Hired: The Boss's Bride

She turned away from the bar for good this time and pointed to a set of deep cream tub chairs in the corner of the plush carpeted room. ‘So how about you and Mitch?’

‘Me and Mitch what?’ Kristin asked, sitting, then bopping on her seat along with the Elvis classic purring from the tastefully hidden speakers scattered about the opulent room.

‘Have you ever been…on?’

‘On what?’

Veronica rolled her eyes. ‘On. You know… together. We spend so many hours with those we work with it’s only natural to gravitate towards one another.’

Natural, she thought. That sounds way better than a pathological case of repeatedly mistaking the man in charge as a man in charge of his own life.

Kristin choked on her drink. ‘Me? And Mitch? Mitch Hanover? A-blonde-a-minute Mitch Hanover? My boss? The man who pays my very nice wages? And lets me take Thursday afternoons off for a manicure and pedicure as thanks for the long hours I put in?’

Veronica noticed she hadn’t actually answered the question. ‘You don’t think he’s cute?’

‘Of course I think he’s cute,’ Kristin said, without even a pause. Then she glanced at Mitch, who was now alone at the bar, talking into his mobile phone with a frown on his face. She took another sip, then looked thoughtfully back at her friend. ‘To tell you the truth, if he’d asked early on I wouldn’t have said no. It’s just…you see he has this particular thing for blondes. Fun and frivolous blondes. Much younger blondes. The kind who wouldn’t know a da Vinci from a Rossetti. Which could be dead dreary and predictable coming from another man, but for our Mitch it’s understandable, really. Considering…’

Kristin’s words trailed off into an expressive sigh.

Veronica couldn’t for the life of her think why being a gorgeous hotshot gave a man an excuse not to date women of his own generation. In fact, she found herself taking it somewhat personally. ‘How young?’

‘Zygotes. Truly. Wrinkle-free ones for whom gravity was a word they heard at school, not a physical affliction.’

Veronica kept her eyes dead ahead and controlled her desire to look over her shoulder at the bar, and her handsome eligible boss and the blonde. Like a dog with a bone she asked, ‘Is there one zygote in particular?’

‘That’s the thing. They last about as long as a bottle of milk, and then from nowhere a fresh milk bottle magically appears on his arm. Or in the fridge. Or however such an analogy should go.’

Well, what did you know? Mitch Hanover, for all the orderliness of his perfectly laundered button-down shirts, was a player. Could it be true that he wasn’t on the lookout for someone to darn his socks and pour his nightcaps any more than she wanted to do those kinds of things? A dangerous little thrill scooted down Veronica’s spine and landed in the backs of her knees.

She nodded. ‘I get your drift.’

‘Good. Now your turn. Do you find our boss yummy?’

Veronica waved a nonchalant hand in the air. ‘Irrelevant.’

Kristin laughed. ‘God, you’re transparent. Just take my advice and don’t let the tall, dark and handsome man-about-town thing fool you, okay? There are more deep, gloomy chasms in that man’s world than you or I would ever be likely to plumb in this lifetime.’

Before Veronica had the chance to find out more, Mitch’s deep resonant voice echoed in her left ear. ‘Good evening, ladies.’

She flinched so hard a glob of tomato pulp spilled out of her drink. She placed her glass carefully on the round table and looked up at Mitch with her most professional smile. ‘Good evening, boss.’

He nodded her way, no hint of a smile, and she was sure that was all the acknowledgement she was going to get. Until his gaze lingered. For just a moment. But it was a moment in which she felt the sharp tang of electricity hit the back of her throat until she had to swallow in order to catch her breath. It was enough to make her wonder just what indulging in a little fun with the likes of straight-on-the-outside, mysterious-on-the-inside Mitch Hanover might be like.

Mitch finally blinked and turned his attentions to Kristin, and Veronica felt her whole body slump as though she’d been holding herself upright by nothing more than the strength of his piercing gaze.

‘The gang have pushed a few tables together at the back of the bar,’ he said, ‘and ordered a round of some cocktail whose name I dare not repeat in polite company. Are you ready to join us?’

‘You betcha,’ Kristin said, pushing her chair back and toddling off in the direction of drinks paid for by someone else, leaving Veronica to deal with Mitch alone.

She rose more slowly, waiting until her loose black off-the-shoulder dress settled back around her knees before stepping out from behind the table.

Mitch stood politely by until she was up and walking before falling into step beside her. And while the bar was alive with the noise of happy-hour chatter, discreet music and the pleasant clink of ice on glass, a strange silence stretched taut between them.

Veronica took it upon herself to break it. ‘So who’s the blonde?’

Okay, so she had a big mouth. She couldn’t help herself. Her mother had always claimed it was that quality that meant she could sell sea water to sailors. She worried it was that quality that made those same sailors read innocent flirtation as an invitation for so much more.

Mitch’s expression barely changed. But it did change. She saw a twitch in his cheek. It was the kind of twitch she was infamous for producing.

And just when she thought he was going to refrain from answering, he said, ‘She’s a friend.’

‘Really? Where’d you find her? A campus social?’

The twitch morphed into a smile, which turned all too quickly into deep rumbling laughter that slithered sensually down Veronica’s arms.

‘I was wondering if I’d seen the most bumptious side of you in your interview,’ he said.

‘Heck, no. I was on my best behaviour.’

She thought that might be the end of the conversation until he glanced her way and explained, ‘She works in the coffee shop at the bottom of my office building. As I left tonight she mentioned she’d heard we were going to be here so I asked her to join us.’

‘Score one for Blondie,’ she said. ‘Though, do you think I hurt my apartment super’s feelings when I didn’t make the same offer after he asked where I was heading to tonight?’

At that he turned. The twitch twitched again, drawing the corner of his mouth into a truly intimate smile, one that came with a fierce twinkle in his eye.

She never should have willed the twinkle. It was far more potent than she possibly could have imagined. She had to scrunch her toes into her shoes to stop from tripping over her high, pointy size eights, which suddenly felt a size too small.

‘Her name isn’t Blondie, it’s Stacy,’ he said.

‘Of course it is,’ she muttered.

‘With a y, no e, which for some reason she seems to think it important to remind me every few minutes.’

‘Ha! Classic.’

He slowed so that she had no choice but to do the same or look as if she was running away from him. He blinked into her eyes for long enough she felt breathless all over, and she wished she hadn’t opened her big mouth in the first place.

‘Do you have a problem with my date?’ he asked.

‘Not at all,’ she spluttered. ‘It’s not… It’s just…’

‘It’s just?’ he encouraged.

‘She’s just so…’

Young? Blonde? One-dimensional? Naff? Not good enough? Top-heavy?

In the end Veronica went with, ‘She’s just so very lovely.’

‘Are you insinuating you didn’t think I had it in me to pull someone so…very lovely?’

At his unexpectedly zesty choice of words Veronica barked out a laugh loud enough Kristin looked up from the table with far too smug an expression.

‘No, not at all. I gather you’re extremely…rich. And…and your vocabulary seems extensive. And you have a very nice array of suits. I’m sure there is all sorts of lovely out there just dying to be yours.’

Okay, so now she really wished she’d never opened her big mouth. The room suddenly felt very hot, especially in the region of her cheeks.

He came to a complete stop, a good three metres from the table where the Hanover House and Hanover Enterprises gangs, bar Boris who’d begged off as it was past his bedtime, were introducing themselves to one another.

Veronica again had no choice but to do the same. She turned to him, finding herself face to face. Close enough she could once again sense his signature aftershave. Could see the faint regrowth of his morning shave. Could decipher the million colours in his eyes, which ranged from smoky grey to shimmering quicksilver.

He held her eye contact as he told her, ‘Stacy is in no way mine, Ms Bing.’

‘Well, no, she’s her own woman, I’m sure. As are we all.’ She punched the air in a move that would have made Gloria Steinem proud.

A high-pitched giggle split the air and they both turned in the direction of the blonde, buxom, surely-below-the-age-of-twenty Stacy, with a y no e, who was in hysterics over something one of the drinks waiters had said. The waiter was concurrently mightily interested in her chest region, which didn’t seem to bother her in the least.

‘It was your vocabulary that put you over the line with that one, right?’ Veronica asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

He leant sideways, dropped his voice to a wholly intimate rumble and said, ‘I was quite sure it was the nice array of suits.’

And then he sauntered over to the table to take up position next to his date, leaving Veronica feeling unexpectedly out of her depth. Slightly baffled. And oddly exposed.

‘So tell us about yourself, Veronica,’ said Phil from Hanover Enterprises a good hour into the festivities. ‘And not the stuff on your résumé. The juicy stuff. The stuff we can gossip about once we get back to work on Monday.’

Mitch leant back into his chair as he, like everyone else at the collection of tables, turned to the guest of honour.

As the first time he’d seen her, her dark, sun-tinted hair was wild and curled, though this time her lips were bare bar the lightest wash of gloss that caught the warmth of the trillion tiny down-lights scattered across the ceiling. She wore a string of see-through beads around her neck that didn’t even pretend to be diamonds. And the lazy black dress draped over her curves with such relaxed informality looked as though it could simply fall off at any second.

He’d barely been able to keep his eyes dead ahead as he’d walked next to her earlier just in case he was needed to come to the rescue with his jacket. At least that was what he told himself the reason had been.

She leant forward, elbows braced against the table, and grinned at every one of them, until her audience quieted, stilled and sat wholly in the palm of her hand. Though somehow her gaze had managed to glance off his nose as it had swept past him.

‘Rightio. Things not on my résumé.’

Finally she looked his way, her eyes glowing with an intimate smile as she shared an in-joke just with him. It was enough to have him shifting on his seat.

‘I’m five eight. Sagittarian. A little bit in love with the young Paul Newman, extremely in love with any kind of boot that stops just below the knee. My favourite colour is red and I do prefer gardenias and white gold if anybody’s thinking of pooling together for a welcome gift of any kind. That the kind of thing you were after, Phil?’

Phil grinned, his slow-blinking eyes the sign of too much drink in his system already, as well as being completely besotted with the newcomer in his midst.

‘Close,’ he said. ‘But I was hoping for some kind of sordid reason you had to move here. We can’t fathom why you’d leave the sun and surf and beaches of the Gold Coast. So what was it? Jilted at the altar? Killed someone? Slept with the boss?’

As Mitch watched quietly on Veronica’s happy façade slipped. The smile suffered, the light in her eyes dimmed, the brazen pose suddenly made her seem as if she were hiding behind her hands. The change in her was so subtle, the table so raucous, her visage still so bright and shiny he doubted anyone else even noticed the difference.

But he noticed, and he felt it as a wildly protective twinge in his gut.

Before he even knew what he was doing, he clapped his hands together so loudly the noise reverberated off the walls. But at least everyone looked his way as he called out, ‘Right. Next round’s on me. In fact, if you’re quick off the mark I’ll pick up the whole bar tab.’

The table cheered. Phil rocked back in his chair until it almost fell over. Orders poured in. Chairs scraped, the table jiggled and half the inhabitants left. And Veronica was forgotten. By everyone but him.

How could he forget her when her beautiful dark brown eyes looked back at him brimming with a mix of chagrin and thanks. In direct response his lungs tightened so hard, and so fast it felt as though they might be about to collapse in on themselves. And once again he was bemused that these reactions were actually happening to him.

His life since coming home to Melbourne had been lived with a kind of numbness. He wasn’t silly enough not to know it had been a mostly self-induced haze, brought about by too much work, the bare minimum of time spent with his far too compassionate family, and what little social time he had left spent with women who did little to produce anything beyond a string of unmemorable nights.

But there was no denying it: the sass, the smarts, the way she could wind anyone around her little finger, Veronica Bing had his curiosity piqued to the point of discomfort.

Discomfort. That was the key word. Because there was nothing more to his attraction than desire and he knew there never could be. What he was feeling for her would only lead to an emotional dead end. Anything else he had to give had been left behind in London.

His current state was nothing a good long run and some brutal mental chewing out wouldn’t burn away. In the meanwhile he’d keep his interests fluid, his hands off and his eyes roving to the Stacys of the world. Stacy was sweet. Unencumbered. And she was also trying to get his attention.

‘Sorry?’ he said, turning to face the warm and willing girl he’d practically ignored all evening while daydreaming about the one he ought to keep well away from.

Stacy stared up at him, more thought going on behind her pretty blue eyes than he’d imagined there could be. She looked from one eye to the other, smiled sadly, then said, ‘Oh, never mind.’

She stood and headed into a quiet corner with the drinks waiter. Mitch considered heading over and staking his claim, but in the end he couldn’t summon the energy to care. Instead his disobedient gaze swung to the brunette on the other side of the table, who as it turned out was watching him too.

‘Not a drinker?’ Veronica asked.

‘Only when I’m thirsty. Is yours any good?’

She crossed her eyes and stared down into her thick red drink, then looked back up at him with a glimmer. ‘It’s doing the job.’

He picked himself up and moved around the table and took the seat next to hers. Her big brown eyes watched him all the way, and the closer he got, the more he saw that something Phil had said still stung. It was a concern. For him. As her employer. Period.

He looked off into the distance before asking, ‘So why did you move down here from the Gold Coast? We never did cover that in our interview.’

‘We didn’t cover a lot of things. And think of how much time we saved.’

He glanced back her way. ‘Lucky for us right now we have all the time in the world.’

She smiled but for the first time since he’d met her there was no humour behind it. And in the very same instant he realised that the change in her reeked of vulnerability, he felt an undeniable instability behind his ribs. He thumped a mental fist thereupon.

‘I was born here,’ she said.

‘So Kristin told me. And?’

‘And…I love nothing more than trying something new. Expanding my horizons. Kristin mentioned this job, it sounded perfect, so I came.’

‘The Gold Coast job market saturated, is it?’

She opened her mouth, no doubt to make another smart comment, then snapped her lips tight together. In the end she went with, ‘You’re the one who looked so pained at offering me even a six-month contract. The fact that I’m not the kind of person looking to stick to one job, or one place, for the rest of my natural life should please you no end.’

His brow furrowed. ‘So are you saying at the end of this six months you’ll be gone?’

He looked from her right eye to her left, but for the first time since he’d met her she had managed to go into complete lockdown. The one time he really wanted to know what was going on behind those big brown eyes, her thoughts were her own.

‘I’m no fortune-teller, so I have no idea what the future brings,’ she said, ‘but what I can promise is that while I’m here, I’m going to be the best thing that ever happened to you. In six months, well, perhaps you’ll be ready to let me go, or perhaps I’ll be ready to move on myself. Or maybe we’ll still have some use for one another and I’ll stay on. And I have the feeling that I’m not the only one here who’s pretty happy with that arrangement.’

Smart, smart cookie. She’s pinned you like a butterfly to a piece of foam, he thought. And right on top of that his brain went straight to, And in six months she could well be gone. He allowed himself to wonder just how significantly that changed the no-fly zone he’d built up around her.

Before his wondering brought about any solid conclusions Kristin came bounding up to the table. ‘We’re all heading to the Goo-Goo Bar,’ she said. ‘You guys in?’

Mitch raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re wondering if I might like to join you and the gang at a nightclub?’

She nodded, then stopped nodding and smiled sheepishly. ‘Okay, so I said you’d laugh at me, but the others were hoping the bar tab might extend a little longer.’

‘Tell the gang thanks, but no, thanks. To both the outing and the offer to pay their way.’

‘Right. Veronica?’ Kristin asked. ‘You up for some boogying on down?’

Mitch glanced at Veronica, who was stifling a yawn. She came out of it laughing. ‘I think I might call it a night, as well.’

‘You?’ Kristin said, eyebrows disappearing somewhere deep into her hairline. ‘The biggest party girl I’ve ever had the privilege to watch in action?’

‘Says the girl who gave up her nose ring and dreadlocks for a beige suit and a twin set.’

Mitch’s gaze spun to his assistant, who was blushing and glaring and mouthing who knew what to Veronica, who only grinned back.

‘Either way,’ Veronica said, ‘Boris and I are meeting a carpenter at the gallery bright and early tomorrow.’

‘A carpenter?’ Mitch asked, dragging himself back to reality from the thought of Veronica dancing alone in the middle of a dimly lit dance floor with her eyes closed. ‘On a Saturday?’

‘Don’t panic. We have superficial changes in mind. Truly. You’ll hardly notice the difference.’

‘Then why am I paying for it?’

‘Because you told me you would.’

‘Mmm.’

Kristin leant over and gave Veronica a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ She then leant over as if to give Mitch a kiss too, suddenly remembered who he was, then reached out and shook his hand instead. Night, boss.’

‘Goodnight, Kristin. See you Monday.’

She winked at Veronica, then skipped off to join the others.

Mitch uncurled himself and stood. Veronica grabbed her clutch purse from the table and did the same. Their eyes met and the smile she shot him was tired, tremulous and once again tinged with the tiniest hint of vulnerability. His solar plexus clenched, and his he-man instincts kicked into gear as though this woman had discovered the way to command them by remote control.

In an effort at self-preservation he looked dead ahead as he escorted her outside to the footpath, where she stopped. Assuming it was the dark keeping her at bay, he said, ‘Allow me to walk you to your car.’

‘No car. I caught a cab. Figured there’d be cocktails. And you’d be paying. Thought I’d make the most of it.’ She grinned, wide and bright, but he knew she’d only had about a drink and a half all night.

‘You go,’ she said as though she’d sensed his hesitation. ‘I’ll be fine here. It’s bright. People everywhere. A cab’ll come along soon. This dress never fails.’

She grinned as if she was about to share some kind of in-joke, then, before his very eyes, she shook out her shoulders, dislodging the neckline of her dress which slithered sideways until his gaze became locked on the bare, tanned shoulder that had been exposed.

He swallowed hard, his eyes slowly moving up her neck, not at all sure he wanted to know what she was thinking by acting this way, but she wasn’t paying him a lick of heed. Her back was to him as she looked up the street in search of a cab.

He looked to the dark heavens for support, but they just twinkled back at him benignly. And with the quiet of the night air giving him far too much space in his head, her words rang in his head. In six months she would be ready to move on. Until then she would be the best thing that had ever happened to him.

He snuck a glance sideways. Her dark curls were fluttering against her tanned cheek. Her bare shoulder lay within touching distance. She was temptation personified. Yet he was shrewd enough to know the built-in end-point to their affiliation made the idea of her even more appealing.

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