LITMIR.BIZ

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She should have asked for a pay rise months ago. She was damned good at her job and worked a lot longer hours than all of her colleagues. If only she had had a crystal ball foretelling her huge household bills were on the horizon she might have been more assertive during her appraisal. She reluctantly told him, knowing that he would just carry on sitting there until she did. He didn’t laugh, as she had expected him to. Instead he looked at her for a few seconds, as though weighing up something in his head.

      ‘I’m branching out,’ he told her, ‘going into the leisure business. Corporate investment and the money markets pay the bills but I’ve conquered that challenge. Now, I’m investing some of my own reserves in building up a boutique hotel portfolio.’

      Rose thought of the reserves she was investing in—making sure she didn’t wake up with the ceiling on her pillow.

      ‘What’s a boutique hotel?’

      ‘Something very small and exquisite and strictly for people who don’t want to be surrounded by hundreds of people every time they step out of their bedroom.’

      ‘Don’t tell me…strictly for the very rich because privacy costs.’

      ‘Of course. Like I said, I’m a businessman. I’m starting with one in Borneo.’

      ‘Borneo,’ she echoed sceptically.

      ‘Trust me…the next must-go-to destination. It’ll be small, eco friendly and built to the highest standards. And here’s where you come in…’ Nick paused. ‘You spend the next two months running the show. You set up the computer system for all the accounting et cetera, you liaise with the architects—’

      ‘I don’t know the first thing about…hotels. I can’t even think when the last time I stayed in one was.’

      ‘Which I’ll make sure to put right,’ Nick murmured. ‘Think about it, Rose. You won’t be able to live here while work’s being done…I’m offering to relieve you of the stress of living out of an overnight bag on a friend’s floor. I’ll put you up in three separate hotels in London over the next two months so that you can have firsthand experience of what makes a good one work, and in addition I’ll pay you double what you would have been earning. In return, you can try your hand at something other than sitting in front of a terminal all day long.’

      Nick, who donated vast sums to charity on an annual basis, had only ever had nodding acquaintance with altruism on a personal level and he was finding that it felt good to be at the giving end of largesse. In truth, he could increase her salary multiple times and not notice the difference to his bank balance, but he was shrewd enough to know that there was a thin line between a reasonable proposition and a contemptuous act of charity for which he would probably find his hand roundly bitten off.

      Because this woman snapped and snarled and yapped and bit and he was looking forward to taming her. He decided to look on it as his pet project. All work and no play…well, he knew the saying well enough and, as he wasn’t playing at the moment, he would devote all of his formidable attention to digging underneath that prickly exterior to the woman inside. And doing her a good turn in the bargain by fishing her out of a pretty nasty hole.

      ‘Don’t you have people who could do the job for you?’

      ‘Don’t you have any ability to just say thank you and go away to count your blessings?’

      ‘Why do I get the feeling that there’s an ulterior motive to your offer?’ Rose asked. She felt driven to find holes in his proposal even though the rational side of her was already calculating the benefits of what he was offering. She had worked long enough for the company to know that they would not have a problem in giving her unpaid leave while she sorted out her domestic situation and the thought of something different was appealing. Stepping out of her comfort zone was appealing. Appealing and frightening at the same time.

      ‘Because you’re inherently suspicious.’ Nick shrugged and stood up. ‘If you’re not interested, then I’ll leave you to get on with the messy business of sorting your house out with the help of your friendly bank manager.’

      ‘Wait!’

      She raced behind him as he headed for the front door, glancing sideways as she did so, where the shimmer of dust in the air reminded her of the generosity of his offer.

      ‘What if I fail? I have no experience…’

      ‘Have faith in yourself. You won’t fail. I take it that that’s a yes?’

      ‘I shall have to clear it with my boss.’

      ‘And if you do take up this opportunity…’ Nick lazily appraised her, from her worn bedroom slippers to the shapeless dungarees, which, he now thought, should only ever be worn by labourers on a building site ‘…you’ll have to do something about your wardrobe.’

      Rose went bright red. It occurred to her that actually working with the man might just prove to be more stressful than sorting out her situation without his help.

      ‘I don’t go to work in these clothes,’ she said coolly. ‘I put them on because anything else would have been stupid.’ Lily would have managed to look fabulous in faded, old clothes but she had to stop comparing herself to Lily. ‘If you don’t think that I’m decorative enough to work with you, then you might as well tell me now because I don’t intend to buy a brand-new wardrobe for a two-month stint. And also…’ she drew herself up and stared him straight in the eyes ‘…if I do happen to work for you, then I don’t want you to think that I’m doing it because I actually like you.’

      ‘Very tactful.’

      ‘I’m just being honest.’

      ‘And, believe me, I find that very refreshing, especially in a woman.’ He was so accustomed to women using their bodies and their wiles to get what they wanted that the metaphorical bucket of water Rose kept tipping over him was doing him no end of good. He even contemplated the possibility of taking a little time out to show her the ropes.

      ‘There might be some travel involved,’ he continued. ‘Do you have a passport?’

      Rose nodded as the parameters broadened around her.

      ‘And because you’ll be working for me directly, I will set you up with an office inside my place.’

      ‘Whoa. Stop right there. I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because…because it would be a lot more professional for me to…ah…work in an office environment.’ She envisaged somewhere imbued with his masculine scent, with the open door to his bedroom within throwing distance. She shied away from the image with an inward yelp of dismay.

      ‘You’ll be there on your own,’ Nick said, amused at her discomfiture. ‘And, face it, this is my private project. I can hardly bring you into the office, sit you down and not expect you to become an object of curiosity.’

      ‘Well, you could explain…’

      ‘Dangerous curiosity…’ Nick expanded silkily, waiting in telling silence as her eyes widened. ‘People would naturally assume that because I had brought you in to work on my personal project, we were an item.’

      ‘An item?’

      ‘Involved with one another. Going out. Lovers. Now, I don’t much give a damn what other people think of me, but I don’t bring my private life to work.’

      ‘But you…we…we don’t have a private life,’ Rose protested, going bright red.

      ‘Immaterial. Tongues will wag and I can’t have my power diminished. Does that answer your objection?’

      ‘Of course, I can see your point of view, but…you have to see mine as well…’

      ‘And that is…?’ He leaned against the door and stuck his hands into his pockets.

      ‘Well…’ Rose

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