Virgin's Sweet Rebellion

Ben gritted his teeth as the A-list actress pouted prettily at him. She was gorgeous, this woman whose name he’d forgotten, he’d give her that, but she was also irritating as hell. Almost as irritating as Olivia Harrington.

‘I’m afraid the lobby is not able to be reserved,’ he told the actress, his voice clipped, bordering on abrupt. Standing in the lobby of The Chatsfield was hard enough without having to kowtow to a rich bimbo. Memories assailed him everywhere he turned, and he’d never even been to Berlin before. But he’d been to The Chatsfield. As soon as he’d stepped through the lobby doors he’d felt as if he’d stumbled into a time machine. The clink of crystal, the smell of leather and furniture polish, the ping of the lifts...all of it had brought him right back to the boy he’d been, spit-shined and eager, waiting in the lobby for his father to be finished with work. Hoping that this time his father would smile at him. Smile at Spencer.

‘But it would be the perfect venue for my birthday party,’ the actress insisted, and Ben was brought back to the present, which was both a relief and an annoyance. She dropped the pout, offering him a sultry smile instead. It made for a change at least, as did the hand she laid on his arm. The woman didn’t provoke even a quarter of the reaction Olivia Harrington had. ‘Please?’ she asked breathily, fluttering false eyelashes.

‘The lobby is a public place,’ Ben answered, and deliberately removed his arm from her hand. ‘And other guests need to use it to access their rooms. Unless you don’t mind having them all go through the service entrance?’ He’d said it sarcastically enough, unable to help himself, but he could see the woman had taken him seriously. From behind her he saw a staff member smother a smile, and he was glad someone was enjoying this conversation. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s absolutely not possible,’ he told the woman firmly. ‘We would be happy to accommodate the needs of your event in any of The Chatsfield’s reception rooms.’ He took a step back, tilting his head to indicate the concierge desk. ‘Shall I have someone show you the options? The Parisian Salon is particularly stunning.’

He grimaced as he turned away, hating the honeyed falseness that was starting to come to him all too easily. For fourteen years he’d thrived on a reputation of being honest to the point of bluntness. People knew what they were getting with Ben’s Bistro. It was only stepping back into The Chatsfield, into the web of deceit his parents had woven since infancy, that he’d become a flatterer. Which was what Spencer had asked him to be.

‘Nicely handled, Mr Chatsfield.’ The bellhop who had overheard his conversation came up to him with a grin. ‘That woman was seriously annoying. She had eight pieces of luggage and she didn’t even tip.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Ben answered even though he knew a regular manager would have given the bellhop a smack-down for talking about guests that way. He wouldn’t. He’d taken the measure of most of the staff within the first few days, and he knew he needed to draw a line between stellar customer service and surrendering your dignity. This bellhop had been nothing but courteous to all the guests. No wonder he needed to let off some steam.

He offered him a quick smile before he nodded towards the luggage trolleys and had the boy hurrying back to his place. Order still needed to be kept.

‘Mr Chatsfield?’ Heels clicked behind him and he turned to see his PA, Rebecca, smiling uncertainly at him.

‘Rebecca. What can I do for you?’

‘A reporter from the entertainment network wanted to interview you for their piece about catering to the stars?’

‘Oh. Right.’ And that was something he really felt like doing. Trying not to grimace, Ben followed Rebecca to the waiting reporter.

Twelve hours later, with it heading on to midnight, Ben was finally able to relax. He’d put out more fires—including an actual one when a guest had knocked over one of the two hundred aromatherapy candles she’d scattered around her suite—and soothed more giant egos than he cared to remember. And he hadn’t lost his temper. He hadn’t lost his temper in fourteen years, but he was holding on to it now by a thread. Tension knotted his shoulders and his head throbbed.

He shouldn’t have come back to The Chatsfield, he acknowledged as he headed to the rooftop pool for a swim. He shouldn’t have thought he could handle the memories, the emotions. Sighing, he stripped off his suit in the men’s changing room and headed into the pool area.

The Chatsfield’s swimming pool was one of the highlights of the hotel, an Olympic-size pool on the roof, glassed in on all sides, with a panoramic view of the city. Swimming laps had always been one way Ben liked to relax, to burn off the excess emotion and stress.

The pool was thankfully empty at this late hour, and Ben could see the city stretching out in every direction, sparkling under the night sky. He could make out the Bellevue Palace as well as the iconic Victory Column, and the dark expanse of the Tiergarten now covered in a thin dusting of snow. He’d never been to Berlin before now, and he didn’t think he was going to have much time to see the sights during the two weeks he was here.

Not that he cared. He just wanted to get back to France. To his life.

And if Spencer asks you to open restaurants in all the Chatsfield hotels?

It was a question that had dogged Ben since he’d made the demand of his brother because the truth was he wasn’t even sure he wanted to open restaurants in all of the hotels. He didn’t need the money or the publicity, and the thought of linking himself so closely to The Chatsfields—and to the Chatsfield family—made his gut churn.

You couldn’t go back. Ever. Even if you wanted to.

But did he want to?

Shoving the question aside, Ben dove into the pool. The water felt cool and refreshing and his head started to clear. The tension between his shoulder blades loosened and he did a couple of laps before flipping onto his back and staring up at the domed ceiling as he let his mind empty out.

A door squeaked open and Ben lifted his head from the water; he could only see a pair of trim ankles and curvy calves coming towards the pool. Someone had clearly had the same idea as he had.

He flipped back onto his stomach and started to swim towards the edge. His fifteen minutes of relaxation were clearly over.

He was about a metre from the pool’s side when he saw something in his peripheral vision, too late for him to do anything about it, and then he felt the breath leave his body in a rush as the female guest who had just entered the pool area dove straight into him.

* * *

Olivia felt as if she’d just dived into concrete. Stars danced through her dazed mind and she let out an undignified shriek, her head pounding from the impact, before arms clasped her shoulders like bands of iron.

‘Do you always,’ a familiar, masculine voice asked in disgust, ‘leap before you look?’

Olivia blinked the water from her eyes and shook her wet hair from her face. And stared into the angry, arrogant face of Ben Chatsfield.

His eyes blazed and his cheeks were slashed with colour and for a moment, her mind still dazed, Olivia thought he looked like some ancient water god emerging from the sea, water dripping off his perfectly formed pecs.

Then sanity returned and she started to sputter.

‘I didn’t see anyone in the pool,’ she said, and her sputtering erupted into a coughing fit. She’d swallowed several mouthfuls of pool water when she’d made contact with Ben Chatsfield’s chest.

A chest that was now pressed alarmingly close to hers. Ben was still gripping her by the shoulders, their legs tangled together in the water. Her heart was thudding from the shock of the encounter, and something else as well.

Something she had no intention of acknowledging. In any case, she was coughing too much to say or even think anything.

Ben muttered something under his breath and with one arm under her armpits and across her breasts he started towing her to the side of the pool as if she were unconscious.

‘Just a second...’ she began, and started coughing again.

He hauled himself up onto the pool’s ledge and then unceremoniously hauled her up next to him. She lay slumped against him, his arm around her shoulders, as she attempted to cough up a lung.

Thankfully her coughing finally subsided and she drew in several agonised but much needed breaths. ‘Thank you,’ she mumbled. ‘I must have swallowed some pool water.’

‘Must have,’ Ben agreed tonelessly, and Olivia wondered why, out of all the people in the hotel, she had to dive straight into Ben Chatsfield.

She looked up at him, tried not to notice the water droplets that clung to his eyelashes and his chin...and his chest. Her gaze dropped down of its own accord and she swallowed hard at the sight of Ben Chatsfield’s well-toned six-pack. Nice.

Okay, looking up again. She smiled weakly and Ben smiled back, a cold curving of his mouth that told her she was so busted. Well, fine. A girl could look.

‘What did you mean, do I always leap before I look?’ she demanded, his words coming back to her rather belatedly.

‘Exactly that. You dived into a pool without checking if someone was swimming in it.’

‘I didn’t see you,’ she snapped.

‘Because you didn’t look.’

All right, maybe she hadn’t looked. She’d been tired and distracted and pretty darn grumpy because the first day of the festival had basically sucked. Two interviews cancelled, another reporter claiming she wasn’t interesting enough because her role in the film that was going to be her big breakthrough wasn’t yet confirmed, and she’d learned that twelve of her thirty-two lines had been cut from Blue Skies Forever, the indie film that was being shown at the festival.

And so she hadn’t done all her Girl Scout safety checks before jumping into the pool. Whatever.

‘I meant,’ she asked Ben now, ‘what you meant when you said always. As if you had experience of me jumping you in the pool before.’ Too late she realised what she’d said. ‘I mean, jumping on you.’

‘I know what you meant,’ Ben answered, and Olivia wanted to slap that knowing smirk right off his face. Or maybe kiss him. Both, probably, one after the other. Not good. Ben was out of her league, in a whole lot of ways.

She edged away from him and after a tiny pause Ben slipped his arm from her shoulders. She shivered, and then wished she hadn’t.