LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      “I’M SAM Telford from Manhatten Office Cleaners. My employer told me you wanted to see me.”

      Samantha, who preferred to be called by the shortenend version of her name, had been forced to run all the way from her apartment, and had been caught in the middle of an early May cloudburst. She was dripping wet and didn’t dare sit down on any of the upholstered chairs.

      The elegant, middle-aged secretary looked at her with vague disdain. “Are you the person who cleaned this office last night?”

      “Yes.”

      “Then you’re the one. It’s after two o’clock. You were expected in long before now.”

      “I was in class all morning. My boss didn’t reach me until I returned to my apartment a little while ago. Obviously something is wrong.”

      “You could say that,” came the cryptic reply. “Please, just...stand there for a minute.”

      Sam bit her bottom lip. She couldn’t afford to be in trouble, let alone lose her only source of income. Right now she was literally down to her last hundred dollars, and was counting on her next paycheck. At this point she was grateful for her job, and would die before she went begging to her father, a portrait painter of international repute who had never acknowledged her existence as a human being, let alone his daughter.

      Through the art department she’d heard rumors that he was living somewhere in Sicily with his latest mistress.

      Her jaw hardened. Someday, when she’d made a big success of her own artistic career—and she would if it killed her—she’d present herself to him. That day couldn’t come soon enough for her. She was living for the moment of confrontation, not only because of its shock value alone, but because she couldn’t wait to show him she’d made a success of her life, without him.

      He’d gotten away with murder for years. But not forever, she vowed vehemently.

      “Ms. Telford? Mr. Kostopoulos will see you now.”

      The head man himself?

      Sam’s nervousness increased. Kostopoulos Shipping and Export owned the impressive sixty-eight-floor office building located on the Upper West Side in New York City.

      Trepidation set in as she walked through the double doors of the office she’d cleaned less than eighteen hours earlier. To her embarrassment, her tennis shoes squished on the marble floor, announcing her entry in no uncertain terms.

      Automatically her eyes flicked to the wall. To her relief the Picasso was still there among a grouping of original oils and graphics. For a moment Sam had feared there might have been a theft during the night. It belonged in a museum like the D’Orsay in Paris where the whole world could admire it. Instead, it was part of a private collection only a privileged few would ever be allowed to see.

      The simplistic yet charming painting of a pair of hands holding a bouquet of flowers had to be an original, though Sam recognized that it was an unknown version of Picasso’s masterpiece, Petit Fleurs.

      She imagined he’d paid a fortune to obtain such a treasure. Most likely there’d been private negotiations between the Marina Picasso family and Mr. Kostopoulos.

      In the broad light of day, the room’s clean yet exquisite Hellenic accoutrements deserved a second glance. But her curious gaze fell on the powerfully built male dominating the room. He was structured along the lines of a classic Greek god, and she couldn’t look anywhere else. He was definitely numero uno.

      His taut stance and tightened facial muscles led her to believe some very fierce thoughts were running through his mind. She shivered at the possibility those thoughts had anything to do with her.

      He stood at the window, totally oblivious to the

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