Seduced By The Boss

‘Believe me, that was enough.’ His smile was cool as he remembered his brother’s surprised silence down the telephone. ‘The very fact that I’m bringing someone to a family party will be enough to convince them that it’s serious enough to set alarm bells ringing.’

‘Alarm bells?’ she asked him curiously. ‘Why should it do that? Don’t they want you to settle down and get married?’

‘I don’t know—I’ve never asked them.’

Megan frowned. ‘Must you be so evasive all the time?’

‘Am I?’ Dan frowned, too. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, really—you’re about as forthcoming as a rock!’

‘We’ve never discussed marriage,’ he answered eventually, realising as he said it that he and his family had never discussed anything much at all. It wasn’t their way. ‘I suppose the unspoken fact is that when I do…’

‘Yes?’ quizzed Megan eagerly.

‘It’ll be someone from the same background, I guess.’

She didn’t like to ask what that background was—but she was slowly getting a good idea!

‘How rigid!’ she observed.

‘Not really,’ he shrugged, and crumpled a ball of paper in his fist. ‘Just stop and think about it. Marriage can be such a lottery. At least if you have similar backgrounds and interests, you stand a better chance of surviving.’

‘You make it sound like a trip to the North Pole!’ declared Megan indignantly. ‘Marriage is supposed to be based on love!’

He smiled. ‘I would hate to destroy your youthful idealism, Megan.’

‘Whereas I would love to destroy your world-weary cynicism!’

He laughed, thinking that maybe this weekend wasn’t going to be as bad as he had anticipated, until he drew himself up short.

This wasn’t a date! he reminded himself sternly.

Megan took a call from their Rome office and put it through to him, and when the call was finished she plucked up courage to ask the question which had been depriving her of more sleep than any other. ‘Er, Dan?’

He lifted his head. ‘What?’

It wasn’t the easiest thing to put into words, particularly when he was looking at her with that barely feigned impatience. ‘It’s a bit of a thorny subject—’

‘I’m listening.’

‘And it’s probably only because I’m a farmer’s daughter and don’t feel shy to talk about one of the most basic—’

‘Get to the point, will you, Megan?’ he sighed.

She stared at him defiantly. ‘It’s about the sex thing.’

Dan blinked in astonishment and, as she spoke, the most extraordinary thing happened. He started to feel extremely…He shook his head in disbelief. Then shook it again—this time in astonishment. Surely the pale and colourless Ms Phillips hadn’t managed to produce a sudden sweet flood of desire?

He shifted uncomfortably, pleased that he was safely hidden behind his desk so she couldn’t see him. Imagine how embarrassing that would have been!

For both of them.

‘Which particular aspect of the “sex thing” did you have in mind, exactly?’ He swallowed.

‘Well, it’s just that if I’m supposed to be in love with you—’

‘Yes?’

‘And you with me…’

He looked at her as she let her sentence tail off, and he could feel his pulse begin to quicken again with another unexpected and completely unwanted challenge. ‘Yes?’ he said again, only this time he didn’t bother to conceal his impatience.

‘People will expect us—’

‘To be having sex?’ he put in brutally. ‘No doubt they will, Megan—but that doesn’t mean that they’ll expect to witness it! Or do you think they’ll be trooping through the house, expecting to see us locked together in the throes of passion? Much more interesting than looking at the paintings, wouldn’t you say?’

Her throat constricted as her mind made pictures of his words. ‘Is there really any need to be quite so…?’

Their eyes met. ‘So?’

‘Graphic?’

‘Well, you were the one who started it! You’re the farmer’s daughter who claims to be unembarrassed by basic acts of nature, remember?’ He smiled. ‘Megan, stop worrying. We probably won’t even be sleeping in the same part of the house.’

Megan blinked. ‘Just how big is your house?’

‘My mother is a stickler for convention,’ he explained, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘And, as far as she is concerned, unmarried couples just don’t sleep together. Even my brother and his fiancée will have separate rooms. What they get up to in the dead of night is up to them!’

‘And don’t you mind?’

‘Why should I mind? I don’t visit that often—and I’m not so addicted to sex that I can’t go without it for a night or two.’

Megan quickly found something very interesting to look at on the notepad in front of her.