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‘Hector!’ She greeted him warmly and took him up to the visitors’ lounge. ‘Please, take a seat, Galen shouldn’t be too long.’
She was lying.
He’d be ages.
And the trouble with glass offices... Well, Hector kept looking over at her.
Channel Kristina, Roula decided, understanding now why Kristina preferred visitors to wait downstairs.
‘Galen...’ She stood at the door to his office. ‘Hector’s getting restless.’
‘Roula,’ said Galen. ‘Hedemanded this meeting. I told him I had not got the time...’
‘But he’s here now,’ Roula said. ‘You’ll feel better when it’s done and not hanging over you.’
‘You’rehanging over me, Roula,’ Galen said.
And then he stood up and walked into a meeting he didn’t want to go to, with his PA who sat there like an umpire at a tennis match.
He was too aware of her, Galen knew.
Too aware of that jack-in-the-box hair that might uncoil at any moment, and too aware of the way she laughed when Hector made a little joke.
‘Yes, the third game is the charm, ho-ho-ho...’
‘My nieces love those charms.’ Roula nodded.
‘What we’re trying to gauge,’ Hector said, ‘is the progress on game number four?’
Galen was silent.
‘I’m aware we agreed on next year, but we’re nearly halfway through this one...’
Silence.
Roula took a drink of water. He could see her out of the corner of his eye.
‘Ideally,’ Hector pushed, ‘we’d like to announce a launch date at the ball...’
More silence.
It was not because he was playing hardball. Just that Galen liked to work in a vacuum—a silent, blacked-out vacuum—and if Hector got so much as a sniff that he was close, that in fact it was for the most part done, the hell of it all would start up.
Galen had done this three times before and he was determinedly putting off number four. Except he could feel, not just Hector’s but Roula’s eyes upon him, demanding that he elaborate.
‘I mean,’ Hector persisted, ‘just some idea as to where you are...’
Galen spread his hands.
And now it wasn’t silence filling the room—it was the sound of Roula’s breathing. And he was too aware when she took another sip of water and pushed that crazy, amazing hair back from her face.
He couldfeelher frustration.
Certainly he was aware of his own—and it had nothing to with work.
‘I said the game would be completed this year,’ Galen finally responded. ‘There are still several months left, I believe.’
‘There are.’
