Liz Fielding: Instant Fire

The boss and his runaway bride!

Joanna might have walked out on her turbulent marriage with Clay Thackeray but that never meant she stopped loving him. So when he becomes her new boss, she’s horrified – how can she work alongside the man whose every look sends delicious tingles rippling down her spine?

After two years apart, Clay’s determined to understand what made his ambitious, independent wife leave. It’s certainly not lack of chemistry – one look at her and he’s longing to make up for lost time! He can see that Jo is fighting their attraction, but how will he react when he discovers her biggest secret of all…?

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For my mother,

who opened so many doors.

Cover

Excerpt The boss and his runaway bride! Joanna might have walked out on her turbulent marriage with Clay Thackeray but that never meant she stopped loving him. So when he becomes her new boss, she’s horrified – how can she work alongside the man whose every look sends delicious tingles rippling down her spine? After two years apart, Clay’s determined to understand what made his ambitious, independent wife leave. It’s certainly not lack of chemistry – one look at her and he’s longing to make up for lost time! He can see that Jo is fighting their attraction, but how will he react when he discovers her biggest secret of all…?

Title Page Instant Fire Liz Fielding www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dedication For my mother, who opened so many doors.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

THERE was an urgency about the ring and Joanna groaned. It was the first Saturday she hadn’t worked in weeks and she had planned a lazy morning. She pulled on her dressing-gown. ‘I’m coming,’ she called, as there was a second peremptory burst on the bell.

The postman grinned as she opened the door. ‘Sorry. Miss Grant, but this one needs signing for.’ Jo took the recorded delivery letter and signed where the postman indicated. ‘Thanks. You can go back to bed now.’ She glared at his back, then turned the letter over. The envelope was thick. Nothing cheap about whoever sent the letter inside, she thought. She opened it and unfolded the single sheet. She read it quickly through and frowned. It was from a firm of solicitors offering to purchase, at a very good price indeed, a block of shares she had inherited from her father.

She read it through a second time. The purchaser was not named. ‘A gentleman has instructed us …’ that was all. Jo shrugged and threw the letter on to her desk to answer later. It didn’t matter who the ‘gentleman’ was. Her shares in Redmond Construction were not for sale.

‘You, lad!’

Jo flung a contemptuous glance over the scaffolding. Another short-sighted idiot who assumed that because she was on a construction site she must be male. Nevertheless she inspected the figure standing in the yard with interest. He was leaning against a gunmetal-grey Aston Martin and despite the foreshortened angle she could see that he was well above average height. In fact, she thought, dressed in a beautifully cut lightweight tweed suit, he was an altogether impressive figure, and gave the disturbing impression that he wasn’t short of anything.

‘What do you want?’ she called down.

He raised a hand to shade his eyes against a sudden shaft of sunlight breaking through the clouds.

‘I’m looking for Joe Grant. Is he up there?’ he called.

‘I’ll come down,’ she shouted, swinging herself on to the first of a series of ladders to descend the fifty-odd feet to the ground and then turning to face the stranger. She had been right about his height. Despite owning to five feet ten inches in stockings she was forced to look up into the lean, weather-beaten face of a man whose very presence commanded attention. And into remarkable blue eyes which contrasted vividly with a pelt of black curly hair that no amount of the most expert cutting would ever quite keep under control. Blue eyes that were regarding her with puzzlement, as if he knew something wasn’t right, but couldn’t quite put his finger on what was bothering him.

The sudden rise in her pulse-rate at the sight of this tanned stranger, the heat that seared her cheekbones and parted her lips, an immediate recognition of some deep primeval need that he had stirred, shook her easy assurance.

She clamped her lips together. ‘Well?’ she demanded and her voice was shockingly sharp in her ears.

A slight frown creased his forehead. ‘My name is Thackeray,’ he said, his soft voice seeming to vibrate into her very bones. ‘I’m looking for Joe Grant. A girl at the office told me he was working here.’

Jo stuck her hands deep in her pockets in an unconsciously boyish gesture and walked quickly away from him. ‘You’d better come over to the site office, Mr Thackeray,’ she looked back over her shoulder and called to him.

‘I’ve been to the office already. He’s not there.’ He seemed reluctant to follow her.

‘He will be.’ Jo opened the door and waited. The man shrugged and moved after her and she went inside, removing her hard hat, enjoying the small triumph of satisfaction at the exclamation from behind her as a thick mop of dark blonde hair swung free to frame her face. She shrugged out of the ancient Barbour, several sizes too large, and turned to face him. ‘I’m Jo Grant, Mr Thackeray. Now, what exactly can I do for you?’

A smile charged his eyes with warmth as he acknowledged his mistake. ‘I can think of any number of things. Accept my most humble apologies, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps,’ she conceded, cloaking her heart’s racketing response to his smile in cool politeness. This man had never been humble.