Kathryn Ross - A Passionate Affair - The Passionate Husband / The Italian's Passion / A Latin Passion

THE PASSIONATE HUSBAND

by

Helen Brooks

THE ITALIAN’S PASSION

by

Elizabeth Power

A LATIN PASSION

by

Kathryn Ross

www.millsandboon.co.uk

by

Helen Brooks

Helen Brookslives in Northamptonshire and is married with three children. As she is a committed Christian, busy housewife and mother, her spare time is at a premium, but her hobbies include reading, swimming, gardening and walking her old, faithful dog. Her long-cherished aspiration to write became a reality when she put pen to paper on reaching the age of forty, and sent the result off to Mills & Boon.

CHAPTER ONE

‘I BET YOU’RE the only woman in the room who hasn’t noticed the hunk with she who must be obeyed. Right?’

‘What?’

Marsha raised startled emerald-green eyes, and the small plump girl standing in front of her sighed resignedly. ‘I knew it. The whole place is buzzing with curiosity and there’s you—as serene and cool as always.’

‘Nicki, you know better than anyone else I need the facts and figures for the Baxter slot at my fingertips for the meeting tomorrow,’ Marsha said patiently, reaching for the glass of fizzy mineral water at her side and taking a sip. ‘As my secretary—’

‘I’m talking as your friend, not your secretary,’ Nicki responded smartly. ‘This is supposed to be a little get-together as a reward for the current ratings and all our hard work, and you’re the only one not taking advantage of the free food and booze. Don’t you like champagne, for goodness’ sake?’ She wrinkled her snub nose at the hapless mineral water.

‘Not particularly,’ Marsha answered truthfully. It was a vastly overrated beverage in her opinion. ‘And I like to keep a clear head when I’m working.’

‘Ah, but you shouldn’t be working,’ Nicki pointed out triumphantly. ‘It’s once in a blue moon that the powers-that-be acknowledge what a great team they’ve got below them. Can’t you take a few minutes to enjoy the moment?’

Now it was Marsha who sighed. When Nicki dug her heels in she could be formidable. This made her an excellent secretary in some respects, but, as there was a distinct mother hen quirk to her extrovert personality, it could also be irritating.

Nicki was only three years older than her, at thirty, but the other woman appeared positively matronly most of the time. She was also loyal, trustworthy, hardworking and discreet, and Marsha counted herself fortunate to have Nicki in her corner in the cut-and-thrust world of television, the sector in which she had decided to make her career.

She gave mental affirmation to this last thought now as she said, ‘Okay, okay, you win. One glass of champagne to keep you happy won’t hurt, I guess.’

‘Great.’ Nicki’s round pretty face beamed as she surveyed the slim delicate woman sitting on a sofa in a quiet recess of the bustling room. ‘I presume you are coming out of your hidey-hole to drink it?’

‘Hardly a hidey-hole, Nicki,’ Marsha said drily. The recess was in full view of at least half the room where the drink and nibbles get-together was being thrown, and she’d had every intention of being sociable for a while once she had finished working. Now, stifling a sigh, Marsha rose to her feet, smoothing a lock of silver-blonde hair away from her face as she followed Nicki into the throng of animated noisy folk whose conversation had risen and ebbed like the tide for the last hour or so.

‘So, where’s the hunk, then?’ Marsha glanced round the crowded room as Nicki handed her a glass of sparkling champagne. ‘Penelope can’t have eaten him already.’

Penelope Pelham was a top executive at the television company they worked for, with a well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness in every sphere of her life. It was an accepted fact that one would consider appealing to Penelope’s kindness and compassion in the same way as a great white shark’s.

Gossip had it that Penelope ate men up and spat them out in the same way she did any employee unfortunate enough to fall foul of her temper, and no one doubted this was true.

Marsha had never had cause to cross swords with the beautiful flamboyant brunette since she had started working for the television company some twelve months before, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t as wary of the other woman as everyone else. Penelope was powerful and influential, and the force of her dominant personality was impressive.

‘Janie says they’ve just disappeared into Penelope’s office with strict instructions from the lady herself they’re not to be disturbed. Mind you, for once I have to say I see eye to eye with Penelope. If I had got my claws into a man like that, I’d want to be alone with him every moment I could get.’

Nicki gave a ridiculously hammed-up leer and Marsha began to laugh. She took a sip of the effervescent drink and found it to be surprisingly good. The bigwigs had pulled out all the stops for once. Normally the odd work do like this consisted of cheap plonk and sandwiches curling round the edges.

‘Come and get some food.’ Nicki was on a roll now, and Marsha didn’t object when she was pulled over to the loaded table at the far end of the room. Knowing they were all expected to attend this gathering at the end of the working day, she’d skipped lunch in an effort to get the Baxter story under her belt. Now, as she looked at the very nice spread, without a curling ham sandwich in sight, she found she was hungry. Ravenous, in fact.

‘Ooh, I just love kebabs, don’t you?’ Nicki was busy stocking up her plate. ‘And this flan is delicious. And just look at those desserts. Janie had a free hand so she ordered them from Finns.’

Janie was Penelope’s secretary, and Nicki had made it her business to strike up a friendship with the other woman—when Janie had started working for the company six months before—on the premise that you could never have too many friends in high places. Marsha wasn’t sure if she agreed with this somewhat machiavellian viewpoint, but it was undoubtedly useful to have a secretary with her finger on the pulse, albeit secondhand.

‘I presume you’ve asked Janie for the dope on the hunk?’ Marsha asked idly, filling her own plate as she spoke and then picking up her glass of champagne and making her way over to a couple of vacant seats.

‘Uh-huh.’ Nicki demolished two bulging pastry hors d’oeuvres, licking her lips and rolling her eyes in appreciation, before she added, ‘She didn’t know anything.’

Marsha nodded. If she was being honest she would have said she wasn’t in the least bit curious about Penelope’s new man-friend, but she didn’t want to hurt Nicki’s feelings. Her secretary had been happily married to her childhood sweetheart for the last eleven years, but that didn’t stop Nicki being a romance addict who read every book and saw every film with even the tiniest bit of amorous intrigue in it.

Marsha knew she had greatly disappointed the other woman when she’d made it clear, a few weeks after starting work at the company, that she wasn’t interested in the opposite sex. And, no, she’d hastily added when Nicki’s expression had made it clear what she was thinking, she wasn’t interested in the female sex either! She had made the decision to concentrate on her career and only her career some time ago, that was all.

A few months later, when the two women had become friends as well as work colleagues, Marsha had admitted her decision had something to do with a man—once bitten, twice shy—but hadn’t elaborated further. It said a lot for Nicki’s strength of will that she had never brought the subject up again, merely confining herself to the odd remark about some dishy man she or her husband knew who had recently become single again, or pointing out that everyone indulged in one or two blind dates in their lives. Marsha normally responded to such obvious wiles by ignoring them and changing the subject.