‘Presumably he wasn’t referring to your appearance.’ Polly gave an innocent smile. ‘Or maybe he just has a thing for flamingos. I’ll get dressed and meet you in the living room. I need to make some calls before we leave. And for goodness’ sake get changed into something more rigid and formal. I’m not taking you to Paris wearing those jeans.’ Without giving him the chance to reply, she escaped into the bathroom and bolted the door.
‘This is the wrong hotel. I booked myself somewhere cheap and miserable.’ Prepared for something seedy, Polly blinked at the glamour and elegance of the luxurious hotel foyer. After seeing the inside of Damon’s private jet she’d thought that nothing could ever impress her again. Evidently she’d been wrong. ‘Unless the place has had a major upgrade in the past twenty-four hours, this definitely isn’t the place I chose.’ Light shafted off gold, marble and glass and every person who glided through the revolving doors looked like a multi-millionaire. A sense of inferiority nibbled the edges of her confidence and she stood up a little straighter and tried to look as if she belonged.
No matter how many times she told herself that she deserved to be here she still felt like a fake. It depressed her that she could still feel that way.
The moment Damon set foot in the exclusive hotel there was a subtle shift in the atmosphere. Heads turned, staff straightened uniforms and descended on him with just the right degree of discretion and deference. Smiles were plentiful. Nothing was too much trouble.
Accustomed to staying in cheap hotels, checking in with grumpy, overworked staff and hauling her ancient suitcase up endless stairs only to find herself in an airless room with a window overlooking a grim car park, Polly was fascinated by the contrast.
The staff were attentive to the point of smothering. Damon’s presence had an electrifying effect on those around him. He barely acknowledged them, accepting the fawning attention with the same arrogant assurance he displayed in every other part of his life.
This was his normal.
‘I can’t afford to stay here.’ Seriously worried, Polly was mentally running through the budget. ‘I could never charge this to the client.’
‘I think we both know that finances aren’t your strong point. From now on you can leave that side of the business to me. You just concentrate on the creative side, which apparently is your forte.’ Leaving his security team to sort out the details with the hotel staff, Damon strode through the foyer. ‘I’ve booked out a floor for us.’
A floor? ‘Could you slow down? Just wait a minute.’ Worried that her ‘creative side’ might have gone on vacation, Polly jogged to keep up with him as he strode towards a bank of elevators. ‘I can’t ignore the finances. I have to think about it.’
‘You’re the one who mentioned teamwork. This is teamwork. We each do the bit we do best. For you, that’s scribbling in your pink notebook. Leave the money to me.’
‘Yes, but—’ Her phone buzzed and she paused outside the elevator. ‘Wait a minute. I need to answer this … Bonjour, Gérard, ça va? Oui … d’accord …’ When she finally finished her call, Damon was standing inside the elevator, watching her through those thick, dusky lashes that tipped his looks from handsome to spectacular.
Her heart skittered and bumped as she joined him. ‘Sorry about that, but I couldn’t exactly put a VP of marketing on hold.’
‘I didn’t expect you to put him on hold. I also didn’t expect you to speak French.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me. I have hidden talents.’
‘So I’m discovering.’ That disturbingly acute gaze didn’t shift from her face. ‘You haven’t stopped e-mailing and talking to people since you woke up. When did you learn to speak French?’
‘We had a seriously hot French master at school. It was the only lesson we were all awake in—’ Remembering too late that mentioning school probably wasn’t a good idea, Polly flushed. ‘Just kidding. I promised myself that if a gorgeous Frenchman ever whispered sweet nothings in my ear I wanted to be able to understand him.’
‘If he’s whispering nothing it would probably be better not to understand him,’ Damon said dryly and his words made her laugh.
Then she realised she was laughing and stopped instantly. But the connection remained. A connection she didn’t want or need and yet still it sucked her in, driving her heartbeat faster. The sudden darkening of his beautiful eyes told her he felt it too and rejected the unwanted chemistry as completely as she did. Perversely, that rejection didn’t hurt as much as aggravate. Her emotions spun and suddenly she wanted to press her mouth to his and kiss away the sarcasm and cynicism that flowed from him.
The impulse was so alien to her that if she’d been in possession of a thermometer she would have taken her own temperature. Was she ill?
Alarmed by her own thoughts, Polly was relieved when they reached the palatial suite.
‘C’est magnifique.’ Grateful for the size of it, she walked the length of the spacious living room and out thought the open glass doors to the roof terrace. The fresh air brushed away the claustrophobic cloud that had smothered her in the confines of the lift. That crazy impulse to kiss him faded and she breathed a sigh of relief as she stared over the rooftops of Paris. Enjoying the moment of relative calm, she tensed as she heard his footsteps behind her.
‘Where would your father stay?’
‘He’d stay somewhere no one would think to look for him. That’s the sort of guy he is.’ Thinking wistfully that it would be nice to enjoy the luxury of the hotel and the romance of Paris without having to think about work or her father, Polly turned from her contemplation of the city. ‘This isn’t just about my father, you know. It’s also about your sister. She hasn’t been on the phone to you, has she? That sort of implies that she doesn’t want to be found.’
‘She’s very impulsive and easily led.’
Polly clenched her jaw. ‘If you’re still going on about that episode at school, can I remind you that I was fourteen? That was ten years ago. She’s an adult now.’
‘She doesn’t behave like an adult. She doesn’t always make good decisions.’
‘Isn’t that part of growing up? You have to make some bad decisions in order to discover they’re bad.’ Polly attributed the sudden warm flush on her skin to the hot French sun shining down on the terrace. ‘Didn’t you ever make a bad decision? Or were you born doing the right thing? I suppose life just fell into place for you.’
The fruits of that success were all around him. Not just in this hotel and the private jet that had transported them to Paris in such luxury, but in his lifestyle. He owned an island in Greece, didn’t he? A penthouse in New York and a ski chalet in Switzerland. People fell over themselves to befriend Damon Doukakis and his sister. They walked through life without hindrance, doors swinging open to welcome them.
‘You think I was born into this? You think I had it handed to me?’ His voice held a raw, rough edge that increased her tension. ‘My father worked for an engineering company. A badly managed engineering company. When he was made redundant, he was so ashamed that he’d let his family down that every morning he kissed my mother goodbye and left to go to work. Only instead of going to work he used to sit in the library and hunt for jobs. But there weren’t any.’