Tempted by Her Billionaire Boss (The Tenacious Tycoons)

by Jennifer Hayward

  The guard beside her turned and surveyed the tall, elegant male in the chair dubiously. “You’re supposed to be abroad.”

  Harrison’s dark-as-night eyes glittered back at him. “I parked underground and took the back elevators.”

  “You don’t look like your picture.”

  Frankie wanted to scream not to poke the beast. The glimmer in the CEO’s eyes turned deadly. “I can assure you that she,” he said, nodding his head at Frankie, “whoever she is, is telling the truth. Being the workaholic I am, I’ve acquired glasses since my last headshot.”

  “You got some ID?”

  Her boss dipped his chin. “Front pocket.”

  The guard closest to Harrison retrieved his wallet from his jacket with a ginger movement that made Frankie hysterically wonder what he thought he’d do. Bite him? The man had his hands manacled behind his back. The guard flipped the wallet open, scanned it and went even grayer. Bile climbed the back of Frankie’s throat.

  “Apologies for the confusion.” The guard slid the wallet back into Harrison’s pocket. “The situation you two were in, the bottle of wine, we read it wrong.”

  Frankie’s gaze flew to the bottle of Pinot Grigio on the desk. Oh, heavens. The way Harrison had been leaning over her... They couldn’t possibly have thought this had been an assignation gone wrong...could they?

  The grim look on her boss’s face suggested that’s exactly what they’d thought. He directed a laser-like stare at the guard. “You have exactly five seconds to get these cuffs off me.”

  The guard retrieved his key and had Harrison stand and turn around while he removed the cuffs. “We work on rotation,” he said apologetically as he slid them off. “We’re new in this building. So sorry we didn’t recognize you, Mr. Grant.”

  Her boss extended his arms and flexed his wrists to get the circulation going. “Well, now that we’ve established we’re all new, except me,” he drawled, planting his gaze on Frankie, “and we’ve also determined this was not a romantic encounter with a bad ending for the sake of the gossip mill, perhaps you can tell me who you are, Goldilocks not being a suitable answer.”

  She bit down hard on her lip. “Francesca Masseria. Your brother’s PA. Actually...yours now.”

  “Is that so?” Frankie watched her career hang in the balance of that dark, unfathomable gaze. It occurred to her she’d be lucky to get shipped back to Coburn.

  The CEO turned his attention to the guards. “I suggest you start taking some regular walks around the building to learn who people are.”

  The guards nodded in unison. “Absolutely, sir.”

  Harrison waved a hand at them. “Go.”

  Frankie stood quaking in the center of the suddenly silent foyer as the silver-uniformed security detail disappeared toward the elevators. Her boss stood, legs planted wide in front of her, a distinct smoky gray aura surrounding his muscular frame.

  She liked him better in handcuffs.

  Harrison’s mouth curled in a mocking smile. “Despite what you may have heard otherwise, Ms. Masseria, I am not a monster.”

  The rebuke stung her into silence. “I’m to assume,” he drawled, “that you are filling in as Tessa’s replacement until we can find someone else?”

  “Actually Coburn has asked me to work with you until Tessa comes back.”

  His gaze narrowed on her speculatively. “Coburn thinks the sun rises and sets with your appearance in the office every morning, Ms. Masseria. How could we possibly expect him to get along without you for six months?”

  Warmth stung her cheeks at the unexpected compliment. “I’m sure he’ll manage,” she demurred. “Nobody’s irreplaceable.”

  “Tessa is.”

  She flinched. He considered her for a moment, his unnervingly precise gaze seeming to take a visual X-ray of her for further examination. “I need some sleep,” he concluded. “Take your dinner and the wine, go home, get some rest and we’ll talk about this in the morning.”

  Frankie took a step toward him. “I have some—”

  He lifted a hand. “I have just flown sixteen hours to get home to be told my brilliant right hand and irreplaceable PA is in the hospital having a baby while in the midst of helping me with a crucial acquisition. I’ve been put in handcuffs by my own security team and had guns pointed at my face. And if that isn’t enough, my body is heavily protesting the jump in time zones. The only thing,” he underscored harshly, “that is going to make me feel like a human being at this point in time is a good stiff drink and a horizontal position on a bed that is my own. And you, Ms. Masseria, are the only thing standing between me and it. So unless you would like to finish this conversation there, put your shoes on and let’s call it a night.”

  Her mouth fell open. Had he actually just said that? And why did she find that idea vastly exciting instead of incredibly inappropriate?

  His eyes widened imperceptibly, then narrowed. “Joking, Ms. Masseria. Go home.”

  She looked down at her bare feet on the marble, her muted pink toenails the ultimate in complete humiliation. Never in the six months she had worked for Coburn had she ever acted this unprofessional.

  But, she told herself lifting her chin, the first step toward redemption was moving on. They would come back in the morning as he’d said, she would show him what she was made of and it would all be fine.

  “I will see you in the morning, then. We’ll go through the urgent items then.”

  He inclined his head. She turned and headed toward her desk. Harrison’s deep baritone halted her. “Ms. Masseria?”

  She turned around.

  “Which hospital is Tessa in?”

  “Mount Sinai.”

  The humor that flickered in his eyes then caught her off guard. It made him look almost human. “Do you think you can send her some flowers from me in the morning without calling in the cavalry?”

  She pressed her lips together. “I’ll have it taken care of.”

  The beast was safely ensconced in his office repacking his briefcase when she ducked her head in to say she was leaving. He wished her an absentminded good-night and told her to take a taxi. Exhausted, she did. When she got home she swallowed down two painkillers for her throbbing head, reheated and ate half the noodles, then immersed herself in a hot bath.

  She had just laid her head on the pillow when her cell phone rang. She frowned and pulled it off the bedside table. Unknown caller. She was about to decline the call when the thought they’d call back and wake her up made her reach for it.

  “Francesca,” she murmured sleepily into the phone.

  “Just checking that whack on your head didn’t do you in.”

  Harrison Grant’s deep voice sent her jackknifing upright. How the heck did he have her mobile number? The company directory. Right.

  “I was concerned about you. I should have sent you to the hospital to have your head looked at.”

  “I’m fine,” she croaked. Without that arctic chill in it, his voice was the sexiest thing she’d ever heard over a phone line—deep, velvety and laced with a husky fatigue that reached all the way to her nerve endings.

  Hadn’t he been about to go to bed? Was he calling from bed?

  She shook her head, wincing as the throbbing reminded her she shouldn’t do that. How could she possibly be experiencing erotic images of a man who would likely send her packing tomorrow?

  “Do you live with anyone?”

  She blinked. “I—I don’t think that’s the kind of question I have to answer, is it?”

  The warm, very masculine laughter that reached her from the other end of the line made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “I wasn’t inquiring about your dating life, Francesca. I was going to say if you do have a roommate or significant other, you should get them to wake you up every few hours to make sure you don’t have a concussion. They can be very serious.”

  “Oh.” Frankie swallowed back a fresh wave of mortification. “That’s very thoughtful of you. I do—have a roommate—that i
s. She’s out but I’ll do that.”

  “Good. See you in the morning, then.”

  She muttered good-night and disconnected the call. Punching down her pillow, she welcomed the breeze that wafted in through her old Victorian window, cooling her heated cheeks. Harrison Grant could add ridiculously naive to his new PA’s description after tonight’s debacle. That was, if he chose to keep her... She wasn’t laying odds on it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HARRISON’S MOUTH WAS DRY—parched with anticipation. His entire body was rigid with the expectation of physical satisfaction as the beautiful brunette rose from his office chair and pushed him down into it. Her soft, lush thighs hitting his as she straddled him made his heart catch in his throat. The lacy black stockings she wore with garters made an appearance, sending his blood coursing through his veins. He had to have her. Now.

  Her long, silky dark hair brushed his face as she bent and kissed him. His hands reached blindly for the lace on her thighs, needing to touch. She slapped his fingers away. “Wait,” she instructed in a husky, incredibly sexy voice. “Not yet.”

  He started to protest, but she pressed her fingers to his lips, reached behind her and pulled out something metal that glinted in the dim light of the desk lamp. Handcuffs. Mother of God.

  He jackknifed to a sitting position. Sweat dripped from his body. Reality slapped him in the face as he discovered he wasn’t being seduced in his office chair by a stunning brunette; he was in his own bed. Stunning disappointment followed. His racing heart wanted her. His body was pulsing, crying out for her to finish what she’d started...

  An appalled feeling spread through him. He only knew one set of eyes that particular shade of gray. His new PA. He had been fantasizing about his new PA.

  A harsh curse left his mouth. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and brought his breathing under control. His dream had been wholly inappropriate. Never had he brought sex into the office and never would he. The guns and the handcuffs had truly pushed him over the edge.

  And the stockings. That might actually have been the worst.

  The birds were already singing. He poured himself into the shower and attempted to clear his head. The dull throb in his temple he’d been harboring for days was still there, reminding him normal human beings needed at least six hours of sleep on a regular basis to function at optimal performance.

  His mouth twisted. Not that anyone considered him a normal human being. They thought he was a machine.

  He toweled himself off, put his aching body in front of a cup of coffee and the newspaper and tried to focus on the rather mundane headlines. But his utterly incongruous dream kept working its way into his head.

  He never had fantasies like that. He identified his urges, satisfied them according to a convenient slot in his insane schedule with a woman who didn’t mind his lack of commitment, then he filed them back where they belonged: extracurricular activity that came after work.

  His coffee cup went thump on the breakfast table. There was no way he could have that woman working for him. He took a last gulp of coffee, tossed the paper aside and headed for the gym in his building. He’d talk to Coburn when he got in. Tell him this just wasn’t going to work.

  Coburn strolled into his office a few minutes after he’d landed there, looking disgustingly fresh and sharp in a navy blue Armani suit. That they were both early risers who appreciated the benefits of physical exercise was about their only similarity. Even their intent in doing it was different. Harrison slotted it into his schedule like any other appointment, because if he didn’t he’d be regularly seeing a heart specialist somewhere around fifty. It was in the Grant family genes.

  Coburn, on the other hand, pursued mad daredevil-type sports that skirted death on a regular basis. Paragliding, mountain climbing, bicycle racing in European countries with tiny alpine ledges for tracks. Not to mention what it did for his physique, which maintained the steady flow of females in and out of his life so there would never be a dearth where he’d have to consider what the hell he was actually doing. His ex-wife had messed him up and messed him up good. But since that topic had long been considered subject non grata, Harrison began with the topic of the hour.

  “How selfless of you to loan me Francesca Masseria.” He sat back in his desk chair and took his Kenyan brew with him.

  “Isn’t it?” Coburn grinned. He took the seat opposite him. “Sometimes I can sacrifice for the greater good, H.”

  Harrison frowned. He hated when Coburn called him H and he knew it. “How many times have you slept with her?”

  His brother gave him a look of mock offence. “Not even once. Although it’s tempting. If God designed the perfect woman and set her down on this earth, it’d be Frankie and those legs of hers.”

  “Francesca,” Harrison corrected, refusing to go there. “And you don’t speak about an employee in that manner.”

  You just had hot, explicit dreams about them.

  Coburn rolled his eyes.

  “You’ve moaned about not having a good PA for years, then when you get one you love, you hand her over to me. Why?”

  His brother trained his striking blue gaze on him the way he did the board when he wanted them on their knees. “Self-preservation. Frankie is a knockout. Of late, I’ve discovered she has a crush on me, although not one of her very proper bones would ever admit it. It’s only a matter of time before we end up in bed together and I want to prevent that from happening because I want to keep her as my PA.” He shrugged. “So I send her to the school of Harrison for six months, you train her with that regimental authority of yours, and I get her back when I am fully immersed in someone else, better than she was before.”

  If Harrison hadn’t known his younger brother as well as he did, he would have assumed he was joking. But this was Coburn, who possessed every genetic trait the youngest born was created to feature, including an exaggerated sense of the need for his own independence from everything, including serious relationships with females and his responsibilities to Grant Industries.

  “You do realize if HR heard even a quarter of that speech, I’d have to fire you.”

  Coburn lifted a Rolex-clad hand. “Then I retire to the south of Italy, road-race most of the year and manage my shares from there. Either works for me.”

  Harrison tamped down the barely restrained aggression he felt toward his younger brother. “She’s not experienced enough for the job.”

  “This is Frankie we’re talking about. You’ll see when you meet her.”

  “Francesca,” Harrison corrected again. “And I met her last night.”

  Coburn frowned. “How? You’ve only just gotten back.”

  “She was working late. Likely trying to make sense of things with Tessa’s abrupt departure... I stopped in for a file.”

  “Your own fault,” Coburn pointed out. “You’ve known for months Tessa was leaving and you did nothing about it.”

  Because he couldn’t bear to be without his mind-bogglingly good PA who made his insane life bearable. Avoidance had been preferable...

  “Anyway,” Coburn continued, “it’s the perfect solution for both of us. Frankie is incredible. Green, yes, but just as smart as Tessa. And,” he added, pausing for effect, “she speaks Russian.”

  “Russian?”

  “Fluently. Plus Italian, but I’m thinking the Russian is going to be more useful to you right now.”

  “How does she speak Russian?”

  Coburn frowned. “I think she said her best friend is Russian. Something like that...”

  Given his solitary goal in life at the moment was to obliterate Anton Markovic, the man who’d put his father in his grave, and negotiations to make it happen were at an extremely fragile stage with Leonid Aristov balking at the deal to acquire his company, a PA who could speak Russian could be a very valuable asset.

  The amusement faded from Coburn’s face. “You don’t have to keep at this, you know? Father is ten feet under. He’s never going to see you bring M
arkovic down. You’re doing this for you, Harrison, not him. And lord knows you need a life.”

  His hands curled tightly around his coffee mug, his knuckles gleaming white. His younger brother’s lack of interest in avenging the man who had built this company was a position he had long understood. His personal opinions on how he lived his life? Meaningless, when he had always been the only person holding this company together.

  He put his coffee cup down on the desk before he crushed it between his fingers, and focused his gaze on his brother. “How about you keep playing with those international markets and making us money like you do and save your philosophical sermons for someone who cares?”

  Coburn’s easygoing expression slid into one approaching the frigidness of his. “Someday you’re going to realize that cold heart of yours has left you alone in this big empty world, H. And when you do, nobody is going to care anymore. But that’s okay, because you will have your vengeance.”

  Harrison flashed him a “see yourself out” look. Coburn stood, straightened his suit coat and paused by the door. “I gave you Frankie because you need her. But if you so much as cause one tear to roll down her face, you’ll answer to me for it. You hear me?”

  His brother disappeared in a wave of expensive aftershave. Harrison glanced at the clock on the wall. Seven-thirty. It was 7:30 a.m. and already he was exhausted. His life exhausted him.

  * * *

  Frankie came to work armed and ready, although that might be an unfortunate turn of phrase given last night’s occurrences. “Okay,” she admitted to Rocky, who still looked less than thrilled to be in his new surroundings, but marginally calmer than yesterday, “let’s just say that was a bad choice of words.”

  She had worn her most expensive suit today, which wasn’t very expensive given her limited budget for a wardrobe after paying rent for the brownstone apartment she shared with Josephine. But she’d altered it so it looked custom, the lightweight, charcoal-gray tailored jacket and skirt hugging her curves without broadcasting the depth of them. The color did something for her dark hair and gray eyes she considered inferior to those of her striking female siblings, and her chignon, well, it was the most perfect she’d ever attempted. Geri from Accounting had looked noticeably envious this morning on the elevator, and if there was a morning she needed to win their dueling hairstyle competition, it was this.