ELLIOT frowned as he stared out of the window. The
spacious, minimalist room had a particularly pleasing view
over one of the few areas of greenery in London and,
basking in the full light of a summer day, one would be
forgiven for thinking that they were somewhere in the Med,
and not, in fact, standing in a private room in a posh gym
in central London.
Elliot glanced impatiently at his watch and swung round to
face the door, leaning against the window-ledge.
Waiting was something Elliot Jay didn't do. It was
something other people did. He expected his summons to be
obeyed immediately without him having to hang around for…
twenty minutes so far, according to his watch.
With mounting frustration, he stalked across to one of the
chairs and sat down, wishing that he'd had the sense to
bring his laptop with him so that he could at least do
some work, wishing even more that he wasn't now in the
position of having to do what he was doing, but he had no
choice. Circumstances beyond his control had brought him
to this juncture.
With a discipline born of experience, Elliot closed his
mind off from those particularly unwelcome circumstances
and instead allowed his eyes to roam around the room, to
take in its harmonious lack of clutter, its sanitised
impersonality. This was one of the reasons he had joined
this particular gym when it had opened its doors eighteen
months ago. That and the fact that it was a stone's throw
from his massive penthouse apartment in Kensington. Vigo
was a health club that didn't waste time trying to be
cosy. There were no chummy sitting-room-style bars where
the weary could unwind with gossip over cups of tea, no
lounging chairs around the pool or wavy slides for the
kiddies. Instead the bars were all kitted out just like
this room, in black and chrome with sensible newspapers on
the tables. There was an internet café for anyone inclined
to stay longer than was strictly necessary and the
exercise machines were of the highest specification. Not
that he used them. He unwound twice a week over a brutal
game of squash and then swam it off in the giant-sized
pool which, at eight in the evening, was usually empty.
As in every area of his life, Elliot applied himself to
his exercise with focused, ruthless concentration. As a
teenager, his skills on the rugby field had been
formidable enough to warrant encouragement from his coach
to turn professional, not that being a professional
sportsman had ever presented itself as a practical
possibility. His intellect could never have been contained
by something as physically demanding as a sport, however
talented he might have been at it. His finely tuned brain
required enormous mental challenge. As the youngest ever
chairman of a prominent investment bank, not only did he
get this challenge, but he also earned the phenomenal sums
of money associated with the job, which meant that by the
age of thirty-two he could afford to begin indulging in
his own private ventures, which brought their own
financial rewards. The intense workload, which most men
would have found crippling, Elliot found invigorating. His
days were charged with adrenaline and mapped out with the
precision of military campaigns. Meetings followed
meetings and his name was synonymous with thrusting
success in the financial world.
But Elliot didn't work for the money. He worked because he
was driven. Even his hours of relaxation had a purpose.
Right now, he had a task at hand and hanging around wasn't
something he found relaxing. In fact, he had to curb his
annoyance and remember that in this one instance, he was
actually in the unfamiliar terrain of the supplicant
asking a favour.
Which didn't mean that he liked it. But Melissa Lee had
been personally recommended to him by the manager of the
gym, a shrewd businesswoman and someone he trusted to give
him clear-headed, impartial advice. Of course, he had been
sparing with the actual details, merely told her that he
required someone who could assist someone slightly
overweight and a bit offkey. The Lee woman fitted the bill
to the detail. She was twenty-four, a nutritionist and
physiotherapist by training, although more than capable of
mapping out a successful exercise routine, and she was
fairly new to the gym, so had not yet acquired a string of
regulars who needed her attention on a regular basis.
Keen though he was to employ Melissa Lee for the task at
hand, he still could not resist looking pointedly at his
watch when she finally entered the room.
"I've been waiting for forty minutes, Miss Lee." Melissa
looked at the figure casually reclining on the chair and
stopped abruptly in her tracks.
"One of our clients is interested in seeing you about a
personal job," Samantha had told her, interrupting the
session which Melissa had only just started. "Right now,
if you could possibly make it." Samantha had failed to
elaborate on either the nature of the job or the nature of
the client in question, and the right now command in the
sentence Melissa had chosen tactfully to ignore.
The blood now rushed to Melissa's face as she took in the
physically striking specimen in front of her.
Working in a gym was a passport to seeing impressively
built men. Every morning, when Melissa went in for her
light workout on the machines at seven-thirty, before she
began her daily routines, they were there, suits waiting
for them in changing rooms while they primed themselves
for the day ahead on rowing machines and treadmills and
other vicious-looking instruments of torture. From the
relatively relaxed safety of an exercise mat, she
absentmindedly watched them as she did her situps, knowing
herself to be unobserved because it had to be said that
most of them had eyes only for themselves in the floor-to-
ceiling mirrors that dominated the massive rooms.
But she had never seen the man sitting in front of her
before. She would have remembered if she had. He had a
memorable face. Glossy raven-black hair contrasted vividly
with his eyes, which were a pure, cold blue, and his bone
structure was perfect enough to make her do a double take.
He was a sensationally attractive male, and even in that
split second of taking him in she knew that he possessed
the kind of presence that most women would have buckled at
the knees at.
His expression, however, did not encourage that reaction
in her. In fact, Melissa felt her smile rapidly fade away
and she became aware that she was hovering by the door,
like a student called in to see the headmaster for
cheating in class.
She drew in her breath and took a few assertive steps into
the room, holding out her hand, noticing that, although he
politely extended his to briefly take hers, he didn't
budge from his position on the chair, instead gesturing
for her to sit down, as though he owned the place.
"I take it you are Miss Lee?" Blue eyes roved at a
leisurely pace over her.
"That's right," Melissa answered, disconcerted by his
scrutiny. "I'm sorry if I've kept you waiting but I was in
the middle of a session when Samantha told me that you
wanted to see me." She found no smiling acceptance of her
apology, rather, silence and those ice-blue eyes
appraising her, as though committing how she looked to
memory. It was destabilising. Was he aware of that? "She
said that you wanted to see me about a job of some kind."
Whatever job it was, she decided on the spot that she
wasn't going to take it. The man was positively
intimidating. He also didn't look as though he needed any
extra help with working out. Even dressed as he was in
casual trousers and short-sleeved shirt, she could see
that his body was well-toned and muscular with a slightly
bronzed hue that gave him an exotic, compelling beauty. If
he did want extra help working out, then it would be to a
calibre that she, for one, was not trained to supply.
"That's right, although, of course, should you get this
particular job, then showing up late would be out of the
question."
"I did apologise," Melissa muttered in self-defence. "You
could hardly expect me to cancel Mrs Evans without notice
just because I had to suddenly dash over here to see you.
Mrs Evans is one of my few regular clients and she really
needs the physiotherapy sessions she has with me twice a
week. She was in a car accident a few months ago and —"
"Enough." Elliot held up one hand impatiently. "I'm not
here to waste time talking about perfect strangers. I'm
here to put forward a proposal which I think you will find
financially very rewarding."
Still smarting from having effectively been told to shut
up, Melissa drew herself up and surveyed him loftily. "I'm
employed by Vigo, Mr…Mr…I don't know your name…"
"Jay. You can call me Elliot."
She preferred not to call him anything. "I don't think I
would be allowed to take on outside work. I'm sure there
must be something in my contract about that. Besides, I
have a pretty hectic schedule at the moment and it's
increasing by the day. I may only have been here a few
months but…"
"You needn't worry about taking time off for this job. No
objections will be raised, I assure you." He was beginning
to wonder what had possessed Samantha to sing the praises
of this woman. She certainly wasn't what he had expected.
For one thing, he hadn't expected to have to argue his
case. He didn't know how much newcomers earned at a gym,
but he would bet his bottom dollar that it wasn't a
fortune, and London was an expensive place to live in. The
prospect of some extra money should have been greeted with
howls of delight.
And for another thing, Melissa Lee wasn't physically what
he had expected either. He couldn't see very much under
her shapeless dress but what he did see didn't accord with
someone in the business of the body beautiful. She clearly
wasn't fat but neither was she whipcord-slender with the
muscles to match. She also didn't look the sort who
thrived on putting people through their paces. He
suppressed a sigh of pure frustration.
"I expect you want to know about the job I have in mind?"
"I don't think I can help you," Melissa informed him up
front. "You're obviously a regular here at the gym and,
whatever kind of workout you may have in mind for
yourself, you really would need someone more qualified in
the area. You see, I'm not sure whether Samantha told you,
but I'm employed primarily as a nutritionist and a
physiotherapist. I do a few classes but that's with the
over-sixties. Mostly stretching exercises, very
lightweight. You could probably do those in your
sleep." 'Finished?" he enquired politely, when she had
dried up. He waited for her absolute, undivided
attention. "Do you normally approach everything in such a
negative manner? Spotting all the obstacles before you
take one step forward? If so, then I feel very sorry for
these clients of yours. Do they know what they're getting
into? That you won't make them better but in fact will see
every pitfall, point them out and then lead them to the
nearest bridge so that they can jump off?"
"That's not fair!" Melissa's normally warm, sunny
disposition abandoned her completely. This man was
hateful. Cold, emotionless, forbidding, arrogant and
hateful. She couldn't think of anything worse than helping
him in any way, shape or form. Or even being exposed to
him unnecessarily. The man should carry a health warning.
She opened her mouth to tell him just that, but he spoke
first.
"We seem to have got off on the wrong foot." He leant
forward to rest his elbows on his thighs and she distract-
edly took in the rippling of muscle under the thin shirt,
the powerful arms lightly dusted with a sprinkling of dark
hair. "I'm not here to hire you for myself. I'm here to
hire you for my daughter."
Melissa's mouth fell open and she gaped. The man had a
daughter? Yes, he looked virile. In fact, physically at
least, he was every inch the alpha male, just the sort
magazines had a habit of pointing out was the average
fertile woman's subconscious dream man, the sort that sent
fantasies of reproduction into overdrive.
Melissa tried to picture him as a father and failed. "You
look shocked," Elliot pointed out politely. "Am I
stretching the bounds of your imagination here?"
"Yes," Melissa squawked truthfully. "You have a daughter?
I'm sorry…it's just that you don't seem… well…you don't
strike me as the sort of man…not that there's a sort…of
course not —"
Elliot interrupted. "This is something of a long story. If
you're interested in hearing about the job, then I suggest
we meet at a more civilised time to discuss it. I had
expected to have sorted this matter out tonight, but it's
now nine-thirty and I assume you have to get home, so
shall we say six tomorrow evening? In the bar downstairs?"
"Six tomorrow. Yes. Fine," Melissa repeated, still
struggling to take in the impossible fact that Elliot Jay
was a father.
He stood up and stared down at her. "And just in case
you're inclined to gossip, don't. I abhor it. This will be
a private arrangement between us and I won't want the
details to be spread around this gym."
"I don't gossip." Her wide blue eyes met his and then she
couldn't look away. She just kept staring until he nodded
curtly at her and swung around, leaving her still gaping
like a stranded goldfish.