Doukakis's Apprentice (5 page)

Depressed by the contrast between his achievements and their comparative failure, Polly turned away from the view and tried not to think what it would be like to work for a company as progressive as this one. Everyone employed by him probably had a business degree, she thought enviously.

No wonder he’d been less than impressed with her.

She stared at herself in one of the two mirrored panels that bordered the doors of the elevator and wondered how she could prove to him that she knew what she was doing.

She was now working for the most notoriously demanding boss in the city of London. She still wasn’t really sure why
he’d kept her on instead of just firing her along with the board. Presumably because he saw her as his only possible link with her father.

Or possibly just to torture her.

Once the shock of seeing the board of directors leave the building had faded, the staff had erupted into whoops of joy, relieved to still have their jobs. Surprisingly, even the thought of moving to new offices didn’t seem to disturb people. Everyone seemed excited about the prospect of a move to more exciting surroundings.

The only person not celebrating was Polly.

She didn’t know much about Damon Doukakis, but she knew that he didn’t do anyone favours. He was keeping people on for a reason, not out of kindness. When it suited him to let them go, he’d let them go. Unless she could persuade him that the staff were worth keeping.

All morning she’d multitasked, talking to clients via her wireless headset while packing up boxes and masterminding the move. Somewhere in the middle of the chaos she’d stripped off her pink tights and replaced them with black leggings. It was her one and only concession to the strict Doukakis dress code.

Now, she wondered if she should have avoided conflict altogether and worn a suit. Trying to summon sufficient energy to get through the rest of the day, she slapped her cheeks to produce some colour and ignored the hideous squirming in her stomach.

First days
, she thought grimly.
She hated first days.
It was like being back at school. Whispers behind her back.
Is that her?
The humiliation of her father driving her to school in a flashy car with his latest embarrassingly young wife installed in the front seat. Giggles heard across the length of a playground. Mysterious collisions in the corridor that sent her books flying and her self-esteem plummeting. Standing alone
in the lunch queue and then finding an empty table and trying to look as though eating alone was a choice, not a sentence.

Polly glared at her reflection in the mirror. If those days had taught her anything it was how to survive. No matter what happened, she was not going to let Damon Doukakis close down the company. Not without a fight.

Somehow, she had to impress him.

Wondering how on earth you impressed a man like Damon Doukakis, she pressed the button for the executive floor and the doors of the elevator slid closed. But at the last minute a gloved male hand clamped itself around the door and they opened again.

Her hope for two minutes peace dashed, Polly squashed herself back against the far corner as a man dressed in motorbike leathers strode into the lift. She caught a glimpse of wide, powerful shoulders and realised that it was Damon Doukakis himself.

Their eyes clashed and she had a sudden urge to bolt from the lift and use the stairs.

The temperature in the tiny capsule suddenly shot up.

He didn’t even have to open his mouth, she thought desperately. Even the way he stood was intimidating. Irritated by the fact that he looked as good in leather as he did in fine wool, Polly raised an eyebrow.

‘I thought we were supposed to wear suits?’

‘I had a meeting across town. I used the motorbike.’ He wore his masculinity like a banner, overt and unapologetic, and Polly was horrified to feel her insides liquefy.

‘So you don’t change into leather just to beat your staff.’

The glance he sent in her direction was both a threat and a warning. ‘When I start beating my staff,’ he said silkily, ‘you’ll be the first to know because you’ll be right at the top of my list. Perhaps if you’d had some discipline at fourteen
you wouldn’t have turned out to be such a disaster. Evidently your father didn’t ever learn to say no to you.’

Polly didn’t tell him that her father had abdicated parental responsibility right from the beginning. ‘He had trouble handling me.’

‘Well, I won’t have trouble.’ His tone lethally soft, he took in her appearance in a single glance. ‘I’ll give you marks for being on time and for changing out of those fluorescent tights.’

For some reason she couldn’t fathom, his derision brought a lump to her throat. She had blisters on her hands from carrying boxes that were too heavy, her feet ached, her back ached, and she hadn’t slept in her bed for four nights. And just to add to her frustration her phone had stopped ringing. All morning clients had called her, but now, when she was desperate for a senior client to ring her for advice so that she could sound impressive and prove to Damon just how good she was at her job, it remained silent.

And there was no point in telling him, was there? He’d made up his mind about her based on that episode in her teens and the state of her father’s company.

The whole situation was made a thousand times worse by the fact that a small part of her knew she was deserving of his contempt. It
was
because of her that Arianna had been excluded from school. It didn’t surprise her that he had such a low opinion of her. What surprised her was how much she cared. It shouldn’t matter what he thought of her. All that mattered now were the jobs of the innocent people who worked for her father.

‘The headlines on the one o’clock news were pretty brutal. They’re calling you the hatchet man.’

‘Good. Perhaps it will bring your father out of hiding.’ His sensuous mouth curved into a grim smile as he hit a button on the panel and sent the lift gliding upwards.

Transfixed by his mouth, Polly felt her stomach drop. His features were boldly masculine, from the hard lines of his bone structure to the subtle shadow that darkened his jaw. Desperate, she looked for evidence of weakness but found none. ‘My father isn’t hiding.’

‘Miss Prince—’ his voice was a soft, dangerous purr ‘—unless you want to experience first-hand experience of the impact of my temper in an enclosed space, I suggest you don’t force me to think about what your father might currently be doing.’

Polly instinctively retreated against the glass. ‘I’m just saying he isn’t hiding, that’s all. My father isn’t a coward.’ London slowly grew smaller and smaller until it lay beneath them like a miniature toy town. By contrast, the tension in the capsule rocketed.

‘He’s allowed his business to decline rather than make the difficult decisions that should have been made. He needed to make serious cuts but he chose not to do it. If that isn’t cowardice, I don’t know what is.’

‘You shouldn’t make judgements on something you know nothing about.’

‘I run a multinational corporation. I make difficult decisions every day of my life.’ His innate superiority infuriated her almost as much as the fact that he was right. Her father
should
have made some difficult decisions. But the fact that it was Damon Doukakis who was now pointing that out somehow made it more difficult to hear.

‘I’m sure it gives you a real feeling of power to fire people.’

It happened so fast she didn’t see him move, but one moment she was standing with an aerial view of London and the next she was staring at wide shoulders and a pair of fiercely angry eyes. ‘Never before have I had to restrain myself around a woman, but with you—’ He drew in a shaky breath, clearly
struggling with the intensity of his own emotions. ‘You are enough to provoke a saint. Trust me when I say you do
not
want a demonstration of my power.’

Polly stared at him in appalled fascination, wondering why everyone thought he was Mr Cool. He was the most volatile man she’d met. He simmered like a pan of water kept permanently on the boil.
And he smelt incredible …
‘I was just making the point that you really work this whole I’m-the-boss-and-you’re-going-to-do-it-my-way routine.’
Please let him step away from her before she gave into the temptation to bury her face in his neck and just breathe.
‘We’re used to a more relaxed approach when we work. Frankly I’m not sure how well we’ll do under a reign of terror.’

Outrage rippled across his shoulders and his jaw clenched. ‘That
relaxed approach
has sent your company plunging towards bankruptcy. If any redundancies come from this disaster then you and your father will be responsible.’

Brain-dead with exhaustion, Polly felt a perverse sense of satisfaction at seeing him so angry. She wanted him to suffer too. Not just for giving her the most hellish week of her life, but also because she had a desperate urge to crush her mouth to his and feeling that way aggravated her in the extreme. ‘You’re obviously not enjoying having us as part of your business,’ she said sweetly. ‘Next time perhaps you should check out your prey before you swallow it. We’re obviously giving you indigestion.’

He released her as suddenly as he’d trapped her, stepping back with an exclamation in Greek that she was sure wasn’t complimentary.

‘The press have somehow guessed that your father and my sister are together.’ Lifting a hand, he yanked down the zip of his jacket as if it were strangling him. ‘Unless you enjoy fuelling gossip, I suggest you don’t talk to them. I’ve instructed my people to put out a statement on the takeover,
concentrating on our corporate vision and goals. I’m trying to focus attention on the fact that your company fits logically within my current business.’

‘You mean you don’t want to admit publicly you’re a megalomaniac who bought a company just so that you could threaten the man having a relationship with your sister.’ But she was horrified by the news that the press now had the story. She knew it wouldn’t be long before they were digging for reasons and she didn’t even want to think about what that would mean. She’d been there before and she loathed it. Everyone wanting to know how it felt to have a stepmother the same age as her. Everyone appalled and fascinated by the ridiculous antics of her father.

‘Take a tip from me, Miss Prince.’ Those thick dark lashes descended until the look in his eyes was virtually obscured ‘even in this age of sexual equality, no real man wants to spend time with a bitch or a ball breaker. Try and cultivate a softer, more feminine side and who knows? You might find yourself a boyfriend. Possibly even one who owns a company that you can play in.’

Polly was so shocked she couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what appalled her most. The fact that he had this entrenched image of her as a lazy waste of space, the fact that he’d clearly asked someone about her sex-life, or the fact that part of her was wondering how he kissed.

Putting it down to tiredness, she promised herself a
really
early night. ‘I’d never be interested in a man who couldn’t cope with a strong woman.’

‘There’s strong and then there’s strident, which is presumably why you’re still single.’

Only the knowledge that she’d be confirming his less than flattering assessment of her prevented her from launching herself at him. Instead she smarted furiously and kept her eyes fixed on the streets shrinking beneath their feet.
This is good
,
she told herself.
If he keeps this up all I’m going to want to do to him is kill him and that feels better than sizzling chemistry.
‘If the doors opened to the outside, I’d push you.’

His laugh lacked humour. ‘If I thought we’d be working together for long, I’d jump.’

Boiling inside, Polly was saved from thinking up a response by the muted ‘ping’ of the doors as they glided silently apart, revealing a cavernous, light-filled office space.

Damon propelled her forward and she stepped into an open-plan office area like nothing she’d ever seen before.

Taken aback, momentarily forgetting their heated exchange, she stopped walking and just stared.

Despite everything she’d heard and read about Damon Doukakis, nothing had prepared her for the bustling efficiency of the Doukakis corporate headquarters. ‘Oh …’ She looked at the bank of desks, each with a video phone, a laptop plug-in and a printer. Most were occupied and there was no questioning the industry of those working. Barely anyone looked up from what they were doing. ‘Where—?’ Puzzled, she turned her head and looked around her at the clean, uncluttered workspace. ‘Where’s their stuff? Where do they keep books, magazines, family pictures—personal things. It’s all very Spartan.’

‘We operate a hot desk system.’

Her mind preoccupied, Polly suddenly had an image of everyone burning themselves when they sat down to work. ‘Hot desk?’

‘Employees don’t have their own fixed office space. They come in and sit at whichever work station is free. Office space is our most expensive asset and most offices only use fifty percent of their capacity at any one time. We lease the lower ten floors of this building. It’s a highly profitable way of maximising the space.’

‘So people don’t actually have their own desks? That’s
awful.’ Genuinely appalled, Polly tried to envisage her friends and colleagues existing in such a sterile environment. ‘But what if someone wants to put up a photograph of their baby or something?’

‘When they’re at work they should be working. They can stare at the real live baby on their own time.’ Damon Doukakis urged her through the floor, occasionally pausing to exchange a word with someone.

Polly examined the faces of the people, wondering what it must be like working in such soulless surroundings. Granted, you could have sold tickets to look at the view from the windows, but nothing about the office space was cosy. ‘There’s nothing personal anywhere.’

‘People are here to do a job. They have everything they need to do that job. People who work for me are adaptable. Technology allows for workforce mobility. Commuting is time-consuming and expensive. I’d rather my people worked an extra two hours than spent those hours sitting in traffic. Some people work flexible hours—start late, finish late. They’ll be sitting down at a desk when another person is leaving it. If they’re out of the country for a meeting, then the desk is used by someone else. This is the office template of the future.’