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Helplessly he watched Harriet move even closer to Ben. It was a physical effort to stop himself from going over and separating them.
Didn’t she know what a fool she was making of herself? Didn’t she care? Didn’t she realise that people were discussing her and her obvious love for Ben—a man who saw her only as a friend—behind her back?
Because if she didn’t she damned well ought to!
It would take a much braver man than Ben himself to tell her though, Matt recognised, and her female colleages seemed to prefer to gossip about the situation rather than do anything about it. He had happened to be standing out of sight but well within earshot the previous week, when Cindi had been despairingly confiding in an older woman employee about a row she had had with Ben over his friendship with Harriet.
‘He swears that she is nothing more to him than a friend,’ Matt had heard her saying tearfully.
‘Well, he may see their relationship that way, but it’s obvious that she doesn’t,’ her companion had retorted darkly. ‘Look at the way she’s followed him here! Don’t make the same mistake I did, Cindi,’ she had warned her. ‘My ex swore to me that his secretary meant nothing to him, but, as the little tart told me the day he left me for her, she wanted him and nothing was going to stop her having him. Some women are like that! And if you want my opinion Harriet is one of them! I mean, you’ve only got to see her with Ben. It’s obvious how she feels about him. She spends every spare minute she can with him. Take it from me, she wants him—no matter what he might say or think!’
‘Don’t, please,’ Cindi had protested. ‘Ben says he loves me, but…’
‘Then tell him to prove it! Tell him that you want her out of his life!’
But Harriet very plainly was not out of Ben’s life, and had no intention of getting out of it.
Didn’t she realise what people were saying? Didn’t she care that Ben was actually seeing something else? Had she no pride, no sense of self-respect or selfworth? Hadn’t it occurred to her to stop obsessing about Ben and find a man who loved and wanted her? Matt wondered angrily.
A man?
His mouth compressing, he wondered helplessly for the thousandth time why this had had to happen to him! It wasn’t what he wanted, and it sure as hell wasn’t what he needed! It felt as if his jealousy was burning a hole in his gut.
Cynically he reflected that a sitcom writer would have a field-day, if not a whole carnival with the situation!
Matt loves Harriet, who loves Ben, who loves Cindi, who loves Ben, who does not love Harriet, who does not love Matt, who does love her—with the kind of savage, self-destructive, all-consuming hunger that set all his inner emotional buttons on overdrive and meltdown every damned time he saw her. And it didn’t help that every damned time he did see her she was draping herself on or around Ben!
And what in some ways was even worse was the fact that Matt knew that if he were Ben, business ethics and self-imposed rules or not, he’d have had her in his arms, his mouth on hers, faster than she could blink. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and fought for self-control.
Ignobly and impossibly he had even at one stage contemplated firing her. But, even if the law hadn’t prevented him from doing any such thing without a watertight reason, she was far too much of an asset to the business for it to lose her.
And that was just one of the more minor reasons why he loved her. Unlike Ben, who was a good, solid and cheerful worker, Harriet had brought a passion and flair to her role in the team that had infused the project she was working on with a new dynamism.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried to overcome his feelings for her; he had! In the past few months he had dated more women than he had done in the past few years. But none of them had so much as dragged his thoughts away from Harriet for as long as five seconds.
Her Matt-aware antennae for once not working efficiently, Harriet was oblivious to the fact that Matt could overhear her as she shook her head and told Ben firmly, ‘We can’t talk about this here.’ Giving his hand another squeeze, she suggested, ‘Why don’t we have dinner together tonight? I’ve got loads to tell you about what’s going on at home.’
Watching her, Matt felt as though someone was ripping his heart, muscle from muscle. He wanted to stride over to them, to take hold of Harriet and ask her if she realised what she was doing. And then what? Force her to back off and allow Ben and Cindi to get on with their lives—and their love?
He had no right to interfere, he warned himself harshly. But if he didn’t then who would? And besides, a dangerously reasonable little voice inside him argued, didn’t he have the right as an employer to want a workplace free of any emotional entanglements and dramas that would take his employees’ attention away from their work?
Oblivious to what Matt was thinking, Harriet watched Ben. He looked so dejected that she felt desperately sorry for him, and wanted to do whatever she could to help. Cindi obviously loved Ben, and Harriet knew that Ben loved Cindi. She was amazed that Ben had even needed to ask her if she was secretly in love with him! How could she be when…? When what? When she was desperately afraid that she had fallen in love with Matt?
Matt! Automatically she lifted her head and looked towards the corridor which led to his office, her body stiffening and hot colour staining her skin as she saw him standing watching them.
Ben was a good looking young man, but he was just that—a young man. In no way did he compare in sheer male presence to Matthew Cole, who was pure lethal adult, and so fully charged with testosterone that no woman living could fail to be aware of him. Not that she didn’t do her bit for her own sex by fiercely pretending that she was not. She was aware of him. All the time! But some days, sometimes—like right now—something went wrong and her protective shield failed to work properly. Sometimes just the sight of Matt was enough to set up a chain of reaction inside her body that resulted in butterflies in her tummy and a weakness in her legs. But that weakness was nowhere near as dangerous as the weakness in her emotions.
Because the truth was that Matt epitomised everything Harriet had ever dreamed about in a man. He was her childhood prince come to life; her knight in shining armour. He was her darkly disturbing, secret sensual-fantasymade man. He made her ache with feverish longing—and, far more dangerously, he made her dream impossible daydreams about love and happy ever afters, and at least four little Matts or Matildas calling her Mummy!
And no way was that ever going to happen! Matt didn’t even like her, never mind love her. In fact sometimes when he was looking at her the way he was right now, his slate-grey eyes iced with permafrost and freezing her with the most intimidating glare of fury she had ever seen, she felt that he actively disliked her.
Her heart might be sinking, Harriet acknowledged, but her chin wasn’t going to. Bravely she tilted it, and met his slicing scrutiny.
What was it about the thickness of his closecropped dark hair that made her want to slide her fingers into it, to mould them against the curve of his well-shaped head, whilst one of his strong hands cupped her own, and that hard mouth softened with desire and…?
‘Harriet, I’d like to see you in my office.’
The cold, clinical words brought her back to earth.
‘You mean now?’ she queried. She needed to keep her distance from him right now, not get even closer to him. Harriet had her pride—the same pride that had led to her refusing to give in to her first love’s demand that she go to bed with him—and she was not going to join the ranks of Matt’s lovelorn adorers.
‘I mean now!’ he agreed, in a clipped voice that made Ben give her a small shove.
‘See you tonight, then,’ he said.
Matt had already disappeared down the corridor, and as she followed him Harriet wondered feverishly what he wanted.
There had never been any open clashes between them. How could there be when he was not just her immediate boss but the owner of the company as well? But there had been plenty of subtle indirect ones.
It wasn’t so much Matt’s antagonism towards her that sparked off the fiery pride that led to her spirited defiance but her own shocked stark inner awareness of just how vulnerable to him she was.
Apart from the brief catastrophe of her first foray into love Harriet had remained heart-whole, and that was the way she had intended to remain until she was well into her thirties and ready to settle down. And then she had seen Matt and her sensible plans had self-ignited after one incredulous look at him. Nor had it made any difference telling herself that no sensible and right-thinking woman would be so idiotic as to fall crazily in love with a man who obviously was never going to feel the same way about her.
Abruptly Harriet realised that she had reached Matt’s office.
An inimical biting grey glance impaled her where she stood, leaving her feeling as though her every thought had been dissected and then rejected.
‘Come in and close the door.’
Her heart was going crazy inside her chest. But it wasn’t her erratic heartbeat that bothered her as she mentally cursed herself for leaving her jacket on her chair.
The state-of-the-art office had a climatically controlled temperature that made it totally unnecessary for her nipples to do some temperature-awareness testing of their own. But that was exactly what they were doing—pressing themselves against her clothes for the entire world to see, as though she was standing in an arctic wind.
Or sexually aroused. Well, she certainly knew which it was, and she could only hope that Matt did not!
Her nipples tightened so fiercely that she almost cried out in protest.
‘Sit down.’
Woodenly, Harriet did so.
For once Matt had no carefully thought out plan of action mentally organised. He only knew that for her own sake Harriet needed to distance herself from Ben—both in her own emotions and in other people’s eyes.
The intensity of his grim expression as he battled with his own private devils increased Harriet’s apprehension. What on earth had she done?
‘It’s come to my attention that your…feelings for Ben are the subject of a great deal of office criticism and gossip.’
Harriet could feel the tips of her ears starting to burn hotly in mortified shock. Matt had swung his chair around so that she could only see his profile, but she was miserably and humiliating aware that he could still see how his words were affecting her.
Her whole face was burning now, with both anger and humiliation, as the full ramifications of his accusatory and demeaning statement sank in.
Immediately she rushed to defend herself, and to reject what he was saying. ‘If you are referring to Cindi’s ridiculous suggestion that I am secretly in love with Ben—’
‘Secretly?’ Matt stopped her sharply, turning to face her. ‘There was nothing secret about the touching little scene I just witnessed. Touching, that is, unless one happens to know the truth! And the entire company knows the truth, Harriet.’ The look Matt gave her made her want to disappear!
Through stiff, shock-numbed lips Harriet managed to demand, ‘And that truth is…?’
There was a look in her eyes that made Matt want to go to her and hold her, tell her that nothing and no one was going to be allowed to hurt her whilst he was there to prevent it, but he knew that he couldn’t. He was doing this because he wanted to help her, not because he wanted to hurt her!
‘That you are refusing to see that your love for Ben is not returned, that it never will be returned. The way you are pursuing him so obsessively, following him and clinging to him, is not only coming between him and Cindi, it’s making you the object of other people’s contempt as well.’
The cold, brutal words hit her like physical blows, and as from physical blows Harriet recoiled from them, whispering painfully, ‘No, that isn’t true.’
‘It is true. Have you no pride? No self-respect?’
The blood receded swiftly from Harriet’s face, leaving it creamily pale as shock and outrage filled her.
Cindi’s assumption and Cindi’s ultimatum had obviously not been confined merely to Ben! It was bad enough discovering that her colleagues shared Cindi’s misinterpretation of her relationship with Ben, but to discover that Matt was not just privy to it but believed it as well filled her with blistering hot shame.
Valiantly she struggled to overcome her feelings and to explain. After all, no matter what her private feelings might be, Matt was her boss, and at this stage in her career she couldn’t afford to earn any kind of black mark, still less be written off as some kind of obsessive who was trying to force herself on a man who didn’t want her!
‘I was just trying to tell Ben—’
‘What?’ Matt challenged her, striding from behind his desk and coming over to her. ‘What were you trying to tell him? That he’d be better off with you? With your love?’
‘No!’
‘No? So what, then? Were you pleading with him to love you?’
‘No! No!’ Harriet denied fiercely, getting to her own feet to confront him and then wishing that she hadn’t as she realised how close to him she was.
She wasn’t a small woman, at five feet nine inches tall, but she was small-boned and slender, and Matt was well over six feet, with a physique which Ben had told her came from his days as captain of his university’s rugby team.
How on earth had this happened? How could she possibly be in this sickeningly humiliating situation?
Matt could see the pain in her eyes. Part of him felt bitterly angry with her for what she was doing, but most of him simply wanted to hold her and comfort her. Her pain was his pain, and he hurt for her and with her.
It was simply to comfort her that he had put his hands on her and drawn her towards him. Nothing more!
Harriet stiffened as Matt’s hands closed on her upper arms, knowing that right now she was far too emotionally frail to withstand something like this.
Ben was forgotten as though he had never existed. She tried to drag air into lungs compressed with shocked physical awareness.
Matt was touching her. Matt was looking down into her eyes with frowning bleakness.
She exhaled shakily.
He shouldn’t have done this. He shouldn’t have touched her, Matt recognised grimly. No matter how altruistic his original motivation and intention had been. Abruptly he released her.
As Matt thrust her away Harriet tensed, hating herself for the way she wanted—no, not just wanted, but ached and needed—to cling to him.
‘Quite apart from anything else,’ she could hear Matt telling her grimly, ‘your behaviour is causing disruption and…and discord here in the office. And that is something I will not tolerate. We work together here, in very tight-knit teams, and every single member of those teams has been selected by me personally as a vital component of their particular unit. But if I thought it necessary for the greater good to replace one of those components then I would have no compunction whatsoever in doing so. Do you understand what I am saying?’
‘Yes, you’re threatening to sack me,’ Harriet answered him briefly. ‘But you’ve got it all wrong! And so has Cindi! I do love Ben, yes! But as a friend…as a brother, if you like. Not…not in the way that you are trying to imply!’
‘You mean there’s nothing sexual in your… your…?’
‘Nothing,’ Harriet emphasised fiercely, without letting him finish.
‘No?’ Matt gave her a cynical look that made her whole body burn with resentment. ‘Then prove it,’ he told her in a clipped voice.
Harriet exhaled noisily. ‘And how exactly am I supposed to do that?’
‘Well, you could start by making it obvious and public that you’re very involved with.. dating someone else.’
‘Dating someone else?’ Harriet repeated blankly. ‘Who?’
‘Me!’
The colour came and went in Harriet’s mobile face—and if she had but known it her shock only echoed his own, Matt acknowledged. What the hell did he think he was doing? Morally and in every other way there was he was totally out of order. He should make it clear immediately that he hadn’t meant what he had said and that Harriet was to ignore it. Immediately!
Matt was suggesting that she pretend to want him? No pretence was necessary!
‘You can’t mean… Are you saying…? Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. It’s impossible… No. No way!’ she told him a little breathlessly.
Her words didn’t just sting Matt’s pride raw, they blew a large hole in his good intentions as well as shattering them into nothing. A ruthless determination swept over him, swamping everything else.
‘You’ve just said that you aren’t in love with Ben—I’m giving you an opportunity to prove it.’
There was a small suspenseful pause.
‘If you don’t take it then I’ll know that you are lying,’ Matt finished coldly.
Harriet looked at him, wondering how on earth she had ever got into such a mess.
‘No one will ever believe that you and I are dating.’
‘Then it will be up to us to convince them, won’t it?’ Matt said smoothly. ‘The choice is yours!’
‘Some choice,’ Harriet muttered, adding fiercely, ‘Why are you doing this?’
Her throat felt raw, the backs of her eyes stung, and her chest hurt, as though she were about to come down with a heavy cold. Her physical reactions weren’t caused by a physical virus, though, but an emotional one.
‘I’m doing it to stop you causing disruption and discord in my business. Besides, I should have thought that if you genuinely don’t love Ben, as you claim, then you’d jump at the chance to prove it— and to give Ben and Cindi a chance to find happiness together,’ Matt reiterated curtly.
No way could he tell her that he was doing it purely and simply because he wanted any excuse to be with her…
‘What was all that about?’
