Bella's Impossible Boss

Don’t go there! Dominic conquered women the way the Roman Empire had conquered new territory—with a brash ruthlessness and half an eye on new horizons. Bella didn’t want to be conquered. She sure as hell didn’t want to be left for a new horizon.

‘Bella?’

She shook herself and gestured to his bedroom. ‘I don’t like that any better.’

‘You don’t?’

‘It’s awful.’

He pointed to her room. ‘Worse than that?’

‘Just as bad. Why don’t you put some things around?’

‘Like?’

‘I don’t know. Like a colourful quilt or something. Some photos … Anything.’

‘We’re only here for two months.’

Only two months? It stretched out like an eternity for her.

‘I like things neat.’

‘That’s not neat,’ she blurted out. ‘It’s blank!’

She tried to read the expression in his eyes. He couldn’t seriously like that room, could he? She understood his masculine pride baulking at the hot pink, but …

She glanced back at his room. He didn’t live like that normally, did he? At that thought something shifted inside her, but she couldn’t name what it was.

Only, she recognised that blankness. She and her father had felt that blank after her mother had died.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘OKAY, time to discuss house rules.’

Bella pushed away from Dominic’s intriguing proximity. He’d moved in beside her to shake his head once again at the hideousness of her bedroom, his arm almost touching hers. It made her jumpy.

She didn’t want jumpy. She didn’t want the blood stampeding through her veins as his cinnamon scent infiltrated her senses either. She wanted—needed—her mind honed and zeroed in on her goal.

A man who thought marriage a dirty word was not going to distract her from that.

‘House rules?’

Bella had almost reached the end of the hallway. She turned to find that Dominic hadn’t moved. He raised an eyebrow. She swallowed. She had to find a way to live and work with this man. The sooner she did that, the sooner she could focus on the important things, like putting her plans for her father’s dream restaurant into action and making him proud of her. Making amends. ‘House rules,’ she repeated in as firm a tone as she could muster.

Which was pretty firm. She was kind of proud of it. She’d bet Dominic was used to women rushing to fulfil his every whim. Not her, though. No way. That would not be the way to earn his respect. It certainly wouldn’t be a way to keep things on a business footing either.

‘You may well be the boss when we’re at work, Dominic, but here—’ she slapped a wall ‘—we’re equals. But coffee first, I think, yes?’

She headed for the living room. ‘And then I best let Minky out of her cage.’ She was hoping that, given more time, the cat would settle down and mellow out. She came to a halt and glanced around. Where on earth was the kitchen?

As if he could read her mind, Dominic came up behind her and pointed to a door discreetly set into the wall near the dining nook. She had to look twice before she could make it out.

Right. She set off for it.

The kitchen wasn’t large, but it was well-appointed. A gleaming new red-and-chrome coffee machine sat on the bench in front of her. She stroked it with one finger and then reached up and pulled a packet of coffee beans from a cupboard above her head.

Dominic blinked. ‘How’d you know that was there?’

‘My father organised this apartment, right? Or at least, his secretary’s secretary did. But he’d have given instructions.’ Though Papa’s lip would curl as much as hers and Dominic’s if he ever saw the place. Still, she had no intention of ringing to complain. Low maintenance, that was what she had to be. Low maintenance, adult and businesslike. She should write that down and repeat it three times every day.

Besides, if this wasn’t somebody’s idea of a joke or a payback, then …

Katie, her father’s secretary, was going through a terrible divorce. Bella recalled that late file and shook her head. Katie had enough on her plate at the moment. Bella wasn’t going to complain. She had no intention of adding to Katie’s troubles.

‘So?’

She snapped to. ‘This is the cupboard above the coffee machine. The coffee beans are always in the cupboard above the coffee machine.’ She pointed to a cupboard behind him. ‘That should be full of red wine. Nice red wine,’ she added.

He opened the cupboard, pulled out a bottle and his eyebrows shot up. ‘This is good stuff.’

‘He’ll have stocked it from his personal cellar. There’ll be a box of expensive chocolates in the fridge, too, even though I keep telling him not to store them there, along with my favourite brand of cooking chocolate.’

He opened the fridge door. He closed it again. ‘You’re right on both counts.’

She shrugged and turned back to the coffee machine. ‘He knows all my weaknesses.’

‘And he likes to ensure you have everything you could possibly want.’

He spoke the words lightly, but she caught the thread of steel beneath them, the contempt. She knew exactly what he thought—that she was spoiled and wilful, that she took advantage of her father.

Bella is spoiled … Her heart stuttered in her chest. Her father’s only rewards for all his generosity was disappointment and pain. She whirled around. ‘Yes, my father is generous to a fault, but you can’t tell me you haven’t been a recipient of his generosity either.’

He blinked and sort of frowned, as if he couldn’t work her out.

‘Because I know you have. I did some research on you, Dominic Wright.’

Just for a moment she could’ve sworn he stiffened, and then he grinned the grin that transformed him from The Iceman into a golden devil. He moved to the bench beside her, rested back against it. ‘And what did you come up with?’

He maintained a reasonable distance but the scent of cinnamon curled around her. She tore open the packet of coffee beans and their fragrance spilled into the kitchen, chasing the cinnamon away.

‘I found out that he hired you a good year before you finished your university degree. He took a risk on you then.’

‘A gamble that paid off.’

‘And that until this week you’ve been working in acquisitions and mergers.’ And from all accounts he’d been doing brilliantly there. She met his eyes with a challenge of her own. ‘But it has to be said, acquisitions and mergers isn’t exactly the kind of area that qualifies you as project manager for the Newcastle Maldini. My father is, again, obviously taking a gamble on you.’

He shifted, straightened. ‘Are you saying you doubt my capacity to discharge my duties adequately?’

Adequately? Pah! She ground the coffee beans, the noise providing her with an excuse to remain silent.

‘Bella?’ His voice was hard.

‘I’m saying that I’m not taking it for granted.’

She made the coffee. She took hers black and unsweetened. ‘Milk? Sugar?’ When he shook his head, she pushed one mug across to him. ‘And I want more than you merely discharging your duties adequately. The hotel’s success is important to me.’

‘Why?’

‘I already told you. It was a dream that was important to both my parents.’

His too-perceptive eyes narrowed. ‘I think there’s more to it than that.’

And just like that she felt as if she were in a job interview. Her nerves skittered and skated. If there was one thing she hated passionately it was job interviews. She had no intention of sharing her real reasons with Dominic, her personal reasons. Her make-her-father-proud reasons. She wanted distance. A lot of distance. They might be physically stuck in this apartment, but they didn’t have to share the same headspace.

It didn’t change the fact she had to give him something. He was her boss. ‘Why do you want to oversee this particular project?’ she countered. ‘Why the change?’

‘A new challenge.’

She recognised the evasion. She and Dominic might not have a lot in common, but they both liked to keep their cards close to their chests. And it had to be said, he did have a very nice chest. She shook that thought away. ‘Same here.’

His eyes mocked her. ‘Right.’

She waited for him to challenge her further, but he just shrugged. ‘Do you mean to leave that cat in its cage all day?’

She bit back a sigh and, mug in hand, made for the living room. Setting her mug on the coffee table, she knelt down beside the cage. ‘Hey there, Minky,’ she said in as conciliatory a voice as she could manage. ‘You are going to be a good kitty-cat, aren’t you?’

Soothing and calm, she instructed herself. She needed the cat to feel secure and unthreatened in its new environment. She hunkered down until she was almost eye level with the feline. ‘We’ll take it slow, okay? I’ll open the door and you can wander on out whenever you feel like it to check out your new home. And then I’ll get you some dinner, okay? How’s that sound?’

‘Like far more explanation than anything with four legs needs,’ Dominic drawled.

‘Ignore the nasty man,’ Bella told the cat in the same singsong, hopefully soothing voice.

Minky’s yellow-green eyes glared at her. The tail swished. Good Lord, who was she trying to kid? The cat hated her.

She glanced up at Dominic. ‘I’m not exactly sure how she’ll react. She’s, um, not happy.’

‘It’s a cat,’ he dismissed. ‘It weighs, what? Two kilos at the most? It can’t exactly do that much damage.’

She pointed at him. ‘Famous last words.’ He grinned and it lifted something inside her. With heart thumping, she opened the cage door.

Minky exploded from it like a demented jack-in-the-box on steroids to claw straight up Dominic’s denim-clad legs. He’d moved to stand in front of the cage, Bella presumed so he could get a better view of the show, but he didn’t deserve that.

‘Minky!’ She leapt up.

Yowling, the cat let go and then proceeded to bounce off the sofa, the coffee table and two dining room chairs before settling under the television cabinet, eyes glaring and tail twitching in compulsive malevolence.

Bella armed herself with a cushion before spinning back to Dominic. ‘Did she hurt you?’ Her eyes dropped to his thighs. Five tiny pinpricks of blood stained the denim of his jeans—three on the left thigh and two on the right. Her mouth dropped open. ‘Oh, I am sorry!’

It took all of Dominic’s willpower not to harden under Bella’s dark-eyed gaze. Damn schizoid cat! ‘It’s nothing,’ he dismissed.

Bella glanced at him, at the cat, at the sofa and finally at the rug. Clutching the cushion to her chest, she carefully lowered herself to the floor, one eye firmly on the demon cat from hell. Not that he blamed her. Still, it was obvious she’d rather take her chances on the floor with the cat than on the sofa with him.

A scowl built through him. Her insinuation that he’d slept with whoever had organised this apartment, her obvious suspicion that he attempted to seduce every woman that crossed his path, still stung. The glance she sent him, however, made him feel like the wolf of Red Riding Hood fame. He lowered his frame to the sofa, stretched out his legs and fought a frown. Did she think he meant to jump her the moment she let her guard down? He had more finesse, more style, than that.

Besides, he had no intention of trying to seduce her—regardless of how tantalising the idea might seem. This lady was one complication he didn’t need.

She surveyed him over the rim of her coffee cup. ‘We should set some house rules.’

He shifted back, alternately straightening and slouching, but the sofa refused to give way to the shape of his body. ‘We should?’

‘Sure we should.’

He stuffed a cushion behind his back. ‘Like?’

‘Like, do you have any pet hates other than cats?’

He stopped his shuffling. ‘You’re not going to ask me to do anything for that blasted cat are you?’ He pulled the cushion back out and tossed it to the floor.

‘No.’

Her eyes darted to his thighs again. He bit back a groan and wished he’d kept hold of that sandbag of a cushion. He wanted to make Bella pay for all the heartache she’d caused Marco, but not in that way. Then he recalled the look on her face when she’d whirled around to him and pointed out that he’d been a recipient of Marco’s generosity, too. The lift of her chin when she had claimed the hotel’s success was important to her.

He didn’t know what to make of it.

‘What about you? Any pet hates?’

Her eyes lifted from his thighs and he found he could breathe again, after a fashion. ‘I hate cheerful chat in the mornings. In fact, I’d really rather you didn’t speak to me at all before I’ve had at least one cup of coffee, preferably two.’

‘What constitutes cheerful?’

‘Anything more than a grunt.’

All his tightness dissolved. A laugh built inside him.

‘Seriously, Dominic, I’m not joking.’

The laugh burst free and something shifted inside him, deeper than his desire but not as intense.

A warning bell suddenly went off in his head. Bella had the same soft, melt-a-man-where-he-stood eyes that his father had always fallen for—eyes that turned grown men into pathetic, grovelling saps.

Nobody was turning him into a sap!

‘Mornings aren’t my strong suit.’

He’d bet she’d look deliciously rumpled in the mornings.

‘So what do you hate in a flatmate?’ she persisted.

He snapped to. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never had one.’

Her jaw dropped. She leant forward. ‘What? Never? What about when you were at university?’

‘I lived off campus.’

He’d lived in a caravan park with his father because by then someone had had to look after him, and everyone else had deserted him—including all those doe-eyed women who’d manipulated him time after time until Dominic hadn’t been able to watch any more.

He’d sworn never to let a woman reduce him to that kind of dependence, that kind of pathetic wretchedness and despair. He’d looked after his father throughout his alcoholism and associated dementia. After that he’d decided roommates were a bad idea.

Bella frowned as if she’d read that thought in his face. ‘But you must’ve been on other business trips like this?’

‘Never for this long. If a team of us shot off somewhere, it was only ever for a few days. We’d stay in hotels and have our own rooms.’

She stared at him for a long moment and then shook herself. ‘So how do you want to do things?’

‘What things?’

‘Food, for a start. We have to eat.’

‘We can have groceries delivered.’

‘Uh-huh. And who’s going to cook them?’

He stared at her for a moment and then it hit him. She thought he was an unreconstructed, sexist Neanderthal who was going to lump her with all the housework!

Big bad wolf and sexist Neanderthal?

He forced down an angry denial and leaned back, the epitome of casual unconcern. ‘Well, now, Bella, since you’re the chef …’

Her chin shot up. ‘You are not lumping me with all the cooking. I’ll be doing enough of that throughout the day.’

‘But the restaurant doesn’t open for another two months.’

‘So? I’ll be training staff, checking out our suppliers, putting the chefs through their paces.’

He rubbed a hand across his jaw. ‘Couldn’t you get one of the minions to whip us up something we could reheat when we got home?’

‘I’ll do that just as soon as you ask the hotel’s housemaids to come around and take care of our ironing!’

Devilry sparked through him. ‘Now there’s an idea.’

Her jaw dropped. He laughed outright. Her eyes narrowed. He waited for her to realise her mistake—that he wasn’t the unreconstructed male that she made him out to be. Instead she folded her arms and said, ‘I will not be taken advantage of.’

He shook his head. Unbelievable. ‘How about we take it in turns to cook, then?’ She couldn’t find fault with that plan, could she?

‘Can you cook?’

She’d pay for that. ‘Guess you’ll find out.’

She scrutinised him with the intensity of a magnifying glass frying a bug in the sun. The big bad wolf and Red Riding Hood analogy sprang into his mind again and it took all his effort not to yell at her to stop looking at him like that.

‘I bet you’re used to women fussing around you, wanting to service your every need.’

She’d pay double for that crack.

She pointed a finger at him. ‘This is a work environment!’

Precisely.

‘What I mean is … It’s just …’ She blew a strand of hair out of her face. ‘Look, we share the household chores and the only other thing …’

She glanced away. He leaned forward, intrigued. ‘The only other thing?’

Her chin lifted but she didn’t meet his eye. ‘I don’t think you should bring your dates back here, that’s all,’ she finished in a rush.

Her opinion of him wasn’t just bad, it was appalling! For a moment he couldn’t even speak.

‘If you were sharing this apartment with my father, would you bring women back?’

No, he damn well wouldn’t. Just as he had no intention of doing so now. He couldn’t credit her with deliberately trying to offend him, but he had every intention of making her pay for her unjust assessment of him. Every intention. Someone should teach Bella the dangers of jumping to conclusions.

‘I think you’ll find, Bella—’ he all but purred her name and had the satisfaction of seeing her swallow ‘—that I will be the model flatmate. To prove my point, why don’t I take care of dinner tonight?’

She moistened her lips, staring up at him with big eyes, like those of a deer caught in the headlights. ‘That’s not necessary.’

‘Oh, I think it is.’

She clutched her cushion closer. ‘Okay, then. Lovely.’

The look on her face told him she suspected it wasn’t nourishment but seduction that he had planned. He sent her a cat-that-got-the-cream grin that was designed to keep her thinking exactly that. ‘Dinner will be served at seven-thirty.’

‘Lovely,’ she repeated.

But the expression on her face said the opposite and it was all he could do not to laugh.

‘Let the games begin.’

Dominic lit the single-tapered candle, stepped back to survey the arrangement and grinned. A white damask cloth draped the table and fell in soft folds to the floor. Crystal and silver gleamed in the candlelight sending an intimate glow throughout the apartment.

He’d spent an age consulting with Jean-Claude about the meal tonight. He’d wanted a menu that would knock Bella’s socks off.

And he had it.

He couldn’t wait to see her face when she saw it, tasted it.

At the idea of her mouth closing around the food he’d chosen, savouring it, his gut clenched. Images bombarded him. He pushed them away. He had every intention of seducing Bella’s senses through the food and wine, through the atmosphere he’d created, but it was a mock seduction only. Although she thought otherwise, Bella was as safe as houses.

He meant to enjoy watching her squirm.

Then succumb to his charm.

And then realise her mistake.

A glance at his watch told him it was time. He tapped on her door and had to bite back a grin when it flew open immediately, as if she’d been waiting on the other side. Then the grin slid right off his face. What the …?

She raked him up and down with her hot, brown gaze and then scowled right back at him. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she snapped. ‘You didn’t tell me this was formal, so it’s not my fault.’

He didn’t care that she’d elected to dress casually. It was the kind of casual she’d chosen that irked him. Perspiration prickled his scalp. She seemed to scream, big bad wolf.

‘What is that?’ He motioned to what she wore. He shouldn’t have asked, but he couldn’t help it.

‘A track suit,’ she returned with the kind of slow deliberation reserved for the bovine. Then she stifled a yawn. ‘Is dinner ready?’

He nodded.

A track suit? It was the baggiest track suit known to man. It was so baggy she could share it with three other people and still have room to house a small African nation.

The dismal colour did nothing for the clear brilliance of her skin either. Grey. It wasn’t even a deliberate grey, but one of those greys that looked as though it had been through the washing machine too many times. The women he knew wouldn’t be seen dead in an outfit like that.

Without a scrap of make-up and her hair pulled into a high ponytail, she looked all of sixteen.

Big bad wolf!

Irritation inched up his backbone. He wasn’t some slathering beast waiting to fasten his jaws about her delectable throat.

‘Are you going to let me out?’

He shook himself and stepped back and swept a gallant arm down the short hall. At least, he hoped it was gallant. All his muscles had bunched and stiffened as if they didn’t belong to him any more.

Manners; charm, he ordered. She’d be putty in his hands soon enough. He slipped past her to hold out her chair but she’d halted to seize the remote from the coffee table and click on the television.

‘Do you mind?’ She glanced up. ‘There’s a documentary that sounds—’

‘Yes, I do mind.’ He snatched the remote and clicked the television off again. ‘I’ve gone to all this trouble. The least you can do is appreciate it and pretend to enjoy it.’

‘Trouble?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘What? You set the table?’

Nope, the waiter had taken care of that when he’d delivered the food. Dominic dropped his hands to her shoulders and propelled her to her seat. His outrage dissolved as her warmth crept through the thin cotton of her top and seeped into his hands. How many times had this thing been through the washing machine? It was so thin he could …

He snatched his hands back. He needed to remain cold and clinical if he was going to pull this off.

‘I know you haven’t actually cooked anything. Cooking a lovely meal, now that takes commitment.’ She drew the word out like a taunt. ‘I promise, when you make that sort of effort, I’ll appreciate it.’

At her words the feast in the kitchen suddenly developed a kind of moral mould, became cheap and self-indulgent. He gave himself a mental kick. Hell, no! It wasn’t cheap. It was the best money could buy.

‘You know, if you were doing take-out I’d have been just as happy with pizza.’

Pizza? Pizza! He tried to hide his indignation. ‘I’ll have you know this isn’t just any take-out.’

‘Oh?’

He pulled in a breath and tried a different tack, but then her scent slammed into him, all lemon zest and tang. ‘I wanted to make things nice for you.’ His jaw clenched. ‘Special,’ he ground out.

Charm, remember? Had he seriously thought seducing her—pseudo-seduction or otherwise—would be easy?

A soft touch she wasn’t, but the challenge fired his blood. ‘I wanted to celebrate.’

She stifled another yawn. ‘Celebrate what?’

‘The beginning of our working relationship,’ he said smoothly, keeping his voice low and intimate. He lifted the bottle chilling on ice. ‘Champagne?’

‘Is it French?’ she demanded, with a supercilious lift of one eyebrow. ‘I only drink French.’

He gritted his teeth and then pulled in a breath. ‘Naturally.’ He’d manage suave and charming if it killed him. She could shrug and yawn all she liked. What she’d get in return was cultured and courteous. Determination settled over him. He’d impress her with this meal. He’d impress her with his manners. He’d break down the barriers she’d erected, and he’d make her laugh, joke and spar with him and enjoy herself. He’d make her see he wasn’t a beast.

‘How do you know I haven’t cooked?’ He was honestly curious.

She sipped the champagne before answering. It left a shine on her lips and he found it difficult to drag his gaze away. She might’ve scorned make-up and glamorous clothing, but her bearing, her gestures, betrayed her innate sensuality. She moved with the fluid grace and assurance of a confident woman.