at the walls, the screensaver on her laptop the only sign of life in the room. How long she could stay secreted away in her office, she didn’t know—but she’d do whatever it took to have as little to do with Nick Santos as possible, and until she had some sort of plan she didn’t want to go anywhere near him.
It was weird, seeing him after so many years. Strange how they’d both thought themselves so grown up back then. He had seemed so strong and so much a man. At twenty-one he’d been more worldly and experienced than her. Yet now she could see how young they’d been. For it was obvious that the boy had become a man.
He looked every part the professional businessman. Gone was the long fringe that he’d used to flick out of his eyes with the toss of his head, replaced by a short, slick style. His dark features, even back then resonant with hidden depths, now seemed to sit more comfortably in a more mature face. Even his shoulders seemed broader.
He was a different person, clearly, from that boy she’d met so long ago.
Well, she’d changed too.
She was older, wiser, a mother.
The mother of his son!
Something like a garbled cry escaped from her lips.
Jason!
How in heaven’s name was she going to prevent him from finding out about Jason?
CHAPTER THREE
A BRIEF knock on her door made her look up, only to find Nick filling the space where the door had been.
She swallowed.
‘What do you want?’
Nick took a step into her office, eyebrows raised.
‘Is that any way to greet an old friend? It’s not as if we’re strangers after all.’
‘It was a long time ago. You almost feel like a stranger.’
He hesitated. Tilted his head to one side.
‘You have no idea how I feel, Alexandra.’
His words, and the flat way in which he delivered them, made her swallow. But that was nothing to how she felt when he moved closer to the desk. Panic pooled in her every cell.
Then he suddenly turned. For just a second Alex felt relief, but only for a second. She heard Nick mutter, ‘Just wait—I’ll be with you soon,’ before closing the door. Alex caught a flash of black as Sofia, looking indignant, rushed by, then it swung shut and Nick wheeled and moved back across the office until he was standing just across the desk from her.
And then he was looking down at her—dark, threatening and dangerous—and all Alex could think about was the pressure bearing down on top of her.
The pressure of being confronted by this man, her first love—her first lover—the pressure of knowing he was part of Aristos’s world and had never been a real part of hers—the pressure of knowing the secret that lay between them like a chasm.
The chair-back pressed into her as she attempted, however fractionally, to increase the distance between them.
‘Alexandra—’
She squeezed her eyes shut. The way he still said her name, just as he had back then, squeezing out the syllables till they seemed to curl in his rich, Mediterranean accent. Nobody had ever said her name like Nick had those weeks in Crete. It had made her feel sexy back then.
Only now she couldn’t let it affect her. She was all grown up and things like that were the stuff of teenagers and holidays and holding hands. She was over it.
‘Alexandra.’
She sucked in a breath, opened her eyes and forced what she hoped would pass as a businesslike expression onto her face.
‘I guess you’ll need to check the accounts, find out how the company is going. Our tax position—all that stuff.’
He blinked slowly. ‘There’s time for that later.’
‘Good,’ Alex said, a little too fast. ‘I’m kind of busy at the moment…’ She shuffled a few papers on her desk for effect. ‘Maybe I could drop the accounts into you later? I imagine you want to get things sorted out here and head back to Greece as soon as you can.’
Nick’s eyes narrowed as he propped himself down on the edge of her desk and leaned dangerously close to her.
‘I can see you’re in the middle of something very important,’ he whispered conspiratorially, nodding towards the computer. She followed his gesture and felt her cheeks heat till she was sure they matched the colour of the rosy-coloured pipe powering a cubic path around her computer screen.
Her hand reached out on impulse, but she snatched it back short of the keyboard. Better the screensaver right now than her desktop. Not with a photograph of Jason beaming out from it.
She looked up at him and grabbed a breath, anxious to steer the conversation to safe territory—wherever that might be.
‘I was thinking…’
Both his eyebrows went up this time and he leaned over to swipe a pen from right in front of her, getting so close as to fill her senses with the subtle scent of his cologne overlaying the unmistakable essence of man. For a second it took her breath away, her line of thought erased, and she had no choice but to sit and watch as he began to tap the pen against the fingers of his other hand.
‘Very reassuring to hear my uncle employed people who can think.’ He looked around, assessing the pale honey-coloured walls, the bookshelves and filing cabinets, as if taking an inventory. ‘But what do you actually do in this spacious office of yours?’
His jibe focused her attention once more, and she straightened her spine, forced her head up higher. ‘I imagine you’ve already discussed the staff and our responsibilities with Sofia.’
The pen kept tapping.
‘I want to hear it from you.’
It was impossible not to feel intimidated by the man. From the edge of her desk he dominated the space before her, looming large and much too close. She looked up at him, feeling her eyes narrow as she tried to work out where he was coming from. No doubt he already had plans in mind for the company. Where did she fit in with those plans?
She needed this job. With a brand-new mortgage to her name, the first chance she’d had to find a real home for her and Jason, now she needed it more than ever. Aristos hadn’t been the easiest boss, but the chance to get out of their poky flat and into a real house with a real backyard was worth anything her former boss had been able to dish out. Now that Nick was the boss, what would he dish out?
‘All right. I’m Financial Administrator for the Xenophon Group. I’ve been here for almost two years, though I haven’t been doing this job all that time.’
The pen stopped tapping. ‘No. That’s what Sofia said. You started out on Reception—is that right?’
Before she could answer she noticed the beat
