A very tall, commanding male with a shock of cropped black curls had entered and the receptionist had greeted him while Tabby had hovered uncertainly by her side, sheltering behind the desk the more she noticed about the new arrival. The fabulous custom fit of his black suit, the unusual formality of the silk tie and closed collar on his shirt, the reality that he was so tall she had to crane her neck and tip her head back even to steal a look at his lean, bronzed face.
‘Mr Millwright?’ the receptionist asked hesitantly.
The reference to his London audit team, who wouldn’t be arriving until the next day, relaxed Aristide into the belief that he was expected.
‘No, I’m Aristide Romanos,’ he announced.
‘I’m Tabitha Blessington, Mr Romanos…’ another voice interposed and he turned his proud dark head to look at her. ‘My boss asked that I show you around.’
Aristide was taken aback that the CEO was not in place to greet him but, as a male, he was immediately captured by the angelic fairness of the speaker. Aristide liked blondes, he always had, but rarely had he met one quite so beautiful, who had not plundered every cosmetic trick in the box. This one had flawless translucent skin like fine china and not even a trace of lipstick on her sensually plump lips. Not to mention huge blue eyes, perfect features and a mane of pale blonde hair that looked as natural as a child’s. She had an unspoilt look new to his experience and it grabbed his interest, which would at best be…fleeting, he assumed without a doubt of that in his handsome head. An arrogance taught by countless very willing ladies in his past.
He didn’t view her as an employee. He owned dozens of companies. He took them over and sorted out their issues before installing trusted executives. He might well never visit Traxis Insurance again, so he didn’t consider himself bound by any rules of the workplace.
‘Miss Blessington,’ Aristide returned as she extended a slender hand to his much bigger paw, the size differential between them making his shapely mouth quirk with amusement. She was small and unexpectedly slight with fewer curves than was usually his preference but his interest abated not a jot.
‘Tabitha…or, er… Tabby will do,’ she heard herself say like a woman in a dream because he was truly the most gorgeous male she had ever met and she felt overwhelmed by his presence. As if that were not bad enough, a sensation like an electric shock tremored down her arm as their fingers barely brushed. Static electricity, she gathered, but that unnerved her even more. Her hand retreated, fingers curling back in on themselves to drop to her side.
‘Where would you like to start, Mr Romanos?’ she asked shakily, refusing to look back up at him again, eager to get moving, to do anything other than be forced to concentrate her eyes on him a second time.
First off, she had collided with dark eyes as impenetrable as black glass and then he had tipped his strong jaw a little as she looked and those eyes had flashed to glittering gold in the sunlight. After that, brain power had kind of receded while he stood there, perfectly at ease and assured, and simply studied her in brooding silence from beneath straight ebony brows and lush black thick lashes. She had worried that she had greeted him wrong or somehow done something he took amiss and nervous tension had almost eaten her alive
‘Top floor…obviously,’ Aristide told her somewhat drily as he took the lead in heading for the lift, punching the button with an impatient air. ‘Tell me about yourself…’
‘I’m a temp,’ Tabby admitted, hoping that any mistakes she made would be excused on that basis because this male struck her as unlike any accountant she had ever met and she had met a lot while studying and training. ‘I work as a PA for Mr Stokes in the sales department—’
‘Why am I being welcomed by a temp?’ Aristide enquired, watching a flush of colour wash her dainty cheekbones, wondering if she coloured up like that as she came and wholly resolved to find out. It was an instant attraction, he reckoned, an attraction stronger than anything he had felt in quite a few years. He didn’t want to recall the last occasion it had happened to him and he blocked off the recollection fast, determined not to revisit that time when he had been young and trusting and really pretty naïve about women and how manipulative they could be when the prize was big enough.
‘I don’t know, Mr Romanos. I was just asked to come down here. I think it was a request from our CEO—’
‘And what’s he like?’
‘I’ve never met him,’ she said honestly. ‘But I think he goes on holiday a lot because he sends photos to my boss…you know the sort of thing. Skiing in the Alps, deep sea diving in the Caribbean, so I assume he’s one of those men’s men, who like to get physical.’
‘As do we all,’ Aristide purred, thinking that she could be a mine of information even if it was only common gossip. ‘How long have you worked here?’
‘Six months. My contract keeps getting renewed, probably because my boss likes me—’
An ebony brow hitched. ‘Likesyou?’
Tabby went pink. ‘Oh, not likethat, for goodness’ sake! He’s a married man with a load of young kids—’
‘That doesn’t stop a lot of men from straying,’ Aristide said with cynical bite. ‘My own father was never happier than when he was playing away…’
‘Mine too,’ Tabby muttered helplessly, quite unsure as to why they should be discussing such things when they had only just met but encouraged by his confidence into giving her own.
Aristide clamped his lips closed, unnerved by how personal he had got with her. He never verged on spilling secrets with his lovers and remained a closed book to all of them. That was a very deliberate policy. He didn’t create common ground, he didn’trelax. But there was something about Tabby, something uniquely warm and inviting and, curiously, she had caught him off guard for a moment.
‘Where is everybody?’ he asked as they stepped out onto the top floor where he had expected to find the senior staff assembled for his arrival.
‘Give me the name of whoever you wish to speak to and I will get him or her for you. Our finance director is on the floor below,’ she told him expectantly.
Aristide had nothing to say to a finance director who hadn’t even made it to the top floor in a business that was failing from lack of vigour and direction. ‘You can give me a general tour instead,’ he told her. ‘While you tell me more about yourself.’
Women loved to talk about themselves and rarely realised how much they were revealing in so doing. He had learned that as a child while carefully navigating the stony pathways and fresh rules laid down by every new woman who entered his home. It was second nature for him to explore a woman’s background and goals while remaining on the emotional sidelines. All he had to do was plant the occasional encouraging word and he found out about her mother’s fragile health, her sister, Violet’s bakery and the child her twin was adopting. Clearly they shared very close family ties and he wondered vaguely what that would be like to experience. He heard about how she had gone to university to study accountancy because that had seemed to offer the best hope of a decent career.
‘Only I hated it,’ Tabby told him.
‘Then, why didn’t you change your subject?’
