Page 53 of Undercover Billionaire

Their times together ran like a film reel through her brain on fast forward. Fuck – she’dplayed hookyfrom a shifttoblowthe boss.

She’d blown him on his dime.

It seemed so farfetched another person might have asked if this was some kind of sick joke, but Kelsey could tell by the earnest set to his face that this wasn’t some reality TV gag.

Suddenly, her skin felt too tight, a hand was squeezing her windpipe and her ribs were like prison bars around her lungs.

Kelsey sorted through a mental inventory of the Callisthenes family members she could vaguely picture thanks to Tiffany’s addiction to trashy tabloid magazines. They were a large family and popular with the paparazzi because they were mostly young, very rich and they liked to party.

She’d definitely seen Theo Callisthenes’ picture a lot. His manwhore exploits were well documented. But she didn’t recall ever seeing one of Ari.

‘I don’t understand…’ She stared at his face – his beautiful un-photographed face – and tried to compute what was going on through the background yammering in her brain. The yammering that was growing louder, that was chantingHe lied to you, he lied to you, he lied to you.

Just like Eric, just like Eric, just like Eric.

‘Was anything you told me the truth?’ she asked. And then suddenly she was struck by a horrible thought. ‘Oh God… are you even a widower? Or did you just make that up to get my sympathy?’

He recoiled as if she’d struck him, and Kelsey hated herself a little. But goddamn it, that was what happened when someone lied – everything they’d ever said was thrown into doubt.

‘Yes,’ he said, his jaw tight, his eyes two dark murky pools. ‘Iam.My wife, Talia, died in a car accident three years ago. I may have kept my identity a secret but everything else I told you about me was the truth, Kelsey.’

He reached for her hands, but she leapt off the bed so damn fast it halted him in his tracks. ‘Why?’ Kelsey clutched at her stomach as a roll of nausea hit. ‘Explain to me why you’re slumming it pretending to be some… ordinary Joe on one of your own ships and sleeping with your staff. I don’t understand.’

‘Okay.’

His voice was quiet and calm, which made Kelsey want to scream.Okay?What possible explanation could there be for this?

‘There have been major issues with theHellenic Spirit. It’s losing money and developing a bad reputation. We decided to put someone in undercover to investigate. Theo, my brother…’

Right. Theo Callisthenes, manwhore extraordinaire, was Ari’s brother. Well, that figured.

‘…Insisted I do it because as chief financial officer?—’

‘So… you’renotan accountant then?’ she interrupted, her voice laced with the bitterness that dripped like poison down the back of her throat. Another lie?

‘Iaman accountant,’ he said. ‘I’m just… the company’s chief accountant.’

Right. The CFfreakingO of the Oceanós cruise liner business. Oh, God… Mykonos. Thathadn’tbeen his boss’s house, had it?

A lump of hysteria rose in her throat and she swallowed hard against it. This would teach her to get above her station again. She’d thought she’d already learned that lesson from Eric but obviously not.

‘And do CFOs usually do such dirty work?’ she demanded.

‘No.’ Ari shook his head. ‘But the cruise line arm of the company has been my baby. I’d overhauled that entire part of the business the last couple of years so I was the most intimately acquainted with it. And,’ he conceded, ‘Ididneed a holiday. Plus I’m probably the least well known of the family. So I came on the cruise, incognito, investigated all areas of ship performance and have written a report for the board meeting which is here, in Venice, tomorrow morning.’

Kelsey let the full implications of what Ari had just admitted sink in, her heart getting harder and harder. He’d been conducting an investigation?Christ. She thought back to their interactions this past week. Had he asked any leading questions? Had he tried to wheedle information out of her under the guise of conversation?

She’d certainly told him stuff as they’d lain in his bed and on Mykonos. Ship stuff. Anecdotes and gossip and the pros and cons of working on board. Her frustrations and gripes and other stuff too.Secretstuff about staff parties and the practical jokes they played on each other.

Had any of that been used?

Just how much of their pillow talk was in the report? Had she unknowingly signed some of her colleagues’ pink slips?

Kelsey shoved a hand through her hair. Dread sat like a rattlesnake in her gut. What had she done?

‘Did you target me?’

He blinked.‘What?’

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