HELEN BROOKS - A Boss In A Million

‘The offer is permanent; it was from five past nine this morning.’

THE next few weeks were something of a revelation to Cory, not least because she found, after the initial couple of days which passed in a tangled blur, that she was actually enjoying her job. No, enjoy was too weak a word. She was loving it; she couldn’t wait to get to the office every morning, and that in spite of the million and one facts that were thrown at her every minute—or so it seemed—the hours flew by on winged feet.

She had had her good days and bad days at Stanley & Thornton’s, and her position as secretary to the managing director had been both an interesting and extremely responsible one, but working for Max Hunter was something else. And that was the understatement of the year.

Nevertheless, on the morning of Monday, the seventeenth of May, when Cory awoke to clear blue skies and brilliant sunshine, and the realisation that from this day on it was just her juggling the hundred and one balls that Gillian had seemed to manage so effortlessly, she felt more than a little nervous and the butterflies in her stomach were going crazy.

Not that Max Hunter had been anything other than completely professional and detached from that first lunchtime, she reminded herself quickly as she flung back the covers and knelt on her bed to look out of the big picture window at half of Chiswick’s rooftops. And patient when he’d had to be, calm, unruffled—at least with her. However, she suspected he’d made a special effort during her settling-in period, and with Gillian there—who practically seemed to read his mind and know what he wanted before he knew himself—he’d had no reason to be anything else. She had observed enough to know he was not a naturally patient man, also that his bark could be every bit as bad as his bite with lesser mortals who stepped out of line.

‘Do…not…panic.’ She spaced the words out slowly, her heart hammering. ‘You’re going to be fine, just fine.’

Of course, if she was being absolutely honest, it didn’t help that he often worked at his desk with his jacket off and his tie loose or flung aside altogether. She nipped at her lower lip, shaking her head at her own absurd foolishness. It shouldn’t matter, she knew it shouldn’t matter—he was only her employer for goodness’ sake—but the first time she had walked into his office, on her second day at Hunter Operations if she remembered rightly, and seen him frowning over a load of scattered papers on his huge desk, his massive shoulders and broad physique accentuated by the thin blue silk shirt he was wearing, she’d done a double take.

Thank goodness he had been more interested in the report he’d been looking at than her entrance, she thought now, as her cheeks flushed at the memory of how she had felt.

His tie had been hanging either side of his collar on that occasion and the first two or three buttons of his shirt had been undone, revealing a hard tanned throat and just the beginning of a smidgen of body hair below his collar bone, and she hadn’t been able to believe what it had done to her.

Not that she was attracted to him. The thought was fierce and one which came into play several times a day without fail. Not in the slightest. It was just that after little Mr Stanley, with his bald head and paunch and unfortunate tendency to sniff all the time due to chronic catarrh, Max Hunter’s particular brand of aggressive male virility was something of a shock. But she’d master what was after all nothing more than an animal response, a fleshly, purely physical thing. Of course she would. No problem.

She just hoped it would be sooner rather than later, she admitted to herself the next moment with a deep sigh. This stupid…awareness of him made her jittery and nervous, and although she was careful to hide it she was constantly on edge in his presence.

Cory breathed in and out a few times, her gaze wandering round the big light sun-washed room, and coming to rest on a huge cake tin perched on top of the small fridge in the minute kitchen in one corner of the bedsit.

She had been home for the first time this weekend, and before she had set off back to London, her mother had packed her faithful little Mini with enough food to keep an army for a month.

Her brow wrinkled as she thought of the two days she had just spent in Yorkshire. She had relished the time with her parents—she had always been close to the pair of them and they had had a riotous evening out on the Saturday when all three of them had eaten and drunk far too much—but meeting Vivian again for the first time in six weeks had been hard. Well, more than hard if she were honest.

As soon as he had spied her bright red Mini parked outside the house on Saturday morning—she had travelled down late on Friday night after Gillian’s farewell party—he had been knocking at the door, and it had been all of three hours before she could get rid of him. Get rid of him? The thought stopped Cory in her tracks as she made to walk across the room. She’d never want to get rid of Vivian, would she? She hadn’t meant it like that, not really. It was just that she felt awkward now he was engaged to Carole—that was it—uncomfortable and unsure of how she should behave. And he had seemed so…unhappy? No. The denial was immediate. Of course he wasn’t unhappy, just harassed with all the wedding arrangements and so on. And that was perfectly understandable; of course it was.

She shook her head slightly as she walked across the room. She was going to have a shower in the small bathroom across the landing directly opposite her door, and then fix herself toast and coffee before she got ready for work. She had plenty of time—she had woken a good hour before her alarm was due to ring—but she wanted to get into the office nice and early and have Max’s post opened and ready for him on his arrival at Hunter Operations. She intended to start as she meant to carry on, and that would involve one hundred per cent commitment. But that was all right—certainly for the next few years at least. The last thing, the very last thing she was looking for after the heartache of the previous few months was a romantic involvement of any kind. Work was safe—you knew where you stood with career ambitions and the like—it was men who were the unknown quantity and liable to cause you heartache and grief.

A pair of hard amber eyes suddenly shot into the screen of her mind and she paused, her hand outstretched towards the big bath sheet on the little stool by the door, as she told herself that was different. Max Hunter was her boss, that was all, and any nervousness or flutters she felt about him were quite legitimate when you considered her financial security was in his hands. And that was the only reason, the only reason, that this magnetism problem was getting to her. It was. For definite.

Cory arrived at Hunter Operations at a quarter past eight, but when she walked into her office and looked through the open interconnecting door into Max’s domain she realised he must have been in residence for half the weekend, from the amount of papers strewn about his desk and floor. The man was a workaholic!

‘Good morning.’ His voice was preoccupied. And she had opened her mouth to make the necessary response when he continued, ‘Can you be ready to fly out to Japan this evening?’ His tone suggested he was asking for nothing more unusual than a cup of coffee.

‘Japan?’ The therapy of a leisurely soak in hot bubbles followed by toast and coffee on her tiny balcony immediately vanished as she gazed at him in amazement.

‘Uh-huh.’ He didn’t raise his head as he spoke but she saw he was frowning at the papers in front of him. ‘This deal with Katchui is getting too complicated; I need to get over there and sort a few things out face to face. You can’t beat flesh contact.’