DEAR READER LETTER

By Sharon Kendrick

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 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

“What kind of person are you?” She repeated his question. “Hardworking, disciplined, focused. Very successful—one of the top five bankers in the world, probably…”

“You make me sound like a machine,” he said, and a note of something like bitterness crept into his voice.

Kiloran’s voice softened. “You’re no machine, Adam—I can assure you of that.” She drew a deep breath, because this kind of thing wasn’t easy to say, out cold, to a man who technically was your lover but who didn’t remember a thing about you. “You’re a warm, giving lover.” She swallowed. “The best lover I’ve ever had…”

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…

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?

Find out in our series of stories set against working backgrounds.

This month in

Back in the Boss’s Bed by Sharon Kendrick

Hotshot businessman Adam Black is Kiloran’s new boss—and the most devastatingly attractive man she has ever met. It isn’t long before he’s made love to her, but he won’t let her close.Then an accident leaves Adam with memory loss, and he must depend on Kiloran to nurse him back to health….

Back in the Boss’s Bed
Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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With thanks to Edward Heckels

for all his invaluable advice—

this book is for him and for all future Heckels.

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CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

ADAM BLACK’S grey eyes glittered like sunlight on a wintry sea. ‘So, Vaughn?’ he questioned softly.

From his wheelchair, the old man looked up at the tall, dark man who dominated the room. ‘I hate asking anyone for favours!’ he rasped. ‘Even you.’

‘And I hate granting them,’ said Adam, his hard mouth relaxing by just a fraction as he acknowledged the old man’s indomitable character, recognising in him something of himself. ‘But in your case, I’ll make an exception. What’s up?’

There was a pause. ‘You remember my granddaughter?’ Vaughn demanded. ‘Kiloran? She’s been running the business—only she’s come up against problems. Big problems.’

Kiloran? Adam let his memory stray back, then back further still, and a fleeting image of a green-eyed girl in pigtails flitted in and out of his mind. A little princess of a girl, despite the pigtails and the grubby jeans. But the Laceys had been rich, as rich as Adam had been poor—and the power of money had clung to her like a second skin.

‘Yeah, I remember her. Vaguely.’ He frowned. ‘Though she would have just been a kid at the time. Nine—ten maybe.’

‘That was a long time ago. She’s not a kid anymore. She’s twenty-six, and a woman now. Kiloran is my daughter’s child,’ added Vaughn, his eyes half closed with reminiscence. ‘You must remember her mother. Everyone remembers Eleanor.’

Adam stilled.

Oh, yes. This particular memory snapped into crystal-sharp focus. He had locked it away, as he’d locked so many things away over the years, but Vaughn’s words were the key to the door, and now it swung open. ‘Yes, I remember Eleanor,’ he said slowly.

It had been every teenage boy’s fantasy, except maybe his.

He had been eighteen, all long legs and muscle—strong as an ox and tanned as a berry. The summer had been hot—too hot to load boxes all day, but that had been his job, his way out of the dark tunnel his life had become. God, it seemed so long ago.

Eleanor must have been about…what? Forty? Maybe younger, maybe older—it was hard to tell with women of a certain age. All Adam had known was that she’d been a looker.

The men working in the warehouse had just stopped what they’d been doing, their breath hot with lust when Eleanor had walked by, as walk by she so often had—making excuses to visit the factory, wearing tiny denim shorts and a T-shirt which had been rucked tight across her breasts. The beautiful widow—she might have been called the Black Widow, if her hair hadn’t been the colour of spun gold.

Adam had listened to them talk. A tease, they’d called her. Look but don’t touch. She was protected by the power of her position. The boss’s daughter.

She’d known the power of her own sexuality, too—it had radiated off her like a shimmering heat and it had fuelled many fantasies those hot summer nights.

But not Adam’s.

Something about her had made him recoil. Something about her hooded, predatory look had made him look away. Maybe it had reminded him too much of what he had left behind at home.

She’d noticed him, of course. He’d been different. He’d been bright and smart. Stronger and bigger and fitter and more ruggedly handsome than any of the permanent loaders. And she’d noticed the way he hadn’t noticed her. Some women liked a challenge.

She’d waited until his last week there—presumably not to give herself time to get bored, or to risk angering her father. Vaughn had been a stickler for sticking to the rules and a penniless kid from a rough family on the wrong side of town had not been for his daughter, not in any way.

But Eleanor had had other ideas.

She’d brought him a beer one baking afternoon, when the ground had scorched your feet—the first taste of liquor he had ever had. On such a hot day, it had been too tempting to refuse and it had filled him with a kind of warm wildness. But he had stayed his distance, his eyes as wary as a cornered animal when she had patted the haystack where she’d lain sprawled.

‘Come over here,’ she purred.

‘I’m fine where I am,’ he said.

She didn’t like being refused, nor did she take the hint. She knew what she wanted and she wanted him.

She was wearing a flowery little shirt that day—a teensy little thing with buttons all the way down the front, and when she began to brazenly pop them open, one by one, her green eyes meeting his, he froze.

Maybe there wasn’t another man on the planet who would have refused what Adam was so freely being offered, but Adam wasn’t most men. He had seen what weakness and excess could do. Wasn’t his presence here doing a dead-end job the very result of it?

Nothing was said. He simply picked up his denim shirt and thanked her for the beer, and strolled out into the mercilessly hot sunshine. He didn’t see her look of frustrated lust, but he felt it. It was the first time it had happened to him, but it wouldn’t be the last.

He gave Vaughn a cool look. ‘Yes, I remember your daughter. What happened to her?’

Vaughn gave a wheezy laugh. ‘She did what she wanted to do—married a millionaire and moved to Australia.’ He shrugged. ‘Said she wanted a better life—and you know what women are like.’

There was a pause, while Adam remembered the woman he had taken for dinner on his last night in New York. A sloe-eyed beauty who had cooed into his ear that what he didn’t know about women could be written on the back of a postage stamp and still leave room to spare! He hadn’t made love to her—his body had been willing but his mind had not, for he had never been able to separate the intellectual from the physical. She had cried. Women always cried when they couldn’t get what they wanted, and mostly they wanted him. It was not an arrogant assessment of his attributes as a man and as a lover, it was fact—plain and simple.

‘Yes, I know what women are like,’ he said shortly. ‘So Kiloran stayed, did she?’

Vaughn nodded. ‘She went away and then came back. She missed the house.’ He gave a look of pride. ‘She loves it just the same as I do. But loving a house is not the same as running a business. I was a fool to let myself think she was capable of taking charge. Yes, she had experience of company life—but it was too big a project to handle.’ He shook his head. ‘She twisted me round her little finger—the way she can twist any man around her little finger! And Kiloran always knows best!’

Adam didn’t point out the glaringly obvious. That in this instance she had failed completely in her judgement.

‘You said you weren’t working at the moment,’ growled Vaughn. ‘So, in theory, you have a little time on your hands.’

Adam stared unseeingly out at the sunlit gardens beyond which seemed to stretch on and on as far as the eye could see. The Lacey mansion had always seemed like a different world when he had been young—like an unattainable mountain to climb—only now he was a part of that world. He hadn’t been back here since the day he’d left—not to this house, nor the pitiful version of a house he had grown up in. And now his two worlds had merged in the way that fate so often decreed they did. It felt strange, he thought. Had it been a mistake to come?

‘That’s right,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t start my new job until next month.’

Vaughn drew himself up, his stiff body moving awkwardly. ‘I want you to make Lacey’s what it was, Adam. If anyone can do it—you can. Before I die, I want my good name to stand and I want this firm to carry on. For Kiloran’s sake. Will you do that?’

Adam’s dark eyebrows knitted together. ‘But how’s Kiloran going to feel about it? If she’s heading up your company, how’s she going to adapt to taking her orders from me? Unless.’ His eyes took on a watchful wariness. ‘Unless you want her out of the way, of course. You’re not planning to sack her, are you?’

Vaughn let out a wheezing laugh. ‘Sack her? I’d sooner take on the devil himself than risk that!’

‘But, you know—’ Adam’s grey eyes grew thoughtful and flinty ‘—if it’s as bad as you seem to think it is, and you want results, then I’m going to have to be tough with her.’

The old man smiled. ‘Be as tough as you like. Maybe I’ve been too soft with her in the past. Show her who’s in the driving seat, Adam. She needs to know—she’s a stubborn little thing.’

Adam digested this in silence, knowing that no one could match him for stubbornness. And he wondered whether perhaps it was Vaughn’s intention to use him to oust his stubborn granddaughter from her position of power. Maybe that was one of his reasons for approaching him. Get someone else to do your dirty work for you.

But he put it out of his mind. Personalities didn’t come into it and neither did other people’s agendas.

There were facts and you acted on those facts. Didn’t matter who said what, or to whom. Didn’t matter if Kiloran Lacey was a clone of her mother and started fluttering her pretty eyelashes at him, trying to get her own way. She would soon find out, just as her mother had done, that he was not the kind of man she could twist around her little finger. From now on he was going to decide what was best, and if she didn’t like it—well, that was just too bad.

Vaughn gave a satisfied nod and pressed the bell on the side of his wheelchair once more, and the door was opened to reveal a middle-aged woman, bearing a tray containing two glasses and a bottle of champagne, cooling in an ice bucket.

‘Ah, Miriam,’ said Vaughn. ‘Pour Mr Black a drink, would you?’

Adam hid a smile. So the old man had been confident he’d agree, had he? And why not? Didn’t he owe Vaughn Lacey for a favour given to a young boy in trouble, such a long time ago? He watched as Miriam deftly dealt with the drinks. She wore a black dress with a white collar—clearly some kind of uniform. He hadn’t seen such an old-fashioned set-up for years, but, admittedly, he had been living in America, which was altogether a more meritocratic society.

His eyes were drawn to an exquisite Augustus John etching, which hung on the wall, and he pursed his lips together thoughtfully. That piece of artwork alone must be worth a cool couple of million. He wondered how much else around the place was existing on past glories and how well Vaughn and his granddaughter would be able to adapt if any cut-backs were going to be necessary.

But now was not the time to start asking questions like that. He took the drinks from Miriam, and when she had let herself out he handed one to the old man and then raised his own, touching it to the other, the chink of crystal sounding as pure as the ringing of a bell.

‘To success. To the resurrection of Lacey’s,’ he murmured, raising the drink to his lips and wondering just what the hell he had let himself in for.

Vaughn gave a tight smile. ‘I’ll send for Kiloran.’

CHAPTER TWO

KILORAN smoothed her clammy palms down over her hips, feeling suddenly and inexplicably nervous. The corridor leading to the boardroom seemed to go on forever, a corridor which she had walked down countless times—so why the nerves?

Her grandfather had telephoned her at the house and asked her to meet him. Immediately. It had sounded more like a command than a request and he had spoken in a terse, almost abrupt way, which didn’t sound like him at all.

Was he about to tell her that he didn’t think there was any point carrying on? That they should call in the creditors? The end of the company and all that went with it?

A cold sweat broke out on her forehead as she pushed open the door of the boardroom, thrown off her guard as soon as she registered that her grandfather was not alone.

For a man stood, surveying her with a lazy, yet judgemental air. The kind of man who would make any woman’s heart miss a beat and whose expression would fill her with foreboding.

She turned to the familiar figure in the wheelchair. ‘Grandfather?’ she said uncertainly.

‘Ah, Kiloran,’ murmured her grandfather. ‘This is Adam. Adam Black. Do you remember him?’

It was like a little pebble being dropped into a pond. Slowly, the ripples of memory spread across Kiloran’s mind. She frowned.

Adam Black.

Of course she remembered him.

True, she had only been young, but some men came along who were so unforgettable that their image was scored deep in the psyche, and had been at an impressionable age. Reading stories about knights in shining armour who carried off with them the damsel in distress to some unnamed and yet pleasurable fantasy.

Adam Black had seemed to fit the role perfectly, and—judging from the female workers at Lacey’s—Kiloran had not been the only one to think so. Hadn’t groups of them found excuses to go to the loading bay, in order to catch a glimpse of the bare-chested man, as he’d effortlessly lifted great boxes of soap into the lorries? Hadn’t even her mother remarked that he was a fine-looking boy?

And so it was with astonishing and rather disturbing ease that Kiloran was able to recall Adam Black perfectly.

She turned her head to look at him.

The years had not just been kind to him, they had treated him with the deference usually only given to the chosen few.

The body was lean and lithe, his skin kissed with the faintest tan. The hair was still jet-black—thick and abundant as it had ever been with only a faint tracing of silver around his temples. The grey eyes were narrowed and watchful. He looked—not exactly unfriendly, but not exactly brimming over with bonhomie, either, and he was dressed in an immaculate charcoal-grey suit, as if he was ready for business.

She remembered the young man wearing nothing but a pair of faded denims, his bronzed back dripping with the sweat of his labours, and it seemed hard to connect him with this man, who stood before her now, a dark study of arrogant respectability.

Kiloran’s heart had begun to thunder beneath the thin silk of her dress, but the voice of reason began to clamour in her head.

Why on earth was he here?

And her childhood crush was eclipsed by the sudden crowding in of facts. She suddenly realised just why his name had sounded so familiar—and not just because he had spent one summer doing hard, manual work for her grandfather. She made the connection, and she was even more confused.

Adam Black—the Adam Black—was here in her boardroom? The man that the investment journals called ‘The Shark’ because of his cold and cutting ways? She had read about him, in the way that anyone in the business would have done. She had seen him quoted in the papers and read about him in the magazines which covered big mergers and acquisitions. And seen his regular appearances in the gossip columns, too. The camera loved him and so did women, beautiful women, invariably. He had acquired a reputation for loving and leaving—though maybe not for loving, but certainly for leaving.

So why was he here? She stared at him in confusion.

‘You remember my granddaughter?’ Vaughn was saying. ‘Kiloran Lacey?’

Adam gave a brief, curt nod. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he murmured.

A very long time ago. Certainly, his snatched, snapshot memory of a girl in pigtails bore no resemblance to the woman sitting at the huge, round table wearing a dress as darkly green as her eyes. Her long, shapely legs were outlined by the thin fabric, but not even her magnificent legs could detract from the lush breasts, the silky material of the dress doing very little to disguise their almost shocking fullness.

He had remembered fair hair, tightly bound in pigtails, but the colour of her hair was as pure as spun gold, although most of it was caught back in a knot. She had her mother’s hair, he thought fleetingly. And her mother’s eyes—or at least they were the same colour. Because the eyes which returned his stare were cool and intelligent and assessing, not hot and hungry and predatory like her mother’s. But women wore different masks, didn’t they? Who knew what kind of woman Kiloran Lacey really was?

But outwardly, at least, she was perfect.

Her skin was as pale as clotted cream, which contrasted so vividly with her rich green eyes. She had the kind of natural beauty which, in another age, would have had artists clamouring to paint her.

Her lips were wide and lush and full, and held the merest suggestion of a pout of displeasure as she looked at him as if he had absolutely no right to be there. And that little pout stirred at his senses in a way it had no right to. Or maybe it was the unsmiling look on her face. Adam was used to an instant response from women, and for once he wasn’t getting it.

‘Nice to see you,’ he said shortly.

Kiloran kept her voice steady. ‘Would someone mind telling me what’s going on?’ She gave him a polite smile. ‘I don’t understand why you’re here, Mr Black.’

‘Call me Adam.’ His mouth thinned into a bland smile. ‘Please.’

Something about his superior, almost arrogant self-assurance made Kiloran begin to simmer. How dared he look as though he had every right to stand around lording it and as if she—she—were in some way superfluous! She felt like calling him something far more uncomplimentary than his first name, but she drew a deep breath. ‘Adam,’ she managed steadily. ‘This is something of a surprise.’

‘I’ve asked Adam to establish the full extent of the embezzlement,’ said her grandfather.

Embezzlement. There it was. Such a horrible word, and no less horrible because it was true. A fact. A smooth-talking accountant with a convincing line in lies and she had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.

‘But I’ve been working on that myself,’ she objected. ‘You know I have.’

‘And you’re involved, Kiloran,’ drawled Adam. ‘So I’m afraid it isn’t quite that easy.’

Her heart missed a beat as she stared at him incredulously. ‘Are you trying to suggest that I’ve stolen from my own company?’

He shook his dark head. ‘Of course not. You weren’t involved in the process itself,’ he said blandly. ‘But, unlike me, you won’t be able to take an impartial overview of the situation.’

‘I think you underestimate me,’ she shot back and she met the answering look in his eye which said as clearly as if he had spoken it, I think not.

‘Why don’t I leave the two of you in peace?’ said her grandfather hurriedly, and began to manoeuvre the wheels of his chair in the direction of the door.

Kiloran scarcely noticed him leave, her breath was coming in short and indignant little blasts, which was making her chest rise and fall as if she had been running in a particularly fast race.

Adam wished to hell that he had the authority to tell her to put a jacket on, but what reason could he give? That he found the sight of her moving breasts too distracting? That her hair was too shiny clean and blonde and her lips positively X-rated? That the silken look of her white and golden skin made it seem a sheer crime to have it covered in anything other than a man’s lips?

Instead he curved his mouth into the sardonic smile which would have made people who knew him well have serious misgivings about his next words.

‘Your grandfather asked me to review your financial position,’ he said bluntly. ‘And I’ve had a preliminary look at the figures.’

There was a simmering silence while she looked at him. ‘And?’

The grey eyes became as steely as his voice. ‘I suspect that it’s worse than even he thought.’ He paused just long enough for her to realise just how serious it was. And then he remembered Vaughn’s kindness, remembered too that this woman was his granddaughter. He forced a smile.

‘I’m afraid that we’re going to have to make a few changes round here.’ The silence became slightly tighter still before he delivered his final blow. ‘Because, without a miracle, I’m afraid your company will go bust, Kiloran.’

CHAPTER THREE

Without a miracle, your company will go bust.

ADAM BLACK fixed her with a cool, challenging look and Kiloran stared at him, trying not to be lulled by the stormy beauty of his eyes.

‘Aren’t you exaggerating just a little?’

He observed the cool, almost haughty look she was giving him and for a moment he almost relished wiping that proud look from her face before plucking a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and flicking a dismissive hand in their direction.

‘Have a chair,’ he drawled, in the kind of tone which suggested that she didn’t have a choice.

‘Thanks,’ she said stonily, thinking that he seemed to have acquired the ability to make her feel like a stranger in her own boardroom.

He sat down in the chair beside hers and his mouth curved. ‘So you think I’m exaggerating, do you? Tell me, have you read these papers?’

‘Of course I’ve read them!’

‘Then surely you can be in no doubt about just how bad things are?’

‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

He gave a cynical smile. ‘Take my advice, honey. Never ask an open question like that. You’re giving me the opportunity to say yes.’

‘Then say it! I’m not afraid of your answer,’ she said proudly.

He sighed with barely concealed impatience even though she looked very beautiful when she tilted her chin like that and the eyes sparked a witchy green fire. This was what happened when you worked with family firms—people behaved as if they owned the place, which, of course, they did. If Kiloran Lacey had been any other employee—no matter what her position in the company—he would have told her to stop wasting his time, to shut up and just listen.

‘If anything, you’ve been guilty of mismanagement,’ he said. ‘Stupidity would imply that you had ignored advice, and I’m assuming you didn’t?’ He raised a dark, arrogant eyebrow. ‘Or did you? Did anyone warn you that your company accountant had been salting away funds for his own private Swiss bank account, Kiloran?’

‘Of course they didn’t!’

‘And you didn’t notice?’

Now he was making her feel stupid. Very stupid. ‘Obviously not.’

‘Indeed.’ Reflectively, he brushed the tip of his finger against his lips and subjected her to an unhurried appraisal. ‘So what happened? Did you take your eye off the ball? Or weren’t you watching the ball in the first place?’

He made her sound like a fool, and she was no fool. Kiloran knew that she had been guilty of a lack of judgement, but she was damned if she was going to have this supercilious man jumping to conclusions when he didn’t know a damned thing about her! And looking at her in that cool, studied way, the thick, dark lashes shielding the grey eyes, making her feel she’d been caught momentarily off balance.

‘You’re full of questions, Mr Black—’

Questions which she seemed very good at evading, he acknowledged thoughtfully. So did that mean she had something to hide? ‘I thought you were going to call me Adam.’

‘If you insist.’

‘Oh, I do,’ he responded. ‘I do.’

His dark face momentarily relaxed into one of lazy mockery. Kiloran swallowed, feeling out of her depth and it was a curious sensation. Men didn’t usually faze her—even exceptionally good-looking men like this one, though she had never met a man quite like Adam Black. The aura of power and success radiated off him, but she was damned if she was going to be cowed by that. ‘Perhaps it’s time you provided me with a few answers yourself,’ she said quietly.

He raised his eyebrows, trying to ignore the way her lips folded into pink petals. So she was trying to pull rank, was she? Hadn’t it sunk in just how precarious her situation was? How people’s livelihoods were at risk? Or was she just thinking of her own, spoilt little self?

He decided to humour her. Maybe if he gave her enough rope she would hang herself. ‘And what exactly do you want to know, Kiloran?’

His voice was a steely honey-trap, but Kiloran let it wash over her. ‘Just why my grandfather has called you in?’

Dark brows were knitted together. ‘I should have thought that was obvious—he wants me to help you get out of the mess—’

‘I’ve created?’

‘Helped to create,’ he amended.

‘Please don’t patronise me—’

‘Patronise you?’ Adam had had enough. ‘Listen, if I were patronising you, you’d soon know about it!’ He leaned forward by a fraction, then wished he hadn’t because she smelt of some evocative scent—something flowery and delicate which shivered over his senses—and he jerked back as if someone had stung him. ‘You know damned well why he’s called me in!’

‘Oh, yes—your reputation for getting things done is legendary.’ She paused. ‘But that doesn’t explain why you’ve condescended to take on such a lowly assignment.’

His eyes glittered—what had he thought about giving her enough rope? ‘Well, well, well—that sounds like a pretty fundamental problem to me,’ he mused. ‘If you consider your own company to be “lowly”.’

‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it!’ He was twisting everything she said! ‘Just that you usually deal with far bigger ventures than this one!’

‘Maybe I wanted a change.’ He looked towards the large French windows, which overlooked the garden, where the view was as pretty as something from a picture, distracting enough, but far less distracting than the whispering movement of her silk as she crossed one bare brown leg over the other. ‘A change of scene. A little country air.’

Kiloran felt the breath catch in her throat and it felt as if someone were tiptoeing over her grave. He was uncannily echoing her own sentiments and suddenly this seemed like trespass in more than one way—now he was coveting her land as well as her company! ‘How much are you being paid?’

Adam recognised the implied insult. So that was how she still saw him, was it—the poor boy from the wrong side of town who was not worthy to sit at the same table as the princess? But his face remained as coolly impassive as before. ‘That’s none of your business!’ he said silkily.

‘Oh, I think it is.’

His smile became bland, and the tone in his voice quietly emphatic. He was damned if he was going to tell her that he wasn’t being paid a penny! Let her think what she liked of him. ‘Sorry.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a private deal between your grandfather and me. And while I am in charge, it will remain that way.’

While I am in charge. Kiloran stared at him as if he’d suddenly started speaking in a foreign language!

‘You mean—I’m going to be answerable to you?’

‘I’m afraid you are.’ He shrugged as he saw her green eyes widen with genuine shock and for a moment he felt an unwilling tug of empathy. ‘That’s what generally happens in situations like this.’

All the control which had seemed to be slipping away from her ever since she had discovered Eddie Peterhouse’s defection now slid away from her entirely, and most of all she felt a sinking sense of hurt. Why hadn’t her grandfather spoken to her first? Checked whether she would object to having this impassive-faced man waltzing in and taking charge of everything. Including, it seemed—her!

She fixed her expression to one of studied calm. Let him see that a one-off error of judgement did not mean that she couldn’t be as professional as he was. ‘So where do we begin?’ she asked coolly.

There was a pause. ‘Why don’t we start with you telling me something about yourself,’ he said unexpectedly.

Something in the way he said it threatened her equilibrium. It sounded like the kind of question a man asked on a date, when he wanted to get to know you better, and this was certainly no date. ‘Like what?’

He wanted to know what her golden hair would look like when it was freed to tumble down over the luscious swell of her breasts. He wanted to know if she cried out when she came. He wanted…‘Why, your job history, of course,’ he replied evenly.

Some distracting darkening in his eyes made it difficult for her to concentrate. She swallowed. ‘I went into the City, straight from university, stayed in my first job for three years and was working for Edwards, Inc. when Grandfather got ill—and the rest you know. The usual route.’

He said nothing for a moment. Usual for most people, maybe—and especially for privileged little princesses like Kiloran Lacey. Nothing like his own hard, clawing journey up the ladder.

‘I see.’ He leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowing as he watched her. ‘Well, you obviously have some experience—’

‘You sound surprised!’ she observed.

He ignored that. ‘And we’re going to need to establish the full extent of the embezzlement. Obviously. And then evolve some kind of strategy to resolve it. Aren’t we, Kiloran?’

Despite her good intentions to remain cool and professional, Kiloran found it hard not to squirm beneath that grey-eyed scrutiny. It didn’t help that he was making her feel incompetent, and neither did it help that he was so overpoweringly attractive.

He was making her aware of herself in a way which was quite alien to her. Since when had her breasts begun to ache and tingle just because some man’s eyes had flickered over them in casual assessment? And why was she suddenly and acutely conscious that, beneath her dress, she had nothing covering her bottom other than a tiny and ridiculously insubstantial thong?

Her pulse beat strong and heavy, like a dull hammer at her wrists and temple. ‘Wh-what do you want to know?’ she asked from between parched lips, wondering if he had this effect on everyone.

‘You can help me by giving me a few salient facts.’

‘Like what?’

‘Tell me about Eddie Peterhouse. How long he worked for Lacey’s—general stuff.’

‘He’d been with the company five years—’

His eyes bored into her. ‘And you joined—when?’

‘Two years ago.’

Adam gave a humourless smile. ‘Which was around about the time the theft started.’

The accusation buzzed unsaid in the air around them. ‘What are you implying?’ she said shakily.

He didn’t answer, not straight away. Let her work out the implication for herself. ‘What did he look like?’

She narrowed her eyes at him in bemusement and gave her head a little shake. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

The movement meant that he could see the tight thrust of her nipples pushing against the thin green silk, and the erotic thoughts which came tumbling into his head made it hard to concentrate. Hard being the operative word, he acknowledged grimly as he felt his body react to her unmistakable beauty. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this one little bit. He shifted in his chair.

‘The police will want a description—’

‘But you’re not the police,’ she objected.

‘Are you going to answer my question or not, Kiloran?’ he snapped, and the grey eyes glittered like a winter sea. ‘I asked you what he looked like.’

Bizarrely, she felt like throwing something at him and waltzing straight out of the boardroom, as if she were some reactive, emotional child. But she was not a child, and she did not have the luxury of being able to act on her emotions. She took a deep, steadying breath instead.

‘He was tall.’

‘You could be a little more specific than that?’ he drawled. ‘How tall?’

To her absolute horror, she heard herself saying, ‘Not as tall as you.’

He gave a cynical smile. ‘Not many men are,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘Again, specifics might be a little bit more helpful.’

She ran her tongue over her lips. ‘Just over six feet, I guess.’ He was still waiting. ‘Fair hair. Blue eyes…’ Her voice tailed off.

‘Go on,’ he urged obscurely. ‘Was he in good shape?’

She only just prevented herself from saying, Not compared to you, but thank God she bit that back in time. Instead, she shrugged, as if she hadn’t given it much thought at all—which in truth she hadn’t. ‘He was okay. He drank a little too much beer, but a lot of men do.’

‘Did you find him attractive, Kiloran?’

She stared at him. ‘What did you say?’

‘You heard. Did you?’

‘No, of course I didn’t! Why on earth should you ask me something as outrageous and insulting as that?’

‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ he stated flatly. ‘And neither is it outrageous or insulting. Human nature is very predictable and it’s a classic scenario, I’m afraid. A man flatters a woman into thinking he’s in love with her. And suddenly she’s putty in his hands. Is that what happened, Kiloran? Did he seduce you? Ply you with pretty words and compliments? Maybe even take you to bed? Were you willing to put everything in his hands without bothering to check it out? Because that’s what sometimes happens when a woman is in thrall of her lover.’

The crude way in which he was talking was having the most disastrous consequences. She could feel her palms growing wet and sticky as he purred out things like ‘take you to his bed’. Was that why her heart was racing, because she was imagining him taking her to bed? She got to her feet and deliberately looked right down her nose at him. ‘I don’t have to listen to another word of this!’

‘Sit down!’

‘No, I won’t sit down!’ She stayed standing, the position of being able to look down on him giving her a brief feeling of superiority. ‘Does my grandfather know the kind of interrogation you’re subjecting me to?’ she demanded coolly. ‘Do you think he would stand for it?’

‘Go ahead—ask him.’ He shrugged.

‘I don’t think you’d like that for a moment, Mr Black. He’d have you out of here so fast you’d—’

‘I don’t think so,’ he interrupted icily. ‘He gave me a free rein and I intend using it.’ But his words conjured up uncomfortably provocative images involving Kiloran on horseback, wearing a tight pair of jodhpurs, and he pushed them away with an almighty effort. ‘I need to know whether you let your emotions cloud your judgement, that’s all, Kiloran.’

She was about to blurt out that she never let emotions cloud her judgement, until she realised that she would be completely contradicting herself. She didn’t blurt. She didn’t react. She was calm and cool—so what the hell was happening to her? Quite the opposite. From the moment he had walked in here she had done nothing but react. To him. And it was time she stopped.

She sat down again, all the fire taken out of her, sucking in a deep breath and hoping it would steady her racing heart. ‘For your information, no—I did not find him attractive.’

‘Charming?’

‘He was not without charm, no,’ she admitted carefully.

‘Good-looking?’

He was being so persistent! Eddie Peterhouse had regular features and had dressed in handmade Italian clothes, cleverly cut to disguise the slight swell of his beer-belly, but compared to Adam Black…‘Not particularly.’

He twisted a slim gold pen between long, slim fingers. ‘So what would you say was the most overriding characteristic he possessed?’

She wanted to be truthful, even though her instincts baulked at having to tell this man anything! ‘He seemed to know what he was doing. He exuded confidence.’

That figured. ‘Con men always do. That’s why people believe their lies and their evasion.’

‘Do you put everyone in a snug little compartment?’

‘Human nature being what it is, I usually find it works.’

How cold he sounded—more like a computer than a man. She wondered what compartment he had put her in, and then decided she would rather not think about it.

She gave him what she hoped was a calm and pleasant smile. ‘Isn’t wondering just why it all happened a bit of a waste of time?’ she queried. ‘What’s done is done—surely what we need to do now is to rectify it?’

At last, he thought. A little common sense instead of the impenetrable maze of feminine logic! ‘Yes.’ The gleam from his grey eyes was one of challenge. ‘Think you’re up to it, Kiloran? It’s going to be a lot of hard work.’

‘I’ve never shirked from hard work.’

Looking at her, he doubted it. She looked as if nothing had troubled her more in her life than what moisturiser to use on that porcelain skin of hers. Or which item of clothing she was going to cover that delectable body with. ‘I’m pleased to hear it. And the sooner we get started the better. I’ll be back first thing on Monday morning.’

He began to collect the papers which lay on the desk in front of him, signalling, thought Kiloran, that the interview was at an end! He had grilled her, while she was left feeling as though she knew precisely nothing about the man who would now effectively be her boss! Just who was Adam Black?

‘You come from round here, don’t you?’ she asked casually.

In the act of putting the papers into his briefcase, Adam paused, his eyes narrowing.

‘That’s right.’ He wondered how much she knew and how much her grandfather had told her. And then asked himself did he really care what a spoilt little rich girl thought about him?

‘Have you still got family living locally?’ Kiloran persisted.

‘Not any more,’ he answered, but there was mockery in his eyes now as he enjoyed her feeling of powerlessness—that the man who would temporarily be calling the shots could just please himself. He gave a quick glance at his watch. ‘I’m afraid I really do have to move.’

Leaving Kiloran feeling like someone with nowhere to go. She watched as he ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair and gave her a swift and not particularly friendly smile.

‘I’ll see you first thing on Monday,’ he said. ‘Goodbye, Kiloran.’

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