Bride Behind The Billion-Dollar Veil. Clare Connelly

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      Thanos regarded this mild-mannered assistant thoughtfully. She was plain-spoken and unaffected. Unlike most of the women he dealt with, she wasn’t going out of her way to flatter and please him. She was acting as though she barely noticed he was a man. It was unusual for him to come across a woman who didn’t respond in a certain way.

      And it was fascinating.

      She was pretty, he supposed, in an understated way—though she also went to very little effort with her appearance. Her suit was old and boxy, hiding any curves she might have beneath too much fabric. Her hair was silky and luscious, long, he suspected, though it was impossible to know as she wore it pinned in a sensible, low bun at the nape of her neck. In fact, everything about her was sensible. Plain. Businesslike.

      His eyes dropped lower, to hands that were sorting through a pile of papers—red, with OVERDUE marked at the top. And despite his own monumental problems, curiosity lifted inside him.

      ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

      She looked at him with a slight frown on her face, almost as though she thought he might have left.

      ‘I’m catching up on some personal business. It’s my lunch break.’

      He looked at his watch. ‘It’s the end of the day.’

      ‘I didn’t have time to have it any earlier.’ She said it as though she was worried he might be cross with her, as if she feared recriminations. That was unnecessary. Though she was only a temp, and he hadn’t been to the New York office for almost a year, Thanos knew that Alice worked harder than most of the permanent executive support team. Her security card was frequently the last one swiped out at the end of the evening, and oftentimes the first one to appear on the staff list.

      She worked long hours and, though his workload was nothing if not exhausting, she’d somehow managed to keep his business and personal life running like a well-oiled machine.

      If he needed his jet fuelled up, he emailed Alice. Gifts organised, Alice. Anything done with his apartments? Alice. She oversaw all aspects of his life and yet they were only today meeting for the first time.

      And he knew nothing about her.

      Why did that bother him? He couldn’t have said. Stathakis Corp employed thirty thousand people globally. One woman shouldn’t have interested him like this.

      And yet, he found himself propping his hip on the edge of her desk, and looking at the bills with more interest. She shuffled them self-consciously.

      So he knew one thing about her.

      She was a poor money manager. She had to be, given what the temp rates were for an executive assistant at this level. Sure, there was agency commission to come out of her salary packet, but regardless of that, her rate was generous.

      ‘Did you need anything else, sir?’

      She spoke without looking at him, but he detected a faint tremble in her fingertips as she filed the bills under some other papers, pointedly reaching for her sandwich.

      He straightened, with a frown. ‘No.’ As he moved towards the door, his frown didn’t ease.

      ‘How long do you expect to be in New York?’

      Her question caught him off-guard. Thanos never liked to be anywhere for long. He’d arrived in Manhattan a day earlier anticipating his business here would be wrapped up within twenty-four hours. Now he paused, with no idea when he’d be able to get out of town.

      ‘I have no idea.’

      Silence for a moment and then, ‘So I’ll see you tomorrow?’

      He turned back to face her, and there was no warmth in her expression. In fact, he couldn’t have said if she’d asked the question with curiosity or apprehension, but both sparked a ridiculous urge to laugh.

      Instead, he nodded stiffly. ‘Yes. Goodnight, Alice.’