having breakfast with her boss, discussing orgasms? ‘I wasn’t... This was...’ She stopped, silently willing her racing pulse to quieten. ‘I was merely making conversation. I don’t have an opinion on orgasms one way or another.’
His low laugh caressed her senses like soft butterfly wings. ‘Everyone has an opinion on orgasms, Brianna. Some of us may have stronger opinions than others, but we all have them.’
She was not going to think about Sakis and orgasms together. She was not. ‘Um...okay; point taken. But I’d rather not discuss it any longer, if that’s okay with you?’
He finished the last of his pancakes and picked up his black coffee. ‘Certainly. But some subjects have a habit of lingering until they’re dealt with.’
‘And other subjects deserve more attention than others. What was your other point?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Before the subject went...sideways you said “on the one hand”. I was wondering what the other was.’
It was a purely diversionary tactic, but she wanted—no, needed—to get off the subject that was making desire dredge through her pelvis like a pervasive drug, threatening to fool her into thinking she could taste the forbidden and come out whole.
There would be no coming out whole once she gave in to the hunger that burned within her, that burned relentlessly in Sakis’s eyes. Wanting—or, God forbid, needing—a man like Sakis would destroy her eventually. Their conversation in the boardroom had reiterated the fact that he was emotionally scarred from what his father had done to him. He would never allow himself to trust anyone, never mind reaching the point of needing another human being to the extent she suspected she would crave if she didn’t control her feelings.
‘On the other hand, I’m glad I know this weakness. Because I have a feeling you don’t give yourself permission enough to enjoy the simple things in life.’
Her heart hammered with something suspiciously like elation. ‘And you...you want to give me that?’
‘I want to give you that. I want to indulge you like you’ve never been indulged before.’
Simple words. But oh, so dangerous to her current state of mind.
‘Why?’ she blurted before she could stop herself.
Her question seemed to surprise him. His lashes swept down and veiled his eyes. ‘For starters, I’m hoping to be rewarded with one of those rare smiles of yours.’ He looked back up and his expression stopped her breath. There was a solemn kinship, a gentleness in their depths, that made her heart flip. ‘And because I had my brothers while I dealt with my daddy issues. But you, as far as I know, are an only child, correct?’
Emotion clogged her throat. ‘Correct,’ she croaked, battling the threat of tears.
That weird connection tightened, latched and embedded deeply, frightening but soothing at the same time. ‘Let’s call this therapy, then.’ He glanced down at her plate where one last square of honey-soaked pancake was poised on her fork. ‘Are you finished?’
She hadn’t but the thought of putting that last morsel in her mouth while he watched with those all-seeing eyes was too much to bear. ‘Yes, I’m done. And thank you...for this, I mean. And for...’ She stumbled to a halt, alien feelings rushing through her at dizzying speed.
He nodded, stood and held out his hand. ‘It was my pleasure, agapita.’
* * *
By the time they returned to the office, Brianna knew something had fundamentally changed between them. She didn’t even bother to figure out a way back to equanimity; she couldn’t. Curiously, she didn’t feel as devastated at losing that particular battle.
It helped that they were barely in the door when Sakis threw out a list of things he wanted her to do but, despite the breakneck speed of dealing with his demands, they were soon both plugged into events at Point Noire, especially the clean-up process and the still missing Pantelides Six crewmembers.
After speaking to Morgan Lowell’s wife Perla for the fifth time at six o’clock, Sakis threw his pen on his desk and ran both hands over his stubbled jaw.
‘Are you okay?’
Tired eyes trained on her with breath-stopping intensity.
‘I need to get out of here,’ he rasped as he strode to the door and shrugged into his designer overcoat.
She swallowed and nodded. ‘Do you want me to book a restaurant table for you? Or call a friend to...um...’ She stopped, purely because the thought of arranging a date for Sakis with one of the many women who graced his electronic diary stuck in her gut like a sharp knife.
‘I’m not in the mood to listen to inane conversation about the latest Hollywood gossip or who is screwing whom in my circle of friends.’
His response pleased her way more than it should have. ‘Okay, what can I do?’
His eyes gleamed for a moment, before he looked away and headed towards the door. ‘Nothing.’ He stopped with a hand on the door. ‘I’m meeting Ari for a drink. And you’re logging off for the night. Is that clear, Moneypenny?’
She nodded slowly and watched him walk out, hollowness in her stomach that made her hate herself. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to be the one who wiped away that look of weariness she’d seen in his eyes. And all through today, every time he’d called her ‘Moneypenny’, she’d wanted to beg him to call her ‘Brianna’. Because she loved the way he said her name.
She glanced down at the fingers resting on her keyboard and wasn’t surprised to see them trembling. Her whole being trembled with the depth of the feelings that had been coursing through her all day. Frankly, it scared the hell out of her.
Hurriedly, she shut down the computer and gathered her tablet, phone and handbag. She’d just slid her chair neatly into the space beneath her desk when the phone rang. Thinking it was Sakis—because who else would ring her at seven-thirty on a work night?—she pounced on the handset.
‘Hello?’
‘May I speak to Anna Simpson?’
A spear of ice pinned her in place as her lips parted on a soundless gasp. A full minute passed. Her lungs burned until she managed to force herself back from the brink of unconsciousness. ‘Excuse me, I...I think you’ve got the wrong number.’
The ugly laugh at the end of the line shook her to the very soul. ‘We both know I don’t have the wrong number, don’t we, sweetheart?
She didn’t respond—couldn’t—because the phone had fallen from her nerveless fingers.
Another full minute passed. ‘Hello?’ came the impatient echoing voice. ‘Anna?’
Numbness spreading through her, she picked up the phone. ‘I told you there...there’s no one by that name working here.’
But it was too late. She recognised the taunting, reedy voice at the end of the line. It was a voice she’d been dreading hearing again since her return from Point Noire.
‘I
