A Very Personal Assistant: Oh-So-Sensible Secretary / The Santorini Marriage Bargain / Hired: Sassy Assistant

A Very Personal Assistant: Oh-So-Sensible Secretary / The Santorini Marriage Bargain / Hired: Sassy Assistant
Jessica Hart

Margaret Mayo

Nina Harrington

Oh-So-Sensible Secretary You know when you meet a guy and get butterflies in your stomach? Well, that’s what it felt like the first time efficient Summer Curtis laid eyes on her disorganised movie-star-gorgeous boss Phin Gibson. And somehow he’s making her want to let down her perfectly pinned-up hair!The Santorini Marriage BargainWhen Rhianne Pickering agrees to work for Zarek Diakos, she knows no man has ever made her heart quicken and her body quiver like this! Zarek thinks Rhianne makes the perfect secretary. But he’s in need of a bride and, under the warm Mediterranean sun, he’ll show Rhianne it’s a position she can’t refuse! Hired: Sassy Assistant Kyle Munroe’s arrival at the grand English country house of Lulu Hamilton is not welcome! This renegade needs the delectable Lulu’s help to publish her famous mother’s diaries, but Lulu wants to keep her mum’s memories private. She’s infuriated and the sparks begin to fly!

A Very Personal Assistant

Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

Jessica Hart

The Santorini Marriage Bargain

Margaret Mayo

Hired: Sassy Assistant

Nina Harrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

Jessica Hart

About the Author

JESSICA HART was born in West Africa, and has suffered from itchy feet ever since, travelling and working around the world in a wide variety of interesting but very lowly jobs, all of which have provided inspiration on which to draw when it comes to the settings and plots of her stories. Now she lives a rather more settled existence in York, where she has been able to pursue her interest in history, although she still yearns sometimes for wider horizons. If you’d like to know more about Jessica, visit her website www.jessicahart.co.uk

For Nikki at 2DC,

with many thanks for all her work on the website

CHAPTER ONE

EVERYTHING was in place. A sleek computer sat on my desk, humming gently. A notebook and freshly sharpened pencil were squared up to one side of a high-tech phone, but otherwise the desk was empty, the way I like it. I can’t bear clutter.

There was only one thing missing.

My new boss.

Phin Gibson was late, and I was cross. I can’t bear unpunctuality either.

I had been there since eight-thirty. Wanting to make a good impression, I’d dressed carefully in my best grey checked suit, and my make-up was as subtle and professional as ever. Rattling over the keyboard, my nails had a perfect French manicure. I was only twenty-six, but anyone looking at me would know that I was the ultimate executive PA, cool, calm and capable.

I might have looked cool, but by half past ten I certainly wasn’t feeling it. I was irritated with Phin, and wishing I had bought myself a doughnut earlier.

Now, I know I don’t look like the kind of girl with a doughnut fetish, but I can’t get through the morning without a sugar fix. It’s something to do with my metabolism (well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it), and if I don’t have something sweet by eleven o’clock I get scratchy and irritable.

OK, even more irritable.

Chocolate or biscuits will do at a pinch, but doughnuts are my thing, and there’s a coffee bar just round the corner from Gibson & Grieve’s head office which sells the lightest, jammiest, sugariest ones I’ve ever tasted.

I’d fallen into the habit of buying one with a cappuccino on my way into work, and waiting for a quiet moment to get my blood sugar level up later in the morning, but today I’d decided not to. I wasn’t sure what sort of boss Phin Gibson would prove to be, and I didn’t want to be caught unawares with a sugar moustache or jammy fingers on our first day working together. This job was a big opportunity for me, and I wanted to impress him with my professionalism.

But how could I do that if he wasn’t there?

Exasperated, I went back to my e-mail to Ellie, my friend in Customer and Marketing.

No problem, Ellie. To be honest, I was glad of something to do. There’s a limit to what you can do as a PA without a boss—who STILL hasn’t appeared, by the way. You’d think he could be bothered to turn up on time on his first day in a new job, but apparently not. Am already wishing I was back in the Chief Executive’s office. I have a nasty feeling Phin and I aren’t going to get on, and unless

——Original Message——

From: e.sanderson@gibsonandgrieve.co.uk

To: s.curtis@gibsonandgrieve.co.uk

Sent: Monday, January 18, 09:52

Subject: THANK YOU!

Summer, you are star! Thank you SO much for putting those figures together for me—and on a Friday afternoon, too! You saved my life (again!!!!!).

Any sign of Phin Gibson yet??? Can’t wait to hear if he’s as gorgeous as he looks on telly!

Exx

‘Well, well, well … Lex must know me better than I thought he did.’

The deep, amused voice broke across my exasperated typing and my head jerked up as I snatched my fingers back from the keyboard.

And there—at last!—was my new boss. Phinneas Gibson himself, lounging in the doorway and smiling the famously lop-sided smile that had millions of women, including my flatmate Anne, practically dribbling with lust.

I’d never dribbled myself. I’m not much of a dribbler at the best of times, and that oh-so-engaging smile smacked a little too much of I’m-incredibly-attractive-and-charming-and-don’t-I-know-it for my taste.

My first reaction at the sight of Phin was one of surprise. No, thinking about it, surprise isn’t quite the right word. I was startled.

I’d known what he looked like, of course. It would have been hard not to when Anne had insisted that I sit through endless repeats of Into the Wild. It’s her flat, so she gets control of the remote.

If you’re one of the two per cent of the population fortunate enough never to have seen it, Phin Gibson takes ill-assorted groups of people to the more inhospitable places on the planet, where they have to complete some sort of task in the most appalling conditions. On camera.

According to Anne, it makes for compulsive viewing, but personally I’ve never been able to see the point of making people uncomfortable just for sake of it. I mean, what’s the point of hacking through a jungle when you can take a plane?

But don’t get me started on reality TV. That’s another thing I can’t bear.

So I was braced against the extraordinary blue eyes, the shaggy dark blond hair and the smile, but I hadn’t counted on how much bigger and more immediate Phin seemed in real life. Seeing him on the small screen gave no sense of the vivid impact of his presence.