To her chagrin, Ares Lykaios, all six feet plus of him, folded himself into the seat directly to her right, so close that if she hadn’t moved quickly their legs would have become entangled beneath the table. Her pulse was in frantic overdrive at the very idea! She wrapped her hands around her coffee cup and stared at the swirling steam rather than look at him again.
‘Try not to spill it on me this time.’ The words were serious but she felt an undercurrent of amusement in their throaty depths. It unsettled her completely.
‘Shall we begin?’ She didn’t sound remotely cool now. Her words were still crisp, but closer to being whispered, as though she were afraid of him.
Get a bloody grip, Bea!
She conjured an image of Clare on one side of her and Amy the other, their smiling, encouraging faces providing much-needed strength. But there was also the spectre of fear—what would happen if she bungled this and lost the firm’s most important client? Clare had ploughed all her inheritance money into this place, and it had finally given her a sense of purpose and safety. Bea could never let anything happen to the London Connection on her watch.
‘Soon.’ The word dropped between them, shaking Bea out of her thoughts. She frowned, looking at him.
He was studying her now with the same intense curiosity she’d focused on him earlier. Bea hated to be looked at and actively did everything she could to discourage that kind of attention, but what could she do now? Tell him to stop? Tell him she didn’t like it? When the truth was, a strange kind of warmth was bubbling through her blood and her lips were parted on a husky breath of surrender.
Why was he looking at her, though? Bea was under no false illusions regarding her looks. Her adoptive mother was a supermodel and her younger twin sisters had inherited their mother’s looks, all slender and fine-boned, blonde and blue-eyed, with skin as translucent as milk and honey. She’d known from a very young age she didn’t compare and, even if she hadn’t understood that, the articles the press had run through her teenage years—when pimples and puppy fat had attached to Bea with gusto—had left her in little doubt as to her physical merits, or lack thereof. After suffering comparisons to her mother at the same age, and then the twins, Bea had eventually developed a thick skin, yet only after years of painful arrows had already hit their mark.
But who cared about that stuff anyway? she reminded herself staunchly. She’d never wanted to be known for her looks—how vapid and dull! That was just genetic lottery. Far better to build a reputation based on hard work and effort. Tilting her chin, it was on the tip of her tongue to say something to bring their meeting back on track, except he was staring at her mouth now, and logical thoughts were suddenly impossible. Self-conscious, she bit down on the edge of her lip, wiggling it from side to side. She stopped when she saw the way his forehead creased, his thick brows drawn together speculatively.
‘I—’ She spoke because the silence was like the beating of a drum, resonating in the air around them and deep within her, demanding action—inciting a physical response which was new to her. Her pulse was hammering in the same way, rhythmic and urgent, low and slow, echoing throughout her whole body.
But her attempt at starting a sentence seemed to rouse him. He shifted, reaching for his coffee cup, taking a sip before returning his eyes to hers. Sparks flew through her.
‘I came to apologise.’
It was the very last thing she’d expected him to say.
‘What?’ She shook her head from side to side, a bemused expression on her features. ‘I mean, I’m sorry?’
His lips twisted. ‘You stole my line.’
Her smile was instinctive. ‘But—what for?’
‘You don’t think my behaviour last night warrants an apology?’
She looked down at the gleaming conference table, unsure how to answer. She wasn’t going to tell Mr Millions-of-Pounds-in-Revenue that he’d been incredibly rude. Besides, he evidently knew that already.
‘It’s fine, honestly.’
‘It is not fine. The fact Clare missed our meeting was not your fault. I shouldn’t have taken my displeasure out on you.’
Her pulse began to race for another reason now. His apology was limited specifically to her. The company wasn’t out of the woods yet. Bea still had work to do.
‘I’m a senior team member of the London Connection,’ she said firmly. ‘I should have known you were expecting to meet with Clare, and I should have been prepared. It was an oversight none of us has ever made before. It’s I who should apologise.’
His eyes remained glued to hers as he took another mouthful of coffee, so a shiver ran down her spine. Not a cold shiver, though. More like that delightful sensation one experienced when sinking into a warm, fragranced bath on a cool night. Pleasure radiated through her. She jerked her eyes away, forcibly angling her head a little so there was no risk of meeting his eyes again.
‘Then we were both at fault,’ he agreed. ‘But to different degrees.’
Something like amusement snaked through her at his determination to take the blame for their catastrophic meeting the evening before. ‘You don’t strike me as a man who apologises often, and yet you do it well.’
‘I may have an ulterior motive to earning your forgiveness.’
‘Oh?’
‘There’s an event tonight, and I need a date to accompany me.’
Bea’s pulse ramped up. She quickly looked down at the iPad on the tabletop, trying to remember every detail from the files she’d read overnight. ‘I—can’t remember seeing that,’ she admitted belatedly, curving her hands around her own coffee cup to stop them from shaking visibly. ‘Is that something we usually arrange for you, Mr Lykaios?’
His eyes widened and then he tipped his head back on a laugh that reverberated around the room, rich in timbre and heavy in amusement. She sipped her coffee, simply for the comfort its familiar taste would bring.