A Boss In A Million

‘Cory?’ Gillian’s voice just outside told her it was time to go, and she took a hard, anxious pull of air, smoothing down the fitted jacket of the linen suit and tweaking the collar of her jade-green blouse into place before she left the small sanctuary.

The two women had just slipped on their coats when the door to Max’s office opened. He moved lazily towards them, his powerful body possessed of an animal grace that was entirely natural and all the more formidable because of it. There was no polite ‘All ready?’ or any other preliminary small talk; he merely gestured with one hand towards the outer door, his hard-boned face cool and closed, and as he did so Gillian’s telephone began to ring.

‘Leave it.’ It was an order and Gillian nodded, but then, after her answering machine had cut in and just as Max was closing the door behind him, they heard a man’s voice say after the beep, ‘Gill? Gill, if you’re there pick up the phone, love. It’s urgent.’

‘It’s Colin.’ Max had already swung the door wide again and as Gillian hurried to the phone with a muttered, ‘I’m sorry,’ he leant lazily against the outer wall in the corridor outside, his gaze switching to Cory with alarming suddenness and pinning her to the spot. She stared back at him, willing her nerves not to show.

‘How was the first morning?’ he asked in that husky dark voice that sent her nerve-endings into hyperdrive.

‘Good.’ She nodded in what she hoped was a brisk fashion, and prayed he would put her burning cheeks down to the central heating which was of the hothouse variety. This was stupid, this was so stupid, Cory told herself angrily as she frantically searched her blank mind for something to say. She was supposed to be working for the man from nine to five—or six or seven, whatever the day demanded—five days a week, but at this rate she wouldn’t survive the day, let alone the first week.

She had been so composed and cool and calm at that initial interview back in February. The pain and misery of Vivian’s engagement party two days before had been so vivid in her mind that a kind of numb fatalism had guided her through the ordeal of Gillian’s hundred and one questions and practical tests; she’d felt then that the worst that could possibly happen had happened, so what was the success or failure of a job interview compared to Vivian marrying someone else? In fact she’d still felt like that right up until… When? This morning at nine o’clock. When she’d looked into a pair of narrowed tawny eyes set in the coldest face she had ever seen. And also the most attractive, she added wryly.

‘Good?’ He drawled the word slowly with a hint of mockery. ‘Care to elaborate on that enigmatic statement?’

No, she wouldn’t, and she wasn’t mad about his supercilious attitude either. Funnily enough the thought brought two of Max’s aforementioned Bs—backbone and boldness—into play, and she heard herself saying, her voice firm now and aiming at polite reserve rather than the cutting coldness she would have loved to display, ‘It would be foolish of me to venture an opinion after just three hours, don’t you think? But certainly Gillian has been extremely helpful and kind.’ She raised her chin and straightened her shoulders.

‘It would be impossible for Gillian to be anything else.’ There was genuine warmth in his voice for the first time and it made the smoky effect lethal. ‘She’s a secretary in a million.’

‘That’s just what she said about—’ Cory stopped abruptly. She wasn’t at all sure Gillian would appreciate her repeating her earlier comment, besides which, this man’s ego was big enough as it was. But it was too late. He’d homed in like a nuclear missile.

‘About?’ he questioned softly, but she knew they were both aware of what she had been about to say. It was there in the eyes.

‘About you,’ Cory admitted grudgingly. ‘She said you were a boss in a million.’

‘And you doubt that very much.’ The hint of laughter was unmistakable. Cory was too surprised to do anything but stare at him, her green eyes with their mercurial violet tinge wide and her full-lipped mouth slightly agape as she searched her mind for a response.

Max Hunter seemed to be enjoying himself. She watched him settle more comfortably against the wall, and there was a definite measure of satisfaction in the deep voice when he said, ‘True or false?’ as black eyebrows rose mockingly.

He was as unlike her previous employer as it was possible to be! The thought flashed through Cory’s head and brought small, strutting Mr Stanley, with his formal, ritualistic working mode and almost phobic fear of any relaxing of office protocol or decorum, there in front of her for a moment. He would no more have a conversation like this with his secretary than fly to the moon! Mind you, she wasn’t Max Hunter’s secretary, not yet, and perhaps he never intended for her to be? Perhaps she didn’t want to be? And she agreed with Gillian’s statement—Max Hunter was certainly a boss in a million all right. It was just the way he’d earned the title she and his secretary differed on, Cory thought caustically.

It was the last thought that opened Cory’s mouth and enabled her to say, with suspect sweetness, ‘I’m sure Gillian is absolutely right, Mr Hunter, when she says you’re one on your own?’

‘Max,’ he corrected smoothly, ‘and I’ve been insulted less prettily in my time. Do you work as well as you fence, Cory?’

She wasn’t going to win a war of words with this man. For the second time in as many minutes Cory found herself with her mouth open and she shut it quickly with a little snap. ‘Better,’ she said brightly. This job was a non-starter. She knew it.

‘Then we’ll get on just fine.’ He levered himself straight.

It was as he turned to face the doorway through which Gillian was walking that Cory noticed the scar on the right side of his neck. It was long and jagged, starting above his ear in his hair and disappearing down into the collar of his shirt, and spoke of a savage accident. The scar itself was silver but due to his dark tan it stood out quite distinctly from the surrounding skin, and for a moment or two Cory couldn’t take her eyes off it. She had averted her gaze by the time he turned to her again, but it had really shocked her. What on earth had happened to him?

‘I’m sorry I’ve kept you both waiting.’ Gillian was flushed and flustered, and when her voice wobbled a little and she added, ‘It’s Colin—he’s not well,’ Max took the older woman’s arm as the three of them entered the waiting lift.

‘What is it?’ he asked with surprising gentleness. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, nothing, not really.’ Gillian breathed in deeply. ‘A touch of food poisoning, they think. Colin says it’s not serious.’

‘But you’re missing him, and no doubt he’s missing you.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Gillian nodded and then managed a fairly normal smile as she included Cory in her rueful grimace. ‘Pathetic, isn’t it? But the last eight weeks are the first time we’ve been apart in our twenty years of married life and it feels so strange. Still, at least Colin’s found a gorgeous apartment out there and everything is going to be done when I arrive on the doorstep in six weeks’ time.’

Six weeks. Six weeks! And then—if she was still here, that was—there would be only Max Hunter and herself and no comforting, homely Gillian around. Cory missed her step as she followed the older woman into the lift and immediately a warm firm hand fastened on her elbow. ‘Careful.’ He was just behind her and his six feet four towered over her five feet five as she turned to murmur her thanks. ‘We don’t want you breaking your neck on the first day, do we?’ he added evenly. ‘And certainly not in this building. I can do without a lawsuit for industrial injury.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of suing you for something that was my own fault,’ Cory answered hotly as though the accusation were a reality.

‘No?’ It was blatantly cynical, his firm, cruel mouth twisting mockingly at the fierceness of her protest.

‘No.’ She stared up at him, her mouth very firm, and they were both unaware of the interested spectator watching the little drama in front of her. ‘That would be positively immoral.’

‘Immoral…’ He considered the word lazily.

Cory was instantly aware she had chosen an unfortunate turn of phrase but it was too late to retract it. She’d have to bluff.

‘And you are always…moral, Cory?’ he asked quietly, with hateful butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth innocence.

‘Always.’ This wasn’t going to work. This job definitely wasn’t going to work. For some reason he didn’t like her; there was veiled antagonism in his every word, his every glance, and she wasn’t imagining it. He had been gentle, understanding even, with Gillian, but with her it was almost as though he was trying to catch her out all the time, Cory thought tightly. He was a cold, hard, macho brute of a man—everything she detested in a male, when she thought about it—and she hadn’t made the move to London to live in a perpetual state of tension and stress.

‘Then Gillian has chosen well.’ It wasn’t what Cory was expecting and she was eternally glad the lift chose that precise moment to open its silent doors and deliver them in Reception. ‘Now, a nice relaxing lunch, I think?’

His voice was even and distant suddenly, and, ridiculous though it was, Cory felt as though the man now escorting Gillian and herself through the ingratiating smiles and nods in Reception was an entirely different creature from the one she had seen so far. He was cool and remote and self-assured, every inch the powerful tycoon and entrepreneur, as he strode through the hushed and immaculate surroundings and out through the gleaming brass and glass doors which one of the reception staff had fallen over themselves to open.

A blue and silver Rolls-Royce was parked at the kerb outside the building with magnificent disregard for yellow lines, and as Max led the two women towards it Cory had the notion she was taking part in a flamboyant movie, and any moment a director would be leaping in front of them and shouting, ‘Cut! It’s a take.’

The chauffeur had opened the rear door of the limousine the moment he had caught sight of Max, and now, as Cory followed Gillian into the rich leather interior, she wished there were a little more room in her skirt. Discreet, calf-length and prim it was, cut for scrambling in and out of breathtaking vehicles like this one it wasn’t, and she was vitally conscious of Max Hunter just inches behind her and no doubt with his eyes on the material straining over her backside.

She was hot and pink by the time she was seated next to Gillian, but then, as Max joined them on her other side and his hard male thigh rested against hers, she knew what a pressure cooker felt like. He was her boss. He was just her boss. Say after me…

If her life had depended on it Cory couldn’t have told anyone how long it took to reach Montgomery’s, the route the Rolls took through the heavy lunchtime traffic or even what the three of them discussed en route. Every fibre of her being, every cell in her body was concentrated on not making the biggest fool of herself ever, but she must have sounded fairly coherent and behaved normally because Gillian’s nice round face was quite cheerful and relaxed when the limousine eventually glided to a halt outside the sort of establishment that just reeked of class and wealth.

Of course the glass of champagne might have helped. When Max had leant forward and opened the polished wood cocktail cabinet in front of their seat Cory had determinedly stopped her mouth from falling open—twice in one morning was quite enough—but her eyes had widened all the same. The glasses were tall and exotic and chilled, the champagne was pink and frothy and tasted like all the summers she had ever experienced rolled into one, and Max’s toast—‘A welcome to the newest member of Hunter Operations’—brought the colour that had just receded from her cheeks flooding back again.

‘I don’t remember you doing this for me when we first started working together, Max?’ Gillian had already said, with her first sip of champagne, that it would go straight to her head, and certainly as her employer helped both women out of the car Gillian was as flushed as Cory as she grinned at Max.

He smiled easily. ‘I wasn’t sure how to treat a secretary in those days, Gillian, if you remember. I’ve learned as I’ve gone along.’

Cory envied the other woman’s quiet familiarity with their boss. Of course Gillian was a good few years older than Max and very happily married to boot, and she’d known him for years, but Cory just knew she would never, never, be able to adopt the almost motherly approach that Gillian did so well and which, at heart, was the basis for all good boss/secretary relationships. He just scared her to death. He did what?

Immediately the thought formed she caught it in horror. She wasn’t frightened of Max Hunter—she’d never been overawed by any man, even her old headmaster who was a tyrant of the first order and had scared everyone rigid. She was not frightened of Max Hunter! That was the most ludicrous, stupid, crazy notion she’d ever had! It was the champagne. It had to be the champagne.

‘Cory? Is anything wrong?’

Gillian’s gentle voice brought her out of the whirling maelstrom of her thoughts, and to the realisation that she was standing in the middle of the crowded pavement with people weaving around her. Hardly the pose for a young, dynamic secretary!

‘Shall we?’ Gillian gestured towards the building in front of them and as Cory’s eyes focused on Max she saw he was holding open the door of the restaurant, an expression of great patience on his face, but it was the look in the beautiful and compelling amber eyes that bothered her. They were narrowed and intent and piercingly steady, and they brought to mind a wildlife programme she had seen just the other night, when a quite magnificent tawny-eyed lion had been watching his prey—a delicate and fine-boned wildebeest—with frightening and fierce single-mindedness.

And then he blinked and smiled, heavy lids and thick black lashes sweeping down, and when he looked at her again he was just an unusually arresting and powerful man. A man any woman would think worthy of a second glance, a man of intimidating intelligence and undeniable presence but, nevertheless, just a man.

The meal was simply wonderful, and seated as they were in a quiet and private alcove, where they could see and yet not be seen, Cory found herself relaxing enough to enjoy the good food. From the moment they had been seated Max had set out to be a charming and amusing dinner companion, keeping the two women entertained with a monologue of witty and slightly wicked stories, and by the time Cory had spooned the last delicious morsels of feather-light crêpe Suzette into her mouth she had been lulled into a comfortable state of false security.

So it made it all the more shocking when, Gillian having disappeared to the ladies’ cloakroom a moment or two earlier, Max turned to Cory and held her eyes with his own as he said calmly, ‘Well, Cory? Have you decided whether to turn tail and run or stay yet?’ He raised those cruel black eyebrows again.

‘What?’ It was too loud—she knew her voice had been too loud and that was quite the wrong tack to take with this man. She needed to be calm, unflustered and in control, she thought feverishly as she watched him settle back in his seat and continue to survey her through slits of brilliant light that brought the poor wildebeest to mind again. Although at least on the plains there was somewhere to run.

He was the sort of man who was intimidating even when he wasn’t intending to be, and she wasn’t sure if he was intending to be now or not. He was so big, that was part of the problem—so masculine and uncompromisingly virile. Everything he did, every little gesture or movement, was so controlled and disciplined and it was formidable. He had an aura of authority, but not in a comforting or reassuring way—at least she didn’t find it so, Cory told herself nervously. Hunter by name and Hunter by nature…

Oh, for goodness’ sake, girl, pull yourself together! The rebuke was loud and angry in her head. She’d be crediting him with supernatural powers next and wouldn’t he just love that?

The thought acted in much the same way as a douse of cold water on her fluttering panic, and Cory forced herself to take several silent breaths before she smiled and said, her voice as cool as she could make it, ‘I really don’t know what you are talking about, Max.’

There, she’d said his name without the slightest pause or hesitation, even giving it a slightly scornful intonation.

‘No?’ The gold was very clear around the bottomless black pupils. ‘You mean to say you weren’t considering whether you’d come back tomorrow or just call it quits?’ he asked silkily.

‘No, I wasn’t.’ And she hadn’t been, not really. Admittedly she had wondered whether he would pull the plug on her, but she hadn’t seriously considered leaving herself. Whatever else, she wasn’t a quitter, and she said so now. ‘I agreed to take the position for a trial period to see if things worked out and I would honour that whatever,’ she said firmly. ‘And it works both ways—you might decide I’m not suitable,’ she added reasonably.

‘I knew within the first five minutes whether you were suitable or not,’ he said softly. ‘In business you have to be able to determine the credibility of someone fast.’

‘Snap decisions?’ She raised disapproving eyebrows and hoped he hadn’t guessed she was acting a part—his previous admission had sent her stomach haywire and churned up that wonderful lunch.

‘No, measured appraisals due to years of hard experience and a natural distrust of my fellow man,’ he corrected her swiftly, his tone faintly mocking. ‘I never make mistakes, Cory. Not any more.’

‘Oh, you used to be just like the rest of us, then? Human?’ The second the words were out she was horrified. You didn’t speak to your employer like that, she told herself silently—not if you still wanted him to remain your employer, that was. Mr Stanley would have had a heart attack on the spot! But Max Hunter wasn’t Mr Stanley.

‘You see?’ There was a measure of amusement in the narrowed eyes and she knew her embarrassment was showing. ‘I’d rather have you in my corner than someone else’s. Besides which…’ He paused, swallowing the last of his coffee in one gulp before he continued, ‘As my secretary and personal assistant you’ll be working with me very closely and of necessity the days are often long ones—eleven, twelve hours. I couldn’t stand anyone who didn’t speak her mind and I don’t like boring women, Cory.

‘I can forgive anyone anything if they are honest and acting from the heart. I don’t like deception or hypocrisy and I don’t like prissy thinking along the lines of “the boss is always right.” I am—’ he eyes were gleaming with laughter now ‘—but if you thought so too, where would the spark be? And you don’t have to like me, so don’t worry your head on that score,’ he added abruptly. ‘Because you don’t, do you?’

It wasn’t a question, it was more of a statement, and one which Cory was utterly unable to answer.

He laughed out loud now at the look on her face and the sound was husky, rusty even, as though he didn’t do it too often.

‘Don’t get concerned,’ he said softly, his voice soothing. ‘Believe it or not I look on that as another of your admirable attributes. Part of Gillian’s amazing success all these years has been because she has her Colin whom she adores to distraction, and our working relationship has been just that…a working one.’

He was telling her he didn’t want her fancying him! Cory didn’t know whether to be relieved or furious, but she veered towards the latter. What an ego! What an outsize, monstrous ego!

‘Power and wealth can be a potent aphrodisiac to some women. Now, whilst that’s all to the good in certain situations—’ the deep voice held a note that suddenly made her shiver as her nerve-endings sensitised ‘—at work it’s just a damn nuisance and sometimes downright dangerous. You’ll be party to some very confidential papers as my secretary and the old adage of “Hell hath no fury” is still alive and well, believe me,’ he finished coolly.

‘Mr Hunter.’ She had probably been as mad as this previously in her life but she couldn’t remember it. ‘I would no more dream of acting in the way you’ve described than of…of flying to the moon,’ Cory snarled angrily. ‘Even if I thought you were the best thing since sliced bread.’

‘Which you don’t,’ he put in softly, his eyes gleaming.

‘No, I don’t!’ she affirmed with furious emphasis.

‘You see? The perfect solution for both of us. I get a secretary I can trust and who—from the references Mr Stanley among others supplied—is more than adequate not to mess anything up with misplaced emotion. You get a position which will only serve to further enhance your career, you get to travel a bit, see new places with the added advantage of it all being paid for, and a handsome salary to boot. Ideal, eh? And of course you’re out of the little home-town trap. Why exactly did you decide to leave Yorkshire anyway?’ he added with a suddenness that took Cory by surprise. ‘You were happy there for the last twenty-four years.’

She stared at him a moment, getting a bland, expressionless gaze in return, and then forced herself to speak quietly and calmly when she said, ‘It was time to spread my wings, that’s all. My qualifications are excellent—’ she raised her chin slightly at this point; it didn’t come naturally to blow her own trumpet ‘—and at twenty-four I felt the next stage of my career was overdue. I—’

‘I’m not asking for a résumé of what was written on your application form and CV.’ He was terse. ‘I mean the real reason. Was it a man?’ he asked with audacious coolness.

Cory was quite unaware of the shadow of pain that passed over her face in the second before the fury hit, but then her eyes were shooting bright green sparks and she straightened in her chair, her chin thrusting out and her hands clenched fists in her lap. ‘I think I ought to make one thing perfectly clear before we go on another minute,’ she said icily, her voice belying the fiery colour in her cheeks. ‘I do not discuss my personal life with anyone unless I want to. If you offer me this job permanently you will be entitled to all of my working days and the very best I can do, both for you and Hunter Operations, but you will not automatically have the right to take over my life. My private life is my own business and absolutely no concern of yours.’

So it had been a man. Max Hunter surveyed the taut, angry figure in front of him, his face betraying none of his thoughts. And she wasn’t over him yet, not by a long chalk. ‘You’re absolutely right of course.’ Gillian was making her way back to their table and now he stood, his voice merely pleasant and not at all put out as he added, ‘I think we’re all ready to leave? And Cory?’

She was in the act of rising, Max having pulled out her chair for her, and now, as she turned to face him, he was so close for a moment that she caught the scent of delicious aftershave on clean male skin and took an involuntary step backwards, bumping against the table and rattling the coffee cups. ‘Yes?’ she asked defensively.

‘The offer is permanent; it was from five past nine this morning.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE next few weeks were something of a revelation to Cory, not least because she found, after the initial couple of days which passed in a tangled blur, that she was actually enjoying her job. No, enjoy was too weak a word. She was loving it; she couldn’t wait to get to the office every morning, and that in spite of the million and one facts that were thrown at her every minute—or so it seemed—the hours flew by on winged feet.

She had had her good days and bad days at Stanley & Thornton’s, and her position as secretary to the managing director had been both an interesting and extremely responsible one, but working for Max Hunter was something else. And that was the understatement of the year.

Nevertheless, on the morning of Monday, the seventeenth of May, when Cory awoke to clear blue skies and brilliant sunshine, and the realisation that from this day on it was just her juggling the hundred and one balls that Gillian had seemed to manage so effortlessly, she felt more than a little nervous and the butterflies in her stomach were going crazy.