my hesitant nod, the tall, salt-and-pepper-haired man held the door open, his dark eyes assessing me even more thoroughly once I scrambled to my feet.
‘I’m Wendell, head of Mr Xenakis’s security team. This way,’ he said, in a voice that brooked no argument.
Dear God, either Neo Xenakis was super thorough about his interactions with the common man or he was paranoid about his security. Neither boded well.
Another series of incongruous underground hallways brought us to a steel-framed lift. Wendell accessed it with a sleek black key card. Once inside, he pressed another button.
The lift shot up, leaving my stomach and the last dregs of my courage on the basement floor. I wanted to throw myself at the lift doors, claw them open and jump out, consequences be damned. But my feet were paralysed with the unshakeable acceptance that I would only be postponing the inevitable.
Besides, I didn’t run from my responsibilities. Not like my father literally had when things got tough. Not like my mother was doing by burying her head in the sand and frivolously gambling away money we didn’t have. A habit that had veered scarily towards addiction in the last six months.
I stifled my anxiety as the lift slid to a smooth halt.
One problematic mountain at a time.
This particular one bore all the hallmarks of an Everest climb. One that might only see me to Base Camp before the worst happened.
Not a single member of the sharply dressed staff I’d spotted coming and going downstairs roamed this rarefied space, which boasted the kind of furnishings that graced the expensive designer magazines my mother had avidly subscribed to back when money had been no object for the Prestons. The kind that had always made me wonder if the pictures were staged or if people actually lived like that.
Evidently, they did.
The dove-grey carpeting looked exclusive and expensive, making me cringe as my scuffed, cheap shoes trod over it. Lighter shades of grey silk graced the walls, with stylish lampshades illuminating the space and the twin console tables that stood on either side of the immense double doors.
Made of white polished ash, with handles that looked like gleaming aeroplane wings, everything about them and the glimpse of the expansive conference rooms I could see from where I stood screamed opulence and exclusivity. The type that belonged to owners who didn’t take kindly to strangers ruining their day with the sort of news I had to deliver.
Sweat broke out on my palms. Before I could perform the undignified act of rubbing them against the polyester weave of my skirt, Wendell knocked twice.
The voice that beckoned was deep enough to penetrate the solid wood, formidable enough to raise the dread digging its claws into me...and enigmatic enough to send a skitter of...something else down my spine.
That unknown quality threatened to swamp all other emotions as Wendell opened the doors. ‘You have five minutes,’ he informed me, then stepped to one side.
The need to flee resurged. How long would a prison sentence be for this kind of crime, anyway?
Too long. My mother wouldn’t survive more upheaval. And with our landlord threatening eviction, the last thing I could afford was more turbulence.
With no choice but to face my fate, I took a shaky step into the office.
And promptly lost every last gasp of air from my lungs at the sight of the man braced against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, arms crossed and fierce eyes locked on me.
If his surroundings screamed ultraexclusivity and supreme wealth, the man himself was so many leagues above that station, he required his own stratosphere. Even stationary, he vibrated with formidable power—the kind that commanded legions with just one look.
And his body...
The navy suit, clearly bespoke, enhanced the bristling power of his athletic build. Like his impressive six-foot-plus height, his wide tapered shoulders seemed to go on for ever, with the kind of biceps that promised to carry any load rippling beneath the layers of clothes. Above the collar of his pristine white shirt, his square jaw jutted out with unapologetic masculinity, and his pure alpha-ness was not in any way diluted by the dimple in his chin. If anything, that curiously arresting feature only drew deeper attention to the rest of his face. To the haughty cheekbones resting beneath narrowed eyes, his wide forehead and the sensual slash of his lips.
He was...indescribable. Because words like attractive or breathtaking or even magnificent didn’t do him nearly enough justice.
And as he continued to appraise me, every last ounce of my courage threatened to evaporate as surely as my breath. Because the way he stared at me, as if he found me as fascinating as I found him, sent a spiralling wave of pure, unadulterated awareness charging through me.
For some inexplicable reason my hair seemed to hold singular appeal for him, making me almost feel as if he was touching the tied back tresses, caressing the strands between his fingers.
The snick of the door shutting made me flinch—a reaction he spotted immediately as his arms dropped and he began to prowl slowly towards me.
Sweet heaven, even the way he moved was spectacular. I’d never truly comprehended the term ‘poetry in motion.’ Until now.
Focus, Sadie. You’re not here to ogle the first billionaire you’ve ever met.
I opened my mouth to speak. He beat me to it.
‘Whoever you are, you seem to have caught Wendell in a good mood. I don’t believe he’s allowed anyone to walk in off the street and demand to see me in...well, ever,’ he rasped in a gravel-rolling-in-honey voice, sending another cascade of pure sensation rushing over my skin.
Momentarily thrown by the effect of his voice, I couldn’t tell if his tone suggested he’d be having a word with Wendell later about that misstep or if the whole thing simply amused him. He was that enigmatic to read. The mystery stretched my already oversensitive nerves, triggering my babble-when-nervous flaw.
‘That was Wendell in a good mood? I shudder to think what he’s like in a bad mood,’ I blurted. Then I cringed harder when the meaning of my words sank in.
Oh, no...
His eyes narrowed even further as he stopped several feet away from me. ‘Perhaps you’d like to move whatever this is along?’
Impatience coated his tone even as his eyes raked a closer inspection over my body, pausing on the frayed thinness of my blouse, the slightly baggy cut of my skirt following my recent weight loss, before dropping to my legs. The return journey was just as sizzling. Hell, more so.
That stain of inadequacy, of not being worthy—which had dogged me from the moment my father’s abscondment-announcing postcard had landed on the front doormat, in shocking synchronicity with the bailiff’s arrival on our doorstep eight years ago—flared like a fever.
I didn’t need one of my mother’s magazines to tell me that this man didn’t meddle with the likes of me...ever.
It was in every delicious frame of his impeccable body, every measured exhalation and every flicker of those sooty,
