by Jennie Adams
“Kiss me again, Christianna.”
Nate bent his head once more and acknowledged the need. For fulfillment in her, yes. Definitely that. But for other things, too. Undefined things that even now threatened him in ways he couldn’t comprehend.
“Nate.” Just his name, breathed out on the same kind of sexy little sigh that had tortured him once before.
Her response made him crazy and his imagination went wild. He pictured them together at his cottage, making love night after night.
Except Nate didn’t do night after night, with all it entailed. It was too easy to forget it in her arms. He fought for sanity. Fought to keep from losing himself. From free-falling into something that came as close to scaring him as anything could.
JENNIE ADAMS
Australian author Jennie Adams grew up in a rambling farmhouse surrounded by books, and by people who loved reading them. She decided at a young age to be a writer, but it took many years and a lot of scenic detours before she sat down to pen her first romance novel. Jennie is married with two adult children, and has worked in a number of careers and voluntary positions, including transcription typist and preschool assistant. Jennie makes her home in a small inland city in New South Wales. In her leisure time she loves long, rambling walks, starting knitting projects that she rarely finishes, chatting with friends, trips to the movies and new dining experiences
Her Millionaire Boss
JENNIE ADAMS
Dear Reader,
Like Chrissy Gable in this book, I enjoy growing plants and flowers—and, like Chrissy, I meet with mixed success. My latest gardening projects include six strawberry plants yielding lovely fruit—and two producing brown blobs—and a small flower garden, which I confess looks better since my daughter took over most of its care.
I love to hear from readers, and can be contacted through my Web site at www.jennieadams.net
Jennie Adams
For Mark, because my world needs your light.
For my children, my treasures always.
And for “the bats”—you know who you are.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU’RE not going into Henry’s sick room, Margaret. Not like this.’ Not with a lawyer at her side and greed all over her face.
Chrissy Gable took a deep breath of antiseptic-laden hospital air, and looked her boss’s second wife right in her calculating eyes. ‘His health is too precarious to risk upsetting him. Surely you can understand that?’
With her heart pounding hard, Chrissy faced the other woman. Even the usual weight of waist-length hair bundled onto her head and bound with a couple of chopsticks felt leaden at this moment. If Margaret had cared even the slightest bit for her elderly husband’s health…
Instead, she had delayed her return to Melbourne until the end of her vacation at Mount Selwyn. Why let duty interfere with her fun?
Henry didn’t deserve a wife like Margaret. He hadn’t deserved to be deserted by his grandson six years ago, either.
Nate Barrett had transferred to the overseas arm of the company just weeks before Chrissy had commenced working for Henry. The man had shucked his grandfather off like excess baggage, even though Henry had all but raised him as a son.
Chrissy had wondered if her boss would ever get over the hurt. Henry may have been recently married, but Nate’s leaving had shredded the older man’s heart. Chrissy had made it her task to help her boss through the pain. She and Henry had formed a deep bond. She would watch over him now, too.
‘Get out of my way,’ Margaret grated.
I don’t think so. Margaret might have tricked Henry long enough once to get a ring on her finger. He might now be too proud, gentlemanly or inexplicably smitten to cast the fifty-year-old off.
To Chrissy’s mind, however, the woman lacked decidedly in redeeming features. ‘Lose the lawyer, and I’ll be happy to move.’
‘I’m Henry’s wife.’ Margaret’s hands curled into fists. ‘I have every right—’
‘Every right to what? Upset him? Cause a second stroke that could be fatal?’ Did Margaret’s greed know no bounds? ‘He’s too ill to deal with a lawyer right now, so I suggest you take your Power of Attorney form and—’
‘How do you know…?’ Margaret broke off and pushed forward. ‘Out of my way. You’re just his secretary.’
The man at her side followed.
‘It’s PA, actually, and I’m not shifting.’ Chrissy held her ground in front of the closed door of the hospital room but her nerves screamed. She couldn’t let Margaret coerce Henry into signing anything. Nor could she allow the woman to have Henry declared mentally unfit.
She had to stop this, but how? One thought formed. Desperately, she snatched at it. ‘Henry came around. Was completely lucid. Earlier. While I sat with him.’
A guilty heat stole into her face at the fib, but oh, how she wished it could be true. ‘He’s perfectly capable of looking after his own affairs.’
‘That’s a lie.’ Margaret leaned forward, her thin mouth pinched. ‘He’s been as good as a vegetable since they brought him here yesterday.’
Righteous anger roared through Chrissy at Margaret’s callous attitude. ‘If I’d started work for him just a few months earlier, I’d have stopped you ever getting your snares…’ She broke off. ‘You seem to think you know an awful lot about his condition, for someone who’s only just arrived.’
‘A nurse—’ Margaret clamped her lips shut, but Chrissy got the picture. Margaret had wasted no time in ensuring she had a spy in the place.
‘Mrs Montbank has rights,’ the lawyer announced. ‘You are attempting to stand in the way of her exercising those rights.’
‘Mr Montbank has rights, too.’ Forget the slimy legal eagle, she thought, and instead she turned to Margaret again. ‘I repeat, I won’t let you in. You just want to shove Henry into Assisted Care and go your merry way, spending all his money.’
‘How dare you?’ Air hissed through Margaret’s clenched teeth. The truth of Chrissy’s accusations filled her eyes. ‘What do you know? Who’s told you—?’
‘Mrs Montbank.’ The lawyer stepped forward. ‘Let me handle this.’
‘Don’t bother.’ Chrissy spread herself before the closed door. Feet apart. Arms out. In the most threatening manner she could manage, she waggled her head and deployed the only defence she had. ‘Observe the headgear. Those are real porcelain chopsticks in there. I’ll use them if I have to!’
Margaret almost laughed, then her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘I simply know that Henry would never willingly give you control of anything more than your budgeted allowance, Margaret—not of his personal funds, and certainly not of his business dealings. I’ll testify to it if I have to.’
‘You little tramp.’ Fury radiated from Margaret. ‘You’re probably sleeping with him, hoping to take him from me.’ She raised a clawed hand.
Now, that was too much. How dared Margaret insult Henry that way? How dared she insult Chrissy’s relationship with her boss? Without conscious thought, Chrissy raised her arm toward the buried chopsticks.
‘Thanks for holding the fort while I got some air, sweetheart.’ A man strode toward the group. Tall. Compelling. Effortlessly confident.
His turbulent blue gaze locked with hers. �
��Showing off your hairstyling abilities again, huh?’
He gave an indulgent grin that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘You shouldn’t dislodge those valuable antique chopsticks though, babe. What if you dropped one and it shattered?’
Babe? Sweetheart? Antique chopsticks? Who was this man? He made absolutely no sense. Yet the tone of his voice, the slight caress in it, the height and breadth and strength of him, all swamped her senses.
Muted sounds of hospital, of metal trolleys on polished floors, of professionals conferring in lowered tones dimmed. She saw only the man before her. Heard only her heartbeat, drumming her confusion and awareness.
When the warning in his gaze gave way to sensual heat, she knew he felt the connection, too. Long moments of still, silent acknowledgement passed between them.
She didn’t know this man, yet everything within her screamed that she did. That she had always known him, and would always know him.
‘Missed me?’ He clasped her raised arm, drew it up and around until her fingers speared into the crisp black hair at his nape. His hand covered hers, held it there as her anger subsided and confusion and awareness rose.
‘Um, well—’
‘Indeed.’ One kiss on her forehead. Another pressed against the crease at the side of her mouth. A hint of lemon and ginger on his breath.
She tasted the flavour of it from the side of her mouth with her tongue.
His gaze followed the movement, darkened, then turned to warning as hot, firm lips moved to whisper into her ear. ‘Your name?’
‘Christianna. Chrissy. Gable. Chrissy Gable.’ Or should that be Chrissy Gabble? Her thoughts struggled through the veil of weariness and stress. Struggled to come to terms with him.
This knight errant. This rescuer who had scorched her with a look and the barest of touches. Only one identity made any sense, but it couldn’t be. No way would he have bothered to come back. When people left like that, they never returned. And she would never have this sort of feeling for—
‘Ah. Henry’s PA. I should have known.’ Lean fingers traced across her skin with an exploratory insistence that belied the businesslike tone of his words.
Chrissy’s eyelids drooped behind her glasses. Just when she thought she would give in to the call of her senses and tilt her face completely into his hand, he stopped and shifted away. Cleared his throat. Blanked his face into a mask of calm determination as he faced the tableau of lawyer and avaricious wife.
‘Get rid of the lawyer, Margaret, as Chrissy has suggested. Then you can see Henry. Otherwise, there’s nothing you can achieve here.’
Margaret puffed up angrily. ‘He’s my husband—’
‘Yes. And he’ll be watched over very carefully during every moment of his recovery. Do you understand?’
A look passed between him and Margaret. Burning anger on his part. Some other sort of burning on hers. Chrissy shivered at the impact of those clashing looks.
Margaret’s hard stare glanced off her, and turned back to the man at her side. Shifted subtly into something else. ‘You haven’t even been in the country. What is she to you?’
He looked at Chrissy, looked back to Margaret. ‘It’s none of your business.’
‘You didn’t think that way once.’
‘You’re delusional.’ He examined her face with a passionless look of his own.
Margaret looked as though she would like to say more, then clamped her mouth into an unflattering line. ‘This isn’t the end. I’ll see my husband with a thousand lawyers, if I want to.’ She spun and walked away, her companion silent at her side.
Chrissy reached for a businesslike approach to counteract the way this man had made her feel. Even now, she struggled to accept that he had brought out such reactions in her.
‘You’re Nate Barrett. Henry’s grandson.’ It was the only thing that made sense. No way would Margaret have given way to anyone else. Not even for a moment.
He inclined his head. ‘I’m afraid you had the advantage over me at first.’
Despite what Chrissy might have thought of Nate Barrett in past years, despite how he had made her feel just now, he had to be informed. ‘Margaret was trying to get Power of Attorney, or get Henry declared unfit. I’m not sure exactly which, but I doubt she would stop at much to get what she wants.’
The woman’s greed was legendary. ‘I discovered by accident that Henry put her on a budget twelve months ago, but her behaviour hasn’t changed much. Except to reveal her bitterness. I hate to think what could happen if she got control within the company, or of Henry’s personal funds.’
‘She won’t be allowed to try to get at him or his money again.’ He said it with absolute conviction.
Chrissy could see the similarities to Henry now. Nate shared the tall stature, the breadth of shoulders. The Montbank stamp had honed his features into a strong, to-die-for appeal.
He doesn’t hold a to-die-for appeal for me. He can’t, because I know what he’s really like. Who was she trying to convince, though? Besides herself?
The man abandoned his grandfather. Gave Henry years of heartache.
Why had he come? What had driven him? It couldn’t be more than a momentary guilt. Her resolve to dislike him stiffened. ‘Why did you pretend we’re involved?’
‘You do realise you were about to get yourself slapped with an assault charge? It doesn’t matter whether you intend to actually harm a person or not. If the threat is there…’ His mouth twitched. ‘Even if it is a threat of attack by killer chopsticks. What would you have done? Poked her eye out with one?’
‘Dear God.’ Suddenly she wished she could sit down. ‘I can’t believe—’
‘Hey.’ The humour left his face. ‘You’ve been under stress. I seriously doubt you’d have done her any harm.’
The stress might explain the chopstick idea. It didn’t explain why she had stood passively while Nate Barrett had kissed her.
To him it had been an act, of course. A way to stop her from getting into trouble with Margaret’s lawyer.
The surprise of it had got to her. That was why she hadn’t resisted. Now resentment and anger flared afresh. She met those feelings with relief. How dared he stroll back here after years of absence and kiss his grandfather’s PA just like that, anyway? ‘Couldn’t you have stopped me some other way?’
‘I had limited time and no idea who you were.’ Chrissy Gable had asked a simple question, yet Nate didn’t have a simple answer. Nothing had been simple since he got the message that his grandfather had suffered a stroke.
Wanting Chrissy was yet another complication. He didn’t want to admit that touching her hadn’t only been for the sake of expediency. ‘It seemed the best way to get that arm away from your weaponry without drawing the lawyer’s notice.’
A casual touch. Two simple kisses that should have meant nothing. Instead, that touch, those kisses, had started a slow burn in his gut. In truth, the burn had started the moment he’d locked gazes with her. And it hadn’t stopped yet.
‘I guess I should thank you, even if you’ve given Margaret the impression that we’re close, and that I go around wearing priceless artefacts in my hair, instead of store-bought kitchen implements.’ Chrissy’s mouth pursed. ‘I couldn’t find anything else, you see, so I thought the chopsticks would do.’
He gave a cursory nod. Wondered if her lateral thinking extended to other areas of her life. Like her love life. His interest in her burned, but it wouldn’t be wise to act on it.
Relationships—the ones that mattered—didn’t work out for Nate. He had proved it first with his mother, then later with Henry. Nowadays, he preferred to be alone and to keep his involvements casual. It was the sensible choice.
Chrissy Gable didn’t strike him as the casual type. ‘Very inventive of you to raid the kitchen for hairdressing implements.’
‘Sometimes innovation is the only way.’ She toyed with the frames of her glasses.
His gaze roved over her. Nut-brown hair sat in a coronet of braids ato
p her head with the two chopsticks poking out at angles. A grey business suit clung to her slender body and made her eyes seem brighter.
Those eyes behind the enormous horn-rimmed glasses changed as he watched her. Chilled. She might have responded to him minutes ago, but she clearly didn’t want to accept the attraction. It was more, even, than that. ‘You’ve chosen not to like me, haven’t you?’
‘That’s true. I don’t like you.’ Attraction aside, she clearly meant it. ‘I also don’t know that I can trust you with Henry, any more than I could trust Margaret. But you’re the only hope I’ve got.’
‘You have no choice but to trust me.’ I share the attraction, Chrissy Gable, and I wonder what we’re going to do about that?
The answer should be a clear-cut nothing, but he wanted to explore further. To test out these reactions they shared. A little curiosity never hurt anyone. So maybe he would test the waters. If he felt so inclined.
It was a choice, after all, not a necessity. ‘Your distress call brought me. Did you think I wouldn’t answer it when I received your message?’
Her face told him she had thought precisely that. And had damned him for it, for the years of absence.
It amazed him that he wanted to defend himself. What could he say?
When my grandfather’s new wife turned up naked in my bed, I decided Australia wasn’t big enough for the three of us and I left?
He had made the choice so Henry wouldn’t have to know of Margaret’s behaviour. Now he was back for a short time and uncertain of his reception. He certainly wasn’t going to tell this prickly woman any of that! ‘It’s time I saw my grandfather.’
‘I’ll come with you.’ She chewed on her lip, before saying grudgingly, ‘Thank you for stopping me before. It’s appreciated, but it doesn’t mean I won’t make you sorry if you upset Henry yourself.’
‘He’s awake? Lucid?’ His heart thumped. In moments he might be speaking to Henry. Would his grandfather look at him with those same wounded eyes that had begged an explanation Nate hadn’t been able to give?
