The Tycoon's Reluctant Cinderella. Therese Beharrie

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       CHAPTER TWO

      BLAKE WATCHED AS the crowd in the banquet hall began to thin. There must have been about three hundred people there, he thought. And, the way he felt, he was sure he had spoken to every single one of them. No, he corrected himself almost immediately. Not everyone. There was one person he had avoided ever since learning who she was—an employee of the hotel.

      Julia, his ex, had been an employee. She had been a part of the Human Resources team in the Port Elizabeth hotel, where he spent most of his time.

      He had been enamoured of her. She was beautiful, intelligent, and just a little arrogant. And she had a son who had crept into his heart the moment Blake had met him. It had been a fascinating combination—the gorgeous, sassy woman and the sweet, shy child. One that had lured him in and blinded him to the truth of what she’d wanted from him. The truth that had made him distrust his judgement and conclude that staying away from his employees would be the safest option to avoid getting hurt.

      He narrowed his eyes when he saw Callie walking towards him, and cursed himself for the attraction that flashed through his body. But he refused to give in to it. He would ignore the way some strands of her hair had escaped from her hairstyle and floated down to frame her face. He wouldn’t notice that she walked as if someone had rolled out a red carpet for her. He hardened himself against the effect she had on him—and then she was in front of him and her smell nearly did him in.

      The floral scent was edged with seduction—a description that came from nowhere as she stood innocently in front of him, those emerald eyes clear of any sign of wrongdoing.

      ‘What do you want?’ he snapped, and surprised himself. Regardless of the way his body reacted to her, he could control it. He would control it.

      Her eyes widened, but then set with determination. ‘I wanted to set the record straight. I know you must be confused after finding out I work here.’

      ‘That isn’t the word I’d use.’

      ‘Well, however you would describe it, I still want to tell you what happened.’

      She took a breath, and Blake wondered if she realised how shakily she’d done it.

      ‘I had no idea who you were when we were stuck in that elevator. If I had, I wouldn’t have—’

      ‘Flirted with me?’

      Something in her eyes fired, and reminded him that he had flirted with her, too. But her voice was calm when she spoke.

      ‘Yes, I suppose. It was an honest mistake. I didn’t seek you out to try and soften you up, or anything crazy like that. So...’ She paused, and then pushed on. ‘Please don’t take this out on Connor.’

      Blake frowned. She was explaining to him that she’d made a mistake—and the honesty already baffled him—but she didn’t seem to be doing it for herself. She was doing it for her brother, and that was...selfless.

      Almost everything Julia had done had been self-serving. But then he hadn’t known that in the beginning. He’d thought that she was being unselfish, that she was being honest. And those qualities had attracted him. But it had all been pretence. So what if there didn’t seem to be a deceitful motive behind what Callie was saying? He knew better than anyone else that she might be faking it.

      But when he looked at her, into those alluring and devastatingly honest eyes, that thought just didn’t sit right.

      ‘So,’ he said, sliding his hands into his pockets, ‘I can take it out on you?’

      Was he still flirting with her? No, he thought. He wanted to know what she thought he should do about the situation. Yes, that was it—just a test. How would she respond now that she knew he was her boss?

      She cleared her throat. ‘If need be, yes. I understand if you feel you need to take disciplinary action, although I don’t believe it’s necessary.’

      ‘You don’t?’

      ‘No, sir.’

      The word sounded different coming from her, and he wasn’t sure that he liked the way she was defining their relationship.

      ‘I apologise for my unprofessional behaviour, but I assure you it won’t happen again.’ She looked at him, and this time her eyes pleaded for herself. ‘I didn’t know who you were. Please give me a chance to make this right.’

      Blake was big enough a man to realise when he had made a mistake, and the sincerity the woman in front of him exuded told him he had done just that, in spite of his doubts. He straightened, and saw that there was almost no one left in the room for him to meet. Relief poured through him, and finally he gave himself permission to leave.

      But before he did, he said, ‘Okay, Miss McKenzie. I believe you. I’ll see you at work on Monday.’

      * * *

      By eleven o’clock on Monday morning Blake had had enough. He had got in to the office at six and had been poring over the financials since then. Again. But no matter how he looked at it—just as he’d feared the first time he’d reviewed them—there was no denying the fact that this hotel was in serious trouble.

      How had he let it get this far? he thought, and walked to the coffee machine in the office he would be sharing with Connor. The man had set up a makeshift space for Blake, which made the place snug, but not unworkable. Right now, he was tempted to have a drink of the stronger stuff Connor kept under lock and key for special occasions—or so he claimed. But even in Blake’s current state of mind he could acknowledge that drinking was not the way to approach this.

      With his coffee in his hand, he walked to the window and looked out at the bustle of Cape Town on a Monday morning. The hotel overlooked parts of the business district, and he could feel the busyness of people trying to get somewhere rife in the air as he watched the relays of public transport. But he could also glimpse Table Mountain in the background, and he appreciated the simplicity of its magnitude. It somehow made him feel steadier as he thought about the state the hotel was in.

      How had he let this happen?

      The thought wouldn’t leave his head. He had picked up that the hotel had been struggling years ago—which was why he had fired Landon and promoted Connor—but still this shouldn’t have got past him. But he knew why it had. And he needed to be honest with himself before he blamed his employees when he was probably just as responsible for this mess.

      He had been too focused on dealing with Julia to notice that the business was suffering.