A Greek Escape(48)

She was glad when the meeting was over, the terms of the contract finalised, and he was preparing to leave. Being polite and courteous for Josh and Lorna’s sakes was beginning to tell on her nerves.

At least he would go now, she thought. And hopefully after today, after he gave Havens the go-ahead to start the process for the contract rolling, she would never have to see him again. She didn’t know why that prospect failed to satisfy her as it should. In fact it left her surprisingly down-spirited.

She just wanted to get back to her office. Get stuck into spreadsheets and invoices and try to forget that Leonidas Vassalio had ever existed.

He was talking to Lorna about the baby, asking her when it was due. Seeing she was no longer needed, Kayla seized the opportunity to excuse herself, and was heading for the door when she heard deep Greek tones request, ‘Could I presume upon you, Josh, to spare your Miss Young for a little while longer? There are one or two things I need to run through with her, if she’ll be good enough to walk with me back to my car.’

Go to hell! Kayla wanted to toss back as she pivoted round. But of course she had to be on her best behaviour for her friends’ sake. There was no way she was going to let them down.

‘Take all the time you need,’ she heard Josh saying amiably, unaware of the conflict going on inside her.

Leonidas was holding the door wide for her, his arm outstretched so that she had to duck underneath it, and her startling response to his raw and overpowering masculinity made her voice falter even as she sniped in a hostile whisper, ‘Does everybody always jump over themselves to please you?’ She was breathing shallowly, trying to shrug off her involuntary reaction to him, how the heady, tantalising scent of him affected her.

‘Not everybody.’ Amusement laced his tones, but there was something about the look he gave her which excited her even as she rebelled against the way it seemed to promise, but you will.

‘Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?’ she remonstrated as soon as they were in the corridor of the modern office unit, keeping her attention on a large potted fern that was benefiting from the light from the wide windows.

‘Tell you what?’

As if he didn’t know!

‘That you were coming here today.’ She was acutely aware of him walking beside her.

‘You didn’t give me the chance.’

‘Really?’ Her head swivelled round from the view across the landscaped business park. ‘I don’t seem to recall you trying to bring it into the conversation.’

‘For what other reason were you imagining I wanted to take you to dinner?’

Colour burned her cheeks at the hard edge to his voice. He was an executive now, Kendon Interiors’ biggest client—or would be when that contract was signed—and with that remark he was reminding her of it in no uncertain terms.

‘Then you should have made your motives more obvious.’

‘Like you’re doing now, in bringing me along here instead of using the lift?’

‘I always prefer to use the stairs.’

‘As you did on your way up?’

Of course, Kayla thought, realising that she had walked right into that one. She should have known that his keen brain would have been attuned to every sound that had heralded her approach. He would have heard the ping of the lift and the door gliding open only seconds before she had come into the room.

‘What’s wrong, Miss Young?’ His deliberate use of her surname seemed mockingly incongruous with the electricity that was crackling between them. Even the light click of her heels against the comparatively sturdy tap of his over the polished floor seemed to stress the glaring differences in their sexualities. ‘Don’t you want to chance the two of us being alone together in a lift?’

Kayla’s heart seemed to stop when he opened the glass fire door onto the next level and her jacket brushed his sleeve as he let her through.

‘Why are you flattering yourself that I’d let that bother me?’

‘Because if you could read my mind, Miss Young, you’d know that I have the strongest urge right now to rip that prim little suit off your body, followed by your blouse and then your—’

‘Do you mind?’ Her heels clicked more agitatedly at all he was suggesting as they came down onto the ground floor. From behind her desk the young receptionist smiled at them as they passed, her eyes feasting appreciatively on Leonidas.

‘Modesty, Miss Young?’ Though his mouth was twitching at the corners, he kept his eyes on the external glass doors, which slid open to admit them into the morning sunshine. ‘I hadn’t noticed any of that when you were bouncing up and down on my bed.’