A Bachelor At The Wedding

A Bachelor At The Wedding
Kate Little

INTEROFFICE MEMOFROM: MATTHEW HARDING, CEO, HARDING HOTELSREGARDING: STEPHANIE ROSSI, MY PERSONAL ASSISTANTWhen Stephanie Rossi was promoted from our operations department to be my right-hand woman, I was skeptical at first. But her amazing efficiency and plainspoken Brooklyn smarts*#151;not to mention the gorgeous looks she keeps under wraps at work– soon won me over. After Stephanie's amazing performance–both personal and professional–during a hotel crisis, I grew more intrigued by her than ever. So intrigued that I'd love to attend her sister's wedding not as her boss, but as her date! Yet suddenly Stephanie wants to transfer out of my office…and straight out of my life? Well, maybe it's time for a little one-on-one assignment….

“I couldn’t have gotten through this without you, Stephanie.”

“Oh, you would have managed all right.”

“I don’t think so. You’re the first person I thought of to help out down here. I can see now my instinct was right.”

He lifted his hand slowly and touched her hair. “You have such beautiful hair. I’ve never seen it down like this.” His words were quiet, practically a whisper.

“It gets in the way.”

He laughed lightly at her answer. “I’d imagine that the problem is more like men get in the way,” he replied. “This one can’t resist….”

Her impossibly handsome boss was about to kiss her.

And she was going to let him.

Was this really happening to her?

Dear Reader,

No matter what the weather is like, I always feel like March 1st is the beginning of spring. So let’s celebrate that just-around-the-corner thaw with, for starters, another of Christine Rimmer’s beloved BRAVO FAMILY TIES books. In The Bravo Family Way, a secretive Las Vegas mogul decides he “wants” a beautiful preschool owner who’s long left the glittering lights and late nights of Vegas behind. But she hadn’t counted on the charms of Fletcher Bravo. No woman could resist him for long….

Victoria Pade’s The Baby Deal, next up in our FAMILY BUSINESS continuity, features wayward son Jack Hanson finally agreeing to take a meeting with a client—only perhaps he got a little too friendly too fast? She’s pregnant, and he’s…well, he’s not sure what he is, quite frankly. In Judy Duarte’s Call Me Cowboy, a New York City girl is in desperate need of a detective with a working knowledge of Texas to locate the mother she’s never known. Will she find everything she’s looking for, courtesy of T. J. “Cowboy” Whittaker? In She’s the One, Patricia Kay’s conclusion to her CALLIE’S CORNER CAFÉ series, a woman who’s always put her troublesome younger sister’s needs before her own finds herself torn by her attraction to the handsome cop who’s about to place said sister under arrest. Lois Faye Dyer’s new miniseries, THE MCCLOUDS OF MONTANA, which features two feuding families, opens with Luke’s Proposal. In it, the daughter of one family is forced to work together with the son of the other—with very unexpected results! And in A Bachelor at the Wedding by Kate Little, a sophisticated Manhattan tycoon finds himself relying more and more on his Brooklyn-bred assistant (yeah, Brooklyn)—and not just for business.

So enjoy, and come back next month—the undisputed start of spring….

Gail

A Bachelor at the Wedding

Kate Little

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

KATE LITTLE

claims to have lots of experience with romance—“the fictional kind, that is,” she is quick to clarify. She has been both an author and an editor of romance fiction for over fifteen years. She believes that a good romance will make the reader experience all the tension, thrills and agony of falling madly, deeply and wildly in love. She enjoys watching the characters in her books go crazy for each other, but hates to see the blissful couple disappear when it’s time for them to live happily ever after. In addition to writing romance novels, Kate also writes fiction and nonfiction for young adults. She lives on Long Island with her husband and daughter.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

She was so lovely. Beautiful, really.

He hadn’t realized it at first. But now the thought ran through his head every time he looked at her. Some men might not notice her. Some might even find her plain. But some men didn’t have his taste and experience when it came to women.

She wasn’t the flashy type. Not this one, Matt Harding mused. Stephanie Rossi possessed a more subtle, richer kind of beauty. Genuine and unadorned. One that worked on a man. Got under his skin. Into his blood.

He ought to know. If half of what the gossip columnists in this town reported was true, he was one of the city’s richest and most eligible bachelors, and changed beautiful partners as easily as he changed his custom-made suits. While the legend was exaggerated—as legends often are—Matt knew the womanizer image was well earned.

Stephanie Rossi had worked with him nearly a month now. He fully expected that, by now, he’d be accustomed to her looks, and immune to her appeal. But in fact, as the days passed, the affliction had only grown worse. Especially when she flashed that brilliant, heart-stopping smile. A smile that penetrated deep into his soul.

He hated when she was nice to him or seemed on the verge of letting down her guard. That made it so much harder. Sometimes he found himself purposely gruff to keep her at arm’s length. Or maybe growling was just a way of venting pent-up frustrations.

Three weeks on the job and she must think I’m an ogre, a horror. A total…jackass. No help for it. Let her think what she will. He knew he had no choice but to play the role of the tough, impossible-to-please boss.

Luckily, she didn’t smile or relax around him all that much. She certainly hadn’t tried to take advantage of her very advantageous opportunity, working side by side with the hotel chain’s owner. He knew some women would try to exploit the opportunity. Offering more than their professional talents. But not Stephanie Rossi. He’d wager that she didn’t have a conniving bone in her body. The very shapely, tempting body that it was.

She was all business. Professional and impersonal—or at least, trying to make that impression.

Efficient and sharp, but also graced with rare skills for soothing a disgruntled employee or a dissatisfied guest. An invaluable talent in any business setting, but especially a hotel.

When her name was first put forward as the temporary replacement for his personal assistant, Matt had balked. It was sexist of him, but he preferred a male assistant, one he could bellow at when the mood struck without having to manage a tearful outburst, or some other variety of female hysteria. Besides, he knew Stephanie Rossi had only been in her job at the Harding Plaza as an assistant manager in the operations department for barely a month. Even if she was the Wonder Girl her boss claimed, Matt didn’t see how she could come to the executive suite after such a short time. But finally—very doubtful it would work out—he’d agreed to try her for a week.

From day one, she’d been cool and competent—and for a girl born and bred in Brooklyn—a class act all the way. He tested her, even unfairly. But she’d handled the challenges admirably. She was certainly not the chattering, flailing female he’d expected. Far from it. She was so quiet, sometimes he hardly knew she was there. Well, he was always subtly aware of her presence—like a low-frequency vibration—even when she was off in her own office, a thick wall between them.

He’d been thinking about promoting her permanently to the head office. With her brains and management skills, she’d be a great asset to him. He had no doubt.