How to Win the Dating War

by Aimee Carson

  ‘I’d better get on. Owen’s interviewing therapists this afternoon,’ Erin said ruefully. ‘I don’t want to keep him waiting.’

  As Erin drove the sleek BMW several miles to reach the Black’s Inn, the smallest property in Sam’s portfolio—an elegant Georgian hotel, which incorporated a brand-new custom-built spa—she was thinking anxiously about how much money she had contrived to put by in savings in recent months. Not as much as she had hoped, certainly not nearly enough to cover her expenses in the event of job loss, she reflected worriedly. Unfortunately she could never forget the huge struggle she had had trying to get by on welfare benefits when her twins, Lorcan and Nuala, were newly born. Back then her mother, once so proud of her daughter’s achievements, had been aghast at the mess Erin had made of her seemingly promising future. Erin had felt like a total failure and had worked out the exact moment that it had all gone belly up for her. It would have been great to have a terrific career and the guy of her dreams but possibly hoping for that winning combination had been downright greedy. In actuality she had fallen madly in love with the wrong guy and had taken her life apart to make it dovetail with his. All the lessons she had learned growing up had been forgotten, her ambitions put on hold, while she chased her dream lover.

  And ever since then, Erin had been beating herself up for her mistakes. When she couldn’t afford to buy something for the twins, when she had to listen in tolerant silence to her mother’s regrets for the youthful freedom she had thrown away by becoming a single parent, she was painfully aware that she could only blame herself. She had precious little excuse for her foolishness and lack of foresight. After all, Erin had grown up in a poor home listening to her father talk endlessly and impressively about how he was going to make his fortune. Over and over and over again she had listened and the fortune had never come. Worse still, on many occasions money that could not be spared had been frittered away on crazy schemes and had dragged her family down into debt. By the time she was ten years old and watching her poorly educated mother work in a succession of dead-end jobs to keep her family solvent, she had realised that her father was just a dreamer, full of money-making ideas but lacking the work ethic required to bring any of those ideas to fruition. His vain belief that he was set on earth to shine as brightly as a star had precluded him from seeking an ordinary job. In any case working to increase someone else’s profit had been what her idle father called ‘a mug’s game’. He had died in a train crash when she was twelve and from that point on life in her home had become less of a roller-coaster ride.

  In short, Erin had learned at a young age that she needed to learn how best to keep herself and that it would be very risky to look to any man to take care of her. As a result, she had studied hard at school, ignored those who called her a nerd and gone on to university, also ignoring her mother’s protestations that she should have moved straight into a job to earn a wage. Boyfriends had come and gone, mostly unremarked, for Erin had been wary of getting too involved, of compromising her ambitions to match someone else’s. Having set her sights on a career with prospects, she had emerged from university with a top-flight business management degree. To help to finance her years as a student she had also worked every spare hour as a personal trainer, a vocation that had gained her a raft of more practical skills, not least on how best to please in a service industry.

  Later that afternoon, when she returned from her visit to Black’s Inn, the Stanwick receptionist informed Erin that Sam wanted to see her immediately. Realising in dismay that she had forgotten to switch her mobile phone back on after the interviews were finished, Erin knocked lightly on the door of her boss’s office and walked straight in with the lack of ceremony that Sam preferred.

  ‘Ah, Erin, at last. Where have you been all afternoon? There’s someone here I want you to meet,’ Sam informed her with just a hint of impatience.

  ‘Sorry, I forgot to remind you that I’d be over at Black’s doing interviews with Owen,’ Erin explained, smiling apologetically until a movement by the window removed her attention from the older man. She turned her head and began to move forward, visually tracking the emergence of a tall powerful male from the shadows. Then she froze as though a glass wall had suddenly sprung into being around her, imprisoning her and shutting her off from her companions.

  ‘Miss Turner?’ a sleek cultured drawl with the suggestion of an accent purred. ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Your boss speaks very highly of you.’

  Erin flinched as though a thunderclap had sounded within the room without warning, that dark-timbred voice unleashing an instant ‘fight or flight instinct she had to struggle to keep under control. She would have known that distinctive intonation laced with command had she heard it even at a crowded party. It was as unforgettable as the male himself.

  ‘This is—’ Sam began.

  ‘Cristophe Donakis…’ Cristo extended a lean brown hand to greet her as if they had never met before.

  And Erin just stared in consternation at that wicked fallen-angel face as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. And she couldn’t. Cropped black hair spiky with the short curls that not even the closest cut could eradicate entirely, ebony brows level above stunning dark deep-set eyes that could turn as golden as the sunset, high cheekbones and, as though all the rest was not enough to over-endow him with beauty, a mouth that was the all-male sensual equivalent of pure temptation. The passage of time since their final encounter had left no physical mark on those lean dark features. In a split second it was as if she had turned her head and stepped back in time. He remained defiantly drop-dead gorgeous. Something low down in her body that she hadn’t felt in years clenched tightly and uncomfortably, making her press her slender thighs together in dismay.

  ‘Mr Donakis,’ Erin pronounced woodenly, lifting her chin and very briefly touching his hand, determined to betray no reaction that Sam might question. Sam’s ‘big appointment’ was with Cristo? She was horrified, fighting to conceal her reactions, could feel a soul-deep trembling begin somewhere in the region of her wobbly knees. That fast she was being bombarded by unwelcome images from their mutual past. Cristo grinning with triumph and punching the air when he finally beat her in a swimming race; Cristo serving her breakfast in bed when she was unwell and making a production of feeding her grapes one by one, long brown fingers caressing her lips at every opportunity, teaching her that no part of her was impervious to his touch. Cristo, sex personified night or day with an unashamedly one-track mind. He had taught her so much, hurt her so much she could hardly bear to look at him.

  ‘Make it Cristo. I’m not a big fan of formality,’ Cristo murmured levelly and even the air around him seemed cool as frost.

  Just as suddenly Erin was angry, craving the power to knock him into the middle of next week for not being surprised by her appearance. Evidently he had known in advance that she worked for Sam and he was not prepared to own up to their previous relationship, which suited Erin perfectly. Indeed she was grateful that he had pretended she was a stranger, for she cringed at the idea of Sam and her colleagues learning what an idiot she had once been. One of Cristo Donakis’ ex-girlfriends, what? That guy who changed women as he changed socks? Really? Inside her head she could already imagine the jeers and scornful amusement that that revelation would unleash, for Erin already knew that she had the reputation of being standoffish with the staff for keeping her private life private while others happily told all. Was Cristo the prospective buyer of Sam’s hotels? For what other reason would he be visiting the Stanwick hotel? Cristo owned an international hotel and leisure empire.

  ‘Erin…I’d like you to give Cristo a tour of our facilities here and at the other spas. His particular interest lies with them,’ Sam told her equably. ‘You can give him the most recent breakdown of figures. Believe me when I tell you that this girl has a mind like a computer for the important details.’

  Erin went pink in receipt of that comp
liment.

  ‘Looks and brains—I’m impressed,’ Cristo pronounced with a slow smile that somehow contrived to freeze her to the marrow.

  ‘You own the Donakis group,’ Erin remarked tightly, trying to combat the shocked blankness of her mind with a shrewd take on what Cristo’s source of interest could be in a trio of comparatively small hotels, which while luxurious could not seriously compare to the opulence of the elite Donakis hotel standards. ‘I thought you specialised in city hotels.’

  ‘My client base also enjoy country breaks. In any business there’s always room for expansion in a new direction. I want to provide my clients with a choice of custom-made outlets so that they no longer have to patronise my competitors,’ Cristo drawled smoothly.

  ‘The beauty market is up-and-coming. What was once a treat for special occasions is now seen as a necessity by many women and by men as well,’ Erin commented, earning an appreciative glance from her boss.

  ‘You surprise me. I’ve never used a spa in my life,’ Cristo proclaimed without hesitation.

  ‘But your nails are filed and your brows are phenomenally well groomed,’ Erin commented softly, earning a startled appraisal from Sam, who clearly feared that she was getting much too personal about his guest’s grooming habits.

  ‘You’re very observant,’ Cristo remarked silkily.

  ‘Well, I have to be. One third of our customer base is male,’ Erin fielded smoothly.

  ISBN: 9781459244719

  Copyright © 2011 by Aimee Carson

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