now, she thought, for the impact of him on her senses was like nothing she had ever known.
He wore a dark suit and tie and his crisp white shirt accentuated his olive skin; he hadn’t shaved that morning.
The air in the room had changed, as if the charge that had lit the sky for the past hour had joined them.
Luka Kargas was everything her aunt had warned her about, and though she had told herself she could handle it, and that there was no way she could ever be attracted to someone like him, Cecelia hadn’t allowed for the impact of Luka close up.
They skipped through the formalities, both determined to get this over and done with and move on with the day.
‘Hannah will have explained that the hours are long,’ Luka said.
‘She did.’
‘Sixteen-hour days at times.’
‘Yes.’ Cecelia nodded.
‘And there’s an awful lot of travel,’ Luka said. ‘Though for all that the working week is hell, you do get every weekend off.’
She smiled a tight, slightly disbelieving smile.
‘You do,’ Luka said, as he read those full lips. ‘Come Friday night, the entire weekend is yours.’
‘Though I’m guessing I wouldn’t be out of here by five p.m.?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Usually around ten.’
So not really the entire weekend to herself, Cecelia thought as his black eyes scanned through her paperwork. ‘Why are you finishing up with Justin?’
‘Because I didn’t want to live in Dubai.’
‘I go there a lot,’ Luka said, ‘which would mean, by default, so would you.’
‘That’s fine. I just don’t want to live there,’ Cecelia said, and she knew, she just knew, he was alluding to the fact she had a fiancé whose needs would have impacted on her decision.
He was right.
Gordon wouldn’t consider it.
‘Do you speak Greek?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Cecelia said, suddenly hoping it was a prerequisite for the role and that this torture would therefore come to an end. It was torture because her stomach seemed to be folding in on itself and she all of a sudden could feel the weight of her breasts. She had never had such a violent reaction to another person, though of course it was one-sided.
Luka Kargas looked thoroughly bored.
‘Do you speak any other languages?’ he asked.
‘Some French,’ Cecelia said, even though she spoke it very well and had both lived and worked in France for a year.
Anyway, he didn’t want her French, whether a little or a lot of it, for he screwed up his nose.
Good, because Cecelia had now decided that she did not want this job.
She liked safe, and for very good reasons.
Cecelia liked her world ordered, and ten minutes alone with Luka Kargas had just rocked hers.
His black eyes were mesmerising and his brusque indifference had her re-crossing her legs.
Until this moment, sex had been a perfectly pleasant experience, if sometimes a bit of a chore.
Now, though, she sat across from a man who made her think of it.
Actually sit and think about torrid, impromptu sex at two p.m. on a Monday afternoon, and that could never do.
‘Ms Andrews...’
‘Cecelia,’ she corrected, but only because she didn’t want to sound like some uptight spinster.
And she wasn’t.
She was engaged to be married, and right now she found herself desperately trying to hold onto that thought.
Oh, this really would never do!
‘Cecelia.’ He nodded. ‘I see that you don’t have any real experience in the hospitality industry.’
‘No, I don’t,’ Cecelia said. ‘Not a jot.’
‘A jot?’ His black eyes looked up and met her green ones and she saw that his were not actually black but the deepest of browns.
‘I don’t have any experience in the hospitality industry, none at all.’
‘And I note that you wear an engagement ring.’
‘Excuse me...’ Cecelia frowned ‘...but you can’t comment on that.’
He waved his hand dismissively.
Luka read her emergency contact and saw that it wasn’t her fiancé but, in fact, her aunt.
And she intrigued him a touch. ‘Are you engaged?’
‘Yes.’ Cecelia bristled. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘Cecelia, if you are considering working for me, then you might as well know from the outset that I am not known for my political correctness. I’ll tell it to you straight—I don’t want a PA who is in the throes of planning a big wedding, neither I don’t want someone who is going to have to dash off at six because her fiancé is sulking.’
Cecelia’s jaw tightened because at times Gordon did just that.
‘Mr Kargas, my personal life is not your concern and, let me assure you, it never will be.’
Never, because she was not taking the job!
He heard the double meaning behind her words and almost smiled but then checked himself.
‘Come over here,’ he said, and stood up and headed to the floor-to-ceiling windows.
It was like no interview she had ever experienced before, Cecelia thought as she stood and walked over to join him.
Gosh, he was tall.
And he smelt as if he had bathed in bergamot with a testosterone undertone.
‘See the view,’ Luka said.
‘It’s amazing.’ Cecelia nodded, looking out across a gleaming, wet and shiny London. The grey skies were starting to clear and black clouds were lined with silver but there was no rainbow that she could see.
‘It’s all yours,’ Luka said, and Cecelia frowned. ‘When you finish on a Friday, right up to Monday morning the world out there is your oyster.’ Then he looked over at her. ‘But when you’re here...’
He expected devotion. Cecelia got his meaning.
