Doukakis's Apprentice

‘Do you think you could do it now? When I get back to the office I want to be able to gather the team together and give them a morale-boosting talk. I thought after last night you’d find it impossible to justify doing something so mean as letting anyone go.’

‘After last night?’ He repeated her words, shocked by the raw emotion that rushed through him. ‘You think the fact that we had sex will affect my business decisions?’

Her jaw dropped. ‘I was talking about the meeting with Gérard.’

Of course. The meeting. Damon pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, realising that he was in serious trouble. ‘We are having two different conversations here.’

‘I think we must be.’ She looked genuinely astonished. ‘I’m having a conversation about the staff. I can’t concentrate on anything or enjoy my work when I’m watching my back and worrying about job losses. I just want that sorted. What are you having a conversation about?’

His eyes dropped to her mouth and his body tightened as he remembered how she tasted. The fact that she was thinking about her staff and not the night they’d spent threw him. Normally after a night of steamy sex women wanted to know what was going to happen next. They went into full planning mode. Polly appeared to have skipped that ritual and was just making the assumption that they were already a couple.

‘You’re very chirpy for someone who had virtually no sleep,’ he said cautiously. ‘I thought you weren’t a morning person.’

‘I didn’t think I was either.’ She leaned forward and changed a figure on the spreadsheet. ‘But apparently a night of crazy sex does wonders to wake me up. I wish I’d known sooner. I would have done it years ago. It’s probably better for you than strong coffee.’

Digesting the implication of those words, Damon breathed deeply. ‘So it was your first time.’ Her confession intensified the suffocating feeling that had begun from the moment he’d woken up. ‘Polly—’

‘It’s hard for me to work out how to staff this account until I know what your plans are.’

‘Theé mou, will you stop talking about work?’

Startled, she looked up at him. ‘Sorry, but this account is really important. It’s worth loads to the company …’ Her voice trailed off as she looked at his face. ‘You’re behaving really weirdly, if you don’t mind me saying. Just a couple of days ago you were telling me to take my lazy self and do some work and now you’re telling me to stop thinking about work. It’s very confusing.’

She couldn’t possibly be more confused than him. ‘I was wrong to say that. I was wrong about you,’ Damon breathed. ‘I’ve already apologised, but I apologise again.’

‘Well, I was pretty wrong about you, too. I thought you were a demented workaholic with an unhealthy focus on the bottom line. But right now, when I really need you to talk about work, you seem incapable of focusing. It’s very frustrating.’

‘Why were you a virgin?’

‘What sort of a question is that?!’ Her face turned scarlet. ‘Because no man ever wanted to take me to bed before, I suppose. Thanks for pointing that out. And now can we end this conversation? I don’t know much about morning-after etiquette but I’m pretty sure that embarrassing your partner isn’t on the list.’

‘You were excluded from school at fourteen because you had three boys in your room,’ he said thickly. ‘So we both know you’re not some blushing innocent.’ The error in his thinking blazed in front of his eyes. She might not have been blushing, but she had been innocent. He’d suspected it at the time but he’d been too carried away by the whole erotic experience to act on that suspicion. ‘What the hell transformed you from vamp to virgin?’

‘I never said I was a vamp. You made that assumption. Along with a few others.’

‘I made that assumption based on the evidence.’

‘Mmm. Good job you’re not a lawyer.’ She gave a tiny shrug and fiddled with her pen. ‘So—Arianna obviously never talked to you about that episode?’

The tension was like a layer of steel in his back. ‘I didn’t ask for details. I decided it was safer to put the whole thing behind us.’

‘Right. Probably wise.’

Exasperation rose in him. ‘I remember that day very clearly and you didn’t make a single excuse. You just stood there with a defiant look on your face and let them throw you out of the school. Permanently. Not once did you defend yourself or try and stop it happening.’

‘I didn’t want to stop it happening.’

Far beneath them the sound of horns blared as the impatient French negotiated the Paris traffic but Damon was oblivious. ‘You wanted to be excluded?’

‘Yes. That was the plan.’

‘Plan?’ He breathed slowly. ‘You’re telling me that you engineered the whole thing so that you’d be asked to leave the school? Why would you want that?’

‘Because I was being bullied. Badly bullied.’ Her tone was matter-of-fact. ‘I tried other ways to sort it out but none of them worked. So I decided I had to leave the school.’

‘You decided—?’ Digesting the implications of the statement, Damon struggled to focus. ‘And your father didn’t have anything to say about that?’

‘I didn’t ask him. It was my problem. I sorted it.’