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Contracted: Corporate Wife
Jessica Hart
A MILLIONAIRE…Patrick Farr is perfectly happy with his bachelor life, wining and dining beautiful young women. If only he could make them understand that he will never marry for love….A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE…Louisa Dennison is the perfect PA. She's also a single mom, bringing up two very demanding kids! So when Patrick proposes, her answer is definitely no! Or is it?A MARRIAGE FOR REAL?Patrick's offer could answer Lou's prayers–financial security for life. But will their attempts to avoid love lead them to exactly that…?
Having got this far, Patrick wasn’t sure how to proceed. He got to his feet and prowled around the office, his hands thrust into his pockets and his brows drawn together.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” he said at last, coming to a halt by the window.
“What I said? When?”
He turned to look at her.
Telltale color crept into Lou’s cheeks. Trust Patrick to bring that up now, just when she had allowed herself to relax and think that the whole sorry incident was forgotten.
“I shouldn’t pay any attention to anything I said that night.” She tried to make a joke of it. “I’d had far too much champagne.”
“You said I should think about marrying you,” said Patrick. “And that’s what I’ve been doing. I think you were right. I think we should get married.”
Jessica Hart had a haphazard career before she began writing to finance a degree in history. Her experience ranged from waitress, theater production assistant and Outback cook to newsdesk secretary, expedition PA and English teacher, and she has worked in countries as different as France and Indonesia, Australia and Cameroon. She now lives in the north of England, where her hobbies are limited to eating and drinking, and traveling when she can, preferably to places where she’ll find good food or desert or tropical rain. If you’d like to find out more about Jessica Hart, you can visit her Web site at www.jessicahart.co.uk (http://www.jessicahart.co.uk)
Books by Jessica Hart
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®
3797—HER BOSS’S BABY PLAN
3820—CHRISTMAS EVE MARRIAGE
Contracted: Corporate Wife
Jessica Hart
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Diana, with love
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#u3206a43c-8ea6-5396-bd4b-a66b6e6ee79f)
CHAPTER TWO (#uc4f692e0-dad5-5ef8-9bf8-396d18c3463c)
CHAPTER THREE (#u3a8f531d-a01d-568e-b7a7-831a7681cde0)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
THE lift doors slid open, and out stepped Louisa Dennison, bang on time. As always.
Watching her from across the lobby, Patrick was conscious of a familiar spurt of something close to irritation. Dammit, couldn’t the woman be five seconds late for once?
Here she came, in her prim little grey suit, whose skirt stopped precisely at the knee, not a hair of her dark head out of place. She looked sensible, discreet, well groomed, the epitome of a perfect PA.
Patrick knew that he was being irrational. He had been lucky to inherit such an efficient assistant when he’d taken over Schola Systems. Lou—her name was the only relaxed thing about her, as far as he was concerned—was a model secretary. She was poised, punctual, professional. He never caught her gossiping or making personal phone calls in the office. She showed no interest whatsoever in his personal life, so Patrick never felt obliged to ask about hers. No, he couldn’t ask for a better PA.
It was just that sometimes he found himself wishing that she would make a mistake, just a little one. A typing error, say, that he could pick her up on, or a file that she couldn’t lay her hand on immediately. Maybe she could ladder her tights, or spill her coffee. Do something to prove that she was human.
But she never did.
The truth was that Patrick found Lou secretly intimidating at times, and it annoyed him. If there was any intimidating to be done, he was the one who liked to do it. Grown men had been known to tremble when he walked into the room, and his reputation as a ruthless executive was usually enough to make people tread warily around him.
Not Lou Dennison, though. She just looked at him with those dark eyes of hers. Her expression was usually one of complete indifference, but sometimes he suspected it also held a quiet irony that riled Patrick more than he cared to admit. It wasn’t even as if there was anything particularly special about her, he thought with a tinge of resentment. She was attractive enough, but she had to be at least forty-five, and it showed in the lines around her eyes.
That cool, composed look had never done anything for him, anyway. He liked his women more feminine, more appealing, less in control. And younger.
‘I’m not late, am I?’ Lou asked as she came up to him, and Patrick repressed the urge to glance ostentatiously at his watch and announce that she was a good fifteen seconds overdue.
‘Of course not.’
He forced a smile and reminded himself that it wasn’t actually Lou’s fault that high winds had forced the closure of the east coast line that evening, that it was too far to an airport, or that he would rather be having dinner with almost anyone else. There had been no way he could have got out of asking her to share a meal with him since they were both stranded, but he was hoping they could get it over with quickly and then go their separate ways for the rest of the evening.
He nodded in the direction of the restaurant. ‘Shall we go straight in? Or would you like a drink first?’
The drink option was such a patent afterthought that Lou was left in little doubt that Patrick was looking forward to their meal with as little pleasure as she was. Clearly she was supposed to meekly agree to eating straight away, but Lou didn’t feel like it.
She’d had a long day. It had begun with a five o’clock alarm call, progressed to getting two squabbling adolescents out of the house earlier than usual, continued with delays on the tube, followed by a stressful train journey with Patrick Farr. This was the first time they had had to travel to secure a contract, and she hadn’t thought her presence was necessary, but Patrick had insisted.
In the end, the meeting had been successful, but it had been long and intense, and Lou had been looking forward to getting home and enjoying a rare evening on her own to wind down with a stiff gin and a long bath without her children banging on the door and demanding to know what there was to eat or where she had put their special pair of torn jeans, which they needed right now.
And now she was stuck in this hotel with her boss instead. It wouldn’t have been too bad if Patrick hadn’t felt obliged to invite her to have dinner with him, or if she’d been able to think of a way of refusing without sounding ungracious. As it was, it looked as if they were both condemned to an evening of stilted conversation, and for that she definitely needed a drink!
‘A drink would be lovely, thank you,’ she said defiantly, ignoring the way Patrick’s thick brows drew together. He was evidently a man who was used to getting what he wanted—especially as far as women were concerned, if rumours were anything to go by. No doubt Lou was expected to fall in with his wishes like everyone else.
Tough, she thought unsympathetically. If he didn’t like it, he shouldn’t have asked her!
‘Let’s try the bar, then,’ he said, with just the suggestion of gritted teeth.
Lou didn’t care. In the three months since Patrick Farr had taken over Schola Systems he had made it obvious that he had no interest whatsoever in his new PA. Not young and pretty enough, clearly, Lou thought dispassionately. She didn’t mind that, but she didn’t see why she should pander to his ego in her free time. She wasn’t actually working this evening, and it wouldn’t do Patrick Farr any harm not to get his own way for once.
The bar was even worse than Patrick had feared. By the time they had realised that there would be no more trains to London that night, and that all road and air traffic was equally disrupted by the weather, all the best hotels had been booked out.
It was a long time since he had stayed anywhere this provincial, he thought, looking around the bar with distaste. It was overflowing with vegetation, and so dark that they practically had to grope their way to a table, which did nothing to improve his temper.
‘What would you like?’ he asked Lou as he snapped his fingers to summon the barman, although whether the man would be able to find them in the gloom was another matter.
‘A glass of champagne would be nice,’ said Lou composedly as she settled herself and smoothed down her skirt.
Patrick was surprised. She hadn’t struck him as a champagne drinker. He would have thought champagne too fizzy and frivolous for someone so efficient. He could imagine her drinking something much more sensible, like a glass of water, or possibly something sharp. A dry martini perhaps. Yes, he could see her with one of those.
Lou lifted her elegant brows at his expression. ‘Is that too extravagant?’ she asked, thinking that a glass of champagne was the least that he owed her after the day she had had. And it wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it. The Patrick Farrs of this world could buy champagne by the truckload and think of it as small change.
‘We did win that contract,’ she reminded him, a subtle edge to her voice. ‘I thought we should celebrate.’
‘Of course.’ Patrick set his teeth, perfectly aware that he should have suggested a celebration given the size of the contract they had just won. ‘I’ll have the same.’
The barman had fought his way through the artificial jungle and was hovering. Opening his mouth to ask for two glasses of champagne, Patrick changed his mind and ordered a bottle instead. He wasn’t going to have Lou Dennison thinking that he was mean.
‘Certainly, sir.’
Sitting relaxed in her chair, she was looking around the gloomy bar, apparently unperturbed by the silence while they waited for the barman to come back. She was quite unlike the women he was usually with in bars, Patrick reflected. He liked girls who were prepared to enjoy themselves a bit.
Take Ariel, for instance. Ariel was always thrilled to be out with him. That was what she told him, anyway. If she were here, she’d be chatting away, entertaining him, exerting herself to captivate him.
Unlike Lou, who was just sitting there with that faintly ironic gleam in her eyes, unimpressed by his company. What would it take to impress a woman like her? Patrick wondered. Someone must have done it once. She was Mrs Dennison, although he noticed that she didn’t wear a wedding ring. Divorced, no doubt. Her husband probably couldn’t live up to her exacting standards.
Uncomfortable with the situation, Patrick leant forward and picked up a drinks mat, tapping it moodily on the low table between them. It took a huge effort not to glance at his watch, but chances were he wouldn’t be able to read it anyway in this light. It looked like being a long evening.
Lou was thinking the same thing. Patrick’s moody tapping was driving her mad. It was just the kind of thing Tom did when he was being at his most annoying. Her fingers twitched with the longing to snatch the mat out of his hand and tell him to stop fiddling at once, the way she would if Tom were sitting there irritating her like this.
But Tom was her son and eleven, while Patrick Farr had to be in his late forties and, more to the point, was her boss. And she couldn’t afford to lose her job. She had better hold back on the ticking-off front, Lou decided reluctantly.
She was gasping for a drink. Where was that champagne? The barman must be treading the grapes out there. It couldn’t take that long to shove a bottle in an ice bucket and find a couple of glasses, could it? If it didn’t arrive soon, she was going to have to take that mat anyway and shove it—
Ah, at last!
Lou smiled up at the barman as he materialised out of the gloom, and Patrick’s hand froze in mid-tap as he felt a jolt of surprise. He hadn’t realised that she could smile like that.
She never smiled at him like that.
She smiled, of course, but it was only ever a cool, polite smile, the kind of smile that went with her immaculate suit, her perfectly groomed hair and her infallible professional manner. Not the warm, friendly smile she was giving the barman now, lighting her face and making her seem all at once attractive and approachable. The kind of woman you might actually want to share a bottle of champagne with, in fact.
Patrick sat up straighter and studied her with new interest as the barman opened the bottle with an unnecessary flourish and made a big deal of pouring the champagne.
The boy was clearly trying to impress Lou, Patrick thought disapprovingly, watching his attempts at banter. She had only smiled at him, for heaven’s sake. Anyone would think that she was hot, instead of nearly old enough to be his mother. Just what they needed, a barman with a Mrs Robinson fixation.
And now he was tossing his cloth over his shoulder in a ridiculously affected way as he placed the bottle back in the ice bucket, and telling Lou to enjoy her drink. Patrick noticed that he didn’t get so much as a nod, which was a bit much given that he was paying for it all.
‘Thank you,’ Lou was saying, with another quite unnecessary smile.
Patrick glowered at the barman’s departing back. ‘Thank God he’s gone. I was afraid that he was planning on spending the whole evening with us. I’m surprised he didn’t bring himself a glass and pull up a chair.’
‘I thought he was charming,’ said Lou, picking up her glass.
She would.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a taste for toy boys!’
‘No—not that it would be any business of yours if I did.’
Patrick was taken aback by her directness. She was normally so discreet.
‘You don’t think it would be a bit inappropriate?’ he countered.
Lou stared at him for a moment, then sipped at her champagne. ‘That sounds to me like a prime case of pots and kettles,’ she said coolly, putting her glass back down on the table.
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Patrick.
‘I understand that your own girlfriends tend to be on the young side.’
Patrick was momentarily taken aback. ‘How do you know that?’
She shrugged. ‘Your picture is in the gossip pages occasionally. You’ve usually got a blonde on your arm, and I’ve got to say that most of them look a good twenty years younger than you.’
That was true enough. Patrick didn’t see why he should apologise for it. ‘I like beautiful women, and I especially like beautiful women who aren’t old enough to get obsessed with commitment,’ he said.
Ah, commitment-phobic. That figured, thought Lou with a touch of cynicism. She knew the type. And how. Lawrie had never been hot on commitment either, but at least he had warmth and charm. Patrick didn’t even have that to recommend him.
She studied him over the rim of her glass. He was an attractive enough man, she admitted fairly to herself. Mid to late forties, she’d say. Tall, broad-shouldered, well set up. He had good, strong features too, with darkish brown hair and piercing light eyes—grey or green, Lou hadn’t quite worked that one out yet—but there was a coolness and an arrogance to him that left her quite cold. He seemed to go down well with young nubile blondes, but he certainly didn’t ring any of her bells.
Not that that was likely to bother Patrick Farr much. She was a middle-aged woman and it was well known that you became invisible after forty, particularly to men like him. She doubted that he had registered anything about her other than her efficiency.
‘I’d no idea you took such an interest in my personal life,’ Patrick was saying, annoyed for some reason by her dispassionate tone.
‘I don’t. It’s absolutely nothing to do with me.’
‘You seem to know enough about it!’
‘Hardly,’ said Lou. ‘The girls in Finance have taken to passing round any articles about you so that we can get some idea of who’s running the company now. You took us over three months ago, and all we know about you is your reputation.’
‘And what is my reputation, exactly?’ asked Patrick.
Lou smiled faintly. ‘Don’t you know?’
‘I’d be interested to hear it from your point of view.’
‘Well…’ Lou took a sip of her champagne—it was slipping down very nicely, thank you—and considered. ‘I suppose we’d heard that you were pretty ruthless. Very successful. A workaholic, but a bit of a playboy on the side.’ Her mouth turned down as she tried to remember anything else. ‘That’s it, really.’ She glanced at him. ‘Is it fair?’
