Out of Hours...Her Ruthless Boss: Ruthless Boss, Hired Wife / Unworldly Secretary, Untamed Greek / Her Ruthless Italian Boss

Cormac was still looking at her, sizing her up in a way she wasn’t used to. Lizzie tried not to fidget. He’d never really looked at her before, she realised. She was simply someone to bring papers, answer telephones. Now he was watching her, eyes narrowed, seeming as if he was deciding whether she passed or failed.

Passed or failed what?

His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and the shoulders of his overcoat were damp, his hair mussed from the rain.

‘All right.’ He shrugged his coat off and handed it to her. ‘Put that away and then I need to talk to you.’

Lizzie nodded stiffly, feeling like a maid in her own home. She went to hang his coat in the hall. A faint tang of cedar and soap wafted from it and Lizzie felt a strange tingling in her chest, a tightening she didn’t really like or understand.

She didn’t know this man, she realised. At all. And she had no idea what he was doing here. What could he possibly want to talk about?

Back in the kitchen, Cormac stood in the same place. He was completely still yet he radiated energy, impatience.

His hard hazel gaze snapped back to her with a cold, precise determination as soon as she entered the kitchen.

‘I forgot to mention some salient details regarding our trip.’ He paused, raking his fingers through his damp hair. ‘I’m travelling to Sint Rimbert to court an important commission. Jan Hassell, who owns most of the island, has finally decided to build a luxury resort. It’s important to him, of course, that the architect he chooses presents the right…appearance.’ He paused, looking at her as if he expected a reply, but Lizzie was baffled.

‘Yes, I see,’ she said after a moment, although she didn’t really.

Cormac let out an impatient breath. ‘Do you? Then perhaps you realise that I can’t have a secretary who gets her clothes from the rag basket.’

Colour surged into Lizzie’s face. It was galling to realise that he didn’t think she possessed the proper clothes for such a trip. Even worse was the realisation that undoubtedly she didn’t. She swallowed. ‘Perhaps you could tell me what I need to bring,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

Cormac shook his head. ‘I can guarantee, sweetheart, that you don’t have it.’

Lizzie lifted her chin. He’d never called her sweetheart before, and she didn’t like the casual, callous endearment. ‘If I’m not stylish enough for you,’ she said shortly, ‘there are other secretaries from the Edinburgh office who could oblige you.’

‘I’m sure there are,’ Cormac returned, ‘but I want you.’

He spoke flatly, yet Lizzie felt a frisson of awareness, excitement, at his words. I want you.

Because of your typing speed, idiot, she told herself. And obviously not her style or appearance. Anyway, she reminded herself, the last thing she wanted was a man like Cormac Douglas to turn his attention towards her. Working for him was difficult enough.

‘Well, then,’ she finally said, a brisk note entering her voice, ‘I’ll do my best to look smart. Was there anything else you needed to discuss with me, Mr Douglas?’

‘You should call me Cormac,’ he replied abruptly, and Lizzie simply stared.

‘Why?’ she asked after a moment, and he gave her a cool look which spoke volumes about what he thought of her audacity in questioning him.

‘Because I said so.’

‘Fine.’ She swallowed any indignation she felt. It was pointless. Cormac Douglas was her boss and he could do what he liked. Even in her own house. ‘Is that all?’ she finally got out in a voice of strangled politeness.

‘No.’ Cormac continued to stare at her, his gaze narrowed and uncomfortably assessing. On the stove the pot of tomato sauce bubbled resentfully.

After a moment he sighed impatiently and, without another word, he turned on his heel and headed for the stairs.

Lizzie’s mouth dropped open. ‘Just where do you think you’re going?’

‘Upstairs.’

She followed him up the steep, narrow stairs, unable to believe that he was invading her home, her privacy, in such a blatant and unapologetic way. Yet why should she be surprised? She knew well enough how Cormac Douglas operated. She’d just never been on the receiving end of it before.

She’d never been important enough to merit more than a single scornful glance and a few barked-out instructions. Now her clothes, her home, her whole self were up for scrutiny.

Why?

Cormac strode down the hallway, poking in a few bedrooms, mostly unused and shrouded in dust-sheets.

‘This place is a mausoleum,’ he remarked with casual disdain as he closed the door to her parents’ old bedroom. ‘Why do you live here?’

‘This is my home,’ Lizzie snapped. Her voice wavered and she stood in front of him, blocking his way down the hall towards her bedroom. ‘What are you doing here, Cormac? Besides being unbelievably nosy and rude.’ A disconnected part of her brain could hardly credit that she was speaking this way to her boss. Another part was surprisingly glad. She glared at him.

‘Seeing if you have appropriate clothes,’ Cormac replied. ‘Now, move.’

He elbowed past her none too gently and Lizzie was forced to follow, grinding her teeth as Cormac strode into her bedroom and looked around.

Her bed was rumpled and unmade, her pyjamas still on the floor, along with a discarded bra and blouse. The stack of paperback romances by the bed suddenly seemed revealing, although of what Lizzie couldn’t even say.

She didn’t want Cormac here, looking over the detritus, the dross of her life. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

It was incredibly uncomfortable.

He glanced around once, taking in every salient detail with narrowed eyes, a smile of complete contempt curling one lip, before he strode to her wardrobe and flung open the doors.

Lizzie watched with a growing sense of incredulity, irritation and shame as he thumbed through her paltry rack of clothes, mostly sensible skirts and dresses, a few different blouses to go with her black suit. There had never been any need for anything else.

‘As I thought,’ he said with an aggravating note of cruel satisfaction. ‘Nothing remotely suitable.’

‘I’m your secretary,’ Lizzie snapped. ‘I hardly think you’ll lose this commission because I’m not dressed like—like one of your tarty girlfriends!’

Cormac swivelled slowly to face her, light beginning to gleam in his eyes. ‘What would you know about my girlfriends, tarty or otherwise?’

Lizzie swallowed and shrugged defiantly. ‘Only what I see in the tabloids.’

He laughed softly. ‘You believe that tripe? You read it?’

‘You do it,’ Lizzie snapped back, goaded beyond all sense of caution.

‘Do I?’ He took a step forward, his voice dangerously soft. ‘Is that what you’re after?’

‘What I’m after,’ Lizzie replied, her voice turning slightly shrill with desperation, ‘is getting you out of my bedroom and my house. You may be my boss, but you don’t have any rights in here.’

‘I wouldn’t want any,’ he scoffed, and too late Lizzie realised how it had sounded. Bedroom rights. Sexual rights. With a small smile, he bent down and hooked the strap of her discarded bra on his little finger, dangling it in front of her. ‘A bit too small for my taste.’

She flushed, thought of threatening a sexual harassment suit and knew she never would. ‘Please leave,’ she said in a voice that was entirely too weak and wavery, and realised with a stab of mortification that there were actually tears in her eyes. She was pathetic. Cormac certainly thought so.

‘Gladly,’ he informed her, ‘but you’re coming with me.’