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

‘This is way cool, Matt,’ he enthused. ‘But Harry won’t like it—’ he began, then stopped, looking selfconscious.

‘It’s okay, Ben. I know this place isn’t to Harriet’s taste,’ Matt offered, intending to reassure him, but to his surprise Ben suddenly started to scowl fiercely.

‘Harriet’s been up here, then, has she?’ he demanded, looking pugnacious.

‘We are dating,’ Matt answered obliquely, an unfamiliar and unwanted sensation of having been wrong-footed suddenly hitting him.

Ben’s current attitude was not exactly that of a young man who resented Harriet’s emotional dependence on him and wanted her taken off his hands at any cost.

‘It’s about Harry that I came to see you,’ Ben told him determinedly, giving Matt the kind of look he last remembered receiving from the very protective father of the girl he had taken to his first school dance.

‘I see. Would you like to sit down? Or is it going to be a short conversation?’ Matt asked drily.

A tinge of colour darkened Ben’s face, but his jaw was still set stubbornly. He had come up here for a purpose and he wasn’t going to leave until he had a reassured himself on Harriet’s behalf. She was his best friend, after all, and, knowing what he did about his own sex, he wanted to make sure she would be all right.

‘Harry hasn’t said much about how things got going between the two of you…’ he began. ‘In fact, I wouldn’t have thought she was your type. I’ve known her since we were kids, and she’s my best friend.’ Ben stopped, took a deep breath, then began again. ‘You said you were serious about Harriet and I hope that you mean that, Matt, because Harry just isn’t the type of woman who would let a man into her life in a personal sort of way if she didn’t care a hell of a lot about him. She was pretty badly hurt by a rat of a guy when we were at university. Luckily she had the sense to listen to me when I warned her about him, so things never went too far, if you know what I mean. Of course I know it isn’t anyone’s business but their own how many partners a person has had, and I don’t suppose I’d be all that pleased myself if I found I’d got a virgin on my hands…’ Matt pressed on doggedly.

A virgin! Ben was trying to tell him that Harriet was a virgin?

Two vastly different emotions speared through Matt at the same time. One was a savage protective fury with Harriet for loving Ben to the extent that she did—ridiculously, in this day and age, she was saving herself for him—and the other was a fierce and disgraceful thrill of hot male hunting instinct. An assured and certain determination to ensure that he was the one who released Harriet from the sensual imprisonment of her virginity.

‘So you see,’ Ben was continuing, ‘if your intentions towards her aren’t honourable, so to speak, then it would be better—’

‘Ben,’ Matt interrupted him firmly, ‘I can assure you that my intentions are very honourable.’

‘You mean…commitment…? Marriage?’ Ben questioned.

Matt’s mouth compressed.

‘Yes, I mean just that,’ he agreed. He meant it, all right, he recognized—after all, he couldn’t be any more emotionally committed to her than he was. She already occupied his thoughts 24/7, and as for marriage…

As for marriage! His heart lurched against his ribs and pain tore into him. If circumstances had been different, if Harriet had felt about him as he did about her, then of course he would be wanting marriage, Matt acknowledged grimly. And so, he damned well hoped, after what Ben had just told him, would she!

‘You do? Oh, well, that’s all right then!’

Beaming with delight, Ben got to his feet to shake Matt’s hand. ‘Great girl is Harry,’ he assured him enthusiastically. ‘Good sense of humour, great legs. Must say I was worried… I thought you might just be… Well, I thought I’d better warn you that Harriet isn’t that sort of woman.’

No, she wasn’t. And Matt decided grimly that he suspected he knew why!

‘Thank you, Ben,’ he said, dismissing his guest.

Half an hour later, when Harriet opened her door to Matt’s knock, the great legs were in evidence but the sense of humour was not.

Not that Matt was in the best of moods himself. The fierce sexual elation he had felt at being told that Harriet was a virgin had given way to an equally fierce and savage fury that she should be idiotic enough to want to save herself for Ben. Ben who did not want her and who, quite plainly, was not right for her! It was, Matt had decided, just the kind of ill-judged, crazy thing a stubborn woman like her would do—saving the gift of herself as well as her love for just one man.

Of course if he had been the man…

Harriet took a step back in the hallway as she saw the way Matt was glaring at her. No doubt in his eyes she didn’t come anywhere near matching the sophisticated elegance of the women he normally took out to dinner. Her dress was four years old, a simple basic black crêpe number which up until now she had always felt she looked quite good in. With it she was wearing her one pair of expensive shoes, high-heeled and, if she was honest, just a little bit uncomfortable.

‘Do you live here alone?’ Matt demanded, frowning as he looked up and down the narrow dark lane.

‘Yes, I do,’ Harriet confirmed. ‘I shared with Ben at university, but—’

‘Now he wants his own space?’ Matt broke in, without allowing her to finish.

Angrily Harriet tilted her chin and told him firmly, ‘Actually, I am the one who wanted my own space. And my own washing machine and my own bed!’ she added pithily, remembering how much it had infuriated her to return from a visit somewhere, pre-Cindi, to find that one of Ben’s mates had ‘borrowed’ her bed in her absence.

Matt’s mouth compressed. When was she going to see sense and accept that Ben did not want her?

‘If you’re trying to convince me that you shared Ben’s bed you’re wasting your time,’ he told her angrily.

Immediately Harriet stepped back into the house, but as she reached for the door to turn and slam it Matt guessed what she was about to do and grabbed hold of her wrist.

‘Look, why won’t you face up to the truth? What is it about you that makes it so hard for you to accept that Ben doesn’t want you?’ he demanded brutally.

If she really had loved Ben the way Matt seemed to think she did his words would have been unbelievably hurtful and cruel, Harriet decided. ‘What is it about you that makes you think you’ve got the right to tell me what to do?’ she countered, trying to get her wrist back.

‘I’ve told you what my motivation is,’ Matt answered, refusing to release her.

‘And I’m telling you that you are barking up the wrong tree. I do not love Ben other than as a friend!’

‘How can you say that when—’

‘When what?’ Harriet challenged when Matt suddenly stopped speaking.

‘When you can’t string a sentence together without including his name in it,’ Matt said evasively.

What the hell was happening to him? He had almost blurted out what Ben had told him.

‘We’d better make tracks, otherwise we’ll be late,’ he added curtly.

Harriet glared at him. ‘If you think I’m going to have dinner with you now—’

She gasped as Matt tugged on her wrist and closed the space between them.

‘If you think that you aren’t…’ he retorted softly.

It must be the fact that she was not wearing a coat, coupled with the evening air, that was making her tremble so much, Harriet decided dizzily. But the truth was that it was the musky male scent of Matt’s skin playing havoc with her senses, making her want to bury her face against him and breathe it and him into her. She wanted to burrow against his warmth, she wanted…

A shudder ripped through her, causing Matt to curse under his breath and drag her into his arms, holding her hard against his body as he lifted his hand to cup her face and take possession of her mouth.

Right now, more than anything else, he wanted to take her back into the house, carry her upstairs and remove every piece of clothing from her body so that he could show her just what a fool she was for wasting her time wanting Ben when she could have him. That scent she was wearing was driving him crazy, making him feel so damned horny…

Harriet moaned excitedly beneath the hot, thrilling thrust of his tongue. Her fingers dug into the hardness of his shoulders as pleasure exploded inside her like a firework, showering her with golden starbusts of erotic sensation. She could feel his hand in the thick softness of her hair, his thumb massaging the delicate over-sensitive spot just behind her ear and sending a hot zigzag of female arousal jolting right through her.

Just his touch was enough to activate the kind of ache inside her that she already knew would lead to a sleepless, wanting night.

She might, thanks to Ben’s determined and sometimes unwanted protection, be the oldest virgin in the whole city, but that did not mean that her body didn’t already know how to respond to the sweet hotness of the pleasure that could possess and convulse it.