for her to say yes to his insulting proposal only made the situation that much more unbearable.
‘I pay my own way. I always have and I always will.’ She tightened her arms across her breasts, willing herself to stop trembling. ‘And I’m very sorry, but, as much fun as we had last night, I’m not prepared to be your paid plaything for the next few days.’
He cursed softly. ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’
‘Mrs Oakley’s offered me a job here and I’m taking it,’ she continued, grateful when he made no move to touch her. ‘If you don’t want me working in your hotel you can have me fired, that’s certainly your prerogative.’ She prayed he wouldn’t do that, but she wasn’t about to beg. ‘But you don’t have to worry about sleeping with the staff, because we’re not sleeping together any more. How does that sound?’
He swore again, his big body rigid, his hands fisted by his sides. The frustration was coming off him in waves but he didn’t say a word.
She walked down the hallway to the elevator with as much dignity as she could muster and stabbed the call button.
‘Have it your way, sweetheart,’ he said, his voice brittle, before she heard the door slam shut behind her.
Her shoulders slumped in a cruel mixture of relief and regret. The lift pinged its arrival, the sound reverberating round the empty lobby like a mission bell.
As Kate stepped into the private car she spotted her gold sandals where they had fallen the evening before. The lurid memory of being wrapped around Zack, her body quivering with anticipation, made her tense as she bent to pick up the shoes.
The lone teardrop glittered as it splashed onto the golden leather.
‘YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING me.’ Zack scrubbed his hands over his face, feeling weary. ‘She was coming to California with me. How am I going to get another PA so soon?’ And how could a day that had dawned with such promise have turned into this nightmare?
‘Seems Jill didn’t take too kindly to your attitude this afternoon. She said you shouted at her,’ Monty said from the other side of the booth. His friendly cockney accent rubbed Zack’s last nerve raw.
‘I did not shout at her,’ Zack said firmly, pretty sure he hadn’t. He could barely remember the incident with his PA. He’d been fixated on a certain blue-eyed temptress most of the day. ‘She did a half-baked job on the report I asked for on The Grange’s customer profile. All I did was point it out.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe next time you could point it out with a few less decibels,’ Monty replied amiably, lifting the bottle of beer to his lips.
Zack watched his business manager. ‘Fine.’ He took a swallow of his own beer, let the chilled amber liquid ease down his throat and forced his shoulders to relax. ‘Point taken.’
Jill Hawthorne’s resignation wasn’t worth getting worked up about. He expected one hundred and ten per cent from his staff and paid them the salaries to match. Jill hadn’t been up to the job since the day he’d hired her. It was just bad timing she’d picked today to walk off in a snit. He could have done without the aggravation.
Monty straightened in his chair and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. ‘What were you doing in the office anyhow? I thought you were taking a couple of days off before you headed out to Cally?’
That had been the original plan, thought Zack, aggravated all over again. Until a certain Kate Denton had walked out on him bright and early this morning. After that, he hadn’t been in the mood to hang out in his penthouse. Every place he looked brought back memories of her lush, sexy body and the incredible things they’d been doing to each other most of the night.
‘Plans change,’he said dismissively. He wasn’t about to get into a blow by blow of what an idiot he’d been with Monty. He still wasn’t sure how he’d let Kate get under his skin the way she had. ‘I should let you get home to Stella,’ he added reluctantly, mentioning Monty’s wife. ‘She’ll give me the look next time I see her if I keep you out drinking on your first night back.’
Monty had returned to Vegas late that afternoon after a week of meetings with Harold Westchester, the owner of the hotel Zack was buying out in California. It had been Zack’s idea to meet up in the loud, lively and informal surroundings of the Sports Bar. He and Monty had spent the last half an hour going over the details of the negotiations together before Monty had dropped his bombshell about Zack’s PA.
‘No worries,’ said Monty. ‘Stel understands you wanted the low-down on how things went with Westchester.’
Truth be told, the meeting could have waited till tomorrow, but Zack hadn’t been in any great hurry to go back to his bed alone tonight. And Monty was always good company. They’d been best buddies ever since their early teens, when Monty had tried to pull a short con on Zack one rainy afternoon on London’s Oxford Street.
‘I guess we’ve covered everything for today,’ Zack said. ‘Why don’t you go on home? Tell Stella I said hi,’ he finished, not quite sure where the ripple of envy came from as he said it. Sure, Monty had a beautiful wife in Stella and a real little pistol of a kid in Joey, but that kind of wedded bliss had never been what Zack was looking for in life.
‘I’m good for another round, yet,’ Monty said, glancing at his watch. ‘Look, Zack, there is one other thing I wanted to sound you out on with The Grange buyout.’
‘What?’ Zack asked.
‘Why don’t you tell Westchester who you really are?’
Zack slapped his beer bottle back on the table with more force than was strictly necessary. ‘I told you before. No way.’
‘We could get a better deal out of him. I’m sure of it.’
‘Don’t count on it.’ Zack had been after The Grange for two solid years—the fact that Westchester had no knowledge about their prior connection had been paramount to the old guy agreeing to the deal in the first place, Zack was sure of it. ‘Westchester and my old man didn’t exactly hit it off together. I’m not risking the deal on—’
‘How do you know he blames you for what JP did?’ Monty butted in.
‘Drop it, Mont.’ Just thinking about telling Westchester made Zack feel edgy.
‘Fine, I tried.’ Monty threw up his hands. ‘It’s your choice.’
‘That’s right. It is. Now, do you want another beer or not?’
‘Just one. Then I better shoot off.’
Zack picked up a handful of mini-pretzels from the bowl of bar snacks, glad to have at least one thing settled. He turned to signal their waitress when something caught his eye across the darkened bar. He stared in the half-light.
Another waitress was dishing out drinks to a group of guys over by the pool tables, her blonde hair shone white in the harsh neon light. He squinted, trying to focus. It couldn’t be, could it?
She
