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Good.
He could sympathise but he would not. Carrie was a vulture. A beautiful vulture for sure, but a vulture nonetheless.
She deserved nothing less than what was coming for her.
‘In that case, I bid you goodnight. The clothes I promised you were flown in while we were travelling. Sheryl has put them away for you. You will find them imminently suitable. And remember…’
A pretty brow rose cautiously. ‘Remember?’
He winked. ‘I like to be welcomed with a smile.’
As he closed the interconnecting door he smiled himself to imagine her reaction to the clothing selected for her.
His fun with Carrie was only just beginning.
* * *
Carrie threw the entire contents of her new wardrobe onto the narrow excuse of a bed and rifled through them with increasing anxiety.
She’d expected to be given outfits akin to what chambermaids in hotels wore, not clothing like this.
Her wardrobe and dresser had been filled with soft, floaty summer dresses, vest tops, shorts that put the meaning into the word ‘short’, bikinis and sarongs. There was underwear too, all of the black, lacy variety.
Every item had a designer label.
Her skin had never felt so heated as when she’d picked up a pair of knickers and wondered if Andreas had chosen them personally.
But how could he have done? She hadn’t left his side since she’d stepped into his office. It must have been his PA, Debbie, who she’d been certain hadn’t liked her in the initial interview and who she’d had to give her vital statistics to as Andreas had whisked her out of his building.
Carrie tugged at her hair with a mixture of consternation and fear.
Whoever had chosen the items, which included beach paraphernalia along with all the clothing, this was not right, not by any stretch of the imagination. To make matters worse there was no Internet she could connect to and her phone signal seemed to be non-existent. The text message she’d written to her editor forty minutes ago was still trying to send.
Who knew she was here? Andreas and his PA Debbie, his flight crew and his Seychellois domestic staff. No one from her own life knew she was in the Seychelles, only people employed by Andreas.
Rubbing her eyes, she told herself she was probably worrying over nothing. It had been an incredibly long day and she was sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation did funny things to the brain.
The letter inviting her to the second interview had stated the successful applicant would be expected to start the job immediately. It was her own fault that she hadn’t taken the letter literally enough.
She was exactly where she wanted to be, with greater access to the man than in her wildest dreams.
But he also had access to her, and she eyed the adjoining unlocked door with nerves fluttering in her chest.
There was no way she would trust his word that he wouldn’t enter her room uninvited.
The way he looked at her… Did he look at all his employees with that same intensity? Did he leave the rest of his employees feeling that he was stripping them bare with a glance?
Or was it just her guilty conscience playing at her and making her see things that weren’t there?
Movement from the adjoining room made her catch her breath.
Andreas was still awake. They were connected to each other’s rooms and she couldn’t even lock herself away from him.
She forced herself to breathe.
She needed to take a shower but had been holding it off until she could be reasonably sure he’d gone to sleep. An hour after he’d left her in this tiny bedroom, there was nothing to suggest he was ready to turn in.
What was he going to do? she chided herself. Walk in on her while she showered?
Sexual foibles were the easiest secrets to uncover. Andreas Samaras might be many things but a sex pest was not something that had been flagged up about him, not even on the secret grapevine from which she and other journalists like her got so many of their stories. He rarely dated and when he did it was discreetly. If there was anything along those lines she had to worry about she would already know about them.
She was being over-cautious when she didn’t need to be.
Carefully putting the expensive clothing back into its rightful place, she realised what her real problem with it was. These were the sort of clothes a man bestowed on his lover for a holiday, not his employee.
* * *
Carrie awoke in the unfamiliar tiny room minutes before the digital alarm clock on her bedside table went off. It had been set for her by some faceless person that she would no doubt meet shortly, a person with whom she would have to pretend to be someone she was not.
Lying on an investigation had never bothered her before. The few she had done before, though, had been office-based. Offices were places where everyone wore a mask. She’d fitted in without any problems and without any guilt, knowing she was working for a good cause.
