A Deal For Her Innocence. Cathy Williams

      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