Honeymoon with the Boss

‘I was about to go back in for another swim,’ Imogen said, then hesitated. ‘Why don’t you come?’

It might be better to do something than sit here trying not to look at her, Tom decided. ‘All right,’ he said, getting to his feet.

They walked over the hot sand together and into the water. It was so clear they could see their feet in extraordinary detail as they waded past the shallows.

‘It feels like silk against your skin, doesn’t it?’ said Imogen, trailing her fingers over the surface.

Tom wished she hadn’t mentioned her skin. It was hard enough to keep his eyes off it as it was. As soon as it was deep enough, he dived into the water and swam in a fast crawl out towards the reef.

How long was it since he had stopped like this and just listened to the silence? Just felt the sun on his shoulders? His life was so focused, so driven by the need to succeed, that he had forgotten how to relax the way Imogen was relaxing. But he had the strangest impression that the tight feeling was starting to loosen the more time he spent with her on this idyllic island…

Jessica Hart was born in West Africa, and has suffered from itchy feet ever since, travelling and working around the world in a wide variety of interesting but very lowly jobs, all of which have provided inspiration on which to draw when it comes to the settings and plots of her stories. Now she lives a rather more settled existence in York, where she has been able to pursue her interest in history, although she still yearns sometimes for wider horizons. If you’d like to know more about Jessica, visit her website www.jessicahart.co.uk

BY

JESSICA HART

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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This one is for Julia, who was there at the start

CHAPTER ONE

‘WHERE would you like to go on honeymoon?’

Imogen paused in surprise, her arm still extended in the act of handing her boss a folder of letters across the desk. ‘Honeymoon?’ she repeated cautiously, wondering if she had heard correctly.

It was unlike Tom Maddison to ask personal questions, let alone one so unexpected. Sometimes on a Monday morning he remembered to ask her if she had had a good weekend, but never as if he cared about the answer and she always said ‘Yes, thank you’ in reply, even if it had been a disaster—as, frankly, it often was.

‘Yes, honeymoon,’ said Tom with an edge of impatience. He took the folder and opened it. ‘You know, after you get married.’

‘Er…I’m not getting married,’ said Imogen.

Chance would be a fine thing, she thought wryly. All her friends seemed to be settling down, but she was obviously doomed to remain single— and it wasn’t for lack of trying, whatever her best friend, Amanda, might say. Ever since Andrew had announced his engagement, she had thrown herself into the dating game, but no matter how promising her date seemed at first, Imogen always ended up making an excuse to leave early.

‘Pretend that you are,’ said Tom, skimming the first letter and scrawling his signature at the bottom before looking up at her with the piercingly light eyes that always reminded Imogen of stainless steel, so cool and unyielding were they.

He put down his pen. ‘You’re a woman,’ he said, as if noticing the fact for the first time, which it probably was, Imogen thought. She was resigned now to the fact that, as far as Tom Maddison was concerned, she was little more than a walking, talking piece of office equipment.

‘I have it on good authority that most women start planning their dream weddings when they’re about six,’ he said, ‘so you must have given it some thought.’

‘That’s true, but at six you’re only interested in pretty dresses,’ Imogen pointed out. ‘You’re not that concerned about the groom at that stage, let alone the honeymoon.’

Tom frowned as he pulled the next letter towards him. ‘So you haven’t thought about it since then?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that,’ she admitted scrupulously, ‘but my fantasies have never gone beyond getting married. Sadly, I’ve never been in a position where there’s any point in planning a honeymoon.’

‘You are now.’ Tom cast a cursory glance over the letter and signed it before reaching for the next one.

‘Pardon?’

‘I want you to plan a honeymoon,’ he said, his pen moving briskly over the paper.

‘But…who for?’

‘For me,’ said Tom, as if it were obvious.

‘For you?’

Imogen stared at him. She shouldn’t be surprised, she realised. Tom Maddison was thirty-six, single, straight and very, very rich. Why wouldn’t he get married?

It wasn’t as if he was unattractive, either. You couldn’t call him handsome exactly, but he was tall and powerfully built and attractive in a way she couldn’t quite explain. His stern face was dominated by a strong nose and those strange light eyes under formidable brows. So, no, he wasn’t handsome. And yet…

And yet there was something about the line of his mouth that made the breath stick in her throat sometimes, something about the big, square, capable hands and the angle of his cheek and jaw that prickled excitingly under her skin and sent a little shiver snaking down her spine.

Offset against that was the fact that she had worked for Tom Maddison for six months without any indication that he had any emotions at all. Not once had he mentioned his personal life. It was only thanks to her friend Sue in Human Resources that Imogen even knew that he was single.

She knew all about his professional reputation, though. In the City, they called him the Iceman. He was famous for the chilly precision of his negotiations and his cold-blooded approach to the failing companies that he was brought in to turn around. She knew Tom had been in New York for a number of years, transforming the fortunes of a succession of firms familiar from the Dow-Jones Index, and that he had been lured back to London at a reputedly gigantic salary to be CEO of Collocom, which had been struggling in the competitive communications market.

But really, that was all she knew. Imogen had never met anyone so driven and focused. It was like working for a machine.

Maybe that wasn’t quite fair, she amended mentally. He was too brusque and impatient to be a machine. He was tough, even ruthless, but he was absolutely straight too. Tom Maddison wasn’t a man who played games, and she admired that. With Tom, what you saw was what you got.

Except now it turned out that there was another side to him.

‘You’re getting married?’ she asked him, just in case she had misunderstood. It was hard to imagine Tom unbending enough to even smile at a woman, let alone ask her to marry him. He must have had a conversation about something other than work. Amazing.

‘Didn’t I tell you?’

‘No,’ she said with careful restraint, ‘you didn’t.’

She was only his temporary PA, but he might have told her, she thought. Subsiding onto the chair, Imogen studied him across the desk as he scanned another letter and wondered what his fiancée was like.

Thin, no doubt. And probably beautiful, she decided glumly.

Funny how men with millions to squander never chose to spend them on average-looking girls who could do with losing a few pounds, wasn’t it?

‘Well…congratulations!’ she said brightly. ‘When did all this happen?’

‘At New Year.’ Tom looked uncomfortable with the personal turn of the conversation.

‘When you were in New York?’ Imogen asked, surprised. He had certainly gone on his own—she knew because she had booked his ticket—and he didn’t seem the type to spend a romantic weekend with a stranger, let alone rush into marriage.

‘I’ve known Julia for nearly a year,’ said Tom, as if reading her mind. He signed the last letter and sat turning the pen between his fingers with a brooding expression, giving a very bad impression of a besotted lover. ‘But we didn’t get together until just before I came back to London four months ago.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’

‘There didn’t seem to be any need. We weren’t going to get married until next year. Julia is a financial analyst, and she obviously has to sort out what’s going to happen about her job if she moves over here, so I thought we had plenty of time.’

‘Oh.’ Imogen wasn’t sure what else to say. It certainly didn’t sound like a mad, passionate love affair, but perhaps Tom was different behind closed doors.

With a mouth like that, it would be a shame if he wasn’t.

‘So when are you getting married?’ she asked after a moment.

‘In six weeks.’

‘Six weeks!’ Maybe it was a mad, passionate affair after all! ‘Gosh, that’s not long.’

‘I know.’

Tom could hear the glumness in his own voice, and pulled himself up. He ought to be sounding more enthusiastic at the prospect. After all, getting married had been his idea.

It had made perfect sense at the time. Julia was a high-flyer, like him. She was beautiful, intelligent, successful. Independent. To Tom, she had seemed everything he wanted in a woman. Their relationship had been mutually satisfying, with neither making any demands on the other, and Tom couldn’t imagine ever meeting anyone who would fit into his life with so little effort.

But that was before he had asked her to marry him and wedding fever had gripped her, transforming her in an instant from a cool, competent businesswoman into a neurotic fiancée, obsessed with dresses and guest lists and flowers and fuss. It was all very alarming, and Tom just hoped that once the wedding was over, Julia would revert to normal.

‘Julia has set her heart on getting married at Stavely Castle,’ he told Imogen, who was obviously wondering what the rush was. ‘We just assumed it would be a year before we could book it, but it turns out that they’ve had a last-minute cancellation, so Julia jumped at the opportunity.’

That cancellation had thrown out all Tom’s calculations. He had planned his proposal with care, just as he planned everything. He preferred his life under strict control. He didn’t do spontaneous. So he had thought it all out, weighed up the advantages and disadvantages and prepared exactly what he would say to Julia. He had expected her to say yes, and she had.

What he hadn’t expected was her excitement. He had assumed that they could carry on much as before for a while, with Julia’s job in Manhattan and his work in London. There was no hurry. They could have a year or so to get used to being engaged and plan the perfect wedding with precision.

But Julia had thrown his plans into disarray. She had thrown herself into planning the wedding with alarming enthusiasm, her ideas becoming more and more extravagant by the day, and once she had heard that the castle would be available so soon, there was no stopping her.

Tom couldn’t understand it at all. He had thought that Julia shared his pragmatic attitude to marriage. She had certainly seemed to agree that they could have a successful relationship based on mutual respect, admiration and attraction. It wasn’t as if she was a silly, romantic girl expecting him to start gushing about love and all that hearts and flowers stuff. Which just made her enthusiasm for the wedding all the more baffling.

‘It’s all very exciting,’ said Imogen encouragingly.

‘Yes,’ Tom agreed, but he knew that he didn’t sound very excited. It was all right for Imogen. Her life hadn’t been thrown into disorder.

‘Julia is coming over next week to start planning the wedding,’ he told her. ‘She’ll be dividing her time between here and NewYork, so she may need your help arranging things.’

‘Of course,’ said Imogen. ‘Whatever I can do to help.’

‘You can sort out this honeymoon business for a start,’ said Tom, flicking open a file, evidently having had enough personal interaction. ‘Julia’s dealing with the wedding, but she tells me it’s up to me to organise the honeymoon.’

‘It’s traditional for the groom to do that,’ Imogen agreed, wondering a little at the undercurrent of irritation in his voice. Poor Julia. She wondered if his fiancée had any idea of just how unexcited Tom was about his wedding.

‘I don’t know anything about honeymoons,’ he was grumbling.

‘It’s not that hard,’ said Imogen with just a hint of asperity. ‘It’s just a holiday. You’ll want a chance to relax after the wedding, so all you need to do is find somewhere romantic where you can be alone.’

Tom frowned. ‘What do you mean by romantic?’

Imogen only just stopped herself from rolling her eyes in time. ‘That depends on you. Everyone’s got a different idea of what’s romantic. What does romance mean to you?’

‘It’s no use asking me,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘I haven’t got a clue.’

Well, there was a surprise!

Imogen sighed. ‘Just choose somewhere relaxing, in that case.’

‘It’s got to be “special”.’ Tom used his fingers to put hooks around the word, barely able to contain his discomfort with the idea. ‘I can’t just book it as if it were a normal holiday. Julia is obviously expecting me to arrange something fabulous.’

‘I expect she is.’

‘I haven’t got time to research fabulous holidays,’ Tom objected.

He studied Imogen with critical grey eyes. When he had first arrived at Collocom Imogen had been assigned as his temporary assistant until he appointed a PA of his own.

At first sight, he hadn’t been impressed, Tom had to admit. She was younger and infinitely more casual than any secretary he had had before, and she had no experience of working at a senior executive level. As far as Tom could work out, she had drifted into secretarial work and was utterly lacking in ambition. It was symptomatic of the failing firm that the best assistance they could offer their new Chief Executive was a temp whose only relevant experience was a two-week assignment in Human Resources, he had thought disapprovingly.

With that wayward brown hair and relaxed approach to the dress code, Imogen always seemed faintly messy to Tom. Her desk was an absolute disgrace, for instance, and in spite of her temporary status she appeared to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of every member of staff’s social life. If Tom hadn’t had his hands full taking over the reins of a company whose shares were plummeting in value on a daily basis, he would have insisted on a more professional PA, but stopping the slide and turning Collocom round was his priority for now.

When he had the time, he would be looking to appoint someone qualified and experienced who would act as a professional PA but, in the meantime, Imogen had proved to be surprisingly competent. Tom might wish that she looked a little sleeker, a little crisper, but she was a more than adequate substitute in most things, so he had postponed the decision about replacing her for now. Her image might be unprofessional, but she got the job done, and for Tom that was what mattered most.

‘You’re a sensible woman,’ he told her. ‘I’m prepared to go on your recommendation.’

Sensible? It wasn’t exactly a compliment to make the heart beat faster, was it? thought Imogen, disgruntled. Why couldn’t he think of her as glamorous, or mysterious, or sexy, or exciting? Anything but sensible!

Still, it would amuse Amanda, who was always telling her how very un-sensible she was when it came to men.

Tom Maddison might look like the kind of man you yearned to sweep you off your feet, but a girl wanted a little romance. A man who thought sensible was a compliment and was clearly baffled by the idea of a romantic holiday wouldn’t be that much fun to be with in reality, no matter how toe-curling his mouth, or spine-shivering his hands.

No, some men were better in your fantasies than in real life. In her fantasies, Tom had slowly unbuttoned her blouse and pressed hot kisses to her throat. He had pressed her up against a door and reduced her to a puddle of lust with the merest graze of his fingers. My God, but you’re beautiful! he had cried as he’d thrown her across the bed.

Not once in her fantasies had he told her she was a sensible woman!

It would serve Tom Maddison right if she recommended a B&B in Skegness as the perfect honeymoon destination for sensible people! Not that she could do that to the unknown Julia, who obviously had a lot to put up with from her fiancé. Imogen was beginning to really feel for the poor woman.

‘I did read about a lovely place the other day,’ she told Tom.

It had been a fairly typical evening in the flat; Imogen lay on the sofa, flicking through magazines while Amanda painted her nails, both of them bemoaning their lack of a glamorous social life while secretly relieved that neither of them had to miss the latest episode of Eastenders. Imogen had seen the piece about the ultimate romantic getaways and shown it to Amanda, who had sighed enviously and nearly passed out when she saw how much it cost.

‘It was terribly expensive, though.’ Imogen felt she should warn Tom.

He waved a dismissive hand, as if nothing were too much to pay to save him from having to think about a romantic destination for himself.

It probably wasn’t, thought Imogen. She didn’t deal with his personal finances, but it was common knowledge that Tom Maddison was worth millions. It wasn’t as if he ever spent any of them, either. All he seemed to do was work. She never booked fancy restaurants or theatre tickets or arranged for him to fly in private jets or cruise in luxury yachts.

He went to New York occasionally, but Imogen had always assumed that was for work. She had obviously been wrong about that. Perhaps Tom lavished jewels and expensive gifts on Julia? Imogen couldn’t imagine it, but she might be wrong about that too.

‘If money is no object, Coconut Island was described as the ultimate place for a romantic getaway,’ she said. ‘It’s tiny, with just one incredibly stylish house and a little jetty, and you can hire the whole island just for yourself. There’s a luxury hotel on a bigger island nearby, and they send someone over on a boat every day to service the house and stock the fridge with fabulous food. They’ll stay and cook for you if you want, but most people there are honeymooners, and they just want to be on their own.

‘I saw a picture of it in this magazine,’ Imogen went on, remembering. ‘It looked absolutely fabulous! There was this perfect turquoise lagoon with a white sand beach and a hammock under the coconut palms…’

Clutching the pile of papers she still held to her chest, she sighed dreamily at the memory of that picture. ‘Honestly, it was paradise! I’d love to go somewhere like that, where there’s nothing to do all day but laze and swim and read and…’

About to say make love, she trailed off awkwardly, wondering if that might be getting a bit intimate, given that her exchanges with Tom had so far been limited entirely to business matters. He wasn’t the kind of boss you could chat to about sex.

‘…and…er…well, you know…’ she finished uncomfortably.

Tom lifted an eyebrow at Imogen’s blush. ‘I know,’ he agreed in a dry voice and, for the first time ever, she could swear she caught a glint of amusement in the cool grey eyes. It changed his expression in a quite startling way, and Imogen felt her pulse give an odd little kick.

It was amazing what a difference a glimpse of humour made, she reflected. If she had seen that look before, her fantasies might have been a lot more dangerous! Just as well he was safely engaged now.

The next moment, though, he had reverted to type. ‘It sounds fine,’ he said briskly. ‘Book it for me.’

Imogen hesitated. This was his honeymoon they were talking about. ‘Wouldn’t you rather do it yourself?’

‘No,’ said Tom with emphasis, ‘I’d rather get on with some work.’

‘But a honeymoon is such a personal thing,’ she protested.

‘Yes, and you’re my personal assistant,’ he pointed out. ‘That means you assist me personally, so I suggest that’s what you do. Now, the wedding is on…’

To Imogen’s amazement, he actually consulted his computer about a date that ought to be engraved on his heart. ‘Ah, yes, twenty-seventh of February. Julia is talking about having it at some castle in Gloucestershire, but we can get to Heathrow easily enough from there, so book a flight that night.

‘I don’t want to know about how much everything costs,’ he added as Imogen opened her mouth. ‘I can’t be bothered with the details. Just book whatever you think and charge it to my account.’

‘Very well,’ said Imogen, the perfect PA once more. ‘If that’s what you want.’

‘What I want,’ said Tom grouchily, ‘is not to be distracted. We’ve got an important contract to negotiate before I can get married, so let’s get on with that.’

‘And I’ve booked the honeymoon for you,’ Imogen finished after handing Tom the last message. He had been out of the office in meetings all day, and the phone had been ringing constantly.

‘Good, good,’ said Tom absently, flicking through the messages. He was still wearing his overcoat, and his shoulders still glistened with raindrops in the harsh overhead light.

‘Don’t you want the details?’

He frowned. ‘I suppose I’d better have them,’ he decided. ‘Julia might ask what I’ve arranged. Can you put it all in a file for me?’

‘I’ve got it here.’ Imogen handed the file over the desk. ‘I do hope you’ll enjoy it,’ she said. ‘I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be, especially with the weather the way it is at the moment,’ she added, nodding to where the January rain was still splattering against the window.

Tom only grunted as he opened the file and scanned the arrangements that she had typed up. His ferocious brows rose at the cost, Imogen noticed, but to her relief he made no comment. What would it be like to barely blink at spending a hefty five-figure sum on a holiday?

He turned to the next page. ‘Leaving on the twenty-seventh…’ his voice sharpened ‘…back on the nineteenth of March?’

‘You told me to book whatever I thought would be most appropriate,’ she reminded him.

‘I can’t believe you thought it would be appropriate for me to be away from the office for three weeks!’

Imogen refused to quail. ‘It’s your honeymoon,’ she said. ‘It’s a special time. It’s important to get your marriage off to the right start if you can afford it, as you obviously can.’

‘I’m not talking about money,’ he said impatiently. ‘It’s time I can’t afford.’

‘I’m not talking about money either,’ said Imogen. ‘Collocom isn’t going to fall apart if you’re not here for three weeks, so you can afford the time. It’s a question of priorities. What matters more, Collocom or your marriage?’

Tom eyed his PA with something close to dislike. He knew how he was supposed to reply to that!

He thought wistfully of the days when he and Julia had had a successful long-distance relationship. Their weekends in New York had been mutually satisfying. Julia had her own busy life, and respected his space. He hadn’t been expected then to think about all this emotional stuff, or to reassess his priorities.