‘My name isTilda!’
He accepted the correction with an expressive shrug of disinterest. ‘Six months...Tilda?’ His lips quirked as he rolled the word around his tongue. ‘What do you say?’
‘That I pity the woman you marry unless she has as little moral compass as you.’
His lip curled. ‘I think you have enoughmoral compassfor us both.’
He made it sound like a bad thing.
‘But I no longer work for you and now, if you’d excuse me, I’ll get my things and leave you to—’ She stopped as he held up a hand, asking her to wait. She sighed. ‘Look, I recognise this is not convenient for you, but I have to put my brother first. I have to move him away from—’
‘The bad influences, I know... Would Greece be far enough, you think?’
Confusion replaced her annoyance. ‘Greece!’ She had never been to the Athens office but she had seen the views from the board room during online meetings; they were stunning. ‘Is Agnes leaving too?’ Tilda had met the elegant, grey-haired half-Greek woman who held her own role in the Athens office.
Even if there was a vacancy there was no way she could move to Athens...could she?
‘No, Agnes is not leaving, and I’m not offering you a job. More arole... You could think of it as a temporary contract...six months?’
‘Is it a promotion?’ She was in no position to dismiss it out of hand. Something with more flexibility would give her time to look for something more appropriate. But Greece? No, that wastoocrazy...too far away. Though maybe far away was good?
‘That kind of depends on your viewpoint.’
She muted the dialogue in her head and decided there was no harm hearing him out. ‘It’s real?’ Her history of being around him told her it was not likely to be an invention, but she had to check. ‘I’m not a charity case.’
He sighed. ‘I’m suggesting that we spend the next six months as husband and wife, so basically six months in Greece, long enough to make people think we gave it a try and you found me impossible to live with.’
Shock collided with disbelief in her spinning head. Her brain went into shock and closed down.
‘Obviously there is a time factor involved. This has to happen... I’ll look into how quickly thiscanhappen. It probably won’t be the UK. I don’t think you are able to book a slot Vegas-style here.’
‘I suppose you know that you make it sound as though you’re proposing to me?’ She felt stupid even saying it.
‘I’m proposing a way in which you can remove your brother from people and an environment that have become dangerous for him, while killing Athena’s rumours that are stalling the Rutherford deal...’ He flashed a look at her pale, still face. ‘So, win-win. Are you all right?’
‘I think I’m the one that should be asking you that,’ she responded hoarsely. ‘Is therenothingyou wouldn’t do to win?’
His devil-on-steroids white grin flashed. ‘I don’t like losing,’ he admitted. ‘That’s no secret. But I think the relevant question is, is this somethingyouwould be prepared to do for your brother?’
Having succeeded in making her rejection of the plan prove she was selfish, he tilted his head to one side, his stare making her feel uneasy. He was good, he was very good, but she had seen him use this tactic before—actually, that didn’t help.
Ezio felt his impatience rise as she didn’t react, then another reason for her reticence occurred to him. ‘Is there someone?’ Contemplating the possibility that his PA had a personal life, a sex life, brought a wrinkle to his brow. There was no reason she shouldn’t, that someone should not be enjoying the lush, sensual promise of her mouth. ‘I got the idea that if he were twenty years younger Saul might be a rival.’
‘Are you suggesting that I flirted with...?’ She gave a gasp of outrage. ‘If anyone is being unprofessional here, it’s you, not me!’
He opened his mouth to deny this claim and then realised that she was right...he sounded like a jealous lover. ‘All right, I concede, you’re probably not his type.’
‘Or yours,’ she added. ‘And, actually, you’ve hit on the obvious flaw, beyond the fact it is insane, obviously.’
His dark brows climbed towards his ebony hairline. ‘I have?’
‘We both know that a billionaire of any age does not marry a woman like me.’
‘You don’t think you’re attractive enough?’ As he was sure it took her longer to disguise the fact she was attractive than it would have done to moderately enhance her good looks, it seemed a perverse attitude to take.
Detecting his slight sneer and misreading it, her jaw tightened. ‘My self-confidence is quite robust, thank you,’ she told him crisply. ‘It so happens my self-worth is not based on the way I look—though, actually, I scrub up pretty well.’
The huffy addition made his lips twitch.