A Passionate Night With The Greek. KIM LAWRENCE

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СКАЧАТЬ was to be like Sue, a single parent bringing up five children and holding down two jobs.

      On the brink of sharing the good news, she pulled back and moderated her response. She didn’t want to raise hopes if nothing came of this.

      ‘I know you think I’m mad, but I really think there’s a realistic prospect someone out there cares.’

      The other woman grinned. ‘I know you do, and I really hope life never knocks that starry-eyed optimism out of you.’

      ‘It hasn’t so far,’ Kat retorted. ‘And Monday’s fine. I’ll cover... Good luck.’

      She waited until the other woman had left before she sat down at her desk—actually, it was a table with one wobbly leg—and thought about who she might be meeting. Whoever it was didn’t hang around. The meeting was scheduled for the following morning and the letter had been sent recorded delivery.

      Well, she could cross the two off her list who had already sent a sympathetic but negative response, so who did that leave?

      But then, did the identity of the potential donor actually matter? What mattered was that someone out there was interested enough for a meeting. So there was no beacon of light at the end of a tunnel but there was a definite flicker. Her small chin lifted in an attitude of determination. Whoever it turned out to be, she would sell her cause to them. Because the alternative was not something she wanted to contemplate—failure.

      So for the rest of the day she resisted the temptation to share her news with the rest of her gloomy-looking colleagues. Not until she knew what was on offer, or maybe she just didn’t want to have anyone dampen her enthusiasm with a bucket of cold-water realism? Either way there was no one to turn to for advice when she searched her wardrobe for something appropriate that evening.

      There wasn’t a lot to search. Her wardrobe was what designers called capsule, though maybe capsule was being generous.

      It wasn’t that she didn’t love clothes and fashion, it was just that her budget was tight and in the past used up by impulse bargain buys, which inevitably sat in her wardrobe untouched and were eventually donated to a charity chop.

      After a mega charity shop clear-out at the beginning of the summer and an unseasonal resolution to avoid sale racks, she had adopted a pared-down wardrobe. There had been the one slip. She looked at it now, hanging beside the eminently practical items. She rubbed the deep midnight-blue soft cashmere silk fabric between her fingers and gave a tiny nod; it was perfect for tomorrow’s ‘dress to impress’.

      Smiling because her moment of weakness had been vindicated, she extracted the dress that stood out among the white shirts, T-shirts, black trousers and jeans, and hung it on the hook at the back of the bedroom door. Smoothing down the fabric, she checked it for creases, but everything about the dress managed to combine fluid draping with classic tailoring and the look screamed designer. The only fault she’d been able to find that had caused it to be downgraded to a second was the belt loop that needed a few stitches.

      It had fitted so perfectly when she’d tried it on and had been marked down so much that, even though her practical head had told her there would never be an occasion in her life where the beautifully cut dress would come into it, she had bought it.

      If she’d believed in fate—well, actually she did; the problem, in her experience, was not always recognising the door left ajar by fate as a golden opportunity.

      It took her a little longer to dig out the heels buried among the piles in the back of the wardrobe, and she was ready. All she needed now was to go through her plan of attack. If she wanted to sell her case, make it stand out amongst the many deserving cases, she needed facts at her fingertips and a winning smile and someone with a heart to direct it at. The smile that flashed out was genuine as she caught sight of her face in the mirror...her eyes narrowed and her forehead creased in a frown of fierce determination.

       So her winning smile could do with some work!

       CHAPTER TWO

      ZACH WAS EXPECTED. The moment he strode into the foyer his reception committee materialised. He was shown up to the empty boardroom by the senior partner—the only Asquith left in the law firm of Asquith, Lowe and Urquhart—and three underlings of the senior variety.

      If Zach had thought about it—which he hadn’t, because he’d had other things on his mind—he would have expected no less, considering that the amount of business Alekis sent this firm’s way had to be worth enough to keep the Englishman’s Caribbean tan topped up for the next millennium and then some, not to mention add a few more inches to his expanding girth.

      ‘I will bring Miss Parvati up when she arrives. How is Mr Alekis? There have been rumours...’

      Zach responded to this carefully casual addition with a fluid shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘There are always rumours.’

      The older man tilted his head and gave a can’t blame a man for trying nod as he backed towards the door, an action mirrored by the three underlings, who had tagged along at a respectful distance.

      Zach unfastened the button on his tailored grey jacket and, smoothing his silk tie, called after the other man before he exited the room. ‘Inform me when she arrives. I’ll let you know when to show her up.’

      ‘Of course. Shall I have coffee brought in?’

      His gesture took in the long table, empty but for the water and glasses at the end where Zach had pulled out a chair. Watching him, the older man found himself, hand on his ample middle, breathing in. The sharp intake of stomach-fluttering breath came with an unaccustomed pang of wistful envy that he recognised as totally irrational—you couldn’t be wistful about something you had never had, and he had never had the sort of lean, hard, toned physique this man possessed. His own physical presence had a lot more to do with expensive tailoring, which permitted him to indulge his love of good food and fine wine.

      ‘The water will be fine.’ Zach reached for one of the iced bottles of designer water to illustrate the point and tipped it into a glass before he took his seat.

      The door closed, and Zach glanced around the room without much interest. The room had a gentlemen’s club vibe with high ceilings and dark wooden panelled walls—not really his usual sort of environment. He had never been in a position to utilise the old-school-tie network, but he had never been intimidated by it and, more importantly, not belonging to this world had not ultimately hindered his progress. If he was viewed in some quarters as an outsider, it didn’t keep him awake nights, and even if it had he could function pretty well on four hours’ sleep.

      He opened his tablet and scrolled onto the file that Alekis’s office had forwarded. It was not lengthy, presumably an edited version of the full warts and all document. Zach had no problem with that; he didn’t need the dirt to make a judgement. The details he did have were sufficient to give him a pretty good idea of the sort of childhood the young woman he was about to meet had had.

      The fact that, like him, she had not had an easy childhood did not make him feel any connection, any more than he would have felt connected to someone who shared a physical characteristic with him. But he did feel it gave him an insight others might lack, the same way he knew that the innocence that had seemed to shine out from her eyes in the snapshot had been an illusion. Innocence was one of the first СКАЧАТЬ