The Billionaire's Ruthless Affair

Harriet was glad to see that Alex had lost his disgruntled expression, his blue eyes no longer cold and steely.

‘By the time I turned twenty-seven, I decided I was wasting my time on men like that. So I sat down and made a checklist of what I wanted in a husband.’

‘A checklist?’ he repeated, looking both surprised and amused.

‘Find it funny if you like. Emily certainly does.’

‘Who’s Emily? Your sister?’

‘No. Emily’s my best friend. She’s an English teacher who flatted with me for a while. It was through her that I met Dwayne.’

‘I did wonder how you two met. Frankly, I never thought you were all that well suited. Still, Dwayne must have met your checklist to begin with.’

Harriet sighed. ‘I thought he did, till he moved in with me and eventually showed his true colours. I now appreciate that it’s impossible to know a man’s true character till you live with him. Dwayne certainly met the first three requirements. When I made up my checklist, I decided that I wouldn’t even go out with a man till he ticked those three boxes. That way I hoped to avoid falling in love with any more Mr Wrongs.’

* * *

Alex’s mind boggled over what those three requirements might be. Harriet was right about his finding the idea of a checklist funny. He did. Though he shouldn’t have. Didn’t he have a checklist of his own when it came to the girls he dated? They had to be in their early twenties, pretty and easy-going. He had a feeling, though, that Harriet’s checklist would be a lot more fascinating. And, yes, very funny indeed.

‘Do tell,’ he said, trying to keep a straight face.

‘Promise me you won’t laugh.’

‘I promise,’ he said, but the corners of his mouth were already twitching.

‘Okay, well, the first requirement is he can’t be too tall or too short. Whilst I find tallness attractive, I’ve found that too-tall men are often arrogant, whilst too-short men can suffer from the “short man” syndrome.’

Alex realised that at six-foot-four he probably came into the ‘too tall’ category.

‘Do you think I’m arrogant?’ he asked.

‘A little. But not in a nasty way.’

‘Thank God for that. And requirement number two is?’

‘He can’t be too handsome or too ugly.’

Well, Dwayne had certainly been on the money there. As for himself... Harriet would probably label him in the ‘too handsome’ category.

‘And number three?’

‘He can’t be too rich or too poor.’

‘Right.’ Well, that certainly ruled him out as a prospective date for Harriet. Not that he would ever ask her out. He’d have to be mad to date Harriet.

But, as he looked into her big brown eyes, Alex was struck by the startling realisation that that was exactly what he wanted to do. Take her out, then take her back to bed.

Bad idea, that, he thought and busied himself stuffing his mouth full of bagel whilst trying to work out where such a potentially self-destructive desire had come from. After all, Harriet didn’t fit his own checklist for dating candidates any better than he fitted hers!

Still, it didn’t take Alex all that long privately to admit that he’d secretly wanted to take Harriet to bed since the day he’d interviewed her ten months ago. The attraction had been there from the moment she’d walked into his office, looking deliciously nervous but beautifully turned out in a sleek black suit which had followed the curves of her very feminine figure. Her dark brown hair had been up in a professional and somewhat prissy style, but her lushly glossed mouth had betrayed her true nature. He’d immediately made the decision not to hire her, despite her excellent résumé—till he found out she was safely engaged, at which point he’d fooled himself into thinking he could ignore his hormones.

And he had, up till now.

They would have remained in control, too, if she hadn’t broken up with Dwayne; if she hadn’t cried and he hadn’t hugged her. That had been the catalyst which had started the chemical reaction which saw him now being tempted to do something seriously stupid.

Thank God it was still just a temptation. He didn’t have to act on it. Didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of Harriet rejecting him, not just because he was her boss, but because he was too tall, too handsome and too rich.

His sudden laughter brought a reproving look into her velvety brown eyes.

‘You promised you wouldn’t laugh,’ she chided him.

‘Sorry. Couldn’t help it.’

‘In that case, I won’t tell you the rest of my checklist. You’d probably crack up entirely.’

‘You could be right, there. So I’ll save up the rest of your checklist till a later date. Now, I think we should finish up here and get back to work.’

CHAPTER FOUR

HARRIET SIGHED AS she sat back down at her desk and turned on her computer. She hadn’t wanted to go back to work; back to reality. She’d been enjoying having coffee with Alex, despite her many faux pas. She hadn’t really minded his laughing at her checklist, which she now appreciated was rather funny. Whilst it did have some merit, such strategies simply didn’t work out in real life, just like those silly matchmaking forms they made you filled in on online dating sites.

Most women ended up marrying men they met through work, Harriet accepted, thinking of her other married girlfriends. Actually, all her girlfriends were married, a thought which was rather depressing. Harriet was well aware that marriage and motherhood wasn’t the only pathway to happiness and fulfilment in life, but it was her chosen pathway. That and a career. Yes, she wanted to have it all, which was possibly where she was going wrong. Having it all suddenly seemed beyond her grasp. This time next year, she’d be hitting thirty. After thirty, finding a husband became more difficult; all the good ones were already snapped up.

Even ordinary men like Dwayne weren’t exactly thick on the ground. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to dump him. Maybe she should have ignored his failings and accepted him for the imperfect specimen he was...

Harriet was pondering this conundrum when Alex strode out of his office and perched his far too perfect body on the corner of her thankfully large desk.

‘A couple of things I forgot to tell you this morning,’ he said as he hitched his right knee up into a more comfortable position, indicating he was staying put for a while. ‘First, I want you to book me a flight to Milan, arriving on the twenty-ninth of July.’

‘Milan?’ she echoed, forgetting that it wasn’t a PA’s job to question her boss, just to obey.

‘Yes. Milan, Italy. One of my best friends from Oxford is getting married on the thirty-first. I’ve been ordered to be there two days before the actual wedding so that I can be attired suitably for my job as best man. The other best man obviously fears I might show up in jeans and a T-shirt.’

Harriet blinked her astonishment at such a ludicrous idea. The night they’d attended that fundraising dinner back in March, Alex had walked into the hotel ballroom wearing a magnificent black tux. He’d quite literally taken her breath away.

‘How ridiculous,’ she scoffed. ‘You are one of the best-dressed men I’ve ever met.’

‘You haven’t seen me when I’m slumming it. Jeremy has.’

‘Jeremy?’

‘The other best man and possibly the best-dressed rake in all of London.’

Harriet’s eyes widened. ‘Your best friend is a rake?’

‘Birds of a feather flock together, you know.’

‘You’re not a rake,’ she defended. ‘You just pick the wrong girls to date. The reason they never last is that you get bored with them.’

* * *

Alex stared at Harriet and thought how right she was. He did get bored with the women he dated. But that was exactly what made them safe. They never touched him with any depth of feeling, never moved his soul. Leaving them behind was so damned easy.

The truth hit that he wasn’t unhappy with his life so much, but he was bored. Bored with dating silly young girls. Bored with never having a decent conversation with a woman.

He hadn’t been bored having coffee with Harriet this morning. He’d been alternately annoyed, then angry, then amused and, yes, aroused. A whole gamut of emotions. He hadn’t been able to settle back down to work afterwards; he’d been looking for any reason to come out and talk to her again. Having Harriet book that flight for him had just been an excuse. He could quite easily have done it himself.

I’m not going to be able to resist this attraction, Alex finally conceded, no matter what the danger. He suspected she would not reject him; the sexual chemistry which had sprung up today was not all on his side. Alex had noticed her pique when the brunette in the café had flirted with him.

He still hesitated to ask her out on a regular date, sensing that it was too soon for such a move. Clearly, she was still hurting over the break-up with Dwayne. On top of that, she was his PA, one of the many reasons she’d given to explain why she would never fall in love with him. Not that he wanted her love, just her body. If truth be told, he didn’t want Harry to be his next girlfriend. He just wanted to have an affair with her. A strictly sexual affair.

He should have been disgusted with himself. But Alex soothed his conscience by reassuring himself that he would never hurt Harry. He could give her pleasure and fun, something which he suspected had been in short supply in her life for some time.

The only problem was finding a way to achieve his aims without offending her.

An idea struck, one which would sound perfectly reasonable but which would give him the opportunity to act upon his feelings away from the office. Of course, there was always the risk that Harry would still reject his advances. And, yes, she might even be offended by them. Alex suspected she was a stickler for propriety in the workplace. But it was a risk he was prepared to take. It had been a long time since he’d lived on the edge, so to speak, and it excited him. She excited him.

His eyes met with hers, his gaze intense as he searched her face for a sign that he’d been right about her body language when they’d been having coffee together. Alex was gratified when a faint flush bloomed in her cheeks.

‘My having to go to Italy for days on end couldn’t have come at a worse time,’ he said, schooling his own face into a concerned mask. ‘I need to be continually hands-on with that golfing estate if it’s going to be up and running by Christmas. Someone has to be up there every week to crack the whip. While I’m away, that person will have to be you, Harry.’

‘Me?’ she squawked.

‘Yes, you,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve heard you over the phone to our contractors when they’ve been giving us grief. You are one tough cookie when you want to be.’

‘But doesn’t that job already have a foreman in charge?’

‘Yes, but even the best foreman can get slack when he’s working that far from the boss. If I hadn’t been driving up there on a regular basis, we’d be even further behind than we are. I don’t want any more delays.’

‘Right,’ she said, still looking a bit hesitant.

‘I thought we could drive up there this Friday, stay overnight, then drive back on the Saturday. We’ll stay overnight. And not in some dreary motel, either. Book us a two-bedroomed apartment at a five-star resort in Coffs Harbour. That’s only a half-hour drive from the golf course. Somewhere near the ocean, with a balcony and a sea view. And make sure they have a decent restaurant. In fact, we might stay another night, then drive back on the Sunday. You deserve a break after what you’ve been through.’

CHAPTER FIVE

HARRIET DIDN’T KNOW what to say. She had travelled with Alex only once before. To the Gold Coast, to meet with some Japanese billionaires who’d been staying there at the Hotel Versace and who were potential clients for his new golf resort. But they’d travelled by plane and she’d taken a taxi to the airport by herself. She’d also stayed in a totally separate hotel room. The thought of staying with her way-too-sexy boss in an apartment—for possibly two nights—made her feel...what, exactly?

‘Panic’ came close to describing her reaction.

Before today, Harriet would have been supremely confident that Alex would never make a move on her. But things were different now. Lisa was past history and so was Dwayne. A new intimacy had sprung up between them, first when Alex had hugged her, and then when they’d had coffee together, an inevitable result once you started opening up about your private life to another person, even when that person was your boss. Harriet knew that men found her attractive. Why should Alex be any different?

And then there was her own silly self. She’d always been blindly attracted to men who were tall, handsome and, yes, super-successful, a failing which she’d worked hard to conquer. But she was in a highly vulnerable state at the moment and, when she faced it, when it came to tall, handsome and super-successful men, Alex was at the top of the heap. To stay with him in an apartment for two nights was asking for trouble.

She didn’t need any more trouble in her life. She did, however, need her job; the mortgage on her Bondi apartment barely manageable now that she didn’t have anyone to help with the payments. Having an affair with the boss was a sure way to lose her job. Harriet had been around long enough to know how such relationships ended.

‘Thank you for your kind offer,’ she said in her best businesslike voice. ‘But I can’t stay away for two nights. Emily is getting back from Bali on Saturday and we’re having a catch-up lunch on Sunday.’ This was a bald-faced lie. Emily was away for a further two months. Harriet knew, however, that she needed a decent excuse to get out of this. Alex didn’t like being told no.

‘Pity,’ he muttered, then shrugged his shoulders, his indifference indicating he hadn’t had any dastardly secret agenda when he’d suggested a two-night stay. He was just trying to be nice to her again. Truly, she was letting herself get carried away here, thinking he had seduction on his mind, a prospect which she had found perversely appealing and painfully flattering. Oh, dear... She seriously wished he’d get off the corner of her desk. Or alternatively stop swinging his foot like that. He was making her way too aware of his body, his very hunky, handsome male body.

Harriet picked up a biro so that she could pretend to take notes and not look at him.

‘I’ll get onto those bookings right away,’ she said. ‘I presume you’ll be flying first class to Milan?’ This with a quick glance his way.

‘Of course,’ he replied and smiled at her.

When Harriet’s heart gave a lurch, she told herself quite fiercely just to stop it. But she might as well have tried to stop the tide from coming in. Why, oh why, did women find men like Alex so damned attractive? She supposed it was a primal thing, the female of the species blindly surrendering to the alpha male because that was the way of nature. But that didn’t make it any easier to endure. The last thing she wanted was to start suffering from some silly crush.

‘What about a date for the return flight?’ she asked crisply.

‘Mmm. Can’t say I’m sure when that will be. I might spend a day or two with Jeremy in London after the wedding. It’s summer over there at the moment. Look, just make it the one-way to Milan. I’ll organise the return flight myself when I’m over there.’

‘Fine. I’ll scout around and see what’s the best first-class deal. Might take me a while. First, I’ll look up the various five-star resorts at Coffs Harbour,’ she went on, putting the biro down and clicking on the computer to bring up resorts at Coffs Harbour. ‘Get your tick of approval whilst you’re here. Hmm... An ocean view, you said. With a balcony. It is winter, you know. I doubt we’ll be spending too much time on an ocean-facing balcony.’

‘Possibly not,’ he agreed. ‘But I like apartments with balconies. They’re usually larger and have better light.’

‘A balcony it is, then. Here’s one which should suit—the Pacific View resort just south of Coffs Harbour. They have a two-bedroom spa suite available for Friday night which has a huge balcony with an ocean view.’

‘And the other facilities?’

‘Everything you could possibly want. There’s a heated indoor pool as well as a gym and not one but two restaurants—one a bistro, the other à la carte.’

‘Great.’

‘Shall I book it, then?’

‘Absolutely. Oh, and, Harry,’ Alex added as he slid off the corner of her desk. Finally. ‘Perhaps it might be best not to mention where we’ll be staying to the rest of the staff, especially Audrey. She might jump to the wrong conclusion, the way she did this morning when she walked in on my hugging you. We don’t want to start up any rumours, do we?’

‘Absolutely not. Right you are, boss. Mum’s the word.’

‘Good girl,’ he said, before heading back into his office.

Harriet almost laughed. Because all of a sudden she didn’t want to be a good girl. She wanted to be a very bad girl. With Alex.

She was in the process of making the bookings when a courier walked in, holding a huge bouquet of assorted flowers.

‘Someone’s a lucky girl,’ he said, smiling a goofy smile. ‘The lady on reception said they were for you.’

Harriet’s first hideous thought was that they were from Dwayne, in some vain attempt to get her back. But when she opened the card which accompanied the flowers, the words written there brought tears to her eyes for the second time that day.

Hope you’re feeling better soon.

Love from Audrey.

PS The bum wasn’t good enough for you, anyway.

The PS made her laugh, which came as a relief to the courier, who was looking worried.

‘Everything’s fine,’ she said to him, waiting till he left before going out to reception and thanking Audrey profusely.

‘Flowers always make me feel better,’ Audrey said. ‘So does a glass of wine or two. Want to come have a drink with me after work?’

‘Love to,’ Harriet said. She’d missed her girls’ nights out with Emily since she’d gone away.

‘Great,’ Audrey said. ‘You should join the rest of us on Friday nights as well.’

‘I will in future,’ Harriet said. ‘But I can’t this Friday night. Have to go north with the boss to inspect his new golf resort. He has to go away overseas again soon and he wants me to keep a personal eye on things up there,’ she added by way of explanation. ‘So I need to see the lie of the land and meet the foreman.’

‘That’s a long drive. You’ll have to stay somewhere overnight.’

‘Probably. Still, there are plenty of motels up that way.’

‘True.’

‘I’d better get back to work or the slave driver might come looking for me.’

‘He can be like that, can’t he?’

‘He’s a workaholic, that’s for sure.’

‘I wouldn’t like to do your job.’

‘I don’t mind. I like it.’ An understatement. She loved her job.

‘Don’t you get fed up with being at his beck and call all the time? I mean, the things he asks you to do sometimes.’ Audrey rolled her eyes.

Harriet just laughed. Alex had been very up-front at her interview over the menial tasks he might ask her to do. She honestly didn’t mind getting his bagels, buying presents for members of his family or even organising his dry-cleaning. Better than sitting at her desk all the time.

It wasn’t till Harriet was sitting back down at that same desk that she realised she would enjoy the drive up to the golf estate this weekend very much if she wasn’t starting to have these awkward feelings for Alex. Still, at least these days she was capable of resisting such self-destructive desires, having become wise to her own weaknesses where the opposite sex—and sex—was concerned. In time, these feelings would pass and she would meet someone else, someone who could satisfy her in bed and tick at least some of the boxes in her checklist, someone more in her league than the boss of Ark Properties.

The man himself suddenly materialised by her desk.

‘So what’s with the flowers?’ he demanded, his face decidedly grim. ‘I hope they’re not from your idiot of an ex, trying to get back into your good books.’

‘Hardly. They’re from Audrey. Wasn’t that sweet of her?’

‘Very sweet. Look, I have to go out. Family emergency. Hold the fort till I get back.’

Harriet frowned at his swiftly departing back as well as his brusque manner. She wondered what kind of family emergency. He never talked about his family. Yet she knew he had a father still living, and a married older sister who had two children, a boy aged ten and a girl aged eight. She knew because she’d bought Christmas and birthday presents for them.

Maybe she would ask him about his family during the long drive north on Friday. And maybe not.

Friday now loomed in Harriet’s mind as a day fraught with unspoken tension. Life, she decided, wasn’t being very kind to her at the moment.

But then she looked at Audrey’s flowers and smiled.

CHAPTER SIX

IT TOOK ALMOST an hour for Alex to drive from the inner city out to Sarah’s home in North Rocks. Sydney’s traffic situation was getting worse with each passing year. No matter how many motorways they built, nothing seemed to ease the congestion, or the delays. But the level of his frustration when he finally pulled up outside the house he’d bought his sister some years back was not due to road rage but rage of a different kind.

Gritting his teeth, he jumped out from behind the wheel and stormed through the front gate, bypassing the front door and making his way hurriedly round to the back of the house to the entrance to the granny flat. The one-bedroomed very comfortable flat accommodated his father, his useless, drunken father, whom Sarah had kindly taken in but with whom Alex had totally run out of patience. He’d only come because Sarah had asked him to.

She was waiting for him in the doorway, startling Alex with how much she looked like his mother at around the same age. Both were petite and dark, though with blue eyes. Sarah was like her mother in nature, too, being strong and sensible. Alex loved her a lot and would do anything for her. He wasn’t as fond of her husband, Vernon, who seemed to resent the things Alex bought for his family.

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