Beware of the Boss. Leah Ashton

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СКАЧАТЬ with her wine glass in mid-air. ‘No. You were the one that oversold me, remember?’

      Teagan rolled her eyes dramatically. ‘A small detail. The fact is this guy has an awesome PA and he should know it. He’s taking you for granted. Most people would’ve quit by now.’

      Based on what she’d learnt in the Manning lunch room, most had. Lanie had a sneaky suspicion that one of the guys in Legal was running a book on how long she’d last.

      ‘Teags, I could deliver his twice a day triple-shot latte nude and he wouldn’t notice.’

      Disturbingly, her friend’s eyes widened. ‘That’s it!’

      ‘I’m not flashing Gray Manning, Teagan,’ she said dryly.

      ‘No, no. Not that—at least not exactly.’

      ‘Partial nudity, then?’ Lanie said. ‘You know, I reckon if I borrowed one of Sienna’s skirts it would be so short and so small that—’

      ‘You’re not taking this seriously.’

      Lanie raised her eyebrows. ‘I didn’t realise you were.’

      Teagan’s wine glass made a solid thunk as she placed it firmly on the table. She leant forward, meeting her eyes across the half-finished pizza.

      ‘Make him notice you. Make him appreciate you.’

      ‘And what would be the point?’

      ‘Because you deserve it.’

      It was lovely, really, what Teagan was doing. Lovely, and kind, and all the things that Teagan’s friendship always was. Plus also one of the things it occasionally was.

      Misguided.

      ‘I’m fine, Teags,’ she said. ‘Really.’

      She didn’t need Teagan—or Gray as her proxy—to be her cheerleader.

      She knew Teagan was worried about her—worried about how she was handling the continuing publicity around Sienna and her success.

      But she was fine. She had a new job that paid well. A fresh start.

      Not that working for a grumpy property magnate had ever been a particular dream of hers.

      She looked across at Teagan. ‘So you can put the pink hair dye or whatever you were planning on hold for now.’

      ‘I was thinking more along the lines of a gorilla suit, but...’

      And then they both laughed, and Gray and his shirtlessness was—mostly—forgotten amongst talk of Teagan’s latest disaster date, the cooking-related reality TV show they were both hooked on, and anything and everything else.

      Except, of course, swimming. Or Sienna.

      * * *

      Lanie’s phone rang far too early the next morning.

      She rolled over in the narrow single bed she’d grown up in, reaching out blindly with one hand towards her bedside table. Typically, she managed to knock the phone to the floor rather than grab it, so it took another twenty seconds of obnoxious ringing and fumbling around on her hands and knees in the inky darkness before said phone was located.

      ‘Hello?’ she said.

      She’d been too disorientated to read the name on the screen, and besides it was most likely Sienna. Her sister hadn’t quite managed to figure out the whole time difference thing.

      ‘I need you to come over.’

      The voice was deep and male. Definitely not her sister.

      Lanie blinked in the semi-darkness. Dawn light was attempting to push its way under the edge of the bedroom’s blinds with little effect.

      ‘Gray?’ she asked, although it was a rhetorical question. Of course it was. ‘Do you know what time it is?’

      ‘I have a flight to Singapore that’s boarding in a few hours’ time—so, yes, I do.’

      There was a long moment of silence as Lanie considered hanging up on him.

      ‘Oh,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m sorry. I woke you.’

      Lucky.

      ‘Can you come over?’ he repeated. ‘Now?’

      ‘I’d rather not,’ she said honestly. ‘What’s the emergency?’

      Now it was Gray’s turn to go silent. ‘Oh...’ he said again, and his surprise that she hadn’t just dropped everything to come to his aid was apparent even in that single syllable.

      At work Lanie could roll her eyes at his unreasonable requests—probably not as subtly as she should—or she could tell herself it was her job or whatever. But just before five in the morning...

      No. There was a line, and Gray had definitely just stepped over it.

      ‘It’s my dog,’ he said.

      Instantly Lanie felt terrible. ‘Is he okay?’

      ‘Yes,’ Gray said. ‘But I forgot to organise someone to walk and feed him. Rodney used to sort it out for me, but I guess I didn’t mention it to you.’

      Lanie supposed he got points for not making that somehow her fault.

      ‘And you couldn’t e-mail me about it?’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘I need you to come over now so I can explain what he eats and where to walk him, and—’

      ‘Okay, okay,’ she interrupted on a sigh. There was no point asking him to write it down. Gray just didn’t work—or think—like that. In his head it would be far more efficient for her to come over and for him to tell her. ‘I’m coming over.’

      Ten minutes later she knocked on Gray’s front door. He lived only a few kilometres away from her, but unsurprisingly his house was right on the beach. It was gorgeous in an angular, modern, mansion-like way. At this hour of the morning the street was silent, save for the muffled crash of waves.

      The door swung open, but before she could even say hello his back was to her as he walked away, already shooting out instructions. Luther, at least, bothered to greet her. He sat obediently for his welcome pats, then pressed his head against her thigh as she followed Gray down the hall. Lanie had thrown on an old tracksuit, and her sandals thwacked loudly against the pale, glossy porcelain tiles.

      ‘So, Luther is a red setter,’ Gray was explaining. ‘And he’s on this special prescribed diet as he has a few allergies. It’s essential he only eats this food...’ Gray opened up one of the many, many drawers in a huge granite and glass kitchen to point at neatly labelled tubs of dog biscuits. ‘Otherwise he gets sick and—well, you don’t want to know what sort of mess that makes.’

      Lanie raised an eyebrow as she considered the size of Luther and the fact that every bit of the house she СКАЧАТЬ