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Ben closed his eyes as he stepped under the changing room’s shower and let the hot spray hit him full in the face.
Maybe he’d been a little unfair.
And Olivia Harrington was just the type of person to create a huge fuss about how she’d been treated. She could go to the papers and create an enormous brouhaha about it. The media would have a field day.
Ben leaned his head against the marble tile and swore. What had he been thinking?
Well, he hadn’t been thinking. He’d just been reacting—to the stress of his day and the nearness of Olivia Harrington, to the fact that he’d been able to see her nipples through the thin fabric of her bikini top, and to being back at The Chatsfield, struggling to keep from reverting to the boy he’d once been or the man he knew he really was.
All of it had made him speak without consulting his brain first. And while it had felt good at the time, he wasn’t so keen on the possible repercussions.
He could, he supposed, apologise. He doubted it would do much good but he ought to at least make the effort. Sighing, he switched off the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. He dressed quickly in the workout shorts and T-shirt he’d worn to the pool and then went back in search of Olivia.
Unfortunately, when he entered the pool area, it was empty. Olivia Harrington was gone.
* * *
Olivia sat shivering on the edge of the pool as Ben’s words reverberated through her. Her mouth was still hanging open in shock. No one had ever talked to her like that before. Well, not since sixth grade, when she’d been bullied by a bunch of mean girls.
Not that a bit of name-calling had hurt her much back then. She’d been too focused on the far more consuming matter of her mother dying.
And as for now...well, sticks and stones, Olivia told herself firmly. Sticks and stones, that was all. She wasn’t going to be hurt by Ben Chatsfield’s scathing assessment of her, or the contempt she’d seen blazing in those hazel eyes.
And she wasn’t self-important. Or shallow. As for high maintenance, well, she was an actress. She did have an appearance to maintain. And wannabe...well, that was just plain insulting.
Her expression hardening, and her mouth thankfully closing, Olivia scrambled up from the edge of the pool and stalked towards the women’s changing room.
Okay, so maybe she’d overreacted a little about the room, she acknowledged as she showered and changed back into her clothes. But was she seriously meant to believe that it had been an accident? She doubted that such a tiny room was even on the reservation system. But Ben had given her a huge suite, and a night’s free accommodation, so...
She could be the bigger person here. She’d apologise to him for her accusation, and then give him a chance to apologize for all those insults. Tomorrow morning she’d graciously accept his grovelling, Olivia decided. She was looking forward to Ben offering her a little bit of the legendary Chatsfield customer service.
Just six hours later Olivia was up and ready to go, dressed to kill or at least to impress in a lavender dress with a cinched-in waist and flared skirt. She left her hair artfully tousled around her shoulders, spent half an hour on her understated make-up and wore a single silver bangle on her wrist, as well as the silver heart pendant she never took off; her mother had given it to her just before she’d died. She looked professional but pretty, and ready, Olivia hoped, to nail a day full of interviews as well as Berlin’s arctic February winds. She’d brought a matching coat, at any rate.
She managed to choke down some fruit and coffee—she forewent the traditional German breakfast of cold meats—and then went in search of Ben before she headed out for her first interview. It was just a little past seven in the morning, but Ben was already at his desk, already looking deliciously rumpled, one hand driven carelessly through his hair.
Olivia experienced a little pulse of attraction and squashed it firmly. She was going to apologise like the professional, non-shallow person she was, and then she was going to graciously accept his apology, and then she was going to move on and never think about Ben Chatsfield again.
‘Hello.’
He looked up from his computer, his hazel eyes narrowing to glints of grey-green as he registered her presence. ‘Please tell me there isn’t a problem with your suite.’
‘No, it’s completely amazing actually.’ She paused, unsure how to have an at least somewhat normal conversation with this man. He sat very still, but she still sensed that barely leashed energy and emotion emanating from him, and wondered at it. Okay, normal conversation. ‘I can’t believe that suite was available. I was under the impression that all the rooms were booked.’
