Page 26 of Christmas Baby with Her Ultra-Rich Boss

‘Sorry, Lena,’ the woman said as she shook her hood off. ‘It’sawfulout there. I couldn’t see what I was doing to shake the snow off outside...’ She suddenly clocked Konstantinos and squeaked, ‘Mr Siopis!’

He nodded a terse greeting.

Glaring at Konstantinos before dragging a smile to her face for Rachel, Lena hurried over to her, thankful for the excuse to get away from him. That he had the nerve to criticise her for doing her job was beyond credulity.

‘Here, let me help you out of that.’ Konstantinos could jolly well freeze in his snowsuit for all she cared. ‘Is it really that bad out there?’

‘I couldn’t see a thing. If we didn’t have the guide ropes I’d have lost my way.’

She looked out the window. Rachel was not exaggerating. To think Konstantinos had made the journey on a snowmobile—she’d seen the glare of its lights barely a minute before he’d stormed inside—only ratcheted up her fury at his sanctimony and hypocrisy. He might own the place but he didn’t know the landscape. He’d had none of the training she and all the other staff undertook. The idiot could easily have gotten lost or stuck in a snowdrift. She’d bet he didn’t even have an emergency walkie-talkie on him.

‘If I’d known it was going to get this bad I’d have told you to stay in your cabin and done the shift myself,’ she said, trying hard not to let her fury at Konstantinos sound out in her words to Rachel.

‘Well, I’m here now so you can go off if—’

‘She is not going anywhere until the blizzard clears,’ Konstantinos interrupted rudely, making Rachel blink with surprise and Lena openly glare at him again. It felt like she’d spent the whole day on the defensive against his subtle sniping and now he couldn’t even be bothered to be subtle about it and she’d had enough. If he could be rude to her then she could be rude back. What was he going to do about it? Sack her?

‘That might be hours away. It’s getting late, I’m shattered, and I haven’t eaten yet.’ And nor had he, she thought with a pang that she immediately chided herself for. Let the overbearing hypocrite starve.

After storming to the door, Konstantinos yanked it open. Immediately, a gust of snow streamed inside with a howl before he slammed the door back shut.

‘You want to go out in that?’ he demanded.

Having now seen, heard, and felt just how bad things were out there, Lena blanched at the thought of ski-walking through such torrid conditions.

Maybe he had a point after all.

‘Okay, you’re right, it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere soon,’ she said with fake brightness, casting her gaze anywhere but at him as she sought a solution. Thinking aloud, she said, ‘I guess we’ll just have to stay here for the night. There’s an ice room free—you can have that. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the experience. I’ll take the store room.’

‘You are not sleeping in the store room,’ he said flatly. ‘How many ice rooms are free?’

‘Only the one and I’m not sleeping in it.’

‘You are not sleeping on a floor, Lena.’

‘We’ve got loads of sleeping bags. I’ll make a nest for myself. I’ll be fine. Or... I know. I can sleep on a sofa in the lounge.’ The Igloo had a number of permanent heated facilities reached via a network of ice tunnels.

‘Do I have to remind you that you’re pregnant?’

Ignoring the thump of Rachel’s jaw dropping to the floor, Lena rounded on him. ‘No, you don’t, but there is no way I am sleeping in one of those ice rooms, not after the last time.’

‘Keep a light on if you’re worried about the dark.’

‘I thought you were worried about me endangering the baby?’

‘A pregnant woman checked in this morning. We know there is no risk to the baby, not if you keep warm.’

‘It’s not keeping warm that worries me! Do you have any idea how terrifying a panic attack is when you’re on your own?’

A pulse throbbed on the side of his jaw. ‘You never mentioned a panic attack before.’

‘I saw your reaction to my confession of claustrophobia. That was enough. I am not sleeping in an ice room and you have no right to try and bully me into it when we both know you hate the cold so much you’d sooner eat a ready meal than spend the night in one yourself.’

‘I’ll sleep in one with you if it stops you from sleeping on a floor or on a sofa.’

Totally taken aback, she stared at him.

He folded his arms across his chest and glowered at her. ‘No pregnant woman should sleep on a floor or a sofa let alone the mother of my child. This is the only solution.’

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