Bella's Impossible Boss

She refused to lie. ‘It does.’

With a tightening of his lips, he turned on his heel and stalked from the room. He returned a moment later wearing a loose T-shirt that hung below his hips.

Had she offended him? She bit her lip. She couldn’t afford to get him offside. She’d need his support if she were to bring her dream restaurant into being. She’d need his good opinion if she wanted to make her father proud. If he told Papa that she was a failure, that she was stupid … She gulped and refused to follow that line of thought. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

He didn’t say anything. Then, ‘I left you the master bedroom.’

She swallowed. ‘That was kind.’

‘You might want to reassess that opinion once you’ve seen it.’

That didn’t sound promising.

‘Is this all your luggage?’ He motioned to the bags. ‘Or do you have more downstairs?’

‘These aren’t mine, they’re the cat’s.’ Her gear was still in the boot of her car.

‘What?’

She kicked a bag. ‘We have dry food, tinned food, special treat food. We even have cat chocolate.’

He stared at her as if he didn’t know what to say. She didn’t blame him.

‘Then there’s her basket, her blankets, her toys. This cat even has a different DVD for each day of the week. I’m supposed to set them to play on continuous mode whenever I go out so she doesn’t get lonely. This is the blasted prima donna of all cats. Do you still think you can put up with it?’

‘Yes.’ But he ground the word out between his teeth.

‘Tell me we have a DVD player in the apartment or I’ll have to race home and grab mine.’ Which could be a good thing. A chance for fresh air …

‘There’s a DVD player.’

He shifted his weight and shoved his hands in his pockets. He might’ve covered up, but Bella could recall with irritating clarity the definition of his pecs and abs, and how firm and warm his skin had felt against her cheek.

‘What’ll happen if it doesn’t get its DVD?’

She shook herself and hauled her gaze back to the cat. ‘She’ll destroy the apartment, that’s what.’

‘Why’d you agree to look after the damn thing?’

Even twisted up like that his lips looked intriguing and full of promise. ‘Because Melanie is my friend and nobody else would do it.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

‘Minky’s cantankerous.’

His lip curled. ‘Minky?’

‘Don’t even go there. Not my cat. I didn’t name her.’

His lips twitched. ‘What would you call her?’

‘Medusa,’ she growled. ‘Because I’m petrified every single time she looks at me.’

He laughed then and all his beguiling goldenness and warmth seemed to reach out and brush against her. Her heart surged against her ribcage. Her lungs contracted.

‘If you give me your car keys I’ll go get your bags.’

Without a word, she fished her keys out of her pocket and handed them over. She wasn’t sure she was capable of speech.

When he left, she had to draw in several gulps of air before she could force her mind to work again. Bedroom. That’s right, check out the bedroom.

A short hallway led to two bedrooms directly opposite each other with the bathroom at the end. She peered in at the door on her right, and her jaw dropped. The rest of the apartment maintained a loose French Regency theme but this … This was just plain tacky.

She hated hot pink.

She checked out the bathroom. ‘Pah!’ She walked back to stare at the bedroom. Her worst nightmare, that was what this was. This bedroom, this apartment and the man she had to share it with.

‘Oh, hell, Bella. How many bags did you bring?’ Dominic struggled back into the apartment and dropped her bags to the living-room floor.

‘We’re in Newcastle for two months, remember?’ She gestured to her bedroom. ‘This is … It’s … I …’ She couldn’t find words.

‘Yeah, I know. And I’m not swapping.’

‘Is that supposed to be a bed?’ She motioned to the round concoction smack-bang in the middle of the room, heaped with hot-pink cushions and surrounded by pastel-pink mosquito netting.

‘I guess.’

She swung to his room. Its blankness shocked her: stark walls. Stark furnishings. She glanced back at her room, then his. It didn’t make sense. Overdone, overblown and tacky to cold, clinical and utilitarian? Not that Dominic had added any personal touches either. Her eyes narrowed. The room didn’t even hint at the personality of the man who inhabited it.

Not that she really knew much about his personality, she had to admit, only what the gossips had told her. But she knew enough to know he was a sensualist, like her. They chose to express it in different ways, that was all. He through sex; she through food. Together they could …

Don’t go there! Dominic conquered women the way the Roman Empire had conquered new territory—with a brash ruthlessness and half an eye on new horizons. Bella didn’t want to be conquered. She sure as hell didn’t want to be left for a new horizon.

‘Bella?’

She shook herself and gestured to his bedroom. ‘I don’t like that any better.’

‘You don’t?’

‘It’s awful.’

He pointed to her room. ‘Worse than that?’

‘Just as bad. Why don’t you put some things around?’

‘Like?’

‘I don’t know. Like a colourful quilt or something. Some photos … Anything.’