The Billionaire's Ruthless Affair

‘Oh,’ she said, not really surprised. Of the three girls Alex had dated during the time she’d worked for him, Lisa had been the most annoying with that silly laugh of hers, not to mention the way she would drop into the office unannounced. Alex hadn’t liked that, and neither had Harriet. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added a little belatedly.

‘I’m not. Not really.’ Alex stared at her hard for a long moment. ‘You’re not going to quit, are you?’

Her shocked expression must have soothed him, for his eyes immediately softened. But it underlined to Harriet that Alex was not a man who responded well to being crossed or thwarted. She’d always known he was a tough businessman, but she’d never seen him seriously angry. It wasn’t in his nature to be mean, but she suspected he had a temper, like most men.

‘No, nothing like that,’ she said quickly.

‘Then out with it, Harriet. I don’t like to wait for bad news.’

‘It’s not bad news,’ she said, startled by his calling her Harriet like that. She’d always liked the way he called her Harry. There was a subtle intimacy about it which made her feel like his friend as well as his assistant. Obviously, she’d been deluding herself in that regard.

‘Well, not bad news for you,’ she went on sharply, doing her best to control a whole range of emotions which began bombarding her. The sudden lump in her throat alarmed her.

‘The thing is, Alex, I...I’ve broken off my engagement to Dwayne.’

His expression carried a measure of shock, quickly followed by one of genuine sympathy.

When tears pricked at her eyelids, panic was only a heartbeat away.

‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Harry,’ he said gently. ‘Very sorry indeed.’

His calling her Harry like that completed her undoing, bringing a wave of emotion which shattered her pretend composure and sent a torrent of tears into her eyes.

CHAPTER TWO

ALEX’S SHOCK AT Harriet’s news was eclipsed by her bursting into tears. For not once during the months she’d worked for him had she ever cried. Or come close to it, except perhaps over the cat. She was the epitome of common sense and composure, pragmatic and practical under pressure at all times. Even when he snapped at her—as he had yesterday—she just ignored him and went on with her job. Which he admired.

He didn’t care for women who cried at the drop of a hat or used tears as a weapon. He’d been brought up by a woman who’d been very stalwart by nature, a legacy perhaps of being born poor in war-torn Hungary, she and Alex’s father having migrated to Australia when they’d been just newlyweds. They’d hoped to make a better life down under. Unfortunately, that hadn’t happened. But his mother had never complained, or cried.

‘Crying doesn’t get you anywhere,’ his mother had told her three children often enough.

She had cried, however, when she’d found out she was dying of cervical cancer, a condition which could have been cured if she’d been diagnosed early enough.

Don’t think about that, Alex. Attend to the here and now. Which is your usually calm PA sobbing her broken heart out.

After standing in the doorway for far too long, wondering how he’d forgotten that Harry was a woman with a woman’s more sensitive emotions, Alex launched himself across the room and gathered her into his arms.

‘There, there,’ he said soothingly as he stroked her soft brown hair.

If anything she sobbed even harder, her shoulders shaking as her hands curled into fists and pressed against his chest. Romany meowed plaintively at his feet, obviously sensing distress in the air.

‘Stop crying now,’ he advised gently. ‘You’re upsetting the cat.’

She didn’t stop crying and Romany ran off, the insensitive deserter. Alex wished he could do likewise. He didn’t feel entirely comfortable holding Harry like this. He was never comfortable with excess emotion. Neither was he a touchy-feely kind of guy. He touched a woman only when he was about to make love to her.

‘Oh! S-sorry.’

Alex’s head swivelled round at the sound of Audrey’s startled apology. Audrey was forty, divorced and a cynic and the expression on his receptionist’s face suggested she’d instantly jumped to the conclusion that something of an intimate nature was going on between her boss and his PA. Alex knew he had to nip that idea in the bud before nasty rumours started flying around the office.

‘Harriet is upset,’ he said rather brusquely. ‘She’s broken off her engagement to Dwayne.’

Audrey’s finely plucked eyebrows formed an even greater arch. ‘Really? What did he do?’

Alex rolled his eyes at the woman’s lack of compassion. All she seemed interested in were the grisly details. Though, now that he thought about it, Alex was curious about the circumstances as well. He could not imagine Dwayne being unfaithful. He wasn’t that kind of guy. Not that he knew him well. He’d met him only twice.

Alex had actually been surprised by Harriet’s choice of fiancé. She was a very attractive girl—and smart as a whip—whereas Dwayne was just, well, ordinary, both in looks and intelligence. Alex had found him quite boring to talk to. He would have expected more interesting conversation from a high school history teacher, but Dwayne had come over as being interested in only his pay cheque and his holidays.

‘More time to play golf,’ he’d said rather avidly.

Perhaps that was what had gone wrong. Maybe he’d been spending too much time on the golf course and not enough time making love to his fiancée. Alex knew that if he was engaged to Harriet, he would spend quite a lot of time making love to her. Having her in his arms reminded him what a good figure she had.

When such thinking sparked a prickling in his groin, Alex decided to bring a swift end to his hugging Harriet so closely. Stepping back from the embrace, he leaned over to snatch a handful of tissues from the box that was kept on the counter and held them out towards her still-clenched hands.

‘Dry your eyes,’ he ordered.

She did as she was told, blowing her nose quite noisily.

‘Now, I’m taking Harriet out for coffee. And we won’t be back for a while,’ he relayed to Audrey. ‘Let the others know the situation when they come in, will you?’

‘Will do,’ Audrey replied.

‘I...I’d like to fix my face before I go out anywhere,’ Harriet requested.

‘Fair enough,’ Alex said. ‘I’ll meet you at the lifts in five minutes.’

* * *

Grabbing her handbag, Harriet dashed out of the office and along the corridor to the ladies’ room, which thankfully was empty. She groaned when the vanity mirror showed flushed cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. Sighing, she splashed them with cold water, glad that she didn’t wear eye make-up during the day. Otherwise she might have ended up looking like a raccoon.

Grabbing some paper towels, she dabbed her face dry, after which she swiftly replenished her red lipstick before running a brush through her shoulder-length brown hair. When it fell into its usual sleek curtain without a strand out of place, she conceded that her monthly appointment with one of Sydney’s top stylists was worth every cent. It saved her heaps of time every morning and in moments like this. Because, when Alex said he’d meet her in five minutes, he meant five minutes. Patience was not one of her boss’s virtues. Kindness was, however. And compassion. He’d shown both with Romany and now with her.

She should have known he’d be nice to her.

Not that she’d expected him to hug her like that. That had been a surprise. So had her bursting into tears in the first place. It wasn’t like her to be so emotional. But she supposed it wasn’t every day that your dreams for the future were shattered. Maybe if she’d cried buckets during the days after the split with Dwayne, she wouldn’t have broken down just now. She hadn’t even told Emily, knowing perhaps her friend’s critical reaction. She’d just bottled up her feelings, then stupidly started worrying that telling Alex her news would jeopardise her job. As if he would be so cruel as to sack her because she was suddenly single. The very idea was ludicrous!

With a final swift glance at her reflection in the mirror, Harriet hurried from the ladies’ room and strode quickly along the grey carpeted corridor which would bring her to the lift well. Alex was already there, his expression shuttered as he looked her up and down, probably searching for signs that she had herself under control. No way would he want her weeping by his side in public. She gave him a small, reassuring smile, but he didn’t smile back, his gaze still probing.

‘Better now?’ he said.

‘Much. You don’t have to do this, you know,’ she added, despite actually wanting to go and have coffee with him. ‘We could just go back into the office and have coffee there.’

‘Absolutely not. Audrey and the others can hold the fort.’

The lift doors opened and several office workers piled out, Ark Properties not being the only business with rooms on that particular floor, though theirs were the pick, with Alex’s office having a wonderful view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. ‘Nothing like a good view of Sydney’s spectacular icons to help sell property in Australia,’ he’d told her on the day he’d hired her.

Harriet agreed wholeheartedly.

‘So when did all this happen?’ Alex asked her as he waved her into the now empty lift.

‘The weekend you flew home from London,’ she told him.

He threw a sharp glance over his shoulder as he pressed the ground-floor button.

‘Why didn’t you tell me straight away?’ he went on before she could think of a suitable answer. ‘Did you want to give yourself the opportunity to change your mind? Or for Dwayne to change it for you?’

‘No. No, once I made up my mind, I knew I wouldn’t change it. Dwayne hasn’t tried to change my mind, either. After our last argument, he knew it was over between us.’

‘That must have been some argument.’

‘It was.’ A rueful smile teased the corners of her mouth. What would Alex say, she wondered, if he knew he’d been the subject of most of that last argument?

His eyes narrowed on her. ‘Want to tell me about it?’

She looked up into his gorgeous blue eyes, then shook her head. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

‘Well, I do,’ he stated firmly just as the lift doors opened on the ground floor. Taking her arm, he steered her across the spacious lobby and through the revolving glass doors which led out onto the chilly city street.

‘So which café do you prefer?’ he asked, nodding towards each of the two casual eating establishments that flanked the entrance to their building. It occurred to Harriet that Alex had never actually taken her for coffee before. She’d lunched with him a few times—always with clients—but only at the kind of five-star restaurants which catered for businessmen of his status.

‘That one has better bagels,’ she said, pointing to the café on their left.

‘That one it is, then.’

He found them an empty table at one of the windows which overlooked the street, seeing her settled before heading for the counter. Harriet found it odd watching him queue up to order food, thinking he wouldn’t have done that too often. But then she recalled that he hadn’t always been rich and successful.

When she’d secured a second and personal interview for this job, she’d looked him up on the Internet, unable to find out all that much information, the best being an article written about him for a men’s magazine a couple of years back. Harriet had been surprised to discover that he’d come from a down-at-heel migrant family, living in government housing in the outer western suburbs of Sydney. His near-genius IQ had given him access to special schools for gifted children, followed by various financial grants to help him through university, culminating in his being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.

The magazine article she’d read had outlined his rise to success in Sydney, first as a realtor based mainly in the western suburbs, then as a property developer with his head office in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. The article made no mention of any business interests in England, or his personal life, except to say that he was one of Sydney’s most eligible bachelors. There’d been no mention of his family or friends.

Harriet rolled her eyes at what happened when Alex reached the front of the queue. The very pretty young brunette behind the counter beamed at him as she took his order, her eyes and manner very flirtatious. Harriet found herself decidedly irritated, hating the thought that Alex might have already found a replacement for that silly Lisa. The sudden thought that she might be jealous seemed ludicrous. Jealous of whom? And of what? And, more to the point, why?

Harriet frowned, wondering and worrying that Alex’s hugging her earlier might have unlocked feelings which she’d always had for him and which she’d successfully hidden, even from herself. Harriet couldn’t deny that she’d liked the feel of his big, strong arms around her; she liked his bringing her here for coffee as well.

Whatever, when Alex turned away from the counter and started heading towards her, Harriet found herself looking at him with new eyes, the same new eyes which had examined Dwayne with brutal honesty and had found him sadly lacking.

The word ‘lacking’ would never apply to the boss of Ark Properties. He had everything that any woman would want. In a boyfriend, that was, but not in a prospective husband.

So lock this unwanted attraction of yours away again, Harriet, and look elsewhere for your life partner. Because it’s never going to be Alex Kotana!

Perversely, however, as soon as he sat back down at their table, she opened her silly, jealous mouth and said waspishly, ‘I suppose that happens to you all the time.’

‘What?’ he said, sounding perplexed.

Whilst kicking herself, Harriet quickly found a wry little smile and a more casual tone. ‘The brunette behind the counter didn’t half make it clear that you could have put her on your order, if you’d been so inclined.’

Alex smiled. ‘She did, didn’t she? Unfortunately, she’s not my type.’

‘You don’t like brunettes?’ Now that she thought about it, his last two girlfriends had been blondes. She’d never met the first one, who’d come and gone within a month of her becoming Alex’s PA, so she didn’t know if she was a blonde or not.

His eyes held hers for a rather long moment, making Harriet feel decidedly uncomfortable. She hoped her momentary jab of jealousy hadn’t been obvious earlier. If it had, then she might not be lasting long in her job. It was a depressing thought. Her job meant the world to her. It was interesting and challenging and very well paid. Now that she didn’t have Dwayne in her life, she needed her job more than ever.

‘Sorry,’ she said swiftly. ‘I shouldn’t be asking you personal questions like that. It’s none of my business.’

Alex shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘No sweat. I’m about to ask you a personal question or two.’

‘Oh?’

‘Come now, Harry, you don’t expect me not to be curious over why you broke up with Dwayne. That’s why I brought you down here away from the prying eyes and ears in the office. To worm out all the grisly details. You must know that.’

Harriet sighed. ‘There are no grisly details.’ Just mundane ones.

‘So you didn’t discover he was a secret drunk, or a drug addict?’

‘No!’

‘You didn’t come home and find him in bed with your best friend?’

‘Lord no,’ she said and laughed.

‘Then what on earth did the man do?’

Harriet knew it was going to be difficult to explain without her seeming like some kind of nutcase. But she could see she would have to try. When Alex wanted to know something, he was like a dog with a bone.

‘He just didn’t measure up as husband material.’

‘Ah,’ Alex said, as though understanding perfectly what she was talking about. ‘I rather suspected that his golf playing might have become a problem.’

Harriet just stared at him. ‘I had no problem with Dwayne playing golf,’ she replied, feeling somewhat confused. ‘Though it didn’t go down well when he bought a very expensive set of clubs the same day he suggested I buy my wedding dress on the Internet.’

Alex’s brows lifted. ‘He wanted you to buy a second-hand wedding dress?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted tartly.

‘Ah,’ he said in that knowing way again, Harriet gratified that her boss understood that Dwayne’s penny-pinching suggestion might have been a deal breaker.

‘My father was a mean man with money,’ she found herself elaborating. ‘I vowed when I was just a teenager that I would never marry a scrooge.’

‘I fully agree with you. But didn’t you know Dwayne was tight with money when you first started dating him?’

‘He wasn’t like that then. He used to spend money on me like water. Took me to the best restaurants, the best concerts, the best of everything.’

‘Yes, well, a man like Dwayne would have had to pull out all stops to impress a girl like you. And he succeeded, didn’t he? You fell for him and agreed to marry him. But once he had his ring on your finger, he dropped the ball. Am I right?’

‘Very right,’ Harriet agreed, then frowned. ‘What do you mean by “a girl like me”?’

Alex smiled a crooked smile. ‘It must have been very upsetting to find out that your Prince Charming was nothing but a frog. And a stingy frog at that. What I meant was that you were always a cut above Dwayne, not only in looks but in intelligence and personality. He must have known on first meeting you that he would have to lift his game in every department if he wanted to win the heart of the beautiful Harriet McKenna. But the fool couldn’t keep it up, which is what happens when you play out of your league.’

Harriet flushed wildly at his compliments, not sure whether to believe him or not. Alex could be inclined to flattery on occasions. Not with her, but with clients. Though he had said she looked gorgeous the night they’d all attended that fundraising dinner back in March. She’d been wearing a new red cocktail dress which had looked well on her with her dark hair and eyes.

‘So what was the final straw?’ Alex went on. ‘The wedding dress business? Or something else?’

‘The wedding dress suggestion certainly brought things to a head. But I’d been unhappy for some time. And worried. It was obvious Dwayne wasn’t the man I thought he was. He certainly wasn’t acting like the man I fell in love with. He’d become lazy around the house. And with me.’

‘You mean your sex life had suffered.’

Harriet laughed and blushed slightly. ‘What sex life?’

‘The man was a fool,’ Alex said sharply. ‘What did he honestly expect would happen if he started neglecting you in bed?’

‘I have no idea,’ Harriet said with a sigh, thinking to herself that she couldn’t imagine Alex neglecting any of his girlfriends in bed. That man had testosterone oozing out of every pore of his gorgeous male body. ‘He obviously didn’t expect me to break off our engagement. He couldn’t believe it at first. When I tried to explain the reasons why I’d fallen out of love with him, he went into a rage, accusing me of all sorts of crazy things.’

‘Like what?’

Harriet could see Alex was determined to hear the truth behind the break-up.

‘Like I no longer loved him because I’d fallen in love with you...

‘As if I’d be stupid enough to do something like that,’ she raced on before Alex had a chance to jump to any potentially dangerous conclusions.

CHAPTER THREE

THE ARRIVAL OF the brunette with his order of coffee and bagels could not have come at a better time, giving Alex the opportunity to hide his peeved reaction to Harriet’s somewhat scoffing reply to Dwayne’s accusation. A perverse reaction, in a way, considering he didn’t want any woman falling in love with him. But it wasn’t very flattering for Harry to tell him that her falling for him would be stupid!

His throwing the waitress one of his super-charming smiles was more the result of a bruised ego than his desire to capture the girl’s interest. He’d been right when he’d said she wasn’t his type. She’d been way too eager to please. As much as Alex liked to date pretty young things—and the brunette was just that—he preferred independent, spirited girls who didn’t gush or grovel, and who didn’t have a single gold-digging bone in their bodies. Alex had known immediately that the brunette was not of that ilk.

‘Is there anything else you’d like, sir?’ the brunette asked after carefully placing the coffee and bagel on the table, her attention all on him, not having cast a single glance in Harriet’s direction.

‘No, thanks,’ he said and resisted the impulse to give her a tip. Harriet was already looking seriously irritated.

As the waitress departed, Harriet sent him a droll look.

‘Yes, I know,’ he said drily. ‘It does happen to me all the time. But she’s still not my type.’

‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t have flirted with her.’

Alex clenched his teeth hard in his jaw whilst he struggled to control his temper. ‘And perhaps you should tell me why you find me so unlovable,’ he retorted, still smarting over her earlier remark.

She blinked at his sharpness before dropping her eyes, taking a few seconds to pour the sugar into her coffee and looking up at him again. ‘I never said you were unlovable, Alex. I said I would not be stupid enough to fall in love with you. That’s an entirely different concept.’

Alex’s bruised ego was not to be so easily mollified. ‘Would you care to explain that last statement further? Why would it be so stupid for you to fall in love with me?’

‘Aside from the fact that I’m your PA, you mean?’ she threw at him.

He had to concede that that was an excellent reason. It was never a good idea to mix business and pleasure, something which he was in danger of forgetting.

‘Point taken,’ he said. ‘Is that the only reason, then?’

She gave him a long, searching look that he found decidedly irritating. This was a Harriet he wasn’t used to. Up till today she’d been the perfect PA, never complaining or criticising, calmly obeying his every wish and command. She’d never before looked at him in such an assessing and possibly judgmental fashion. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit.

Frankly, he preferred the Harriet who’d wept in his arms.

‘You’re not eating your bagel,’ she said as she coolly stirred her flat white. ‘And your coffee will get cold. You know how you hate lukewarm coffee.’

‘I also hate not having my questions answered,’ he ground out, sweeping up his mug of black coffee and glaring at her over the rim.

* * *

Harriet knew she had annoyed him; knew he’d taken her statement as a personal criticism. It had been seriously foolish of her to tell him about Dwayne’s accusation. But it was too late now. Somehow she had to explain her remark without offending Alex further.

Make light of it, girl. Turn it round so that it’s your failing and not his. And don’t, for pity’s sake, repeat the word ‘stupid’ in context with falling in love with him. No wonder he took umbrage!

‘The thing is,’ she said in a lighter, less emotional voice, ‘I realised a few years back that if I wanted to get married and have children...which I did; which I still do, actually...that I had to stop dating a certain type of man. I—’

‘And what type is that?’ Alex interrupted before she could go on.

‘Oh, you know. Your type.’

‘My type?’

Oh, dear, she’d done it again. She’d opened her big mouth and put her foot in it. ‘Well, not exactly your type, Alex,’ she said with a ‘butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth’ smile. ‘You are rather unique. As you are aware, I’ve worked in real estate ever since I came to Sydney when I was twenty. Girls usually date men they meet at work. It was inevitable that I would end up dating real-estate salesmen. Invariably, they were tall and handsome, with the gift of the gab, but not exactly the most faithful kind of guy.’

‘I see,’ Alex said thoughtfully. ‘Go on.’