work for one of the most forward-thinking men in one of the best organisations in the world. That’s reward enough.’
‘Careful, there; you’re in danger of swelling my ego to unthinkable proportions.’
‘Is that a bad thing?’ She wasn’t sure where the need for banter came from but her breath caught when his sensual lips curved in a dangerously sexy smile.
‘At a time when everything around me seems to be falling apart, it could be a lethal thing.’ His gaze shot to the bed and his smile slipped a fraction, in proportion to the escalating strain on his face. ‘Time for you to hit the sack. Kalispera, Brianna,’ he murmured softly before, stepping back abruptly, he strode to his own door.
At the click of his door shutting, Brianna stumbled forward and sagged onto the bed, her knees turned to water.
She glanced down at her shaking hands as reality hit her square in the face.
Sakis Pantelides found her attractive. She wasn’t naïve enough to mistake the look in his eyes, nor was she going to waste time contemplating the why. It was there, like a ticking time bomb between them, one she needed to diffuse before the unthinkable happened.
Brianna could only hope that, once they were back on familiar ground, things would return to normal.
They had to. Because, frankly, she was terrified of what she would let happen if they didn’t.
* * *
Sakis stood under the cold shower and cursed fluidly. Theos. I seemed as if he’d spent the last forty-eight hours cursing in one form or the other. Right now, he cursed the rigid erection that seemed determined to defy the frigid temperature.
He wanted to have sex with Brianna Moneypenny. Wanted to shut off the shower, stride next door, strip the clothes off her body and drive into her with a grinding force that defied rhyme or reason.
He slapped his palm against the soaked tile and cursed some more. Gritting his teeth, his hand dropped to grip his erection. A single stroke made him groan out loud. Another stroke, and his knees threatened to buckle.
With an angry grunt, he dropped his hand and turned the shower off. He was damned if he was going to fondle himself like an over-eager teenager. Things were fraught for sure. That and the fact that he hadn’t had sex in months was messing with his mental faculties, making him contemplate paths he would never otherwise have done. For God’s sake, sex had no place in his immediate to-do list.
What he needed to do was focus on getting the threat of a takeover annihilated and the situation at Pointe Noire brought under control.
Once they were back on familiar ground, things would return to normal.
He ruthlessly silenced the voice that mocked him not to be so sure...
* * *
Three hours later, Brianna sat wide awake in her luxurious cabin bed, staring through a porthole at the pitch-black night that rested on a bed of white clouds. She’d left her tablet in one of the two briefcases she’d seen the stewardess stow in Sakis’s cabin. Short of knocking on his door and asking for it, she had nothing to do but sit here, her thoughts jumbling into a mass of anxiety at what awaited her in London.
She had no doubt Sakis would trounce the takeover bid into smithereens—he was too skilled a businessman not to have anticipated such a move. And he was too calculating not to have the answers at his fingertips.
All the same, Greg had proved, much to her shock and disbelief, that he was just as ruthless—and without a single ounce of integrity—and she shuddered at the chaos he could bring to Sakis should he be given the opportunity.
Her shoulder tingled as her tattoo burned. Raising her hand, she slid her fingers under her light T-shirt and touched the slightly raised words etched into her skin.
Greg had succeeded in taking away her livelihood once; had come terrifyingly close to destroying her soul.
There was no way she could rest until she made sure he wasn’t a threat to Sakis and to her. Not that he had any reason to seek her out. No, she was the gullible scapegoat he’d led to the slaughter—then walked away from scot-free. The last thing he’d expect was for her to have risen from the ashes of the fire he’d thrown her in.
That was how she wanted things to stay. Once upon a time, she’d harboured feelings of revenge and retribution; how could she not, when she’d been stuck in an six-by-eight dark space, racked alternatively with fear and deep bitterness? But those feelings had burned themselves out.
Now she just wanted to be Brianna Moneypenny, executive assistant to Sakis Pantelides, the most dynamically sexy, astoundingly intelligent man she knew.
A man she’d come disastrously close to kissing more than once in the last forty-eight hours...
No. Her fingers pressed down harder over the tattoo, letting the pain of each word restore her equilibrium.
Nothing had changed.
Nothing could change.
* * *
The board members were gathered in the large, grey mosaic-tiled conference room on the fiftieth floor of Pantelides Towers, the iconic, futuristically designed building poised on the edge of the River Thames.
Sakis strode in at seven o’clock sharp. He nodded to the men around the table and the three executives video-conferencing in on three wide screens.
Brianna’s heart thumped as she followed him in. She had no idea if the information-gathering Sakis had implemented before they’d boarded the plane had yielded any results. He didn’t know either—she’d asked him. Only the files currently placed in front of each executive held the answer as to whether Greg Landers was in part behind this hostile takeover bid.
Seeing a spare copy on the stationery table off to one side of the boardroom, Brianna moved towards it.
‘I won’t need you for this meeting. Return to the office. I’ll come and find you when I’m done.’
Shock ricocheted through her. She barely managed to keep it from showing on her face. ‘Are you sure? I can—’
His jaw tensed. ‘I think we’ve already established that you’re invaluable to me. Please don’t overplay your hand, Moneypenny. Otherwise alarm bells will start ringing.’
The tight grit behind his words took her aback. It was the same tone he’d used since he’d emerged from his cabin an hour before they’d landed. His whole façade was icily aloof and the potent sexual charge that had surrounded them a few short hours before, the fire in his eyes as he’d looked at her outside her cabin on the plane, was nowhere in sight.
She held her breath for the relief that confirmed that things were back to normal, only to experience a painful pang of disconcerting disappointment, immediately followed by a more terrifying notion.
Did Sakis know? Had he somehow found out about her past? She stared at him but his expression gave nothing away, certainly nothing that indicated he knew her deepest, darkest secret.
He didn’t know. She’d been much too careful in exorcising her past; had used every last penny she’d owned two years ago to ensure there would be no coming back from what she’d been before.
All the same, it took a huge effort to swallow the lump in her throat. ‘I don’t... I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about. I’m only trying to do—’
‘Your job. I know. But right now your job isn’t here. I need you to take point on the situation on Point Noire. Make sure the media are kept in line and the investigators update us on developments. I don’t want the ball dropped on this. Can you handle that?’
Her gaze slid to the file marked confidential lying so innocuously on the table, fear and trepidation eating away inside her. Then she forced her gaze to meet his. ‘Of course.’
The hard glint in his eyes softened