by Lynne Graham
Alexius sat in an unfamiliar office that belonged to one of his personal assistants, trying to get on with some work, but irritation tinged him every time he reached for something that wasn’t on the desk, for it was a discomfort he was not accustomed to meeting in life. Socrates, he thought grimly of his manipulative godfather, who had played on his conscience to force him into this juvenile masquerade. His even white teeth gritted as he heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner whirring somewhere on the same floor. At least the cleaners had finally arrived and the game could commence. Game? Some game! In fact, he felt infuriatingly and uncharacteristically on edge because deception wasn’t his style. Yet how could he ever get to know a cleaning operative in the guise of who he truly was? It was only sensible to pretend to be a more humble member of staff, but in doing that he was also making the assumption that Rosie Gray wouldn’t recognise him as Alexius Stavroulakis. He doubted that she read the Financial Times, where he was regularly depicted, but there was a chance that she was a fan of the celebrity magazines between whose pages he had also made occasional appearances. The more he thought of the deception involved, the more he thought that accidentally bumping into her in some way outside working hours might have been a wiser approach.
Rosie worked steadily down the line of offices, taking care of routine tasks while Zoe took care of the other side of the corridor. Only one office was occupied and the door stood open. She hated trying to clean round employees working late but couldn’t risk omitting that room in case checks were made on the standard of their work. Most daytime staff had gone home by eight in the evening and she had to ensure that the schedule of duties laid out for STA was completed right down to the last letter on the contract. She peered into the occupied office and saw a big guy with black hair working at a laptop. Only the Anglepoise lamp beside him was lit, casting light and shadow over his strong, dark features. He glanced up suddenly, startling her, revealing ice-grey eyes as bright as liquid mercury in his lean bronzed face. He was drop-dead gorgeous: that was her first thought and a very uncommon one for Rosie.
Alexius stared, both recognising and not recognising his quarry. Bleached of colour, Rosie Gray had looked so flat and uninspiring in that black and white photograph, but in the flesh she was glowing and unusual … and tiny. The Seferis family were kind of small in stature, he recalled abstractedly, but she was as ridiculously tiny and fragile in appearance as a fairy-tale elf. But if her diminutive size almost made him smile, her face and hair riveted him. He had never seen natural hair that colour, a glorious wavy fall as pale a blonde as frost sparkling on snow. It was dyed—of course it was, he assumed, his attention lingering longer still on that amazingly vivid little triangular face of hers: big ocean-green eyes, a neat little nose and a mouth made for sin with the sort of lush pouting outline that gave a man erotic fantasies. Or the sort of man who did erotic fantasies, Alexius adjusted, for he did not. When every woman he ever approached was immediately available, there was no need for fantasies. But those succulent pink lips were definitely sexy, although that was not a thought he wanted to have around his godfather’s long-lost granddaughter. The oddity of the situation was responsible, he decided impatiently. It was throwing him off-balance.
Colliding unexpectedly with those piercing light eyes enhanced by black curling lashes, Rosie swallowed hard and felt her heart hammer behind her breastbone as though she were trapped. He was so very, very good-looking, from the stark lines of his high cheekbones and the bold slash of his nose to the hard angular jaw line and beautifully moulded sensual mouth. But she was quick to recognise the impatience etched in the twist of that firm upper lip and she hastily withdrew from the threshold to vanish back down the corridor. Alarm bells had rung loudly inside her head: this was not a man she wanted to interrupt or inconvenience. She would vacuum the big conference room and then return to see if he had gone.
Her disappearance made Alexius bite back a groan of exasperation. As a male used to women going to often ridiculous lengths to attract and hold his attention, he had virtually no experience of pursuing one. But had he really expected a cleaner to walk up to him and start chatting? Naturally, she had gone into retreat. He strode to the doorway, long powerful legs eating up the distance, and his keen gaze narrowed on the small figure trundling a vacuum cleaner.
‘I won’t be here much longer,’ he said, his deep voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silence of the almost empty office suite.
Taken aback by the announcement, Rosie spun round, her pale hair flying across her face, green eyes openly apprehensive. ‘I can do the conference room first—’
‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ Alexius remarked, wondering what it was about those eyes, that face, that kept him staring longer than he should have done and continually drew his attention back to her.
‘Yes … this is our first shift here,’ she murmured so low he had to stretch to hear her. ‘We want to do a good job.’
‘I’m sure you will.’ Alexius watched her deal with a vacuum cleaner almost as tall as she was and considerably bulkier and he experienced a sudden crazy need to snatch it out of her small hands and force her to give him her full attention. What the hell was the matter with him? He studied her afresh and registered in shock that he was aroused. It had been a very long time since a sexual response that undisciplined had assailed Alexius. Diavelos, he was no longer a boy, horny in the radius of any attractive female. He didn’t understand it, he really didn’t understand the effect she was having on him at all because it was outside his experience. She was little and cute and he didn’t go for little and cute. He liked tall, shapely women with dark hair and almost never deviated from the type. In many ways outside the business world he was very much a creature of habit, unwilling to compromise, distrustful of anything new or different. His upbringing had taught him to be like that, encasing him in a protective shell of reserve, cynicism and objectivity. He had learned too young that to many people his immense wealth marked him out only as a potential source of profit, a literal target to be impressed, flattered, ultimately used and deceived by the ambitious and the greedy.
It was close to the end of her shift when Rosie finally found the occupied office empty. It was true that the light still burned and the laptop still sat open on the desk, but she was tired and she knew she wouldn’t get a better opportunity to finish on time. She was engaged in swiftly whisking a duster over what she could reach of the desk when he reappeared and she froze, intimidated by the size of him filling the doorway. So tall, so dark, so very handsome. And those astonishingly light eyes of his gleamed like polished silver in his strong face.
‘I’ll move this out of your way,’ Alexius breathed, scooping up the laptop, standing so close for an instant that the scent of him enveloped her: the smell of clean, warm male laced with a mouth-watering hint of some exotic cologne.
‘No need … I can work around you if you’ll just put up with me for another f-five minutes,’ Rosie replied a little shakily, her cheeks hot with the awareness of her recent thoughts.
Struggling to run through a mental checklist of small tasks to be done before she could consider her work complete, Rosie noticed the photo on the desk of a pretty blonde woman hugging two young children. ‘Nice kids,’ she muttered into the awkward silence.
‘Not mine. I share this office,’ he informed her abruptly, his slight but definable foreign accent obvious as she unfurled the vacuum cleaner for action.
Rosie glanced at him in surprise, for he didn’t look the type of male likely to take to sharing anything, although she had no idea where she had got that impression from. Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that he had as much physical presence as a ruddy great rock set in her path, not to mention an aura of command and arrogance that had suggested to her that he could be more than just another office drone, earning his daily bread by whatever means were within his power. Hot desking, wasn’t that what the practice of sharing desk space was called?
‘I’m Alex, by the way,’
he murmured smoothly. ‘Alex Kolovos …’
‘Nice to meet you,’ Rosie responded in even greater discomfiture, wondering why he was speaking to her in the first place, because it was certainly not the norm. Men usually only spoke if the cleaner was old enough to remind them of their mother or granny or if they were making a play for you. Zoe, christened by her fellow cleaners ‘the Bombshell’, had enjoyed several such approaches from men attracted by her pretty face and stunning curves, but no man had yet come on to Rosie during working hours. Was it the fact that her hair was loose? Irritated by the sudden wash of stupid thoughts that had taken over her normally logical brain and ill at ease in his company, she switched on the vacuum, engulfing them both in noise. With secret amusement she watched him wince as if she had scraped a chalk down a blackboard.
‘Thanks,’ she breezed as she gratefully switched the vacuum off again and sped from the room without a backward glance.
Alexius reflected that it was a humbling experience to chat to a woman without the aura of his billions enhancing him with a wondrous golden glow of magnetic attraction. It had not escaped his notice either that she couldn’t wait to get away from him. Was she shy? Or simply wary? Alexius had no experience whatsoever of either female trait and no desire to remedy his ignorance in that field either. He checked his watch: he had a business dinner to attend. Flipping shut his laptop with relief, he stood up to leave. She was extraordinarily sexy, he reflected grimly, hot enough to make him hard as a rock, not at all what he had expected.
Rosie went home that night to be greeted by Baskerville’s ecstatic barks and leaps in the tiny lounge off the kitchen that all the women used. Bas was a four-year-old chihuahua. He had belonged to Rosie’s foster mother, Beryl, and since Rosie had moved in he had become the house pet, moving freely between the occupants, being spoiled and looked after by whoever was at home. That was a relief for Rosie, who had worried about him getting lonely when she was out and about. Bas tucked securely under one arm, Rosie made herself a plate of cheese on toast and sat down to watch TV and chat with her housemates while she ate and Bas snacked on the crusts and anything else on offer.
At some stage of the night she wakened with pains in her stomach and she was violently ill. In the morning she felt better but washed out.
That evening when she started her cleaning shift, she was tired. Alex Kolovos’s office was lit up but he wasn’t there. Assuming he would return and stifling a totally pathetic pang of disappointment over his absence, she headed for the conference room instead. The instant she stepped into the room, however, she realised it was occupied because the first thing she heard was his unforgettable drawl. Instantly, she fell still to glance across the long meeting table and butterflies kicked off in her tummy in the most schoolgirlish way as her gaze locked to his powerful figure, where he stood by the window. Her eyes travelled up to his handsome face and a jolt of recognition and pleasure ran through her like an electric shock, her heart rate speeding up, every cell in her body awakening to awareness. In the midst of questioning why the precise arrangement of his features should have that astonishing effect on her, she stopped wondering and just found herself staring while heat and breathlessness assailed her. He was talking on the phone in a foreign language. A couple of familiar words caught her attention as she began automatically to withdraw from the room again: unless she was very much mistaken he was talking in Greek.
Moving an imperious hand to halt her retreat, Alexius studied her, noting that the gorgeous hair was tied circumspectly back and that she still wore no makeup that he could see. The mystery of her appeal, however, was utterly overpowered by the stirring reaction at his groin. One look at that vibrant little face and he wanted to taste that luscious pink mouth, to touch that delicate little body and discover its every secret. He wanted to sink deep into her, watch her eyes widen in sensual shock and ride her into oblivion. He hadn’t felt as hot for a woman since he was a teenager and just as suddenly he was done questioning and was instead enjoying the novelty of the sensation. Last night he had dreamt about her, had actually wakened sweating and hard, and any woman capable of rousing him to that extent was worthy of his full attention. It didn’t matter who or what she was any more, it was more a matter of what she could make him feel. When it came to women Alexius’s biggest problem was boredom.
‘I’m done here,’ he said succinctly, putting away his mobile phone and striding towards her.
‘If you’re s-sure,’ Rosie heard herself stammer slightly, her mouth dry, her eyes pools of deep green, awareness fingering up and down her spine in an embarrassing wave that burned into her cheeks.
‘Of course, I’m sure,’ Alexius fielded a touch drily, moving past her, noting that her eyes were starry bright and catching a faint whiff of a floral scent that flared his nostrils. He knew at that moment with a triumph he could taste that the attraction wasn’t one-sided. Socrates had set him a challenge and he intended to deliver in record time. He would get to know Rosie Gray in every way there was and hopefully he wouldn’t have to waste much more time hanging about the office after hours.
Still all of a quiver, Rosie cleaned the conference room and got her breathing back under control. Alex Kolovos hit her a little like a wave, knocking her off her feet and leaving her to struggle for normality in the aftermath. It was schoolgirlish to react that powerfully to a man, she told herself in exasperation, but possibly she was overdue for the experience. After all, she was twenty-three years old and still a virgin. When she had been a teenager, her social life had been severely restricted by the fact that she had had to leave school to become her foster mother’s carer during Beryl’s terminal illness. Opportunities to explore her sexuality had been non-existent and by the time she had regained her freedom, she had become much more cautious and sensible. Until now, though, no man had ever made Rosie’s heart pound. Times without number her mother had told her about such wildfire attractions and now, finally feeling what her wayward, self-destructive mother had described, Rosie was torn between fear that she was being very foolish and satisfaction that she could feel what other women felt.
‘I’ve met a man …’ Jenny Gray used to confide excitedly when Rosie was a child. ‘Someone special,’ she would savour. ‘I’ll be away a while.’
And Rosie’s mother had often vanished for days on end, leaving Rosie alone in their apartment without heating, money, food in the fridge or clean clothes. It was even worse, though, when she brought the men home, telling Rosie not to come out of her bedroom, lying in her bed or the living room drinking all day and laughing loudly, forgetting that Rosie had to be taken to school and fed and washed. In the end Social Services had removed Rosie and put her in foster care. Rosie’s memories were always sobering.
By the time Rosie had finished cleaning every other office, Alex Kolovos was still behind his desk. Taut with wariness, she entered. ‘Do you mind if I clean?’
‘Not at all,’ he said lightly, glancing up from his laptop to smile at her, a smile that carried so much sensual charisma that she felt heat blossom in her belly like a fire being stoked. Only that fire didn’t need to be stoked, she thought guiltily, insanely aware of the tautness of her nipples and the shakiness of her legs.
‘Would you like a drink?’ he enquired, standing in front of a drinks cabinet with a glass in his hand.
Taken aback by the offer, Rosie said, ‘No, thanks,’ and scolded herself for wanting to say yes. She valued her job too much to flirt on company time and suddenly asked herself what on earth she was playing at. A guy of Alex’s ilk wasn’t going to offer her anything more than a one-night stand. She wasn’t in his league socially or even educationally. While she might be working to make good on the exams she had missed out on through having to leave school early, she guessed that he was probably a graduate.
Irritated by her immediate refusal of a drink, Alexius wondered if he should have offered her dinner instead. It did not escape his notice that she seemed uncomfortable and that, refusing to look back at
him again, she removed herself from his office as soon as she decently could. Did she appreciate how much her unavailability added to her pulling power? The prospect of yet another night at the office set his even white teeth on edge.
She should be avoiding him, a sensible little voice murmured in Rosie’s head. Anything else was asking for trouble and Rosie had never asked for trouble in her life. Alex Kolovos was like a fever in her blood, upsetting her stability, making her act silly, and the sooner the fire was put out, the better.
With that conviction firmly in mind, Rosie decided to ask Zoe to clean his side of the office corridor the following evening. Zoe frowned. ‘Why?’ she asked baldly.
‘That guy who’s always working late is sort of … flirting with me,’ Rosie admitted reluctantly. ‘And it’s making me uncomfortable.’
‘He’s welcome to flirt with me any time he likes!’ her co-worker confided. ‘He’s drop-dead gorgeous … you are blind sometimes to your opportunities, Rosie. Don’t you fancy him?’
‘Yes, but I know it wouldn’t go anywhere.’
‘Some of the best experiences don’t go anywhere but I still wouldn’t miss out on them,’ Zoe responded with the amusement of a much more experienced woman.
As they packed up at the end of their shift, Rosie having strenuously resisted the desire to look into Alex’s office even once, Zoe frowned at her. ‘You had me hoping that guy was going to chat me up—chance would be a fine thing! He didn’t even look at me … it was like I was invisible. Obviously, it’s you that revs his engine.’
