Tahlia slapped her cheeks. She had to shape up. She couldn’t miss Keely’s baby shower, no matter what she felt.
Tahlia pushed open her bedroom door. She ought to find something to wear, have a shower, drag her sorry-arse out and pretend to be happy.
At least she could be happy that her two best friends had found love, and even Chrystal. Fancy that it was Case that Chrystal was keen on, who she’d done the incredible makeover thing for, who she’d reclaimed her virgin status to entice.
Tahlia kicked yesterday’s clothes out of her way and stopped. That meant that Chrystal’s guy, the one who was still getting over the wounds of a really nasty divorce, was Case. Great.
What did the man do? Deliberately torture unwitting females into falling madly in love with him and sacrificing everything for him so he could get some revenge on the species for his pain?
She swiped at her cheeks, damp again. She wouldn’t put it past him. Rich, lying, manipulating snob that he was.
How could he be that guy?
She shook herself. It didn’t matter anyway. She knew what he thought of her and he’d shown her just how much love could hurt, and she didn’t want it.
She was better off with a glass-chewing bartender covered in tattoos.
The doorbell rang. She glanced at her watch. Probably Em or Keely. She’d pretended to be out, hiding deeper under her blankets when they’d come by last night.
She knew she couldn’t avoid them for long, especially when she was expected at the baby shower tonight.
Tahlia traipsed to the door, straightening her T-shirt over her jogging bottoms, and trying to comb her loose hair with her fingers.
She pulled open the door.
Case Traitor Darrington stood in her doorway, almost filling it, his dark suit sitting perfectly on his body, his hair ruffled, his jaw slightly shadowed.
He cast a glance over her as though drinking in the sight of her. ‘Hey.’
‘Hey,’ she echoed, willing herself to slam the door closed in his handsome face so she didn’t have to hear what mean thing he was going to reveal to her next, but she was frozen.
‘I came over to find out why you resigned when I gave you the promotion you were desperate for. And also why everyone is bringing me sweets.’
She tried to smile. ‘Oh. Haven’t you read the email?’
Case nodded. ‘You spilled the beans, then, which I find incredibly odd seeing how hard you worked for the promotion.’
She shrugged. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t up to this. ‘The beans are spilt. The news is out. I’ve resigned. Let’s leave it at that, okay?’ She tried to close the door.
Case put his hand up, holding the door. ‘Not okay. I think we have a few things to discuss.’
Tahlia swung the door wide and retreated to the lounge, throwing herself into her favourite chair, tucking up her legs and staring at her fish, who were swimming around the bowl as though nothing was wrong at all. ‘Fine. What?’
Case closed the front door behind him and leant against the wall. ‘Tell me why you resigned.’
‘I told you, I didn’t want to work for a place that would hire me even after what I’d done.’
‘Really?’
‘Would you? If the boss saw you as a manipulative career-climbing user,’ she blurted, holding herself tightly, swallowing the burning ache in her throat.
He strode to her chair and squatted, holding the arms to steady himself. ‘Tell me why you’d go to all that trouble finding out all my flaws as a Marketing Executive if you knew who I was from the start.’
She glanced at the man with the sapphire-blue eyes who had torn her heart in half. How could she trust him again? She knew what trusting a man got you. Pain.
‘Please, Tahlia, tell me.’
Tahlia lifted her chin and looked at the man and knew deep in her heart that this was her chance to move on. To open herself and tell him like it was, not because he deserved to hear it, not because her mother said so, not because it was a good career move, but for her and her alone. It was time to let the past go and make her own future, and all her own mistakes.
‘I didn’t. I didn’t know who you were,’ she blurted, her eyes stinging. ‘When I bumped into you in the foyer I felt things I didn’t want to feel. When you took my promotion I decided to smother those feelings with anger. When there was no anger left I covered those feelings with all the reasons you shouldn’t have got my job.’ She sucked in a deep breath, fighting the ache in her throat. ‘And when I found out how nice you were I gave into them, for you.’
‘Tahlia.’ Case sighed. ‘And when did you find out who I was?’
She looked away, her cheeks heating at her stupidity and ignorance of his role at WWW. ‘When you told me.’
His brow furrowed. ‘Then—?’
‘I’m not that person,’ she whispered, ‘that you think I am. I can’t be. I earn my own way, through hard work, intelligence and commitment, not—’ She glanced at the bedroom door.
‘Hell, Tahlia.’ Case dropped to his knees on the floor in front of her. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve been the biggest jerk. When I heard that you were only interested in your career—what you could get out of me—everything that went wrong in my marriage came back to haunt me.’
She stared into his face. ‘It’s okay. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. There’s plenty more jobs around.’ She lifted her chin defiantly.
‘Tahlia, I need to explain.’
‘What’s to explain?’ She shrugged. ‘You just lied about everything.’
‘I was there to do a job.’
She nodded tightly.
‘The job is all I’ve ever had to hang on to when my life wasn’t working, all the more so in the last few years. I’ve been so burnt in the past I wasn’t willing to let myself have a future. I wanted you to like me for me, not because of what I owned.’
‘I don’t care what you own.’
‘What do you care about?’
Tahlia stared at the man she loved so much it hurt. ‘I did want that promotion and I did want to prove to Raquel she’d made a mistake in hiring you instead of me.’
‘I would have done the same.’
Tahlia leant forward, cupping his face in her hands. ‘I had to spend time with you to prove my point…but then I realised I wanted your kisses, your touch, the magic you offered, just for me. All me.’ She bit her lip. ‘And I wanted more.’
‘The job?’
She shook her head slowly, her gaze glued to his. ‘You. I wanted to keep you.’
Case’s eyes brightened. ‘Why?’
Tahlia stared at her hands in her lap. She knew it was time. She had to say it out loud. Sure, she had no control over what his reaction would be, what would happen next, but she owed this to herself. ‘Because I love you, Case T Darrington.’
Case touched her chin with his finger, lifting her gaze to meet his. ‘Hell, Tahlia, I’ve never met anyone like you.’
‘And that’s good?’
‘Of course it is.’ He drew her into his arms, brushing his lips against hers. ‘I love you too, with all my heart and soul. Can you forgive me for being an idiot?’
‘I think I can.’ Tahlia couldn’t help but smile. Sure, there were going to be risks in loving someone else but she couldn’t imagine living a day without Case in it. ‘By the way, what does the T stand for in your name?’
Case wrapped her in his warm, strong arms and held her close, swamped by the incredible turn in his life. He’d learned all right, how to love, and he would never let anything be more important, ever.
‘My middle name,’ he murmured, pulling her closer and breathing in her sweet scent. ‘Trustworthy.’
Epilogue
They say that love’s what makes the world go round. I say keep me spinning.
EMMA strode back to Keely’s lounge chair and dropped on to Harry’s knee, pulling a stuffed giraffe on to her lap and an arm around her fiancé. ‘Phew. That was the last guest.’
Tahlia scooped
the rest of the mountain of wrapping paper into a rubbish bag, surveying the pile of presents on the coffee table—baby rugs, bouncers, bottles, nappies and teddies galore. ‘You’ve got everything you need now, Keely.’
Keely smiled, snuggling into Lachlan’s arms, cradling her big belly with both her hands. ‘I sure have. And you know what, I think you guys do too.’
Tahlia glanced to Emma, who was caressing Harry’s face with the giraffe, her eyes shining.
‘I do,’ Em piped, tossing the giraffe behind the sofa and using her lips instead.
‘I can’t believe you’ll be saying “I do” in a couple of weeks,’ Tahlia offered softly. ‘In front of your family and your friends.’
Emma laughed. ‘I can’t wait.’
Tahlia turned to the amazing man behind her, the man who had touched her life in so many ways, the man she was taking to the wedding. She moved closer to where he sat in the chair.
Case leant over, brushing his lips over her cheek. ‘I like your friends,’ he whispered, his breath hot on her skin. ‘And I love you.’
Tahlia stood up, the warmth of his words filling her, glancing around at the wonderful people who were her colleagues, her friends, her family. She loved them all, needed them all, wanted them all to stay in her life, but one in particular…
She looked down at Case, his eyes shining with his love for her.
‘Hey,’ Keely said. ‘Six months ago did any of us think we would be here?’
‘Nope.’ Em laughed. ‘Not a chance.’
‘No way,’ Tahlia said, dropping into Case’s strong, safe arms, her heart full of love she’d never thought could be hers. ‘But there’s no place I’d rather be.’
TO: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
RE: Love and promotions
Saw Liam and Chrystal down at Sammy’s, all over each other—it was so beautiful.
Can’t wait to receive my orders from my very own best friend, the new Marketing Executive, Tahlia Moran, woman in love.
Can’t believe you didn’t accept the position of General Manager—yippee, the wicked Rottie is gone—although I have to admire your dedication to working your way to the top on your own merits.
How’s Case going? Is he getting a work-out? Does he like your merits? And is that a ring on your finger? Tell all.
Em
The Millionaire Boss’s Mistress
by
Madeleine Ker
An English Literature graduate, Madeleine Ker has been writing for over two decades. Her first romance novel was titled Aquamarine and was published in 1983. She describes herself as “a compulsive writer,” and is very excited by the way women’s fiction is evolving. She is also a compulsive traveller and has lived in many different parts of the world, including Britain, Italy, Spain and South Africa. She has a young family (whom she has “relentlessly dragged around the world”) and a number of pets.
Chapter One
SHE had never been so late in her life. And it wasn’t even her fault.
As the airliner banked over the bay, Amy got a good look at the city where she had been expected hours ago. Many hours ago. She checked her watch. Yesterday, in fact.
The rising sun was slanting low over Hong Kong, making the millions of windows in the skyscrapers glow like gold. It was a breathtaking sight. With the thoroughness that marked everything she did, she had already studied the city in detail from guidebooks, and now, from several thousand feet up, she could pick out some of the major landmarks.
She did not have much time to practise her geography. It all swept past her window in a few seconds, the harbour, the Peak, Kowloon, the dense grid of streets that, even at this early hour of the day, already twinkled with innumerable cars.
She hunted urgently for the glass tower that was her destination. The plane was going fast. There it was! She managed to catch a glimpse of the tower, its hundreds of blue glass windows glowing in the morning sun. Then it was gone. But at least she had seen it. She was supposed to have been there, ready for her interview, at lunchtime yesterday.
Amy Worthington felt her stomach swoop in unison with the airliner’s descent. She checked her watch. It was coming up for eight in the morning. Her interview with Anton Zell was history. So was the job it should have led to.
He would already be in another country. It had been made very clear to her that Mr Zell was only in Hong Kong for one day. And wherever he was, Anton Zell was not renowned as a man who accepted excuses. She had been given her great chance and had missed it. It had been up to her to make sure she was present for the interview on time. For various reasons, she had chosen a flight that would have got her to Hong Kong with four hours to spare. Instead it had got her there eighteen hours late.
Had there ever been an unluckier flight? The misery had begun in London, as one delay after another to the flight had been announced; infinitely worse had been the pilot’s laconic announcement that, due to engine trouble, they would be landing for repairs at an Asian airport whose name she couldn’t even pronounce.
Amy felt like bursting into tears. This job was vitally important to her. It represented a quantum leap upwards. She knew she was capable of doing it, and doing it very well. It offered wonderful things—a spectacular salary, company accommodation in Hong Kong, travel, excitement.
But it also represented a major challenge. Whatever her capabilities were, she had not worked at this level before. She had everything—the intelligence, the confidence, the training—everything except the experience.
She needed to convince Anton Zell, known as one of the most demanding and powerful men in business, to give her a chance. And that meant persuading him to take a risk on her, an unknown, young and relatively inexperienced person, when there were many others, with a lifetime in industry behind them, who would also be queuing for this post.
Exactly how she was going to do that was a subject that had occupied her thoughts almost every hour of the past two weeks. Technically, she felt she knew the answers to almost any question Zell might throw at her. She had studied every scrap of information that had been released about his current projects and she had researched every possibility diligently. She was adaptable and she felt ready to assimilate anything that might come her way.
That wasn’t the problem.
The problem would be in persuading Anton Zell that someone of her youth was capable of standing up to the relentless pressures of the job.
The man who had helped to arrange this interview for her, her uncle Jeffrey Cookson, had put it succinctly: ‘Zell moves at a pace that would burn most human beings to ashes. The interview is going to be hell, my dear. But get through it, and you’ll be working in the next dimension.’
Nor was her physical appearance going to help. Her looks had often been described as ‘angelic’. That, presumably, referred to her soft blonde hair and soft grey eyes, matched by fair skin and a sweet face. That there was more than a bit of devilry in her make-up did not appear on the surface. Nor did she look a month older than her twenty-eight years. Though her life had been no bed of roses, the sorrows and struggles she had been through had left no mark on her beauty. But there were occasions—and this was one of them—when she would have liked to look a little sterner and older.
She recalled the other thing Jeffrey had said. ‘He’s based in Hong Kong and does a lot of work all over south-east Asia. He’ll have his pick of PAs who can speak the local languages. So you’ll have to offer him something special, Amy.’
The jet engines roared deafeningly as the plane came in for landing at Kai Tak Airport. Staring out of the window, Amy saw the rooftops hurtling past, apparently only a hand’s breadth beneath the wings. She had heard about this famously low landing approach, but she had never anticipated how stomach-churning it would be in real life!
She had no idea whether a Zell Corporation employee would be waiting to meet her. Perhaps they had given up on her. Her only hop
e—and it was a very faint one—was to see whether another interview could be arranged at short notice, somewhere else in the world. But it was a given that her failure had put her out of the running, and that Anton Zell had already appointed someone else to the job.
Getting from the plane to the terminal was a long shuffle along various claustrophobic, grey tunnels. It seemed interminable. Restlessly checking her watch, Amy saw that it was by now almost ten o’clock. On top of everything, she had probably also lost her hotel booking in this furiously busy city. She longed for a meal, a quiet room, a shower, and perhaps even an hour or two of sleep.
At last she retrieved her suitcase, which looked a lot more battered than it had done when she’d last seen it in London, and trudged through Customs to the arrivals hall, pushing her trolley ahead of her. As she emerged through the sliding doors she scanned the crowd anxiously, hoping to find a hospitable figure, perhaps holding up a sign with her name on it.
She did not seem to be in luck. A sea of faces stared back at her incuriously. Signs were being held up, but, since they were in Chinese, Arabic, Hindi and languages she did not even recognise, they only confused her.
She came to a standstill, hunting through the jumble for a single welcoming note. Impatient passengers jostled past her. She heard an exasperated comment in Chinese. A heavy trolley rammed painfully into her calves, making her gasp.
‘You’re blocking the exit.’ The deep voice was accompanied by a strong hand which closed around her arm and pulled her inescapably forward. ‘Lao Tzu said, “Swim against the current, but do not be a boulder in the stream”.’
Amy looked up in bewilderment. The tall man who was hustling her away from the exit was wearing jeans and a dark blue silk shirt. But the lean, tanned face—the most handsome face in the world, according to a recent Vogue— was deeply familiar to her.
‘Mr Zell?’ she said in astonishment.
‘Miss Worthington, I presume,’ he replied laconically.
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