Bella's Impossible Boss

Praise for Michelle Douglas

“Packed with a smouldering tension and underlying passion, The Loner’s Guarded Heart by Michelle Douglas will leave readers wanting more … [It] is a keeper that I will treasure. If you are a reader who loves tender, heartfelt stories then this book is a must-buy, because it has all those elements and so much more.”

—www.cataromance.com

“Michelle Douglas makes an outstanding debut with His Christmas Angel, a complex, richly emotional story. The characters are handled especially well, as are the many conflicts and relationships. This one’s a keeper.”

—RT Book Reviews

A squeal from Bella alerted Dominic to an incoming rogue wave.

He grabbed her hand and hauled her out of its path, his arm going around her waist to half lift her. Breathless and laughing, she grinned up at him.

The breath shot out of him. His grip on her tightened. She stilled. He could read the question in her eyes—was he going to kiss her?

Would she let him?

When she didn’t move away he had his answer.

Heat surged through him, the temptation pounding at him like the surf breaking on the reef. Bella would taste divine. He wanted to bury his face in her neck and inhale her, and then he wanted to capture her lips in his and devour her slowly, thoroughly. He wanted to memorise the curves of her body with his hands. He—

Icy water hitting his feet and ankles brought him back to earth and made Bella jump, breaking the spell.

At the age of eight MICHELLE DOUGLAS was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. She answered, “A writer.” Years later she read an article about romance writing and thought, Ooh, that’ll be fun. She was right. When she’s not writing she can usually be found with her nose buried in a book. She is currently enrolled in an English Masters programme for the sole purpose of indulging her reading and writing habits further. She lives in a leafy suburb of Newcastle, on Australia’s east coast, with her own romantic hero—husband Greg, who is the inspiration behind all her happy endings. Michelle would love you to visit her at her website: www.michelle-douglas.com

Bella’s

Impossible Boss

Michelle Douglas

To Annie,

for all the coffees, caramel doughnuts

and Black Russians.

Thank you!

CHAPTER ONE

SHE was going to be late.

Late. Late. Late.

The heels of Bella’s shoes snapped out the word with every step, rebuking her, condemning her, telling her she would never measure up. She glanced at her watch and told herself to stop being absurd. She’d make the meeting exactly on time. She was being paranoid, that was all.

Still, she shouldn’t have stopped to talk to Charlie. Or Emma. Or Sophie and Connor. She picked up her pace.

Failure. Failure. Failure.

What on earth had she been thinking?

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

She clenched a hand. Given what she’d overheard last week, she should’ve been more careful. She should’ve kept a closer eye on the time. She wanted to change her father’s opinion of her, not reinforce it.

Spoiled, willful, doesn’t have the sense of a goose! Bella doesn’t know the meaning of the words ‘dedication’ and ‘hard work’. That was what her father had said on the phone to her aunt in Italy last Wednesday. Bella had accidentally picked up the extension in the kitchen to ring out.

And it’s my fault. She’d heard that before she could silently replace the receiver into its cradle.

She slowed to a halt, her throat constricting. The pain that had raked through her father’s voice … She closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall. Oh, Papa, I’m sorry.

To know she’d disappointed him so badly, hurt him. Again.

And to think he blamed himself.

She pushed away from the wall and straightened. She’d changed. The last eighteen months in Italy had seen to that. She would prove herself to him. She would make him proud of her.

As if to reassure herself, she rifled through the colour-coordinated folders she carried and then slapped a hand to her forehead. She’d left the sample menus in the canteen kitchen with Charlie!

She glanced at her watch and then tapped a foot. She could continue on to her father’s office and be on time. Or she could race back down to the canteen, grab her menus and prove to her father and his right-hand man, Dominic Wright, how fabulously organised and creative she was and be a teensy bit late, which her father expected anyhow.

Organisation, creativity and proof of her dedication versus punctuality? Muttering an imprecation, she spun on her heel and sped back the way she’d come. Pulling in a breath, she started to jog. She rounded the corner, heard the faint ‘ding’ of the lift in the distance and broke into a run. She sprinted around the next corner …

‘Hold the lift!’

But the lift doors closed before she could reach them. She pressed the button on the wall one time, five times, but the doors didn’t open. The light above informed her that the lift had started its descent. She slapped a hand to the wall. Darn!

Pulling in a breath, she pushed her shoulders back. Okay, she could kiss her menus goodbye for the moment, but hopefully her colour-coordinated folders would at least give the impression of organisation and creativity.

She swallowed. As long as no one quizzed her too deeply about the contents of said folders. Katie, her father’s secretary, had sent the main file through to her only last night with a pleading, For all you hold sacred, please don’t tell your father how late I am on this! Bella hadn’t had time to do more than print the file off. She’d reserved this afternoon for poring over its contents.

She glanced at her watch. If she put her skates on, she wouldn’t be late to the meeting after all.

She put her skates on.

Professional, she lectured as she sped down the corridor. Chin up, shoulders back. She had to exude confidence and competence. Especially competence. She had to prove to her father that his faith in her wasn’t misplaced.

If he actually had any faith left in her.

She pulled in a giant breath as she was ushered into her father’s office. She took one look at him and had to fight the urge to rush across and kiss his cheek, to envelop him in a hug and tell him how much she loved him and how much she had missed him while she’d been in Italy.

Professional. She had to be professional. Kissing him, hugging him, would not earn her his respect. Especially as he wasn’t alone. She gripped her folders more tightly and resisted the superstitious urge to cross her fingers. She didn’t need superstition. She needed a chance to prove herself, that was all.

Marcello Luciano Maldini turned to her. ‘You’re late!’ he snapped.

She glanced at her watch and raised an eyebrow.

He glanced at his watch and scowled.

Oh, how she wished he would smile!

He didn’t smile. She did. She was so glad to see him. She was so glad to be here. She was so grateful to him for this opportunity. She did her best to not make the smile too broad, though. She did her best to make it professional and polite. ‘Good morning, Papa. If I am late, then I am most sincerely sorry.’

He blinked and for a moment she thought he might apologise for his gruffness, perhaps even admit that she hadn’t been late. He didn’t. He folded his arms and glared. ‘My secretary rang your mobile phone and left a message informing you that the meeting was to be brought forward fifteen minutes.’

She was late! And all because she’d turned off her phone so it couldn’t distract her from the most important meeting of her life.

She gripped her folders so tightly she broke a nail. ‘I’m sorry. I turned it off so it wouldn’t disturb my preparations for our meeting.’

Her father huffed out something she didn’t quite catch and turned away. All her old fears surfaced: Failure. Stupid. Fool. She did her best to beat them back.

‘Dominic, I would like you to meet my daughter, Bella Maldini. Bella, this is Dominic Wright.’

As the man turned towards her, she opened her mouth to say, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ but the moment her eyes collided with the Mediterranean blue of his, the words evaporated.

Dear Lord. Blue eyes shouldn’t make a girl speechless.

Nor should red hair.

But the combination …

She tried to expel the air held prisoner in her lungs. She hadn’t believed Catriona and Cecily when they’d said he was gorgeous and that he had red hair—tawny, red-gold, like a lion’s mane.

Don’t gape. Don’t gape. Professional!

She cleared her throat. ‘I’m, um … Pleased to meet you, Mr Wright.’ Her voice emerged high and strained, breathy. She bit back a groan. Where was professional?

‘Dominic,’ he corrected.

This was the man who held her entire future in his hands? Her white business shirt tightened around her ribs, constricting her breathing further. According to her cousins, Dominic—with his looks and his charm—was the most dangerous man in Sydney. Break-your-heart dangerous. They’d said he’d eat a little virgin like her for breakfast.

All silly, teasing nonsense, of course.

To be honest, he looked more like ‘scary boss’ material than the playboy Cat and Cecily had reported, and he was eyeing her up and down right now with those mesmerising eyes as if he could sum her up in all of ten seconds. As if she only had ten-second’s worth of value to sum up.

He didn’t say he was pleased to meet her. He didn’t smile.

With a super-human effort, she kept her smile in place. ‘For form’s sake, you’re supposed to say that you’re pleased to meet me, too, Dominic.’

His grin when it came was slow and crooked. It hitched up the right side of his mouth. The creases around his eyes deepened. The blue of his eyes intensified. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Bella.’

Just for a moment the room receded, and then with a roar it came rushing back. Uh-huh. So her cousins had been right, then.

Playboy—tick.

Heavenly, golden, gorgeous—tick, tick, tick.

Temptation personified—tick.

When Dominic held out his hand, she took it automatically. She couldn’t manage a single solitary syllable. His hand curved around hers and he simply held it.

Her pulse throbbed.

‘Delighted,’ he murmured.

She found her voice. ‘Absolutely.’

She tugged her hand free and went back to clutching her folders, did what she could to ignore the tingling that the palm-on-palm contact had triggered against her bare skin. For all his tawny goldenness and the warmth of his smile, he was known as The Iceman. And don’t you forget it!

It didn’t change the fact that he was the one man who could sway her father’s opinion. She would have to tread carefully.

‘If you’ve finished sizing each other up,’ her father said brusquely, ‘can we sit and get this meeting underway? Come—sit, sit.’ He shooed them to their seats.

From beside her, Dominic’s heat beat at her. She kept her eyes on her father. Professional.

Marco steepled his hands on his desk. ‘Dominic, I want you and Bella to work on the Newcastle Maldini,’ he said without further ado. ‘I want the pair of you to have it ready for the grand opening in eight weeks’ time.’

Triumph surged through Dominic. Years of training, though, ensured he didn’t betray that triumph by so much as a flicker of an eyelid. Taking charge of Marco’s flagship hotel was the first step in taking over sole management of the Maldini Corporation’s fledgling tourism arm. If the Newcastle Maldini proved a success, then plans for expansion would forge ahead—a chain of five-star Maldini hotels in all the major cities in Australia. After that, the international market—New York, London and Rome. The possibilities multiplied with exciting potential.

He’d wanted a change, needed it. Two and a half months ago he’d made his position clear to Marco—either a sideways move within the Maldini Corporation or he’d look elsewhere. Heading up the corporation’s tourism operations fitted the bill exactly. Marco had delivered on his promise and Dominic had every intention of ensuring the Newcastle Maldini not only met but exceeded Marco’s expectations.

He hadn’t counted on getting foisted with the boss’s daughter, though.

He glanced across at her and his gut tightened. She looked nothing like the plump, dark-haired child from the photograph that sat in pride of place on Marco’s desk. She looked nothing like the woman he’d imagined as he’d sat across from Marco at this very desk countless times in the past six years and listened as the older man had despaired of her. ‘You want Bella to work on the hotel?’ He didn’t try to hide his disbelief and scepticism.

Bella stiffened. Then she leaned towards her father. ‘You haven’t told Dominic about your plans for us to work together before today?’ Her mouth opened and then closed. She swallowed. ‘But you made that decision last week.’

Marco slapped a hand down on his desk. ‘I do things my way, young lady. This is my office and in my office my word is law.’ He stabbed a finger at her. ‘I’ll run my company the way I see fit!’

She sat back. ‘You didn’t tell him because you thought he’d refuse to work with me.’

Marco’s jaw worked but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. To himself, Dominic acknowledged the truth of her accusation. If he’d known about this a week ago, even two days ago, he’d have constructed every argument available against it. And Marco would’ve given way. Marco didn’t want to lose him.

He cleared his throat. ‘Marco, exactly what role do you envisage for Bella at the hotel?’

His employer heaved out a sigh, lifted a hand and let it drop. ‘Bella tells me she can create the restaurant of my dreams. Her expertise will be confined to the kitchens and dining rooms. You, of course, will be in charge of operations.’

He nodded. He hadn’t expected anything less.

‘And you, my girl—’ he turned to Bella ‘—will consult Dominic about everything.’

‘Of course.’

Dominic wasn’t fooled for a moment. Behind that lush mouth and those caramel melt-a-man-to-his-seat eyes, Bella was fickle, capricious and unreliable. Marco had given her countless opportunities to establish herself in a profession, but she had squandered all of them. Her seeming compliance was merely a pleasing façade for Daddy’s benefit. She might fool Marco, but Dominic had no intention of falling under the spell of that butter-wouldn’t-melt smile. He was not his father’s son.

‘She knows nothing about management styles or systems,’ Marco warned him. ‘All she knows is cooking and kitchens, so you’ll need to show her the ropes.’

Marco had to be joking, right? Bella wouldn’t stick to this job any longer than she’d stuck to anything else. Marco might be prepared to waste his time and expertise on someone who wouldn’t appreciate it, but Dominic had no intention of doing so.

He stared at Bella. She met his gaze unflinchingly. He glanced across at Marco, who gazed at Bella with all the love in his generous heart on display and something inside him started to ache. There weren’t too many people Dominic could claim to love, but Marco was one of them. His jaw tightened. He forced it to relax. For Marco’s sake, he owed Bella the benefit of the doubt, at least for the duration of this meeting. ‘Okay.’ He nodded. ‘You think Bella has something of value to offer the hotel?’

Marco straightened. ‘Bella,’ he clipped out. ‘Show us those menus you told me you’ve been slaving over. You said you’d have samples ready for today.’

She hesitated. ‘There’s a slight hitch with that, I’m afraid.’ She crossed her legs and smoothed out her skirt with an aplomb that almost stole Dominic’s breath. ‘I’ve left the menus in the canteen kitchen. I was discussing them with Charlie earlier.’

There was an awkward pause. Dominic schooled his lip not to curl. He doubted the existence of any such menus. The way Marco studiously avoided meeting his eyes told him Marco thought them products of Bella’s imagination, too.

‘I can run down to the canteen now and retrieve them, if you like. Or I can outline them to you verbally.’

While he was tempted to call her bluff, Dominic didn’t want her compounding lie with lie. He didn’t approve of her, but he didn’t want to embarrass Marco either. Marco deserved better than that.

He cleared his throat. Both Bella and Marco turned to him. ‘Why don’t we leave the menus for another day? There’s plenty of time.’ He nodded to the folders Bella held in her lap. ‘Why don’t you tell us what you’ve brought along instead?’ He hoped she had something there that would make Marco proud.

Her tongue snaked out to moisten her lips. Her fingers curled around the folders until her knuckles whitened. Dominic leaned back. The pampered princess didn’t have quite as much aplomb as he’d thought. She was nervous. Maybe he’d done her an injustice. Maybe this meant a lot to her.

‘The folders, Bella,’ he said gently. In his experience, folders meant show and tell. She wouldn’t have brought them along if they didn’t contain something that would show her off to good effect. He’d give her every chance to show off if it’d make Marco happy.

‘These aren’t anything particularly interesting.’

He didn’t trust that shrug. It was too studied.

‘These are simply the files my father sent me about the hotel, along with some information I’ve started to gather about Newcastle.’

She really had nothing? Did she seriously mean to take such blatant advantage of Marco?

‘I take it you’ve read the information your father sent you?’

‘Of course.’ But she didn’t meet his eye as she said it.

He crossed his leg and hoped it hid the sudden fury that coursed through him. ‘Off the top of your head can you tell me the number of staff you will have working under you in the restaurant?’

She moistened her lips. Again. He wanted to feel a savage triumph that he could succeed so easily in unsettling her. Only he was the one who was unsettled—by the beguiling fullness of her bottom lip, the shine there that beckoned to him.

‘I’m afraid I can’t remember that off the top of my head. I’ve only had a chance to scan the documents.’

He allowed his lip to curl a fraction. ‘I see.’ If Marco had made the decision about the hotel a week ago, Bella would’ve had the documents a week ago. He knew Marco.

She swallowed. A faint pink tinged her cheek. Dominic bit back something rude and succinct. ‘Then can you tell me what interesting pieces of information you’ve gleaned about Newcastle in the course of your research?’

Panic raced across her face. ‘I, uh … It’s the second largest city in New South Wales. It’s a coal port and … and its former prosperity came from its large steel works. And, um …’ She blinked rapidly. ‘And it’s known for the beauty of its beaches.’

‘So, in fact, you have nothing more than a general knowledge of the place?’

Her chin shot up at that. ‘I’m working on it.’

Her eyes did strange things to his insides. He hardened his heart. It’d be better for her to disappoint Marco now rather than later on. ‘Can I see your folders?’

‘Why?’

‘Indulge me.’

She glanced at Marco as if hoping he’d step in, but to Marco’s credit he remained silent. With obvious reluctance, she handed them over.

He flicked through the contents of the top folder. As she’d said, it held the information about the hotel. The printed sheets were so tidy it was obvious that they had yet to be disturbed by human hands. He shook his head. No wonder she couldn’t recall staffing numbers; she hadn’t read them to begin with.

The second folder held print-outs, clippings and brochures about Newcastle. At least she hadn’t been lying about that.

The last one …

‘That’s personal. I—’

He pulled out a lingerie catalogue. A lingerie catalogue! He smothered an oath. Marco had to see that Bella just wouldn’t make the grade on this one.

She snatched the catalogue from his hand. ‘A friend has a party-plan company. She asked me to take a look. I had nowhere else to put it.’

He didn’t doubt which reading material she preferred. He handed the folders back.

He found himself combatting a sudden weariness; a feeling of lethargy and emptiness. He tried to shake it off. ‘What qualifications do you have, Bella?’

Her eyes flashed fire. ‘If my father has no qualms in that area, then I don’t see what concern it is of yours.’

‘It’s my concern because I’m going to be ultimately responsible for the hotel’s success. Marco?’

Marco raised a hand and then let it drop. From beside him, he felt Bella flinch. It took all his self-control not to turn back to her.

‘For the last eighteen months my daughter has been working in her uncle’s restaurant.’

‘Were you in charge of its day-to-day management?’

‘On occasion.’

He shook his head and turned back to Marco. ‘This is never going to work. Bella simply doesn’t have the experience necessary for such a senior position.’

‘She’ll be able to pull it off with your help.’

He wanted to turn away from the pleading in Marco’s eyes. He owed the older man a lot, but to be party to Bella’s latest whim? A whim that no doubt would end in Marco’s disappointment and regret. He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Marco said. A sigh heaved out of him. ‘Maybe this is nothing more than an old man’s dream.’

Dominic glanced up. Before his eyes, Marco seemed to age.

‘No!’

Bella leapt to her feet. Dominic couldn’t do this to her. He couldn’t!

Her hands clenched about the folders. She stared at her father. That expression on his face! It reminded her of the time he’d seen her high school graduation results. ‘No Maldini has ever failed high school!’ Oh, that look—it had cut her to the quick. He hadn’t said anything else. He’d turned away. He’d cancelled what was supposed to have been a celebratory dinner. He’d gone out alone.

She couldn’t let him turn away now.

‘Don’t listen to Dominic.’ She slammed her folders down on his desk. ‘On paper I may not have the qualifications, but I have the heart and I have the talent.’ She prayed she had the talent.

She glared at Dominic. ‘How do you rate determination and talent, Dominic?’

He stared up at her. He hadn’t moved. Her heart pounded; she swore both he and her father must hear it.

‘Highly.’

She could tell he didn’t believe it, but …

‘I have both. In quantities that I promise will impress even you.’

He didn’t reply. She glanced at her father and her stomach tightened when she recalled the way his face had frozen when she’d confessed that she’d dropped out of university. He’d barely been able to look at her. It had made something inside her curl up and die.

That wasn’t going to happen now. She wouldn’t let it.

She swung back to Dominic. ‘Before she died, my mother’s dearest wish was that my father would one day create the hotel of his dreams. It was a dream close to both their hearts. It is a dream close to my heart. Papa—’ she swung to him ‘—you know this is true.’