you just get through telling me that I’m pretty much your job?’ he said. ‘If I want something, you’re meant to arrange it – is that how it works?’
‘Socialising with the guests isn’t really allowed.’
‘Even if the guest in question has requested your company? Even after you stumbled into their room without knocking and threw a telephone at their head?’
He saw a faint smile touch her lips and sensed her weakening even before she spoke. Of course she was weakening, they always did.
‘Just an orange juice then,’ she said.
Play it right and he could have her by the end of the day.
Layla walked over to the sofa and perched on the edge of it, keeping her clipboard on her lap. He crossed the room and handed her the juice. She watched as he poured himself a mineral water.
She stared at the glass in his hand.
‘Mineral water,’ she said.
‘What of it?’
She shrugged.
‘I just thought your drink of choice would be something a bit stronger. Mineral water doesn’t exactly say hellraiser, does it?’
He grinned as he sat down opposite her and raised his glass.
‘Neither does orange juice. We’re perfect for each other.’
The blush was back. She looked down at her glass and he checked her left hand with the briefest glance. Always best to size up the conquest before he started out, and in his experience single girls caused the least trouble. And trouble right now was the last thing he needed.
No ring. Heat began to course through his veins as he looked at her, the full upper lip, the graceful curve of her neck highlighted by the curl of her blonde hair just below the jawline.
‘That’s different,’ she said. ‘I’m working.’
‘So am I. I might not be playing a tournament right now but the tennis season is so long, practically all year round.’ He took a sip of the water. ‘Even when I’m not competing the training is still full-on.
‘I see.’
‘There are other vices that don’t affect my game.’
At least in his opinion they didn’t affect it. His coach and sponsors might not agree.
She looked him in the eye, a flash of something there that he couldn’t fathom. As if she was sizing him up.
‘You mean groupies?’ she said loudly, blue eyes narrowing.
She was bold, he had to hand it to her. Then again, she’d probably read the gutter press this week, along with the rest of the world.
‘Groupie is such an ugly word,’ he said. ‘Insulting somehow. Makes it sound like I take advantage of people and I can understand that because of the way the papers portray it, but that’s just not the way it is. I don’t have time for proper full-on relationships and I meet plenty of girls who feel exactly the same way as me. I’m single. I’m not doing anything wrong.’ He held her gaze steadily, waiting to gauge her reaction. ‘There’s a lot to be said for uncomplicated one-off flings,’ he said. ‘As long as both people know what they’re doing, know where they stand, I just don’t see what’s wrong with it.’
She gave a dismissive whatever-you-say shrug.
Uncomplicated. When did she do anything in her life that was that?
‘What about you?’ he said. ‘Who was it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘On the phone. Who was it? Husband? Boyfriend?’
‘My mother,’ she said shortly. God that made her sound like some saddo spinster who still lived at home with her parents. Whereas it was in fact the other way round. Her mother was the one sponging off her.
He didn’t look particularly judgemental. Maybe he had an insane parent tucked away somewhere too. Then again, who was she kidding? He was bound to have rich parents who’d poured money into his tennis career. She pictured him as a toddler wielding a racquet that was bigger than he was and a small twist of envy jabbed at her ribs. He would have had all the opportunities that a supportive family could give you. There was the difference between them. He had the world at his feet and she was one step away from the gutter.
‘Makes sense. You need a relative to invoke a tantrum that size.’
‘It was NOT some tantrum. I’m twenty four, not four. It was anger. Pure, white hot, tear-her-head-from-her-shoulders anger.’
He pulled a face.
‘Wow. Remind me not to get on the wrong side of you.’
She managed a smile and groped for a potted explanation before he could pigeon-hole her as scary freak.
‘She’s cleaned out my savings account and disappeared across the world on some ridiculous mid-life crisis trip.’ She pointed her pen at him. ‘The States. Your neck of the woods. I was trying to talk her down but she was already at the airport, tickets in hand, and nothing was going to stop her.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m normally a pretty level-headed person, I just lost it, that’s all. I’d been saving for years.’
Exasperation twisted her stomach again, this time with a sense of defeat that made her want to crash her head down on the coffee table next to the sofa. Her mother would be airborne now, winging her way across the Atlantic, and Layla might just as well have withdrawn her savings from the bank and chucked them in the bin for all the likelihood she had of ever seeing them again.
‘For what?’
She shrugged.
‘A place of my own.’
The chances of achieving that dream now were non-existent, certainly for the next few years. For some reason saying it out loud invoked a surge of despair that made her throat feel suddenly tight and achy. She swallowed like mad and bit her lower lip, hard to distract herself. She was absolutely not going to lose it in front of a stranger. Especially a stranger who had everything. He probably had half a dozen places of his own on various different continents.
‘Just you and your mom then?’ he said. ‘Any other relatives? Married, single, other?’
The only good thing about that question was that it distracted her from her misery. Was he actually sizing her up as a prospect? Good grief, was this how he operated – checking out his prey in a few quick sentences to see if they had strings attached or not? He was looking at her in a boldly appraising way that made her stomach feel like melty marshmallow, as if he could see right inside her. She took a calming sip of her orange juice.
‘Single,’
