“Dan, please!”

“Oh, you don’t have to beg me, Megan,” he murmured softly. “I’m ready and more than willing.”

He lifted her skirt and laid a blatantly possessive palm over one cool inner thigh. Megan squirmed with pleasure. He rippled his thumb over the cool, smooth flesh of her leg and saw her eyes flutter helplessly to a close.

In her fantasy, he made love to her there and then.

Megan’s eyes snapped open to discover that it wasn’t fantasy at all. That Dan really was laying her across the desk and…

“Dan!” she cried, through parched and excited lips, as countless pieces of paper showered on to the floor like confetti.

“I can see you’re going to have to improve your lovemaking conversational skills, Megan. All you ever say is my name!”

Megan could see the magnificent power of him, as he prepared to possess her. And Megan thought she would truly die if he didn’t….

Getting down to business in the boardroom…and the bedroom!

A secret romance, a forbidden affair, a thrilling attraction…

What happens when two people work together and simply can’t help falling in love—no matter how hard they try to resist?

Dan McKnight, Megan’s boss, insisted she pretend to be his lover to ward off a girl with an obsessive crush on him. But after sharing a room—and a bed—the attraction between Dan and Megan was suddenly overwhelming! Only their pretend romance was meant to stop the moment they returned to work….

Dear Reader,

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon xxx

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

Seduced by the Boss

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Special thanks to computer whizz-kid, Paul Shreve, the beautiful wordsmith, Meg, and their three amazing children, Kate, Mark and Nate.

CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IT STARTED with a letter.

Megan weighed it in her hand and studied it. A love letter, she thought.

The envelope was pink and had the fat, pampered feel of something which had been taken care of—and the handwriting was careful—using proper ink from a proper pen.

She turned the envelope over and smiled. How absolutely wonderful—to think that her coolly demanding boss was the recipient of yet another of these extravagant envelopes!

Who’d have thought it? Mr Cool getting love letters! Why, it almost made him seem human!

Except that Mr Cool hadn’t been living up to his name just lately. He had been edgy. Irritable. Uptight.

She just didn’t know why.

Megan had been working for Dan McKnight at Softshare for nearly three months now—and she still kept having to pinch herself. The offices were buzzy, the staff were young and it was almost obscenely well paid.

No, jobs in the computer industry of this calibre didn’t exactly grow on trees and Megan counted her blessings each and every day. And okay—maybe some women did look down their nose when you told them you were a personal assistant—especially to a man—but that was their problem, not hers!

Softshare was American-owned and cutting edge, its aim unashamed domination of the software market. A forward-thinking, right-on company—where the workforce was ninety per cent men to ten per cent women.

Which in theory should have been a single girl’s dream. The only trouble was that most of the men looked pretty much the same. And the way they looked was nothing to get excited about.

Only one stood apart from the rest of the herd—and that was Dan McKnight. Because Megan’s boss was the man who not only didn’t fit the technological stereotype—he had taken the mould and broken it into a thousand pieces!

As an industry famous for its lack of pretension and rules, the computer world attracted its fair share of nerds and boffins. But Dan was different. The nerds favoured pony-tails but Dan visited a barber shop regularly, and somehow he timed it so that his hair was never too long and never too short.

Most people in the building wore jeans and T-shirts and sometimes even kicked their shoes off when they were sitting at their desk. But not Dan. With his unruffled hair and perfect grey suits, Dan always looked as cool and as uncreased as if he had just stepped from the pages of a brand-new magazine.

Such a pity she didn’t find him attractive!

Megan turned the letter over in her hand and frowned as the door of the office was flung open and in walked Dan McKnight himself. She sat up immediately, the way she used to do at school when the headmaster came into the classroom unannounced.

And, when she came to think of it, wasn’t there something about him which reminded her of a head teacher? A kind of steely determination which meant that he usually got what he wanted without appearing to want it at all!

He was exceptionally tall—with both the height and the body to make the most of a suit. He always wore suits—cool grey suits which matched his eyes and contrasted with that neatly cut dark hair.

Only his mouth seemed at odds with the quietly controlled character of the man. It was too lush, too Latin—and far too sensual to belong to Dan McKnight, Megan had decided!

‘So what’s he like?’

Megan’s housemate was always asking her this particular question and Megan always had difficulty answering it. Because Dan had such a cool, analytical way of looking at people that it was hard to know what actually made him tick—though it certainly wasn’t for want of trying!

She knew that he was single and lived in an exclusive London suburb and had one of the keenest minds in the computer industry. But that was about all she’d gathered, other than his glaringly obvious attributes of being too rich and too smart and too handsome. And much too bad-tempered.

‘Good morning Dan,’ she said politely.

Dan had been deep in thought and her words shattered his concentration. He screwed his eyes up at her as if trying to remember who she was, then gave a small smile of satisfaction as he shut the office door behind him.

His new assistant seemed to be shaping up just fine, he thought. Hard-working. Enthusiastic. She was easy on the eye, too—though maybe not in the conventional sense. His eyes narrowed and he allowed a reluctant smile to cross his lips. She obviously had no vanities.

Today was a perfect example. That plain pair of beige trousers and an indeterminate-looking cream sweater did nothing for her rather sallow complexion, he decided. Dan liked his assistants to be ultra-efficient—and Megan was efficient, no question about that. He just didn’t like them to look too decorative—and so Megan fitted the bill perfectly.

Some of the other directors at Softshare had made the mistake of hiring secretaries who looked like out-of-work actresses. And Dan had watched with a kind of wry amusement as those same directors had struggled to keep their minds on the job instead of on a magnificent pair of legs!

‘Good morning, Megan,’ he said as he put his briefcase down.

‘How was the play last night?’ she queried.

Dan knitted his brows together. Had he told her he was going to the theatre? ‘It was…competent.’

‘I’m sure the playwright would be flattered to hear such a glowing description,’ observed Megan, with a sunny smile. ‘I saw it myself last week—and I thought it was terrific!’

‘Really? What a remarkable coincidence.’ He gave her a chilly look which matched his uninterested tone and stifled a sigh. If there was one thing he could fault Megan Phillips on, it was her irrepressible need to chatter. She talked about anything and everything. All the time. She wanted his views on music and newspapers and the state of the economy.

And sometimes—to his horror—he actually found himself discussing these things with her!

Dan frowned. ‘Perhaps we could get down to some work now—that is, if we’ve got all the theatre reviews out of the way?’

Which Megan supposed meant that she should shut up. Trouble was that she had trouble shutting up—which came from growing up in a large, noisy family, she supposed. ‘Shall I make us some coffee first?’ she asked eagerly.

His look was repressive. ‘Not for me—I’ve only just eaten breakfast.’

‘Oh. Right. Well, look what arrived in the post this morning.’ She held the plump pink envelope aloft.

‘Mmm?’ he said absently.

‘A letter.’

He paused in the act of hanging his jacket up and gave it a flicker of a glance, but she saw his features tighten. ‘Yes, I can see what it is!’

‘Another one,’ she emphasised deliberately.

‘Just put it in my tray, would you?’

Megan felt a stab of concern. Someone had clearly gone to a lot of trouble with this letter—surely he owed it more than that rather dismissive glance? ‘Aren’t you going to read it?’

Dan turned around, irritation sparking the dark grey eyes. She sounded just like his mother! ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Well, it’s just that I noticed several other envelopes which looked like this—’

‘And?’ he snapped.

‘And you haven’t even bothered to read them,’ she finished.

‘Oh, no—’ Dan shook his head and glowered. ‘To say that I haven’t “bothered” to read them implies that I’ve been either careless or neglectful. I chose not to read them.’

Megan’s curiosity was stirred, wondering who in their right mind could resist a handwritten envelope. ‘May I ask why?’

She was treated to an impatient glance.

‘No, you may not ask why! You’re paid to assist me—not interrogate me! So refresh my mind by telling me what’s on the agenda for this morning, will you, Megan? And put the letter in my tray like I asked you to. There’s a good girl.’

The patronising term annoyed her, but she didn’t show it. Reminding herself that the salary Softshare paid her was worth withstanding the occasional moody outburst, Megan gritted her teeth behind her most patient smile. ‘Certainly. There were two messages on your voice mail from Japan. Oh, and another call from the Czech Republic. Someone in the government there needs to talk to you and wondered if you could get back to them as soon as possible?’

‘Yep. Sure.’ He wandered over to the window and looked down onto the car park where a dozen powerful cars, including his own, glittered in the morning sunshine. ‘What else?’

‘You’re meeting Sam Tenbury to discuss the possibility of Softshare sponsoring a tennis tournament. You’re having lunch together—’

‘Where?’

Megan smiled confidently. She had asked one of the executive assistants for the name of the best local restaurant. And even the pernickety Dan McKnight surely couldn’t find fault with her choice. ‘I’ve booked that riverside restaurant—’

‘Change it.’

‘But—’

‘Change it,’ he repeated on a growl, meeting the be-mused question in her eyes. ‘I’m much too busy to have my time wasted by waiters who think that offering me an oversized pepper pot should be greeted with laughter and loud applause!’

Megan frowned. She had briefly gone out with a waiter while she was still at secretarial college and knew what long hours they put in for what amounted to little more than a meagre pittance. ‘But they’re only doing their job, Dan—’

‘Yes, I know they are,’ he said, with a quick, impatient smile. ‘I just don’t want it to interfere with mine! And it’s the kind of restaurant where men take their mistresses—’

Megan looked up quickly. It was a very old-fashioned word for him to have used, she thought. And not a particularly flattering one. ‘How do you work that one out—is there a sign on the door or something?’

‘You’ve obviously never been there.’

‘Well, I certainly wouldn’t admit to it now—even if I had! What’s wrong with it?’

‘I just don’t think it deserves its reputation as being the best place to eat locally. It’s badly lit with corny music—the food is mediocre and it’s overpriced. I don’t want to browse through a menu of encyclopaedic length or have my wineglass filled every other second so that by the end of the meal I’m on my knees. I’m not planning a long, slow seduction—’

‘Gosh! Sam Tenbury will be relieved!’ she joked.

Dan sent her a glimmer of disapproval as he bit his words out. ‘I just want to eat and then talk business.’

‘Right.’ Megan stared at him—all health and vitality in that grey suit which made his eyes look like glittering slate in comparison. ‘Well, I really don’t know any other restaurants in the area. Any suggestions? “

Dan plugged in his laptop. ‘Why don’t we eat here?’

Megan conjured up a vision of herself flitting in and out, carrying plates of sandwiches. Did he expect her to make them as well? ‘What—in the office?’

He gave her the type of look he reserved for people who were being especially dense. ‘No, Megan, not here in the office,’ he answered sarcastically. ‘I don’t want crumbs in my keyboard! I meant the staff canteen.’

‘Oh,’ she said.

He heard the doubt in her voice. ‘The food is good—and there’s no chance of alcohol clouding our judgement, since the strongest liquid on sale is root beer!’

Poor old Sam Tenbury, thought Megan. If he thought he was about to have an extravagant time with one of the dynamic directors of Softshare he was about to be very disappointed! ‘Right,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll cancel the table. Let’s hope Sam wasn’t expecting you to push the boat out!’

Dan looked at her with a faint air of disapproval. ‘Why should he? You must know the company philosophy by now, Megan—how long have you been here? A month, is it?’

‘Nearly three months actually,’ she corrected pithily, wondering if he had deliberately cultivated the knack of making a woman feel completely invisible.

‘And…’ He sat down behind his desk and stretched his long legs out in front of him. ‘What have you learned so far?’

Megan felt like a child asked to recite their times-tables in front of the teacher! ‘That frugality is the name of the game,’ she told him earnestly. ‘That Softshare directors fly economy class. That you don’t make your offices into palaces.’

‘And why not?’ he asked softly.

‘Because you plough all the profits back into keeping ahead of your competitors,’ she answered obediently.

‘Mmm. Very good, Megan,’ he said, looking closely at the screen in front of him.

‘Do I go to the top of the class?’ she wondered aloud.

But Dan wasn’t listening; he was staring at the figures on his screen with the kind of rapt fascination which most men reserved for beautiful women.

The office was large and spacious and had been designed with the full cooperation of a design consultant. Two desks sat facing one another, which was not really Megan’s idea of fun. Those cool grey eyes didn’t exactly make you feel relaxed. And you certainly couldn’t varnish your nails or telephone a girlfriend—even in your lunch hour—not when your boss was sitting only feet away!

The only respite she got was when Dan had to go away on business, which wasn’t as often as she would have liked. Because, like most assistants, she found the office ran much better when her boss wasn’t around!

In one corner of the room was a seating area which had made a couple of concessions towards comfort. It contained a sofa and two soft chairs, with a low table in between. Fresh flowers were sent each week by a florist and were subtle and scented. Clutter in the room had been kept to a minimum and Megan was trying to enter into the spirit of this new working environment. She had already ‘streamlined’ her desk, and eagerly studied the section of the Softshare manual which included guidelines on how to make your life less stressful. Though so far, at least, she wasn’t sure if it was working.

They worked non-stop until Megan’s stomach began to rumble. When Dan was working, he seemed to forget about such mundane matters as food and drink.

‘Would you like some peppermint tea?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Or maybe you’d prefer camomile?’

Dan winced. ‘No, I wouldn’t! I’ll have that coffee now—strong and black, the same as always.’

‘But too much caffeine can make you irritable, Dan—’

‘Yes, and you seem to be doing a pretty good job of that, too! Why on earth would I need coffee, Megan?’ he snapped sarcastically as he checked his e-mail.

Megan went out to fetch him coffee served just the way he liked it—which was ebony-black without any sugar—and was presumably what kept him so alert. And so lean. She set it down on his desk in front of him, then ate a large green apple while Dan spoke at great length to someone in Tokyo, frowning at her every time she crunched.

After that he took a conference call. At noon Reception buzzed to say that Sam Tenbury was waiting downstairs, and Dan stretched his arms high above his head and gave a lazy yawn.

Megan found herself wondering who he had taken to the theatre with him and how late a night it had been afterwards. And also wondered if the lucky woman was the same woman who had penned the letter which still lay unopened in his in-tray. Megan gazed down at it, but Dan was already by the door and didn’t appear to have noticed her pointed stare.

Anyway, it was none of her business.

‘Okay, Megan. You know where I’ll be. See you in about an hour,’ he promised, and closed the office door quietly behind him.

The room felt a bit empty after he’d gone and Megan threw herself into organising an off-site meeting for the following month, where Softshare employees would congregate for one of the team-building programmes which the company promoted so fiercely.

She was just thinking about eating her own sandwich—which she always made up for herself at home before she drove her scooter into work—when the telephone rang and she picked it up.

‘Hello, Dan McKnight’s office, Megan speaking. How may I help?’

There was a breathy pause. And then a young woman’s voice—asking a studiedly casual question which came out sounding as if it had been rehearsed over and over. ‘Is he there, please? D-Dan, I mean.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Megan. ‘He’s out at a meeting.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ The voice sounded so young and so crestfallen that all Megan’s protective instincts came hustling to the surface.

‘May I take a message?’

‘Not really.’

‘Or say who was calling?’

‘No, no! That’s okay. It doesn’t matter. Honestly.’

But the girl sounded so dejected that Megan felt impelled to ask, ‘Are you sure? I can get a message to him if you like. He’ll be back very soon.’

A noise followed which sounded suspiciously like a gulp. ‘Well, I don’t know if it’ll do any good…’ The voice tailed off uncertainly.

Megan was not the oldest of five children for nothing—and she could tell when someone wanted to get something off their chest. ‘Oh, go on,’ she coaxed gently. ‘You can tell me.’

‘Well…um, do you know if he’s been getting his mail?’ asked the voice tentatively.

Certainty hit Megan like a slap to the face. This was the writer of the elaborate envelopes—she would bet her entire month’s salary on that! But how could she admit to the woman that her letters had been arriving without also having to admit that Dan McKnight had been refusing to read them?

‘Dan always has a great mountain of mail—electronic and conventional mail,’ said Megan smoothly. No lies there. ‘But he’s been snowed under with work lately.’ Which was also the truth. ‘So he probably hasn’t got around to reading them.’ Now…did the fabrication sound as loud to the mystery caller’s ears as it did to her own?

‘Yes,’ said the voice dejectedly. ‘I guess that’s why I haven’t heard.’

‘So why don’t I have him call you when he gets back?’

There was a rather hollow laugh. ‘No, that’s okay. I’ll be seeing him at the weekend. I’ll talk to him then. Th-thanks for all your help.’

The connection was broken and Megan was left staring blankly down at the phone, but her protective instincts had been roused. She found herself logging appointments into Dan’s diary with only half a mind on the task in hand, so that by the time he returned from his lunch she had worked out exactly what she was going to say to him.

Dan walked into the office to find his assistant looking puffed-up and slightly self-important, and began to wonder whether his satisfaction in her performance had been a little premature.

She’d been nothing but a pain this morning! The way she kept drawing his attention to those confounded letters—letters which were currently burning an uncomfortable hole in his conscience.

Yet, at her interview, Megan Phillips had not only displayed all the characteristics which Softshare specifically looked for in an employee, she’d had the added advantage of not being the type to stand out in a crowd, which was definitely a plus as far as Dan was concerned.

He’d had beautiful assistants before—women who seemed to think that a lovely face and stunning body would catapult them from their assistant’s desk into the high-ranking security of the boss’s bed!

Not that Megan Phillips was ugly, he conceded wryly. In fact, she came nowhere near being ugly—she was just refreshingly and unthreateningly ordinary. She didn’t wear make-up and she didn’t wear short skirts, either. In fact, she never wore skirts at all—always trousers. Presumably to cover up her fat ankles. And that was just fine by him.

Because Dan McKnight had one prime rule in business.

That he never slept with anyone he worked with.

Megan was itching to tell him about the phone call, but equally determined to be professional, so she toiled away all afternoon and waited until it was almost going-home time before she brought the subject up. ‘Dan?’

‘What?’

‘Your girlfriend rang while you were out.’

He lifted his dark head and the grey eyes took on a wary expression. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’ There was something about the tone of his voice which made her feel faintly uneasy. Megan blinked at him, waiting for some clarification—until she realised that she wasn’t going to get any.

‘Which girlfriend would that be?’ he queried unhelpfully.

‘You mean you’ve got more than one?’ She couldn’t keep the indignation out of her voice. Or the accusation.

There was a frosty shimmer of silence while Dan tussled with the idea of sending her packing right there and then, until common sense reasserted itself. And there were no absolutely no grounds for sacking your assistant just because she thought you had an overgrown libido! Maybe he should be flattered by it!

‘I have lots of friends of both sexes,’ came the silky correction. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Er, yes,’ stumbled Megan, feeling slightly foolish. ‘Of course I do.’

He continued to look at her questioningly. ‘So who was it?’

Horror dawned on her as she realised that she hadn’t even asked the woman’s name! ‘Er, I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’ he repeated ominously.

‘No.’

‘You didn’t think to take a name?’

‘Well, I—’

‘Aren’t you aware that taking incomplete messages is one of the most irritating traits known to mankind?’ he demanded heatedly. ‘It’s bad enough in a flatmate—but in an assistant it becomes more than merely irritating, it veers into the realms of sheer incompetence!’

Megan felt torn between protecting her job and protecting the woman on the telephone—even though the job was the best-paid she had ever had, and she didn’t know the woman from a bar of soap.

But…sisterhood, and all that.

Which was presumably why she found herself staring fearlessly into those grey eyes and saying, ‘She told me she’d written to you, but said that you hadn’t bothered to reply.’

He saw that her gaze was now burning into the top drawer of his desk where he’d stashed the stack of pastel-coloured envelopes in the hope that they might somehow go away if he ignored them for long enough.

‘Oh, did she?’ he asked, in a voice so soft that Megan failed to notice the dangerous undertone to it. ‘And what else did she say?’

‘That she would see you this weekend, and talk to you then.’

Dan let out a long, resigned sigh. ‘I see.’

Megan made one last attempt in the name of female solidarity. ‘She sounded very…upset, Dan.’

He correctly latched onto the disapproval in her voice. ‘And?’ he questioned silkily.

Megan blinked. He seemed to be asking her opinion, so why not give it? Wasn’t that what she was being paid to do? ‘I think you owe it to her to at least do her the courtesy of replying.’

Dan almost laughed aloud at what was, in fact, a beautifully worded insult. From his assistant, no less!

‘Oh, do you?’ he questioned, keeping his irritation at bay with difficulty. ‘And didn’t it occur to you that there might be a reason why I’ve let them all go unanswered?’

‘Some men play hard to get,’ suggested Megan boldly. ‘Treat them mean to keep them keen! Maybe you’re one of those men?’

‘I can see that I’ve already reached dizzy heights in your estimation of me,’ he said sarcastically.

‘It was only an option,’ Megan shrugged. ‘I don’t really know you very well.’

‘No, you don’t!’ he grated. ‘Because if you did you would know that my ego isn’t in any way fragile! And that I certainly don’t need to encourage the attention of lovelorn teenagers in order to get my kicks!’

‘Teenagers?’ asked Megan in a voice so shocked that Dan glared at her some more. ‘Lovelorn?’

‘Well, there’s no need to sound quite so outraged!’ he defended as he clipped the words out. ‘I’m thirty-three years old—not quite at the stage of queuing up for my pension book. Anyway, she’s nearly twenty.’

Megan tried to sound worldly-wise. ‘And you’ve been having an affair with her, have you?’

Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t used to people he barely knew making negative character assessments about him that made him feel so uncharacteristically angry. But whatever it was—in that moment, Dan felt like striding across the office and shaking her!

‘Bloody hell!’ he swore. ‘You’re making me sound like Bluebeard! No, I have not been having an affair with her—cradle-snatching has never turned me on!’

‘Well, what is it, then?’ asked Megan in confusion. ‘What’s her name, and what’s it all about?’

Dan sighed. He kept his private life just that. Private. But if Katrina had started phoning and writing to him here, then inevitably his professional life would be involved. And compromised, too, if he wasn’t careful.

‘Her name is Katrina,’ he said. ‘And she thinks she’s in love with me.’

‘Why?’

In spite of everything, Dan laughed. He threw his dark head back and let rip with a throaty chuckle as her question brought him crashing down to earth. Because if his ego had been threatening to get out of hand that guileless one-word query had checked it! But then he saw the reproach which had clouded those huge hazel eyes of hers, and felt his temper flare. Again.

‘Why do you think?’ he demanded. ‘Because I had my wicked way with her when she was barely out of nappies?’

‘Dan!’

‘Well, that’s what the prissy look of concern on your face is implying, isn’t it, Megan?’

‘No!’

‘And you’ve obviously taken her side—’

‘I haven’t taken anyone’s side! I felt sorry for her, that was all.’

‘Even though,’ he continued furiously, his grey eyes growing thunder-dark, ‘even though you don’t know her and you barely know me? In fact, you don’t have a clue about the true situation!’

‘Maybe I don’t,’ she agreed. ‘But that’s easily remedied. Why don’t you tell me?’

Dan’s mouth flattened into a thin, hard line, and he stared at her with misgiving. He had been brought up to view the airing of emotions as a weakness—while to take a virtual stranger into his confidence would be interpreted as positively indulgent.

But he couldn’t just carry on ignoring a situation which was threatening to spiral out of control, could he? And Megan had no axe to grind. She didn’t know Katrina. She stood to gain nothing by giving him her opinion. Surely it would not be disloyal to confide in his assistant?

‘Maybe I should tell you,’ he said slowly.

But, even so, Megan was amazed when Dan sat back in his chair and studied her intently from between narrowed eyes, the way he sometimes studied a spreadsheet.

‘Okay.’ He nodded, and gave a smile which managed to be angry and thoughtful all at the same time. ‘I will. I’ll tell you the whole story about Katrina and then we’ll see where your sympathies lie, won’t we, Megan?’

CHAPTER TWO

‘PICTURE the scene,’ said Dan, and picked up the smooth round paperweight which lay on his desk. At its centre sat a small pink shell and usually he found it restful to look at. Not today, though. ‘Of a little girl growing up without any men around.’

Megan watched him run his long fingers over the cool, curved glass. What he was describing was the exact reverse of her own upbringing. There had been men galore around—or boys, to be exact—when she had slipped into the role of caring for her four younger brothers.

But she knew that having your mother die in childhood wasn’t typical. Thank God. She pushed away the poignant memories and looked into his cool grey eyes. ‘This is Katrina we’re talking about, I presume?’

‘That’s right.’ He nodded. ‘She and her mother used to live close to us. My mother is her godmother, and I’ve known Katrina for most of her life.’

‘Right,’ nodded Megan cautiously.

‘She is the daughter of an actress who happens to be very, very beautiful—’

Megan found herself wondering whether Katrina was as beautiful as her mother. But she didn’t ask.

‘And very self-obsessed,’ he continued, only now the edges of his voice were roughened with disapproval. ‘And, like many beautiful women, she regarded the arrival of a daughter as something of a catastrophe—’

‘Oh.’ Megan’s eyes widened. ‘Why?’

He seemed faintly taken aback by the genuine surprise in her question. Didn’t she realise how competitive women could be? He looked at her. No. Maybe she didn’t.

‘Because daughters have a habit of growing up!’ he answered. ‘They provide the physical evidence of how quickly the years are passing, don’t they? And there’s nothing an actress hates more than growing old. You can’t carry on pretending to be in your mid-thirties if you have daughter who is in her twenties!’

‘No, I suppose you can’t,’ said Megan slowly. ‘I never thought of it like that.’ She looked at him, fascinated by what he was telling her. Dan McKnight, of all people, pouring his heart out—why, she hadn’t thought he had one! ‘So where do you fit into the picture?’

Dan had recently been asking himself the same question, searching back in his memory for something he might have said or done which could have been misinterpreted by a naive young girl.

He frowned. ‘Ever since Katrina was a little girl, she latched herself onto me and followed me around the place, whenever I was around. Which wasn’t often enough for her to see for herself that idols often have feet of clay,’ he added, with brutal honesty.

‘You mean you were her idol?’

He thought it might sound unacceptably arrogant if he corrected her sentence from past to present tense. ‘I guess I was.’ He also thought that Megan could have taken that note of astonishment out of her voice. ‘She used to trot round beside me, gazing up at me as though I could do no wrong.’ And he would be lying to himself if he denied that he had liked the young girl. And enjoyed her unconditional adoration. It had worked both ways—because Katrina had been like the little sister he’d never had.

And that was part of the problem. You could tell a sister to go away and she would probably listen to you.

‘So what did you do about it?’ she asked.

Dan sighed, accepting now that he might have adopted entirely the wrong strategy. He had thought that, by ignoring the young girl’s obsession with him, she would grow out of it, the way she’d grown out of having puppy fat. ‘Nothing,’ he admitted. ‘I just acted exactly the same as I always had towards her.’

‘And how was that?’

‘Big-brotherly, I suppose.’

‘So there was no attraction between you at all?’

Dan shook his dark head. ‘Not on my part, certainly! The age difference between us is too great for us to have anything in common—apart from geographical proximity, of course.’

Megan nodded, looking closely at the cool, clever face. ‘And what is the age difference, exactly?’

‘Thirteen years.’

She expelled a long breath. ‘It is a big gap, but it’s not unheard of,’ offered Megan, thinking of Hollywood stars and minor royals.

‘Neither is slave labour, but that doesn’t make it all right!’ Dan threw her an impatient look. ‘Think about it! When she was a chubby five-year-old, I was just setting off for university. So do you really think that we bonded? Maybe you imagine that every time I came home we sat down and discussed which brand of chocolate bar we liked best!’

Megan opened her mouth to say that she didn’t know why he seemed to be taking it out on her. But she shut it again. Dan McKnight was usually so elusive about his personal life. Getting information was often like prising a clam out of its shell. So if he was now choosing to open up to her, then she should be flattered as well as intrigued. ‘Of course I don’t think that,’ she said calmly.

Her composure seemed to take the heat out of some of his anger, and he put the paperweight down on top of a sheaf of papers. ‘Anyway,’ he shrugged. ‘By the time she’d reached fifteen, I was twenty-eight—’

‘And I suppose the age difference became far less significant as you both got older,’ suggested Megan reflectively.

Dan gave her another thoughtful look. ‘That’s certainly what Katrina thought.’

‘So did…?’ Megan chose her words carefully. ‘Did she just suddenly decide that she was in love with you—or did something happen?’

His eyelashes brushed together, obscuring and shadowing his eyes. ‘Like what?’

‘Well—’

‘You think I made a pass at her?’

‘No, of course I don’t.’ She tried to be diplomatic. ‘Well, not intentionally, maybe…’

Dan felt the ticking of a slow rage as he met the mild suggestion in her eyes. Until he realised that maybe he wasn’t as blameless as he’d imagined. It couldn’t have all come out of nothing, could it? So had he—maybe subliminally—been sending out the wrong sort of message to Katrina for years? He thought back and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I never did anything which could have been taken the wrong way.’

‘So can you remember exactly when it started to get more serious?’

He tried to pinpoint the moment when a schoolgirl crush had begun to escalate out of control. ‘I gave her a necklace on her eighteenth birthday,’ he realised. ‘It started soon afterwards.’

‘And how long ago was that?’

‘Almost two years.’

So Katrina was persistent. Two years of unrequited love was certainly dedication. ‘What kind of necklace?’ she asked.

‘Seed-pearls,’ he answered slowly, remembering that he’d bought them on his mother’s recommendation, and that they had cost rather more than he had intended to pay. He remembered the way Katrina had looked at him when he had handed the slim package over. The stunned expression followed by the shining gratitude in her eyes. The way she had flung her arms so tightly around his neck, until he had eventually had to disentangle them. ‘They were rather nice pearls, actually.’

‘Well, then—that’s why!’ said Megan. ‘You sent out the wrong message.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘How?’

‘Women look at jewellery in a rather different way to men,’ she explained. ‘I mean—you probably thought that you were just helping commemorate a big birthday, with a pretty keepsake, from a friend—’

‘Precisely!’

‘Whereas women view certain pieces of jewellery as actually meaning something.’ She looked at him. Even she knew that—why, she still felt positively misty-eyed when she put her own string of pearls on—though that might be because they had belonged to her mother. ‘What made you buy them in the first place?’

Dan shifted in his seat, beginning to feel as though something had been going on that he hadn’t really been aware of. As though, in some very discreet way, he’d been cleverly manipulated. Why had he never seen the obvious link before? ‘My mother suggested it.’

‘Oh, I see.’ She looked at him with a question in her eyes. ‘Your mother obviously likes her.’

‘She approves of her, yes,’ answered Dan thoughtfully as he reflected on Megan’s words. ‘So Katrina thinks she’s in love with me because I bought her a piece of fairly expensive jewellery for her eighteenth birthday?’

Megan faced him. ‘You’re the only one who can answer that.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘You make her stop loving you.’

‘How?’ he demanded.

Megan was tempted to suggest that he spend longer in the girl’s company—that would be bound to make the dream evaporate in an instant!

‘What have you done so far?’ she questioned. ‘To put her off?’

‘Last time I saw her, I gently explained that the age difference between us is too great.’

Megan shook her head. ‘Oh, dear! Big mistake!’

He looked at her sharply. ‘Oh?’

‘Saying that makes it sound as though it’s only convention standing in your way! True love thwarted by an inflexible world! The Romeo and Juliet syndrome,’ she added helpfully. ‘What else have you done?’

‘I don’t take her phone calls any more—and I haven’t returned any of the more recent e-mails. Or answered any of the letters.’ He stared at the paperweight and when he looked up the grey eyes were troubled. ‘Because I can’t think what to say—and because the letters are becoming slightly more—’ he seemed to have difficulty choosing the right word ‘—graphic,’ he finished reluctantly.

‘Ignoring her will only make her more desperate,’ Megan mused aloud, deciding that there was absolutely no need for her to know just how graphic. ‘And she’ll be worried that she’ll lose your friendship altogether. No, ignoring her won’t help.’

‘Well, then, just what do you suggest I do?’ he demanded.

Megan stared at him, her lips twitching with the temptation to tell him that it wasn’t really her place to suggest anything at all.

But then she thought of Katrina’s crestfallen voice and tried putting herself in the girl’s shoes and felt an enormous wave of sympathy for her. Because hadn’t she read somewhere that obsessional love could gnaw away at you and dominate your whole life?

She frowned with concentration. ‘There is one way of getting her off your back.’ She saw him wince at the way she had phrased it. ‘But you might think it’s rather cruel.’

His eyes grew suspicious. ‘What did you have in mind?’

Megan smiled. Her brothers were the same. Couldn’t see a simple solution even if it was staring them in the face!

‘You just convince her that you’re in love with someone else. Simple.’

‘Oh, really?’ he queried softly. ‘And how do you propose I do that?’

‘She said something about seeing you this weekend—’

‘No. Let’s rephrase that. You make it sound like a date and it’s not. My brother is getting married in a few weeks’ time—and he and his fiancée are visiting my mother’s house this weekend. I planned to go along as well. And Katrina will be there, too.’

‘So you take somebody else with you.’ There was a marked lack of understanding in the cool grey eyes. ‘A girlfriend,’ she elaborated. ‘Show Katrina you’re all over somebody else! There’s no surer way for someone to get the message that you aren’t interested!’

‘But I’m not in love with anybody else.’

Megan sighed. Men could be so infuriatingly dense at times—even ones as startlingly bright as Dan McKnight! ‘You don’t have to be. You just have to pretend to be. Just find someone who’s willing to go along with it.’

Dan screwed his face up. ‘Like who, for example?’

‘Well, I don’t know! There must be hundreds of women who would be delighted to slip into the role of being Dan McKnight’s partner for the weekend!’

‘Yes. With most of them looking to make the post permanent. I can’t take the risk,’ he said grimly.

His arrogance almost took her breath away. ‘I’m sure there must be a woman somewhere who could manage to resist your charm for forty-eight hours, Dan!’

He acknowledged her sarcasm with a slight quirk of his lips, and then his grey eyes began to gleam with the first inkling of a plan. Someone outside his circle. Someone who would be willing to play along with it for a couple of days and then forget it. Someone who didn’t tempt him. Someone who…

‘How about you?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Me?’ Megan stared at him. ‘Why me?’

He considered this. There was no point in beating about the bush. ‘Well, the main reason is because you don’t find me in any way attractive.’ His eyes bored into her. ‘Do you, Megan?’

Megan stared back at him. She knew that nine women out of ten would have fancied him. Maybe if she hadn’t worked for him she might have felt differently. As it was, she found it easier to imagine being kissed by a block of concrete than by Dan McKnight. She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t.’

Dan smiled. ‘Thank you for not bothering to spare my feelings,’ he murmured. ‘And, fortunately, the feeling is entirely mutual. You’re probably the last woman in the world I would choose to have a relationship with.’

Megan glared. Surely there were nicer ways he could have put it? ‘Thanks very much!’

He flicked her a look from between the dark curtain of his lashes. ‘So. Are you busy this weekend?’

Megan hesitated. There was a sort of unspoken rule that if you were a single woman and a man asked if you were busy you always said that, yes, you were. Very. From this, they would come to the conclusion that you had a wonderful, exciting life of your own and you weren’t just sitting around waiting for Mr Wonderful to come galloping into it on his white charger.

But Megan had always had a problem with telling lies. Even if they were only tiny ones.

‘Er, no. I’m not. I’m free, actually.’

‘So would you do it, Megan?’

‘Pretend to be your love-struck girlfriend, you mean?’

‘That’s right.’

Megan looked at him. At the cool grey eyes and the thick, dark hair. At the body which was surprisingly lean and muscular for a man who didn’t have a job which was fundamentally physical. ‘No,’ she said flatly.

Dan’s eyes widened. He wasn’t the kind of man who often had to ask a woman for a favour—those were usually offered freely enough. Neither was he used to being turned down quite so firmly or so emphatically as Megan Phillips had just done, and he suddenly found the novelty of being refused almost stimulating.

And certainly surprising.

‘Why not?’ he asked.

‘Because I’m your assistant—I can’t go along pretending to be your lover.’

‘I wasn’t actually expecting you to consummate our fictitious relationship.’ He bit back a smile. ‘That would be taking method acting a little too far!’

If Megan hadn’t grown up on a farm and been so matter-of-fact about the act of procreation, then she might well have been embarrassed by a remark she suspected had been made with just that aim in mind. As it was, she was able to return his mocking stare with an unruffled look of her own. ‘I hardly know anything about you.’

‘You seem to have extracted a lot more information than most people,’ he told her truthfully.

‘Not enough if we’re supposed to be in love.’

‘Ask me anything you want,’ he coaxed softly.

‘What would I have to do?’

‘Very little. Eat a few meals with me. Maybe play a little tennis. Laugh at my jokes. Withstand the third degree from my mother. Gaze adoringly into my eyes—’

‘I don’t know about the gazing adoringly into your eyes bit,’ she told him honestly. ‘I’m not that good an actress!’

He pursed his lips together, like someone who’d been amused by an unexpected source of entertainment. ‘Well, if the pleasure of my company doesn’t tempt you enough, here’s an added inducement.’ He paused for effect before saying softly, ‘What if I told you that a very famous actor was also going to be there this weekend?’

Slightly relieved that he hadn’t done anything so vulgar as offer her money, Megan willed herself not to look too interested. He probably meant somebody who’d been in a series of coffee advertisements. ‘Oh? And who’s that?’

Dan enjoyed the moment. ‘Jake Haddon.’

Megan’s face froze in disbelieving surprise. It was a full ten seconds before she could speak. ‘The Jake Haddon?’

‘Is there more than one?’

Megan swallowed, more confused than excited. Because not only had Jake Haddon just starred in the year’s biggest-grossing film—but the upper-class Englishman with a fine line in irony had been voted the sexiest star of the decade!

‘Jake Haddon,’ she questioned slowly, speaking each word with extreme care, just in case she had misheard him, ‘is actually going to be at your mother’s house?’

‘That’s right.’

Megan frowned. In her world, famous actors didn’t just happen to stay with your parents. ‘Is he a friend of yours?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Yes, he is.’ He saw the disbelieving look in her eyes and felt obliged to elaborate. ‘He grew up locally. We went to the same village school for a while, before he moved away. But we always kept in touch.’

What sort of world did he inhabit, she wondered, if he was mixing with people of that calibre and had never let on about it? Why, if Jake Haddon were her friend, she’d have his posters plastered all over the office walls!

As Dan spoke, he watched the excitement working Megan’s face—an excitement she was unsuccessfully trying to suppress. And he wondered why he should feel an odd twinge of disappointment that she should be so transparent.

Had he imagined that she would differ from other women, by not being attracted to a man because of who he was, rather than what he was? When would he ever learn? His mouth turned down at the corners. ‘So. Changed your mind about coming?’

Megan knew that she shouldn’t be swayed by a famous name. And instinctively—for whatever reason—she suspected that part of Dan wanted her to say no.

Say no? She would have to be locked up first! She very nearly leapt up and down with excitement. Just wait until she told her brothers about this! ‘I certainly have!’

‘So you’ll come?’

‘Yes, please!’

‘Oh, the hypnotic lure of celebrity,’ he murmured drily.

‘It’ll be something to tell my grandchildren!’ she defended.

‘Just make sure they’re not Jake’s grandchildren, too,’ he warned. He saw the confused look on her face grow into one of indignation as she worked out what he meant by that remark. ‘He has, er, something of a reputation with women,’ he added quickly. ‘As I am sure you can imagine.’

She wasn’t surprised. Looking the way Jake Haddon did, he probably had to surround himself with an army of minders! Still, actors who were constantly being offered big bucks by Hollywood did not tend to run after unsophisticated assistants who’d grown up on a pig-farm!

Megan leaned back in her chair and curved her mouth into a wide smile. ‘So. A heartthrob actor and a man who is being emotionally stalked by a woman he can’t bear to hurt.’ She let out a sigh of anticipation. ‘This looks like being one hell of a weekend!’

CHAPTER THREE

MEGAN felt quite light-headed as she pulled on her motorcycle helmet after work. The summer evening was still and heavy, and there was a sense of unreality nagging away at her, as if she couldn’t quite believe that she’d just agreed to go away with Dan McKnight and pretend to be his loving partner!

She climbed onto the scooter which her father and brothers had clubbed together to buy for her twenty-first birthday, as a thank-you for all she’d done for them. Its top speed wasn’t much faster than some of the runners she passed as they jogged along the pavements—but it was an easy way to get home at the end of a long day.

Home was half a small house which she shared with another girl, close to the Softshare building and just half an hour’s train journey away from Central London.

When Megan had left her father’s farm, she’d planned to go into the capital itself—but the exorbitant price of renting and the mad, busy pace of life had put her off. It had seemed too big and too noisy after the peace of the countryside she had grown up in.

At first, she’d rented a microscopically small bedsit—but then she’d started going out with David and was rarely at home, so size hadn’t seemed to matter. And when they’d split up, she’d decided that she needed company. As a parting gesture, David had offered to buy her a cat, but Megan had declined the offer and found herself a housemate instead!

The house was tucked away in a road which ran parallel to the main street. There were trees along one side, and when the shops were closed it was quiet—but parking was nearly always a nightmare, and Megan thanked her lucky stars that her little scooter was so easy to park!

And this place had been a terrific compromise, she reasoned, letting herself in the front door. Green enough to almost imagine that you were in the country, yet close enough to London to feel that your finger was still on the pulse.

‘Hel-lo!’ she called as she rifled through the post lying on the hall table, and found only a letter of the ‘we are sure this is merely an oversight’ variety, asking her to settle up the interest on her in-store account. Maybe her accountant brother was right. Maybe she just shouldn’t have an in-store account!

‘I’m out here!’ shouted a voice. ‘In the kitchen!’

The kitchen was scruffy, but at least it had French doors looking out onto the tiny garden, which in the summer was a glorious sun-trap. Megan had laboriously grown packets of seeds on the kitchen window-sill, and now they were planted proudly in their pots outside—blazing with colour and heavy with scent. A heavy-headed sunflower strained its giant yellow petals towards the sky and cute little black-eyed Susans winked at her provocatively.

Helen was standing by the fridge, hulling strawberries which she was piling into a scarlet pyramid on a glass dish. She was a pretty, bubbly girl who worked as a flight attendant for one of the major airlines, so she had lots of stopovers in places like Paris and Madrid and Rome, which she insisted weren’t glamorous—but which sounded it to Megan! She was currently unattached, even though she always seemed to have hundreds of admirers—but she told Megan she was holding out for the ‘real thing’.

Helen looked up as Megan walked in and stopped chopping once she saw the expression on her housemate’s face. ‘What’s up?’ she demanded. ‘Has something happened?’

‘Well, kind of.’ Megan paused for effect as she anticipated the impact that her next words would have. ‘What would you say if I told you that I was going to spend the weekend in the company of the actor Jake Haddon?’

The knife only narrowly missed Helen’s thumb. She put it down on the work surface carefully. ‘I’d say that you had either been hit on the head or had started dating someone who just happened to share their name with the hunky actor we all know and love!’

Megan picked up half a strawberry and popped it into her mouth. ‘Well, you’d be wrong. Because Jake Haddon—the Jake Haddon—is actually going to be there.’

Helen stared at her in genuine confusion. ‘Where?’

‘It’s a bit of an odd story.’

‘You don’t say?’ Helen picked the kettle up. ‘Tell me all about it while I make some tea.’

Fifteen minutes later, the cooling kettle was left forgotten on the work surface and Helen stared at Megan, her eyes as wide as dinner-plates.

‘You’re sure this isn’t some ploy by your new boss to have his wicked way with you?’

Megan nearly choked on the second-to-last strawberry. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘No. Why? Is he vile?’

Megan shook her head, and almost laughed. ‘No, he’s not vile. He’s just…’

Helen stood waiting expectantly. ‘Just what?’

Megan shrugged. ‘Nothing. It just wouldn’t happen,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not interested in him, and he’s certainly not interested in me. He even told me so!’

‘Really?’ Helen nodded. ‘That’s why he’s taking you away and having you pretend to be in love with him, is it?’

‘It isn’t like that!’

‘Hmm. Maybe. I know men—’

‘And so do I!’ Megan protested. ‘I grew up in a house full of them, remember?’

‘Yes, and they were your devoted and very protective brothers and father. Not men with an eye for the main chance.’ Helen gave her a speculative look. ‘What on earth are you going to wear? And isn’t he going to get a shock when he sees you out of your habitual trousers?’

‘Probably—especially when he notices my skinny knees!’

‘How many times do I have to keep telling you there’s nothing wrong with skinny knees? Most women yearn for them! Models have them! And you still haven’t answered the question about what to wear. Lets face it, Megan, your wardrobe isn’t exactly full to overflowing with any kind of clothes—let alone suitable clothes for what sounds like a very fancy weekend in the country.’

‘No, I know it isn’t.’ Megan gave her a slightly embarrassed smile. ‘Um, shall I make us that cup of tea now?’

Helen burst out laughing. ‘You mean, you want to borrow some clothes?’

‘Well, we are about the same size. Would you mind?’

‘Mind? I’ve been dying to see what you’d look like in something really funky for ages now. Come on—what are you waiting for?’

Minutes later, Megan stood in front of a full-length mirror looking over her shoulder at a bottom which seemed far from perfect when it was covered in tight buttercup-yellow satin.

‘Helen, I can’t wear these!’ she said flatly.

‘Of course you can! They’re very young and very now—and satin is the new denim, didn’t you know?’ Helen stepped back admiringly. ‘I must say, they make a wild pair of jeans!’

‘Wild,’ echoed Megan weakly. ‘I just don’t know if it’s going to be that sort of weekend.’

‘Didn’t you ask him?’

‘Of course I asked him!’

‘And what did he say about it—this Dan McKnight?’

‘Just that his mother would be there—’

‘His mother?’

‘That’s right. And his brother—’

‘Oh, wow! Sounds like a fun time,’ observed Helen wryly. Megan ignored that. ‘He said we’d get down there in time for dinner on the Friday and travel back after lunch on Sunday. He said that Friday-night dinner was smartish but that they tended to dress up for dinner on Saturday. And that everything else was pretty relaxed.’

‘And nothing else?’

‘Not really. Just the bit about the girl who thinks she’s in love with him. And about Jake Haddon being there, too.’

‘Well, then! Actors! You can’t turn up wearing a pair of those drab old trousers you usually wear, can you? He’ll expect you to look bright. Colourful. Different.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘Listen,’ smiled Helen, ‘I know so. Now take this sequinned boob-tube and go and try it on with these pedal-pushers!’

Megan looked down at the garments Helen had thrust into her hands, and frowned. ‘Listen, I know I’m not the world’s greatest fashion queen—’

‘Agreed!’

‘But even I know that pink doesn’t really go with green—’

‘Doesn’t go with it? Darling, they were made for each other! Clashing colours are big news this season.’

‘Honestly?’

‘Trust me on this one, Megan.’

In the end, Megan gave up trying to convince Helen that, while she was dying to meet the actor, she certainly wasn’t entertaining any false expectations about him falling for her.

‘He wouldn’t look twice at someone like me!’ she declared stoutly.

‘No,’ agreed Helen thoughtfully. ‘He most probably wouldn’t. Not at the moment, anyway…’ And she began to advance on her housemate carrying a mascara wand like a dangerous weapon.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Megan, in alarm.

‘Seeing what you look like with a bit of slap on your face!’

Soon Megan’s bed was covered with a selection of brightly coloured clothes and the face which stared back at her from the mirror was unrecognisable.

Her green-gold eyes looked three times their usual size and her skin looked as softly glowing as if she had just returned from a Mediterranean cruise. Her lips were all kind of tremulous and pouting with that carefully applied pink shiny stuff gleaming back at her. And even her mousy-brown hair looked interesting after Helen had attacked it with a hairdryer.

But Megan wasn’t sure that she liked this sleek, polished stranger who stared back at her from the mirror, and started wiping off the bronze blusher which she privately thought made her look as if she’d overdone the sunbed.

She was just throwing a used piece of cotton wool into the bin when the pile of clothes caught her eye, and she frowned. What if they’d judged it all wrong? Shouldn’t she take her one, plain, all-purpose ‘good’ black dress? Just in case. If the worst came to the worst, she could dress it down for Friday, and tart it up for Saturday.

Feeling a little like a conspirator, she stuffed it into the bottom of her suitcase—where Helen couldn’t see it.

Back in the office, Megan found herself looking at Dan in a whole new way. It was difficult not to. Here was a man who could inspire obsessional devotion from young women and who mixed with Oscar-nominated actors! She tried to be objective. Was he a hunk or not?

She supposed that he really did have an amazing bone-structure, when you looked closely. And pretty amazing eyes, too. But she soon forced herself to break the habit of staring and trying to analyse his appeal. What if he caught her doing it and thought that she was nurturing a soft spot for him? She had been expressly invited because she was the type of woman who wouldn’t fall in love with him for real!

That week he had business in Spain and Holland, and came back the day before they were due to leave. Megan had spent most of the morning fixing up the quarterly review meeting and had looked up to find his grey eyes studying her intently, in a way she’d never noticed him doing before. It was an odd kind of sensation and for a moment she felt extremely flustered.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked. He was probably having second thoughts—deciding that it had all been a mad, crazy idea, and that he didn’t want to take her away with him after all.

She would never meet his mother and brother or get to know Jake Haddon.

And she was unprepared for the jolt of disappointment she experienced.

‘Wrong?’ He looked mildly surprised. ‘Why should there be?’

‘You were staring.’

‘Was I?’

‘You know you were.’

There was a pause.

‘So I was,’ he agreed softly. ‘Is that such a crime?’

‘Of course not,’ said Megan stiffly, trying not to feel self-conscious in her pale grey cotton trousers and the darker grey T-shirt.

‘Clearly it is,’ he contradicted silkily, and there was a question in his eyes she couldn’t ignore.

‘I don’t dress to be stared at,’ she said defensively. ‘Particularly not when I’m working.’

‘No, I can see that,’ he agreed, thinking that she wouldn’t have looked out of place as a guard in a large institution, wearing that dreary outfit. Her top was so loose she might almost have been in the early stages of pregnancy! ‘Still—it’s refreshing to meet a woman who has such little vanity,’ he smiled.

Megan frowned. Somehow she didn’t like the sound of that.

He saw the lines which pleated her smooth, pale forehead and thought he’d better get in a bit of practice at making polite conversation. ‘So. Are you looking forward to the weekend?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted.

Actually, she’d been besieged with doubts. Lying awake at night staring at the ceiling and practising what on earth she would say to Jake Haddon when she met him. Which was only slightly less nerve-racking than imagining what she was going to say to Dan’s mother!

‘I’m just a bit nervous about having to keep making up stories. I hate lying, that’s all. What have you told your family?’

‘I spoke to my brother and told him that I’m bringing a girl home.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘Believe me, that was enough.’ His smile was cool as he remembered his brother’s surprised silence down the telephone. ‘The very fact that I’m bringing someone to a family party will be enough to convince them that it’s serious enough to set alarm bells ringing.’

‘Alarm bells?’ she asked him curiously. ‘Why should it do that? Don’t they want you to settle down and get married?’

‘I don’t know—I’ve never asked them.’

Megan frowned. ‘Must you be so evasive all the time?’

‘Am I?’ Dan frowned, too. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, really—you’re about as forthcoming as a rock!’

‘We’ve never discussed marriage,’ he answered eventually, realising as he said it that he and his family had never discussed anything much at all. It wasn’t their way. ‘I suppose the unspoken fact is that when I do…’

‘Yes?’ quizzed Megan eagerly.

‘It’ll be someone from the same background, I guess.’

She didn’t like to ask what that background was—but she was slowly getting a good idea!

‘How rigid!’ she observed.

‘Not really,’ he shrugged, and crumpled a ball of paper in his fist. ‘Just stop and think about it. Marriage can be such a lottery. At least if you have similar backgrounds and interests, you stand a better chance of surviving.’

‘You make it sound like a trip to the North Pole!’ declared Megan indignantly. ‘Marriage is supposed to be based on love!’

He smiled. ‘I would hate to destroy your youthful idealism, Megan.’

‘Whereas I would love to destroy your world-weary cynicism!’

He laughed, thinking that maybe this weekend wasn’t going to be as bad as he had anticipated, until he drew himself up short.

This wasn’t a date! he reminded himself sternly.

Megan took a call from their Rome office and put it through to him, and when the call was finished she plucked up courage to ask the question which had been depriving her of more sleep than any other. ‘Er, Dan?’

He lifted his head. ‘What?’

It wasn’t the easiest thing to put into words, particularly when he was looking at her with that barely feigned impatience. ‘It’s a bit of a thorny subject—’

‘I’m listening.’

‘And it’s probably only because I’m a farmer’s daughter and don’t feel shy to talk about one of the most basic—’

‘Get to the point, will you, Megan?’ he sighed.

She stared at him defiantly. ‘It’s about the sex thing.’

Dan blinked in astonishment and, as she spoke, the most extraordinary thing happened. He started to feel extremely…He shook his head in disbelief. Then shook it again—this time in astonishment. Surely the pale and colourless Ms Phillips hadn’t managed to produce a sudden sweet flood of desire?

He shifted uncomfortably, pleased that he was safely hidden behind his desk so she couldn’t see him. Imagine how embarrassing that would have been!

For both of them.

‘Which particular aspect of the “sex thing” did you have in mind, exactly?’ He swallowed.

‘Well, it’s just that if I’m supposed to be in love with you—’

‘Yes?’

‘And you with me…’

He looked at her as she let her sentence tail off, and he could feel his pulse begin to quicken again with another unexpected and completely unwanted challenge. ‘Yes?’ he said again, only this time he didn’t bother to conceal his impatience.

‘People will expect us—’

‘To be having sex?’ he put in brutally. ‘No doubt they will, Megan—but that doesn’t mean that they’ll expect to witness it! Or do you think they’ll be trooping through the house, expecting to see us locked together in the throes of passion? Much more interesting than looking at the paintings, wouldn’t you say?’

Her throat constricted as her mind made pictures of his words. ‘Is there really any need to be quite so…?’

Their eyes met. ‘So?’

‘Graphic?’

‘Well, you were the one who started it! You’re the farmer’s daughter who claims to be unembarrassed by basic acts of nature, remember?’ He smiled. ‘Megan, stop worrying. We probably won’t even be sleeping in the same part of the house.’

Megan blinked. ‘Just how big is your house?’

‘My mother is a stickler for convention,’ he explained, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘And, as far as she is concerned, unmarried couples just don’t sleep together. Even my brother and his fiancée will have separate rooms. What they get up to in the dead of night is up to them!’

‘And don’t you mind?’

‘Why should I mind? I don’t visit that often—and I’m not so addicted to sex that I can’t go without it for a night or two.’

Megan quickly found something very interesting to look at on the notepad in front of her.

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