The Billionaire's Ruthless Affair

Bad idea, that, he thought and busied himself stuffing his mouth full of bagel whilst trying to work out where such a potentially self-destructive desire had come from. After all, Harriet didn’t fit his own checklist for dating candidates any better than he fitted hers!

Still, it didn’t take Alex all that long privately to admit that he’d secretly wanted to take Harriet to bed since the day he’d interviewed her ten months ago. The attraction had been there from the moment she’d walked into his office, looking deliciously nervous but beautifully turned out in a sleek black suit which had followed the curves of her very feminine figure. Her dark brown hair had been up in a professional and somewhat prissy style, but her lushly glossed mouth had betrayed her true nature. He’d immediately made the decision not to hire her, despite her excellent résumé—till he found out she was safely engaged, at which point he’d fooled himself into thinking he could ignore his hormones.

And he had, up till now.

They would have remained in control, too, if she hadn’t broken up with Dwayne; if she hadn’t cried and he hadn’t hugged her. That had been the catalyst which had started the chemical reaction which saw him now being tempted to do something seriously stupid.

Thank God it was still just a temptation. He didn’t have to act on it. Didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of Harriet rejecting him, not just because he was her boss, but because he was too tall, too handsome and too rich.

His sudden laughter brought a reproving look into her velvety brown eyes.

‘You promised you wouldn’t laugh,’ she chided him.

‘Sorry. Couldn’t help it.’

‘In that case, I won’t tell you the rest of my checklist. You’d probably crack up entirely.’

‘You could be right, there. So I’ll save up the rest of your checklist till a later date. Now, I think we should finish up here and get back to work.’

Chapter Four

HARRIET SIGHED AS she sat back down at her desk and turned on her computer. She hadn’t wanted to go back to work; back to reality. She’d been enjoying having coffee with Alex, despite her many faux pas. She hadn’t really minded his laughing at her checklist, which she now appreciated was rather funny. Whilst it did have some merit, such strategies simply didn’t work out in real life, just like those silly matchmaking forms they made you filled in on online dating sites.

Most women ended up marrying men they met through work, Harriet accepted, thinking of her other married girlfriends. Actually, all her girlfriends were married, a thought which was rather depressing. Harriet was well aware that marriage and motherhood wasn’t the only pathway to happiness and fulfilment in life, but it was her chosen pathway. That and a career. Yes, she wanted to have it all, which was possibly where she was going wrong. Having it all suddenly seemed beyond her grasp. This time next year, she’d be hitting thirty. After thirty, finding a husband became more difficult; all the good ones were already snapped up.

Even ordinary men like Dwayne weren’t exactly thick on the ground. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to dump him. Maybe she should have ignored his failings and accepted him for the imperfect specimen he was...

Harriet was pondering this conundrum when Alex strode out of his office and perched his far too perfect body on the corner of her thankfully large desk.

‘A couple of things I forgot to tell you this morning,’ he said as he hitched his right knee up into a more comfortable position, indicating he was staying put for a while. ‘First, I want you to book me a flight to Milan, arriving on the twenty-ninth of July.’

‘Milan?’ she echoed, forgetting that it wasn’t a PA’s job to question her boss, just to obey.

‘Yes. Milan, Italy. One of my best friends from Oxford is getting married on the thirty-first. I’ve been ordered to be there two days before the actual wedding so that I can be attired suitably for my job as best man. The other best man obviously fears I might show up in jeans and a T-shirt.’

Harriet blinked her astonishment at such a ludicrous idea. The night they’d attended that fundraising dinner back in March, Alex had walked into the hotel ballroom wearing a magnificent black tux. He’d quite literally taken her breath away.

‘How ridiculous,’ she scoffed. ‘You are one of the best-dressed men I’ve ever met.’

‘You haven’t seen me when I’m slumming it. Jeremy has.’

‘Jeremy?’

‘The other best man and possibly the best-dressed rake in all of London.’

Harriet’s eyes widened. ‘Your best friend is a rake?’