beauty store on your own behalf, falsified invoices and paid therapists who didn’t exist. Your fraudulent acts netted you something in the region of twenty grand in a comparatively short time frame. How could you think that that level of deceit would go unnoticed?’
‘I am not a thief,’ Erin repeated doggedly although an alarm bell had gone off in her head the instant he mentioned the theft and sale of products from the store.
She knew someone who had done that for she herself had actually caught the woman putting a box of products into her car. Sally, her administrative assistant in the office, whom she had relied on heavily at the time, had been stealing and selling the exclusive items online. Unfortunately Erin had no proof of that fact because she had neither called in the police to handle the matter nor shared the truth that Sally had been stealing with another member of staff. Instead she had sat a distraught Sally down to talk to her. Together the two women had then done a stocktake and Erin had ended up replacing the missing products out of her own pocket. Why? She had felt desperately sorry for the older woman, struggling to cope alone with two autistic children after her husband had walked out on her. But had she only scraped the tip of the iceberg when it came to Sally’s dishonesty? Had Sally even then been engaged in rather more imaginative methods of gaining money by duplicitous means?
‘I have the proof,’ Cristo retorted crisply.
‘And witnesses, you said,’ Erin recalled. ‘Would one of those witnesses be Sally Jennings?’
His lean strong face tightened and she knew she had hit a nerve. ‘You can’t talk or charm your way out of this, Erin—’
‘I’m not interested in charming you. I’m not the same woman I was when we were together,’ Erin countered curtly, for what he had done to her had toughened her. There was nothing like surviving an unhappy love affair to build self-knowledge and character, she reckoned painfully. He had broken her heart, taught her how fragile she was, left her bitter and humiliated. But she had had to pick herself up again fast once she discovered that she was pregnant. Choice and self-pity hadn’t come into that challenging equation.
Erin stared back at him, pale amethyst eyes searching his darkly handsome features, blocking her instinctive response to that beautiful bone structure. Had he truly not read a single one of her letters? What had happened to human curiosity? Her phone calls had gone unanswered and his PA had told her she was wasting her time phoning because Cristo wouldn’t accept a call from her. Even when she had got desperate enough to call his family home in Greece she had run into a brick wall erected by his spiteful foster mother, who had proudly told her that Cristo was getting married and wanted nothing more to do with, ‘a woman like her’. As if she were some trollop Cristo had picked up in the street for a night of sex, rather than the woman who had been his constant companion for a year.
Although, perhaps it hadn’t been his foster mother’s fault. After all, while she might have seen herself in the light of a serious relationship, it was clear that Cristo had seen her entirely differently. He had never let her meet his family and, even though he’d known that she wanted him to meet her mother, he had found it inconvenient every time she’d tried to set up even a casual encounter. She might have been part of his private life but he had walled her off from everyone else in it, for she had only occasionally met his friends and never again after the evening when one of his mates had made a point of commenting on how long he had been with Erin.
‘I think you’ll change your tune once you appreciate how few choices you have,’ Cristo responded softly. ‘Now let’s view the facilities here. I have a tight schedule.’
Her mouth tightening, she followed him out of the office. How did he expect her to change her tune? Certainly, he hadn’t listened to a word she’d said. Had Sally Jennings lied about her? What else could she think? Had her abrupt departure from her job at the Mobila spa played right into the older woman’s hands when the irregularities were exposed by the accounting team? Change her tune? What had he meant by that comment? Her brain engaged in working out what she could possibly do to combat such allegations, Erin realised that she would have to see the evidence he had mentioned to work out her own defence and how to nail the real culprit. Had she been a total idiot to let Sally off the hook when she caught her stealing? She was appalled that her sympathetic and supportive treatment of the older woman might have been repaid with lies calculated to make Erin look guilty in her place. Confronting Sally, appealing to her conscience—if she had one—might well be the only course she could take. But what had Cristo meant about choices?
Owen brimmed with enthusiasm as he showed them round the spa, describing the latest improvements and special offers as well as the upsurge in custom that had resulted. He finished by offering them coffee but Cristo demurred, pleading time constraints as he whisked Erin back out to the car and angled it back out onto the road to make their last call. Brackens was Sam’s most exclusive property. A Victorian house set in wooded surroundings, it was very popular with couples in search of a romantic weekend and the spa was run as a member’s only club.
Erin watched Mia, the elegant brunette in her thirties who managed Brackens, melt at Cristo’s first smile and allowed the knowledgeable manager to do most of the talking as she showed them round her impressive domain. Erin was struggling to concentrate on the job at hand. There was too much else on her bemused mind. So, for almost three years, Cristo had been under the impression that she had stolen a fat wad of cash from him. Why hadn’t he contacted her? Why had he virtually let it go instead of informing the police? Cristo never let people get away with doing the dirty on him. He was a man few would wish to cross but he did reward loyal, hardworking staff with generous bonuses and opportunities.
Watching Mia laugh flirtatiously with Cristo made Erin feel slightly nauseous. She could recall when she had been even more impressionable. One glance at that lean dark face of sharp angles and creative hollows and those stunning black diamond eyes and she had been enamoured, her interest caught, her body humming with unfamiliar thrills. Her wariness with men, her long hours of study while others partied, had made her more than usually vulnerable for a young woman of twenty-one. She slammed down hard on the memory, awarding Cristo a veiled glance when he ushered her back to his Bugatti with a fleeting remark on her quietness.
‘May I go home now?’ she enquired as he turned the sports car.
‘We’re having dinner together at my hotel,’ Cristo informed her. ‘We have things to talk about.’
‘I have nothing to talk to you about. Sam does his own negotiating,’ Erin volunteered drily. ‘I’m just the hired help.’
‘If rumour is to be believed, you’re not just anything when it comes to Sam Morton.’
Erin went rigid in the passenger seat at the suggestion. ‘Do you listen to rumours?’
‘You slept with me while I was employing you,’ Cristo reminded her without heat.
Her teeth ground together. For two pins she would have slapped him. ‘That’s different. We were already involved when I began working for you.’
Cristo compressed his beautifully shaped mouth, his thoughts taking him back even though he didn’t want to go there. He had never had to work so hard to get a woman into bed. Her elusiveness, her surprising inhibitions had heightened his desire, persuaded him that she was different. Yes, she had been different, she had lined her pockets at his expense throughout their affair, he recalled grimly. She had taken him for a fool just as she was taking Morton.
‘Sam and I are only friends—’
His eloquent mouth quirked. ‘The same sort of friendship you had with that other friend of yours, Tom?’
Erin
