Hired: A Bride for the Boss: The Playboy Boss's Chosen Bride / The Corporate Marriage Campaign / The Boss's Urgent Proposal

‘Splendid! I do love surprises!’

His grandfather was in fine form. No doubt he’d stirred the jealousy pot amongst the four half sisters, mischievously pitting them against each other. He’d also done a lot of table-hopping, spreading his charm around all the female guests. Jake wondered if he’d already targeted his next wife now that his seventh divorce had been finalised.

He was still a fine figure of a man. And handsome. His flashing brown eyes had not lost their sparkle. The lines on his well-tanned face—no age spots in evidence—were mostly laughter lines and whatever sag he had around his jaw was hidden by the neatly trimmed grey and black beard. His nose retained its perky tilt and the moustache beneath it accentuated the captivating sensuality of his strongly carved mouth. Highly mobile black and grey eyebrows made up for the fact he was almost bald.

Too much testosterone, Jake thought, and wondered if his own hair would suffer the same fate as he grew older. Not that it mattered, he decided. He liked to think he’d still be sexually active when he was his grandfather’s age.

‘If you’ll just turn your chair around to face the terrace,’ he instructed, ‘your surprise is about to take centre stage.’

‘Centre stage?’ his grandfather mused as he rose to his feet, eyes flashing with excited speculation. ‘It’s got to be a troupe of dancing girls.’

‘Oh, Dad!’ his youngest daughter chided.

‘He’s never going to act his age,’ an older one advised her.

‘Why should he when he doesn’t have to?’ Jake’s mother slid in, giving her father a sweetly indulgent smile, bolstering her favourite daughter status.

‘Hey! Take a look at that!’ one of the party guests called out in amazement.

All attention was immediately swung towards the terrace, zeroing in on the monster cake which was making its appearance stage right. It was being wheeled in from the wide garden path by four guys dressed in white with Happy Birthday, surrounded by the outline of a heart, printed in red on their T-shirts.

Nice touch, Mel, Jake thought, and took a mental note to compliment her on it when she came back to work.

His grandfather laughed and clapped Jake on the shoulder. ‘You didn’t!’ he cried, his eyes dancing with the memory of his favourite movie.

‘I did!’ Jake answered with happy satisfaction in his grandfather’s delight.

‘Is she a match for Virna Lisi?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘I’m bursting with anticipation.’

So am I, Jake thought. The cake was a masterpiece of decorative art—scrolls and flowers, probably made of plaster of Paris, edging the tiers, red satin ribbon tied in bows beneath them. The candles actually held electric globes and were alight, which meant power had to be supplied by a small generator inside the cake. Another brilliant idea by Mel! So far this production had definitely upstaged the movie.

‘Eight tiers,’ Jake pointed out. ‘One for each decade of your life, Pop.’

‘And the best is yet to come,’ was the resounding reply.

Certainly a tribute to positive thinking! Jake hoped he’d feel the same way when he was eighty.

Grandfather and grandson stood side by side, watching the cake come to a halt. Once it was in position at the centre of the terrace, two of the stage-hands brought a roll of carpet from the back of the bottom tier.

‘Lay it out, boys!’ Byron called, happily stepping forward to meet the end of it.

Red carpet, of course! Another plus score for Mel’s initiative. She deserved a bonus for this.

Fortunately the orchestra had the sense to hold off starting to play until the scene was completely set. Jake couldn’t resist trailing his grandfather, standing just behind his shoulder to get a full frontal view of the quality woman Mel had hired. There was an excited buzz of anticipation from the party crowd behind them. Without a doubt, this act was going to be talked about for a long, long time. People actually gasped as the lid of the top tier slowly lifted back.

The orchestra swung into action, producing a rousing rendition of ‘Happy Birthday.’ Everyone sang enthusiastically. A blonde head started to emerge from the top of the cake—lustrous shiny hair in a soft, wavy Marilyn Monroe style, a flyaway fringe swept across the forehead. Her eyes were lowered, lids shaded in a smoke-grey, crescents of long dark lashes brushing her cheeks. A very sexy mouth was emphasised by glossy red lipstick.

It wasn’t until her face and neck had completely emerged from the cake that recognition hit Jake and it came like a massive explosion inside his head.

Forget the deceptive blonde hair.

What he was looking at was Mel Rossi’s face.

Unmistakable!

The shock of it totally rattled Jake’s sense of reality. Never in a million years would he have imagined his prim and proper personal assistant taking on the role of blond bimbo in a birthday cake! It was completely beyond belief. Yet here she was, undeniably emerging, the lush curves of her body on stunning display.

The bikini she wore was fashioned out of red roses. They had to be artificial flowers but looked very real, and Jake’s mind instantly conjured up a vision of this Mel artfully posed nude on a red satin sheet being showered by American Beauty rose petals. With himself doing the showering. It was a stimulating vision. A very arousing vision.

She even had a red satin heart-shaped cushion dangling from a red ribbon around her wrist. Jake’s heart was not in such good shape. It was thumping wildly as his gaze followed Mel’s slow elevation from the cake, right down to sexy, red, high heeled sandals on her feet.

‘Wow!’ his grandfather breathed on a sigh of sheer awe. ‘You’ve outdone yourself, my boy!’

Jake was speechless.

He hadn’t heard the birthday song end but it obviously had because people were applauding, men whistling, cries of ‘Bravo!’ rang in his ears. His mesmerised gaze travelled back up to Mel’s face, just as she lifted her lashes.

And…choong!

Her eyes shot sizzling bolts of heat straight at him.

Nothing was suppressed in that look!

Even his toes curled.

Amid the chaos of the moment, some deeply intuitive sense in Jake Devila told him his relationship with Mel Rossi had just been changed…forever!

CHAPTER FOUR

A BLAZE of satisfaction settled Merlina’s quivering nerves. Jake looked completely stunned. And he wasn’t recovering quickly, either. Shock had blanked out the usual vitality of his playboy handsome face. There were no dimples in his cheeks. His mouth was absolutely still, not so much as a twitch of amusement. His dark eyes were not enlivened by mischievously teasing twinkles. He stared at her as though dazed. Mesmerised.

No doubt about it.

She had socked it to him with a vengeance.

And here she was, on show, in a bikini, and proud of herself for having dared to do it. A liberated woman. Her own person.

All the time and attention she had poured into producing this scenario had just paid off. She could retire from the battle scene of her employment with honours on her side. No sense of defeat at all!

But she still had to finish the act and do it absolutely right. She hoped all the rehearsals of stepping down the tiers of the cake in these sexy red shoes would stand her in good stead. Teetering would be terrible at this point. She fastened her gaze on Byron Devila, obviously the man standing at the end of the red carpet and just in front of Jake, then turned on a slow, sensual smile designed to warm the cockles of his eighty-year-old manhood.

Though he didn’t look eighty, more like a young sixty, and the smile he returned smacked of very lively male appreciation of how she looked. Which gave Merlina the encouragement she needed to set off descending to the red carpet which led directly to him.

Think Marilyn Monroe, she told herself. The orchestra took it upon itself to play ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ as she made her way down the steps, for which Merlina was intensely grateful. It was much easier to look sexily graceful moving to music than in silence with everyone watching. She arrived on the red carpet without a falter, and determinedly ignoring Jake, she walked straight towards his grandfather, growing in delicious confidence with every step.

She’d done it and it was wonderful!

She felt Jake’s gaze on her, felt a churning maelstrom of thoughts coming from him and swirling around her. Her nerves were very active again, not quivering with the fear of failure as before, but buzzing with elation at having thrown the puppet master into a wild tangle with his own strings.

And Byron Devila was looking at her as she’d always wished Jake would—with sparkling admiration and captivated interest. The triumph of it all was exhilarating. The smile on her face grew in brilliance. Her eyes danced with daredevil glee at the older man. He held out his hands in open welcome as her approach came to a halt. She unhooked the ribbon from her wrist and presented him with the red satin heart-shaped cushion.

‘Happy Birthday, Mr Devila. May your heart always be filled with joy,’ she said, beaming her own joy right at him.

‘It is, my dear, and you’ve put it there.’ He hooked the ribbon attached to the cushion around his own wrist, then took both her hands in his, pressing lightly, his eyes twinkling encouragement. ‘I prefer at this point in my life not to waste any time. Tell me your name.’

‘It’s Merlina,’ she replied with an arch emphasis for Jake’s benefit. ‘Merlina Rossi.’

‘Merlina…’ He rolled it off his tongue as though finding it much to his taste. ‘A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.’

‘Thank you, Mr Devila.’

‘Call me Byron.’

‘Thank you, Byron.’

‘Now the only other question is—’ he waggled his eyebrows in flirtatious appeal ‘—will you marry me?’

She laughed. Whether it was a joke or not, there was such delicious irony in being proposed to by the grandfather of the man she really wanted, right in front of him.

‘That’s going a bit far, Pop,’ Jake said in an irritable tone, not the least bit amused. ‘You’ve only just laid eyes on her.’

‘Ah, yes! Love at first sight. Nothing like it!’ Byron said with relish, his eyes not leaving hers for a second. ‘Thank you for choosing Merlina for me, Jake.’

‘I didn’t choose her!’ he rasped in exasperation. ‘And you can’t have her. She’s mine!’

‘Yours?’ Byron turned a frown to his grandson. ‘You’ve had a skinny model hanging off you all afternoon. Go back to her, my boy. You can’t have it two ways, you know.’

Absolutely right, Merlina thought darkly, warming to Byron Devila who clearly understood how relationships should work. She gave Jake a look of hot scorn for his playboy ways. If he wanted her to be his, he was going to have to drop every other woman and fight his grandfather for her. Leap through a few of her hoops, too. Like marriage and children. Which wouldn’t happen. She knew that. But it didn’t extinguish the wild fantasy of a life-changing miracle suddenly happening.

‘Mel happens to be my personal assistant!’ Jake bit out menacingly.

‘Mel? Mel? Who is Mel?’ His grandfather demanded.

Merlina was beginning to love Byron Devila. He was fighting on her front, forcing Jake to acknowledge her real name.

‘This woman you’re so taken with is Mel,’ came the belligerent reply. Jake waved his hand in a scissor-like movement that clearly wanted to cut this scene to its end immediately. He glared at Merlina to confirm his statement.

No way, she beamed back at him. You can stew in this juice all by yourself. I’m not rescuing you. Not ever again.

‘You should be shot for corrupting such a beautiful name,’ Byron declared, returning his attention to Merlina, smiling at her as though she was all the goodies in the world wrapped up in one package. ‘It’s the feminine version of Merlin, the great magician, and you hold me spellbound, my dear.’

Oh, he was good! This was real heady stuff! No wonder he’d wooed seven women into wedlock. His immense wealth might be one attraction but the man himself was an absolute charmer.

‘Tell him!’ Jake commanded, positively fizzing with frustration. ‘Tell him you’re my personal assistant.’

Merlina took a deep breath and sighed with blissful satisfaction in her erstwhile employer’s disarray. ‘I was Jake’s personal assistant, Byron,’ she said to her new admirer. ‘But I’m not anymore.’

‘What do you mean you’re not?’ Jake fumed.

She fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘I left my resignation on your desk yesterday afternoon. You no longer have any claim on my time, Jake.’

He was stunned again.

Temporarily speechless.

It was marvellous!

She smiled sweetly at his grandfather. ‘So I’m free to spend as much time with you as I like, Byron.’

‘Bravo!’ he approved.

But Jake wasn’t finished yet. He came back firing. ‘You can’t leave me without notice.’ His eyes glittered satisfaction as he reminded her, ‘It’s not ethical, Mel.’

‘I believe a month’s notice is more than sufficient to fulfil my obligation to you, Jake. I mentioned it in my note of resignation. You have the next month to find my replacement.’

Realisation hit him, drawing his brows into a glowering frown. ‘But you’ll be away on vacation all that time.’

‘Yes. And I am due that vacation, as you very well know.’ Not having had one in the nineteen months she’d been his slave!

‘Splendid!’ Byron approved heartily. ‘Where would you like to spend it, Merlina? Say the word and I’ll…’

‘Merlina…’ Jake grated out between gnashing teeth, ‘is not a true blonde.’

Had he burst a blood vessel?

To attack on such a personal level…

Byron rolled his eyes at him. ‘Neither is your skinny model, my boy. Do be a good chap and go back to her. I understand your disappointment in losing Merlina to me but you obviously didn’t appreciate her enough.’

Too true! she thought, definitely beginning to love Jake’s grandfather.

‘I’m not talking about bottle blondes,’ came the fierce retort. ‘Her hair is dark brown. She’s wearing a wig!’

That was a mean blow. Completely below the belt.

Byron re-appraised her hair. ‘Damned good wig!’ he approved. ‘Had me fooled.’

Jake went for the kill. ‘And she’s fooling with you, Pop.’

Byron grinned at her. ‘Nothing like having a beautiful woman fooling with me.’

The tight place in Merlina’s chest loosened up as imminent humiliation passed. She grinned back. ‘I wore it to please you on your birthday, Byron. Jake said you preferred blondes.’

‘Well, I now find myself leaning towards sassy brunettes. And speaking of my birthday…’ Byron half turned, offering his arm to her. ‘Allow me to escort you to my table where we can toast it together.’

‘How kind!’ she purred, curling her arm around his.

She wasn’t sure if Jake actually growled but he looked at her as though he’d like to go for her throat. The aggression emanating from him was definitely dangerous. And thrilling.

Byron patted her hand and smiled benevolently at his grandson. ‘Thank you, Jake. Best birthday gift you could have given me.’ He blithely waved a dismissal. ‘You can have the cake rolled away now but I’m keeping Merlina. And please ask the orchestra to play Lerner and Loewe’s classic, ‘The Night They Invented Champagne.’

Jake was left standing in fight mode with nothing to fight as Byron led Merlina away in a triumphant walk back towards his guests. Maybe he’ll kick the cake, she thought, and decided to flirt outrageously with his grandfather for as long as the party lasted.

‘Oh, what fun!’ Byron burbled in her ear. ‘I take it you have issues with my grandson and you’ve just given him a wake-up call.’

She smiled at him, noting the merry amusement in his eyes. ‘Something like that.’

‘Brilliantly done, my dear. Don’t know what he sees in all those skinny women.’

She sighed. ‘I don’t think it will change anything, Byron.’

‘Nonsense! You have him on toast.’

‘Just the heat of the moment. And that does my pride a lot of good,’ she wryly confessed. ‘But unlike you, Jake isn’t the marrying type, and I’ve already wasted too much of my life on him.’

‘This is not the day to give up, Merlina. You’re on the crest of a wave and you must ride it through,’ he advised. ‘It’s time the boy did get married and I heartily approve of you as my granddaughter-in-law. A sassy woman puts a bit of excitement in one’s life.’

She laughed, hugging his arm with real affection. ‘You are a darling, Byron. But I don’t think…’

‘Leave it to me. I’m a master of manoeuvres.’

‘I’d have to agree with that. Asking me to marry you was wonderful!’

‘We can play on it. Give me the pleasure of your company and I’ll give you a diamond engagement ring.’

Merlina halted, suddenly unsure of where she was going with Jake’s grandfather. ‘Byron, I think you’re a lovely man but I couldn’t really marry you.’

He laughed. ‘Just setting the cat amongst the pigeons, my dear. How long did you work for Jake?’

‘Nineteen months.’

‘So the hook is well and truly in, even if he doesn’t know it yet.’

Merlina shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t go that far. He’s had a string of women while I’ve been working for him.’

Byron nodded knowingly. ‘The best of both worlds without having to give any commitment.’ He patted her hand again. ‘Let’s nail the pay-time. Be my live-in companion for a week. Just one more week of your life, Merlina, to see if Jake will come to your party.’

It was a tempting prospect. The idea of driving Jake Devila into a jealous rage was the stuff of giddy dreams. If it could actually happen…

‘I promise you we’ll have fun. I’ll take you shopping. Trips to the theatre, dining out. I’ll parade you everywhere, make us a conspicuous couple. I bet Jake won’t be able to ignore that.’

‘You’re as much a devil as he is, Byron,’ she said, thinking Why not? A week of being a pampered companion would be easy to take, wouldn’t it? Some fun time before looking for another job. And if her being with his grandfather did get to Jake…

‘Got his genes from me.’

Warning bells instantly rang. Byron Devila might be eighty but Merlina suspected he hadn’t lost any of his virility. She drilled him with her eyes. ‘I’d need you to be an absolute gentleman if I’m to live in.’

He laughed. ‘Hands off, I promise. I know where your interest lies, Merlina, and I’m feeling very inclined to further it if I can.’

She believed him. With a mad sense of throwing her hat well and truly over the windmill, she said, ‘Okay. I’ll do it.’

‘That’s my girl!’ he rolled out with beaming approval. ‘What a lovely birthday I’m having. Now let me introduce you to Jake’s mother.’

And they resumed their stroll towards his table.

Behind them the orchestra started to play ‘The Night They Invented Champagne.’

CHAPTER FIVE

JAKE returned to his table, furiously smouldering over Mel’s—Merlina’s—hijack of his birthday surprise. It made his grandfather’s delight in her totally intolerable. She’d done it to thumb her nose at his male chauvinist game, to put the icing on the cake of her resignation, to walk away wagging her rose petalled bottom at him. He was so burned up by her triumphant exit from his life, he could barely respond to the bubbling good humour of his friends, the guys in particular.

‘Got to hand it to you, Jake. That was a maxi show-stopper. Marilyn Monroe and American Beauty rolled out in one!’

‘Top wow factor. Talk about sex on legs!’

‘If she was in the garden, any man might be tempted to take time out to smell the roses!’

‘Looks like your grandfather is doing just that. Good one, Jake!’

‘Where did you find her?’

‘I bet she cost a bomb.’

A bomb that had exploded right in his face. And the cost was totally unacceptable. Losing Mel as his personal assistant…there was going to be one hell of a hole in his life. Then he remembered the exorbitant fee for the model. That was a kiss-my-arse hit if ever there was one. He almost erupted as he thought of how Mel had fooled him and feather-bedded her retirement from the job.

‘I was not counting the cost,’ he replied, using every gram of control not to sound as violently put out as he felt. ‘I just wanted to please my grandfather.’ And get under Mel’s skin. Except she’d got under his instead. Big time!

‘No doubt about that,’ Vanessa said dryly, nodding towards his grandfather’s table. ‘He’s obviously smitten with her.’

There he was, introducing Mel to his mother and aunts and she was laughing her head off. Jake’s hands curled into fists. Then, to really rub salt into his wound, one of the guys commented, ‘Definitely worth every cent she cost. Where did you say you found her, Jake?’

‘Oh, really!’ Vanessa interjected, a jealous note creeping in. ‘All this leching over the star turn is a bit rude in front of the women at this table.’

Female agreement swiftly followed, though in a more good-humoured tone than Vanessa’s waspish scolding. Which reminded him that his grandfather had always said skinny women thought too much of themselves. It had probably put Vanessa’s nose out of joint to be upstaged by a woman with a far more voluptuous figure.

Jake tried to give her the attention she wanted, but his heart wasn’t it. He didn’t even find her attractive any more. As for having sex with her tonight…no, he didn’t want to. In fact, he could barely resist the magnetic pull of following Mel’s progress with his grandfather.

No way would he give his erstwhile personal assistant more satisfaction by showing an interest in her outrageous gallivanting at this party, but it was damned difficult to keep his gaze trained on Vanessa and his other companions, and he found the popping of champagne corks a major irritation. The whole situation turned into an agony of waiting for the party to end.

Eventually guests started leaving. His friends decided on continuing the evening at a fashionable bar. Jake didn’t want to accompany them. He was in no mood to be civil let alone convivial. Vanessa was seriously put out when he excused himself, inventing some other commitment. He suggested she go with the others if she was so inclined and she rather sulkily said she would.

It made Jake wonder how he could have ever thought she was desirable on any level. Nevertheless, pride insisted he didn’t end their relationship while Mel could still see them together. To his over-burdened mind, that would give the highly provocative Ms Rossi not only the icing on the cake, but the cake, too.

She was hooked to his grandfather’s arm, saying goodbye to guests, playing hostess to his host with all the aplomb of a seasoned performer, which irked Jake to the bone. He put his left arm around Vanessa’s waist as they approached to take their leave.

‘Great party, Pop,’ he said, showing as much teeth as was possible to put into a broad smile.

His grandfather shot out his right hand to give Jake’s a strong shake. ‘Made more so by you, my boy. Can’t thank you enough.’

‘Yes, the cake idea was brilliant,’ Merlina trilled happily. ‘I’ve had such a wonderful time with Byron.’

Jake steeled himself to look at her. ‘Thank you,’ he said, grimly holding his smile. ‘And may I compliment you on once again rising to the occasion.’ Then to underline how gracious he could be in defeat and to minimise his previous bad-tempered reaction, he added, ‘I wish you well in whatever occupation you choose next, Mel.’ Be damned if he’d call her Merlina!

‘Which will be married life if I have anything to do with it,’ his grandfather supplied, twinkling indulgently at her.