Chapter Two
That’s nice of you. Axel couldn’t get those words out of his head, for some reason. He didn’t think anyone, ever, had described him as nice. And certainly not a woman.
He’d been described as many other things. Driven. Brilliant. Aloof. Intimidating. Ruthless, on occasion. When he had to be. But never nice.
He also couldn’t get the image of her on her hands and knees looking at him with those huge blue eyes out of his head.
Completely inappropriate of course but he hadn’t been able to stop the rush of blood to his cock at the thought of her crawling towards him, coming to her knees, pushing his legs apart, undoing his trousers and—‘Skata.’ Axel cursed as his body responded again and he had to shift position where he sat in the back of the car.
The driver in the front said over his shoulder, ‘Sorry about this, Mr Drakos, but an accident has snarled up the traffic.’
‘No problem, Derek.’ Axel tapped a finger on his knee. He should have had a helicopter waiting. He could be halfway to the centre of London right now. But it was too late. They were surrounded by a gridlock of cars all trying to get out of the airport, as they were.
He needed to figure out out what he was going to do about replacing Callista as his plus-one for the Baros party.
He cursed her again for putting her vices on public display.
But then, he had to concede that if they’d actually announced their engagement and she’d been caught in such a compromising position, it would have been a lot worse.
Axel mentally scrolled through the women in London he might call for sex or to attend a social event—beautiful accomplished women who knew the score.
But not one of them appealed for this because Axel knew that if he was asking them to appear with him for a prolonged period of time and then to go with him to the Baros benefit, they would inevitably think the rules had changed and that they could be in line for something more permanent.
Damn. He looked out of the window of the car and something caught his eye. Bright blonde hair. Short. Curly. A petite figure in a pencil skirt, matching jacket. Shirt with a colourful tie. Pulling a wheelie case behind her.
Hope Smith.
He watched as someone turned and walked straight into her, almost felling her, she was so tiny, but they caught her.
It was a man and he had his hands on her shoulders and she was looking up and smiling and shaking her head as if to say, no, no, it was my fault.
Like the way she’d taken responsibility for tripping over Axel’s feet on the plane.
But all Axel could see was the way the man was taking her in, this fey sprite, and assessing her appeal. An appeal that galvanised Axel to tell Derek to stop the car. He had got out and was standing beside her before he’d even consciously made the decision.
* * *
Hope was gritting her teeth. She didn’t like the way the man—who had barrelled right into her; she wasn’t that small!
—was digging into her shoulders and not letting her go.
Her feet were killing her in the court shoes and she wanted to get back to her little humble rental that she shared with an old friend.
‘Look, it’s fine, really, now, if you’ll—’ She stopped talking because the air around her seemed to change and become electrified. She was aware of a tall dark shape beside her and the man holding her looked at the dark shape and went pale and suddenly lifted his hands from her and scurried off.
Hope turned and had to look up and her heart somersaulted in her chest. ‘Mr Drakos. I…what are you doing here?’ He was wearing a three-piece suit again and looked formidable.
His jaw was hard. ‘Stuck in traffic, if you can believe it.’
He said this as if it was the most outlandish thing, which for this man it quite possibly was. And then suddenly Hope realised maybe he’d seen her and had just assumed she was still on the clock. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, is there something I can help with?’
He looked at her. ‘We’re not on the jet now.’
Hope groaned inwardly. He must think she was so stupid. She felt her face get hot. ‘No, I know, I just… OK, look, I’ll get on, then. Goodbye, Mr Drakos.’
She turned to rejoin the flow of people arriving and departing the airport but he said, ‘Wait, let me give you a lift.’
As a fairly savvy Londoner, Hope knew very well that public transport was the most efficient way to get into town. She faced her boss again. He really did look so out of place among the mere mortals of the world.
‘That really isn’t necessary. I live in north London and at this time of day it’d take—’
‘I insist.’
Hope had a vision of the packed Tube and then the fifteen-minute walk to her flat. It might not actually be much slower in the car and it would certainly be far more comfortable, albeit slightly stressful with her boss. But he was insisting.
A car horn beeped and he said, ‘We’re holding up traffic now. Please.’
‘OK, thank you, that’s very—’
‘Nice?’ he interjected.
Hope looked at him suspiciously but he was reaching for her case and lifting it into the open boot and holding the door open for her. She was transgressing so many boundaries now she felt a bit dizzy.
Inside the car it was like a cocoon. The busy bustling world outside just fell away. The seat felt as if it was moulding around the contours of Hope’s body. It was luxurious and the car was so smooth she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t actually gliding a couple of feet above the ground.
‘What’s your address?’
Hope looked into a kind of middle distance.
Surely she couldn’t be making eye contact now when he was a mere foot away on the other side of the car.
‘Um, it’s Baxter Gardens, but really, even if you drop me off at a central Tube I can jump on anywhere.
’ She was sure this guy’s address was Mayfair or Kensington.
‘Baxter Gardens, Derek, you got that?’
‘Yes, sir, no problem.’
Hope clamped her mouth shut. He was probably the type that didn’t like unnecessary chatter and that was one of her big weaknesses. She babbled when she was nervous.
‘So how long have you been a flight attendant?’
He was making conversation? She remembered George telling her not to talk to him unless he spoke to her. Well, he was speaking to her. She had no choice.
‘Um, for about four years now.’
‘Was it what you always wanted to do?’
Hope almost looked at him with a duh expression because, seriously, who had a burning desire to push a laden trolly down a narrow aisle where accruing bruises from arm rests and sharp corners was par for the course?
Not to mention the dealing with some of the most badly behaved and rude people she’d ever encountered.
‘I guess I just fell into it. I was working as a waitress and a colleague told me about a training course. It was an opportunity to earn a bit more and also travel.’
‘You like to travel?’
It was one of Hope’s most fervent desires, to see the world. But, like buying her own home, it was pretty much out of her reach.
‘Yes, but so far my travel has been just around Europe.’ She added hurriedly, ‘Don’t get me wrong, there’s so much to see, but I would love to go a lot further some day.’
‘Hope, can I ask why you’re not looking at me?’
She turned her head and the full enormity of sharing a relatively confined space with such a spectacular specimen of human was seriously overwhelming. ‘George told me not to make eye contact.’
Drakos’s eyes widened fractionally, which only drew Hope’s attention to their unusual golden colour. ‘George was perhaps being a little overzealous.’
‘Oh…so you don’t mind people looking at you.’
His mouth twitched ever so slightly and Hope rolled her eyes at herself. ‘Of course, you’re used to it.’
‘Why would I be used to it?’ He settled back a bit as if genuinely intrigued by what Hope might say. She squirmed a little.
‘Well, just that…you’re a good-looking guy.’ Ha! Understatement of the year.
He blinked at that and Hope felt genuine envy at his long lashes. They should have softened all those hard edges but they didn’t. He said, ‘You think they’re looking at me because of how I appear physically.’
She spluttered a bit. ‘Well, that, and I guess the…’ She gestured with her hands to encompass the car and the general levels of supersonic wealth.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a mobile phone. His mouth was definitely twitching now as he said, ‘Please excuse me, I have to take this call.’
Hope clamped her mouth shut again and averted her gaze. Brilliant, he was laughing at her and if she hadn’t already shown herself up as completely gauche, she just had now.
If the ground could open up right now she’d happily dive in.
* * *
Axel looked at the slight figure on the other side of the car.
He’d had to take a series of calls since that first one and, in that space of time, he had been aware of Hope slipping off her shoes and curling her legs up under her and now she was fast asleep on the other side of the car, nestled into the far corner as if she was trying to make herself small enough not to intrude.
Lashes long and curled, resting on her cheeks.
He thought of how she’d avoided his eye, upon instruction from George, and how Axel had found that intensely irritating because he’d wanted her to look at him.
She intrigued him and he told himself it was because she didn’t remotely resemble any kind of woman he knew.
For instance, the fact that she was sleeping in his presence.
Unheard of! He didn’t think he’d actually ever watched a woman sleeping—not even after sex, because he didn’t do post-coital lingering.
Which was probably why he’d also been called cold on occasion.
Why, though, did she interest him? Axel was nothing if not forensic in his pursuit of figuring out all the angles.
And then a word popped into his head. Vulnerability.
She was displaying a level of vulnerability that people usually went out of their way to hide around him because he would utilise it.