Taken by the Boss: His Very Personal Assistant / In the Banker's Bed / The Takeover Bid

‘I just wondered what you were going to do with all this sudden free time?’

She gave a puzzled smile. ‘Whatever I usually do with my weekend, I suppose.’

‘Which is?’ he persisted.

‘Marcus—er—Mr Maitland,’ she corrected hastily.

‘Marcus will do,’ he told her dryly. ‘After all, we’re still out of the office,’ he qualified.

‘Okay,’ she agreed slowly. ‘But where is all this questioning leading?’

‘It isn’t leading anywhere.’ He grimaced. ‘At least—I wondered if perhaps you would like to have dinner with me this evening?’

Kit became very still, slowly turning her head to look at him, glad that the surprise that must be in her eyes was hidden by her sunglasses. Was Marcus inviting her out on a date? But he couldn’t be. Could he…?

‘Why?’ she finally said bluntly.

‘Well, it’s logical that you have to eat, and I have to eat, so I thought perhaps we might eat together,’ he supplied.

Kit opened her mouth to answer him in the negative, and then closed it again. Logic, as far as she was concerned, had absolutely no place in any suggestion that the two of them have dinner together this evening!

But even so, she was tempted. What would it be like to actually go out for the evening with Marcus? To take her time getting ready for the evening, to be collected by Marcus and swept off to an exclusive restaurant for a meal, possibly even a club later.

She had no doubts that he would prove an interesting and charming companion. Or that she would absolutely love to spend the evening with him. What didn’t make any sense was why he was asking her in the first place!

Unless it was just as he had said: he had to eat, she had to eat—and why not eat together?

‘If it takes you this long to decide, maybe you should just forget I asked!’

‘Maybe we should,’ Kit agreed stiffly. ‘I was thinking of going to see my parents,’ she added lightly as she realised how rude she must have sounded.

‘Really?’ He gave her an interested look. ‘Do they live in London?’

‘No. Cornwall,’ she replied awkwardly as she realised she was being rude again. ‘I thought I would go down by train later this afternoon.’

‘That’s quite a way.’ Marcus nodded. ‘I could drive you there, if you would like?’

‘Why on earth would you want to—? No,’ she amended hastily, not even wanting to give him that particular opening. He was far too curious about her private life already, without trying to wheedle his way into meeting her parents; she could hardly accept such an offer from him without inviting him to stay the weekend too. Something she had absolutely no intention of doing! ‘It’s much quicker by train,’ she dismissed, deliberately turning away to look out of the side window.

‘So, no dinner this evening? Either in London or Cornwall,’ he persisted.

‘I’m afraid not,’ she answered with a breeziness she didn’t feel.

‘What do your parents do in Cornwall?’

She gave him a sharp look. ‘Do…?’

‘As in work.’

‘Oh.’ She nodded. ‘My mother looks after the house—cottage, really,’ she amended. ‘And my father paints.’ She wished she had never mentioned her parents. And she wouldn’t have done if it hadn’t seemed like the ideal way of getting out of his dinner invitation without being rude.

‘As in walls or canvases?’

‘Marcus, I really don’t think this is a line of questioning we should be pursuing.’ She straightened uncomfortably in her seat.

‘Line of questioning? Pursuing?’ Marcus was incredulous. ‘You sound like a lawyer defending her client. I was only showing an interest, Kit.’

‘I know you were.’ She sighed, her cheeks blushing warmly. ‘I just—canvases. My father paints canvases,’ she explained reluctantly.

‘Really?’ Marcus raised dark brows. ‘Do I know him? Is he famous?’

‘Would you expect him to be living in a cottage in Cornwall if he was!’ Kit responded, knowing that she wasn’t being strictly honest. There was plenty of money now for her parents to move to a larger, more comfortable home; they just preferred to stay at the cottage where they had lived since they had first married. ‘I believe my father is what is usually known as a starving artist.’

‘But not in a garret?’ Marcus returned lightly.

‘No.’ She laughed, relaxing slightly. ‘But the cottage is certainly—rustic.’ She remembered that, until a few years ago, the cottage hadn’t even had running water, her mother having to get water from a well in the garden until they had had the main water supply connected.

‘Sounds wonderful.’ Marcus smiled.

‘It sounds it,’ Kit conceded. ‘And actually it is. If you don’t mind roughing it a bit.’ She had enjoyed a completely carefree childhood amongst the rugged hills of Cornwall, roaming for miles; it was what had given her her love of walking.

‘I’m ashamed to say I’ve never tried,’ Marcus admitted.

Was he still trying to persuade her into allowing him to drive her to Cornwall?

What would her parents make of him? Her father, she knew, would find him the complete antithesis of himself, but somehow she still had a feeling that he would like the younger man. As for her mother—she would just be pleased to see Kit with a man, her hints of wishing to be a grandmother having increased during the last year or so.

Which was a very good reason for not giving into Marcus’s persuasive tone.

The last thing she needed was her parents thinking she was actually involved with Marcus!

‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘The cottage is simply too small to accommodate all four of us.’

‘We could share,’ he suggested.

‘I said my father is an artist—not that he’s an advocate of—Well, the fact that he married my mother within weeks of meeting her should tell you something about him,’ she amended awkwardly; her parents were far from being prudes, would probably accept the idea if she brought a man home for the weekend. It was Kit who had a problem with it!

Marcus gave an appreciative nod. ‘It tells me he’s an astute man. They have obviously been married for some time, so I presume it’s a happy marriage?’

‘Very,’ Kit confirmed unhesitantly.

‘Then that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?’

She gave him a searching look. ‘Is it?’ Somehow it had never actually occurred to her, in light of his own brief relationships with women, that Marcus believed in love and marriage…

‘Of course. Look at Desmond,’ he reminded her. ‘He made two serious errors in his first marriages, and now he’s in love with and married to a woman thirty years his junior. He’s making a bit of a mess of it at the moment, I grant you, but I have complete confidence in him seeing, before it’s too late, what an idiot he’s being.’

‘Did you tell him as much?’ Kit chuckled.