He dragged Anatolios to the door of the suite and said blisteringly, ‘If I find out that you were the instigator of this incident you can kiss goodbye to working for Levakis Enterprises once and for all.’
And with that he threw his brother out of the suite and faced back to the bedroom, thinking to himself, If, on the other hand, I find out it was Lucy… His brain seized.
She appeared at the bedroom door. She looked unsteady on her feet, one shoe on, one shoe off. Her dark hair was tumbled in glorious profusion around her milky pale bare shoulders, the curve of her breasts outlined by the top of her strapless dress. As if seeing the direction of his gaze, she put her hands there and hitched the dress up. He noticed they were shaking, and yet he couldn’t give in to his overwhelming instinct which was to go to her, to take her into his arms. He couldn’t—because she might very well have just tried to betray him in the most heinous way.
He suddenly thought of the way he’d seen her earlier, backed into a corner talking to Anatolios as intimately as if they’d been lovers. And thought too of all the distant warning bells he’d ignored in his pursuit of her. The fact that work had taken second place, especially at such an important time, was starkly clear now.
Lucy sucked in a sharp breath. Ari clearly wasn’t leaping to see if she was all right as he stood there, all but glowering at her. The fact that he believed she might have led Anatolios up here with a view to giving him or showing him the documents was screamingly obvious. Her hand gripped onto the doorframe as sheer hurt at his fundamental lack of trust nearly floored her.
He moved suddenly, and she flinched, but he just went over to the drinks board and poured a measure of what looked like whisky into a shot glass and brought it over to her.
‘Here—drink this.’
She looked up as she took the glass. ‘Ari, please let me—’
‘I don’t want to hear it. Not right now anyway.’
And he stepped past her and into the room, where she looked back to see him pick up the papers and put them in the safe.
Feeling numb, Lucy bent to take off her one shoe and went into the sitting room to sit down. She took a sip of the liquid, wincing as it burnt its way down her throat.
Ari came back out and stood with arms folded, all but towering over her. She refused to cower back into the chair, and put the glass down jerkily on the table beside her.
‘Ari—’
‘Did he see the papers? Does he know about Parnassus?’
‘Of course not. How can you think that?’
‘Because tonight is the second time I’ve seen you deep in conversation with my brother, and now, the night before the biggest merger in Greek history is announced, he happens to be conveniently in the same room as you when you’re putting the papers in the safe.’ His mouth thinned. ‘Although obviously you both got distracted—’
Lucy stood, quivering from head to toe. ‘Stop that
right now. That’s not how it happened. He followed me up here and got in somehow. He must have got a key from someone on the staff. Before I knew it he was…’ She shuddered convulsively as she remembered the instant panic at feeling him crowding her, all over her.
Lucy stopped talking and looked into those devastating and yet icy green eyes, that harsh face. Her words might as well have been addressed to a marble statue. He was so remote, so untouchable. And something slammed into her consciousness. It was cold and stark reality. Despite his cool behaviour that last morning on Paros, had she really fooled herself for a second into believing that something amazing had happened between them? That against all the odds they’d gained some sort of mutual trust and respect? She was just the secretary and he was her boss…She gasped audibly as it became even more clear, her hand going to her chest as if to stop the lancing pain. But it didn’t.
Even Ari frowned. ‘What is it?’
Lucy figured dimly that all the colour must have drained from her face. She felt icy cold all of a sudden, and tried to formulate words through numb lips. ‘That’s why you appeared—you didn’t even trust me to come up here and do this. You suspected something all along.’
She watched as his face flushed a dark red, and found herself sinking back down onto the chair.
‘All this time you’ve thought that I might do something like this.’ She shook her head and looked up, pain shattering her insides as she had to ask, ‘Is that why you slept with me? Because you thought it might be easier to control me?’
His lack of response and that stony visage was confirmation enough. As if watching a movie in slow motion, Lucy went all the way back to when she’d tried to resign and Ari had told her she couldn’t. It must have been then. He must have decided at that point that she might be a liability and planning some kind of revenge.
She somehow found the strength to stand again. She felt even clammier now. She’d always known what Ari was, the kind of man he was, but somehow in the past few weeks she’d let herself forget it.
He put out a hand towards her but Lucy flinched back, moving behind the chair,
‘Lucy—’
‘No. I don’t want to hear it. I know it’s over. It’s all over. That’s the only reason you slept with me. I’ve been really—’ She stopped and bit her lip before she could say stupid. She lifted dead eyes to his. ‘Blood really is thicker than water, isn’t it?’ She smiled a small harsh smile. ‘Perhaps this is a step forward in fostering a new regard for your half-brother?’
Her smile faded. ‘Anatolios doesn’t know about the merger. It happened exactly the way I said it did. The reason I passed off the conversation earlier as nothing was because he was beginning to suspect something and asked me about it. I didn’t tell you because I figured he’d never find out before the morning and you didn’t need the hassle.’
She hitched up her chin. ‘I intend to resign once the press conference is over, I can’t see why you wouldn’t agree to that now.’ She smiled with brittle brightness. ‘After all, I can’t imagine you want to be faced with an assistant you had to sleep with for business every day.’