At His Service: His 9-5 Secretary: The Billionaire Boss's Secretary Bride / The Secretary's Secret / Memo: Marry Me?

The breakfast room was situated off the kitchen and was quite small but charming, with wooden shutters at the leaded windows, and an old, gnarled table and chairs in the centre of the room. The only other furniture consisted of an equally old dresser on which brightly blue-and-red-patterned crockery sat, a bowl of flowering hyacinths on the deepset window sill filling the room with their sweet perfume.

After looking in on the puppies, who were all sound asleep, Gina seated herself as Harry said, ‘Red or white wine? Or there’s sparkling mineral water or orange-and-mango juice, if you’d prefer?’

‘Fizzy water, please.’

She watched him as he poured her a glass, and then one for himself, after which he served her a portion of the flan and she helped herself to a baked potato and some salad.

The breakfast room was cosy, too cosy. Gina hadn’t reckoned on them sitting so close. There was a small nick on the hard, square jaw where he’d cut himself shaving, and her body registered it with every cell. Clearing her throat, she looked at her plate as she said, ‘This—this looks lovely, Harry.’

‘Thank you,’ he said gravely.

‘Did—did you make the flan yourself?’ For goodness’ sake, stop stammering. What’s the matter with you, girl? She wanted to close her eyes and sink through the floor.

He nodded lazily, taking a sip of his drink before he said, ‘I told you, I like cooking. There are those who’ve said they haven’t lived until they’ve tasted my chunky borsch.’

She glanced at him to see if he was joking, but he appeared perfectly serious. Taking him at face value, she said primly, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know what that is.’

‘No?’

He grinned at her, his eyes warm, and his mouth doing the uneven thing that always turned her insides to melted marshmallow. She was used to banter with Harry, mild flirting and harmless innuendo. It was part of office life, and meant nothing. It was altogether different when sitting at his table in cosy intimacy. ‘No,’ she said flatly, her voice at odds with the army of butterflies in her stomach.

‘Well, I make mine with smoky bacon and red peppers and celery, so it has a sweet-and-sour flavour. You put cabbage, potato, bacon, tomatoes, carrots, onion and a few other things in a pan and simmer for forty minutes or so before adding beetroot, sugar and vinegar and simmering some more. Serve with fresh herbs and soured cream.’

His eyes had focused on her mouth as he had been speaking, and something in their smoky depths brought warm colour to Gina’s cheeks. She’d never have dreamt talking cookery could be so sexy.

‘It’s a nice dish on cold winter evenings, curled up in front of a log fire. You ought to try it some time.’

She swallowed. Curled up on a rug in front of a roaring fire with Harry would be food enough. ‘I don’t think my new life in London will feature many log fires.’

‘Shame. You seem a chunky-borsch-and-log-fire girl to me.

Her eyebrows lifted on a careful inhalation. Play the game, she told herself. Keep it casual and funny. ‘I’ll just have to make do with caviar and glitzy nightclubs instead,’ she said lightly. ‘As befits a city girl.’

He regarded her across the table, but she couldn’t read what was going on behind the grey eyes. ‘Nope, don’t see it,’ he said at last. ‘Sorry.’

‘You don’t think there’ll be men queueing to buy me caviar and champagne and take me to all the best places?’ she asked with mock annoyance.

‘I didn’t say that.’

Suddenly in the space of a heartbeat the atmosphere had tightened and shifted; there was no teasing in his voice or eyes now, but only an intent kind of urgency which took her aback.

He leaned forward, his face close and his eyes glinting. ‘There’ll be men, Gina. Plenty, I should think. But I don’t think they will be what you need.’

She couldn’t drag her eyes from his, and the moment hung between them like an unanswered question, but it was a question she’d never ask. It might open up something she would never be able to handle, she told herself frantically. This was just Harry being Harry. She was here, available and perhaps he fancied a change from his usual diet of cool, slender blondes. He didn’t have, and would never have, any interest in an ongoing relationship, probably not even in a lengthy fling. He’d made that perfectly clear yesterday, when he’d confided in her about Anna and his disastrous marriage.

Better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all? The little voice in her head was probing, insistent.

Not in this case. If she gave herself to him it would be heart, mind, soul and body, and when he walked away she’d never recover from it. Especially if it ended badly.

Forcing her gaze down to her plate again, she picked up her fork, hoping he wouldn’t notice the shakiness in her voice when she said, ‘I’ll just have to take each day as it comes, I guess.’

There was a pause, as though he was weighing his next words. She waited with a kind of breathless urgency while pretending to enjoy the flan.

When he said, ‘Including this one?’ she breathed out twice before lifting her eyes.

‘Meaning?’ she asked quietly, amazed she could sound so cool when there was an inferno inside.

‘I need your help.’

‘Oh?’ She nodded. ‘To take the puppies to the sanctuary? I’ve already said I’ll come with you.’ The inferno was out, deluged by stark reality. He was a rich, intelligent and hugely gorgeous man. Of course he wasn’t interested in her.

‘Not exactly.’ Another brief pause. ‘I’ve decided to keep them.’

‘What?’ She genuinely thought she’d misheard him. He couldn’t possibly have said what she thought he had said.

‘The puppies, I’m going to keep them.’ He ate a large chunk of flan with every appearance of enjoyment. ‘I already rang Mrs Rothman this morning to tell her she needn’t come in today because I was going to be around, and I asked her if she’d be prepared to extend her days from Monday to Friday, essentially to be here from ten to four each day, to take care of them for the large part of the time I’m away.’

‘And she said yes?’

‘On the proviso she could bring her own dogs any time her husband isn’t able to be home.’

‘But—’

‘What?’

‘Well, I hate to coin a phrase, but dogs are for life, not just for Christmas. You talked of travelling some more, moving abroad, no—no responsibilities.’ She stared at him, utterly in shock. This wasn’t the Harry she knew. ‘You can’t have them for a while and then dump them at some sanctuary or other in a year or two. That wouldn’t be fair. And four of them!’

Her voice had risen the more she’d spoken, and now she was aware of Harry settling back in his chair and surveying her over the top of his glass. ‘You don’t think much of me, do you?’ he drawled mildly.

If you only knew, she thought for the second time that morning.

‘I don’t intend to dump them, as you so graphically put it. Not in a year or two, not ever. The poor little scraps have gone down that road once, and once is enough for any poor mutt. I’ve decided to take them on, and that means for life. OK?’

Not OK. So not OK. Feeling the world had shifted on its axis, Gina tried again. ‘Harry, travelling or moving to another country is one thing, but something else entirely with four dogs in tow.’

‘I do actually know that.’

She ignored the edge to his voice. ‘I don’t think you do.’

‘I’ve decided to stay put, Gina.’

‘What?’ She blinked.

Her astonishment caused his anger to vanish like smoke, and now he grinned. ‘Don’t know me as well as you think you do, eh?’ There was immense satisfaction in his voice. ‘It’s not just a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. I’ve decided I’d go a long way before I found another house like this one, and it suits me. England suits me.’

‘But you said—’

‘Excuse me,’ he interrupted mildly, ‘But wasn’t it you who was saying this house was a beautiful empty shell?’