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It was totally inexplicable, not a little insane and very primal the way that woman had burrowed her way under his skin. Perhaps this was a version of love at first sight for a man who didn’t fall in love—lustat first sight, which luckily for him didn’t have the same staying power.
He remembered chastely kissing Kate Zanetti on her fragrant cheek and feeling zero desire to lay her across his desk, which was probably just as well because he was sure that if Marco had issues with Zac lusting after his sister-in-law, his wife would be a pistols-at-dawn scenario.
He valued his friendship with Marco, and it wasn’t as if his friend were asking for a kidney. A few weeks of keeping his libido on a leash and his objectivity front and centre to ease Marco’s fears was not a big ask. He was walking around the desk when he saw the glint of metal, a bunch of keys lying on the wooden floor, and he bent down to retrieve the object. Not his keys. Only one person in his office today would have a key ring that was attached to a knitted stuffed animal—it could have been a pig, or it might have been a horse...?
He reached out to press the button on the intercom and stopped as an image appeared of Rose Hill standing on her doorstep rummaging through her bag, and realising she’d lost her keys. It was easy to imagine the panic in her spectacular eyes. It was even easier to imagine passion, the slow burn that sparked into a full-blown conflagration. He thought about her slim, expressive hands touching... He was so absorbed by the image in his head that for a split second he forgot his pledge not to want her, but was saved from this self-indulgent torture by the sound of his PA’s voice. He lifted his finger off the button he had not been aware of pressing and responded.
‘No, it’s fine. I’m...actually I’m leaving early.’ As he made his way through the building he contacted Arthur and explained the bare bones of the situation and what arrangements he needed putting into place.
Zac could not recall entering the crèche in this or any other of the Adamos buildings. They came under the umbrella of the Adamos Trust, one of the charitable trust’s less challenging projects and one he took little personal interest in. Closer to home was the adult literacy programme—one of his half-sisters was dyslexic.
The brightly painted walls and cheerful artwork on them certainly set it apart from the rest of the minimalist pale building. Long-term exposure would have given him a headache. He had just passed a particularly vibrant collage, obviously produced in-house by childish hands, when he came to a door that said‘Office’. The upper panel was glass, the bottom urged the reader in big letters to‘Come right in’.
One dark brow lifted as Zac read the instructions, which in his view constituted taking informality several steps too far. Was the half-open door encouragement to barge in unannounced?
Zac was about to test out the theory when the sound of a voice within made him pause.
‘So? What happened?’
‘I’m sorry to leave you short-handed but—’
‘He sacked you!’ Jac went pink. ‘Why, that...piece of slime. No, I’m not standing for this. I’m going right up there to give him a piece of my mind!’
Rose was touched by this passionate, if slightly impractical, declaration of war on her behalf. ‘Calm down.’ She laughed, giving the older woman an affectionate hug as much as her bump allowed. ‘He didn’t sack me, he offered me a sort of temporary placement.’
‘Oh, don’t give me a scare like that...’ Jac huffed out in relief, then as she pushed her owl-like glasses up her nose her brow furrowed. ‘A placement?’
As Rose explained the situation, Jac’s eyes went wider and wider behind the lenses of her specs. ‘So you’re going to Greece to look after this orphaned baby? That’s so sad, not for you though, wow!’ Her voice carried an even higher note of incredulity as she added, ‘So now Zac Adamos is adad? How is he dealing with it? Or need I ask? This is Mr Ice In His Veins.’
‘Jac, that’s not fair!’ Rose protested, finding herself unable to appreciate the other woman’s sense of humour. ‘Just because someone doesn’t show his feelings it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any.’
‘Oh, my God, Rose, why do you always think the best of people?’
‘I don’t...well, I know I do, but this is different. To be honest I’m really wary of working for him.’
‘I can think of several people in the building who would feel differently,’ the older woman suggested with a wry smile. ‘So for how long are we going to be without you?’
‘Actually, I’m not sure.’ It would have been practical to ask but it didn’t really matter. She had no ties except a father who only appeared when he wanted something.
She was a free agent, she told herself, ignoring the little ache that came with the thought. ‘Until the nanny returns, I suppose.’
‘But Greece and Zac Adamos...’ The older woman rolled her eyes. ‘If I was a few years younger...and maybe a couple of stone lighter, what wouldn’t I give?’
Rose flushed, struggling to respond in the same jocular style. Her sense of humour on the subject was running low, and her laugh missed spontaneous and hit forced dead centre.
‘You’re welcome to him,’ Zac heard her declare as he watched the speaker’s mirror image shift her bag from one shoulder to the other.
‘He is the last man in the world I’d be interested in!’ she exclaimed.
Protesting just a little bit too much here, Rose. Anyone would think you’re in denial.
Her chin lifted in response to the mocking voice in her head, then lowered from its jutting angle a moment later. She didn’twantto find him attractive and it was true alpha males, which he undoubtedly was, did not appeal to her, at least in theory.
But she couldn’t deny that walking into that office and meeting his eyes had caused her to experience the sort of skin-peeling sexual awareness she had only previously read about...and not really believed.
The worrying thing was that part of her had liked the rush of skin-tingling excitement, it had made her feel alive, but another part of her had been scared.
But then aren’t you always scared, Rose?
