moaning about all of that.’ She smiled. ‘The food was delicious. Thank you. I’m glad I came.’

‘Even though you couldn’t bear the thought of everyone staring at you?’ He poured her another glass of wine, finishing the bottle, and wondered whether he should order another. If novelty had been what he was after, then he had certainly found it in this woman who was prepared to eat and drink without fear of the consequences. He also realised that it would be no hardship to prolong the evening a bit. After all, his current girlfriend was no longer around, and issues of work would wait until the morning, when he would return to his office to complete what he had started.

‘More wine?’ he asked, signalling to the waiter as he waited for her response.

Heather’s face felt flushed. In fact, she felt quite warm, and would have removed her jumper but for the fact that the old tee shirt she was wearing underneath was even more of an eyesore than the thick grey sweater she had hurriedly stuck on when she had left the house earlier in the evening.

‘Aren’t I keeping you from something?’ She looked at him earnestly.

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Don’t you have somewhere to go? A date or something?’

‘My date cancelled on me when I told her that I was running late.’

So that had been the urgent phone call which she had glimpsed out of the corner of her eye. Heather felt a rush of guilt and she reddened.

‘That’s awful!’ She half stood up but he waved her back down, nodding at the waiter to pour the wine he had ordered. ‘I can’t be the cause of a row between you and your girlfriend. I’m sorry.’

‘Sit back down,’ Theo ordered, amused at her attack of conscience. ‘You simply helped along the inevitable, if it’s any consolation. Sit! People will stare. You don’t want that, do you?’

Heather grudgingly took her seat, but her eyes were still anxiously focused on his face. ‘What do you mean?’ She gulped a mouthful of wine and then pushed the glass away from her.

‘I mean—’ he leant towards her ‘—I can see the group of people behind you, and they’re just waiting to see if you’re about to commit social suicide by causing a scene…’

‘That’s not what I meant!’

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘Oh!’ She pushed some flyaway hair out of her face. ‘Then what did you mean? About me helping along the inevitable? Were you going to dump her?’

‘Sooner or later.’ He sprawled back into his chair, folded his arms and stared at her transparently distraught face. Who would have imagined that the girl cleaning his office would have proved such a refreshing companion for the evening? He could hardly believe it himself.

‘Oh.’ Heather fell back on the single word. ‘Why would she break up with you just because you were running late?’ She frowned, puzzled. Yes, relationships could be transitory, but wasn’t that taking it too far? She herself had only been in one long-standing relationship and even when they had both reached the point of recognising that things weren’t going anywhere between them they had still taken many long evenings to finally cut the ties. ‘And why would you have dumped her sooner or later? Weren’t you serious about her?’

That, as far as Theo was concerned, was one question too far. He called for the bill and then leant forward, resting his elbows on the table.

‘I think we’ve reached the point where you’re asking about things that are none of your business.’

For a few charged moments Heather glimpsed the man everyone tiptoed around. The man with the steel hand in the velvet glove. She shrugged. ‘Okay. I apologise. Sometimes I talk too much.’

‘Sometimes you do,’ Theo agreed unsmilingly. He settled the bill and, eager to return their last snatches of conversation to a less tense footing, Heather smiled brightly.

‘I would offer to pay my way, but my finances…’

‘Can barely run to a cinema show. I know.’ He stood up and wondered again why such an ungainly girl would wear clothes that deliberately emphasised her girth.

Heather stood up quickly, too quickly, because suddenly the effects of having drunk too much of the very cold, very good white wine took their toll and she teetered slightly on her feet.

The ground had definitely felt more stable when she was sitting down.

And now she had to make her way across the even more crowded room.

‘That’s the problem with good wine,’ Theo said lazily. ‘Too easy to drink.’ He moved over to where she was standing in panicked indecision and slipped his arm around her waist.

That contact seemed to electrify every inch of her body. She was aware of the heated racing of her pulses and a deep, steady throb that began somewhere in the pit of her stomach and flooded outwards, obliterating every ounce of common sense in its path.

A vague girlish crush…one night talking, the briefest of touches that meant absolutely zero to him…and she felt her head spinning like a woman in love.

She barely heard him talking to her as he ushered her through the room and out towards the exit, pausing en route to exchange a few pleasantries with Henri, who had materialised out of thin air and found time for banter even though he clearly had plenty of work to do.

Lord, but she wanted to curve her body into his! Had she ever felt this way with Johnny? She couldn’t remember. She didn’t think so.

As soon as they were outside he released her, and she took a couple of steps back, just to recover from that giddy sensation. The cold air was good. As was the safe, comforting bulk of her coat, which he had somehow managed to get her into.

His chauffeur was parked a few metres up, but before he started walking her towards the car Heather looked at him and gave a watery smile.

‘I’ll be fine to make my way back from here,’ she said, enunciating every word very carefully. She stuck her hands firmly into the deep pockets of her coat and clenched her fists.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Where do you live?’

‘Honestly. I’m fine. You’ve done too much already.’ She was aware that there was just the smallest hint of her words being slurred. When he placed his hand on her elbow she knew that she would capitulate.

‘You’ve gone very quiet…’

‘I feel a bit wobbly…tired…’ As soon as she was in the car she rested her head back and closed her eyes. She was dimly aware of giving Theo her address, and the next time she opened her eyes it was to find that they had arrived at the house which she shared with four other girls, all of whom were out. For the first time she realised that she must be the only person under the age of twenty-five, single and in London, who wasn’t out doing something on a Friday night. Except she had done something!

He walked her to the door, took her bag from her when she couldn’t locate her keys and managed to find them. This after pulling out everything bar the kitchen sink from her voluminous sack. When he stepped inside the house Heather didn’t protest. Yes, he had done his duty, and he was keen to be off, but, no, she didn’t want him to leave. Not just yet. Not when she wouldn’t be seeing him again.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ Heather asked awkwardly.

‘How many of you share this place?’

‘Four.’ She hiccupped, and covered her mouth with her hand.

‘I think you probably need the coffee more than I do. Go and sit down and I’ll make you some.’

Well, Theo reasoned, his evening had gone wildly wrong starting from the moment he’d heard that crash outside his office, so why not wrap it up doing something he rarely did? Waiting on a woman who was the worse for wear and had probably collapsed into a snoring heap on her sofa?

Theo wasn’t a brutish male chauvinist. However, he had been spoilt by the attention lavished on him by members of the opposite sex. His looks, his charisma and his vast wealth had always been a powerful magnetic pull for women who heeded his slightest whim. He had never particularly had to put himself out. In fact, he couldn’t recall the last time he had taken care of a woman in the manner in which he was now taking care of the one who had fallen asleep beside him in the car when he had been in the middle of a sentence.

He made his way to the back of the house, observing the chaos in which four people apparently lived with no pressing desire to tidy up behind themselves. The kitchen sported the detritus of breakfast eaten on the run and not cleared away. Jumpers were slung in odd places and shoes were randomly scattered. On the window ledge a row of cards suggested a birthday had come and gone.

Coffee made, he reached the sitting room to find that Heather had fallen asleep. She had stripped off her jumper and was sprawled on the sofa with one arm raised, half covering her face and dipping over the arm of the chair.

She had kicked off her shoes, revealing thick grey socks.

Theo stood for a few seconds, drawing in a sharp breath, because the shapeless figure wasn’t quite as shapeless as he had imagined. Her breasts were big, succulently generous, but there was proportion to her body and the sliver of skin he glimpsed where the tee shirt rose up was surprisingly firm.

He rubbed his eyes to dispel the uneasy sensation of staring at her, and the even more uneasy suspicion that he would have liked to move closer so that he could appreciate those curves a bit more.

Without waking her up, he deposited the coffee on the table by the sofa and, after a few seconds’ hesitation, pulled out his pen and hunted around for some paper. He wasn’t going to wake her, but walking away without saying goodbye somehow felt wrong. So he jotted down a couple of lines, wishing her luck in getting a new job, then he left, resisting the terrible urge to look back over his shoulder at her softly breathing body.

Once outside, he laughed at the insanity that had possessed him for a few fleeting seconds. He had looked at her and had been turned on! He almost called Claudia, knowing that some sweet talk would have her running back into his arms, but instead he switched off his mobile phone and forced his highly disciplined brain to concentrate on the work he had had to defer to the following morning.

Heather, surfacing the next day to the sounds of one of her room-mates clattering about in the kitchen, had a few seconds of blissful oblivion during which she imagined the sounds to be Theo, making her that cup of coffee.

The cup of coffee lying cold on the table by her. Next to a note which she now read. It said nothing at all. A few polite words scribbled down before he left the house, doubtless relieved that there was no need for him to continue the charade of entertaining her.

Heather sat up and buried her head in her hands. He hadn’t woken her up! She had fallen asleep and lost her opportunity to spend a few more minutes in his company.

The sun seemed to have gone out of her life. It was only when, after a week, one of her friends in the house mentioned it that Heather gave herself a stiff lecture. Moping around over a man she had known for roughly three hours was insane.

‘Am I insane?’ she asked her reflection. ‘No. Because you know,’ she added, wagging her finger censoriously at herself, ‘only a complete loony would lose sleep over a man like Theo!’

She pulled herself together and accepted the job at Tom’s pub. It was, as she had predicted, hard work but sociable, and was suited to her temperament. The hours might have been longer, and her exhaustion levels might have been higher, but she was at least eating regularly, and she took Fridays off. Theo’s remark about being young and enjoying life had stuck in her head.

Not, even after six weeks, that any of those fun-packed Friday evenings with her friends could compare to that one night that had sprung from nothing and disappeared before she could hold onto it.

And his image kept slipping into her head. She couldn’t seem to help it. One minute she would be laughing at something and the next minute there he was, released from the restraints she kept trying to put on him. She went to bed with him at night and woke up to him the following morning, and she just couldn’t help it. It was involuntary. The man haunted her.

Of course it would end. Time had a wonderful way of healing, and she cheerfully resigned herself to due process. She was so resigned, in fact, that when, two months after she had last laid eyes on him, she picked up her telephone to hear his voice on the other end, she almost didn’t recognise it.

Then she sat down, flapping her arm madly so that Beth would turn the television down, which she did, making sure she remained where she was to overhear the conversation. Heather could feel her heart start racing. He had managed to get her name from the firm of cleaners she had worked for, apparently. Heather assumed his influence must have unlocked her personnel file, since its contents were confidential. Not that she cared. She just wanted him to tell her why he had called.

‘I have a proposition to put to you,’ he finally said, when pleasantries had been exhausted.

‘Really?’ She tried to keep the stomach-turning curiosity out of her voice.

‘My housekeeper has gone. Her sister in Scotland has fallen ill and needs looking after. The job has become vacant and I thought of you.’ He briefly explained what it entailed. It could even, he informed her, be a live-in post. His apartment had a separate wing and he was rarely there anyway. He preferred to spend as many of his free weekends as he could in the country. He told her how much she would be earning and the figure made her gasp. It was far and away more than she was currently earning with both her jobs combined. She would be able to save and, if she decided to live in, would be able to afford her course within months, instead of the tortuous years she had anticipated.

Not that financial considerations played much of a part in her decision.

‘I accept,’ she told him promptly, making him smile at the other end of the line. ‘Just tell me when you want me to start…’

CHAPTER THREE

‘SO,’ BETH said sternly, ‘what happens next?’

Eighteen months on and they were sitting in the usual place they met, an all-day French wine bar and restaurant which never seemed particularly bothered about serving cappuccinos to people who had zero intention of eating but would still manage to occupy valuable seats for hours at a stretch.

Heather bit her lower lip nervously, because she knew exactly what was coming. She managed to buy herself a few seconds of thinking time by taking a sip of her coffee, but the question was still there when she met her friend’s concerned, probing brown eyes.

‘What do you mean?’ she dodged unsuccessfully.

To start with Beth had been overjoyed at her friend’s sudden run of good luck. To be asked to do something as undemanding as looking after a house that would be very clean most of the time anyway, considering its owner wasn’t often there, at a salary that was way over the going rate, sure beat the hell out of working in Tom’s rowdy pub till all hours of the morning. Giving up the assistant teaching job would be a wrench, but, heck, she would be able to complete her course and then get started on the career ladder.

As far as Beth was concerned, a woman was defined by her career. She herself had wanted to be a lawyer from the age of five, if she was to be believed, and had got on with turning her dream into reality without ever deviating from her route.

Heather deeply admired her friend’s ambitious streak. So much so that she had tried very hard in the beginning not to let on that her real reason for accepting Theo’s generous offer was her own inarticulated need to be near him. But, not being secretive by nature, she had soon lapsed into easy confidences, and ever since had had to endure her friend’s occasionally withering remarks about being used.

‘I mean,’ Beth said, leaning forward with the concerned frown of one friend trying to impart to another friend what should have been self-evident, ‘now that your course has finished, are you going to move out and get a job with that publishing company? The one you sent your application off to? You did send that application off, didn’t you?’

Heather wilted in the face of this direct line of questioning and mumbled something about needing to add a few finishing touches to it. In truth, the envelope had been lying in her bag for a fortnight while she fought off the sickening prospect of leaving behind a situation that was going nowhere but happened to be working very nicely for her.

While she continued to fan the flames of her infatuation, Theo was as far removed from being interested in her sexually as he ever had been. Theirs was an evolving situation. She had evolved into emotional dependency and he had evolved into having the perfect housekeeper. Indeed, her housekeeping duties were now virtually non-existent. She did some light cleaning, mostly in her own wing, some even lighter cooking to accommodate him when he happened to be in for supper, but mostly she had become a curious mixture of out-of-hours secretary and general do-it-all.

He talked to her about work issues, no longer reminding her that everything he told her was always in the strictest confidence. She’d used to laugh at his frowning secrecy, gently informing him that she personally didn’t know a single person who would have been remotely interested in offshore deals involving companies they had never heard of. He would watch her as she pottered around his kitchen, chatting about her friends and what they got up to.

He found her relaxing and amusing and, more importantly, undemanding. Unlike the women he continued to wine and dine, she showed none of the clinginess that some of them displayed, and she had never nurtured ambitions beyond her reach. In his eyes, they had the perfect relationship. He paid her handsomely, and had increased her already generous salary every three months in direct proportion to the level of duties she took on. In return she helped him in ways far beyond what he would have expected his own secretary at work to do.

She never minded running through e-mails with him, or typing up letters that had to be done late at night after he had left the office. Nor did she balk at buying expensive jewellery for girlfriends, or even ordering the customary bunch of red roses he would have delivered when a relationship was nearing the end of its natural life span.

On a couple of occasions, when he had been out of the country and way too busy to shop, she had even purchased gifts for his mother, which she’d had couriered over to Greece. She could be relied upon to choose just the right thing. He should know. He had seen the reactions of the recipients.

There was nothing Beth could tell her that Heather didn’t already know. This time, though, it was different. She had finished her illustration course and had come top of her class. She no longer needed to save madly. In fact Theo’s generous salary, and the fact that she paid no rent—at his insistence—meant that she had managed to foot the bill for the course, buy all her coursework material, even take herself off on various excursions to exhibitions of interest, and still have money in the bank. Not enough to put down for buying her own place, but more than enough to rent somewhere on her own.

Every word Beth was telling her now made sense. Confronted by too much of the truth to be palatable, Heather took refuge in vague answers.

‘I actually know of an apartment…’ Beth casually announced, glancing at her watch because her lunch hour had extended well beyond its time limit. ‘It’s in my block. It’s not as big as mine, just the one bedroom, but you’ll love it, and you wouldn’t have someone knocking on your door in the late hours of the night, expecting you to fling on a dressing gown and follow him so that you can transcribe some letter that he could easily get his secretary to do the next day…’

But I never mind doing that, Heather wanted to say. She knew better, though. So she nodded distantly and tried to look enthusiastic. ‘I could have a look…’ she compromised.

Beth took that for a definite yes and stood up and reached for her briefcase. ‘Good. Let me know when you’re free and I’ll sort out an appointment for you. But I’m telling you now that you won’t be able to sit around and think about things, because it’ll be snapped up in no time at all.’ As if aware of the preaching tone of her voice, she grinned sheepishly and gave Heather a friendly hug. ‘I care about you,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘And I hate to think of you languishing in that man’s house, desperately waiting for him to notice you while you busy yourself doing his dirty errands.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Of course you do!’ Beth cut short the protest briskly. Heather, she had decided long ago, had an amazing knack for justifying Theo’s bad behaviour and her responses to it. She had met him a few times in the past and knew, realistically, that hell would freeze over before he looked at Heather in any way aside from that of one lucky employer who had a doting employee at his beck and call. He liked his women tall, thin and vacant. Heather resoundingly didn’t fit into any of those categories, and as far as Beth was concerned she let herself down by feeding the illusion that one day he might see her with different eyes.

‘I’m off now, darling. You take care—and phone me. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Heather agreed readily, not quite dismissing the option of moving out, but not giving it much importance either.

Fate had brought her together with Theo, in a manner of speaking, and fate wasn’t quite ready to take her away.

But the application in her handbag, the possibility of a flat and Beth’s stern little talk did have her thinking as she made her way back to Theo’s place.

On the way back she stopped off and bought a few things from the delicatessen at the corner—things she knew he would like. He would be away for the weekend, but tonight he would be in. She would make him some spaghetti Bolognese, to which he was very partial.

As she approached the apartment block she tried not to think of his weekend activities. He was seeing yet another of his impossibly beautiful brunettes. This one was called Venetia, and she suited the name. She was almost as tall as he was in heels, only wore designer clothes, and on the one occasion she had met Heather had treated her with the slightly disdainful superiority of someone very beautiful in the presence of a troll.

That Heather was jealous was something she would never have revealed to Theo.

But, on top of everything else, it filtered into her system now like poison.

It was no longer enough to content herself with the silly delusion that enjoying him was enough. Yes, she found him endlessly fascinating, with his endearing arrogance, his sharp wit and his moments of real thoughtfulness. But was it really enough?

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