The Billionaire Boss's Bride

Stretched out on a sofa against one side of the wall was a man, lying flat on his back, one arm flung behind him, the other resting contentedly on his stomach. The soft noise that had drawn her attention was simply the sound of his intermittent snoring. In the middle of her appalled inspection, the man cleared his throat and turned onto his side, scaring her witless in the process.

He was wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved rugby-style shirt. Tessa tiptoed towards him and the view expanded into a swarthy face with a hint of stubble darkening his chin. Rumpled black hair completed the picture. Tessa stared, heart thumping, calming herself with the knowledge that at least she wasn’t in the building alone. She might have stepped into the twilight zone on the third floor, but all the other floors were teeming with people and good old George was only a phone call away.

She stepped briskly past the inert figure on the couch, reached for the cord by the wall and pulled.

‘Okay, buster! Who are you and what are you doing in this office?’

The man struggled awake, groaning, and then subsided back, this time with one of the cushions covering his face.

Tessa walked towards him, gazed at the rumpled sight with distaste, and yanked the cushion straight out from beneath his arm, and this time it worked. Gratified, she watched as the bum blearily hoisted himself into a semi-sitting position and focused on where she was standing with her hands pinned to her hips and her mouth narrowed into a line of uncompromising severity.

‘I don’t know how you got into this office, buddy…’ Of course she knew! Hadn’t it been wide open to whoever might choose to enter? Hadn’t she herself wondered at the utter lack of basic security? ‘But you can get right out! This isn’t a doss house for any passing vagrant who decides to come in for a quick kip!’

‘Wha…?’

‘Oh, yes, you heard me!’ Tessa could feel herself well and truly on a roll now. First, she had showed up, on time and dressed in a spanking new suit, ready to make a good impression on day one, only to find herself wandering through an empty office like a fool, and as if that wasn’t enough here she was, confronted by a supine figure snoring away merrily, probably sleeping off a hangover from whatever bottle of methylated spirits he had downed the night before outside the building.

‘Look at you!’ she snapped, leaning forward and wrinkling her nose as the apparition pushed himself into a more upright sitting position so that he could look at her in perplexed astonishment. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’

‘I should?’

‘You most certainly should! An able-bodied young man like yourself, sneaking into an unoccupied office and just going to sleep! Don’t tell me you can’t get out there and find yourself a job!’ The able-bodied young man was staring at her in a way that was beginning to make her feel very self-conscious. He was also, now that she could see him properly, an extremely good looking specimen, underneath the scruffy demeanour. His face was darkly handsome, in a tough, rugged sort of way, a compelling face that made her breath catch in her throat for a second or two. Tessa got a grip of herself and glared.

‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to report you,’ she said quietly, while narrowed blue eyes began to gleam with amusement. ‘And you won’t find that very funny! Have your fun and grin away, but when the police come and you’re thrown into some cell downtown, you won’t be grinning!’

‘Cell downtown?’ He couldn’t help himself. His lips twitched and he grinned with wicked amusement. ‘This isn’t New York, this is London. I think you’ve been watching too many American police shows.’ He raked his fingers through his hair and reluctantly stood up.

Disconcerted, Tessa took a couple of steps backwards. The man, who was now massaging the back of his neck with his hand and glancing round the office in an offhand way, was very tall. Very tall, with a solid muscularity that was a bit alarming.

‘Maybe I have,’ she said placatingly. She watched warily as the man ambled over to the window and peered out.

‘What time is it, anyway?’

‘A little after half past eight.’

That met with a grunt. ‘No wonder I feel like something the cat brought in,’ he muttered, swinging round to face her.

‘I’m going to have to call George…’ Tessa began. He had made her feel like a melodramatic idiot for having mentioned police and cells. George would have to deal with this. It wasn’t part of her job—secretary and makeshift security guard for premises that should have been locked in the first place.

‘Who are you, anyway?’

‘Who am I?’ Tessa regarded the man with amazement. ‘Let’s just say that I’m the person who found you comatose on a sofa, trespassing, from all accounts.’

‘Yes, but do you have a name?’ He plonked himself down on the leather swivel chair at the desk and she gaped incredulously at the sheer nerve. ‘Oh, God. No. Skip that question. It’s coming to me now. I know who you are.’ He pushed the chair back just far enough to enable him to stretch his legs out onto the desk, then he folded his hands behind his head and proceeded to look at her with a highly amused, alert expression.

‘Do you? You mean you’re a trespasser as well as being a clairvoyant? I’m impressed! I’m not too sure whether George will be—’

‘You’re Miss Wilson.’ He grinned but with the ground rapidly shifting underneath her feet, grinning back was the last thing Tessa felt inclined to do. ‘Have a seat. Really. You look as though you might just fall down if you don’t.’

‘I think I need to call George…’ she said uncertainly, sitting down.

‘You don’t. Well, you can if you really feel you need to, but believe me, that’ll just lead to embarrassment. Yours. Look, let me put you out of your misery and introduce myself…’ He stood up, all formality now, even though the impression was hijacked by the casualness of his clothes. ‘I’m Curtis Diaz.’ He stretched out his hand and smiled with sickening kindness.

‘You…you can’t be…’ Tessa ignored the outstretched hand and grasped the handbag on her lap tightly.

Well, she had been bored with the monotonous tedium of her last job! What better antidote than to be thrust into a surreal world where she didn’t have a clue as to what was going on?

‘Why not?’

‘Because…’

‘I know.’ He looked ruefully down at himself and shook his head. ‘Code of dress, right? Powerful men who run powerful companies dress in pinstriped suits and ties, always carefully knotted at the neck.’

Tongue-tied and mortified, Tessa stared back at him, her mouth half open and a delicate bloom of colour rising up her cheeks. She wasn’t fashioned to deal with situations like these. Above all things, Tessa Wilson liked to be in control. Time and time again she had seen people passively and helplessly steamrollered by events. It happened in their jobs, it happened with their love lives. She often wondered what would have happened to her and Lucy if she had been like all those people who never seemed to cater for the unforeseen.

The unforeseen had happened with her and she had dealt with it, and had continued dealing with life by reining it in. She liked to know where she was going and how she was going to get there because working things out, knowing where she stood, made her feel safe.

She also resented the fact that he was laughing at her.

‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she said stiffly. Her body was ramrod straight in the chair.

‘And I apologise. Profusely.’ He levered himself back into his chair and reclined back. ‘Allow me to explain. My team and I have just completed a weekend of virtual solid work, thrashing a deal out with one of our suppliers and then finalising the nitty-gritty with the lawyers. We didn’t finish until the early hours of the morning at which point I decided to let them all go home and catch up on some well-deserved rest.’

So this was what his mother had meant by interesting, Tessa thought dazedly. When she had used that word, Tessa had tied it up in her head with the job and not the man. The man, she was slowly realising, was nothing like she had expected. She had expected someone a bit like Mrs Diaz. Sophisticated, very English and probably fair haired. The man staring at her, waiting for her to digest his information, couldn’t have been further from her expectations. Restless, passionate energy vibrated out of him in waves and the only bit of him that resembled his mother were his eyes, which were as blue and as piercing, except a lot more dramatic against his olive colouring and dark, springy hair.

‘Right. Well, I wish you had telephoned me to explain that my services wouldn’t be required today…’

‘Never occurred to me,’ Curtis informed her truthfully. He idly switched on one of the two computer terminals on his desk and it buzzed into life with a faint humming sound.

Poor woman, he thought, glancing across at the rigid pink-faced figure sitting opposite him. He really should have stood firm and recruited his own secretary, but he loved his mother dearly and giving in had eventually seemed preferable to staging a protracted war. Mothers liked to think they knew best and his mother was no exception to the rule. She had stared at him gimlet-eyed and told him in no uncertain terms that hiring floozies, as she had called them, was a waste of company money.

‘But they look good,’ he had protested, thinking back to the last one, a red-haired, buxom wench who had worn delightful handkerchiefs, which she had loosely claimed were miniskirts.

‘Which is hardly a satisfactory recommendation when it comes to being a secretary.’

The tirade had gone on and on until he had thrown up his hands in resignation and left it to her to sort out.

Unfortunately, looking at the Tessa character now, he could immediately see the downsides of his mother’s well-intentioned but misguided rationale.

The poor girl looked as though she had suddenly found herself wandering in the vicinity of hell without any map giving her the quickest route back to normality. He sighed under his breath and raked his fingers through his hair.

‘Look, Miss Wilson…now that you’re here, maybe we should go and grab some breakfast, have a bit of a chat…’

‘Some breakfast…?’

‘That’s right,’ Curtis said, curbing his irritation, ‘I haven’t eaten since yesterday…some time…’ He stood up and stretched, eyeing her out of the corner of his eye, which only confirmed his opinion that she was not going to be suitable for the job.

‘I’m hungry,’ he told her bluntly, throwing on his overcoat. ‘I need something to eat and dried-up slices of pizza in the bin just isn’t going to do it for me. And we need to have a little talk.’