Virgin's Sweet Rebellion

‘Oh, right.’ The woman, this Amber wrinkled her nose. ‘A walk-on part?’

‘A supporting role,’ Olivia corrected, her smile not slipping so much as a millimetre. The lift doors pinged and she stepped past Amber her head held high. ‘See you around, I’m sure.’

So she was an actress. Ben eyed her thoughtfully as she walked down the thickly carpeted hall, her chin lifted defiantly, her shoulders thrown back. It didn’t really surprise him, he decided. She certainly had a flare for the dramatic. And actresses, he acknowledged, tended to be high maintenance, difficult and fake. Olivia had already shown she was all three. No, he wasn’t surprised at all.

She took him down another hall, this one narrower than the hotel’s main corridors, and then through a fire door that had Ben frowning. He didn’t think there were any guest bedrooms in this part of the building. It was staff accommodation and storage.

‘Here we are,’ she announced sunnily, and with a deliberate flourish she produced her old-fashioned key—not one of the hotel’s signature key cards—and unlocked the door to her room. Ben stepped inside, his shoulder brushing Olivia’s because the room was that small.

It really was a broom cupboard. Or close enough to one.

‘Would you call this appalling?’ she asked with acid sweetness. She pointed to the rumpled, stained bed. ‘I don’t think the sheets have been changed in, oh, maybe a year? Plus the minibar has been raided, and there’s no en-suite bathroom despite the fact that The Chatsfield’s standard rooms are all meant to have them.’ She whirled around to face him, her hands on her hips, her body, and in particular her breasts, quite close to his own anatomy. The room was small.

Ben held his ground, conscious of the way her hair had brushed his cheek when she’d whirled around, and how even after a thirteen-hour flight she smelled like strawberries. And vanilla.

He took a deep breath, kept his voice even and his gaze on her furious face. ‘I’m sorry. Clearly there’s been a mistake.’

‘A mistake? You’re going to pretend putting me in this—this sty was a mistake?’

Fury, all too familiar a feeling, spiked. All right, she was pretty, but what was her problem? She seemed determined to get the most mileage out of what clearly had to be an accident.

‘Yes, a mistake,’ he answered, all solicitude gone from his voice. ‘You don’t actually think someone would intentionally put a guest in a room like this?’

She planted her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowed to chocolate-brown slits. ‘That’s exactly what I think, Ben.’

He stared at her, first incredulous, then scornful. ‘You think I put you in this room because you’re a Harrington?’

‘It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.’

Ben let out one short, sharp laugh. ‘You’re no rocket scientist, sweetheart.’

Temper flashed in her eyes, turning them almost to gold. ‘Don’t patronise me...’

‘I could say the same. You must think you’re pretty damn important, for me to waste my time irritating you.’

She shrugged defiantly. ‘If the shoe fits...’

‘So you think I trawled through the guest list during the film festival,’ he cut her off, his voice dripping disbelief, ‘when the hotel is completely booked, hoping that a Harrington might have made a reservation, just so I could make this petty power play?’ He thought of the sugar-laced venom of the woman in the lift. ‘Because, sorry to break it to you, Miss Harrington, but your presence in Berlin hasn’t been plastered all over the news.’ He raised his eyebrows, curved his mouth into a mocking smile. ‘Actually, I’m not sure if the media have even twigged you’re here.’

Fury blazed colour onto each high, lovely cheekbone and her eyes narrowed further. ‘I don’t know how you found out, but...’

‘Oh, give it a rest.’ He was so tired of prima donnas and their outrageous demands. The last thing he needed was a Harrington breathing down his neck. ‘It was an honest mistake, and that’s all. I didn’t even know a Harrington was in Berlin. I assumed your whole family was in New York, working on the negotiations with my brother.’

‘What negotiations?’ Olivia demanded sharply. ‘My sister refused...’

‘I don’t think corporate takeovers are quite that simple,’ Ben answered dryly. ‘But honestly, it has nothing to do with me. I have nothing to do with The Chatsfield.’

Olivia arched an incredulous eyebrow. ‘Yet you’re managing The Chatsfield, Berlin.’

Something that he still couldn’t quite believe he’d agreed to. Didn’t want to think about why he had. ‘So I am,’ he responded, his voice as even as he could make it. ‘But only for the duration of the festival.’

‘So the Chatsfields are close,’ Olivia observed, her gaze sweeping over him, and Ben tensed. Close? He’d thought so. Once.

‘We’re family,’ he said now, his voice toneless. ‘Just like the Harringtons.’

Olivia pursed her lips and they stared at each other, anger simmering, along with something else. Something Ben was reluctant to admit to but could easily name. Attraction.

Olivia Harrington, personality aside, was a lovely woman. A beautiful, vibrant, sexy woman. With her eyes sparkling with all that self-righteous indignation, her hair tousled about her flushed face, she looked both angry and turned on.

And maybe she was both.

Ben knew he was.

He shifted where he stood, conscious that now was a pretty inconvenient time to show evidence of that attraction.

‘I’ll arrange for you to be moved to a different room,’ he said in a tone of finality. ‘And as an apology for our error, you can have one night’s stay free of charge.’

Olivia’s eyes widened in surprise but then she gave a curt nod, as if she expected no less. Of course. ‘Thank you,’ she said with some grace, and rather grimly Ben nodded back. The sooner he was quit of this woman, the better.

‘Any time,’ he said, and turned to leave the room.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_1bc4eacb-87e6-5abe-8a46-0ad8f6c40490)

LESS THAN AN hour later Olivia stepped into one of the executive suites of The Chatsfield, Berlin, and felt her jaw drop. This was definitely not a standard room. Not even close.

A bellhop had already brought her suitcase into the foyer, and now Olivia closed the door before slowly walking around the soaring suite of rooms: foyer, living area, kitchen, bedroom and a huge bathroom with a sunken marble tub. Amazing. Just looking at that tub made her yearn to climb into it and soak in a sea of fragrant bubbles for about, oh, a lifetime.

And yet as amazing as it all was, a tiny sliver of uncertainty needled her. Not only was she getting a night free of charge, but she was staying in a suite that had to cost about a quadrillion more euros than the standard room she’d originally booked.

Was Ben Chatsfield just providing the kind of stellar customer service expected from The Chatsfield, or was he feeling guilty because he really had put her in that broom cupboard on purpose?

She decided not to overthink it. Either way, she had a fabulous room and was spending less money than she’d budgeted, which was a good thing since she didn’t use Harrington money to fund her life or her dreams.

She unpacked, hanging up her carefully coordinated outfits in the enormous wardrobe before running the huge tub she’d been fantasising about and loading it with half the bottle of complimentary bubble bath. She stripped off her clothes and slipped inside all that fragrant warmth. Bliss.

Yet even as she leaned her head back against the marble tub and closed her eyes, she felt that uncertainty needle her again. Although maybe it wasn’t actually uncertainty. Maybe it was just...awareness.

Ben Chatsfield had no right to look that attractive. That hot. With her eyes closed she could picture him perfectly: the slightly messed brown hair, the glinting hazel eyes, the strong, stubbled jaw. Gorgeous. But even more alluring than his good looks, Olivia decided, had been his energy. Raw and barely restrained. Wild. Real.

She laughed softly, because even if Ben Chatsfield had ever been interested in her, she knew she wouldn’t know what to do with a man like that. Her handful of relationships so far had been carefully controlled, stage-managed affairs that bore little resemblance to reality—or wildness.

She didn’t even want wild. Or real. Any depth of emotion was anathema to her, and had been since she was twelve. She hadn’t handled it then, and she couldn’t handle it now. She chose not to, and had kept herself from anything intimate or emotional or real with anyone. She’d certainly keep herself from it with someone like Ben Chatsfield.

And yet as she slid deeper into the tub, she still wondered what he would be like if he gave in to that wildness and let his exterior slip just a little. What she would be like with him.

Sighing, she slid deeper into the water until the bubbles came right up to her nose. No point thinking about Ben Chatsfield, because nothing was going to happen there. She’d make sure of it. Tonight she’d wear comfy pyjamas and watch mindless rom-coms on the huge TV in the bedroom and then sleep for at least eight hours. Tomorrow she had a full day of interviews lined up for her upcoming film, and she’d have to be on the whole time. One huge twelve-hour performance, which was fine, because it was far easier to be Olivia Harrington, the up-and-coming actress, than anyone else. Like herself.

* * *