The curious thing was that she wasn’t what he’d been expecting. He was aware that he’d met her before but could barely remember doing so. He ran across scores of women every day of the week and this one was most definitely not his type—even if he hadn’t been programmed to distrust curvy blondes with long legs and soft lips. The photos of her which had been sent to him by the private investigator had been old photos—of a vibrant and colourful creature who bore little resemblance to the woman who sat in front of him now in her old work-clothes.
She didn’t look a bit like his brother’s usual type, either. Not with that fragile, English appearance and skin so fine and delicate that it seemed it might bruise if you so much as breathed on her.
Maybe that was what had set the alarm bells ringing … along with reports of Nat’s increasingly documented appearances with her. Because hadn’t he been worried about how his brother was going to cope with the massive inheritance which was due to come his way any day now? And hadn’t his worst fears been confirmed when he’d had his new and serious-sounding girlfriend checked out and discovered what kind of woman Emma Geary really was?
On the top of his polished desk, his hands clenched into fists and then slowly unflexed again, so that his long fingers lay splayed across its shiny surface. ‘No, I am not dissatisfied with your work,’ he said slowly. ‘In fact, your work is excellent.’
‘Thank heavens for that!’ she replied. Be keen, she told herself. Make sure he knows how enthusiastic you are about his hotel. How much you value being an employee. ‘We got a pretty decent write-up in the press for the new bar—I don’t know if you saw all the clippings I sent out to your New York office? Oh, and I’ve got lots of plans for the refurbishment of the Garden Room. Big plans! I thought we could do a tie-in with the Chelsea Flower Show—that would be very prestigious. In fact …’ But her eager words died on her lips as he held up an imperious hand to silence her.
‘I haven’t brought you up here to discuss refurbishment, Miss Geary,’ he said coolly. ‘It’s a little more personal than that. You see, I’ve been speaking to my lawyers about your contract.’
‘Your lawyers?’ Emma stared at him in confusion, not caring that she sounded like a parrot as she repeated his words. ‘My contract?’
He frowned, as if to indicate that he didn’t welcome the interruption. ‘And they told me something rather interesting. You see, it’s highly unusual for an interior designer to be contracted exclusively to a hotel, rather than as a self-employed consultant.’
Still slightly concerned as to why he’d been talking to his lawyers about her, Emma guessed he was owed some sort of explanation. ‘It is a little unusual,’ she conceded. ‘But it was your predecessor who gave me the permanent contract.’
Zak frowned. ‘You mean Ciro D’Angelo?’
‘Yes.’ Emma remembered the handsome, thirty-something Italian hotelier who’d been so kind to her when she was at her lowest ebb. When she had arrived in London feeling as if her world had reached rockbottom and Ciro D’Angelo had stepped in and offered her what had seemed like a heaven-sent opportunity. And she had seized the unexpected security he had offered her, like the lifeline it
had been. ‘Ciro really liked my work. Liked it enough to make me an in-house designer for the Granchester. He said it would give me security. He’s a very … a very kind man.’
‘He is also,’ said Zak repressively, because ‘kind’ was not a word he had ever heard associated with the ruthless Neapolitan businessman who dated some of the world’s most beautiful women, ‘a very attractive and exceedingly rich man—as well as being an international playboy.’
Tempted to say, And so are you! Emma blinked at him in confusion. ‘I’m sorry. Am I missing something? I don’t see what Ciro’s status has to do with anything.’
‘Don’t you?’ Zak gazed at the tremble of her lips and wondered if that glimpse of very feminine fragility was contrived. Was it supposed to make him melt, as other men had undoubtedly melted? In which case, wouldn’t it be best that she realised it was completely wasted on him—and that maybe he should start being straight with her? ‘Then perhaps I ought to enlighten you. You see, I’ve been doing a little bit of research on you, Miss Geary.’ He paused, and when he spoke again his voice had grown steely. ‘And it seems that you have something of a reputation as a femme fatale.’
Emma stared at him, a whisper of fear beginning to shimmer over her skin as long-suppressed echoes of the past began to stir. ‘I don’t … I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Really?’ He heard the lie in her voice and a steely determination entered his body as he noted that all the blood had drained from her face, leaving it almost translucent in its whiteness. He could see the fine blue tracery of veins at her temple and, for some bizarre reason, he found himself wondering whether the skin on the rest of her body was as delicate.
Furious with himself for his wayward thoughts, he hardened his voice. ‘You just happen to persuade one of the world’s sharpest businessmen to give you a permanent contract in his hotel? A lot of people might wonder why that had happened and then leap to the very obvious solution.’
Emma flinched at the insinuation. ‘Then a lot of people wouldn’t know what they were talking about!’
‘They say there’s no smoke without fire.’
‘“They” say a lot of things, Mr Constantinides—but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the right things.’
‘But now Ciro D’Angelo is off the scene. He sold me this hotel and has gone back to live in Naples,’ he continued, leaning forward by a fraction because he wanted to see just how she would react to his next charge. ‘And since then, you have grown increasingly close to my younger brother.’
Emma felt her body stiffen as the distance between them diminished and she caught a faint but intoxicating drift of sandalwood. Was he aware of the impact which his powerful proximity could have on people? she wondered. And did he use it like a weapon in order to intimidate them, as he was intimidating her now? She suspected he did. ‘You mean Nathanael?’
‘I have only one brother, Miss Geary.’
Her heart was beating very fast, but she was determined not to crumble. What had Nat told her? That his older brother was used to getting whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. And he didn’t care who he had to squash in order to accomplish that. ‘And what if I have? Surely getting close to someone isn’t a crime?’
‘Not a crime, no,’ he agreed evenly. ‘Although when a woman who makes it her business to cultivate relationships with rich men, starts hitting on Nat—it doesn’t exactly fill me with joy.’
She looked at him steadily. ‘I don’t intend to rise to your insulting inference that I’m some kind of gold-digger. Surely your lawyers didn’t advise you to take that line of questioning, Mr Constantinides?’
Her cool defiance made his hackles rise and he tightened his knuckles against the shiny surface of the desk. Had Nathanael been foolish enough to blurt out just how much money he was due to inherit? And wouldn’t a woman with a track record like hers have seen the green light beckoning and rushed straight in?
Zak felt his mouth tense, felt the painful thunder of his heart as he thought about the little brother he had protected all his life. Whom he had done his best to shield from the harsher aspects of existence after the heartbreaking start he’d had. Only now he was discovering that it was impossible to protect someone completely unless you locked them in a room and threw away the key … and nobody could ever do that to Nat. ‘You’re wasting your time, Miss Geary.’
‘Wasting my time?’ she repeated blankly.