A Boss In A Million

Not that Max Hunter had been anything other than completely professional and detached from that first lunchtime, she reminded herself quickly as she flung back the covers and knelt on her bed to look out of the big picture window at half of Chiswick’s rooftops. And patient when he’d had to be, calm, unruffled—at least with her. However, she suspected he’d made a special effort during her settling-in period, and with Gillian there—who practically seemed to read his mind and know what he wanted before he knew himself—he’d had no reason to be anything else. She had observed enough to know he was not a naturally patient man, also that his bark could be every bit as bad as his bite with lesser mortals who stepped out of line.

‘Do…not…panic.’ She spaced the words out slowly, her heart hammering. ‘You’re going to be fine, just fine.’

Of course, if she was being absolutely honest, it didn’t help that he often worked at his desk with his jacket off and his tie loose or flung aside altogether. She nipped at her lower lip, shaking her head at her own absurd foolishness. It shouldn’t matter, she knew it shouldn’t matter—he was only her employer for goodness’ sake—but the first time she had walked into his office, on her second day at Hunter Operations if she remembered rightly, and seen him frowning over a load of scattered papers on his huge desk, his massive shoulders and broad physique accentuated by the thin blue silk shirt he was wearing, she’d done a double take.

Thank goodness he had been more interested in the report he’d been looking at than her entrance, she thought now, as her cheeks flushed at the memory of how she had felt.

His tie had been hanging either side of his collar on that occasion and the first two or three buttons of his shirt had been undone, revealing a hard tanned throat and just the beginning of a smidgen of body hair below his collar bone, and she hadn’t been able to believe what it had done to her.

Not that she was attracted to him. The thought was fierce and one which came into play several times a day without fail. Not in the slightest. It was just that after little Mr Stanley, with his bald head and paunch and unfortunate tendency to sniff all the time due to chronic catarrh, Max Hunter’s particular brand of aggressive male virility was something of a shock. But she’d master what was after all nothing more than an animal response, a fleshly, purely physical thing. Of course she would. No problem.

She just hoped it would be sooner rather than later, she admitted to herself the next moment with a deep sigh. This stupid…awareness of him made her jittery and nervous, and although she was careful to hide it she was constantly on edge in his presence.

Cory breathed in and out a few times, her gaze wandering round the big light sun-washed room, and coming to rest on a huge cake tin perched on top of the small fridge in the minute kitchen in one corner of the bedsit.

She had been home for the first time this weekend, and before she had set off back to London, her mother had packed her faithful little Mini with enough food to keep an army for a month.

Her brow wrinkled as she thought of the two days she had just spent in Yorkshire. She had relished the time with her parents—she had always been close to the pair of them and they had had a riotous evening out on the Saturday when all three of them had eaten and drunk far too much—but meeting Vivian again for the first time in six weeks had been hard. Well, more than hard if she were honest.

As soon as he had spied her bright red Mini parked outside the house on Saturday morning—she had travelled down late on Friday night after Gillian’s farewell party—he had been knocking at the door, and it had been all of three hours before she could get rid of him. Get rid of him? The thought stopped Cory in her tracks as she made to walk across the room. She’d never want to get rid of Vivian, would she? She hadn’t meant it like that, not really. It was just that she felt awkward now he was engaged to Carole—that was it—uncomfortable and unsure of how she should behave. And he had seemed so…unhappy? No. The denial was immediate. Of course he wasn’t unhappy, just harassed with all the wedding arrangements and so on. And that was perfectly understandable; of course it was.

She shook her head slightly as she walked across the room. She was going to have a shower in the small bathroom across the landing directly opposite her door, and then fix herself toast and coffee before she got ready for work. She had plenty of time—she had woken a good hour before her alarm was due to ring—but she wanted to get into the office nice and early and have Max’s post opened and ready for him on his arrival at Hunter Operations. She intended to start as she meant to carry on, and that would involve one hundred per cent commitment. But that was all right—certainly for the next few years at least. The last thing, the very last thing she was looking for after the heartache of the previous few months was a romantic involvement of any kind. Work was safe—you knew where you stood with career ambitions and the like—it was men who were the unknown quantity and liable to cause you heartache and grief.

A pair of hard amber eyes suddenly shot into the screen of her mind and she paused, her hand outstretched towards the big bath sheet on the little stool by the door, as she told herself that was different. Max Hunter was her boss, that was all, and any nervousness or flutters she felt about him were quite legitimate when you considered her financial security was in his hands. And that was the only reason, the only reason, that this magnetism problem was getting to her. It was. For definite.

Cory arrived at Hunter Operations at a quarter past eight, but when she walked into her office and looked through the open interconnecting door into Max’s domain she realised he must have been in residence for half the weekend, from the amount of papers strewn about his desk and floor. The man was a workaholic!

‘Good morning.’ His voice was preoccupied. And she had opened her mouth to make the necessary response when he continued, ‘Can you be ready to fly out to Japan this evening?’ His tone suggested he was asking for nothing more unusual than a cup of coffee.

‘Japan?’ The therapy of a leisurely soak in hot bubbles followed by toast and coffee on her tiny balcony immediately vanished as she gazed at him in amazement.

‘Uh-huh.’ He didn’t raise his head as he spoke but she saw he was frowning at the papers in front of him. ‘This deal with Katchui is getting too complicated; I need to get over there and sort a few things out face to face. You can’t beat flesh contact.’

He looked at her then, two piercingly sharp rays of golden light holding her to the spot before he lowered his head again. ‘Two first-class tickets any time after three this afternoon; see to it, would you? And I need some coffee, black and strong, and a sandwich. Ham, turkey, beef—not salad or cheese. I need nourishment, not punishment,’ he added dryly.

‘Right.’ She tried to make her voice brisk and secretarial rather than bemused and stunned, which was how she felt.

‘And I need that tape on your desk typed up before midday; if we need to make any changes we’ll have to do it before we leave.’

‘How…how long do you expect us to be away?’ Cory asked faintly. Talk about life in the fast lane; this was express mode.

‘Five days, a week at the most.’ Again the amber light raked her face. ‘It’s not a problem?’ It was said in a tone that suggested it had better not be.

‘No, no, of course not.’ A week in a foreign country with Max Hunter for company? she thought weakly. And he asked if it was a problem? But it went with the territory and she had known that when she’d accepted the position; it was just that she had expected a few more weeks to get…acclimatised.

The morning sped by on winged feet, and once she had presented the report for Max’s eagle-eyed scrutiny at just gone eleven Cory dashed back home and frantically threw clothes and other necessities into a case, dug out her passport, and was back in the office before twelve and straight back at work.

It was almost half past one when it suddenly dawned on Cory that she hadn’t let her mother know about the trip, and she had just dialled the number and heard the receiver being lifted at the other end when Max chose that moment to put in an appearance with a sheaf of papers in his hand and a preoccupied expression on his face.

Blast! Cory heard her mother speak the number and didn’t like to put the phone down. He never came to her; in all the weeks she had been at Hunter Operations the buzzer had invariably summoned Gillian into the inner sanctum. She spoke quickly into the phone. ‘Hi, it’s Cory. I’m just ringing to let you know I’m going on a business trip to Japan for a few days, so don’t worry if you ring the house and there’s no answer.’

‘Japan?’ Her mother was all agog. ‘How exciting, dear. I’m glad it wasn’t this weekend anyway; we had a lovely time, didn’t we? It was wonderful to see you; your father and I so enjoyed it.’

‘It was wonderful to see you too,’ Cory said uncomfortably, vitally aware of the big dark figure on the perimeter of her vision.

‘And Japan, you say? Well, well. Now make sure you take some travel sickness pills—you know how you are—and—’

‘I’m sorry, I’m going to have to go.’ She knew, without looking at him, that he was scowling. There were dark vibrations coming across the airwaves. ‘And I’ll look after myself, don’t worry. I’ll phone you as soon as I get back.’

‘All right, darling, and thank you for letting us know. I hope everything goes well and that you have a lovely time. Love you.’

‘Love you.’ It had been their stock goodbye all through her days at university and since she had been in London and Cory didn’t think twice about it. Until she raised her head and looked into Max’s face, that was.

‘Quite finished?’ It was expressionless and even but she knew exactly how he meant it, and immediately she rebelled. He had told her in the first week that the making and receiving of private calls was quite acceptable, as long as she chose the appropriate time and didn’t talk to her long-lost cousin in Australia every day, but this was the first call—the very first call—she had made. And she wouldn’t have had to do that if he had given her more notice about the Japan trip, either! Well, he certainly needn’t think he was browbeating her or making her feel guilty, she told herself hotly. Even Mr Stanley had allowed her more licence than this.

‘Yes, thank you.’ It was cold and curt and told him his attitude had been noticed and was not appreciated.

‘Then perhaps you’d do a better job on these predicted sales figures than Mr Mason’s secretary has. I can only just work out what they mean and I don’t expect Mr Katchui to have to wade through columns and columns of unnecessary rubbish.’ His voice was clipped and terse, as though she were the one at fault. ‘Whatever we’re paying the woman it’s too much,’ he finished on a growl.

‘Right.’ Cory’s jaw was set as she took the proffered report. ‘We will need to leave here no later than half past two; the flight is at four.’ Her voice was as terse as his and just as cold.

She had been so busy concentrating on avoiding touching his hand that her grasp on the papers was minimal, and as the last page became adrift and began to fall she made a grab for it at the same time as Max bent to retrieve it. They didn’t exactly make contact, but as her brow brushed against his and the warmth and smell of him encompassed her the effect on Cory was like a powerful electric shock, and the rest of the papers fanned out in a graceful arc about his bent head as she shot backwards.

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ This time her lunge forward resulted in their heads cracking together with enough force to make Max see stars for a moment or two, and she was aware of her illustrious boss staggering a little and saying something extremely rude before he took a visible hold of himself and said, ‘Leave them, leave them for crying out loud. I’ll do it.’

Cory took a very long deep breath as she watched him bend his knees and gather up the pages, and she tried to ignore the way powerful shoulder muscles bunched under thin silk and the way the pose brought expensively cut trousers tight across lean thighs.

‘Thank you.’ It was succinct in the extreme but all she trusted her voice to say. She was just grateful it wasn’t a croak.

‘My pleasure.’ He glared at her once on straightening before banging the crumpled papers on her desk and turning on his heel, disappearing through his door and slamming it behind him.

Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Cory stared after him as she willed her heartbeat to return to normal. Not content with aiming to knock him out once, she’d had to go back for a second shot at the title! She bet she knew what he was thinking as he sat in there: Come back, Gillian; all is forgiven. The thought brought a weak smile in spite of her embarrassment. In all the six weeks she had been with Gillian she had never once seen the older woman anything but composed, placid and patient when dealing with her volatile boss. Well, they said variety was the spice of life…

Max didn’t risk poking his head out of his office until ten minutes before they were due to leave and, as luck would have it, just as she typed the last number on the neat and concise sales figures she had displayed clearly enough for a child to understand.

‘Just finished,’ Cory said brightly as she pressed the print key. She didn’t look directly at him; she just couldn’t.

He walked across to her desk and stood waiting a moment without speaking, and then, as she handed him the first methodical and compact page of figures, glanced at it intently before raising his eyes and giving her one of his rare and devastating smiles. ‘Excellent. You’ve checked it all?’ he asked briefly.

‘Yes.’ She didn’t add that she’d found several of the columns on the original report had been wrong and that she’d had to go back to Mr Mason to confirm what was what. She had an idea that his secretary wasn’t going to last long anyway.

‘Right.’ He had put down the first sheet of paper and was fastening the collar of his shirt and pulling his tie into place as he said, ‘Time to get moving, I’m afraid. You’re all ready?’

Ordinary though his actions had been, there was a curious intimacy to them that Cory couldn’t have explained but which made her cheeks flush, and now she busied herself tidying the other printed pages and handing them to him as she said, ‘Yes, I’m ready.’

Was the rest of his body the same golden-brown as his face and throat and arms? With his great height and muscled lean frame he must look pretty sensational unclothed… A sudden shiver at the thought awoke her to what she was thinking, and she was weak-kneed with relief that he had turned and gone back to his own office to fetch his things, shutting the door behind him.

What was the matter with her? she asked herself faintly. Had she gone stark staring mad? She couldn’t afford to harbour any thoughts like that about Max Hunter. It was all the more disconcerting because she had never, ever let her imagination run riot with anyone else, even Vivian. But Vivian wasn’t like Max. The thought opened her eyes wide as she plopped down on her seat and then leapt up again to tidy her desk and fetch her suitcase and jacket from her washroom, all the time telling herself she was his secretary, his secretary, for goodness’ sake, and she would be out on her ear if he so much as caught a glimmer of what she was thinking. He would misconstrue it, think she fancied him or something, and she didn’t. She didn’t. She really didn’t.

Due to a last-minute call from the States and then one from Mr Katchui himself, Max didn’t join her in the outer office until nearly three, but the drive from the offices in Brentford to Heathrow was straightforward and Max’s chauffeur drove the car competently and fast through the heavy afternoon traffic.

The couple of package holidays Cory had been on in the past just didn’t prepare her for the sort of treatment afforded the exalted first-class passengers, but she couldn’t enjoy it to the full with every nerve-ending screaming. It was being with him like this. He was obviously the type of man who automatically took care of the woman he was with, and although it was nice—it really was—to be folded into him by his arm round her waist as he used his body as a barricade to protect her in the chaos of the terminal, not to have to carry her heavy case, to be whisked through the usual mind-numbing red tape in a way that made her breathless, it was disconcerting as well. In fact it was more than disconcerting if she was truthful.

And she was vitally aware of the little stir his presence caused among the female contingent too—not that Max seemed to notice. The older women and the very young ones weren’t too bad—the former discreet and the latter somewhat awestruck, but there were a couple of predatory females in the VIP lounge in particular who were quite blatant in their appreciation. And it rankled. The more so because they totally ignored her as though she didn’t exist.

Once on the plane—and never in her wildest dreams had she imagined air travel could be so luxurious—Max’s jacket and tie were immediately discarded and he settled back in his seat with all the appearance of being utterly relaxed. ‘Take your shoes off, loosen anything that needs loosening and prepare for a long journey,’ he drawled lazily as the amber gaze took in her tenseness. ‘We’re nearly twelve hours in the air and the time difference means we land around midday Tokyo time. We’re meeting Mr Katchui late afternoon, and it’s going to be a long twenty-four hours whatever way you look at it. Once we’ve eaten try and catch a few hours’ sleep.’

Cory nodded carefully. Yes, she’d try, and she would also aim to be the efficient, cool secretary a man in his position had the right to expect, she told herself flatly.

Sexual chemistry had its places, but the office was not one of them, she reflected soberly as she undid the buttons of her thin linen jacket and eased her court shoes off her feet. She just didn’t recognise this side of herself when she thought about it. She had never considered herself to be a particularly sensual person; her love for Vivian had care and fondness and warm affection at its core, and of course she had thought he was a very attractive man, she added quickly. Very attractive. But there had been no stirring of her senses, a little voice in her head reminded her, or at least not in the same way as Max Hunter got under her skin.

‘And don’t look so worried.’ He leant across as he spoke, his voice low and soft as Cory sat rooted in her seat. ‘I would never have taken you on as my secretary if I didn’t think you were up to the job. You may not have noticed but I’m not a natural philanthropist.’ And then, when she just stared at him, ‘That was meant to be amusing but don’t feel obliged to smile just because I pay your salary,’ he added with dry self-mockery.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’ It had been his nearness that had frozen her reaction—he had been so close she could see the little black regrowth of his beard beginning to show through the tanned smoothness of his chin and smell his aftershave, which was a subtle blend of something wicked, but now she forced a grin as she spoke and was rewarded by an answering quirk of his mouth.

‘No, I didn’t think you would.’ He’d settled back in his seat and now the amber eyes narrowed, and he surveyed her for a good ten seconds before he added, ‘Whoever he is, he isn’t worth all the heartache, Cory. Take it from someone who knows.’

‘What?’ Her mouth straightened as her eyes widened in surprise. ‘Who on earth are you on about?’ she asked ungrammatically.

‘This bozo who’s been giving you the run-around.’ His voice was quite without expression. ‘Because he has, hasn’t he?’

‘I really don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking—’

‘What’s happened?’ he continued evenly, ignoring her interruption with his normal arrogance. ‘Has he suddenly realised his mistake since you’ve been down in London and talked you round?’

‘No one has talked me round,’ she said indignantly.

‘It doesn’t look like that to me.’

What on earth was he talking about? she asked herself silently. He didn’t know anything about Vivian, did he? Not that there was anything to know, she added bitterly. There never had been, not really. It had been a one-sided love affair in every sense of the word. ‘Max, I’m telling you, no one has talked me round,’ she insisted jerkily. As far as Vivian was concerned there had never been anything to talk about; she was just good old Cory, friend, comforter, confidante, mug. Mug? Where had that come from?

She didn’t have time to explore the shock declaration her mind had thrown up before Max said, his tone astringent, ‘Then why did you tell him not to worry about you and that you love him?’

‘I told Vivian I love him?’ The words were out before she had got her brain engaged, but he seized on them like a dog with a bone, his eyes glittering and his mouth tight.

‘Vivian? Is that his name?’ It was magnificently scornful but he didn’t seem as pleased that he was right as normal. ‘I’ve always thought it far more appropriate for a woman than a man,’ he said scathingly, ‘but then I suppose it depends on the type of man.’

This was getting out of hand. Cory took a deep breath and prayed for composure. ‘Max,’ she managed to say quite calmly, ‘I think we’re getting our wires crossed here.’ The phone call. The flipping phone call! ‘I haven’t talked to Vivian since the weekend and I certainly haven’t told him I love him. If you’re referring to earlier in the office I was talking to my mother.’

‘Your mother?’ He blinked once and she had the rare—the extremely rare—opportunity of seeing Max Hunter lost for words.

‘Yes, my mother,’ she answered, her tone tart, but inwardly the sight of her esteemed and authoritative boss literally gaping was really rather satisfying. ‘You didn’t give me much notice about this trip if you remember,’ she continued coolly, ‘and surprisingly I do have a life outside Hunter Operations, and there are people who might worry about me if I don’t answer my phone for a week.’

He recovered almost immediately. ‘Like the aforementioned Vivian?’ he asked pointedly. ‘The name did slip off your tongue.’

Why, oh, why had she been so foolish? She stared at him in exasperation as she wondered how much to tell him. He was watching her closely, observing her reaction in that big-cat, unnerving way of his, the pale amber shirt he was wearing accentuating the vivid gold of his eyes and increasing the impression of an animal about to spring. Oh, get a hold of yourself, woman! She forced herself to lean back easily in her seat as the thought hit. Max Hunter was a man who liked to hold all the cards—she had seen enough of the way he operated over the last six weeks to know that—and as far as he was concerned his secretary was an appendage of himself and therefore as much under his control as his own right arm.

Gillian’s life had been an open book—marriage at twenty-five to her childhood sweetheart, and a mutual decision, on finding out that they couldn’t have children, to put all their energies into their careers—and that was fine…for Gillian. But she didn’t see that a baring of her soul had any relevance to the way she conducted herself as Max Hunter’s secretary.

‘Vivian is a friend,’ she said at last, her voice flat. ‘A dear and old friend and I have known him for years. Okay?’

‘No, it isn’t.’ And then, as her eyes turned a dark jade and the violet tint was eclipsed by stormy grey, he added, ‘I need to know you’re with me, one hundred per cent with me, Cory, and that’s the bottom line. I don’t need a secretary who’s pining from unrequited love or anything of that nature; it just won’t do. It would affect your work and you know it.’

‘How dare you?’ She glared at him angrily. This was too much.

‘I dare because it is necessary,’ he said grimly, and never had the dark, brooding quality to his powerful charisma been more evident. ‘I rely on my secretary too much to be mealy-mouthed.’