Sarah Morgan - One Night with a Gorgeous Greek - Doukakis's Apprentice / Not Just the Greek's Wife / After the Greek Affair

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.’

Except that Damon Doukakis had brought the future into the present.

Polly thought about the office she’d just left. Until they’d been forced to strip it bare, the walls had been covered in framed copies of their advertising campaigns, photographs and pictures of past office parties. On her desk she’d kept numerous objects that cheered her up and made her smile. And she had Romeo and Juliet.

Here, there were no walls on which to put photographs. No cosy staffroom with soft armchairs and a gurgling coffee machine. Everywhere she looked there was chrome, glass and an industrious silence.

Hoping fish weren’t afraid of heights, she stared around her. ‘So is this going to be our floor?’

‘No. I’m showing you an example of efficiency in action. Take a good look around, Miss Prince. This is how a successful company looks. To you it probably feels like landing on an alien planet.’ His sensuous mouth curved into a sardonic smile. ‘In order to cause minimum disruption to the rest of my operation I’ve allocated a separate floor to your operation.’ Without waiting for her response, he pushed open a door and took the stairs two at a time. Polly poked her tongue out at his back and followed more slowly, envying his athleticism.

Following him through another set of doors, she found herself on another floor, completely circled in glass.

All the boxes and equipment had already been transferred from her old offices and the staff of Prince Advertising were laughing and joking together as they unpacked.

As they waved to her, Polly felt her eyes sting. They were so optimistic and excited. They had no idea how fragile their future was.

The responsibility almost flattened her.

‘This is yours.’ Damon gestured across the floor with his hand. ‘There are meeting rooms over there, all of which can be used for sensitive phone calls that can’t be made in open plan.’ As he finished speaking the lift doors opened and Polly saw Debbie and Jen stagger out of the lift carrying boxes. After a series of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ as they saw the view, they put down the boxes.

‘This is the last of it. Now we can start settling in. Won’t take us long to make the place home. Not that my home looks anything like this,’ Debbie said cheerfully. ‘Where’s the kettle?’

Polly caught sight of the shock in Damon Doukakis’s eyes and realised that the only way she was going to stand a chance of preserving jobs was if she kept everyone as far away from the boss as possible. She had to protect them. ‘Mr Doukakis, I haven’t had a chance to send that presentation through to you. I copied it onto a flash drive so you can open it up on your own computer. Debs, if you could supervise the unpacking, that would be great.’

‘Sure thing. I’ll have to work out which of the plants like sunlight because there’s a lot of sunlight in this building.’ Deb tugged off her shoes and prepared to get stuck into the work. ‘This place is epic.’

‘Whatever you need to do.’ Deciding that the reason the staff appeared to have no internal radar warning them of danger was because they’d worked for her father for so long, Polly frantically tried to distract their new boss. ‘Perhaps we should have the meeting in your office as there is going to be some disruption on this floor.’

‘Disruption appears to be a comfortable working environment for you. Are those—’ he did a double take as Debbie reached into another box and, together with Jen, lifted out a huge bucket ‘— fish ?’

Oh, God…

‘You gave us four hours’ notice of an office move,’ Polly muttered. ‘There wasn’t time to negotiate relocation. We’ll have the tank set up in no time and no one is even going to know they’re here.’

‘Tank?!’

‘You’re the one who insisted the whole company move here. The fish are part of the company.’