Liz Fielding: Dating Her Boss

“Your carriage awaits, my lady,” Max Fleming said, with a bow. “Cinderella shall go to the ball.”

“Oh, right,” Jilly said. “And who are you supposed to be? Prince Charming?”

“Isn’t that supposed to be Rich Blake’s role?” he replied, offering her his arm.

She pulled a face. “Richie? He wouldn’t know how. But if you’re not Prince Charming, who are you?”

He tutted. “You don’t recognize me without my wand?”

She laughed. “You’re my fairy godmother?”

“Godfather.”

She laughed again. “You look more like the demon king.”

“Wrong story.”

She turned her head to look at him. “Maybe.” But with his silver-streaked hair, suntanned face and dark eyes, Max Fleming looked thoroughly dangerous.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the latest book in our MARRYING THE BOSS miniseries. Over the following months, some of your favorite Harlequin Romance® authors will be bringing you a variety of tantalizing stories about love in the workplace!

Falling for the boss can mean trouble, so our gorgeous heroes and lively heroines all struggle to resist their feelings of attraction for each other. But somehow love always ends up top of the agenda. And it isn’t just a nine-to-five affair…Mixing business with pleasure carries on after hours—and ends in marriage!

Happy reading!

The Editors

Taming the Boss by Pamela Bauer and Judy Kaye

Harlequin Romance ®#3598

Dating Her Boss

Liz Fielding

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

MAXIM FLEMING was irritable. Seriously irritable. And his sister, at the other end of the telephone line, was being left in no doubt of that fact.

‘All I’m asking you to do is find me a temporary secretary, Amanda. I’m not being difficult…’ he ignored the hoot of derision from the other end of the line ‘…I just want a girl who knows what she’s doing.’

‘Max—’

Her attempt to stall his complaint was brushed impatiently aside. ‘Is that such a problem?’

‘Max. Darling—’

He continued to ignore the slight warning beneath the honeyed tone of her voice. ‘Someone who can type accurately, take a little shorthand—’

‘Your idea of a little shorthand does not coincide with mine or any of the perfectly competent secretaries I have already sent you,’ she broke in sharply. Then she gave a little sigh. ‘Not many girls do shorthand seriously these days, Max…’ At least not the kind of girls she had sent to her brother, but then she and Max had entirely different agendas—a fact she suspected he had discovered for himself. But she wasn’t admitting a thing. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to haul yourself into the twentieth century and use a dictaphone?’

‘Is this an admission that the famous Garland Agency isn’t able to provide a competent secretary?’

His tone was rich with irony. He definitely knew. But Amanda refused to rise to her tormenting brother’s jibe. ‘I didn’t say that, Max. But you’ll have to give me time. Your standards are so high—’

‘I haven’t got time and Garland Girls are supposed to be the best,’ he reminded her crisply. ‘I’m quite willing to pay top rates for a secretary who can type accurately and take dictation a fraction faster than the speed she can write in longhand. Surely that’s not too much to ask from London’s pre-eminent secretarial agency?’

‘And your temper is so short,’ she completed, ignoring his question. ‘You’ve been through some of the best secretaries in London in the space of a fortnight.’

‘Best!’ He left unsaid the obvious comment that, if they were the best she could offer, he never wanted to be within shouting distance of the worst.

‘I have had not one word of complaint, nothing in fact but the highest praise for my girls from anyone else.’ Which was true, but then she hadn’t been mixing work with matchmaking for her other clients.

Max Fleming made a distinctly disparaging noise. ‘Your public relations does you credit, I’ll give you that. You’ve got every executive in London panting for one of the fabulous Garland Girls. They’re a status symbol, the “must have” in every chief executive’s penthouse office. They look good, they sound good and they mesmerise the men they pretend to work for into thinking they’re privileged to employ them. Well, I’m not impressed by glamour—give me substance every time. Someone with a bit of grit in her character.’

Good grief—she might have chosen the girls for their looks and charm rather than their skills, but they hadn’t been that bad. ‘Nonsense. Admit it, Max, you’re the problem here. Why should my girls put up with your bad temper and your unreasonable working hours?’

‘For the money, sweet sister? Or have you simply been giving them the opportunity to have a crack at mending my broken heart?’

‘You don’t have a heart.’

‘You know that and I know that, but if you can find a girl who can manage a decent rate of shorthand I might be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.’ He paused. ‘At least until Laura’s mother has recovered sufficiently for her to come back to work. I don’t care what she looks like and I certainly don’t give a damn who she went to school with—’

‘Max Fleming, you have got to be the most impossible, infuriating—’

‘I know,’ he said, cutting her off in full flow. ‘My faults are legion. If I promise to try and reform will you send me someone competent? Just for a few days while I finish this report for the World Bank?’

‘I should leave you to type it yourself with two fingers, then you wouldn’t be so—’

‘Or are you going to admit defeat?’

‘It’ll take more than you to bring me to that, big brother. I’ll have someone with you tomorrow. But this is your last chance. If this one walks out on you, you’re on your own.’ Amanda Garland frowned as she hung up, then turned to her own secretary. ‘What on earth am I going to do with him, Beth?’

‘Stop playing matchmaker and offer the poor man a competent secretary?’ she said with a grin. ‘Although where you are going to find someone who can take shorthand at the speed of light by tomorrow could be harder than getting him back to the altar. We’re booked solid.’

‘Didn’t we have a CV the other day from a girl in Newcastle? She had some incredible speed.’

‘Mmm. Jilly Prescott. You said that she didn’t have the look to be a Garland Girl, Amanda,’ she said doubtfully, glancing at the photograph as she passed over the girl’s CV.

‘My brother has had his quota of Garland Girls for this year. He’s going to have to take what he can get.’

Beth looked unconvinced. ‘She’s awfully young. He’ll chew her up and spit her out before lunchtime.’

‘Maybe.’ Amanda Garland was thoughtful. ‘Maybe not. He thinks our girls are more concerned with image than effort—’