feel as if the burn of his gaze might actually shrivel her where she stood. Why she didn’t just collapse into a pile of ashes under it she didn’t know. Instead, she shifted awkwardly from one foot to another then, unable to bear the terrible silence any longer, forced herself to try again.
‘I—I can explain…’ was all she managed, before he made a slicing, brutal gesture with his hand that cut off all attempt at speech.
‘In my office.’
It was tossed at her, almost flung into her face, no hint of expression or trace of warmth on his features. His expression was a stone wall, no light in his eyes, his jaw set and hard.
‘But I…’ she tried again.
‘In my office,’ he repeated, and his tone left her in no doubt that he would brook no argument so there was no use in even trying.
Besides, the confined space of the lift was too small, too claustrophobic for her to want to risk confronting him while she was trapped there. She might have been prepared to face him in his office—in more civilised surroundings—but not here, not now. Not like this.
And, seeing the burn of icy anger in those golden eyes, she felt a shiver creep across her skin at the thought that civilised no longer seemed an appropriate word to describe Nikos Konstantos, either.
‘In your office, then,’ she muttered, determined not to let him have the last word, and the glance she turned in his direction had the flash of defiance in its green depths.
That glance challenged him to take things further, Nikos acknowledged grimly as he adjusted his broad shoulders against the mirrored wall of the lift. But if she knew just what sort of taking it further was actually in his thoughts then he suspected that she would back down pretty hastily. Back down and back away.
It was what he should do too. The back away part at least. He should back away, back off, get his thoughts under control. He had been rocked, knocked mentally off balance by the speed and intensity of his response to discovering that she was in the building. That his ten-o’clock appointment was actually with none other than Sadie Carteret.
With the woman who had once taken him for a fool, used him, fleeced him, damn nearly been the death of his father, and then walked out on him on what had been supposed to be their wedding day. Bile rose in his throat at just the thought. The memory should have been enough to blast his mind with black hatred, drive any more basic, more masculine response right out of it.
But instead it was desire that had hit. No—give it its proper name—it had been lust. Pure, driven, primitive male lust. Though of course there had been nothing at all pure about the thoughts that had sizzled through his mind. And that had been from only seeing her from the back.
He had taken one look at the tall, slender frame of the woman in front of him, gaze lingering on the swell of her hips, the pert bottom under the clinging navy blue skirt. The contrast between the very feminine curves and the surprisingly matronly clothing, the soft flesh pushing against the restricting material, had had a sensual kick that had made his head spin and he had known that he was resolved to get to know this Sandie Carter well—very well—as swiftly as possible.
But then she had turned and he had seen that she was not Sandie Carter at all but Sadie Carteret, the woman who had torn his world apart five years before and was now, it seemed, back in his life.
For what?
‘I suppose things will be more private there,’ she added now, smoothing a hand over her hair and then, more revealingly, down the sides of her hips, as if wiping away some nervous perspiration from her palms and fingers.
She was not as much in control as she wanted to appear and that suited him fine. He wanted her off balance, on edge with her guard down. That way she might let slip the truth about what she was after. Because she was after something—she had to be.
‘And you’d prefer to continue this interview in private?’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
It was another challenge, one that brought her head up, green eyes flashing, her neat chin lifting high.
‘That is why you want to continue things in your office, isn’t it?’
‘I prefer not to have the whole world knowing my business.’
He’d had enough of that when she’d swept into his life like a whirlwind and stormed out again, leaving everything turned upside down and inside out. It had been bad enough that the financial newspapers had delighted in reporting the downfall of the Konstantos business empire with barely disguised glee, but the memory of his personal humiliation at the hands of the gossip columns and the paparazzi made acid burn in his stomach as the bitter taste of hatred filled his mouth.
‘Me too.’
Something in his words or his tone had hit home, making her change her stance and drop her eyes suddenly, looking down at the floor.
So did she have something to hide? Something she would prefer the papers never got their hands on? Something he could use to bring her down as low as she had brought him? A rich sense of satisfaction ran darkly through his blood at the thought.
‘Then in this at least we are in agreement.’
And he would have to control his need to know more, to understand just why she was here. To stamp down on the sudden rush of anticipation that was almost like an electrical charge along his senses. A call to battle and a challenge to be met. Once they were inside his office things would be different. Then he would get the truth from her.
Although the fact was that he already largely suspected he knew what that truth would be. Deep down he knew just why she was here because there really could only be one answer to that question.
She had to be here for money.
What else would bring her here, knocking at his door? That was what she would have most need of after all. When he’d brought her father down, he’d destroyed her luxurious way of life too. And now that Edwin Carteret was dead, there was no one else she could turn to.
But she must be desperate to think of asking him for help. Just how desperate she’d shown by lying about her name. She’d known that there was no way that Sadie Carteret would ever have been allowed to set foot over the threshold.
So why was he taking her up to his office instead of having Security eject her—forcibly, if needed—from the building?
He wasn’t prepared to admit even to himself that the decision had anything to do with the instant physical response he’d felt in the first moments when he’d seen her. And now, in this small compartment, with the tall, slender lines of her body, the sleek, shining mane of dark hair and the porcelain smooth pallor of her skin repeated over and over in the multitude of reflections in the walled mirrors, it was so much worse to handle. The scent of her skin came to him on a waft of air with each movement she made, and when she shook back that smooth bell of hair it was mixed with a soft, herbal essence that made his head and his thoughts spin. Primitive hunger clawed at him deep inside, and the clutch of desire that twisted low down made him shift uncomfortably, needing to ease the discomfort.
Thankfully at that moment the lift came to a halt and the heavy metal doors slid open on to the grey carpeted corridor that led to his office. Deliberately Nikos stood back and gestured to indicate that Sadie should precede him, refusing to allow himself to look anywhere but at the top of her shining dark-haired head as she moved past.
‘Left,’ he said sharply, then swallowed down the rest of the directions as to how to reach his office. Because of course she didn’t need them. She knew the way to what had once been her father’s office probably better than he did, and she was already heading in that direction without any help from him.
She’d made a faux pas there, Sadie admitted to herself. She’d probably infuriated him by not standing back and waiting for directions but setting out at once in the right direction. But she’d just turned to the left automatically, following her path from so many other times in the past.