Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Sinful Proposals. Cathy Williams

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       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘HE’S HERE!’

      Sunny looked up from where she was buried in a mound of paperwork and reference books. The paperwork was to be filed, the reference books to be consulted for precedents on a complex tax issue which her boss was working on.

      With a workload that barely gave her time to escape to the bathroom, she had still not been able to ignore the fever-pitch excitement that had gripped Marshall, Jones and Jones ever since they had learned that Stefano Gunn was going to be throwing some business their way.

      Literally, Sunny had thought, throwing business, in much the same way as someone might throw a bone for a dog. Marshall, Jones and Jones was a recent addition to the legal scene in London. Yes, some really bright lights had been poached from a couple of the bigger firms but essentially it was still just a fledgling medium-sized firm without the decades of experience a man like Stefano Gunn would be looking for.

      But he had thrown some business in their direction and speculation was rife.

      Even lodged in the smallest honeycomb of rooms at the furthest end of the building, with her head firmly in her work and her body language projecting all sorts of not interested in rumours signs, rumours had still trickled down to her.

      He had chosen their firm to handle some patent work for him because of Katherine, one of the partners. He fancied her and so he had chosen to sweeten her up by flinging a bit of work at them.

      Sunny thought that that was a stupid piece of pointless speculation. Why on earth would the man do that? When he could make a simple call and ask for a simple date? Like any other normal person? Not, she knew, that Stefano Gunn was like any other normal person. Most normal people weren’t capable of holding the city of London in the palm of their hand at the tender age of thirty-something.

      Not that she was giving any of the fuss much thought. At the end of the day, all work was good work for a new company and the work he would be giving them might be peanuts for him but, for them, it would result in a hefty pay packet for the company.

      Now, she propped her chin in her hand and looked at Alice, who shared the office with her.

      Alice was small, plump, talkative and found it almost impossible to sit still for any period of time. Hence, out of all of the juniors who worked at this end of the building, she had been the one who had made it her duty to find out as much as she could about the billionaire.

      For the past two weeks, she had carried every file and report from their offices to those of the bigwigs who occupied the other two floors of the building. Every time she had returned, she had brought with her more titbits of information Sunny had largely ignored.

      ‘And did you manage to get a glimpse of The Big Man?’ Sunny asked, eyebrows raised.

      ‘Well...’

      ‘Just a simple yes or no...’

      ‘Don’t be such a spoilsport, Sunny.’ Undeterred, Alice dragged a chair over and positioned it directly in front of Sunny’s desk. ‘You can’t be that uninterested!’

      ‘I bet you I can be,’ but she grinned back. Alice was everything Sunny had always imagined would get her back up. She spoke in just the sort of cut-glass accent Sunny had always found irritating and offensive, bounced around with the irrepressible self-confidence of someone for whom life had always been kind and, to top it off, had only got the job at the law firm because, as she freely admitted on day one, her father had connections.

      But, mysteriously, Sunny had taken to her and so now, although she just wanted to get on with her work, she was willing to take a bit of time out to indulge her colleague.

      ‘No,’ Alice sighed and pouted. ‘And I couldn’t even quiz Ellie for details about him because everyone out there is on good behaviour. Anyone would think that she’d suddenly had a personality transplant. She’s always happy to chit-chat...’

      ‘Perhaps she just had a heavy workload,’ Sunny said gently, ‘and didn’t think that ten-fifteen in the morning was the right СКАЧАТЬ