LITMIR.BIZ

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to dominate and control. You had to take your courage in your hands and rush the net. Face them head-on. She met his cold, black eyes.

      ‘Is this your way of telling me that you’re firing me?’

      He gave a soft laugh. ‘Oh, believe me, Jess—if I was planning on firing you, you would have known about it by now. For a start, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because it would be a waste of my time and my time is very precious. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

      Yes, she understood. She thought how forbidding he seemed. From the way he was behaving, nobody would ever have guessed they’d once been lovers. She had seen his ruthless streak before—it had been essential in his role as bodyguard to one of Russia’s richest men. But around her he had always been playful—the way she’d sometimes imagined a lion might be if it ever allowed you to get close enough to pet it. Until their affair had finished, and then he had acted as if she was dead to him.

      Was that why he was doing this—to pay her back for having turned down his proposal of marriage, even though at the time she had known it was the only thing she could do?

      She must not let him intimidate her, nor allow him to see how terrified she was of losing her livelihood. Because Loukas was the ultimate predator...he saw a weakness and then moved in for the kill. That was what he had been trained to do. She clasped her hands together and looked at him. ‘So why are we having this conversation?’

      ‘Because I have a reputation for turning around failing companies, which is what I intend to do with this one.’

      ‘How?’

      He was looking at her calculatingly, like a butcher weighing a piece of meat on a set of scales. ‘You are no longer a teenager, Jess,’ he said softly. ‘And neither are the girls who first bought the watch. You are no longer a tennis star, either—you are what’s known in the business as a has-been. And there’s no point glowering at me like that. I am simply stating a fact. You were taken on because of who you were—a shining talent whose dreams were shattered. You were the tragic heroine. The sporty blonde who kept on smiling through the pain. Young girls wanted to be you.’

      ‘But not any more?’ she said slowly.

      ‘I’m afraid not. You’re trading on something which has gone. The world has moved on, but you’ve stayed exactly the same. Same old shots of you with the ponytail and the pearls and the Capri pants and the neat blouses.’ His eyes glittered. ‘I get bored just thinking about them.’

      She nodded, her heart beating very hard, because it hurt to have him talk to her this way. To have her life condensed into a sad little story which left him feeling ‘bored’. She met his black eyes and tried to keep the pain from her face. ‘So what are you planning to do about it?’

      ‘I am giving you the opportunity to breathe some life back into your career—and to boost Lulu’s flagging sales.’

      She wished she’d taken her raincoat off, because her body was beginning to grow hot beneath that scorching stare. She tried to keep her voice calm. To forget that this was Loukas. To try to imagine that it was the previous CEO sitting there, a man with a cut-glass accent who used to ask her for tennis tips for his young daughter. ‘How?’

      He leaned back in his chair, his outward air of relaxation mocking the churned-up way she was feeling inside.

      ‘By giving you a new look—one which reflects the woman you are now and not the girl you used to be. We make you over. New hairstyle. New clothes. We do the whole Cinderella thing and then reveal you to the public. The nation’s sweetheart all grown up. Just imagine the resulting publicity that would generate.’ His eyes glittered. ‘Priceless.’

      She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘You make me sound like a commodity, Loukas,’ she said, in a low voice.

      He laughed. ‘But that’s exactly what you are. Why would you think any differently? You sell images of yourself to promote a product—of course you’re a commodity. You just happen to be one which has reached its sell-by date, I’m afraid—unless you’re prepared to mix it up a bit.’

      She met the hard gleam of his eyes and a real sense of sadness washed over her. Because despite the way their affair had ended, there had still been a portion of her heart which made her think of him with...

      With what?

      Affection?

      No. Affection was too mild a description for the feelings she’d had for Loukas Sarantos. She had loved him despite knowing that they were completely wrong for each other. She had loved him more than he’d ever known because she’d been trained to keep her feelings locked away, and she had taken all her training seriously. The way they’d parted had filled her with regret and she’d be lying if she tried to deny that sometimes she thought about him with a deep ache in her heart and a very different kind of ache in her body. Who didn’t lie in bed at night sometimes, wondering how different life might have been if you’d taken a different path?

      But now? Now he was making her feel angry, frustrated and stretched to breaking point. He made her want to pummel her fists against him, but most of all he made her want to kiss him. That was the most shameful thing of all—that she was still in some kind of physical thrall to him. She wanted him to cover her mouth with one of his hot kisses. To make her melt. To feel that first sharp and piercing wave of pleasure as he entered her and have it blot out the rest of the world.

      She stared into his mocking eyes, telling herself that her desire was irrelevant. More than that, it was dangerous, because it unsettled her and made her want things she knew were wrong. No good was ever going to come of their continued association. He wanted to change her. To make her into someone she wasn’t. And all the while making her aware of her own failures, while he showcased his own spectacular success.

      Was that what she wanted?

      ‘Why are you doing this, Loukas?’

      ‘Because I can.’ He smiled. ‘Why else?’

      And suddenly she saw the Loukas of old. The man who could become as still as a piece of dark and forbidding rock. Foreboding whispered over her skin as she rose to her feet. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ she said. ‘I just can’t imagine having any kind of working association with you. I’m sorry.’

      ‘You should be.’ His voice was silky. ‘I’ve had my lawyers take a good look at your contract. Refuse this job and you aren’t in line for any compensation. You leave here empty-handed. Have you thought about that?’

      Briefly, Jessica imagined Hannah, happily backpacking in Thailand. Hannah who had defied all expectations to land herself a place at Cambridge University. Her teenage half-sister on the other side of the world, blissfully oblivious to what was going on back home. What would she say if she knew that her future security was about to be cut from under her, by a black-eyed man with a heart of stone?

      But as she bent to pick up her handbag she told herself that she would think of something. There were opportunities for employment in her native Cornwall—admittedly not many, but she would look at whatever was going. She could turn her hand to plenty of other things. She could cook and clean or even work in a shop. Her embroidery was selling locally and craftwork was becoming more popular, so couldn’t she do more of that? Better that than to stay for a second longer in a room where the air seemed to be suffocating her. Where the man she had once loved seemed to be taking real pleasure from watching her squirm.

      Her fingers curled around the strap of her handbag. ‘You might want to think about changing your own image rather than concentrating on mine,’ she said quietly. ‘That macho attitude of yours is so passé.’

      ‘You think so?’ he drawled, leaning back in his chair and surveying her from between narrowed eyes. ‘I’ve always found it particularly effective. Especially with women. Most of them seem to get turned on by the caveman approach. You certainly did.’

      With his middle finger, he began to draw a tiny circle on the contract and Jessica found herself

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