Boardroom To Bedroom: His Darling Valentine / The Boss's Marriage Arrangement. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ then at least into a state where she wanted him to the same extent that he wanted her, and to hell with the consequences! But even stronger than his desire to make love to her was his desire to shield and to protect her. To shield her from some of her colleagues’ contemptuous and critical comments about her and to protect her from the consequences of her own behaviour.

      It made no difference how often he told himself that as one of his employees she had no more right to his protection than any of the others, or that he had no right to want to protect her. He loved her, and he couldn’t bear to hear what was being said about her. He found it hard to stand to one side and allow the inevitable to happen. Because everyone, it seemed, believed that sooner or later someone, if not Ben himself, was going to tell her to stop making a fool of herself by displaying so plainly her feelings for a man who obviously did not return them.

      If an adult human being had to suffer unrequited love, then better by far that they suffer it in secret— as he was doing.

      But what right did he have to interfere? Either as her employer or as the man who loved her?

      Morally perhaps none! But emotionally… Matt exhaled sharply.

      Helplessly he watched Harriet move even closer to Ben. It was a physical effort to stop himself from going over and separating them.

      Didn’t she know what a fool she was making of herself? Didn’t she care? Didn’t she realise that people were discussing her and her obvious love for Ben—a man who saw her only as a friend—behind her back?

      Because if she didn’t she damned well ought to!

      It would take a much braver man than Ben himself to tell her though, Matt recognised, and her female colleages seemed to prefer to gossip about the situation rather than do anything about it. He had happened to be standing out of sight but well within earshot the previous week, when Cindi had been despairingly confiding in an older woman employee about a row she had had with Ben over his friendship with Harriet.

      ‘He swears that she is nothing more to him than a friend,’ Matt had heard her saying tearfully.

      ‘Well, he may see their relationship that way, but it’s obvious that she doesn’t,’ her companion had retorted darkly. ‘Look at the way she’s followed him here! Don’t make the same mistake I did, Cindi,’ she had warned her. ‘My ex swore to me that his secretary meant nothing to him, but, as the little tart told me the day he left me for her, she wanted him and nothing was going to stop her having him. Some women are like that! And if you want my opinion Harriet is one of them! I mean, you’ve only got to see her with Ben. It’s obvious how she feels about him. She spends every spare minute she can with him. Take it from me, she wants him—no matter what he might say or think!’

      ‘Don’t, please,’ Cindi had protested. ‘Ben says he loves me, but…’

      ‘Then tell him to prove it! Tell him that you want her out of his life!’

      But Harriet very plainly was not out of Ben’s life, and had no intention of getting out of it.

      Didn’t she realise what people were saying? Didn’t she care that Ben was actually seeing something else? Had she no pride, no sense of self-respect or selfworth? Hadn’t it occurred to her to stop obsessing about Ben and find a man who loved and wanted her? Matt wondered angrily.

      A man?

      His mouth compressing, he wondered helplessly for the thousandth time why this had had to happen to him! It wasn’t what he wanted, and it sure as hell wasn’t what he needed! It felt as if his jealousy was burning a hole in his gut.

      Cynically he reflected that a sitcom writer would have a field-day, if not a whole carnival with the situation!

      Matt loves Harriet, who loves Ben, who loves Cindi, who loves Ben, who does not love Harriet, who does not love Matt, who does love her—with the kind of savage, self-destructive, all-consuming hunger that set all his inner emotional buttons on overdrive and meltdown every damned time he saw her. And it didn’t help that every damned time he did see her she was draping herself on or around Ben!

      And what in some ways was even worse was the fact that Matt knew that if he were Ben, business ethics and self-imposed rules or not, he’d have had her in his arms, his mouth on hers, faster than she could blink. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and fought for self-control.

      Ignobly and impossibly he had even at one stage contemplated firing her. But, even if the law hadn’t prevented him from doing any such thing without a watertight reason, she was far too much of an asset to the business for it to lose her.

      And that was just one of the more minor reasons why he loved her. Unlike Ben, who was a good, solid and cheerful worker, Harriet had brought a passion and flair to her role in the team that had infused the project she was working on with a new dynamism.

      It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried to overcome his feelings for her; he had! In the past few months he had dated more women than he had done in the past few years. But none of them had so much as dragged his thoughts away from Harriet for as long as five seconds.

      Her Matt-aware antennae for once not working efficiently, Harriet was oblivious to the fact that Matt could overhear her as she shook her head and told Ben firmly, ‘We can’t talk about this here.’ Giving his hand another squeeze, she suggested, ‘Why don’t we have dinner together tonight? I’ve got loads to tell you about what’s going on at home.’

      Watching her, Matt felt as though someone was ripping his heart, muscle from muscle. He wanted to stride over to them, to take hold of Harriet and ask her if she realised what she was doing. And then what? Force her to back off and allow Ben and Cindi to get on with their lives—and their love?

      He had no right to interfere, he warned himself harshly. But if he didn’t then who would? And besides, a dangerously reasonable little voice inside him argued, didn’t he have the right as an employer to want a workplace free of any emotional entanglements and dramas that would take his employees’ attention away from their work?

      Oblivious to what Matt was thinking, Harriet watched Ben. He looked so dejected that she felt desperately sorry for him, and wanted to do whatever she could to help. Cindi obviously loved Ben, and Harriet knew that Ben loved Cindi. She was amazed that Ben had even needed to ask her if she was secretly in love with him! How could she be when…? When what? When she was desperately afraid that she had fallen in love with Matt?

      Matt! Automatically she lifted her head and looked towards the corridor which led to his office, her body stiffening and hot colour staining her skin as she saw him standing watching them.

      Ben was a good looking young man, but he was just that—a young man. In no way did he compare in sheer male presence to Matthew Cole, who was pure lethal adult, and so fully charged with testosterone that no woman living could fail to be aware of him. Not that she didn’t do her bit for her own sex by fiercely pretending that she was not. She was aware of him. All the time! But some days, sometimes—like right now—something went wrong and her protective shield failed to work properly. Sometimes just the sight of Matt was enough to set up a chain of reaction inside her body that resulted in butterflies in her tummy and a weakness in her legs. But that weakness was nowhere near as dangerous as the weakness in her emotions.

      Because the truth was that Matt epitomised everything Harriet had ever dreamed about in a man. He was her childhood prince come to life; her knight in shining armour. He was her darkly disturbing, secret sensual-fantasymade man. He made her ache with feverish СКАЧАТЬ