Читать книгу: «Millionaire Boss»

“I Haven’t Saved Myself
All These Years To Toss Away
My Virginity To The First Man
Who Shows Me A Little Attention!”

The moment the words were out, Penny clapped a hand over her mouth, her face draining of color. With a strangled sob she ran for her room.

Erik winced at the furious slam of the door.

A virgin? Had his mousy secretary just confessed to being a virgin?

He shook his head. No way, he told himself. She couldn’t be a virgin. Not with a body like that.

At the thought, an image pushed itself into his mind of her standing in the ballroom in that dress. The clingy, glittery fabric hugged her body like a second skin, accentuating a slender waist and full sensuous hips.

He groaned, knowing he’d never get to sleep that night. Not when he knew a virgin slept in the room across from his….

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the world of Silhouette Desire, where you can indulge yourself every month with romances that can only be described as passionate, powerful and provocative!

The always fabulous Elizabeth Bevarly offers you May’s MAN OF THE MONTH, so get ready for The Temptation of Rory Monahan. Enjoy reading about a gorgeous professor who falls for a librarian busy reading up on how to catch a man!

The tantalizing Desire miniseries TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB: LONE STAR JEWELS concludes with Tycoon Warrior by Sheri WhiteFeather. A Native American ex-military man reunites with his estranged wife on a secret mission that renews their love.

Popular Peggy Moreland returns to Desire with a romance about a plain-Jane secretary who is in love with her Millionaire Boss. The hero-focused miniseries BACHELOR BATTALION by Maureen Child continues with Prince Charming in Dress Blues, who’s snowbound in a cabin with an unmarried woman about to give birth! Baby at His Door by Katherine Garbera features a small-town sheriff, a beautiful stranger and the bundle of love who unites them. And Sara Orwig writes a lovely tale about a couple entering a marriage of convenience in Cowboy’s Secret Child.

This month, Silhouette is proud to announce we’ve joined the national campaign “Get Caught Reading” in order to promote reading in the United States. So set a good example, and get caught reading all six of these exhilarating Desire titles!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Millionaire Boss
Peggy Moreland

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PEGGY MORELAND

published her first romance with Silhouette in 1989 and continues to delight readers with stories set in her home state of Texas. Winner of the National Readers’ Choice Award, a nominee for Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award and a finalist for the prestigious RITA Award, Peggy has appeared on the USA Today and Waldenbooks bestseller lists. When not writing, she enjoys spending time at the farm riding her quarter horse, Lo-Jump. She, her husband and three children make their home in Texas. You may write to Peggy at P.O. Box 1099, Florence, TX 76257-1099.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

One

It was the stuff romance novels were made of.

Man and Woman meet briefly during college, then go their separate ways after graduation.

Man dedicates his life to building a business and quickly establishes himself as a leader in the corporate world and as one of the most sought-after bachelors in the world.

Woman, having lost her heart to Man, resigns herself to being an old maid and devotes her life to keeping house for her widowed brother and caring for his three motherless children.

Ten years later Woman finds Man’s classified ad for a secretary and applies for the job, certain that it is destiny that she has found the advertisement at the precise moment when she’s decided her brother and his children have become too dependent on her and she needs to create a life of her own, separate from them.

Reunion takes place, where Man declares his undying love for Woman, and they live happily ever after.

Penny Rawley would have laughed at the clichéd plot and the pathetic heroine with her terminal case of unrequited love, if it wasn’t her own life she was reflecting on…well, except for that last scene, the one with the reunion and happily-ever-after. That particular drama had yet to be played out.

But it would soon, she thought, glancing uneasily at the elevator doors opposite her desk. Would he recognize her when he arrived? she wondered nervously. Would he remember the young college coed who had typed his term papers for him ten years ago?

Odd as it seemed, though she’d worked for Erik Thompson for almost a month, she had yet to meet with him face-to-face…at least, not in the recent past. He had been on a business trip in Japan when Eleanor Hilloughby, the secretary whom Penny had replaced, had hired Penny for the job. A dear, sweet lady, Eleanor had claimed she was retiring to spend more time with her grandchildren—though Penny suspected the woman might well be, at this very moment, cheerfully weaving baskets in some insane asylum and not doting on her grandchildren as she’d professed.

After less than a month in Erik’s employ, Penny was convinced that anyone who worked directly for the man was a prime candidate for a frontal lobotomy. He was disorganized, self-absorbed and communicated with his employees as if they were nothing but machines.

She huffed a breath at the reminder of the hundreds of e-mails he’d blasted to her computer from the far corners of the world. Nothing but fragments, the lot of them. Clusters of words thrown together without heed for syntax, spelling or punctuation. She found deciphering them as tedious as unraveling a secret code.

But what irked her more was that not once, in any of the e-mails he’d sent to her, had he commented on the change in his office staff or referred to her directly in any way. Each post he’d sent was addressed to mysecretary@cybercowboy.com. For all he’d indicated, Penny could be a monkey sitting behind what was once Mrs. Hilloughby’s desk, gleefully eating bananas while handling all his business and personal affairs.

She told herself that it didn’t matter, that the lack of remembrance didn’t hurt. Just because she remembered Erik, didn’t mean that he should remember her, as well. After all, she was Penny Rawley, poster child for wallflowers worldwide. Plain. Forgettable. Invisible. Whereas, he was the Erik Thompson. Computer genius. Entrepreneur extraordinaire. The most sought-after bachelor in Texas, if not the world. The self-proclaimed lawman who rode through cyber space on bandwidth rather than a horse, packing a keyboard instead of a six-shooter as he tracked down criminals in the relatively new frontier known as the Internet.

But it did hurt, she admitted, blinking back an unexpected rush of tears. If he didn’t recognize her when he arrived, or even acknowledge in some way that he’d once made her acquaintance, she feared she’d die of a broken heart…or, at the very least, suffer extreme humiliation.

To heck with her date with destiny, she told herself, already reaching for the purse she’d tucked within the kneehole space of her desk. She would quit. Leave before he arrived. Spare herself the heartbreak and humiliation. She’d find a new job. One with a lesser-known company, a less-infamous owner. One where she had no past connection with her employer.

Just as she stood, purse in hand, prepared to make a hasty exit, the elevator dinged, signaling its arrival on the executive floor. Trapped, with no escape left to her, she watched, frozen, as the doors slid silently open and the car’s single male occupant stepped out. The man carried a briefcase in one hand and held a thick sheaf of papers before his face with the other.

She slid her gaze down his body, noting the black T-shirt with Cyber Cowboy emblazoned across its front, the faded jeans that hugged slim hips, the long, muscular legs whose long, sure strides brought him ever closer to her desk. She dragged her gaze from the tips of scuffed cowboy boots crafted from an unidentifiable exotic skin and back up to the coal-black hair that curled damply on his forehead and over his ears.

Erik Thompson? she asked herself in bewilderment. She’d expected him to have changed over the years, to have incorporated a more polished style, one that befit his current status and wealth. A three-piece, custom-made silk suit, Italian loafers, a gold Rolex watch. Something to attest to his success. But he hadn’t changed at all! He still dressed like a down-on-his-luck cowboy, just as he had when she’d first met him in college ten years before.

Without lifting his gaze from the report he studied, he passed by her desk and mumbled a one-word directive for coffee.

She slowly turned her head, following his unflagging progress toward his open office door. Her gaze drifted from the dark hair that curled against the neck-band of his T-shirt, down a broad back and tapered waist to his buttocks and a frayed tear just below his hip pocket. Her breath snagged in her lungs and burned there as a strip of black silk appeared in the narrow slit. Oh, my God! she thought, heat flooding her face. Black silk briefs. He wears black silk briefs! Her purse slipped from suddenly weak fingers and dropped to the carpet with a soft thud at her feet.

Seemingly oblivious to the sound of her purse dropping or the lustful stare that monitored his movements, he stepped inside his office, hooked the worn heel of a cowboy boot around the bottom edge of the door and gave it a shove. The door slammed shut between them, the sound as sharp and startling as the report of a gun, making Penny jump.

She placed a hand over her heart and sank weakly down onto her chair. “Oh, my God,” she murmured, then said again more slowly, “Oh…my…God.”

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, staring at the closed door, an image of the man on the other side filling her mind, her pulse thundering at the erotic visions that built, before his voice boomed from the other side, “Where’s my coffee!”

She hesitated, remembering her earlier decision to leave, then bolted to her feet. I’ll give it a couple more days, she promised herself as she poured coffee into the thick ceramic mug that Mrs. Hilloughby had indicated was his favorite. Then, if I find him impossible to work with, I’ll quit.

She snatched the itinerary from the printer as she raced by her desk, but forced herself to pause outside his door and take a deep breath, before knocking. Not hearing a response, she opened the door and peeked inside.

He was seated behind the desk opposite her, the heels of his hands pressed against his temples, studying the report he’d dropped between his braced elbows. Sunshine streamed through the plate glass window behind him, creating a golden halo of sorts for a fallen angel.

At eighteen she’d thought Erik Thompson the best looking and sexiest man she’d ever met, and nothing she saw now changed that earlier opinion. Then, as now, he projected an image of strength, self-confidence, an intellectual intensity that merely hinted at the sharpness of a brilliant mind, an impatience to conquer the world and claim it as his own…and an inborn sexuality that turned her insides to warm, spun honey.

Granted, she had to look beyond his rough appearance to see those traits and experience that thrill. It seemed he still had an aversion to a comb and razor, she thought dreamily, as she skimmed her gaze over the damp curls that drooped endearingly over his forehead, the dark stubble that shadowed his jaw.

As she stared, he dragged a weary hand down his face, flipped a page, then returned the hand to his temple, as if he needed it to support the weight of his head. He’s exhausted, she realized with a stab of sympathy, then just as quickly wondered at the cause of his fatigue.

Remembering his demand for coffee and suspecting his need for the stimulating caffeine was real rather than ego generated, she crossed to his desk. “Good morning, Mr. Thompson,” she said, deciding the formal greeting more appropriate—especially since he hadn’t seemed to recognize her. “How was your trip to Japan?”

His attention riveted on the report, he muttered something unintelligible and held out a hand. His response was so much like her brother’s grumpy morning greetings to her, she was taken aback. Were all men alike? she wondered incredulously. Did they all take for granted that their needs would be met without a thought or a care for the person who was fulfilling those needs?

Determined to make him acknowledge her presence, she set the mug on his desk just out of his reach and took a step back. Folding her arms beneath her breasts, she pursed her lips and waited, tapping the itinerary furiously against her forearm.

After a moment he glanced up, his gaze snagging on the abandoned mug without ever making it to hers. Frowning slightly, he hooked a finger in its handle and shifted his gaze back to the report as he took the first cautious sip. “You the new secretary?”

Penny rolled her eyes. Even in conversation he seemed to communicate in sentence fragments, though she didn’t need to struggle to decode this particular message. His meaning was all too clear and proved what she’d already suspected.

He didn’t remember her.

But she didn’t die of a broken heart, as she’d feared she might. Nor did she suffer even a shred of humiliation. Instead a slow fury burned its way through her. “Yes,” she said, and thrust out a hand, determined to make him touch her, prove to him that she was a human being and not one of his complicated computer systems. “Penny Rawley.”

He glanced up, met her gaze briefly, then dropped his gaze to her hand. His frown deepening, he set aside his mug, gave her hand a quick pump, then released it. “Mrs. H. show you the ropes?” he asked, infuriating her further by turning a page of the report and continuing to read, instead of focusing his attention on her.

“Yes. She was very thorough.”

“Took care of all the details in my life. Personal and business. Expect you to do the same.”

“She made my duties quite clear.”

One corner of his mouth tilted upward in what appeared to be a fond smile. The effect on her system was devastating.

“Yeah. I’m sure she did.” He glanced up and met her gaze, those bedroom-blue eyes of his turning assessing as he let his gaze drift slowly down her front. It was all she could do to keep from patting self-consciously at the sensible bun she’d styled her long hair into, or tugging at the hem of her conservatively cut skirt. She held her breath, waiting for some sort of reaction from him, an indication that he remembered her.

When he merely shifted his attention back to his report, the breath sagged out of her, right along with all her wishful dreams. Disheartened, she placed the papers she held on his desk. “I’ve prepared your weekly itinerary. If you’ll review it, I can answer any questions you might have.”

Without looking up, he dragged the itinerary across the top of the report he’d been reading and scanned the first page while slowly sipping his coffee. He flipped quickly through the long list of appointments, then swept the itinerary aside and focused on the report again. “Cancel ’em.”

Her brows shot up at the unexpected command. “Cancel them?” she repeated in surprise.

“Yeah. Leaving for California this afternoon. Gone for at least a week.”

She stared, thinking of all the calls she’d have to make, the egos and tempers she’d surely have to soothe when she informed the individuals that the Erik Thompson would be unable to meet with them as previously scheduled.

He glanced up, his brows drawing together in a frown of impatience when he saw that she still stood opposite his desk. “Was there something else you needed?”

She backed toward the door. “W-well, no,” she stammered. “Unless, of course, you have any other instructions for me.”

He waved a hand, hastening her exit. “No.” He swung his legs up, planting his boot heels on the polished surface of his desk, and reared back in his chair, holding the report before his face. “Not at the moment.”

Erik lowered the report to peer at the door his secretary closed behind her.

A mouse, he thought in disgust as the door snapped shut with a quiet, cautious click. A prim and proper, red-headed, scared-of-her-shadow mouse. What the hell was Mrs. H. thinking when she hired a woman like that to take her place as his secretary?

Knowing there was only one way to find out, he pushed back his chair and strode from his office.

His new secretary—the mouse, as he’d already dubbed her—glanced up from her desk as he passed by.

“Where are you going?” she asked in surprise.

“Out.”

“But you just got here!”

He ignored her and stepped onto the elevator, punching the button for the ground floor.

Twenty minutes later he was standing on the back stoop of his former secretary’s house, waiting impatiently for her to respond to his knock.

When she did, he brushed past her. “Who’s the mouse?”

“Mouse?” she repeated in confusion, closing the door behind him. “You mean the new secretary I hired for you?”

He pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. “Yeah. Her. What’s the deal?”

She seated herself in the chair next to his. “You’ve met her, then,” she said, looking pleased with herself.

“Yeah. And she’s a mouse. What were you thinking? She’ll never work out.”

“But she’s perfect,” she insisted, as if surprised by his assessment. “Very organized, extremely intelligent, loyal to a fault. Plus, she’s single and more than willing to work the odd hours your schedule demands.”

“She’s a mouse,” he repeated disagreeably. “She’ll never be able to stand up to the pressures of this job.”

“You mean she’ll never be able to withstand your temper tantrums.”

He frowned at the reprimand in her tone and snatched up a salt shaker, narrowing an eye at it as he turned it in his hand. “That, too,” he muttered, reluctant to admit that his former secretary had hit the nail on the head.

“Then maybe you ought to learn to control your temper,” she suggested, sounding more like a mother than a former employee.

Erik glanced over at her and set down the shaker, unable to suppress the half smile her scolding drew. God, but he was going to miss the old girl. “Why don’t you give up on this retirement nonsense and come back to work for me? You know as well as I do that no one can replace you.”

“Can’t. My grandchildren need me.”

“I need you,” he argued. “Those rugrats have their own mothers to take care of them. I only have you.”

“You’re a big boy,” she was quick to remind him, “and more than capable of taking care of yourself.”

He let her argument pass without comment, allowing the silence to stretch out between them. He knew it was the right tactic when she began to wring her hands.

“When was the last time you ate?” she asked uneasily.

“Can’t remember. At least a day. Maybe two.”

“Erik Thompson!” she cried, and pushed herself from the table. “For heaven’s sake,” she fussed as she bustled about, setting a griddle on the stove and turning on a burner beneath it. “A man needs food to keep up his strength.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied, smiling smugly. “That’s why I need you.”

She pursed her lips and gave him her best you’re-not-fooling-me-for-a-minute-young-man look over her shoulder, then turned her attention to pouring pancake batter over the griddle.

Chuckling, Erik reared back in his chair and hooked his thumbs in the waist of his jeans as he glanced around the cozy kitchen. God, but he loved this room with its never-ending supply of mouthwatering aromas, ridiculous clutter of useless knickknacks, the jumble of artwork and pictures that papered the refrigerator door. He figured he’d spent more time at this table and in this room than he had in those of his childhood home, a fact that spoke volumes about his relationship with his parents.

“Have you heard anything more from Boy Wonder?” she asked as she flipped a pancake.

Erik frowned, reminded of the irritating and mysterious hacker that jumped from machine to machine and server to server, continuing to elude Erik. “Yeah. A couple of times. He’s still around, slipping in back doors and into systems where he has no business.”

“Has he done any damage?”

“None that I can determine. I figure he’s due to do something big soon, though. He’s been hanging around way too long.”

“You’ll catch him,” she told him confidently.

“Damn straight,” he muttered, irritated that the hacker had thus far managed to dodge the traps he’d set for him.

“She’ll do a fine job.”

He glanced up, mentally thrown off balance by the quick change in topic. Then, realizing she was referring to his new secretary, he scowled and pushed back, giving her room to set a plate in front of him. “Not as good as you.”

She smiled, obviously pleased by the compliment as she sank down on the chair next to his. She placed a hand over his, her smile turning wistful. “I’m grateful for the job you offered me after Red died. I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done, if not for you.”

Reminded of the death five years earlier of the man who had been more a father to him than his own father ever had been, Erik firmed his lips against the emotion that crowded his throat. He turned his hand over and gripped his fingers around hers. “Red was a good man. The best.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “He would be so proud of the work you’re doing.”

“He gave me my first chance. Taught me everything he knew.”

“Yes, and he’d be even prouder to know that you took that knowledge and continued his work.”

“We continued it,” he argued, reminding her that she was very much a part of the work he’d carried on after her husband’s death.

She laughed and gave his hand a squeeze before releasing it. “And I enjoyed every minute of it. But it’s time for me to enter the next stage of my life, that of doting grandmother.”

“You’ll be bored out of your mind in a month’s time, I guarantee it.”

“No,” she told him, and lifted her apron’s skirt to dab the telltale tears from her eyes. “I’m really looking forward to spending time with my grandbabies.”

He braced his forearms on the table and leaned toward her, his expression growing earnest. “Then just go part-time at the office. There’s no reason why you can’t continue to work for me and spend time with your grandchildren, too.”

Chuckling, she shook her head. “You’re just afraid that if I retire completely I won’t cook for you anymore.”

He scowled, but picked up his fork. “That’s not it at all. I need you, Mrs. H. We’re a team.”

“And you and Penny will make a good team, too.” She smiled and placed a hand on his cheek. “Give her a chance,” she urged gently. “You’ll see. Penny Rawley is exactly the woman you need in your life.”

Hours later Erik was still scowling, wondering what Mrs. H. had meant by that last comment.

Penny Rawley is exactly the woman you need in your life.

Was the old girl playing matchmaker? he wondered as he glanced over at his secretary, who sat before a computer terminal at the end of his credenza, transcribing from tapes the data he’d recorded during his meetings in Japan.

He quickly looked away, discarding the troublesome thought. No, he told himself. Though Mrs. H. had run roughshod over his life for more than fifteen years, ever since Red had brought Erik home with him the first time, and over Erik’s office since her husband’s death, she’d never once tried to fix him up with a woman.

He glanced up again as his new secretary rose and headed for her adjoining office. Her hand was on the doorknob when he called out, “Hold up a sec.”

Penny stopped, startled by her employer’s barked command, her heart seeming to stop, too. It leaped into a pounding, joyous beat as she turned to face him, as she was sure that he had at last remembered her. “Yes?” she asked expectantly.

“Do you have any family?”

“Well…no,” she replied, caught off guard by the unexpected question. “Other than a brother, two nieces and a nephew,” she added prudently.

“Good.” He spun his chair around and grabbed the mouse next to his keyboard and began to scroll through a complicated table of computer codes. “’Cause you’re going to California with me this afternoon.”

Her eyes widened as she stared at the back of his head. “To California? With you?”

“Yeah. Go home and pack a bag. Throw in something fancy,” he added.

She gulped a breath, trying to absorb the fact that she would be traveling with him. “Fancy?” she repeated dully.

“Yeah. You know. A cocktail dress or something.”

“B-but why?”

His brows drew together as he found the information he was looking for and clicked on the accompanying file. “A black-tie thing,” he mumbled. “Supposed to bring a date.”