‘Good afternoon, Petra. Mr Kuznetskov.’ She blushed prettily. ‘Eleanore said to leave these on your desk.’
‘Is she at the hotel?’
Zoe’s eyes widened and he told himself to tone it down. ‘No, Greg and some of the guys took her to a couple of bars,’ she informed him enthusiastically. Then she offered him the drawings in her hand. ‘You should see these. They’re the images Eleanore created of the arched walkway that links the hotel with the group of individual chalets the guests use as warm rooms. It makes the whole design interconnected like a smaller snowflake clinging to a larger one. It seems like an obvious thing to do in hindsight, but I never would have thought of it.’
Lukas frowned. They said a man’s IQ halved when he thought with his penis. His, it seemed, fell even more. ‘Bars? Which bars?’
* * *
‘Good to see you’ve got time to relax at a bar when there is only two weeks left until opening night.’
Just about to knock the number ten billiard ball into the upper right-hand pocket Eleanore straightened and flung her head around so sharply at the sound of Lukas’s voice the ends of her smooth ponytail whipped around and slapped her in the face. ‘Lukas!’
She glanced at him warily. She hadn’t seen him all week, not since he’d kissed her in his office, and she still hadn’t reconciled the woman who had fallen into his arms like a ripe melon with the woman she thought herself to be. Someone who was independent and ambitious and just a little afraid of what would happen if she fell for a man and he didn’t fall for her right back.
Not that she’d fallen for Lukas Kuznetskov or anything. She was far too sensible for that but still... She was annoyed when during the week she had caught herself listening for the sound of his footsteps in the hallway and periodically glancing at her doorway only to find that no, he wasn’t loitering there watching her.
‘Privet, Lukas.’ Greg came around the table to greet him, keeping a respectful distance between them as if acknowledging that Lukas was the alpha in the room.
Greg said something to him in Russian and Eleanore knew it was about her because Lukas’s eyes narrowed in on her.
‘It seems you’re a pool shark, Miss Harrington.’
‘The things you learn at university,’ she said, attempting lightness.
‘How to play truant being one of them.’ It wasn’t a friendly comment and Eleanore frowned.
His earlier words about relaxing came back to her and her good mood faded. Apart from her insidious attraction for him she thought everything was going okay.
‘I’m not slacking off,’ she said, annoyed that she felt the need to defend herself. ‘This is work.’
‘Bar hopping and playing pool is work?’ His eyebrows rose in mock surprise. ‘You have a better job than I do.’
She noticed Mikhail, the sculptor, and Dominic, the electrician, had also come around the table and were listening. ‘Mikhail is going to sculpt a billiard table to go into the smaller second bar and Dominic has been showing me different lighting options. So yes, we’re working.’
‘Really?’ His mouth curled with derision as he took in the row of empty shot glasses lining the shelf along the wall. ‘From what I can see it looks more like you’re working on improving your drinking capacity.’
The heavy silence that fell over their small group was palpable.
‘Yes.’ Eleanore smiled, furious that he should question her like this in front of the others. She’d worked hard to gain the respect of these hard-living workmen who were unused to dealing with a woman on-site and to have Lukas come across all patriarchal made her blood boil. ‘And I do believe it was your suggestion that Russia was the best place for me to earn my stripes,’ she reminded him with enough sugar to fell a wedding cake.
The men threw her a curious glance because they all knew she hadn’t touched one of the vodka shots they had ordered. ‘Besides,’ she added quickly before one of them took it upon himself to correct her, ‘I wasn’t aware that I had to account for my time twenty-four hours a day.’
‘You do if it impacts the opening of my ice hotel,’ he said grimly.
Right now she wanted to tell him to shove his ice hotel. ‘Lucky this doesn’t.’
She noticed a muscle work in his jaw and was pleased she had irritated him because he was certainly irritating her!
‘Tell me,’ he grated silkily, ‘was your sister pleased to find out that Harrington’s name will be on the front of the hotel?’