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Ben pressed his lips together and glanced back at his computer screen. ‘Not that one.’
Olivia straightened, gave him her well-practised I’d-like-to-thank-the-Academy smile. ‘Well, I came here to thank you, really, for letting me stay in it. I appreciate the effort you must have gone to, and I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions about why I had my original room. So thank you for addressing my concern.’ She kept smiling as she waited for his reciprocal apology.
Ben’s gaze flicked back to her for a millisecond. ‘You’re welcome.’ Olivia stared. That was it? No apologies for calling her shallow and self-important and wannabe? ‘I looked into the room confusion,’ he continued without taking his gaze from the computer screen, ‘and it seems that one of our newer reception staff gave your original room away to a rather intimidating guest. He put you in that room, thinking it had already been renovated. That wing of the hotel is undergoing renovations, but as you could see, they haven’t finished yet.’
‘Ah. Right.’ And that did seem like a believable excuse, Olivia supposed. So yes, she had overreacted. But so had he. Yet he obviously didn’t feel the need to apologise for his litany of insults last night.
And then, just when she was ready to consign Ben to permanent jerkdom, he said abruptly, one hand curling into a fist on top of his desk, ‘I’m sorry for losing my temper last night. It shouldn’t have happened. I certainly shouldn’t have insulted you. Please accept my apology.’ Each word was bitten out, and his expression was unaccountably grim. Olivia watched as he carefully, deliberately, unclenched his fist, palm flat against the desk.
‘Apology accepted.’ She managed a teasing smile. ‘Although that wannabe comment was completely uncalled for.’
To her surprise his mouth kicked up in a tiny, answering smile and the tension that had been keeping him so still seemed to flow out of him, at least a little. ‘I thought that might annoy you the most.’
‘Well spotted.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Were they actually flirting? It kind of felt like it, which was...weird. But also rather stimulating. ‘Just out of curiosity,’ she asked, ‘why did you have one of the largest suites in the hotel empty? I thought the hotel was fully booked. You didn’t kick anyone out on my account, did you?’
He hesitated, then said, ‘No.’
‘So it was empty?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Why do I feel like you’re not telling me something?’
He shrugged and then admitted tersely, ‘I was staying there.’
‘You were?’ Shock scorched through her, followed by a horrified remorse. She’d kicked Ben Chatsfield out of his room. ‘Where are you staying now?’
His sardonic gaze met hers. ‘Guess.’
The penny dropped with a clunk. ‘Not...’
‘I had the sheets changed, at least. But the hotel, as you noted yourself, is fully booked.’
She simply stared, utterly discomfited by his admission. He was staying in the broom cupboard? And he hadn’t even been going to mention it until she’d pressed. Now she really did feel self-important and high maintenance and all the rest of it, except wannabe, of course ‘Thank you,’ she said yet again, lamely, and Ben just stared at her with that inscrutable expression, his eyes reminding her of a tiger or a panther or some other wild and dangerous animal. Okay, enough with the fanciful thoughts. He was waiting, she realised, for her to go. And so she did, hightailing it out of his office with an unsettling mixture of relief and disappointment.
An hour later Olivia had managed, mostly, to put the whole episode with Ben Chatsfield out of her mind as she answered questions about the upcoming drama that was going to be her ticket to the A-list. She laughed, she chatted, she even winked once. All of it a performance, and one that she was doing remarkably well, if she did say so herself.
Then, just after she’d told a witty joke and let out a sparkling laugh, a reporter came back with, ‘Would you care to comment on your relationship with Benjamin Chatsfield?’
What the what?
The expression of laughing ease dropped from Olivia’s face like the mask it was as she stared at the woman from the entertainment website with whom she’d got on very well until this moment.
Her relationship with Benjamin Chatsfield? How on earth had the woman come up with that one? After an endless moment her brain finally stuttered into gear. ‘I don’t care to comment at this time,’ she said crisply. And wasn’t that an understatement. She didn’t have a relationship with Ben Chatsfield. How did this woman even know she’d spoken to Ben Chatsfield?
