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CHAPTER ONE

THE THIRTY-SECOND FLOOR of the office building was dark as Maisie Dobson pushed her trolley of cleaning supplies down the hallway, the squeak of the wheels the only sound in the ghostly building After sixshe should be used to the other-worldliness of the experience, but it still freaked her out a little Although there were half a dozen cleaners in the building, they were all on separate floors, the roo fro s

It o o’clock in the ue She had a nine o’clock performance tutorial tomorrow, and she was likely to fall asleep in the middle of it That had always been her drea But onehard for what she wanted

She paused as a light gleaht on, she supposed, and yet she couldn’t keep a flicker of unease froh her, the little hairs on the nape of her neck prickling No one had ever left their light on before; most of them were on automatic timers By the tiht, the high-rise in Manhattan’s one home Maisie pushed the trolley onward, the squeak of its wheels sounding even louder in the e to thud

Don’t be such a baby, she scolded herself There’s nothing to be afraid of It’s a light, nothing more

She stopped the trolley in front of the lit-up office and then, taking a quick breath, she poked her head around the half-open door and saw a man

Maisie stilled, every sense flaring This wasn’t just anylate No, thisto think of words to describe hi, slanted broere drawn over lowered eyes, so his spiky eyelashes fanned his high, blade-like cheekbones His riling froers

He’d taken off his tie and unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, so a sliver of bronzed, muscular chest was visible between the crisp folds of cotton He fairly pulsated with charismatic, rakish power, so much so that Maisie had taken a step into the roo

Then he looked up Piercing blue eyes pinned her to the spot ‘Well, hello,’ he drawled, hisinto a smile that wasn’t quite a smile His voice was low and honeyed, with the trace of an accent ‘How are you this very fine evening?’

Maisie would have felt alaruish in his eyes, in the harsh lines of his face, that her heart twisted inside her and she took another step into the room

‘I’ in the bottle of whisky

planted on his desk that was mostly empty ‘I think the real question is, how are you?’

Theevenfroood question A very good question’

‘Is it?’ Maisie said Sorabbed hold of her heart She’d always had a lot of love to give, and so few people to give it to Her brother, Max, had been thetoOf course it was She just had to keep telling herself that

‘Yes, it is,’ the linting drops of whisky sparkled in the air and then splashed on the floor ‘Because I should be fine, shouldn’t I? I should be fantastic’

Maisie folded her arued now, as well as empathetic Who was thisthis office building for six months and she’d never seen him Of course, she hadn’t seenin late as she did, and yet she couldn’t escape the sense that thishere, in a corner office on aHe seemed too different, too powerful, too charismatic Even drunk, as he had to be, he exuded both char Maisie’s sto time, if ever

She pushed those feelings aside as she waited for his answer, for beyond this man’s potent sexual charisma he exuded a pain that reached out to her, inside her, and rief

‘Why should I be fantastic?’ The man raised one dark slash of an eyebrow, an a his mobile mouth ‘For any number of reasons I’m wealthy, powerful, at the top of ers together and stretched the, a pose that seeely sad and even vulnerable ‘I have homes in Milan, London and Crete I have a forty-foot pleasure yacht, a private jet’ He lifted his head to laser her with a sardonic, bright blue gaze ‘Should I go on?’

‘No’ Maisie sed hard, daunted by that oh-so-i here He should be on the top floor with the vice-presidents and CEO, or have a whole floor to hih to know those kinds of things don’t ht they probably helped a little She couldn’t re and clawing at the door as she struggled to keep her and Max afloat

‘You’ve lived long enough?’ A with a deeper interest ‘You don’t look old enough to have left school’