In Bed With the Boss

‘What?’

She winced at his sharp tone. ‘I was just about to knock when I heard you both talking about putting the past aside and getting married.’

Ben stared at her. ‘You heard that?’

She winced again. ‘All of it. Sorry …’

Ben was starting to put two and two together, hope rising in his chest. ‘So that little clinch in the doctors’ room with Jules Littlemore? What was that all about?’

She bit her lip again. ‘I’m not dating Jules. I was so upset. I felt so used and wanted you think I was involved with Jules to hurt you. It was just like a replay of my relationship with Andrew, my ex. He was still in love with his previous girlfriend and when push came to shove that’s who he chose to be with.’

Another little silence measured the seconds ticking by.

‘About that transfer …’ they said in unison.

‘I’m OK about the transfer to the other unit,’ Georgie said, lowering her gaze to stare at her hands twisting in her lap. ‘I understand you don’t want to work with me since … since we …. you know …’

Ben got up from behind his desk and came to stand next to her chair. ‘Georgie, look at me.’

She dragged her gaze upwards, two big tears already making their way down her cheeks, several others following their crystal pathway.

He reached out with the pad of his thumb and blotted them one by one. ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked, his voice sounding as if it had been scraped across a gravel road.

‘B-because I stupidly fell in love with you,’ she sobbed. ‘Dumb, huh? I always do it. I fall in love with unavailable men. I never seem—’

‘I’m not unavailable.’

‘To learn from my past mist—’ She stopped and blinked at him again. ‘What did you say?’

‘I’m not for a moment thinking of going back to Leila.’

Georgie swallowed the aching lump in her throat. ‘You mean you’re … you’re not going to marry her?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t love her. I don’t think I ever did, to tell you the truth

.’

She opened and closed her mouth, her toffee-brown eyes still looking up at him dazedly.

He pulled her to her feet and wrapping his arms around her brought her close. ‘I want to be with you, Georgie, and only you,’ he said. ‘I knew I was in trouble the first day I met you which, when you think about it, was only nine or ten days ago, but as my mother always told me—when you meet the right person you just know.’

Georgie’s heart began to race and her breathing halted as she looked up into his earnest dark blue gaze. ‘Do you mean the right person as in the right person?’ she asked.

Ben smiled down at her. ‘Yes. My father was the same when he met my mother. It must be genetic or something. I want you to be my wife. I love you. I fell for you when you knocked me off my bike, and I don’t mean just onto the road. One look into those big brown eyes of yours and I was all wrapped up, but not just with bandages.’

‘You really mean it?’ she asked, her voice squeaking in surprise and joy.

‘I adore you,’ he said. ‘I love everything about you. Your smile, that cute little nose of yours that tips up when you toss your head at me, your beautiful skin that felt so good next to mine. I could go on and on.’

‘Go on,’ she said, pressing herself closer to his hot, hard body.

His smile widened. ‘I could go on all day but I want you to promise to be my wife first. I know I should really be asking your father first, and there are lots of other issues we have to deal with, but will you do it? Will you make me the happiest man alive by agreeing to marry me?’

She threw her arms around his neck and standing on tiptoe kissed him passionately all over his face. ‘Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times …’ Her face suddenly fell and she lowered her heels back to the floor. ‘Uh-oh …’

He lifted one brow quizzically. ‘Uh-oh?’

‘Five thousand times uh-oh actually,’ she amended with a rueful grimace.