Page 44 of Seasons of Sin

The foyer was elegant and modern. She crossed it and hit the button. She knew from the last phone call that his office was on the seventeenth floor. Butterflies were flittering through her.

The doors pinged opened and she put a hand on her stomach to quell the anxiety.

A man in a suit was sitting behind a timber desk. He spoke in Greek, his smile welcoming.

“I’m sorry,” a little line furrowed between her brow. “Do you speak English?”

“Of course,” his smile didn’t falter.

“Good.” Her own smile was unknowingly dazzling. “I don’t have an appointment, but would you mind letting Thad — Mr Konstanides — know that Saphire Arana is here?”

The receptionist’s look was slightly quizzical. “Oh,” his smile faltered. “I’m sorry madam, I know Mr Konstanides has meetings all day.”

“That’s okay,” she nodded. “I can wait. Only please let him know that I’m … that I am … waiting,” she finished lamely.

Something in her manner moved him and so he lifted his headset and punched his boss’s extension into it.

Thaddeus’s voice was a gruff, impatient growl. “Yes?” He spoke in his native language.

“Sir,” the receptionist’s eyes lifted to the beautiful English woman. “I have a Saphire Arana here for you.”

There was a short pause as Thaddeus processed this. “On the phone?”

“No, sir. In reception.”

“Where?”

“Here. In Athens. In reception.”

Thaddeus, in the midst of examining the annual budget, hadn’t had a minute to himself for days. He’d travelled to Paris, and back again, and he’d worked non-stop ever since. But in those brief moments when he’d been free to do so, he’d thought about Saphire. Only the certainty that missing her would be the end of him had encouraged him to get back to his normal life.

“I see,” he said, stalling.

“Yes, sir,” the receptionist waited for further instructions, his eyes not meeting Saphire’s. The hope there was too obvious.

“Please tell Mrs Arana that her trip is wasted. I cannot see her.”

“Today?”

“At all. Please remind her that our business is concluded.”

It was juvenile and cutting, but Thaddeus slammed the phone down with satisfaction. Who did she think she was, coming to see him after rejecting him so callously? She’d gone back to her husband. She’d made her choice. And her choice hadn’t been him.

Thaddeus Konstanides was not a man to beg. And yet he’d begged her. He’d begged Saphire again and again and still she’d left him.

Forhim. Jordan Arana.

The thought kept swirling in his brain, but his body was on fire. Every nerve ending was screaming at him to stand up and run to her. There were only walls between them. She was somewhere in his building, waiting for him.

He groaned, and pushed back in his chair, squeezing his eyes shut. He could see her as clearly as if she was before him.

Anger flared in his gut. How dare she try to see him? What could she have wanted? Briefly, he hoped that she had come to tell him she’d made a mistake. Only he’d seen the determination in her eyes for himself. He discounted the possibility as fantasy and reached for his phone once more.

Before meeting Saphire, Thaddeus had enjoyed an active social life.

He had a nice database of dates he could use to clear her from his memory banks.

And that’s what she deserved.