Powerful Boss, Prim Miss Jones. Cathy Williams
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Название: Powerful Boss, Prim Miss Jones
Автор: Cathy Williams
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon Modern
isbn: 9781408918913
isbn:
Unfortunately, her head was in no mood to listen to reason, and the trickle of tears felt cool against her hot, flushed skin.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled thickly.
Andreas watched this display of emotion with a censorious frown, at a loss as to what to make of it. On the one hand, he was a gut believer in his own instincts, which were positively screaming that something in the picture wasn’t right. On the other hand, he was capable of recognising genuine feeling when he saw it, and there was nothing staged about this bout of waterworks—and he had seen a fair amount of female waterworks in his time. The tap, he had long recognised, could be switched off at the drop of a hat. This tap, however, looked as though it might continue leaking indefinitely. He stood up and circled the desk so that he could hand her his handkerchief, which she took without looking at him, although he thought he heard a muffled, ‘Sorry.’ He perched on the desk, staring at her down-bent head with a perplexed frown, until she had gathered herself.
‘I’m not a monster. I do sometimes give people the benefit of the doubt.’ He tried to think of the last time he had done so and couldn’t.
Elizabeth raised hopeful eyes to his and said, with earnest urgency, ‘I would never do anything to hurt James. I’m not here to take advantage of an old man. I know that’s what’s going through your head.’
‘You have no idea what’s going through my head.’
‘I know it won’t be good.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘I’m just asking you to trust me when I tell you that I’m not a gold-digger. I don’t care about money.’
‘Even though you’ve never had any?’
‘I know it’s a cliché, but money doesn’t buy happiness.’
‘I have no idea how we managed to get into this conversation.’ Andreas stood up abruptly because those wide, green eyes were threatening to do something to his legendary cool. ‘I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt in this instance because dispatching you might do more damage to my godfather than keeping you on. He’s taken to you, and this is a challenging time in his life. I don’t know what might happen if we have to go through the nuisance of trying to find a substitute, especially if no real explanation’s given for the vanishing act.’
Elizabeth smiled tremulously and reached out to take hold of his hand, releasing it when he glanced down with a look of mingled surprise and displeasure. ‘You won’t regret it.’
‘You bet I won’t, and here’s why.’ He had given this a great deal of thought. Had she confessed to some sinister, ulterior motives, he would have had no option but to sack her on the spot, but he knew that that had been an unlikely possibility. In which case, hustling her through the back door and then trying to fabricate a plausible explanation for his godfather would be nigh on impossible. Which left him no option but to be in a position from which he could seriously keep an eye on her. Emails and phone calls, whilst helpful, could not even be loosely categorised as seriously keeping an eye on her. She could be using her free time to rummage through bankaccount details, for all he knew!
He very firmly neutered the little voice in his head telling him that that was a preposterous suggestion. Since when was he the sort of guy who fell for a woman’s tricks? Or anyone else’s, for that matter? Life at the very summit of the food chain had opened his eyes to the folly of taking people at face value.
He circled her and then paused to look down at her very carefully, taking in the anxious, heart-shaped face, the softly parted lips, the big, innocent eyes still glistening from her crying jag.
‘I’m coming back home.’
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