“You’re turning out to be such a good little secretary. I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but a guy can get tired of beautiful girls sticking the wrong files in the cabinets and typing at a snail’s pace.”

Tessa was in no mood to indulge him. From what she had seen, he was far too indulged already. He had been indulged at birth, by being blessed with staggering good looks, and from that it had probably only been a matter of time before self-assurance and charm stepped into the equation. Add a brilliant mind and the world, she reckoned, had probably been his oyster from when he was a toddler. “Will that be all?”

“You’ve gone prune mouthed on me again. Like a schoolteacher inspecting a particularly offensive student.”

“If you don’t like my demeanor, then perhaps you’d like me to go?”

“Now you’re offended.” He swept out of the chair and was standing by her before she had time to beat a tactical retreat. His voice was gushingly solicitous. “And I like your demeanor!” He placed his hands on her shoulders and Tessa felt a peculiar surge of heat race through her, sending her heart into furious overdrive.

The Billionaire Boss’s Bride
Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

THIS, the first day of Tessa Wilson’s new job, was not proving to be a very good day. She stood at the reception desk in the foyer of the avant-garde glasshouse that housed the computer software group for whom she was now working on a super, quite unbelievably bumper salary, and frowned at the chap smiling at her. His badge said that he was called George Grafton and he looked like a George. Plump, balding, comfortable. Tessa’s first job had been with a George. They could have been brothers.

‘What do you mean you saw them all leaving the building this morning?’ Tessa looked at her watch. It was a sensible Casio watch. No frills, no calendar indicating day, month and year, no option to see what time it was in all major cities across the world or to time herself should she spontaneously decide to do a spot of exercise. It was as practical as she was. Practical, diligent and punctual.

‘And it’s eight-thirty in the morning! Surely…’

‘You’d think so.’ The man at Reception nodded sagely, reading her mind. ‘Most people are buzzing in to start the week, but…’ He raised his shoulders in an expressive gesture of incomprehension.

Tessa glanced around. Yes, people were pouring into the squat five-storeyed building, which was cunningly designed like Lego bricks surrounding an inner courtyard with benches and eating areas on most of the ground floor. Busy, industrious people who worked for the other companies there. Meanwhile, she was to believe that everyone working for the Diaz Hiscock group had mysteriously decided to take a day off for no apparent reason. It didn’t make sense. She wondered nervously whether this was some sort of test, some kind of trick initiation procedure that she was required to get through.

‘I’m sorry. This is my first day here. Look. See for yourself.’ She pulled out her letter of employment and pointed to the date she was supposed to commence work.

‘Yep. You’ve come on the right day, all right.’ Now the man was looking sympathetic, as though she were the recipient of some brutally bad news. ‘Can’t explain it. I mean, you can go up to the floor and have a look for yourself, but I was here at six and they were streaming out of the building.’

‘Maybe they all went out for breakfast,’ Tessa said hopefully. That, in itself, was a ludicrous notion. What sort of company operated along the lines of mass desertion at the start of a busy working day, by employees who needed to have breakfast when they surely would have only just arrived?

‘Third floor.’ He nodded over to where three lifts were furiously trying to deliver employees to their various destinations and reached to answer the telephone.

Tessa dubiously looked at the suited crowd and wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt. She had been full of enthusiasm when she had got out of bed at seven. A little nervous, sure, but she was an experienced PA and confident that she could handle whatever was thrown at her.

Now she wasn’t too sure. Now, it occurred to her that the whole interviewing process had been a little on the odd side.

Yes, Diaz Hiscock was a family company, a small but successful and powerful family company, but hadn’t it been a little strange that her interview for the job had been with the boss’s mother? And conducted in the elegant sitting room of a house, over scones and tea? Six weeks ago, Tessa had found it very charming and such a blessed relief from the frantic pace of her old firm. Now she just wondered whether she was dealing with lunatics and had made a fatal error in jacking in her ordinary but perfectly secure job working for an accountancy firm.

‘I suppose I’d better… Well!’ She neatly folded up her letter and stuffed it back into her handbag. ‘Thanks for your help!’ She extended one polite hand and smiled. ‘And I guess I’ll be seeing you around!’

‘If not in ten minutes!’ He grinned with his hand over the receiver and she smiled weakly back.

‘Ha, ha.’ If that was meant to sound reassuring then she sincerely hoped that George never decided to go into counselling.

Her face was burning as she waited by the lift, sneaking in when the doors opened and maintaining zero eye contact with anyone else in it, focusing one hundred per cent on the gradual ascent of the lift to the third floor. She wondered whether there would be a roar of laughter behind her when she stepped out onto the third floor, whether they all knew that floor three was vacant.

Roar of laughter, no. Vacant floor, yes. Just as George had predicted. It wasn’t a huge office. Reception desk, empty. Tastefully arranged desks with occasional partitions filled the space behind the reception desk. All empty. And as Tessa made her way along the corridor, her feet making no sound as they sunk into the thick pile coffee-coloured carpet, she could feel her heart sinking. Offices to the left and the right, empty. Spacious offices, some with several plasma-screen computer terminals, offices that emanated financial well being, all deserted. The lighting wasn’t on and the bleak winter sunshine struggled to make its way through the glass and into the uninhabited office.

She felt like an intruder, but she switched the lights on and they buzzed into fluorescent life. Why the outer door hadn’t been locked, she had no idea. Anyone could enter, provided they could get past George. She cleared her throat, meaningfully and noisily, and ventured a tentative, ‘Hello.’

The silence that greeted this was deafening.

‘You’ll find my son a very interesting man to work for,’ Mrs Diaz had assured her, sitting back in her high-backed chair and folding her hands elegantly on her lap.

By interesting Tessa had assumed willing to give her responsibility. That had been one of the downsides of her last job. She’d done a lot and she’d been respected for what she’d done, but the chances to broaden her horizons hadn’t been there. She had heard the adjective interesting and been immediately captivated by the prospects it had promised.

Well, day one was proving to be very interesting indeed, if you could call walking around in a ghost office, wearing a suit, interesting.

‘Poor Curtis hasn’t had much luck with secretaries ever since Nancy quit to live in Australia with her husband.’ Mrs Diaz had shaken her head sorrowfully while Tessa had waited for her to expand. Somehow Mrs Diaz was not the sort of lady to interrupt with a barrage of questions. ‘He’s had a series of doodle heads, little glamour pusses fluttering around and batting their eyelashes. Quite, quite unsuitable for the job of working for my son.’

From the looks of it, anyone would have been quite, quite unsuitable for working for a man who shut up shop at six on a Monday morning, when his new secretary was supposed to arrive that day.

Tessa reluctantly proceeded down the corridor, glancing into the various rooms, increasingly aware that she wasn’t going to find any signs of life. It left her in the awkward position of either leaving and risking not being around if everyone in the office reappeared as mysteriously as they seemed to have vanished, or else sitting around in ghost town central twiddling her thumbs until her official going home time of five-thirty.

She was frantically trying to rack up the pros and cons afforded by going or staying when she heard it. A sound. Coming from the office at the very end of the corridor. She picked up speed and walked towards the noise, making sure to check all offices en route just in case.

The plaque on the door indicated Curtis Diaz’s office. It was slightly ajar. She pushed it open, stepped through into a smaller outside room, through which was a much bigger office, and this time the winter sun was making no headway because thick cream velvet curtains were resolutely closed across the sprawling bank of windows.

Tessa’s eyes adjusted to the gloom and she immediately saw the reason for the closed curtains.

Stretched out on a sofa against one side of the wall was a man, lying flat on his back, one arm flung behind him, the other resting contentedly on his stomach. The soft noise that had drawn her attention was simply the sound of his intermittent snoring. In the middle of her appalled inspection, the man cleared his throat and turned onto his side, scaring her witless in the process.

He was wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved rugby-style shirt. Tessa tiptoed towards him and the view expanded into a swarthy face with a hint of stubble darkening his chin. Rumpled black hair completed the picture. Tessa stared, heart thumping, calming herself with the knowledge that at least she wasn’t in the building alone. She might have stepped into the twilight zone on the third floor, but all the other floors were teeming with people and good old George was only a phone call away.

She stepped briskly past the inert figure on the couch, reached for the cord by the wall and pulled.

‘Okay, buster! Who are you and what are you doing in this office?’

The man struggled awake, groaning, and then subsided back, this time with one of the cushions covering his face.

Tessa walked towards him, gazed at the rumpled sight with distaste, and yanked the cushion straight out from beneath his arm, and this time it worked. Gratified, she watched as the bum blearily hoisted himself into a semi-sitting position and focused on where she was standing with her hands pinned to her hips and her mouth narrowed into a line of uncompromising severity.

‘I don’t know how you got into this office, buddy…’ Of course she knew! Hadn’t it been wide open to whoever might choose to enter? Hadn’t she herself wondered at the utter lack of basic security? ‘But you can get right out! This isn’t a doss house for any passing vagrant who decides to come in for a quick kip!’

‘Wha…?’

‘Oh, yes, you heard me!’ Tessa could feel herself well and truly on a roll now. First, she had showed up, on time and dressed in a spanking new suit, ready to make a good impression on day one, only to find herself wandering through an empty office like a fool, and as if that wasn’t enough here she was, confronted by a supine figure snoring away merrily, probably sleeping off a hangover from whatever bottle of methylated spirits he had downed the night before outside the building.

‘Look at you!’ she snapped, leaning forward and wrinkling her nose as the apparition pushed himself into a more upright sitting position so that he could look at her in perplexed astonishment. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’

‘I should?’

‘You most certainly should! An able-bodied young man like yourself, sneaking into an unoccupied office and just going to sleep! Don’t tell me you can’t get out there and find yourself a job!’ The able-bodied young man was staring at her in a way that was beginning to make her feel very self-conscious. He was also, now that she could see him properly, an extremely good looking specimen, underneath the scruffy demeanour. His face was darkly handsome, in a tough, rugged sort of way, a compelling face that made her breath catch in her throat for a second or two. Tessa got a grip of herself and glared.

‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to report you,’ she said quietly, while narrowed blue eyes began to gleam with amusement. ‘And you won’t find that very funny! Have your fun and grin away, but when the police come and you’re thrown into some cell downtown, you won’t be grinning!’

‘Cell downtown?’ He couldn’t help himself. His lips twitched and he grinned with wicked amusement. ‘This isn’t New York, this is London. I think you’ve been watching too many American police shows.’ He raked his fingers through his hair and reluctantly stood up.

Disconcerted, Tessa took a couple of steps backwards. The man, who was now massaging the back of his neck with his hand and glancing round the office in an offhand way, was very tall. Very tall, with a solid muscularity that was a bit alarming.

‘Maybe I have,’ she said placatingly. She watched warily as the man ambled over to the window and peered out.

‘What time is it, anyway?’

‘A little after half past eight.’

That met with a grunt. ‘No wonder I feel like something the cat brought in,’ he muttered, swinging round to face her.

‘I’m going to have to call George…’ Tessa began. He had made her feel like a melodramatic idiot for having mentioned police and cells. George would have to deal with this. It wasn’t part of her job—secretary and makeshift security guard for premises that should have been locked in the first place.

‘Who are you, anyway?’

‘Who am I?’ Tessa regarded the man with amazement. ‘Let’s just say that I’m the person who found you comatose on a sofa, trespassing, from all accounts.’

‘Yes, but do you have a name?’ He plonked himself down on the leather swivel chair at the desk and she gaped incredulously at the sheer nerve. ‘Oh, God. No. Skip that question. It’s coming to me now. I know who you are.’ He pushed the chair back just far enough to enable him to stretch his legs out onto the desk, then he folded his hands behind his head and proceeded to look at her with a highly amused, alert expression.

‘Do you? You mean you’re a trespasser as well as being a clairvoyant? I’m impressed! I’m not too sure whether George will be—’

‘You’re Miss Wilson.’ He grinned but with the ground rapidly shifting underneath her feet, grinning back was the last thing Tessa felt inclined to do. ‘Have a seat. Really. You look as though you might just fall down if you don’t.’

‘I think I need to call George…’ she said uncertainly, sitting down.

‘You don’t. Well, you can if you really feel you need to, but believe me, that’ll just lead to embarrassment. Yours. Look, let me put you out of your misery and introduce myself…’ He stood up, all formality now, even though the impression was hijacked by the casualness of his clothes. ‘I’m Curtis Diaz.’ He stretched out his hand and smiled with sickening kindness.

‘You…you can’t be…’ Tessa ignored the outstretched hand and grasped the handbag on her lap tightly.

Well, she had been bored with the monotonous tedium of her last job! What better antidote than to be thrust into a surreal world where she didn’t have a clue as to what was going on?

‘Why not?’

‘Because…’

‘I know.’ He looked ruefully down at himself and shook his head. ‘Code of dress, right? Powerful men who run powerful companies dress in pinstriped suits and ties, always carefully knotted at the neck.’

Tongue-tied and mortified, Tessa stared back at him, her mouth half open and a delicate bloom of colour rising up her cheeks. She wasn’t fashioned to deal with situations like these. Above all things, Tessa Wilson liked to be in control. Time and time again she had seen people passively and helplessly steamrollered by events. It happened in their jobs, it happened with their love lives. She often wondered what would have happened to her and Lucy if she had been like all those people who never seemed to cater for the unforeseen.

The unforeseen had happened with her and she had dealt with it, and had continued dealing with life by reining it in. She liked to know where she was going and how she was going to get there because working things out, knowing where she stood, made her feel safe.

She also resented the fact that he was laughing at her.

‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she said stiffly. Her body was ramrod straight in the chair.

‘And I apologise. Profusely.’ He levered himself back into his chair and reclined back. ‘Allow me to explain. My team and I have just completed a weekend of virtual solid work, thrashing a deal out with one of our suppliers and then finalising the nitty-gritty with the lawyers. We didn’t finish until the early hours of the morning at which point I decided to let them all go home and catch up on some well-deserved rest.’

So this was what his mother had meant by interesting, Tessa thought dazedly. When she had used that word, Tessa had tied it up in her head with the job and not the man. The man, she was slowly realising, was nothing like she had expected. She had expected someone a bit like Mrs Diaz. Sophisticated, very English and probably fair haired. The man staring at her, waiting for her to digest his information, couldn’t have been further from her expectations. Restless, passionate energy vibrated out of him in waves and the only bit of him that resembled his mother were his eyes, which were as blue and as piercing, except a lot more dramatic against his olive colouring and dark, springy hair.

‘Right. Well, I wish you had telephoned me to explain that my services wouldn’t be required today…’

‘Never occurred to me,’ Curtis informed her truthfully. He idly switched on one of the two computer terminals on his desk and it buzzed into life with a faint humming sound.

Poor woman, he thought, glancing across at the rigid pink-faced figure sitting opposite him. He really should have stood firm and recruited his own secretary, but he loved his mother dearly and giving in had eventually seemed preferable to staging a protracted war. Mothers liked to think they knew best and his mother was no exception to the rule. She had stared at him gimlet-eyed and told him in no uncertain terms that hiring floozies, as she had called them, was a waste of company money.

‘But they look good,’ he had protested, thinking back to the last one, a red-haired, buxom wench who had worn delightful handkerchiefs, which she had loosely claimed were miniskirts.

‘Which is hardly a satisfactory recommendation when it comes to being a secretary.’

The tirade had gone on and on until he had thrown up his hands in resignation and left it to her to sort out.

Unfortunately, looking at the Tessa character now, he could immediately see the downsides of his mother’s well-intentioned but misguided rationale.

The poor girl looked as though she had suddenly found herself wandering in the vicinity of hell without any map giving her the quickest route back to normality. He sighed under his breath and raked his fingers through his hair.

‘Look, Miss Wilson…now that you’re here, maybe we should go and grab some breakfast, have a bit of a chat…’

‘Some breakfast…?’

‘That’s right,’ Curtis said, curbing his irritation, ‘I haven’t eaten since yesterday…some time…’ He stood up and stretched, eyeing her out of the corner of his eye, which only confirmed his opinion that she was not going to be suitable for the job.

‘I’m hungry,’ he told her bluntly, throwing on his overcoat. ‘I need something to eat and dried-up slices of pizza in the bin just isn’t going to do it for me. And we need to have a little talk.’

Tessa scrambled to her feet and hurried after him as he headed out of his office. It took quite some running. High-heeled shoes might look the part but when it came to scurrying after someone who walked at a pace that most people ran, they weren’t exactly practical. She nearly careered into him when he finally came to a dead stop by the lift.

‘So,’ he began conversationally, noticing the way she had edged away from him in the confines of the lift, back pressed against the side as though her life depended on it, ‘it must have been a bit of a shock when you came to work this morning and found the offices empty…?’

‘I was a little surprised.’

‘Hmm. A little surprised. Diplomatic choice of words.’

‘George at Reception had warned me that he had witnessed a mass exodus earlier in the morning, but, naturally, I thought that he might have exaggerated a bit. I…well, I wasn’t prepared for…’

‘A scene from a late-night horror movie?’ The lift doors disgorged them back into the expansive waiting area where George was still in attendance. He winked at her and exchanged a large grin with Curtis.

‘So you managed to find one still alive and kicking, then?’

‘Don’t tease her, George. She’s had a very stressful day so far.’

The banter made Tessa feel suddenly foolish and sidelined and the unfortunate butt of some ongoing joke at her expense. ‘I wouldn’t say stressful,’ she retorted, ‘just a little disorienting.’

She felt the warm pressure of his fingers on her elbow as he led her towards the revolving door and heard the deep throb of his laughter, which brought on an attack of un-warranted confusion.

‘Okay. Disorienting. Are you going to be warm enough out here with just a suit? The café’s not far but it’s still a walk…’

‘I’m fine.’ She resisted the temptation to add that she would have brought her coat if she had foreseen a day that involved walking. But, on day one, she had decided to treat herself to a taxi both ways and had not envisaged needing anything heavier than her cream-and-black-flecked woollen suit.

‘I don’t suppose your last job involved too many episodes of disorientation?’

‘Most jobs don’t.’ Their destination was within sight. Literally a good, old-fashioned café with no trimmings. It was heaving, with an eclectic mix of suited businessmen, rough-and-ready workmen, taxi drivers and women who looked as though they had spent the night on the tiles and were on their way home. Most, though, were taking their breakfasts away with them and it was a relief to be out of the cold and in the warmth.

‘Do you come here often?’ Tessa heard herself ask inanely.

‘Does a good breakfast. Now, what will you have?’ He positioned her at one of the tables and narrowed his eyes to read the blackboard with the specials, which was behind her.

‘Coffee.’

‘Right. Wait here.’ Within ten minutes he was back carrying a tray on which were two steaming mugs of coffee and a plate mountainously piled with bacon, egg, black pudding and what looked suspiciously like fried bread.

Oh, your arteries are really going to thank you for that injection of cholesterol, she was tempted to say.

‘Don’t even think of saying what’s going through your head.’

‘I wasn’t thinking anything!’

‘Tell me about your last job,’ was all he replied, leaving her to wonder uncomfortably how he had managed to read her mind.

‘I told your mother…well, it’s all there on my CV.’ Comprehension filtered through. ‘But I guess you didn’t read my CV.’

‘I left the finer details of your employment to my mother. Your last job?’

Tessa sipped her coffee, which was surprisingly aromatic. ‘I worked for a firm of accountants. Not one of the top three, but one of the bigger ones, doing all the usual stuff. I’m fully computer literate and can handle pretty much anything from spreadsheets to invoicing.’ Silence followed that, interrupted only by his eating. ‘I’ve also arranged training courses, overseen meetings, in short done everything a PA is trained to do.’

Curtis washed down the last of his breakfast with a generous mouthful of coffee, then sat back in his chair and looked at her assessingly.

‘And you enjoyed it, did you?’

‘Well, yes, of course. I was there for a number of years—’

‘Why the change of job, in that case?’

Gone was the light-hearted, unconventional man who had confronted her at eight-thirty that morning. In its place was someone shrewd and forthright and very focused.

‘It wasn’t going anywhere.’ Tessa flinched away from that disconcerting blue gaze. ‘I felt that I needed to expand my horizons and, in a company like that, it’s only possible if you’re one of the professionals.’

‘But you liked working there, aside from the obvious limitations, am I right?’ He watched as she nodded and could hear her wondering where this was going. ‘You liked the order, the environment, the routine.’

‘Those things are very important, I think, in the successful running of a company,’ Tessa said defensively.

Order. Routine. Yes, she did like those things. They formed the perimeter of her life and always had. How else would she have been able to cope with bringing up her unruly ten-year-old sister when she had only been going on eighteen herself? In fact, compared to Lucy, or maybe because of her, she, Tessa, had always had her head firmly screwed on. Her parents had always praised her for that. Lucy might be the beauty with the ebullience, but Tessa was the responsible one, the one on whom they relied. The one on whom they had still been relying when their car had swerved into a tree on a rainy night back home. Tessa had mourned and grieved and picked up the pieces the best she could and, yes, had fallen back on order and routine to help her through.

She blinked away the sudden intrusion of her past and, when she looked at him, she found him staring at her, his bright blue eyes narrowed on her face.

‘Don’t you agree with me?’ The way he looked at her made her feel hot and bothered, even though he didn’t seem to be looking at her in a critical way. Perhaps it was the level of containment, at odds with the aggressively confident and outgoing exterior. Here was a man, she suspected, who did precisely as he liked and yet remained a closed book. It was nerve-racking. ‘I mean, you run a successful company. Surely you don’t just jump in a haphazard manner from one day to the next, hoping for the best and keeping your fingers crossed?’

Curtis threw back his head and laughed. ‘No. Not quite. That approach doesn’t often work, although it sounds as though it could be quite a lot of fun.’

Tessa shuddered. Fun? Never knowing from one minute to the next what life was going to throw at you? Not a chance.

‘You don’t agree? Well, never mind. So you’ve worked in your last job for…how many years?’

‘Nine, give or take a few months,’ she said uncomfortably.

Curtis gave a low whistle under his breath.

‘And you are…? Age…?’

‘Twenty-eight.’

‘At work at nineteen and then staying put with the same company…’

‘Which should tell you how experienced I am.’ Why did she have the sinking feeling that this was the interview that should have been conducted from the start? ‘I’m sorry. I thought I had the job. I thought your mother was in a position to offer it to me.’ She could feel herself perspiring under her armpits and she wished she had removed her jacket when she had first sat down, just as he had done with his overcoat. He looked as comfortable as a cat on a feather quilt while she felt rattled, uneasy and hot.

‘Oh, of course she was.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a family firm. I run it completely, take full responsibility for all profits and losses, but my brother and my mother are naturally still interested in what’s going on, and occasionally my mother will offer her input. In the matter of my hiring someone to work for me, she insisted, and I expect she told you why.’

‘She mentioned that some of your secretaries in the past had been a bit…unsuitable.’

‘Except I don’t imagine she was quite so restrained in her description.’

Tessa frowned and tucked her hair neatly behind her ears. She had fine, slippery, very smooth shoulder-length auburn hair that had a tendency to slide forward and brush her face if she wasn’t careful about tying it back. Today, on Lucy’s advice, she had decided to wear it loose so that she wouldn’t look like a schoolmarm on her first day out. Now, she was regretting the impulse because for some reason she felt as though she needed the protection of her normally very restrained look.

‘I’ll bet she referred to them as bimbos,’ Curtis added helpfully as Tessa was struggling to come up with a diplomatic way of paraphrasing what had been said to her.

‘The thing is…’ He leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. He had pushed up the sleeves of his jumper and she noticed that he had very strong forearms, dusted with black hair. He, too, wore a simple watch although his looked crashingly expensive, unlike hers. ‘Bimbos suited me. How can I explain this?’

Tessa’s heart went into freefall at that rhetorical question.

‘I don’t work in an environment that’s anything like the one you have spent the last nine years, give or take a month or so, enjoying. The world of computers and computer software is far more about creativity and vibrancy and foresight than the world of accountants. The bimbos might have been a little lax when it came to typing and shorthand but they knew how to work around me.’

‘Your mother said the last one was only there for a matter of six weeks.’

‘Ah. Fifi did have a spot of bother now and again with some of the basics…’

‘Fifi?’ Two spots of angry colour blazed on her cheeks and she leaned forward into him, clutching the mug with both her hands. ‘Are you telling me that I’m too dull to work for you because I’m good at what I do and don’t fill all the physical attributes you think are necessary to a good secretary?’

‘I’m telling you that what I don’t want is someone addicted to schedules who is incapable of going with the flow. That would be unfair on me and even more unfair on you. Obviously, I would give you healthy compensation for the inconvenience caused.’

‘Inconvenience?’ Calm and control flew out of the window at the speed of light. Tessa inhaled deeply in an attempt to retrieve some of it. ‘I have thrown in a perfectly good job in order to take up this one. I simply cannot afford to be tossed out onto the streets like a…a beggar gatecrashing a private party to scour the employment agencies looking for something else!’

‘A beggar gatecrashing a private party…?’ Curtis sat back and gave her his full attention. The peak breakfast-hour rush was over and the café was now relatively quiet, with only one other table occupied and stragglers coming in for their daily tea and bacon butties.

‘This isn’t funny!’

‘No, it’s not. And, like I said, you won’t walk away empty-handed. A highly qualified girl like you should have no difficulty finding another position in a company that would suit your talents a lot more.’

‘And how do you know what would suit my talents when you aren’t even prepared to give me a chance?’ The horrendous unfairness of it sent a streak of molten fire racing through her. ‘I have bills to settle, Mr Diaz! Food to buy, rent to pay and a sister to finish supporting!’

‘You support your sister?’

‘At art college. She has one more year there.’

Curtis sighed and made his mind up. Three months’ probation. He owed it to his mother, after all, and if the girl didn’t work out, then at least he had given it a go. He would give her vital but background jobs to do and would just have to make sure that she didn’t compromise the vibrancy of his company, which had gone some way to catapulting it from obscure newcomer to innovative front runner.

‘Okay. Three months’ probation, then we can take it from there…’

Tessa breathed a sigh of relief. Three months would give her a bit of time to look for something else and the pay was so fabulous that she would be able to put aside a healthy amount of money in that space of time. Because the bottom line was that the man was right. She needed to work for someone organised, someone more grounded, someone less flamboyant who didn’t make her stammer like a schoolgirl every time he fixed those vivid blue eyes on her. And, whatever his mother had said, he needed someone to look good and to slot in. He needed another Fifi.

CHAPTER TWO

‘OKAY! Where the hell have you put that file?’

Curtis stormed out of his office and proceeded to circle her desk until he was standing squarely in front of her, and, as if that weren’t enough, he then leaned forward, planting both hands on her desk until Tessa was reluctantly forced to acknowledge him.

The past two weeks had been a learning curve. Curtis Diaz was brilliant, forceful, outspoken, alarming and utterly unpredictable. He obeyed none of the rules most bosses observed. The first in-house meeting she had gone to had been an experience that had left her feeling dazed for hours afterwards. Ideas had bounced around the room like bullets, voices had been raised and anything suggested that had failed to take into account probable loopholes had been loudly shouted down without any attempt made to soothe nerves or compromise.

Interestingly, none of the staff had seemed disconcerted by their boss’s unconventional approach to company management.

‘Well?’ Curtis roared. ‘Have you gone deaf? Is there life in there?’

‘There’s no need to shout,’ Tessa said quietly, but she was adjusting fast to his displays of temper. Rule one, she had learned, was not to automatically cringe back. To start with, she had wondered how his Fifis had coped with his overpowering personality. Then it occurred to her that he had probably never raised his voice in their presence. They were there for his visual satisfaction and, as she had discovered, most of the intricate work had been done by one of the other secretaries out of loyalty to their charismatic leader. The various strings of Fifis had filed, brought cups of coffee and brightened up his office. She, on the other hand, not having the glamour looks to fall back on, was treated like everyone else.

‘I am not shouting,’ he growled now, thrusting his dark face further forward. ‘I’m asking a perfectly reasonable question.’

‘Oh, right. Well, thanks for pointing that out. My mistake.’ Tessa said that with such understated calm that he made an unintelligible sound under his breath and drew back.

‘I gave the file to Richard yesterday before I left. He wanted to go over some of the costings again.’

‘Well, you’d better go and fetch it.’ He prowled off to stand by the window, hands stuffed into his pockets.

‘Anything else while I’m there?’ Tessa stood up and looked at him. She might be getting used to the way he operated, but she doubted in the three-month target she had set herself that she would ever become used to the way he looked. He was quite simply overwhelming. When he banged around the office or called her in so that he could dictate something to her in that rapid-fire manner of his, she was fine, but every time he focused his attention fully on her, as he was doing now, she could feel every nerve in her body begin to quiver with clammy, restless awareness.

‘No.’ Blue eyes did a frowning, absent-minded inspection of her and returned to her face, which had pinkened. ‘Just get the file and come into my office with it. There are one or two things I want to discuss with you. Oh, you might as well grab us both a cup of coffee while you’re about it, even though you’re not much use on the coffee-making front.’ That little jab seemed to do the trick of snapping him out of his mood because he grinned at her. ‘Now, I bet you’re going to tell me that a highly qualified PA isn’t responsible for making decent coffee for her boss.’

Tessa took a deep breath and counted to ten. He didn’t often tease her and, when he did, it always sent a tingle of unwanted emotion racing through her. The only way she knew how to handle that was to be as bland and literal as possible, so she gave him a perplexed look as though considering his criticism fully at face value.

‘You haven’t complained about my coffee-making skills before.’

‘Too weak. Weak coffee is for weak men.’

This time her finely arched eyebrows flew up in an expression of amused disbelief.

‘Oh, really? I never realised that before.’

‘Didn’t think so. Aren’t you glad that you’re learning such amazing things every day, thanks to me?’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ she murmured, looking down and sliding away from her desk. ‘I really don’t know how I survived in my last job before.’

She could almost hear him grinning as she swept out of the room and headed to Richard’s office.

Three days after she had started, his mother had telephoned her at the office to find out how she was enjoying working for her son.

‘It’s a unique experience,’ Tessa had confided truthfully. ‘I’ve never worked for anyone like your son before.’

‘I hope you’re managing to keep him in order,’ Mrs Diaz had said. ‘He can be a little intimidating to the uninitiated. Runs rings around people.’

‘Well, he doesn’t intimidate me,’ she had replied without pausing for breath.

Well, he did, though not in the way his mother had implied. She was confident in her abilities to do her job to the highest standard, thereby giving him no chance to slam into her for inefficiency, but on the personal level it was a different question altogether. He had a certain magnetism that made her quail inside and it was a source of abundant relief to her that she could school her expressions so that that particular weakness was never exposed.

He was waiting for her in his office when she returned ten minutes later with the file and a cup of coffee that was so strong that she could almost have stood the teaspoon upright in it.

He had pushed his chair back and pulled out the bottom drawer of the desk, which he was using as an impromptu footrest.

‘Pull up a chair,’ he said, ‘and close the door behind you.’

‘Close the door?’

‘That’s right. No need to repeat everything I say parrot-style.’

Tessa didn’t say anything. She shut his door, handed him the file and then sat down with her notepad on her lap and her hand poised to take down whatever he was about to dictate.

‘So,’ he began, ‘how are you enjoying it here?’

Tessa looked up at him in surprise. ‘Fine, thank you.’

‘Fine. Hmm.’ What he had intended to discuss, amongst other things, were the costings of extending IT operations somewhere in the Far East. She might not, he had realised, be the eye candy he had previously employed, but she hadn’t been kidding when she had told him that she was good at what she did. Not only were his thoughts channelled into expert documentation, but she could involve herself in more complex debates, which he had discovered was quite a useful talent.

Her persona, though, was a more difficult nut to crack. She greeted everything he said with the same unshakeable composure, which was beginning to prick his curiosity. His method of management was an open-door policy, whereby all his employees were free to voice whatever was on their minds, and they did. Moreover, he had become accustomed to a fast turnover of secretaries who wore their feelings on their sleeves. He liked the people who worked for him to be three-dimensional; he enjoyed the fact that he knew about their personal lives as well as their professional ones. It made for a tightly knit team of people who were secure enough in their abilities to take criticism and felt valued enough to dish it out should they see fit.

Tessa, thrown into this volatile, verbal bunch, was an enigma and it was beginning to bother him.

‘I’m concerned that you might be finding the pace of this industry a little too swift for you.’

‘Would you mind explaining that?’ She looked at him with unreadable brown eyes.

Curtis watched her, irritated by the fact that he couldn’t get underneath that smooth face of hers to the workings of her mind. He began to tap his propelling pencil softly on the protective leather mat in front of his computer.

‘I feel I’m keeping up with the pace of work here,’ she interjected, trying and failing to think back of any time over the past fortnight when she had been unable to cope with the lightning speed of his thoughts.

‘Oh, I don’t deny that.’

‘What, then?’

‘Being successful at a job is only partly to do with an ability to cope with the workload. Coping doesn’t necessarily equate to happiness and happiness goes hand in hand with motivation.’

‘There’s no need for you to be concerned with my happiness,’ Tessa told him. ‘If I was unhappy, I would quit.’

Having not meant to bring this topic up at all, Curtis now found himself uncomfortably aware that he wanted to prolong it until she said something personal rather than simply showing him the same face of complete composure that she had shown ever since she had first started.

‘Why? Have other people been complaining about me?’

‘Oh, no. On the contrary. I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that it was high time I hired someone a little more down-to-earth than my usual brand of secretary.’

What woman in her right mind would like being described as down-to-earth? Tessa wondered. Especially when the description came from someone who looked the way this man did? Today, in deference to a board meeting that had been held with some particularly crusty clients, he had toned his dress code down a notch. Even so, the pink-and-white-striped shirt failed to give the impression of a conservative traditionalist, especially as it was twinned with an outrageously patterned, very slender tie, the likes of which she had personally never seen before, leading her to assume that it must be handmade.

‘But you don’t agree.’ The criticism, packaged up like a compliment, hurt more than she liked.

‘My theory is that for an employee to really enjoy his or her job, they’ve got to feel as though they fit in.’ He wondered why he was labouring this point and whether it was so important to get to the bottom of her when she was doing her job perfectly well. Better than well, in actual fact.

There was no answer to that. She spoke to everybody, sometimes she even went to lunch with a couple of them, although the workload was so intense that she was happy to eat a sandwich at her desk, a half-hour break before she carried on with what she was doing.

‘We’re like a family here,’ he broke into her thoughts, his voice piously ruminative, ‘and, call me old-fashioned, but I like to know what happens in my employees’ lives. It makes them feel wanted and it’s very important to me that they feel wanted.’ He looked at her from under his long, dark lashes and noticed the very slight shift in her position.

‘I don’t think anyone could call you old-fashioned,’ Tessa said, dodging the net he was trying to throw around her.

‘No? Why would that be, do you think?’

‘Because…because you really don’t…you’re quite unconventional compared to the other people I’ve worked for.’ That was the understatement of the year, she thought. He was like a peacock amongst sparrows compared to her previous employers, for she had circulated within the firm in which she had worked on a fairly regular basis over the years.

‘Hence my unconventional approach to my employees…’

‘And you don’t mind if they have an unconventional approach to you in return?’ Tessa felt quite proud of this neat sleight of hand that had managed to toss the question right back at him.

‘Not in the slightest. My personal life is an open book.’

‘I’m…I don’t believe in bringing my private life to work,’ Tessa said, staring down at her fingers. She wondered what he would make of her private life. It was an open book as well, except hers had very little writing in it, at least on the men front, which she was now sure was what was niggling him. ‘Perhaps we could discuss these costings?’ she prompted tentatively. ‘I really need to leave on time tonight and it’s almost five-thirty.’

That sparked his curiosity again. What exactly did she get up to when she left this office? Nothing that relied on her leaving her work promptly, he knew, because over the past two weeks her hours had been anything but regular and not once had she complained.

‘Why’s that?’ he asked idly. ‘Hot date?’

Tessa flushed. She could feel herself reddening and it made her more defensive than usual. ‘Actually, tonight’s hot date is taking place in the supermarket and involves cooking spaghetti Bolognese for four of my friends from my last job as well as Lucy and two of her friends.’

‘Lucy?’

‘My sister.’ Blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful. Just the sort of woman that Curtis Diaz would make a beeline for. If she could have yanked back her words, she would have.

‘Oh, the one you’re putting through college. By the way, how is it that you’re responsible for paying for her education?’

‘That’s just the way it is and it has been that way since I was a teenager.’ She shrugged, dismissing his interest and looking down at the redundant pad sitting on her lap.

‘Must be a burden on your finances,’ he remarked thoughtfully. ‘Is that why you took this job? Because of the salary?’ His thoughts were already moving along, though, playing with other possibilities and enjoying the probing process while being fully aware that he was prying into areas of her life in which he was unwanted.

‘Amongst other things.’

‘Oh, sure, job satisfaction.’ He linked his fingers behind his head and surveyed her with open curiosity. ‘Of course, more money would be reason enough. After all, there’s only so much of those free pleasures you can have, especially in winter when it’s freezing cold outside. Walks in the park just aren’t quite the same, I find… Oh, I forgot. All your money’s going to help your little sister through college. You should tell her to take on some evening work so she can put herself through.’

‘Lucy isn’t into evening work,’ Tessa said without thinking. She could have kicked herself. She could almost hear his ears pricking up at that admission. The truth was that she had mentioned evening work to Lucy and had hit a brick wall. Her sister liked to party. The small legacy from their parents, which had been shared between them, had been put into storage, on the advice of their very shrewd solicitor who had foreseen a time when it might be needed to buy property. Tessa had had no difficulty in concurring with this as far as her half went. Lucy, after much nagging when she had hit her landmark eighteenth birthday, had agreed to have a small allowance paid into her bank account every month to fund her lifestyle. Tessa should have stood firm, but as always she had caved in. Most people did when faced with Lucy’s optimistic, winning smile.

‘Not into evening work? You mean she’s happy for you to pay for her so that she can enjoy herself?’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘Tut-tut. There’s nothing worse than a martyr.’

That did it. Tessa snapped shut her notepad and gave him her steeliest glare. ‘I can think of lots of things worse, actually, and I am not a martyr. Lucy is much younger than me and she’s always been the baby of the family. We all indulged her, including me, and I don’t mind at all paying for her fees. She deserves to have a good time while she’s young!’

‘Because you never did?’ he asked quickly, hitting the mark with such effortless ease that Tessa’s mouth dropped open and she was momentarily lost for words. ‘I mean,’ he continued to expand in a lazy, musing voice, ‘you were forced into the role of surrogate mother when you were just a teenager and since then you haven’t really stopped. Who knows? Maybe you get a personal vicarious thrill from your sister’s fun-loving lifestyle because you were denied it.’

‘I thought we were going to go through these costings.’

‘We are. In a minute. It’s just so rewarding finding out more about one of my employees, knowing what makes them tick.’

‘You’re not finding out more about me,’ Tessa said coolly, sitting back in her chair. ‘You’re second-guessing my life.’

‘You’re not denying any of what I’ve said.’

‘I don’t have to. I’m here to do a job. I don’t have to defend myself in the process.’

‘True.’ He sat forward abruptly and gave her a dazzling smile loaded with a mixture of charm and apology. ‘And it’s outrageous of me to start prying and probing into what’s none of my business! I’m glad you spoke your mind and told me to back off!’ He absent-mindedly flicked his tie between his fingers and continued to look at her contritely. ‘That’s the problem, you know. I rush in where I’m not wanted and make a nuisance of myself.’

‘It’s good you recognise the problem, in that case,’ Tessa said weakly. The warmth and sincerity in his voice had punctured all traces of indignation. Now she felt as though she should be the one apologising, for what she had no idea!

‘Oh, I do!’ He shot her a crooked smile that would have had any little old lady buckling at the knees. He was also an incurable flirt. She had seen him in action, taking time to chat with the cleaner who came in after hours, even though she was a happily married lady in her mid fifties. He did it almost without thinking. She wondered how many of his young, pretty secretaries had lost their heads over him. Whatever, she assumed that he was as charming when he dispatched them as he was when he hired them, because in the space of two weeks she had transferred no less than three separate calls from women who said that they had worked for him in the past and were just phoning to touch base.

It was to her credit, she thought now, that she could withstand his personality as successfully as she did. She did so now by sending him a dry look that warned him not to overplay his card and he laughed, reading the message in her brown eyes.

As always, though, when it came to work, he was all concentrated brilliance. She barely noticed the time flying by when, after an hour, his office was occupied by four of the computer whizkids sprawled on the sofa, one perched on his desk, all animatedly discussing ideas for some new software while she sat rapidly making notes and working out in her head their order of priority for when she came to transcribe them the following morning.

She realised the time when Robert Harding, a brilliant computer mind behind thick spectacles and the classic nerd look, stretched and stood up to leave. Then she looked at her watch and gave a little shriek of dismay.

‘I have to go!’ She stood up, feeling like a traitor because she was leaving work ahead of everyone else, even though five-thirty had come and gone a full forty-five minutes ago.

‘Oh, yes, the spaghetti Bolognese!’ Curtis grinned and stood up as well, putting an end to the impromptu meeting which, uncharacteristically, met with groans of reluctance.

‘Now, now!’ he chided them, sauntering over to unhook his bomber jacket from the sleek walnut-fronted cupboard that stored several essential items of clothing just in case he happened to sleep in the office one night. Through the dividing door, he could see Tessa scuttling around her desk, frantically tidying things away. Strands of hair were escaping from her neatly coiffured coil, as if even they were in a state of agitation about the lateness of the hour.

‘I think we ought to stay on for, let’s say, another hour or so, Curtis!’ Adam Beesley’s youthful face was bright with enthusiasm.

‘Remember what they say about all work and no play! You don’t want to end up a dullard, do you?’ He moved towards his office door, keeping Tessa within his line of vision while he continued to address the assorted crew now reluctantly rising to their feet. ‘Fine line, team, between hard-working and sad!’ He exited his office to hoots of laughter and followed Tessa to the lift, insinuating himself in front of her just as she was about to press the button.

‘I want to apologise for keeping you here so late,’ he murmured.

Tessa pressed the button and stared in front of her. ‘Normally, I wouldn’t mind. I don’t like clock-watching but tonight—’

‘Yes, the friends, the cooking. Here’s where I come in.’ At that moment the lift arrived and the doors parted. As soon as they were in the lift, he turned to her and smiled. Maybe it was her imagination, but that full wattage smile in the confines of a lift seemed to be a lot more potent. She felt her skin heat up and the hand she had thrust into her coat pocket curled into a little, nervous fist.

Curtis at work was her boss, even when the man intruded. Curtis out of work was something she didn’t think about although unconsciously she must have found the thought disturbing because she had not once taken up any offers to go anywhere for a quick drink with the gang before heading home.

‘Since it’s my fault your meal’s going to be ruined, let me take all of you out to dinner…’

‘What?’ Her head swung round sharply and for a few nightmarish seconds she actually struggled for breath while she tried to cope with the horror of his suggestion.

‘I said—’

‘Yes, I heard what you said! And it’s…very…well, considerate of you, but out of the question. Thank you all the same!’

‘But you won’t have time to prepare your meal…’

‘I can whip something else up. No need for you to worry about it.’ Panic licked through her and she tried to see his suggestion for what it was, an offbeat but instinctively gracious offer from someone who had kept her working later than intended. Curtis was not a man who was stingy with his gestures. He would think nothing of taking her out along with seven other people for a slap-up meal at some expensive restaurant somewhere.

She realised that her reaction was out of proportion because she didn’t want him to invade her private life at all, not in any way.

The lift had reached the ground floor and she scooted out, planning to escape into the dark cold outside, thereby putting an end to their conversation.

‘So I take it you won’t accept my offer…’ He reached out and swung her around, leaving his arm curled on her wrist. ‘I’m cut to the quick.’

‘No, you’re not!’ Tessa said sharply. His hand was burning through the layers of clothing. She could feel it like a hot brand stamping down into her flesh, making her want to squirm.

‘You’re right. I’m not. But that’s only because I expected you to refuse my offer.’

‘You did?’

He nodded gravely and the pressure of his hand lessened, although he didn’t remove it and didn’t appear to notice her surreptitious attempts to ease it away.

‘I did.’ He shot her a smug look. ‘Isn’t it nice the way I can tune in to you after only two weeks?’

Tessa ignored that. ‘Well, why did you bother to offer if you knew I was going to refuse?’

‘Because I still intend to help you out, whether you like it or not.’ Instead of heading towards the revolving door at the front, he swivelled her back round to the lift and pressed the down button. ‘I’m going to drive you to your house and, on the way, I’m going to stop off and get a take-away and, before you open your mouth to gently turn my magnanimous offer down, there’s no debate.’

She was ushered back into the lift, this time down to the basement, where a handful of people were given the privilege of secured parking. In central London that in itself was worth its weight in gold.

‘Slightly selfish reasons here,’ he continued, leaning back against the mirrored side of the lift.

‘What?’ Tessa’s voice was apprehensive. Trying to predict this man’s moves was like trying to predict the weather from a sealed box underground. Utterly impossible.

‘I need you to do me a small favour.’

‘Favour? What favour?’

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, as the lift disgorged them into the compact underground car park he led her towards his sleek, low-slung sports car, a shiny black Mercedes that was the last word in breathtaking extravagance and just the sort of car she would have imagined him driving. Not for him the big, safe cars with practical boot space and generous passenger-toting potential!

‘One of my babies,’ he said, grinning at her and sweeping a loving hand across the gleaming bonnet.

‘One of them? You mean you have a fleet of cars lurking away somewhere?’ Yes, she could imagine that too. A dozen racy little numbers tucked away somewhere, ready and waiting for when they might be put to use driving his racy female numbers to racy little nightclubs. She scowled in the darkness and wondered how such creative genius could be simultaneously shallow and superficial.

‘You snorted.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Had she?

‘You snorted just then. A very disapproving snort. What’s wrong about having a fleet of sports cars? I thought you women liked that sort of thing.’

‘Some might.’ His amusement was very irritating. She tilted her chin up and stared frostily out of the window.

‘But not you.’ He slotted a card into the machine at the side and the exit barrier went up.

‘That’s right,’ Tessa said crisply. ‘I happen to think that men who feel the need to buy small, fast cars are just subscribing to the truth of toys for boys.’

‘Toys for boys?’ Curtis chuckled. ‘I can assure you that I’m no boy! Haven’t I already proved that by the kind of coffee I drink?’

‘Yes, of course you have. Silly me. You’re all man!’ She slanted an ironic, sideways glance at him and just for a fraction of a second their eyes met and she felt a rush of unsteadiness. The glint in his eyes was wickedly, darkly teasing and for one heart-stopping moment it spiked into the very core of her, sending every pulse in her body shooting off into overdrive. ‘You might want directions to my house,’ she said in a very steady voice. ‘I live out towards Swiss Cottage. If you—’

‘I know where Swiss Cottage is.’ He paused. ‘Now to the original point of my conversation.’

Curiosity overcame apprehension at the oddly serious note in his voice and Tessa shifted to look at him. ‘Yes. The favour you wanted to ask of me. What is it? If it’s to do with working overtime, then I’m sure it won’t be a problem, just so long as you let me know in advance what days you require of me.’

‘Oh, well, some overtime might be needed but it’s to do with my baby, actually.’

‘Your car?’ Wasn’t this baby thing going a little too far? Boys with toys was bad enough but boys obsessed with toys was beyond the pale!

‘No, of course not,’ Curtis said impatiently. ‘I’m talking about Anna!’

‘Anna?’

‘My mother did tell you about Anna, didn’t she?’

Tessa thought back. She was certain she would have remembered the name. ‘No,’ she said slowly and thinking hard. ‘Who is she?’

Curtis swore softly under his breath and pulled the car over to the side of the kerb, then he turned to face her. ‘Anna is my daughter.’

‘Your daughter?’

He swore again and shook his head, scowling. ‘I take it my mother forgot to mention that little detail. Or rather chose not to.’

‘But…I don’t get any of this. You have a daughter? Are you married?’ He didn’t act like a married man. He didn’t wear a wedding ring. And did married men have strings of sexy secretaries because they decorated their offices, with practical skills not of prime importance? Would his wife approve of that? Did she even know? Maybe, Tessa thought with a sickening jolt, they had one of those modern open marriages.

In the middle of her freewheeling thoughts, he interrupted with, ‘A daughter, no wife. And I’m surprised this wasn’t mentioned when my mother saw you.’ The cunning fox, he thought indulgently. Had his mother thought that bringing up the question of his daughter and the spot of coverage that might be occasionally needed would have put off the perfect candidate? One of the reasons he had succumbed to her insistence on choosing his next secretary had been the little technicality that Anna was going to be on half-term for two weeks and his mother would be out of the country on a gadabout cruise with her circle of friends. Someone would be needed to help out with coverage should it become necessary and, in his mother’s words, a flighty bit of fluff would not do.

‘Anna is going to be home for a fortnight from her boarding-school tomorrow. Next week she’s going to be coming into the office and I want you to take her under your wing. The following week should be fine. I intend to have the week off, but next week’s a bit trickier with this trip to the Far East to source potential computer bases.’

‘Boarding-school.’

‘Hence the fact that she has to come into the office. None of her friends live locally and my mother left the country a couple of days ago.’

Tessa couldn’t take her eyes off his face. She could picture him as just about anything apart from a father. He had too much personality to be a father! Then she thought what a ridiculous idea that was.

‘Are you following a word I’m saying?’

Tessa blinked. ‘I just find it a bit difficult to comprehend…how old is…Anna?’

‘Fourteen.’

‘Fourteen. But you never talk about her…have pictures…’ Was he ashamed of being a father? Was that why she was at boarding-school? Because she cramped his eligible-bachelor lifestyle?

‘I have pictures in my wallet. Care to see them just to verify that I’m telling the truth and that she looks like a normal kid, no nasty side effects from my being her father?’ He raised his eyebrows and Tessa blushed.

‘No, of course not!’

‘Can I ask you something?’

She nodded, still furiously examining the scenario that had unfolded in front of her.

‘Did my mother know that you had raised a kid sister virtually on your own?’

‘Completely on my own,’ Tessa absent-mindedly amended. ‘Yes. Why?’

“‘A most suitable woman for the job.”’ He quoted his mother with a grin. ‘Not only did you come with a sackful of references, but you were single, with a sensible head on sensible shoulders, and you had firsthand experience of communicating with a teenager. No wonder she failed to mention the little technicality of my daughter. You were so ideal for the job that she probably didn’t want to jeopardise the chances of your accepting the offer.’

‘I feel manipulated.’

‘You’ll have to mention that to my darling mother the next time you see her.’ He pulled out slowly from the kerb, leaving her to her riotous thoughts for a while.

‘But what exactly am I supposed to do with your daughter?’ Tessa eventually ventured. If she had just one drop of his volatile blood in her, then she would be more than a handful cooped up in an office when she would rather be hanging out with teenagers. Tessa shuddered at the prospect lurking ahead of her.

‘Supervise her. Give her little jobs to do. I’ll be around for most of the week. When I’m not…’

‘She can’t possibly stay with me…!’

‘Her old babysitter will take over. Don’t worry. I have every faith in your abilities…’

CHAPTER THREE

ANNA was nothing like Tessa had expected. In her head, she had imagined her own sister at fourteen, but with Curtis’s dark good looks. Gregarious, smilingly wilful and utterly boy crazy. Thrown into this mental picture was the added bonus of being the only child of a millionaire father. The equation was terrifying, not least because she knew from firsthand experience that she would spend the week tearing her hair out just to make sure that her beady eyes never ceased their constant supervision.

She had arrived on the Monday a full hour and a half before she should have just to make sure that she did as much of her own workload as possible. Just in case.

Curtis and Anna had finally come in some time about ten, Curtis flamboyantly explaining that he had made an essential detour to take his daughter out for breakfast, while in his shadow a tall, awkward teenager with her hair pulled back into a pony tail had hovered with her eyes lowered, staring down at her curiously old-fashioned shoes.

That had been three days ago. The boy-crazy handful of hormone-driven teenager had turned out to be a studiously polite and excruciatingly shy girl who seemed to enjoy working in the office more than she did leaving it and who only really smiled when her father was around. Then, she lit up like a Christmas tree.

‘Anna?’ Tessa looked at her now, head bent over the mighty stack of files that she had been allocated to go through, making sure that the paperwork corresponded to what was on the computer. ‘Fancy you and I going out to lunch somewhere?’

Anna looked at her and smiled.

She had the prettiest face, Tessa thought, but the look was ruined by the hairdo and the clothes and the way she walked, slightly hunched as though ashamed of her height. Having gone through the wringer with Lucy, who had never believed in concealing her assets and who had been able to wield an eyeliner pencil at the age of fourteen like any professional make-up artist, Tessa knew that she should be vigorously counting her blessings that this one week was not turning out to be the nightmare she had expected.

However, it just didn’t seem natural that Anna should be fourteen going on middle-aged.

‘I’ve still got quite a few files to get done…’ she said apologetically. ‘I mean, I know it’s only a pretend job but I’d still like to do it as well as I can.’

‘It’s not a pretend job!’

Anna gave her one of those shrewd, mature looks and Tessa laughed. ‘It seriously is not! Those files are in a disastrous state! I don’t think your father’s last secretary was that bothered by something as mundane as filing.’

‘No. I don’t suppose she was.’

‘Anyway, your dad’s not back from the Far East until tomorrow.’ Tessa stood up, switched off her computer and firmly began putting on her thick jacket. ‘We can play truant for an hour or two.’

‘Truant?’ She giggled. ‘Are you sure? I mean, won’t you get into trouble?’ The anxiousness was back. Teenagers shouldn’t be anxious, Tessa thought with a pang, amused to catch herself wondering if she had been the same at that age. No, she hadn’t. Her anxieties had come later. At fourteen, she hadn’t been wild like Lucy, but she had been carefree and unburdened.

‘Oh, I’ll chance it. Now, come on. If we carry on debating this any longer, we’ll talk ourselves out of it.’ She waited as Anna stuck on her coat and quickly neatened her pony tail.

‘How are you finding it?’ Tessa asked as they settled themselves into the back seat of a black cab, heading towards the King’s Road.

Anna shrugged. ‘It’s nice. I mean, I knew Grandma wasn’t going to be around for the half-term and I’d be in the office with Dad, but I’m relieved that…’ She chewed her lip sheepishly and hazarded a smile at Tessa.

‘That what?’

‘Well, I know what some of Dad’s secretaries have been like. I mean, it’s not that I’ve ever come in to the office to actually work or anything. This is the first time, actually. But sometimes I’ve come there to meet him for lunch or something, and well…’

‘Gorgeous women in very short skirts can be a bit daunting,’ Tessa agreed, astutely reading behind the hesitation. ‘I know. I find that as well.’

‘I could always see the way some of them looked at me, as if they couldn’t really believe that I was his daughter or something.’

‘You’re beautiful, Anna,’ Tessa said truthfully and Anna burst out laughing, a high, girlish tinkle that was all the prettier because it was so rarely heard.

‘No, I’m not! My mum…now my mum was beautiful. I’ve seen pictures of her. She could have been a model, actually.’

Curtis’s wife and Anna’s mother had died when she was only a young girl in her early twenties. A freak skiing accident. This piece of information had been relayed to Tessa by Curtis, part of his explanation as to why his daughter would be working at the office for a fortnight in the absence of her grandmother. There had been no embroidering of details and he had shown no emotion, nothing whatsoever to indicate how the premature death of his young wife had hit him. Tessa had had no idea what the woman had looked like but she wasn’t surprised to learn now that she had been beautiful.

‘Dad likes beautiful women,’ Anna was saying, her eyes glowing as they always did at the mention of her father. ‘Grandma always says it’s the Spanish blood in him. Actually, I don’t believe that. I mean, there’s no logical reason for it.’

The taxi had reached Sloane Square. Tessa had meant to have a nice, long lunch but now, on the spur of the moment, she decided that a little shopping wouldn’t go astray.

‘Shopping for what?’ Anna asked curiously, barely glancing around her. ‘Do you need anything?’

‘I think I need an entire overhaul, actually,’ Tessa told her, smiling. ‘I mean, look at me! I need a new wardrobe!’ She hadn’t actually even considered this until now, but, thinking about it, she wondered whether it wasn’t true. No one would guess that she was only twenty-eight. Lucy was forever teasing her about her old-fashioned clothes and Tessa had always laughed off the good-natured criticism, but now she wondered if she was as much of an anachronism as Anna was.

‘I like the way you dress. It’s…comfortable.’

‘Hmm. Sounds exciting.’ They began strolling up the road. It was a gorgeous day. Bright skies, cold and dry and almost windless. A perfect day for shopping.

With each step, Anna’s interest in the shop windows grew, and when she finally pointed out something she actually liked Tessa instantly pulled her inside, away from the drab, well-tailored grey skirt towards a rail of reds and burgundies, brief, beautiful short skirts with tiny, boxy jackets to match. She overrode the protests, hearing the insecurity in Anna’s voice as she shied away from trying to turn herself into something she wasn’t.

A beautiful mother, a father who was singularly drawn to women because of the way they looked… It wasn’t too difficult to see how a timid child could turn into an adolescent who was convinced of her own plainness. In her head, Anna had come to the conclusion that she couldn’t possibly compete with her mother or with any of the women she had seen her father with, and so she had gone in the opposite direction. She had taken refuge in sensible clothes and sensible shoes and no trace of make up, ever, that might signal a willingness to enter into the dressing game.

Tessa could identify with all that so she couldn’t quite understand why she just didn’t accept it.

It was very gratifying, though, to see Anna stare at herself in the small burgundy suit, eyes wide at the change in her appearance.

‘Maybe I’ll give it a go…’ she conceded, pulling out the cash that was hers to use.

By the time they finally made it to the restaurant, there was a clutch of bags. A three-hour lunch hour! They bolted down their food and returned to the office, literally like guilty truants, to find Curtis there, waiting for them.

Anna ran and flung herself at him, and Tessa stifled a heartfelt urge to groan.

‘We’re late,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m really sorry. My fault. I decided that I’d take Anna out to lunch and—’

‘My fault, Dad!’ She stood back and gestured to all the carrier bags that had been summarily relegated to the ground the minute she had laid eyes on the unexpected sight of her father. ‘I’ve been shopping!’

She ducked down to the bags strewn on the ground and, in the intervening pause, Tessa made her way to her desk and asked him crisply how the trip had gone, whether it had been successful.

The lifeless computer screen sent another jab of guilt at the extended length of time she had been out of the office. It was unheard of. She had never, but never, sidelined her duties in favour of something frivolous. The work ethic was so deeply ingrained in her that she very rarely even made personal calls from work, so skipping off on a three-hour jaunt was almost beyond the bounds of belief. Worse was the fact that she had been caught out.

‘Very good.’ Curtis was watching his daughter with amused indulgence, perched on the desk, arms folded.

He was wearing faded jeans and a long-sleeved cream jumper, the sleeves of which he had pushed up to the elbows. Tessa took it all in as she industriously switched on the computer and sat down.

His mouth was curved into a smile of loving expectation as he looked at his excited daughter. Improbable as it seemed, given his relentlessly single image, he was a doting father. He didn’t often make it to any school things, Anna had told her, but, she had quickly excused, that was because he was always so busy at work. When he did visit her at school, he invariably arrived with armfuls of gifts, and of course he was always the centre of attention. Her friends swooned over him. She had related this with great pride in her voice, never implying that she had ever longed for anything else. Reading between the lines, just having Curtis as her dad gave her some kind of indefinable street cred amongst her classmates.

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