Kitabı oku: «One Night with a Gorgeous Greek»

CHAPTER ONE

‘HE’S here. He’s arrived. Damon Doukakis just strode into the building.’

Woken by the panicky voice, Polly lifted her head from her arms and was blinded by sunlight pouring through the window. ‘What? Who?’ The words were slurred, her brain emerging slowly from the shadows of sleep. The headache that had been part of her life for the past week still squeezed her skull. ‘I must have dozed off. Why didn’t anyone wake me?’

‘Because you haven’t slept for days and you’re scary when you’re tired. There’s no need to panic. I’m doing that for both of us. Here—I brought sustenance.’ Balancing two mugs of and a large muffin, the woman kicked the door shut. ‘Wake yourself up with carbs and coffee.’

Polly rubbed her eyes and squinted at the screen of her laptop. ‘What time is it?’

‘Eight o’clock.’

‘Eight o’clock?’ She flew to her feet, sending papers and pens spinning across the floor. ‘The meeting is in fifteen minutes! Were you hoping I’d just walk in there and talk in my sleep or something?’ Polly hit ‘save’ on the document she’d been working on all night, her hand shaking from the sudden awakening. Her heart pounded and deep in her stomach was a solid lump of dread.

Sleeping didn’t make any of it go away and reality pressed down on her like a heavy weight.

Everything was about to change. Life as she knew it had ended.

‘Stay calm,’ Debbie swooped across the office and put the plate and the mugs on the desk. ‘If you show him you’re afraid, he’ll walk all over you. That’s what men like Damon Doukakis do. They sniff out weakness and they move in for the kill.’

‘I’m not afraid.’ The lie wedged itself in her throat.

She was afraid. She was afraid of the responsibility and of the consequences of failure. And, yes, she was afraid of Damon Doukakis.

Only a fool wouldn’t be.

‘You’re going to be fine. I mean, we’re all depending on you, obviously, but I don’t want the fact that you have the future of a hundred people in your hands to make you nervous.’

‘Thanks for that calming thought.’ Polly allowed herself a quick gulp of coffee and then checked her BlackBerry. ‘I’ve only been asleep for two hours and I already have a hundred e-mails. Don’t these people ever sleep?’ She scrolled through them quickly, scanning for anything important. ‘Gérard Bonnel wants us to move our meeting tomorrow back to the evening. Can I get a later flight to Paris?’

‘You’re not flying. The train was cheaper. I bought you a non-flexible ticket on the seven-thirty out of St Pancras. If he’s moved the meeting then you’ll have most of the day to kill.’ Debbie leaned forward and stole a large chunk from the muffin. ‘Go and see the Eiffel Towel. Make love to a delicious French guy on the banks of the Seine. Ooh la la.’

In the process of replying to an e-mail, Polly didn’t look up. ‘Public sex is an offence, even in France.’

‘Nowhere near as big an offence as your non-existent sexlife. When did you last go on a date?’

‘I have enough problems without adding a sex-life to the mix.’ Polly pressed ‘send’. ‘Did you sort out a purchase order for that magazine promotion?’

‘Yes, yes. Do you ever stop thinking about work? The fearsome Damon Doukakis just might have met his match in you.’

‘The rest of these e-mails are going to have to wait.’ Polly put the phone down on her desk and glanced at the clock. ‘Damn—I wanted to take another look at the presentation. I need to brush my hair—I don’t know what to do first—’

‘Hair. You slept with your head on your arms and you look like Mohican Barbie.’ Debbie whipped a pair of hair straightners out of Polly’s drawer and plugged them in. ‘Hold still. This is an emergency.’

‘I need to go to the bathroom and do my make-up.’

‘No time. Don’t worry. You look great. I love that look. You’re so good at mixing vintage with current.’ Debbie slid the irons down Polly’s hair. ‘The hot pink tights really work.’

Keeping her head still, Polly reached out and unplugged her laptop. ‘I can’t believe my dad still hasn’t rung. His company is being decimated and he’s nowhere in sight. I’ve left about a hundred messages.’

‘You know he never switches his mobile on. He hates the thing. There—’ Debbie unplugged the irons ‘—you’re done.’

Polly twisted her hair and pinned it in a haphazard knot at the back of her head. ‘I even called a few of the London hotels last night to see if a middle-aged gentleman and a young woman had rented a suite with them.’

‘That must have been embarrassing.’

‘I grew up with embarrassing.’ She retrieved her boots from under the desk. ‘Damon Doukakis is going to rip us apart when he realises my father isn’t showing up.’

‘The rest of us will make up for it. The whole company came in early. We’re all busy bees. If Doukakis is looking for slackers, he’s not going to find them here. We’re determined to make a good impression despite your father’s absence.’

‘It’s too late. Damon Doukakis has already made up his mind what he wants to do with us.’ And she knew what that was. Panic gripped her. He’d taken control of her father’s company. He could do anything he liked with the business.

It was his revenge. His way of sending a message to her father.

But it was a crude weapon. The scorching blaze of his wrath wasn’t just going to burn up her father—it was going to burn up the innocent staff who didn’t deserve to lose their jobs.

The weight of responsibility was suffocating. As her father’s daughter she knew she had to do something, but in truth she was powerless. She had no authority.

Debbie ate a piece of muffin. ‘I read somewhere that Damon Doukakis works a twenty-hour day so at least you’ll have something in common.’

After three nights with virtually no sleep Polly could barely focus. Drugged by tiredness, she struggled to shake the clouds from her brain. ‘I’ve put together the figures. Let’s just hope Michael Anderson can work the laptop. You know what he’s like with technology. I’ve backed up the entire presentation in three places because he managed to delete the thing last time. Are the rest of the board here?’

‘They all arrived at the same time as him. Not that they said anything to us.’ Deep lines of disapproval bracketed Debbie’s mouth. ‘None of them have the bottle to face us since they sold their shares to Demon Damon. I still don’t understand why a rich, powerful tycoon like him would want to buy our little company. I mean, I love working here, but we’re not exactly his style are we?’

Polly thought about how hard she’d worked to try and drag the company into the twenty-first century. ‘No. We’re not his style.’

‘So did he buy us for the fun of it?’ Debbie finished the muffin and licked her fingers. ‘Maybe this is billionaire retail therapy. Instead of buying shoes, he blows a fortune on an ad agency. He offered the board a whole heap of money.’

Polly kept her mouth shut but the dark dread turned to an icy chill.

She knew why he’d bought the company. And it wasn’t something she could share with anyone. Damon Doukakis had sworn her to silence in a single chilling phone call that had come a few days earlier. A phone call she hadn’t mentioned to anyone. She didn’t want it to be public knowledge any more than he did.

Polly forced herself to breathe slowly. ‘I’m not surprised the board sold. They’re greedy. I’m so sick of booking their long lunches and their first-class airfares and then being told we’re not profitable. They remind me of mosquitoes, sucking up our lifeblood into their fat bodies—’

Debbie recoiled. ‘Pol, that’s gross.’

‘They’re gross.’ Polly mentally ran through everything she’d put into the presentation. Had she missed anything? ‘If I were the one giving the presentation, I wouldn’t be so worried.’

‘You should be the one giving it.’

‘Michael Anderson is too threatened by me to let me open my mouth. He’s afraid I might actually tell someone who does the work around here. And anyway, I’m just my father’s executive assistant, whatever that is. My job is to keep everything running behind the scenes.’ And she was horribly conscious that she had no formal qualifications. She’d learned by watching, listening and trusting her instincts and she was savvy enough to know that for most employers that wouldn’t be enough. Polly pressed her hands to her churning stomach, wishing she could stride into the boardroom wielding an MBA from Harvard. ‘Doukakis already has a super-slick successful advertising agency in his organisation. He doesn’t need another one and he doesn’t need our staff. He’s just going to snap his jaws around us like—’

‘No!’ Debbie held up her hand and shuddered. ‘Don’t tell me what it will be like. No more of your blood-sucking-mosquito analogies—I just ate your breakfast.’

‘I’m just saying—’

‘Well, don’t say. And if Damon Doukakis wants your father’s business that badly, well—that’s sort of a compliment, isn’t it? And you’re assuming he’ll make us all redundant, but he might not. Why buy a business and then break it up?’

Because he wanted to be in control.

Instead of being a helpless passenger like her, Damon had put himself in the driving seat. While her father was living the life of a man half his age, his company was being savaged by a ruthless predator. And she was fighting that predator single-handed.

‘Cheer up.’ Debbie patted her shoulder. ‘Damon Doukakis might not be as ruthless as they say. You’ve never actually met him in person.’

Oh, yes, she had.

Feeling her face turn the same colour as her tights, Polly closed her laptop.

They’d met just once, in the head’s office the day she and one other girl had been permanently excluded from the exclusive girls’ boarding school they attended. Unfortunately that one other girl had been his sister and Damon Doukakis had turned the full force of his anger and recrimination onto Polly, the ringleader.

Just thinking about that day was enough to make her body tremble like a leaf in the wind.

She was under no illusions about what the future held for her.

To Damon Doukakis she was a troublemaker with an attitude problem.

When he lifted his axe, she’d be the first for the chop.

Polly ran her hand over the back of her neck. Maybe she’d just offer to resign if he kept the staff on. He wanted a sacrifice for her father’s behaviour, didn’t he? So she’d be the sacrifice.

Debbie picked up the empty plate. ‘So who is your dad seeing this time? Not that Spanish woman he met at Salsa classes?’

‘No, I—I don’t know.’ The lie slid easily over her lips. ‘I haven’t asked.’ Stressed out of her mind, Polly picked up her BlackBerry and slipped it into the pocket of her dress. ‘It’s crazy, isn’t it? I can’t believe that Damon Doukakis is about to stride in here and take away everything my dad has ever worked for and he is in some hotel somewhere—’

‘—having wild monkey sex with a woman who is probably half his age?’

‘Don’t! I don’t want to think about my father having sex, especially with a woman my age.’ Especially not this woman.

‘You should be used to it by now. Do you think your dad realises that his colourful sex-life has put you off ever having a relationship?’

‘I don’t have time for this conversation.’ Blocking out thoughts of her father, Polly wriggled her feet into her boots and zipped them up. ‘Have you arranged coffee and pastries for the boardroom?’

‘All done. But Damon Doukakis is probably just going to feast on the staff. He’s like a great white shark.’ Adding to the aura of menace, Debbie made a fin with her hands and hummed the theme from Jaws. ‘He glides through the smooth waters of commerce, eating everything that gets in his way. He’s at the top of the food chain, whereas we’re right at the bottom of the ocean. We’re nothing more than plankton. Let’s just hope we’re too small to be a tasty snack.’

Uncomfortable with the analogy, Polly glanced protectively towards the fish tank that she kept on her desk. ‘Keep your voice down. Romeo and Juliet are getting nervous. They’re hiding behind the pond weed.’ She wished she could join the fish. Never in her life had she ever dreaded anything as much as this meeting. Over the past few days she’d sacrificed sleep trying to put together a convincing case for saving the staff. She no longer had any illusions about her own future, but these people were like her family and she was going to fight to the death to protect them.

The phone on her desk rang and she picked it up with the same degree of enthusiasm a doomed man would display on his walk to the gallows. ‘Polly Prince …’ She recognised the slightly slurred tones of Michael Anderson, her father’s deputy and the agency’s creative director. Despite the hour, he’d obviously already had a drink. As he instructed her to bring the laptop to the boardroom, Polly gripped the phone tightly. Snake. The man hadn’t had a creative idea for at least a decade. He’d bled the agency dry and now he’d sold his shares to Damon Doukakis for an inflated price.

Anger shot through her. If they hadn’t sold out, this whole situation might have been contained.

Slamming down the phone, Polly scooped up her laptop, determined to do what she could to fight for the staff.

‘Good luck.’ Debbie glanced at Polly’s feet. ‘Wow. Those boots are perfect for kicking ass. And they make you look tall.’

‘That’s the idea.’ Last time she’d met Damon Doukakis he’d made her feel small in every way. Physically and emotionally, he’d towered over her. It wasn’t going to happen again. This time she was determined that when he glared at her they were going to be eye to eye.

Walking towards the boardroom felt like walking the plank. It didn’t help that every two seconds someone stuck their head out of an office to wish her luck, each nervous smile making her more aware of the depth of her responsibility. They were relying on her, but deep down she knew she had no influence and virtually nothing with which to defend them. It was like going into battle armed only with her hairdryer. She was just hoping that Michael Anderson would use the presentation she’d put together to fight for them.

The doors to the boardroom were closed and she paused to draw breath, irritated by how nervous she was. Not of the board—for them she felt nothing but contempt—but of Damon Doukakis. She breathed out, slow and long, telling herself that ten years was a long time. Maybe the rumours were wrong. Maybe he’d developed a human streak.

She was relying on it.

Knocking briskly, she opened the door. For a moment all she saw were smug expressions, a litter of coffee cups and dark suits hugging bodies fattened by too many lunches.

The boys’ club.

Still clutching her laptop, Polly forced herself to walk forward. As the doors were closed behind her she looked around the table at the men she’d worked with since she’d left school at eighteen. Not one of them looked her in the eye.

Bad sign, she thought grimly.

A couple of the directors stared at the notes in front of them. The atmosphere was thick with tension and anticipation. They reminded her of the bloodthirsty, voyeuristic crowds that sometimes gathered round the scene of an accident. To some, there was nothing so compelling as watching another human being in deep trouble. And she was in deep trouble. Knowing that every man around the table was now a millionaire several times over, Polly felt nothing but disgust.

They reminded her of a pack of hyenas ready to benefit from someone else’s kill.

They’d sold her father out without hesitation.

And they’d sold out the staff.

She was so furious with the lot of them that it took her a moment to notice the man positioned at the head of the table.

Occupying her father’s chair with arrogant assurance and no evidence of conscience, Damon Doukakis presided over the meeting like a conqueror surveying his captives. He didn’t speak or move, but somehow everything about his body language screamed masculine aggression.

Her heart pumping, Polly placed the laptop carefully on the polished surface of the boardroom table.

Those dangerous black eyes watched her and she wondered how he could convey authority when he hadn’t even opened his mouth. Somehow he dominated the room, his economy of movement and speech intensifying the aura of power that clung to him like a protective force field.

A superbly tailored suit skimmed his wide shoulders and a snowy white shirt dazzled against his bronzed throat. The knot of his tie was perfect—everything about him was sleek and impeccably groomed. He presented a startling contrast to the rest of the men around the table. Not for this man the excess weight that came with endless business entertaining. Under the expensive suit, his body was hard and strong—honed, no doubt, by exercise and the same rigid self-discipline he applied to his business practices.

Women found him irresistible, of course. He was pure alpha male, the controlling force behind one of the fastest-growing, most successful companies in Europe. In the darkening gloom of economic depression, the Doukakis Media Group was the bright star that shone the light of recovery.

It irritated Polly extremely that the man not only had a towering intellect and an astonishing gift for business, he also looked that good. There was no justice, she thought savagely as she opened up her laptop and reminded herself not to be fooled by the sleek suit or the other outward trappings of civility. As far as she was concerned, the clothes did nothing to mask what he was—a ruthless opportunist who was willing to stop at nothing to achieve his chosen goal. But she understood why the board had sold out to him. He was the King of the beasts, she thought numbly, and the men around him were just lunch, to be consumed in one snap of his jaws. They were weak, and the weak would never challenge a man like Damon Doukakis any more than a wildebeest would turn on a lion.

Look him in the eye, Polly. Look him in the eye.

Knowing that the worst thing she could do was show him she was afraid, she looked. It was only for a second, but something passed between them. The impact of that wordless exchange slammed into her and she dragged her gaze away, shaking from head to toe. She’d expected to feel intimidated. What she hadn’t expected was the flash of sexual awareness.

Shaken, Polly switched on the laptop, desperately hoping that he wasn’t aware of her reaction to him.

‘Gentlemen …’ She paused. ‘And Mr Doukakis.’

There was grim humour in the smile that played around the corners of his mouth and despite her best intentions Polly found herself staring at the sensual curve of his lips. According to rumour, sexual conquests came as easily to him as the business deals. Doukakis was as ruthless, unemotional and calculating in his relationships as he was in the other areas of his life. Maybe that was why he was so protective of his sister, she thought numbly. He knew what men were like.

But so did she. And an inconvenient flash of chemistry wasn’t going to change her opinion.

As her eyes met his again, her tongue suddenly jammed against the roof of her mouth and her lips refused to form the words that had gathered in her brain. In that single moment she saw that he knew. He knew that her heart was racing and her entire body felt as though it had been turned into an electric circuit. He knew the effect he was having on her, from the sparks to the quiver in her belly. It was the same effect he had on all women.

‘Miss Prince?’

That cold, sardonic voice shocked her out of her stupor.

If she had harboured any hope that he’d forgotten her contribution to his sister’s educational experience, then those hopes now lay smashed in tiny pieces at her feet.

‘As you know, Polly is the daughter of our chairman and chief executive.’ Apparently blind to the unspoken communication, Michael Andrews finally found the courage to speak. ‘Her father always made sure she had a job here.’

The implication was that she was some sort of loser who couldn’t get employment without help, and Polly felt her temper rise at the injustice of that introduction. The anger was just what she needed to blast away those other feelings.

Relieved to be back in control, she tapped a key on the laptop and opened a file. ‘I’ve prepared a presentation outlining our business strategy and looking at our forecasts for the future. You’ll see that we’ve won six new clients already this year and those accounts are—’

‘We don’t need to hear this, Polly.’ Michael Anderson interrupted her hastily and Polly’s fingers paused on the keyboard. Yes, they did. Without her presentation the staff didn’t stand a chance of being kept on.

‘But you have to—’

‘It’s too late, Polly.’ With a glance at his fellow board members, Michael Anderson cleared his throat. ‘I understand that this is a very awkward situation for you, but your father no longer has control of this company. He’s always been unconventional, but now he appears to have disappeared completely. Even today, with rumours of the takeover all over the news, there is no sign of him, which just confirms that the board made the right decision to sell. The Doukakis Media Group is cutting edge. These are exciting times.’ He cast a fawning glance at the man who sat still and silent at the head of the table. ‘There’s going to be a shake up. We’ll be announcing redundancies to the staff later but I wanted to tell you personally as your father isn’t here. It’s tough, I know—’ he rearranged his drooping features into a look of sympathy ‘—but this is business.’

Polly felt as though she’d stepped into a parallel universe. Her brain was fuzzy and there was a buzzing in her ears. ‘Wait a minute.’ Her voice sounded robotic and nothing like her own. ‘You’re saying you’re going to make everyone redundant just like that, with no discussion? It’s your job to protect them—to show Mr Doukakis why they’re needed.’

‘The point is, Polly, they’re not needed.’

‘I disagree.’ Her fingers were suddenly ice-cold. Panic crept into her throat and lodged itself there as if she’d suddenly inhaled all her worst fears. ‘The accounts we’ve won, we’ve won as a team. And we’re a good team.’

‘Just leave the laptop, Polly.’ Michael Anderson tapped the end of his pen on the table. ‘If one of Mr Doukakis’s people wants to look at the presentation, they can.’

That was it.

They were dismissing her.

Every eye in the room was fixed on her, waiting for her to give up and walk out.

Her father’s company would be dissolved. One hundred people would lose their jobs.

‘It isn’t over.’ The words spilled from her lips and Polly stared directly at Michael Anderson, the man who had sold her father out and was now selling out her colleagues. Desperately, she tried to appeal to his conscience. ‘You have to stand up there and give this presentation.’

‘Polly—’

‘You have a responsibility! These people work for you. They put themselves out for you. You should be defending them.’ The exhaustion and stress of the past week overflowed like a river bursting its banks after heavy rainfall. ‘It’s because of their hard work that you’ve been living the high life. Why did you ask me to put together the presentation if you never intended to use it?’

‘You were anxious about your father.’ Michael’s tone was patronising. ‘I thought it would keep you busy.’

‘I’m not a child, Mr Anderson. I can keep myself busy. I’ve had no choice about that since the key players in this company do nothing but sit on their backsides eating and drinking their way through the profits.’ Dimly aware that she was burning every bridge, she stalked round the table and had the satisfaction of seeing Michael Anderson’s eyes widen in consternation.

‘What are you doing? Where are you—? I can see you’re angry, but—’

‘Angry? I’m not angry. I’m furious. You have one hundred employees biting their nails out there—’ Beyond caring about herself, Polly flung her arm towards the door. ‘One hundred people terrified of losing their jobs who right now are wondering whether they’re going to be able to afford to keep a roof over their heads and you’re not even going to fight for them? You’re a disgusting coward.’

‘That’s enough!’ His face was red and angry. ‘If it weren’t for the fact that you’re the boss’s daughter, you would have been fired long ago. You have a real attitude problem. And as for the way you dress—’

‘How a person dresses doesn’t affect their ability to do a job, Mr Anderson. Not that I expect you to understand that. With the exception of the board—’ she cast a derisive look around the boardroom table ‘—this is a young, vibrant, creative agency. I don’t need to wear a boring suit with an elastic waistband to accommodate a four-course business lunch paid for by your unsuspecting clients.’

Scarlet-faced, Michael Anderson looked as though he was at high risk of a stroke. ‘I’m going to overlook your behaviour because I know how difficult this week has been for you. And I’m going to give you some fatherly advice as your own father seems to take his responsibilities in that area so lightly. Take your redundancy money, go on a good long holiday and rethink your future. Apart from your extremely unfortunate temper, you’re a nice girl. Beautiful.’ Sweat beading his brow, he dragged his eyes away from her legs. ‘You’re only working on client accounts because of your father. In any other company you’d be a secretary. Not that there’s anything wrong with that,’ he said hastily as he saw Polly’s expression darken. ‘All I’m saying is that a girl with your looks doesn’t need to spend her nights with her head in a spreadsheet playing with business—isn’t that right, gentleman?’

A murmur of agreement spread through the watching board members. The only person not smiling was Damon Doukakis. He stayed silent, his eyes hooded as he watched the antics from the far end of the table.

Polly saw nothing through the red mist of anger that clouded her vision. ‘Don’t you dare criticize my father. And don’t you dare make those sexist, misogynistic comments when we all know who’s doing the work in this company. You sold out to the highest bidder for personal gain. You’re now multimillionaires and we’re unemployed.’ She tried and failed to keep the emotion out of her voice. ‘Where was your sense of responsibility? Shame on you. Shame on all of you.’

Michael Anderson’s mouth was slack with shock. ‘Who do you think you are?’

‘Someone who cares about the future of this company and the people who work for it. If you make one single one of them redundant before at least considering other options then I’ll—’ What? What could she do? Aware that she was utterly powerless, the anger suddenly left her and Polly turned and stalked back round the table, furious with herself for losing control. She felt spent and exhausted and utterly dispirited. She’d let everyone down. Instead of making things better, she’d made them a thousand times worse.

Damn, damn and damn. Why couldn’t she stay cool and calm like these fat, overblown men in suits? Why hadn’t she gone to bed last night? Being tired always lowered her burn threshold.

Deafened by the extended silence, Polly felt misery slide through her veins. Her anger had blown itself out, but not before she’d ruined everything. ‘Look—I’ll go, OK? I’ll walk out of here right now without a fuss. Just don’t make everyone redundant.’ Mortified by her behaviour, she directed her words at Damon Doukakis, who still hadn’t made a move. ‘Please don’t make anyone redundant because of me.’ Horrified to feel the hot sting of tears, she closed her laptop and was about to leave the room when Damon Doukakis spoke.

‘I want to see that presentation. Send it to my handheld.’ His voice hard and inflexible, his eyes locked on Polly with the deadly accuracy of a laser guided missile. ‘I want to see everything you’ve put together.’

Mute with shock, Polly couldn’t move, and it was Michael Anderson who recovered first.

‘She’s just a glorified secretary, Damon. Honestly, you really shouldn’t—’

Damon Doukakis ignored him. He was still looking at Polly. ‘You can tell the staff they have three months to prove their worth. The only immediate job losses will be the board.’ That unexpected bombshell sent ripples of consternation across the room.

As the meaning of his words sank home, Polly felt lightheaded. He wasn’t getting rid of the staff. They had a stay of execution.

Making a strange choking sound, Michael Anderson tried to loosen the collar of his shirt. ‘You can’t get rid of the board! We’re the engine of this company.’

‘If my car had an engine like you it would have been scrapped,’ Damon said grimly. ‘You revealed your commitment to the company when you sold me your shares. I don’t want anyone working for me who can be bought. Nor do I want to find myself slapped with a lawsuit for sexual discrimination, which will undoubtedly come my way if you stay with the company.’

Watching the other man crumble, Polly felt like cheering, but Damon Doukakis was still speaking, listing his demands with a complete lack of emotion.

‘I’m moving the entire operation into my London offices. I have two floors empty and a team ready to facilitate the move.’

Polly’s desire to cheer instantly faded. ‘But the staff have been here for ever and—’

‘I don’t deal in “for ever”, Miss Prince. In business, the best you can hope for is “for now”. My second in command, Carlos, will take over the day to day running of business for the foreseeable future.’

‘But Bill Henson has been in that post for—’

‘For far too long,’ came the smooth reply. ‘He can work with Carlos for the next three months. If we’re impressed, we’ll take him on. I never lose good people. But I run a meritocracy, not a charity.’

Michael Anderson’s face was a strange grey colour. ‘Damon—’ He cleared his throat. ‘You need someone to show you our systems. Explain how the company is run.’

‘It took me less than five minutes with your balance sheet to assess how the company is run. The word is badly. And I’ve already decided to keep someone on who has inside knowledge.’

Michael sagged and his smile was slack and desperate. ‘That’s a relief. For a moment there I thought—’

‘Which is why Miss Prince will come and work alongside me for the next three months.’

Work alongside him? Oh, no, not that. ‘I’m ready to step down, Mr Doukakis.’

‘You’re not stepping anywhere, Miss Prince. You and your laptop are going to be right by my side as we sort out this mess together.’ His words were deliberately ambiguous and Polly wondered which mess he was referring to—the company, or her father’s relationship with his sister.

‘But—’

‘My people will be here within the hour to organise the move into my offices. Anyone who would rather not move is, of course, free to leave.’

‘Wait a minute—’ Polly felt as if she’d been flattened under a heavy object. She’d assumed she’d be the first out of the door. She was ready and willing to make that sacrifice. In fact she was desperate to put as much distance as possible between her and Damon Doukakis. ‘I resign.’

His eyes locked on hers. ‘Resign and I’ll make the entire workforce redundant this afternoon.’ The suppressed anger in him licked through the room, sizzling everyone around the table to a crisp.

‘No!’ Polly felt dizzy with horror. ‘They haven’t done anything.’

‘Having glanced at your balance sheet, I find it all too easy to believe you. I’m asking myself what anyone in this company has done over the past year. It’s only fair to warn you that I don’t hold out much hope that these people will still be working for me in three months. I’ve seen more activity in a graveyard.’

Polly’s limbs weakened. She thought about Doris Cooper, who had worked for her father in the post room for forty years. Recently widowed, the woman made a habit of giving the wrong post to the wrong people, but no one wanted to upset her so they quietly reorganised everything when she wasn’t looking. Then there was Derek Wills who couldn’t spell his name but made lovely cups of tea to keep everyone going. If she walked out they wouldn’t even make three weeks, let alone three months. ‘Fine,’ she croaked. ‘I’ll work for you. But I think your behaviour is appalling.’

‘Your opinion of me is unlikely to be lower than mine of you.’ He came right back at her, the full power of his anger slamming into her shaking frame with the force of a hurricane.

Polly stood rigid, impossibly intimidated despite her attempts not to be. There was something terrifying about that splintering dark gaze and the raw power of the man in front of her. She didn’t need to see the contempt in his eyes to know he had a low opinion of her and even the heels on her boots didn’t help. He still made her feel small in every way possible. But none of that was as scary as the other feelings she was trying so desperately to ignore. The quickening of her pulse and the strange melting sensation inside her tummy. ‘You’re not being fair.’

‘Life isn’t fair.’ His tone was hard and uncompromising. ‘Like it or not, you’re all now part of my company. Welcome to my world, Miss Prince.’