The Duke's Boardroom Affair / Convenient Marriage, Inconvenient Husband: The Duke's Boardroom Affair

She could have sworn that some of the color drained from his face. “That’s odd, because I seem to recall telling you to tell her that I wouldn’t be able to stay the whole weekend.”

“Did you?” she asked innocently. “I guess I forgot.”

He knew damned well that she hadn’t forgotten anything.

“That’s evil,” he said.

She just smiled. That was what he got for messing with her—although, in all fairness, she had been the one to kiss him. But she had the feeling that there would be nothing fair about this unspoken competition they had gotten themselves into.

“Just for that, I should drag you along with me,” he told her.

A duke bringing his personal assistant home for a weekend visit with the folks. Like that would ever happen. She had the sneaking suspicion that being royals, they clung to slightly higher standards. Or maybe they would make her stay in the staff quarters and take her meals in the kitchen.

Was that what she had been reduced to? Servant’s status?

She and her father may not have been megarich, but they had lived a very comfortable lifestyle. The outer edges of upper crust. And to what end? Had he only been honest, lived within their means, she wouldn’t be in this mess.

But now was not the time or the place to rehash her father’s betrayal.

“I could ring her and tell her you don’t want to stay,” she told Charles. “That you have better things to do than spend time with your parents. Although, you know, they’re not getting any younger.”

“Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “You and my mother would get along great.”

She doubted that. His mother didn’t strike her as the type to socialize with the hired help.

“Was there anything else you needed?” she asked, wanting him off her desk. He was too close, smelled too good. “I’d like to get back to work.”

“Pressing business?” he asked.

“Keeping up on all the calls and e-mails from your female admirers is a full-time job.”

“Maybe, but right now,” he said, locking his chocolate eyes on hers and leaning closer, so she was crowded against the back of her chair. “I only have one special woman in my life.”

Uh-oh.

Please, please, Victoria silently pleaded, let it be anyone but me.

He held up the message slips. “And I’d better go call her and tell her just how much I’m looking forward to the party.”

She let out a quiet, relieved breath.

He rose from the corner of her desk, but his scent lingered as he walked to the door. “Buzz me if you hear about the ad.”

“The second I hear anything,” she promised. Hoping this would be the last time she saw him until it was time to leave for the evening.

Even that would be too soon. Maybe she could just sneak out unnoticed.

It was a dangerous game they had begun playing, but she wasn’t about to surrender. She wouldn’t let him win. He needed to be knocked down a peg or two. Put in his place. And she was just the woman to do it.

Eight

Charles’s mother rang back not fifteen minutes later. The woman was ruthless.

Victoria struggled to sound anything but exasperated by her repeated calls. “I’m afraid he’s in a meeting,” she said, just as he had instructed her. In a meeting, on another line. He never took personal calls at work. “But I would be happy to take a message.”

“I don’t mean to bother,” she said, which is how she began all of her phone conversations, whether it was the first or tenth call of the day. “I’m just calling about the party, to extend a formal invitation.”

Again? Hadn’t Victoria already sent an RSVP for him? How many times did she have to invite her own son? “I’ll let Charles know,” she said automatically.

“Oh, no, not for Charles,” she said. “For you.”

For her? But…

Oh, no, he didn’t. He wouldn’t.