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CHAPTER FOUR
THE office was crowded and airless and Cat was not having a good day. In fact it had not been a good week. Her immediate boss had overlooked her again and handed out two lucrative contracts elsewhere.
‘Sorry about that, Cat; you did come a close second,’ Victoria said smoothly as she brought the meeting to a close. ‘But I feel I’ve got to play safe. This is an old and valued client and it’s experience that counts at the end of the day.’
‘Well, it’s your decision to make,’ Cat said as she started to fold away her presentation. What else could she say? Anything else would sound like sour grapes. But inside she was fizzing. Especially as the contract had been given to a man Victoria was rumoured to be having an affair with—a man whose pitch had been the least exciting of the afternoon. Cat hated gossip and paid no heed to it usually but she really was starting to wonder if there was something in the stories now.
One of the receptionists put her head around the door, interrupting the general feeling of unrest in the room. ‘Cat, there is someone downstairs to see you.’
Cat’s heart sank even further. She assumed it was her brother; he’d phoned three times this week and she had avoided him on each occasion. It would be typical of him to barge into the office and try to create a scene. Her nerves stretched; she really could do without that! No one here knew about the situation with her family because it wasn’t something she liked to discuss. In fact, when anyone questioned her about her background she always pretended everything was fine in her life and that she was close to her father and brother. The truth was too sad to acknowledge and too embarrassing. For one thing, she would have men mockingly asking her to marry them if they knew about the inheritance!
‘It’s not my brother, is it?’ she asked cautiously. ‘Because I’m too busy for personal matters, you’ll have to tell him—’
‘No. This is business.’ Judy cut across her swiftly. ‘His name is Nicholas Zentenas—owner of the Zentenas chain of hotels.’
Cat’s wasn’t the only head that swivelled around towards the door. Judy had everyone’s attention now.
‘He was Mondellio’s client,’ someone remarked quickly. ‘Isn’t he that Greek tycoon? Remember that huge campaign—Relax in style?’
There was an excited buzz around the room.
‘So what is he doing here?’ Victoria cut across the noise sharply, her eyes boring into Cat. ‘And why is he asking to speak to you?’
‘I ran a few ideas by him last week.’ Cat tried to keep her voice nonchalant but inside her heart was starting to speed up. A full week had passed since she had given Nicholas her card. She had hoped every day that he would phone her—only for business purposes, of course—but hope had faded midweek. Now it was Friday afternoon and he had casually just dropped in!
‘You’ve run ideas by Nicholas Zentenas?’ Her boss sounded as if she was having difficulty with her English. ‘Ideas for a new campaign?’
‘It was just a few off-the-cuff suggestions.’ Cat rose to her feet. ‘I told him to come in if he wanted to hear more.’
Victoria’s face had turned a strange shade of puce. ‘Well … I’m sorry, Cat, but as senior management I will have to handle this.’
‘He specifically asked for Cat,’ Judy interrupted casually. ‘He was most precise on that point. I got the impression that if she wasn’t free he would leave.’
The puce shade was turning to purple.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it, Victoria.’ Cat swiftly headed for the door.
‘I enjoyed that!’ Judy said with a grin as she followed Cat along the corridor towards the lift. ‘That woman is getting very irritating.’
Cat couldn’t have agreed more, but she was too wound up about the fact that Nicholas was in the building to be able to concentrate on anything else. She brushed a nervous hand over her black pinstripe trousers and then buttoned up the matching waistcoat as she tried to focus her mind on the business aspects of this visit—yet she was aware that her heart was racing with a peculiar emphasis not normally associated with work-related problems.
She wondered if she had time to refresh her lipstick, comb her hair? Maybe not—Nicholas wasn’t a man to be kept waiting. The thought had just entered her mind when the lift doors opened and he stepped out.
‘Ah, there you are, Cat. I was starting to think you’d got lost.’
He was every bit as commanding as she remembered. Commanding and handsome. A lightweight beige suit fitted the broad-shouldered physique perfectly, hinting at the muscled torso beneath. His dark hair was swept back from his face with a careless indifference that was downright sexy and his dark eyes followed her progress along the corridor with an intensity that made her footsteps falter.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Zentenas,’ Judy called out.
Cat noticed that the indomitable receptionist sounded flustered. It wasn’t just her, then—Nicholas probably had this effect on the entire female population. The knowledge helped her to gather herself. She wasn’t going to crumble like everyone else.
‘Nicholas, this is a pleasant surprise.’ Her voice was brisk and businesslike. ‘If you had rung, I’d have made an appointment for you so you wouldn’t have had to wait.’ As she reached his side, she held out her hand.
That was almost her undoing. The firm touch of his skin against hers made her hot and breathless and the amused glint in his eyes told her he knew she wasn’t quite as composed as she pretended.
‘I found I had a spare half hour and thought I would take a chance that you were free.’
In other words, appointments were for mere mortals; he was above such things and had known she would see him no matter what.
