Boardroom To Bedroom: His Darling Valentine / The Boss's Marriage Arrangement

Her whole face was burning now, with both anger and humiliation, as the full ramifications of his accusatory and demeaning statement sank in.

Immediately she rushed to defend herself, and to reject what he was saying. ‘If you are referring to Cindi’s ridiculous suggestion that I am secretly in love with Ben—’

‘Secretly?’ Matt stopped her sharply, turning to face her. ‘There was nothing secret about the touching little scene I just witnessed. Touching, that is, unless one happens to know the truth! And the entire company knows the truth, Harriet.’ The look Matt gave her made her want to disappear!

Through stiff, shock-numbed lips Harriet managed to demand, ‘And that truth is…?’

There was a look in her eyes that made Matt want to go to her and hold her, tell her that nothing and no one was going to be allowed to hurt her whilst he was there to prevent it, but he knew that he couldn’t. He was doing this because he wanted to help her, not because he wanted to hurt her!

‘That you are refusing to see that your love for Ben is not returned, that it never will be returned. The way you are pursuing him so obsessively, following him and clinging to him, is not only coming between him and Cindi, it’s making you the object of other people’s contempt as well.’

The cold, brutal words hit her like physical blows, and as from physical blows Harriet recoiled from them, whispering painfully, ‘No, that isn’t true.’

‘It is true. Have you no pride? No self-respect?’

The blood receded swiftly from Harriet’s face, leaving it creamily pale as shock and outrage filled her.

Cindi’s assumption and Cindi’s ultimatum had obviously not been confined merely to Ben! It was bad enough discovering that her colleagues shared Cindi’s misinterpretation of her relationship with Ben, but to discover that Matt was not just privy to it but believed it as well filled her with blistering hot shame.

Valiantly she struggled to overcome her feelings and to explain. After all, no matter what her private feelings might be, Matt was her boss, and at this stage in her career she couldn’t afford to earn any kind of black mark, still less be written off as some kind of obsessive who was trying to force herself on a man who didn’t want her!

‘I was just trying to tell Ben—’

‘What?’ Matt challenged her, striding from behind his desk and coming over to her. ‘What were you trying to tell him? That he’d be better off with you? With your love?’

‘No!’

‘No? So what, then? Were you pleading with him to love you?’

‘No! No!’ Harriet denied fiercely, getting to her own feet to confront him and then wishing that she hadn’t as she realised how close to him she was.

She wasn’t a small woman, at five feet nine inches tall, but she was small-boned and slender, and Matt was well over six feet, with a physique which Ben had told her came from his days as captain of his university’s rugby team.

How on earth had this happened? How could she possibly be in this sickeningly humiliating situation?

Matt could see the pain in her eyes. Part of him felt bitterly angry with her for what she was doing, but most of him simply wanted to hold her and comfort her. Her pain was his pain, and he hurt for her and with her.

It was simply to comfort her that he had put his hands on her and drawn her towards him. Nothing more!

Harriet stiffened as Matt’s hands closed on her upper arms, knowing that right now she was far too emotionally frail to withstand something like this.

Ben was forgotten as though he had never existed. She tried to drag air into lungs compressed with shocked physical awareness.

Matt was touching her. Matt was looking down into her eyes with frowning bleakness.

She exhaled shakily.

He shouldn’t have done this. He shouldn’t have touched her, Matt recognised grimly. No matter how altruistic his original motivation and intention had been. Abruptly he released her.

As Matt thrust her away Harriet tensed, hating herself for the way she wanted—no, not just wanted, but ached and needed—to cling to him.

‘Quite apart from anything else,’ she could hear Matt telling her grimly, ‘your behaviour is causing disruption and…and discord here in the office. And that is something I will not tolerate. We work together here, in very tight-knit teams, and every single member of those teams has been selected by me personally as a vital component of their particular unit. But if I thought it necessary for the greater good to replace one of those components then I would have no compunction whatsoever in doing so. Do you understand what I am saying?’

‘Yes, you’re threatening to sack me,’ Harriet answered him briefly. ‘But you’ve got it all wrong! And so has Cindi! I do love Ben, yes! But as a friend…as a brother, if you like. Not…not in the way that you are trying to imply!’

‘You mean there’s nothing sexual in your… your…?’

‘Nothing,’ Harriet emphasised fiercely, without letting him finish.

‘No?’ Matt gave her a cynical look that made her whole body burn with resentment. ‘Then prove it,’ he told her in a clipped voice.

Harriet exhaled noisily. ‘And how exactly am I supposed to do that?’

‘Well, you could start by making it obvious and public that you’re very involved with.. dating someone else.’

‘Dating someone else?’ Harriet repeated blankly. ‘Who?’

‘Me!’

The colour came and went in Harriet’s mobile face—and if she had but known it her shock only echoed his own, Matt acknowledged. What the hell did he think he was doing? Morally and in every other way there was he was totally out of order. He should make it clear immediately that he hadn’t meant what he had said and that Harriet was to ignore it. Immediately!

Matt was suggesting that she pretend to want him? No pretence was necessary!

‘You can’t mean… Are you saying…? Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. It’s impossible… No. No way!’ she told him a little breathlessly.

Her words didn’t just sting Matt’s pride raw, they blew a large hole in his good intentions as well as shattering them into nothing. A ruthless determination swept over him, swamping everything else.

‘You’ve just said that you aren’t in love with Ben—I’m giving you an opportunity to prove it.’

There was a small suspenseful pause.

‘If you don’t take it then I’ll know that you are lying,’ Matt finished coldly.

Harriet looked at him, wondering how on earth she had ever got into such a mess.

‘No one will ever believe that you and I are dating.’

‘Then it will be up to us to convince them, won’t it?’ Matt said smoothly. ‘The choice is yours!’

‘Some choice,’ Harriet muttered, adding fiercely, ‘Why are you doing this?’

Her throat felt raw, the backs of her eyes stung, and her chest hurt, as though she were about to come down with a heavy cold. Her physical reactions weren’t caused by a physical virus, though, but an emotional one.

‘I’m doing it to stop you causing disruption and discord in my business. Besides, I should have thought that if you genuinely don’t love Ben, as you claim, then you’d jump at the chance to prove it— and to give Ben and Cindi a chance to find happiness together,’ Matt reiterated curtly.

No way could he tell her that he was doing it purely and simply because he wanted any excuse to be with her…

‘What was all that about?’