In Bed With the Boss: The Brazilian Boss’s Innocent MistressThe Billionaire Boss’s Innocent BrideThe Surgeon Boss’s Bride

by Sarah Morgan

  ‘We could get both and share,’ he suggested.

  She closed the menu and met his eyes across the table. Sharing a dessert seemed a little bit intimate but, then, so too did the fact that they were now the only people in the restaurant. The lights were low, the background music soft and romantic—even the single red rose on the table added to the atmosphere of courtship.

  ‘Maybe I’ll just have coffee,’ she said. ‘I’m on call again tomorrow from eight in the morning so I might have to cut my gym class short.’

  ‘I hardly think you’d need to bother about excess calories,’ he said as he closed the menu. ‘You’ve got a BMI of about nineteen.’

  ‘I hope you’re not implying I’m too thin,’ she said with a quelling glance. ‘I’m in the normal weight range for my height.’

  His eyes went to the slight swell of her breasts before coming back to mesh with hers. ‘It’s an addiction, you know.’

  ‘What?’ she asked with a pert tilt of her head. ‘Looking at women leeringly?’

  His dark blue eyes glinted. ‘Exercise,’ he said. ‘People get high on the endorphins. They can’t go a day without working out or they get agitated and edgy.’

  ‘I can assure you I have no such addiction,’ she said with a little toss of her head. ‘I just enjoy the thinking time it gives me, as well as the cardiovascular fitness. Anyway, what about you?’ Her eyes ran over his toned upper body. ‘Your body mass index is probably just as low and your percentage body fat percentage is certainly below mine.’

  ‘That’s true, but I try and keep a healthy balance between work commitments and exercise,’ he said. ‘Pushing your body to the limits all the time is damaging in the long term. Besides, the hours we work are punishing enough, without overloading the body with even more stress.’

  ‘Thank you for the advice but I am not a gym junkie with no respect for my own well-being,’ she said. ‘I do actually know how to look after myself. I am a doctor, remember.’

  ‘Was it your choice to do neurosurgery or something your father expected you to do?’ he asked a few moments later when Roberto had brought them their coffees.

  ‘It was my choice,’ she said. ‘From when I was young I loved hearing about my father’s work. I was fascinated with neurosurgery, the delicacy of it, the skill and dedication it takes to become highly competent. I never considered anything other than following in his footsteps, although, as I said earlier, I see myself in paediatrics eventually.’

  ‘So what about marriage and babies?’ he asked as he stirred his coffee. ‘Is that part of your overall plan?’

  She toyed with the handle of her cup with her fingers, her eyes shifting away from his. ‘Like every other career-woman, I’m a little worried I might end up childless because of circumstances beyond my control.’

  ‘Circumstances such as what?’

  Her eyes met his briefly. ‘Well, I’ve got another four years of study, meaning I’ll be thirty-one when I finish. So if I haven’t found a partner by my mid-thirties who is also keen to have children straight away, fertility issues might be a problem.’

  ‘It’s certainly a problem most professional women have to face,’ he agreed. ‘But you could always suspend your training if you wanted to. That’s at least one option female trainees in years past didn’t have the opportunity to do. The Australasian College of Surgeons has become one of the most progressive in the world for facilitating surgical training for women.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘And I would do it if the right man came along but I don’t see that happening any time soon.’

  ‘Ah such cynicism in one so young,’ he drawled. ‘Maybe your standards are a little too high. Have you considered that possibility?’

  She gave him an arctic look. ‘No, and I have no intention of lowering them. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a man to treat me with respect and deep and abiding love for the term of our natural lives.’

  ‘So you’re a romantic, are you?’ he asked.

  ‘No more than the average woman.’

  ‘Are your parents happily married?’

  Georgie hesitated for a fraction of a second before she answered him. Her mother gave the appearance of being perfectly content with the luxurious life her position as the non-working wife of a very successful man afforded her, but Georgie often wondered if she filled her days with bridge games and book club meetings in an effort to make up for the loneliness of enduring a marriage that had not been an overtly affectionate one. She couldn’t remember a single time when her parents had kissed in front of her, apart from a rather formal peck on the cheek whenever her father had left on one of his overseas conferences. She hadn’t even seen them hold hands in public. They shared a bedroom but that, of course, didn’t necessarily mean their relationship was still a physical one.

  ‘They’re still together after thirty years,’ she finally said.

  ‘You didn’t really answer my question.’

  ‘That’s because it’s none of your business.’

  He smiled at her pert expression. ‘You don’t need to get all prickly, Georgie,’ he said. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m a bit of a romantic myself. I’m a great believer in the institution of marriage. My mother has been married twice, and very happily, too.’

  ‘You mentioned you have a stepfather,’ Georgie said. ‘Does that mean your own father died?’

  A shadow flitted over his face but disappeared just as quickly. ‘Yeah,’ he said, shifting his gaze a fraction. ‘I was six years old.’

  ‘What happened?’ she asked softly.

  His eyes came back to hers, the flicker of pain in their bluer than blue depths striking at the tender core of Georgie’s heart. ‘Tractor accident,’ he said in an emotionless tone that she instinctively knew was a facade. ‘It rolled when a part of the bank he was driving on collapsed.’

  ‘That must have been truly devastating for you and your mother and your sister,’ she said.

  He looked at her, his eyes narrowing slightly. ‘I don’t recall telling you I had a sister,’ he said. ‘Have you been discussing me with the staff?’

  Georgie felt her face start to heat. ‘Jennifer Patterson in A and E mentioned you had a sister who’d been injured in an accident,’ she explained. ‘I wasn’t searching for information, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘She’s my half-sister,’ he said after a small but taut silence.

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘She turned sixteen a few weeks ago.’

  Georgie ran her tongue over the dryness of her lips. ‘Is she OK now?’

  His eyes met hers again. ‘Yes. She made a complete recovery. She’s a good kid, works hard at school and loves horses and the usual girl stuff. She’s coming to stay with me this weekend. It’s my mother and stepfather’s anniversary so I thought I’d offer to take Hannah to the beach and do some shopping.’

  Georgie felt her antagonism towards him melt like ice cream under the force of a blowtorch. He sounded like the perfect big brother, adoring, supportive and affectionate. She could hear it in his voice, the love he had for his sister, and it made her wonder if she had been a little too hasty in her judgement of him.

  She fidgeted with her coffee-cup again, her eyes not quite managing to meet his. ‘I … I feel very bad about what happened yesterday,’ she began awkwardly, ‘you know, me knocking you off your bike like that. I didn’t really apologise properly and when I heard what had happened to your sister and the patient you had three weeks ago I started to understand why you had been so … so …’

  ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘No lasting damage was done.’

  She bit her lip as she lifted his gaze back to his. ‘You’re being very gracious about it. You have a perfect right to be annoyed. I should have looked before I opened the door but I was in a hurry to get to the hospital and … well, you know the rest.’

  ‘It’s fine, Georgie,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did. I can assure you it’s not my usual
style at all.’

  She smiled at him tentatively. ‘So you really are the laid-back nice guy everyone told me you were?’

  He smiled back at her, the whiteness of his teeth against the tan of his face making her realise all over again how very attractive he was. ‘I’m not an overbearing ogre,’ he said. ‘But I do have high standards when it comes to the care of patients. I have a responsibility to train you and as long as you are prepared to work hard, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.’

  ‘In spite of who my father is?’ she asked with a little arch of one brow.

  He held her look for a lengthy moment, his smile slowly fading. ‘I realise that it’s often hard for a family member to understand or even recognise the issues other people have with the ones they love. Your father is what I would consider a difficult personality, but that’s not to say he isn’t a good father. After all, even the world’s most murderous dictators still went home and hugged their own children.’

  Georgie felt her hackles begin to rise all over again. ‘I’m not sure I like the idea of my father being compared to a murderous dictator.’

  ‘Would you agree he is at times a difficult person to deal with?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘My father has always been wonderfully supportive and easy to get along with.’

  ‘That’s probably because you’ve got him wrapped around your little finger,’ he said. ‘You only have to speak to a few of the theatre staff who’ve worked with him in the past to find out he was an arrogant, bombastic, instrument-throwing tyrant when things didn’t go his way. I certainly hope you’re not going to follow suit for I will not tolerate it.’

  She gritted her teeth, fighting the urge to toss the contents of her coffee-cup in his face. ‘You really can’t help yourself, can you?’ she asked.

  His eyes went to the white-knuckled grip she had on her cup before returning to her flashing brown eyes. ‘Rule number one, Dr Willoughby,’ he said. ‘If you throw that coffee in my face, you will be off the training scheme so fast you won’t know what hit you.’

  Georgie got to her feet so abruptly her thighs bumped the edge of the table, sending the contents of her cup straight into his lap. She swallowed in horror as the dark stain spread, her heart thumping irregularly as the silence began to thicken the air until breathing became difficult.

  He slowly got to his feet, his expression rigid with anger as he mopped up the spillage with his napkin.

  ‘I—I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to do that.’

  His eyes cut to hers. ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course not. It was an accident.’

  He tossed the soiled napkin on the table. ‘You seem very good at attracting accidents, don’t you, Dr Willoughby?’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Gina asked as she came back in.

  Ben turned to face the Italian woman with a reassuring smile. ‘It’s OK, Gina,’ he said, ‘just a little accident. I’ll settle the bill and take Dr Willoughby home before we do any more damage.’

  ‘You are both tired from working all day,’ Gina said as she cleared the table. ‘You doctors are all the same. Working, working, working.’

  Georgie waited until Gina had gone to fetch the bill before saying, ‘I’d like to pay my share.’

  ‘No.’

  She frowned at him. ‘What do you mean, no?’

  ‘I asked you out for a meal so I pay. That’s rule number two.’

  She folded her arms and waited while he paid the bill. After saying their goodbyes to Gina and Roberto, he escorted her out to his car, his hand at her elbow a little too forceful for her liking. She tried to edge away but he was having none of it. His fingers tightened as he swung her round to face him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked as his pelvis brushed against hers.

  His dark brooding gaze locked down on hers. ‘You’re rather attached to the stuck-up-little-princess role, aren’t you?’ he asked.

  She tossed her hair back with a flicking movement of her head. ‘I am nothing of the sort. You, on the other hand, are performing rather brilliantly the role of the overbearing boss.’

  His mouth lifted in a smirk. ‘I bet you’re expecting me to kiss you right now. I can see it in your eyes. That’s how it goes, isn’t it, Georgie? Seduce the difficult boss so he gives you a glowing report at the end of your term.’

  She looked at him in outrage, her face flaming with colour. ‘I’d rather kiss a cane toad,’ she bit out.

  He laughed and pulled her even closer, the dampness of his coffee-soaked groin seeping through the thin cotton of her drawstring trousers. ‘Have you ever kissed a cane toad?’ he asked.

  Georgie felt her heart begin to leap about in her chest. She had to get out of his arms before she was tempted to press even closer to his hard warmth. ‘Let me go.’

  Ben’s eyes went to her mouth, the temptation to lower his to cover its soft pouting contours almost overwhelming. He could feel his body stirring, the hot surge of pulsing blood making him feel like throwing caution to the winds and offering her a brief fling just for the heck of it. He didn’t think it would take too much to convince her to sleep with him. She was clearly fighting her attraction to him, as he was to her. He could feel it every time they touched, the current of sexual energy like the zap of a laser gun. Her body was so close to his he could feel the outline of her feminine mound, the thought of cupping it in his hand and exploring her with his fingers almost tipping him out of the bounds of self-control.

  ‘If you do not let me go this instant, I will open my mouth and scream so loudly the police will hear it out at Parramatta,’ she threatened, with flashing eyes.

  Ben had no reason to believe she wouldn’t do it. She was a feisty little thing and the last thing he needed was a trumped-up assault charge thrown at him to ruin his reputation. He dropped his hands from her arms and stepped back from her.

  ‘I’ll make my own way home,’ she said with an imperious hitch of her chin.

  ‘Rule number three is I make sure you return home safely.’ He opened the car door and nodded his head towards the passenger seat. ‘Get in.’

  Georgie stood her ground. ‘Get lost,’ she shot back, and then added insultingly, ‘Anyway, I don’t want to get dirty in that stupid farm car of yours with its bits of hay and smell of cows. I’m going to get a cab.’

  His jaw locked with anger as he watched her stalk to a cab parked a short distance away. Stuck-up, little city-girl snob, he thought. Slamming the passenger door of his utility, he strode around to the driver’s side, still muttering under his breath as he arrived at his apartment block ten minutes later.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘GOSH, whatever happened to your brand new trousers?’ Rhiannon asked as soon as Georgie came in later that night.

  Georgie looked down at the brown stain on the front of her white cotton drawstring trousers, a funny sensation passing deep and low through her belly at the thought of how it had got there. ‘Um … I spilt my coffee.’

  Rhiannon’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Who’d you have coffee with?’

  Georgie avoided her friend’s piercing gaze by making a show of emptying her gym bag. ‘It wasn’t a date so stop looking at me like that,’ she said.

  ‘So who was it? Someone from the gym?’

  ‘It was my boss.’

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ Rhiannon said, folding her arms. ‘He doesn’t count.’

  Georgie turned to look at her. ‘What do you mean, he doesn’t count?’

  ‘He’s not your soul mate.’

  This time is was Georgie who narrowed her eyes. ‘Have you been talking to Madame Celestia about me again?’

  Rhiannon gave her a sheepish look. ‘I happened to run into her buying a book on anger management at Bondi Junction Plaza.’

  ‘So she’s not a happy medium, then?’ Georgie quipped.

  Rhiannon pursed her mouth. ‘Joke all you like, Georgie. Anyway, I mentioned how you’d had an accident yeste
rday and she warned me that with the current alignment of the planets in your star sign you could very well have another one, and soon.’

  Georgie would have rolled her eyes but she suddenly remembered what had happened that morning on the way to work. ‘I was at the scene of an accident this morning but it was nothing but a coincidence,’ she said. ‘That strip of road is notorious for minor prangs, especially during peak hour.’

  Rhiannon’s eyes went wide. ‘You see? I told you it’s not a joking matter. Madame Celestia does have special powers.’

  Georgie flopped down on the sofa, laid her head back on the cushioned softness and closed her eyes wearily. ‘I wish she did, then I could ask her to make my life a little easier by making Ben Blackwood less prejudiced against me.’

  Rhiannon sat next to her on the sofa, her legs tucked beneath her. ‘Is he still giving you a hard time?’

  ‘I can’t quite make him out,’ Georgie said as she sat back upright and opened her eyes to look at her friend. ‘He turned up at the gym this evening and apologised for a misunderstanding we’d had earlier, but then all the way through dinner he kept chipping away at me about my background. He thinks I’m a rich snob, I know he does.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you do drive a Porsche and live in a beach-side penthouse paid for by your father,’ Rhiannon pointed out.

  ‘I know, but what’s the point of having a child if you don’t share your wealth with them?’ Georgie argued. ‘Besides, I wanted to move out to give Mum a chance to rebalance her relationship with Dad.’

  ‘So, this dinner you had with your boss,’ Rhiannon said with a probing look. ‘Are you sure that wasn’t a date by any chance?’

  ‘Very definitely not,’ Georgie insisted. Her flatmate leaned a little closer. ‘Did he kiss you?’ she asked.

  Georgie felt her cheeks storming with colour. ‘For God’s sake, Rhiannon, surely you don’t think I would consider having a fling with my boss.’ Oh, yes, you would! a little voice piped up in her head, but she quickly shut it out.

  ‘Is he nice-looking?’

  ‘Yes, but—’