as disdainful as she might have wished. ‘You’ve changed too, Jace.’ It felt strange to have his name on her lips. She never spoke of him. She tried not to think of him.
He had changed; his ink-black hair was now streaked with grey at the temples and his face looked leaner, longer. Harder. Eleanor noticed new lines from nose to mouth, and the faint fanning of crow’s feet by his eyes. Somehow those lines didn’t age him so much as give him an air of dignity and experience. They even emphasised the steely grey of his eyes with their silvery glints. And his body hadn’t changed at all, it seemed: still long, lithe, and powerful. The grey silk suit he wore only emphasised his muscular shoulders and trim hips; he wore it, as he had the cashmere sweatshirts and faded jeans of his college days, with ease and grace.
He looked, she thought a bit resentfully, great. But then, she reminded herself, so did she. She spent a lot of time and effort making sure she looked great; in her job a professional and even glamorous appearance was a must. She was grateful for it now. The last thing she wanted was to be at a disadvantage. She straightened, smiled even, and flicked her hair back from her face in one quick movement. ‘So you’re my two o’clock.’
Jace smiled back, faintly, but his eyes were hard. He looked almost angry. Eleanor had no idea what he had to be angry about; he was the one who had left. If anyone should be angry—She stopped that thought before her resentful mind gave it wings. She wasn’t angry. She was over it. Over him. She no longer cared any more, at all, about Jace Zervas.
She turned to her planner, still open on her desk, and trailed one glossily manicured finger down the day’s appointments. ‘You’re here on behalf of Atrikides Holdings?’ she asked. ‘It says Leandro Atrikides was supposed to have been coming.’ She looked up, eyebrows arched. ‘Change of plans?’
‘Something like that,’ Jace agreed, his voice taut. He sat down in one of the leather armchairs in front of her desk and crossed one leg over the other.
‘Well.’ She made herself smile and sat down behind her desk, hands neatly folded. ‘How can I help?’
Jace’s lips tightened, and Eleanor wondered if that was going to be it. Ten years of anger, bitterness, and overwhelming heartache reduced to nothing in a single sentence. How can I help? Yet what other choice was there? She didn’t want to rake over the past; it would be messy and uncomfortable and far too painful. She wanted to pretend the past didn’t exist, and so she would. She’d treat Jace Zervas like a regular client, even though he was far from one, and she hardly wanted to help him. She didn’t even want to talk to the man for another second.
The sane thing, of course, would be to respectfully request a colleague to take Jace as her client, and step away from what could only be an explosive situation. Or if not explosive, then at least angrily simmering. She could see it in the hard steel of his eyes. She could feel it bubbling in herself.
Yet Eleanor knew she wouldn’t do that. Her boss wouldn’t be pleased; Lily Stevens didn’t like changes. Messes. And Eleanor could certainly do without the gossip. Besides, there was another, greater reason why she’d face Jace down in her own office. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of making her run away. As he had.
‘Well,’ Jace replied after a moment, ‘obviously I’m here because I need you to plan an event.’
‘Obviously,’ Eleanor agreed, and heard the answering sharpness in her tone. This was not going well. Every little exchange was going to be pointed under the politeness, and she didn’t think she could take the tension. The trouble was, she didn’t know what else to do. Talking about the past was akin to ripping the bandages off old wounds, inflaming the scars that still remained on her heart. Her body. Even remembering it hurt.
She clamped her mind down on that thought. Jace Zervas was just another client, she told herself again. Just a regular client. She let her breath out slowly and tried to smile.
‘What I meant,’ she said evenly, ‘was what kind of event are you hosting?’ She gritted her teeth as she added, ‘Some details would help.’
‘Isn’t there some form that’s been filled out? I’m quite sure my assistant did this all on the telephone.’
Eleanor glanced through the slim file she had on Atrikides Holdings. ‘A Christmas party,’ she read from the memo one of the secretaries had taken. ‘That’s all I have, I’m afraid.’
A knock sounded on the door, and Jill came in with a tray of coffee. Eleanor rose to take it from her. She didn’t want her assistant picking up on the tension that thrummed angrily through the room. God knew how she’d try to use it; Jill had been jockeying for her position since she arrived, fresh from college, two years ago.
‘Thanks, Jill. I’ll take it from here.’
Surprised, Jill backed off, the door closing once more, and Eleanor set the tray on her desk, her back to Jace. She still heard his lazy murmur.
‘You didn’t used to drink coffee. I always thought it was so funny, a girl who wanted to open a coffee shop and yet didn’t drink coffee herself.’
Eleanor tensed. So he was going to go there. She’d been hoping they could get through this awkward meeting without referencing the past at all, but now Jace was going to talk about these silly, student memories, as if they shared some happy past.
As if they shared anything at all.
A single streak of anger, white-hot, blazed through her. Her hands shook as she poured the coffee. How dared he? How dared he act as if he hadn’t walked—run—away from her, the minute things got too much? How dared he pretend they’d parted amicably, or even parted at all?
Instead of her going to his apartment building, only to find he’d left. Left the building, left the city, left the country. All without telling her.
Coward.
‘Actually, I think it was enterprising,’ she told him coolly, her back still to him. Her hands no longer trembled. ‘I saw the market, and I wanted to meet it.’ She handed him his coffee: black, two sugars, the way he’d always taken it. She still remembered. Still remembered brewing him a singleserve cafétière in her student apartment while she plied him with the pastries and cakes she was going to sell in her little bakery. While she told him her dreams.
He’d said everything was delicious. But of course he would. He’d lied about so many things, like when he’d said he loved her. If he’d loved her, he wouldn’t have left.
Eleanor poured her own coffee. She took it black now, and drank at least three cups a day. Her best friend Allie said so much caffeine wasn’t good for her, but Eleanor needed the kick. Especially now.
She turned back to Jace. He still held his mug, his long, brown fingers wrapped around the handle, his expression brooding and a little dark. ‘That’s not how I remember it.’
Disconcerted, Eleanor took too large a sip of coffee and burned her tongue. ‘What?’
Jace leaned forward. ‘You weren’t interested in meeting a market. You weren’t even interested in business. Don’t you remember, Ellie?’ His voice came out in a soft hiss. ‘You just wanted to have a place where people could relax and be happy.’ He spoke it like a sneer, and Eleanor could only think of when—and where—she had said that. In Jace’s bed, after they’d made love for the first time. She’d shared so many pitiful, pathetic secrets with him. Poured out her life and heart
