brother bowed his head in ironic acknowledgement of the generous offer and watched, his expression unreadable, as his younger brother turned briefly to the young woman seated silently at the big desk beside the door.
‘I can leave the paperwork on the Crane contract to you, can’t I, Beth, sweetheart? And those figures—you will have them ready for the morning?’ Without waiting for a reply, he added, ‘They really need the paperwork from this morning’s meeting by close of play today. You’re an angel. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
Beth looked up, feeling an uncharacteristic surge of resentment and thought, Well, you’ll soon find out.
‘So eight, Theo?’
Beth wondered if Theo Kyriakis had heard the note of challenge and almost instantly felt foolish. Theo Kyriakis was not a man who missed anything, unless it was a secretary, not that she’d minded that he acted as if she were invisible—until today.
Actually, today had made her realise that she preferred it that way.
Beth watched through her lashes as Theo Kyriakis inclined his closely cropped dark head, whether in acknowledgement of the challenge or the invitation she couldn’t tell, but then her boss’s elder brother was not a man who gave a lot away.
‘I’ll be there.’
The couple left the office, leaving the echo of their laughing voices and the heavy scent of the fragrance that the future Mrs Kyriakis favoured.
Did the perfume evoke painful memories for Theo Kyriakis?
Anyone else and her tender heart would have ached but Beth felt no twinge of empathy at the possibility that Theo Kyriakis found it painful, maybe even heartbreaking, to see the woman he had once planned to marry wearing his brother’s ring.
The man just didn’t invite sympathy, she decided, studying his dark lean face. Perhaps he was hiding the pain; if so, he was doing pretty well!
Beth moved an already neat stack of files from one side of the desk to the other and waited for Theo Kyriakis to leave.
He didn’t.
She risked a look up at him and was startled to discover that his heavy-lidded dark stare was trained directly on her own face.
Beth shifted uncomfortably in her seat and pushed her glasses up her nose before venturing a faint vague smile in his general direction and returning her attention to her desk.
She started a little as he placed an untouched glass of champagne on her desk. ‘There’s more in the bottle if you’d like to join me to toast the happy couple?’
Beth would have found an invitation to jump into the Thames more alluring but she kept her manner polite. ‘This is the middle of a working day for me, Mr Kyriakis, and I’m just the hired help,’ she reminded him, addressing her response to the middle button of his beautifully tailored grey jacket.
‘But you would like to be more than that?’
The unexpected question made her stiffen—actually, it was not a question; it was a statement.
Before she could respond to it, he said abruptly, ‘Why do you dress that way?’
Her defensive glance swung upwards from his beautifully tailored designer suit to discover that he was studying her own grey flannel suit with an expression of fastidious distaste written on his lean face.
‘What way?’ Beth, who had three identical ones in her wardrobe and a selection of plain blouses to wear with them, asked.
Gran had always advised her to go for quality when selecting clothes and Beth followed her advice, though she stopped short at the matching gloves and handbag that Prudence Farley considered essential for a well turned out lady.
In the long-term, Gran had counseled, it was cheaper to choose quality rather than buy trendy junk and she was right, but the junk did look fun, Beth sometimes thought wistfully.
She lifted her chin defiantly as her hand went to her throat, where her cream blouse was buttoned up to the neck. After three years of not noticing she existed, he was suddenly interested in her clothes?
‘Is there something I can help you with, Mr Kyriakis?’ Had he been drinking?
The scandal-hungry media had never suggested a weakness for drink, just for tall leggy blondes, but who knew, she thought, curiosity drawing her eyes to his face. The arrogant cast of his strong features did not suggest weakness or lack of control, if you discounted the sensual fullness of his upper lip.
Conscious of a sinking shivery sensation low in her stomach, Beth tore her strangely reluctant gaze from his mouth and found it wandering straight into the path of his dark eyes and she immediately dumped the drinking idea.
There was nothing blurry or unfocused about his manner. Drinking implied a human weakness and the elder Kyriakis brother didn’t appear to tolerate those in himself or other people.
Theo doesn’t tolerate fools gladly, Andreas was fond of observing. In her own mind, Beth translated this as code for the fact that he was impatient and intolerant.
‘Quite possibly.’
Beth’s polite smile grew wary as she watched his wide, sensually sculpted lips curve into a smile that did not reach his dark eyes; the speculative light in their obsidian depths was making her feel deeply uneasy.
‘But of course you didn’t mean that, did you? Do I make you feel uncomfortable?’
‘No, of course not,’ Beth lied. ‘I didn’t intend to be rude, but I have a lot of work to do.’ She would be lucky, Beth reflected, to make it home before seven—actually, eight—she corrected, recalling the meeting she had scheduled with the manager at the nursing home.
The request to see her had worried Beth, especially as the manager had been reluctant to elaborate further on the phone, but he had reassured her that there was no problem with her grandmother.
She had a horrid feeling that the news might involve a fresh hike in the fees.
The move to the nursing home had been Gran’s idea; she had not even informed Beth that she had booked herself in until the arrangements were made. Beth had been horrified by the idea but her doubts had been soothed when Prudence Farley had said she only intended staying a few weeks.
That had been six months ago and Gran showed no inclination to move back home. The place, she confided to Beth, was like a five-star hotel. At home, she could go a week without seeing anyone but Beth and the vicar’s wife; here, there was never a dull moment and she had made so many new friends.
Beth loved her new zest for life but she was worried; the place was not only run like a five-star hotel but they charged similar rates. Her gran remained cheerfully oblivious to the fact that her savings had run out in the first three months and, when the subject came up, Beth, concerned about worrying her grandmother, was deliberately vague.
It was a constant battle to meet the costs and keep the house going. Beth was only living in three rooms of the big sprawling Victorian mansion that her grandmother had come to as a new bride, but the upkeep was a financial drain that gave her nightmares.
She called it a nightmare; the bank manager called it her get out of jail card.
When she had pointed out that she wasn’t in jail, he had said darkly, ‘Not yet.’
Beth wasn’t sure if he was joking or not but none of his dire predictions had made her change her mind. She was not selling up to a developer; the house would be there when Gran decided to come home.
The bank manager had been visibly frustrated by her intransigent attitude.
‘Miss Farley, your attitude does you credit but it is hardly practical. Let me be blunt. Your grandmother is a very old lady; it seems unlikely she will ever come home. And these figures—’ he sighed as he flicked through the papers laid out in front of him ‘—I’m afraid they suggest you cannot