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

These last months working for Matt had shown her how easy it was for just the thought of him to activate that pleasure, and right now her over-stimulated senses were clamouring hungrily for the real thing.

‘Why don’t we forget dinner?’

Harriet blinked. How had that happened? How had she said the very words she had just been thinking but in Matt’s voice?

Matt groaned inwardly as he realised how out of control he was getting. ‘Forget I said that!’ he told her tersely.

Forget he had said it?

‘I suppose you thought I was someone else?’ Harriet challenged him angrily.

‘Just as you wish that I was someone else?’ Matt demanded.

Whilst Harriet struggled to regain her composure Matt hurried them both out of her front door and locked it, handing her the keys before he guided her to his parked car.

Harriet was too engrossed in her own thoughts to object to his cavalier control of the situation, along with her door keys. She had wanted Matt to take her to bed! No, Harriet corrected herself. She had wanted to drag Matt upstairs and take him to bed, and she had nearly told him so!

‘Look, there’s no point in you giving me the silent disapproving treatment because I’m not Ben. Try facing up to reality!’

Harriet didn’t trust herself to reply. She just shook her head in silent frustration.

‘Good evening, sir, madam. Would you care for a drink in the bar first? Or would you prefer to go straight to your table?’

Matt looked questioningly at Harriet.

‘Straight to the table, please,’ she answered, ruefully aware that despite everything she was extremely hungry. And she was also extremely aware of the fact that they were being shown to what had to be one of the restaurant’s very best tables, with a little almost private area all to itself. They could see out through the windows over the river and also around the restaurant, if they wished, and yet at the same time retain their own privacy.

Grimly she wondered how many other women Matt had brought here. An awful lot if the way the head waiter had recognised him was anything to go by, surely?

She had barely completed her chain of thought when Matt suddenly announced, ‘I’m surprised that Henri remembered me—it’s ages since I last ate here.’

Harriet almost choked on the delicious walnut roll she was eating.

‘There wasn’t really any need for you to do this, you know,’ she said later, when they had given their order and been served with their food. ‘After all, Ben isn’t going to see us here!’

‘Do you wish he could? Do you think it would make him jealous?’

Harriet exhaled fiercely down her nose and put down the glass of wine she had just picked up.

‘For the last time, I am not in love with Ben. And having him around when I am out on a date is normally the last thing I would want.’ When Matt frowned she told him fiercely, ‘This may come as a shock to you, but the only way I love Ben is as a brother, and it’s as a brother that he behaves when I date anyone—a very over-protective brother at times, and that isn’t always what I want!’ she added darkly.

She stopped as she realised how much the wine had loosened her tongue and just what she was in danger of saying and to whom!

‘In answer to your question, I brought you here to save you from the temptation of going to see Ben,’ Matt said curtly, before continuing, ‘I don’t need to ask why you don’t want Ben treating you like a brother. You obviously want him to think of you as a potential lover, not a sister, and because he doesn’t, you—’

‘You are just misinterpreting what I said to suit your own ends,’ Harriet objected angrily. ‘That is not what I meant at all.’

They were glaring at one another like two opponents, their argument only brought to an end by the waiter coming to remove their plates for the next course.

CHAPTER THREE

HARRIET stiffened as she saw the look of appreciation and invitation the pretty girl behind the reception desk gave Matt as they left the restaurant. Yet another reason for keeping clear of him, she decided grimly. What woman in possession of all her senses wanted a man who attracted and encouraged the interest of virtually every female he came into contact with?

Not that Matt had encouraged the girl’s acquisitive hungry look, Harriet was forced to concede as Matt strode past her obliviously. But that did not alter the fact that if he had done the girl would have leapt to seize the opportunity, Harriet acknowledged.

Courteously Matt placed his hand beneath her elbow to escort her across the car park, rather in the manner that her father adopted towards elderly female members of the family, she reflected darkly.

Her attention was momentarily distracted by the sight of a couple several yards away, wrapped in each other’s arms and exchanging the most passionate of kisses as the woman fumbled to unlock the door of the car.

The pounding of Harriet’s heart inside her chest was followed by an ache of longing that seemed to seep into every bit of her.

What would it be like to be loved and wanted by Matt like that? Well, whatever it was like she wasn’t going to be the one to find out, she told herself sharply.

Matt frowned as he glanced down towards Harriet. She hadn’t spoken since before they had left the restaurant—which was, he suspected, quite a record, since during the rest of the evening she had engaged in the kind of conversation that had left him reluctantly impressed by its range and depth. Matt wasn’t used to his dates having as keen an interest in world affairs as he did himself, nor in them being so comfortable and informed in debating them.

Just listening to Harriet gave the words ‘verbal foreplay’ a whole new meaning, he decided ruefully. Certainly he had never expected that he would find anything erotic in a vigorous discussion about the merits of a home-based workforce. But then he found just about everything about Harriet erotic. In fact, she fascinated him, infuriated him, and just about occupied every one of his waking hours as well as a large percentage of his sleeping ones. And that meant…

Harriet glowered at Matt as he suddenly and for no reason at all stood still right in the middle of the car park.

The couple by the car were still kissing.

Matt followed the direction of her gaze and tugged grimly on her arm so that she had to look away.

‘Stop thinking about it,’ he said curtly. ‘It’s not going to happen!’

Harriet could feel her face starting to burn with guilt and chagrin. Had he really guessed so easily how much she had wished that she were the one being kissed so passionately, and by him?

‘What makes you think I want it to?’ she demanded defensively.

They had reached his car, and as he unlocked it Matt gave her an oblique look. Her full lips were set in a constrained closed line and her green eyes were a mutinous jade.

He opened the passenger door for her, but as she stepped past him he encircled her with the car door and his body.

‘Of course you want it to. You’re in love, or you think you are. But Ben is not in love with you.’

Ben! Harriet went limp with relief and sagged against the car. Of course—he thought she was in love with Ben!

‘But that doesn’t stop you wanting to feel his mouth on yours, wanting to…’

The raw sound of Matt’s voice jerked her into defensive anger.

If she had been in love with Ben his last words would not have done her any good at all. As it was they were making her want to look at Matt’s own mouth as though she were magnetised by it! And not just look at it, she admitted longingly.

‘Have you ever thought of writing sex scenes for films?’ she asked him, with what she had intended to be sarcasm but which instead sounded more like breathless wonder, Harriet recognised in self-disgust as she scrambled into the car.

To her relief Matt refused to pick up her gauntlet, and started the car instead.

Half an hour later, as they drove through the down-at-heel area where she lived, Harriet could well imagine what Matt must be thinking. But she liked her small house, tucked in cosily with its neighbours, and she liked her long back garden even more.