The Boss's Proposal (5 page)

‘Get up!' she finally shouted. ‘Can't you see I'm in a rush?'

‘And I'm trying to figure out why. No respectable company drags interviewees in on a weekend. Have you applied for something shady, perhaps? Some seedy stripping job in a nightclub somewhere?'

‘Do I
look
like the sort of girl who's willing to strip in a nightclub?' she virtually screeched, hustling him to the sitting room door and attempting to shoo him out in the style of a chicken trying to get rid of a wolf from its parlour.

‘Give me a minute to think about that one,' he said slowly, stopping in his tracks to her intense frustration. She glared at him and he grinned back at her.

It was the first time he had really smiled and the effect was breathtaking. Literally, it made her gasp. It changed the hard contours of his face and gave him a boyish, sexy look that was as far removed from the plastic smiles of his brother as chalk was from cheese.

‘Not funny,' she said sharply.

‘Take the job?'

In under five minutes there would be the sound of a car stopping outside the house, the ring of the doorbell and her daughter would come bouncing through the front door, bringing her infectious smile, her rosy cheeks and a seething nest of potential catastrophes.

She had to get rid of him.

‘All right!
Now
will you please leave my house so that I can get on with…with…with my life?'

He straightened up and looked at her with a shadow of surprise. ‘Starting Monday?'

‘Starting Monday,' she agreed, hopping in frustration from one leg to another.

She managed to propel him to the front door, which she swiftly pulled open, breathing a sigh of relief that a small blue car wasn't hurtling down the lane in the direction of her cottage.

‘Report to Personnel,' he told her, ‘then come to my office and we'll take it from there.'

‘Goodbye!'

‘And perhaps you could do something about your eccentric line in conversation?'

‘I shall see you on Monday!' She urged him out of the door and watched as he headed down the short path to the road, making sure that his car was safely out of sight before she closed it back. When it was, she slammed shut the door and leaned heavily against it, wondering what the hell she had just done.

It had been
imperative
that he left the premises before Chloe returned, she argued silently to herself, and what better method of shifting him than to agree to his proposals? Even though the logical, rational side of her brain freely accepted this as a worthwhile argument, the rest of
her was appalled at the hole she had dug and into which she had recklessly jumped.

She told herself that she would turn up on Monday and work for a few weeks, then apologetically make her excuses and leave. She mentally listed some of the plus points that could be gained from her manoeuvre. This required more thought, but in the end she decided that, aside from the financial windfall to be had, she would also be able to keep an eye on him and allay his suspicious interest in her which she had sensed from the very beginning. Wasn't it a good idea for her to be in place so that she could make sure that he didn't start telephoning Australia and asking his friend about her? For starters he would learn about the pregnancy. Her connection with his brother might take longer, because she had been adamant about keeping her work life distinct from her private life and had discouraged Shaun from ever showing up at her workplace once they had started dating. But he could find out if he persevered. At least she would be on the spot to laughingly fend off any questions and deter him from snooping. She'd seen the curiosity her odd behaviour had aroused in him and she suspected that he was the sort of man to whom any intrigue was simply something to be unravelled. He could probably do
The Times
crossword in a matter of seconds.

Less palatable was the unpleasant suspicion that something about him had got under her skin. She'd learned so many lessons from Shaun, enough to put her off men for a lifetime. She would rather shoot herself than admit any kind of attraction to his brother.

In the end, though, she now had a problematic situation which she would have to deal with in whatever manner was at her disposal.

V
ICKY
spent the remainder of the weekend repenting for her reckless agreement to work for Max Forbes. The reason
why
she had rushed into her hasty decision was rapidly forgotten under the onslaught of serious drawbacks. By the time Monday morning rolled around, she found herself slipping on her customary secretarial garb with a leaden heart which was only partially alleviated when, once at the office, she was informed by the personnel officer that Max only worked part-time at this particular office. When the young girl mentioned his name, her eyelids fluttered and her cheeks turned bright red. Vicky wondered sceptically whether
all
the female employees of the company responded in the same way to the mere mention of their boss. If that was the case, then she would have more to contend with than the dangerous fragility of her situation—namely overriding nausea at being surrounded by mesmerised females from nine in the morning to five-thirty at night.

No wonder he rated himself as such a potent sex symbol. She almost clicked her tongue in annoyance.

‘I don't suppose he's in London
now
, is he?' she asked the personnel officer, whose name was Mandy and whose fashion statement included disconcertingly long and brightly painted blue fingernails.

‘Actually, I believe he's set aside his morning to show you the ropes.'

‘Oh, grand!' Vicky exclaimed with dismay, which she hid under a scarily bright smile. The smile remained plastered to her face as she was shown the now familiar route
up to his office, only slipping when Mandy deserted her and she found herself pushing back the door to his sanctuary.

After a break of a day and a half, during which the image of him had not left her head for longer than five minutes at a stretch, the sight of him now, in the flesh, was even more alarming than she remembered.

Had he been so
big and muscular
when she had seen him on Saturday or had he somehow grown in the interim? Even sitting behind the desk, reclining in his leather chair, his size seemed to spring out at her and reduce her to nervous, powerless pulp. He had discarded his jacket; his blue and white pin-striped shirt was cuffed to the elbows.

‘Ah,' was his first word, which smacked of satisfaction, ‘I wasn't too sure that you'd make it here. Good trip in? I gather you've already been through the nitty-gritty with Mandy. I've set aside a couple of hours to fill you in on some of the more straightforward bits of the job, then I'm afraid I've got to leave you to get on with it. So sit down and I'll begin briefing you on your duties.' He paused to recline comfortably in his chair. ‘First of all, the coffee machine—it's in the corner of your office outside…'

Vicky, who had primly fished out a notepad and pen from her voluminous handbag, fixed him with a long, beady stare and he grinned at her.

‘Just a joke.'

‘I do realise that tea-and coffee-making
is
included in my job specification, but I hope it only plays a minor role.' She heard herself with a small, inner groan of disgust. The more addled he made her feel, the more unnatural her patterns of speech seemed to become, and right now she was feeling very, very addled.

‘Very minor,' he agreed gravely. ‘In fact, I
do
frequently make myself a cup of coffee and it's been known for me
to make one for my secretary as well.' He rested his elbows on his desk and brought the tips of his fingers together so that he could survey her over them. It made her feel like a specimen in a laboratory.

‘Have you maintained an office in London?' she asked politely. ‘I ask because Mandy in Personnel mentioned that you split your time between here and London.'

‘And New York, Madrid and Glasgow…I don't suppose you've had a chance to read any of the company literature…' He got up and strode towards a glass-fronted sleekly black bookcase that adorned one wall of the office and extracted a handful of glossy brochures, which he proceeded to hand over to her; then, instead of returning to his swivel chair, he perched on his desk, so that she had an uncomfortably close-up view of his muscular thighs, stretching taut against the fine wool fabric of his trousers.

‘No, I haven't.' She idly flicked through one and her hand stopped as she saw a picture of Shaun standing next to Max and between them a man who could only have been their father. The blood in her veins started to curdle.

‘My brother,' Max said shortly, following her gaze.

‘The three of you founded the business?' Her voice was devoid of expression, even though she discovered that she was surprisingly curious about what his version of past events would be, because there always were the two sides to every story, but a shutter had dropped over his eyes.

‘Not quite. You can look at that stuff later, perhaps take it home with you. For now, I'll fill you in on some of the projects we're working on.' He nodded at the door, inviting her to precede him out of his office and into hers which lay just through the door and which housed the filing cabinets. Like all the rest of the furniture in both the offices, the cabinets were all in black wood with chrome handles.

‘Normally, my last secretary would have been respon
sible for taking you through this, but in this case, there's been no
last
secretary and the
last
temp didn't seem to grasp the meaning of the words “filing system”, so she would have been of no use whatsoever. Anyway—' he gesticulated towards three cabinets ‘—the files are kept in there and should be in alphabetical order, although I'd advise you to go through the lot of them yourself. Louise found the alphabet a little exhausting. Those files over there are in the process of being looked at for whatever reason and those need updating. Your computer is over there and I'm afraid there's a stack of work for you to get your teeth into.'

‘What kind of work?' Vicky idly went to the large U-shaped desk and flicked through the top file, which seemed comprised of lengthy technical documents and detailed price quotations.

‘You'll naturally also be expected to handle all my business engagements and update my diary at least twice a day. Oh, yes, and meetings—I'll expect you to come along to some of the more important ones to take notes. Occasionally, there may be a social function I'll want you to attend.'

‘That won't be possible,' Vicky said quickly, without thinking.

‘All things in life are possible,' he told her softly, moving across to her. ‘How else can anyone ever achieve anything in life, if they automatically assume that some things are not possible?
Why
will the occasional social function be out of the question? Is there any particular reason?'

‘No. I just thought…that…social functions might require a more glamorous escort than your secretary…'

‘Mmm. I see.' He left it there, neither pressing the point nor, she noticed, denying her claim to plainness. ‘Now, files.' He moved smoothly round the desk so that he was
facing the computer, switched it on and then beckoned her across to join him.

Standing next to him was an exercise in nerve-tingling embarrassment. He dwarfed her. Shaun had somehow never seemed
that
tall. Maybe he'd just been a little shorter, just as he'd been a little thinner, his features a little more blurred. Perhaps the mould, having been used once, had not quite managed to replicate itself the second time around.

‘Familiar with this program?'

Vicky nodded.

‘Good, then you'll have no problem finding your way around. You'll have to go through those files and update the computer, and there are one or two problems on a couple of them—discrepancies with the fees, order problems. I'm afraid you're being thrown in at the deep end but you'll have to find your way around the best you can, because the position requires a fair amount of initiative and responsibility. Tell me about your job with James?'

He strolled over to the coffee machine, and while he waited for it to kick into action he turned to face her with his arms folded.

Vicky groped her way for an adequate and truthful account of what she had done as far as work went without implying socialising of any nature. In fact, she had socialised a fair amount with James and his wife Carol, and had even babysat for them on a few occasions. ‘I started off as his secretary, but I'm a pretty quick learner and, quite soon, I was being given a fair amount of responsibility. Looking after some of the smaller, more problematic customers, liaising with the service people as well as doing the usual administrative and typing stuff.'

‘So you should have no problem coming to grips with all this…' He nodded vaguely at the files. ‘I knew it. I
took one look at you and knew that you'd be able to do the job with your eyes closed.'

‘I haven't even started, as yet,' Vicky informed him warily. Heaping praise on her before she even got going was not so good, considering her long-range plan to quit the job as soon as was possible, without arousing needless suspicion.

‘I think the first thing we need to sort out is my diary for the next month…' He went into his office and returned several seconds later with an electronic diary and a conventional leatherbound one, which he handed to her. ‘Right. Now, let's start with tomorrow…' He pulled across one of the spare chairs from in front of the desk and strategically positioned it next to her so that, while he was no longer towering over her, he was now so close to her that with the flick of his pen on the keypad, his forearm casually but insistently brushed hers. She kept flicking side-long, uncomfortable glances at the fine dark hairs sprinkling his powerful arms. He seemed so much more
real
than his twin, so much more
substantial
.

He began listing, very rapidly, his plans for the day, which she checked against the entries in the black diary. Some of the handwriting was poor enough to require several long seconds of tortuous interpretation and, after one particularly puzzling entry, she glanced up to find him looking at her.

‘I'm beginning to understand what you meant by problems with temps,' she said with the ghost of a smile. ‘If the filing system bears any resemblance to the handwriting in here, then I shall have several hours sorting out some basic stuff before I can even start to do my job.'

‘Didn't I tell you?' Up close, as he was, he noticed that her skin was as flawlessly smooth as it appeared to be from a distance, and her hair, severely tied back, still managed
to break free around her ears so that the tiny tendrils gave her the look of a saint whose halo had slipped to one side. Feeling his arm brush against hers, a passing touch that he could have avoided but chose not to, filled him with an almost sinful sense of excitement. He'd never known how powerful female modesty could be. Here she was, dressed in three times as much clothing as the woman he had last dated—Lord, three months ago—and yet the effect of all those clothes on him was positively suffocating. She had removed her jacket, but her blouse was buttoned up prudishly to the neck with small pearl buttons of the type worn by grannies. He could indistinctly make out the outline of her bra underneath. He wondered, and this sent a little electric shock to his groin, what it would feel like to undo those prim buttons, fingers touching skin underneath the shirt, anticipation building to a frenzy. He imagined her hands loosely tied to the bedstead with silk scarves while he undressed her, taking his time and exploring each exposed bit of skin with his tongue. He would drive her wild, enjoying her uncontrolled writhing. Naturally she would plead with him not to stop, to rip aside her bra and relieve her aching breasts with his mouth.

When he glanced her way, it was to find her looking at him as though she could read every salaciously impure thought in his head, and he flushed darkly. Good heavens! The woman was his
secretary
!

‘Believe me now?' he asked roughly, sounding, he thought, the Big Bad Wolf when confronted with Little Red Riding Hood. He grinned to himself at the unconscious parallel, because right now he would have liked nothing better than to eat her up, every inch of her defensive little body, starting with her pale, slender neck and moving all the way down to the patch of hair between her
thighs that would naturally be daintily shielded behind granny-style underwear.

He cleared his throat and dragged his thoughts back to meetings, calendars and business appointments. She was asking him something and he made a huge effort to concentrate and reply in a normal voice.

‘I see you're in London twice this week,' she was saying, gazing down with satisfaction at the diary entries. Two business meetings in Temple, another in Uxbridge.

‘So I am. Perhaps—' he frowned ‘—I ought to cancel those and spend a bit more time here, until you get accustomed to the running of the office.'

Vicky was quick to sit on any such suggestion. ‘There's no need for that.' She realised that his recumbent arm was too close for comfort, and she discreetly but firmly edged hers away. ‘In fact, having a couple of days on my own will be perfect for me to fill myself in on the files and the customers and also catch up with some of that backlog of typing.'

He could see her trying very hard to look regretful and felt a sulky and childish tug on his masculine pride that the thought of spending time along with him in the office was obviously a fate only slightly better than death, as far as she was concerned. What appealing work experience lay in store for both of them at this rate!

‘Well, you can't miraculously work your way through
everything
on your own. I'm going to have to answer a few questions, presumably.' Now, he sounded piqued. The cool, self-confident, self-assured, mature and winningly charming adult seemed to have been replaced by a sulking thirteen-year-old. Where that emotion had come from he had no idea as it had never been in evidence before.