almost said out loud, When you look at me like that I can’t think of a single thing I like except the dimples in your carved cheekbones when you smile.
Shocked by the intensity of heat that washed through her at the private admission, she briefly glanced away to compose herself. ‘I enjoy simple pleasures, like reading and going to the cinema. I just love watching a good film that takes me away from the worries and concerns of my own life and transports me into the story of someone else’s … especially if it’s uplifting. I also love listening to music and taking long walks in the countryside or on the beach.’
‘I find none of those interests either boring or ordinary,’ Ludo replied, the edges of his finely sculpted lips nudging the wryest of smiles. ‘Besides, sometimes the most ordinary things in life—the things we may take for granted—can be the best. Don’t you agree? I only wish I had more time to enjoy some of the pleasures that you mention myself.’
‘Why can’t you free up some time so that you can? Do you have to be so busy all of the time?’
Frowning deeply, he seemed to consider the question for an unsettlingly long time. His perusal of Natalie while he was mulling over her question bordered on intense. Flustered, she averted her gaze to check the time on her watch.
‘We’ll soon be arriving in London,’ she announced, reaching over to the window seat for her bag and delving into it for a pen and something to write on. ‘Do you think you could give me your full name and address now, so I can send you the money for my ticket?’
‘We might as well wait until we disembark.’
He bit into his sandwich, as if certain she wouldn’t give him an argument. She wanted to insist, but in the end decided not to. What difference could it possibly make to take his address now or later, as long as she got it? ‘Never a borrower or a lender be,’ her mother had always told her. ‘And always pay your debts.’
Instead of adding any further comment, Natalie fell into a reflective silence. Observing that she wasn’t eating her lunch, Ludo frowned, and the gesture brought two deep furrows to his otherwise silkily smooth brow.
‘Finish your food,’ he advised. ‘If you haven’t had any breakfast you’ll need it. Especially if you face a difficult meeting with your father.’
‘Difficult?’
‘I mean emotional. If his health has deteriorated then your discussion will not be easy for either of you.’
The comment made a jolt of fear scissor through her heart. She was genuinely afraid that her dad’s urgent need to see her was to tell her he’d received a serious diagnosis from the doctor. They’d had their ups and downs over the years but she still adored him, and would hate for him to be taken from her when he had only just turned sixty.
‘You’re right. No doubt it will be emotional.’ She gave him a self-conscious smile and chewed thoughtfully on her sandwich.
‘I’m sure that whatever happens the two of you will find great reassurance in each other’s company.’
The sudden ring of Ludo’s mobile instantly commanded his attention. After a brief acknowledgement to the caller, he covered the speaker with his hand and turned back to Natalie.
‘I’m afraid I need to take this call. I’m going to step outside into the corridor for a few minutes.’
As he rose to his feet she was taken aback to see how tall he was … at least six foot two, she mused. The impressive physique beneath the flawless Italian tailoring hinted at an athletically lean and muscular build, and she couldn’t help staring up at him in admiration. Concerned that she might resemble a besotted teenager, staring open-mouthed at a pop idol, she forced herself to relax and nod her head in acknowledgement.
‘Please, go ahead.’
As the automatic twin doors of the compartment swished open Ludo turned to her for a moment and, with a disconcerting twinkle in his eye, said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t run away, Natalie … will you?’
CHAPTER TWO
‘I ASSUME THAT all the papers are ready?’
Even as he asked the question Ludo rapidly assessed the detailed information he’d been given, turning it over in his mind with the usual rapier-like thoroughness that enabled him to dive into every corner and crevice of a situation all at once and miss nothing.
At the other end of the line, his personal assistant Nick confirmed that everything was as it should be. Rubbing a hand round his clean-shaven, chiselled jaw, Ludo enquired ‘And you’ve scheduled the meeting for tomorrow, as I asked?’
‘Yes, I have. I told the client that he and his lawyer should come to the office at ten forty-five, just as you instructed.’
‘And you’ve obviously notified Godrich, my own man?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good. It sounds like you’ve taken care of everything. I’ll see you back at the office some time this afternoon to give the papers a final once-over. Bye for now.’
When he’d concluded the call Ludo leant his back against the panelled wall of the train corridor, trying in vain to calm the uncharacteristic nerves that were fluttering like a swarm of intoxicated butterflies in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t the call or its contents that had perturbed him. Finalising deals and acquiring potentially lucrative businesses that had fallen on hard times was meat and drink to him, and he was famed for quickly turning his new acquisitions into veins of easily flowing gold. It was how he had made his fortune.
No, the reason for his current disquiet was his engaging fellow passenger. How could a mere slip of a girl, with the reed-slim figure of a prima ballerina, long brown hair and big grey eyes like twin sunlit pools, electrify him as if he’d been plugged into the National Grid?
He shook his head. She wasn’t anything like the voluptuous blondes and redheads that he was usually attracted to, and yet there was something irresistibly engaging about her. In fact, from the moment Ludo had heard the sound of her soft voice she had all but seduced him … Even more surprising than that, what were the odds that she should turn out to be half-Greek? The synchronicity stunned him.
Distractedly staring down at several missed messages on his phone, he impatiently flicked off the screen and gazed out of the window at the scenery that was hurtling by instead. The mixture of old and new industrial buildings and the now familiar twenty-first-century constructions rising high into the skyline heralded the fact that they were fast approaching the city. It was time he made up his mind about whether or not he wanted to act on the intense attraction that had gripped him and decide what to do about it. It was clear that the lovely Natalie was in earnest about reimbursing him for her train ticket, but he was naturally wary of giving his home address to strangers … however charming and pretty.
Although she’d transfixed him from the moment she’d stepped breathlessly into the first-class compartment and he’d scented the subtle but arresting tones of her mandarin and rose perfume, it wasn’t in his nature to make snap decisions. While he was a great believer in following strong impulses in his business life, he wasn’t so quick to apply the same method to his romantic liaisons. Sexual desire could be dangerously misleading, he’d found. It might be tempting as far as satisfying his healthy libido, but not if it turned into
