They had shared the inheritance of the company when their parents had suddenly and unexpectedly been killed in a car accident. Sander had been, by then, a lightweight member of the board, rarely seen and largely overlooked. He had been thirty and far too busy having fun to don a suit and go to work.
Five years younger, Stefano Doukas, Nico’s father, had already been learning the ropes and proving himself to be as serious as Sander had been frivolous.
Had a substantial inheritance not landed on Sander’s shoulders at a young age, Nico assumed all would have continued relatively smoothly because the old man, his grandfather and the head of the company, would have kept his older son on a short lead. However, that wasn’t to be.
Through the years, Nico had come to realise just how destructive it was to have no control over your emotional life. He had been young but not so young that he hadn’t understood those hushed conversations between his parents and the comings and goings of lawyers as power had eventually been wrested away from Sander, with many concessions to sweeten the blow.
In all events, the upshot had been banishment in all but name.
The banishment had been suitably luxurious. Sander had been sent to open and run a hotel on an exquisite island of the Bahamas in the Caribbean.
‘Does he keep in touch?’ he could remember asking his father many years previously.
To which his father had shaken his head and said, without emotion, ‘Too much pride. So be it. We all get the life that we deserve in the end. Left to his own devices, your uncle would have destroyed the company, and the company, my son, was not founded to support a spoiled man’s indulgences. Many people’s lives depend on it. Have fun, but it is important to know when the fun has to stop.’
Nico had had no curiosity about an uncle he had never known. It was unthinkable that he would refuse his father’s request, but it was still annoying, he thought as he drained the last of the whisky in his glass, because he had a lot on his plate at the moment and wrapping up affairs had an ominous ring about it.
On a small island in the middle of nowhere, who knew how long the procedure would take?
He would have to carry on working.
He assumed all mod cons would be in place, although he had no idea what sort of hotel his uncle had set up. He had been shuffled out of harm’s way, with sufficient money to last more than a lifetime but doled out by a trusted, designated member of the company, and then left to his own devices.
Arrangements would have to be made now and urgently.
Nico realised that he had no idea where Grace lived because he’d never had cause to go to her house.
He wouldn’t spring a surprise visit on her now, at any rate, even if he did know where she lived.
On the other hand, he couldn’t sit around waiting until Monday. Like it or not, she was about to have her weekend disrupted...
Grace had not been expecting a call from her boss.
Were things back to normal between them? Not for her. For her, the memory of his hand moving softly over hers was still too vivid. She closed her eyes and could relive the sensation. So when he had disappeared early this afternoon, she had been surprised but not displeased.
It was a Friday and she’d decided that she would relax over the weekend, visit her brother as she always did on a Sunday, and then on Monday she would kick-start the dating site and take her chances again. Did lightning strike twice?
So his name popping up on her phone jolted her. It was a little after seven and, even though she was very happy to be doing nothing, Grace possessed sufficient self-awareness to feel a twinge of embarrassment that she wasn’t out having fun.
How hadhaving funended up on a par withsurviving an ordeal? When hadhaving funentailed gritting her teeth and girding her loins and taking lots of deep breaths before going for it?
‘Nico?’
‘Glad I caught you, Grace.’
His disembodied voice sent a little shiver through her.
‘Is anything wrong?’ This could only be about work and now she frantically tried to think if she’d left something unfinished. For a few pleasurable seconds, she was seduced into fantasising that he was calling her to ask her out. She half closed her eyes and got a grip. She’d wasted too many years on fantasies like this and she’d reached the end of the line with that.
‘I did stay on after you left, Nico, and got through as much as I could. If there’s something I should have done, then tell me and I can fit it in over the weekend.’
‘Fit work in over the weekend?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘You’re not paid to fit work in over the weekend.’
‘I know, but—’