A Deal For Her Innocence

A fleeting glimpse of their reflections in the daunting mirrored walls as they walked through the outer room made her heart sink.

He’d said that he wasn’t at his best with people who ‘tether themselves to rules and regulations’. He’d made it sound as though anyone who wasn’t an out-and-out maverick was a crashing bore and of no interest.

What must he think of her, in that case? She’d already pinned her colours to the mast when it came to rule-breaking and, if she hadn’t, then one look at her would have convinced him that she was just the sort of dreary, conventional bore he would never be at his best with.

If he was the equivalent of a dangerous, wildly unpredictable and outrageously beautiful jungle cat, then she was the equivalent of the fearful sparrow sitting on the branch of a tree, making damned sure not to get too close.

Her clothes were neat and, she knew, uninspiring. Her figure was likewise neat and uninspiring. She possessed neither the curves of the sex bomb nor the androgynous skinny chic of the model. She was just...slender. Her breasts had never been big enough, as far as she was concerned. Her shoulder-length hair, scraped back into a utilitarian chignon at the nape of her neck, was shiny and glossy but...brown. She had her own niche market of clients who were reassured by her competence and straightforward, intelligent approach, impressed by her careful meticulousness and charmed by the flashes of wit and verve she brought to all her campaigns. Niccolo Rossi wasn’t going to be one of these reassured, impressed or charmed clients.

She was never going to win this contract. You really had to bond with the person on the opposite side of the fence when it came to winning a contract. You had to be singing from the same song sheet or else they would never trust that you would be able to perform in the manner they wanted. It was all a very subjective process.

An unpredictable jungle cat and a little brown sparrow did not make natural bed partners.

Already contemplating the prospect of failure, and trying to work out how it might impact on the fortunes of the agency, Ellie didn’t notice that they had exited the marble outer room and were now in the changing rooms, which were also tiled in marble, but unfortunately not quite so impersonal, because the bank of showers suggested, all too clearly, just how intimate the space was.

She froze.

The colour drained from her cheeks.

She was still in her coat, and practically passing out from the heat, but too embarrassed to remove it in a place like this, which was specifically designed for the removal of clothing.

Niccolo folded his arms and looked at her. Never had he seen a face so expressive of a rabbit suddenly staring into the harsh, bright glare of oncoming headlights.

He marvelled that she worked in the cut-throat world of advertising at all and, more than that, was an active partner in the small but, he knew, talented advertising agency which she represented.

‘I would not normally be conducting business here,’ he felt constrained to tell her, even though it wasn’t in his nature to explain himself to anyone. ‘Unfortunately, I got into work much later than I normally do.’ He grimaced as he thought of the four delightful harridans laying into him the evening before. ‘Not your fault, I do realise, but I decided, once I got here that I had to hit the gym. Unfortunately, it happened to coincide with your appointment, which I should, in retrospect, have cancelled.’

‘No!’ Ellie was quick to respond. ‘It’s perfectly fine. A little unusual, of course, but...’

‘But I’m a billionaire and your agency is desperate to get its hands on this assignment, so having to put up with inappropriate behaviour from the head of the company is a pill you’re willing to swallow for the greater good.’ He grinned, folded his arms and stared at her for a few moments, then he turned away and disappeared behind a wall. She could still hear him, though, just as she could hear the rush of water as the shower was turned on.

Her twenty minutes were surely up, and she had shown him nothing of what she had done. But then, he’d probably made up his mind anyway, so wasn’t particularly interested in seeing her work.

Frankly, she could leave right now, but it somehow seemed rude to slink away while his back was turned.

While he was in the shower.

Naked.

Ellie suddenly found herself in the grip of a level of imagination she’d never known she possessed. She pictured him under the running water, lathering his big, powerful body with soap, face upturned. He wasn’t one of those metrosexual guys with spindly legs and hairless chests. He was aggressively, belligerently male and his dark, dangerous in-your-face sex appeal made her giddy and flustered.

‘You’ve gone silent on me,’ Niccolo drawled, emerging from the concealed cubicle, trousers on, lazily doing up the buttons on his shirt.

Ellie blinked and then reddened as she recalled the graphic images of him that had sent her blood pressure soaring.

He was decent, and for that she was immeasurably grateful. Grey trousers and a white shirt. Barefoot, though, and his hair was still damp from the shower.

‘Time’s not on your side, Ms Eleanor Wilson. In actual fact—’ he glanced at the expensive watch on his wrist ‘—your twenty minutes was up five minutes ago but, considering you didn’t cater for having to do your pitch in the company gym, I’m going to extend your time for a further half an hour. Think you’ll be able to do what you came here to do in that time? Provided you don’t spend any more of it staring at me. And, for God’s sake, take the coat off. The last thing I need is to waste my morning pandering to a damsel in distress who’s passed out because she’s overheated.’

Ellie didn’t have time to say anything in response to this because he was already walking out of the changing rooms towards yet another door which she hadn’t noticed before. It led directly out to a comfortable wooden-floored room equipped with everything anyone might want after a gruelling workout.

A refrigerated glass cooler held bottles of water and energy drinks, and fruit, energy bars and healthy protein snacks filled deep trays on a counter. No one was serving and it was obvious that the generous contents of the canteen were open to any employee choosing to use the gym.

Niccolo grabbed a bottle of mineral water and proceeded to drink it in one long swallow.

For a few seconds, Ellie was mesmerised by the brown column of his throat as he finished the water, then, galvanised into action, she whipped off the offending coat and quickly pulled out her tablet and all the documentation she had brought with her.

If all she had was half an hour, then she was determined to stuff it as full as she possibly could with the mock-ups she had brought with her.

‘There are hard copies of everything,’ she began, remaining on her feet while he sat on one chair and dragged another towards him so that he could use it as a makeshift foot-rest. He relaxed back, hands linked loosely behind his head, and watched as she fumbled with the mound of paperwork she had brought with her. Her tablet was already up and running.

She was the epitome of efficiency. The coat had been discarded to reveal an outfit as bland as he had expected. Now that she wasn’t having to try and evade the sight of him in a sweaty tee shirt and the loose jersey shorts he wore whenever he worked out in the gym, she had reverted to the brisk professional she undoubtedly was.

Niccolo harked back to the delicately blushing cheeks and the awkward discomfort and thought it was a shame that she was morphing into just the sort of career woman he was so accustomed to dealing with. He’d quite liked the delicately blushing cheeks and the awkward discomfort. Professional, efficient career women were a dime a dozen. As were practised, seductive temptresses, and he should know, because he’d dated enough of them in the past.

A woman who blushed, though, was as rare as hen’s teeth and Niccolo had enjoyed the sight.

On cue, she was delivering her talk about the hotel complex that was to be the subject of the advertising campaign. She’d done her research very thoroughly indeed, that much was obvious. She seemed to know more about his own hotel complex than he did, but then this foray into the world of leisure was a departure from his usual conquests.

His path to fame, glory and riches had started in the highly profitable maze of apps. He’d had a special talent for spotting the start-ups that were going to go stellar and he had known how and when to invest. He’d been a millionaire almost before leaving university with his first-class degree in computer engineering and maths. He’d turned that million into several more when he’d started acquiring ailing companies and spinning them into gold mines, and the millions had become billions as his reach had extended. But he’d never thought about the leisure industry until one of his sisters had mentioned something about how tough it could be finding the right life-partner.

Niccolo didn’t believe in partners, right or otherwise. He believed in the purity of work. But he’d had experience from way back when of a match-making app that had taken off and he had spotted the chance to combine known territory with the interesting and as yet unexplored avenue of high-end hotels, and thereby add to his already considerable fortune. Why not? The fantasy of love wasn’t for him, for a number of reasons, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t exist, and he was very happy to provide the wherewithal for all those hopefuls in search of their happy-ever-after dream.

Niccolo had had his future mapped out from the day his father had died. At the time, he had been only eight but, as his father had told him on his death bed, he was now the man of the house and would have to step up to the plate.

Niccolo could not remember a time when he hadn’t been aware of the importance of working to make sure his family were taken care of. By the time he hit twenty-one, fresh out of Cambridge University, the family company had been on its last legs.

The thorny business of wondering what direction to take with his life had never crossed his radar because he’d known from a kid where his destiny lay. Duty above all else. The mantra had lodged in his head in his dying father’s message. In one hand, he’d juggled with the demands of revamping his family business, while in the other he’d developed his breath-taking skills in the fast-moving world of technology, learning over time how to link the two. He’d grown up fast because he had moved straight from university life into the cut-throat world of the men in suits who ran the financial markets.

Niccolo assumed that he had known innocent young women who blushed but, if he had, then it had been a long time ago. Now, with billions at his disposal and a social circle that included some of the most powerful movers and shakers on the planet, the women he met had left their blushing days a long time ago.

He surfaced to find that he’d been staring at her from under lowered lashes. She’d reached the point of telling him the highlights of his hotel and he raised one hand to stop her in mid-flow.

‘But what about the sex angle?’

‘Sex angle?’

‘Don’t be coy, Ms Wilson. Tell me I haven’t wasted the past twenty-five minutes listening to you try and gear me up to an advertising campaign shot through a soft-focus lens?’ He stood up, and suddenly the vantage point she had had standing over him was lost. ‘Surely you must know what the purpose of my hotel complex is going to be?’

‘I thought it might work better to highlight the stupendous surroundings and the organic nature of the buildings. In this day and age, people are very much aware of the charm of a boutique resort that is in total harmony with nature.’

She scrolled to a shot of one of the two-bedroomed villas set a short distance from the beach, just part of the package that had been emailed to her the week before by the contact she had cultivated at the resort. ‘Hence the fact that all the wood used to build your hotel is locally sourced from the Caribbean.’

She flicked down to another series of artfully shot photos of the Michelin-starred cuisine that would be on offer, but she was acutely conscious of Niccolo’s fabulous dark eyes resting lazily on her, with just the faintest hint of amusement.

‘I’ve also made something of the food and the fact that much of the produce is grown on the island, with some cultivated actually in the hotel compound, and that the yoga centre is genius.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen all the arty shots, but you’re not going to win the race by showing me pictures of sunsets and palm trees. I’m not planning on enticing poets to come to my resort, to spend their time staring off into the distance admiring the scenery and then writing sonnets about it.’ He raised both eyebrows sardonically and grinned. ‘So, once again...is this all you’ve got?’

CHAPTER TWO

THE ALLOTTED HALF-HOUR timespan, which under any other circumstances Niccolo would have rigidly adhered to, was galloping fast towards its end. With his bottle of water replenished, and protein bar only just managing to take the edge off his hunger pangs, he looked at Ellie, appreciating the slow crawl of colour tingeing her cheeks.

Maybe he would be lenient and extend the stay of execution because he liked the way those big, hazel eyes were staring at him, sheepishly, faltering, yet with just an interesting hint of defiance. Also, her pitch might be ridiculously fuzzy round the edges, but the other pitches he’d seen had been way too suggestive in comparison. It wouldn’t hurt to hear her out.

And she did have those big, hazel eyes.

This was the first time Niccolo had ever taken any interest in any of the advertising campaigns for his companies. Normally, that was left to the experts in his Sales and Marketing department.

This hotel, however, was quite separate from his business interests. This venture was solely funded from his own personal fortune. It was his baby and his alone. The excitement of running an empire was beginning to pall. Life was beginning to pall. He had kept his promise to his father. His duty to make sure his family was taken care of had been done, so what now? It sometimes felt as though duty was all he had been programmed to do. This hotel, and the subsequent chain of similar hotels he had in mind, had revived his jaded palate. Overseeing its development, with the select little team he had personally hand-picked, half of whom were having the time of their lives working in situ on the island, was proving to be just the tonic he needed.

And the woman sitting opposite him was having a similar effect. Very energizing.

‘Of course...’ Ellie broke a silence that had reached screaming point. ‘I do realise that your hotel will be catering for a young, singles market...’

‘Not necessarily young. In fact, I would say that young people will be in the minority. Most of them wouldn’t be able to afford the prices I’m asking. But you’ve got the single part right. Single people looking for love on a holiday of a lifetime. Exquisite location, exquisite scenery—it’s the ultimate place for a romantic connection to develop.

‘Except all I’m seeing here is the exquisite scenery. Anyone looking at what you’ve put together would think that you’re advertising somewhere for stars-in-their-eyes honeymooners. So, repeat, tell me what else you’ve got, because your competitors have all managed to hit the nail on the head with their offerings.’ They hadn’t, he thought, but you never showed your hand and lost the advantage. It wouldn’t hurt for her to think that the competition was galloping towards the finishing line.

‘I thought that it might be more tempting if guests weren’t made to feel that they were there to...to...make romantic connections.’

Niccolo’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You mean, delude them into thinking that they’re really there just for the blue skies and the turquoise sea—the peace and tranquillity? Ms Wilson, my guests will be actively seeking partners, and focusing on the scenery isn’t going to tempt them, it’s going to put them off.’

‘If you don’t like what I’ve done, Mr Rossi, then perhaps we shouldn’t waste one another’s time any longer.’ But to return empty-handed was going to hurt their business. Of course, it couldn’t be helped, but the agency, her career...those were the things that grounded her, that enabled her to put down roots. It represented all those steps on the ladder that would mean that she would never have to endure the insecurities she’d had to endure as a child. Her parents’ wanderings had been self-imposed but Ellie knew well enough that, even if you took that out of the equation, the only way anyone could be guaranteed that their house remained their castle was to have the wherewithal to pay the mortgage.

‘You’re not much of a trier, are you, Ms Wilson?’ Niccolo remarked dryly. ‘Giving up already? Aren’t you going to try to get me to see your point of view? I’m shocked that you can survive longer than two minutes in the cut-throat world of advertising where sex sells—and, the more explicit the sex, the higher the turnover of sales.’ Niccolo watched the stubborn tilt of her chin with interest. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never gone down the tawdry route of selling something stunningly dull and virtually unsaleable with the help of a few sexy images...?’

‘I haven’t, as it happens,’ Ellie returned stiffly. She looked at his devastatingly handsome face and thought that there was little chance he would ever be able to get where she was coming from, because when you oozed sex appeal like he did it was unlikely you could ever appreciate that it wasn’t just about the physical. ‘The accounts I have worked on have had great success on an approach based on nostalgia, whimsy and a reminder that the good things in life don’t necessarily have anything to do with sex.’

‘Ah. I’m getting the picture. You’re the “bread, cheese and milk” person. You leave the cars, perfume and alcohol to your more racy co-workers.’ He gazed at her thoughtfully and then stood up, waiting while she scrambled hastily to her feet.

‘You’ve already had more of my time than I’d banked on,’ he told her bluntly. ‘And you should have already done yourself out of a job by your charming but misdirected pitch. But here’s what I’m thinking, Ms Eleanor Wilson. Maybe it would be unwise to fall into the trap of the obvious appeal. Needless to say, your campaign is way too hazy for my venture, but on the other hand it’s not sleazy. There isn’t a single saucy image, and you’ve managed to show me an entire pitch in which no mention is made of the fact that everyone on the complex will be looking for a connection. Somewhere between the “sex sells” and the romantic sunsets is what I’m looking for. So, why don’t you follow me to my office and you can have the full brunt of my attention?’

He was already walking towards the door and Ellie tripped behind him, stuffing her files into the briefcase and balancing the tablet and her coat in her free hand.

Unsurprisingly, she thought sourly, the man had not offered to carry anything for her. She was grateful that she was being given a second chance to prove herself but, if he wanted to bring her round to promoting the concept of a resort where people were invited to pay a fortune so that they could hook up with similarly rich people for meaningless sex, then he was barking up the wrong tree.

Meaningless sex wasn’t her thing. She could still remember the swinging parties her parents had had, the concept of free love which they had never hidden from her. Once, when she’d been eight or nine, she had burst into the kitchen for a glass of water only to find her mother wrapped round a fellow hippy houseguest. After that, she had had the talk about the birds and the bees—except, unlike most ‘birds and bees’ talks delivered by well-intentioned, responsible parents, hers had been liberally promoting the joys of experimental sex and the positives of being adventurous.

There was a lift that went directly from the gym, straight up to Niccolo’s suite of offices on the top floor of the building. She could have been a piece of office furniture for all the attention he paid to her on the way. He worked on his phone, indolently leaning against the brushed metal panel, one hundred percent focused on whatever he was doing.

Even when the lift doors purred open, he barely raised his eyes from whatever was garnering his attention. His hair had more or less dried and he had raked his fingers through it, giving it an approximation of neatness. Gone was the raw, primal male heaving his impossible load of weights and in its place was the urbane and sophisticated billionaire who could have whatever he wanted at the click of his imperious fingers, although...

Her gaze skittered surreptitiously to him and she shivered because, suit or no suit, there was still something darkly, dangerously and thrillingly intimidating about him. She stiffened at the fanciful turn of her thoughts. She wasn’t a Victorian maiden and he wasn’t a swash-buckling male. She was an efficient and ambitious partner in an up-and-coming advertising agency and he was a potential client who had the capacity to put their business on the map. She’d worked hard for this opportunity and she wasn’t going to squander it.

Ellie barely noticed the plush surroundings as they disembarked on the top floor. There was a hush in the huge open space, where smoked-glass partitions and cleverly positioned plants formed barriers between some of the walnut-and-chrome desks. It was the hush of people working hard to make the billions that kept Niccolo’s sprawling company at the top of the pecking order.

His offices were at the end of a thickly carpeted corridor and he only paused when he entered an outer room where a middle-aged woman was busily doing something on her computer.

‘No interruptions for the next hour,’ Niccolo said, sweeping past to push open his office door, then standing aside for Ellie to brush past him. ‘I’ll be busy.’ He turned to his secretary and Ellie could detect the wicked grin in his voice. ‘Ms Wilson, who’s going to try and convince me that sex doesn’t sell.’

Ellie knew when she was being goaded and, much as she didn’t like it, discretion was the better part of valour. And who knew? Maybe she would be able to make him see that sex wasn’t the be all and end all when it came to selling an image of fun.

‘So.’ Niccolo waved to one of chairs clustered around a low wooden table. His office wasn’t so much one room as several rooms laid out in the manner of a very expensive, very open-plan studio apartment. There was a sitting area, a dining area and a bar area. All that was missing was a bedroom, although the deep three-seater sofa against the grey wall...

Ellie sat. The chairs were low and deep. They were designed to encourage relaxation but, since the last thing she felt was relaxed, she perched uncomfortably on the edge of one and placed her tablet on the table in front of her.

Niccolo sprawled in the chair facing her.

‘You were going to try and win this contract,’ he drawled, settling into the chair and loosely linking his fingers on his washboard-hard stomach. ‘By showing me what you can do when sex on the beach meets sunsets in paradise.’ He grinned. ‘So, lose the landscaped garden appeal, and the locally sourced fruit-and-veg slideshow, and show me how you can get on board with love at first sight and adventures between the sheets.’

In that very instant, Ellie knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was almost no chance Niccolo was going to use her agency to promote his venture.

Her time should have been up but he found her entertaining. She could hear the thread of amusement in his voice and she could see it reflected in the lazy speculation behind his dark eyes.

He owned the company and he could do exactly what he wanted and, if he wanted to toy with her, then there was no one to stop him.

She wasn’t the sort of woman he was accustomed to meeting and that was the long and short of it. He might genuinely be interested in her input, because it would be so contrary to the rest of the pitches he had heard, but in the end the job would go to the agency that fell in line with his fun-in-the-sun, hit-and-run version of love.