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He wasn’t looking for anyone in particular. It was generic people-watching because it would be rude to work off his phone while his new fiancée ordered up a twelve-carat square diamond flanked by a pair of two-carat trapezoid-cut diamonds in white gold.
He signed off on the eight-figure price tag, then told them to box up the pair of ruby earrings that had also caught her eye.
When they left, she looked across the street to a boutique so he walked his credit card into the shop and left her there to browse.
The shop owner invited him to sit in their lounge. He could have ordered any food or beverage of his choice, but he claimed a desire to look at watches and walked down the street to the coffee shop.
Dissatisfaction dogged him the whole way, amplified by the lift of a camera phone as he passed a woman on the street.
Celebrity was yet another price he’d paid to Oliver for the benefits of being his son. Yes, Atlas had gained recognition on his own. His gold medals as a swimmer had earned him a healthy following online and modest sponsorships had flowed in, but Oliver had parlayed Atlas’s good looks and athletic success into elevating the Davenwear line. Between that, and Carmel’s weekly scandals, and the attention that his socialite dates invariably attracted, Atlas remained a magnet for media attention.
He ignored it as he always did and opened the door to the coffee shop, stepping back because a woman was on her way out. She wore a fitted winter jacket and a sky-blue hat and checked her own step, flashing him a friendly smile that fell right off her face.
His entire world skipped from its groove. Had he conjured her?
He’d forgotten how blue her eyes were. There was a lake in Australia that held that same saturation of blue, but he’d never seen it anywhere else. Only there and here, in her astonished stare.
Something flared in those mesmerizing depths, but it was quickly eclipsed by horror. She tossed him a begrudging “Thanks” in the colloquial Swiss German and brushed past him. She was carrying a takeaway coffee and a paper bag that presumably held a pastry, judging by the aromas floating out from the shop’s interior.
“Stella.” He let the door close and remained outside with her.
She halted next to one of the empty bistro tables, staying under the awning where the sidewalk was still bare. Beneath her short jacket, she wore gray plaid trousers tucked into tall boots. The wool fabric clung lovingly to the valentine of her ass.
“I didn’t think you recognized me.” She turned and offered a stiff smile. “It’s nice to see you again, Herr Davenport.”
He’d heard enough lies in his life to recognize one. AndHerr Davenport?
“Voudouris,” he corrected. “Oliver Davenport was never married to my mother.” Reporters continued to mislabel him because Oliver did. In fact, Oliver had made it clear that the quickest way for Atlas to take the reins at DVE would be to adopt his father’s name, but he never would.
“You look well. I hope your family is well also.” Another lie. One so great, she had to clear it from her throat. “Are they here with you?”
“No.” He ignored the opportunity to say he was here with his fiancée. The weight of that knowledge scorched like acid in the pit of his stomach while the rest of him drank her up like an elixir.
She’d come a long way from a soaked, ill-fitting uniform. Her clothes were good quality, her jacket zipped halfway so it flared open to frame her ample breasts.
A fantasy of mapping her figure with his hands, with hislips, arrived so suddenly it was as though it had never left. As though the craving had sat as unfinished business in the depths of his most carnal urges.
No. He was the rational one in his family. The one whowasn’tdriven by emotion and ego and libido. He kept all of that on a tight leash.
He was notjust like Daddy.
“You’ve lived here all this time?” That thought annoyed him for some reason.
“Yes.” She looked over her shoulder. “I run the front desk at Die Größten Höhen. Greatest Heights.”
“I’m at Chalet Ruhe—”
She nodded with familiarity so he didn’t bother naming the resort, especially because someone entered the shop behind him, forcing him to take a step closer to her.
She stiffened.
Now he was close enough that she wasn’t backlit by the brightness of the falling snow. He could see her features better.
She looked very much as he remembered her. Her hair was hidden beneath her hat and she wore no makeup. She wasn’t pretty in the classic sense, but he wouldn’t call her plain. Her nose was narrow and her eyes widely set. Her upper lip was thinner than her lower, the corners of her mouth sharp, but he remembered exactly how plump and erotic her lower lip had been against his tongue.
Then there was that combative chin.
Why he found the thrust of it so riveting, he couldn’t say, but he was both distracted and intrigued. She had had this same outward politeness and meek air back then, but like today, it was at odds with a bone structure that proclaimed she had a stubborn personality. It made him want to mine for the real Stella.