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The Seduction Business
CHARLOTTE LAMB
Seducing the boss?Bianca Milne looks the part of the ambitious femal executive, with her sleek, touch-me-not looks and her cool, controlled manner. But there's another Bianca underneath she never lets the business world see. Until she's assigned to buy out Matt Hearne's company.Matt has hear rumors about Bianca–so how far will she go to clinch this deal? When he's called home to look after his little daughter, Bianca impulsively offers him her help, not anticipating that the enforced proximity will only ignite the smoldering physical attraction between them….
“Don’t judge everybody by your standards! We don’t all sleep around.”
Bianca flinched at the contempt in Matt’s voice, the coldness in his gaze.
“I just told you, I’m not—don’t…” she stammered.
“I know, you’re just one of Don Heston’s executives!”
“It’s true!”
“But Don thinks he owns you. Why should he think you were likely to be with me all night? Did he tell you to get me to sign this contract by seducing me?”
CHARLOTTE LAMB was born in London, England, in time for World War II, and spent most of the war moving from relative to relative to escape bombing. Educated at a convent, she married a journalist, and now has five children. The family lives on the Isle of Man. Charlotte Lamb has written over a hundred books for Harlequin Presents
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The Seduction Business
Charlotte Lamb
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
THERE were four men and two women gathered in the boardroom by ten o’clock that bright May morning. They took their seats around the wide mahogany table occupying the centre of the room, in order of seniority and custom. The sales director, Jack Rowe, in the centre, looked pointedly at his watch. ‘He’s late. You’d think he’d be early today, of all days, wouldn’t you?’
‘He’s been on the phone non-stop since eight o’clock,’ the publicity officer, Noelle Hyland, said sharply, resenting the other man’s tone. She leaned forward to stare at Jack with dislike, her spiky hair bright gold in the sunlight, making her look like a blonde hedgehog, especially as she was wearing a dark grey knitted wool suit which had a faintly fuzzy look to it.
‘He looks dead tired,’ said the female personnel director, Andrea Watson, sighing. Plump and cuddly in a pink angora sweater and white skirt, she also resented Jack Rowe’s carping over their managing director, to whom she was totally loyal.
Normally she smiled a lot, was full of fun, warm-hearted, enjoying life. Today, like her colleagues, she was serious, worried, a little pale.
Pausing in the doorway, Matt Hearne surveyed them before they noticed his arrival. Was one of them a Judas, ready to sell him and his company out?
Somebody inside the firm had to be involved, his lawyer, Leigh Hampton, had said to him ten minutes ago. ‘You must have a Trojan Horse there, Matt—find out who it is and get rid of them fast.’
Matt did not want to believe it.
His bright blue eyes skimmed their faces, wishing he could read them like a balance sheet. If only human beings were that easy. How many of them had secretly been offered jobs if this take-over went through?
Anger burnt deep inside his chest. He had worked hard to build this firm up; it had been his life for ten years. He had put everything he had and was into it.
Now someone was trying to take it away from him.
Well, they weren’t going to succeed, no matter what he had to do to stop them. He would never have thought of himself as a ruthless man, but he could become one, if he had to. He believed you could always do what you had to.
He walked forward and the others all looked up, immediately alert, trying to read his expression to find out how he felt.
Andrea gave him a trusting, hopeful smile. She thought he was brilliant. Utterly wonderful. Cleverer than any man she had ever met, and sexy with it. Even though she was happily married with ten-year-old twins, Matt could make her heart flutter. Her husband, Gary, had noticed her watching Matt at a dinner party last winter, her eyes glowing with admiration, and teased her.
‘You’re wasting your time, love. Computers turn him on, not women. What makes you females go dreamy over the guy, anyway? What’s he got that I haven’t got?’
‘Nothing, darling, not a thing,’ she had quickly said, because the last thing she wanted to do was hurt Gary’s feelings. But the truth was that although she loved her tall, burly husband, even in his old torn jeans and rugby shirt, gardening on a Sunday and covered in mud and grass-stains, Matt was gorgeous; more like a film star than a boss. Every other female in the office thought the same. She knew Noelle adored him. In fact, she had never yet met a woman who didn’t love his warm, blue eyes, that pale brown, floppy, silky hair, his lazy, charming smile, and laid-back, lounging way of walking.
At lunchtime, in the coffee shop next door to the company’s offices, where they all ate salads and jacket potatoes, the women who worked for him spent hours talking about how sexy Matt Hearne was and wishing he would look their way.
He never did.
There had been no woman in Matt’s life at all since his wife, Aileen, died three years ago, giving birth to a premature baby girl. Andrea had seen Matt the next day and been shocked by how old he suddenly looked. His marriage had been a very happy one. He and Aileen had known each other from their school days. Aileen’s death had hit him badly. She had tried to comfort him, but he had said brusquely, ‘You’re very kind, but I don’t want to talk about it, Andrea.’
White, drawn, haggard, he had walked away and hadn’t been seen in the offices for ten days. When he’d come back he was a different man. From then on he had buried himself in his work. He had lost a lot of weight, hardly spoke, became grim and taciturn.
Everyone had been worried about him, but a hardness in his eyes made them all afraid to say a word. Matt the charming, Matt the light-hearted had become surly and dangerous. They were scared of him for months.
Thank heavens, that harshness had slowly died away. Over the past couple of years, to their relief, he had gradually returned to his old self. He laughed again, smiled often, chatted to them all casually, was approachable again, but in the blue eyes somewhere the shadow of heartbreak remained when he did not think he was being watched.
Andrea had often seen him gazing out over the steel-grey River Thames, below his office, his face set in lines of sadness, and wished she could say or do something to lighten his mood, but was afraid to offer comfort in case he bit her head off again.
‘Good morning, everyone, thank you for being so punctual,’ he said now, taking his own chair at the head of the table, facing his executives. ‘I won’t waste your time with a long preamble. We all know why we’re here. Somebody has been buying up our shares. We’ve had a couple of near-misses in the past so we know the signs of a take-over bid. It’s obviously a serious attack. They’re spending a lot of money. I’ve asked Rod to find out everything he can. We’ll hear him first, then I’d like each of you to give me your own personal opinion on the offer, before we settle back to discuss tactics. Okay?’
‘Have they been in touch with you, Matt?’ asked Jack Rowe, his face tight with nerves.
Shaking his head, Matt said, ‘Not yet, but no doubt they soon will. I’m afraid these are big boys. Tell them who we’re up against this time, Rod.’
‘TTO,’ Rod Cadogan said.
Nobody looked surprised, Matt noted wryly. They had already heard that Tesmost Technical Operations were behind the bid, no doubt. You couldn’t keep such matters secret. Theirs was a small world. All the big international electronics firms knew each other. Several had tried to buy Hearne’s in the last two years, since it leaked out that they were working on a cheap voice-operated computer. In this business new technology was the name of the game. You had to keep launching new ideas or you died. Matt had kept his research a secret for as long as possible, not talking to anyone but his closest colleagues, but sooner or later he had had to start building the actual computer, which meant far more people getting involved in the project, and once that happened the word was out and the vultures gathered.
He had had the money to beat off all previous interest, but TTO were an enormous company with far more capital than Matt could put together. If Matt borrowed money to help him in this struggle, he would lose control of his company, anyway, to whoever lent the cash.
Bleakly, Matt wished he could work out how to defeat this bid without asking for help from anyone. But he knew he was between the devil and the deep blue sea. Maybe he should sell the house in the Essex countryside which he and Aileen had bought when they got married?
He lived in his London flat which was just the right size for a bachelor, very convenient for work, and surrounded by restaurants and shops. But his mother and his baby daughter lived in the Essex house, only an hour’s drive away so that he could visit them often. When Aileen died his mother had moved into their home to take care of Lisa and the arrangement had worked so well that it had become a routine.
Darkness veiled his eyes. Sometimes he could not believe she was gone, gone for ever. Aileen had been so full of life; he could see her now, laughing at him, the wind of the Essex coast in her hair, her eyes loving.
Salt coated his throat.
He mustn’t think of her. Stop it, he told himself. No looking back. Think about the future.
Well, if he had to sell the house he would sell his flat, too, and find somewhere big enough for his mother and the baby, too. Maybe it was time they all lived together? Having a split household like this wasn’t natural. He ought to see more of Lisa now that she was becoming a little girl, not just a baby.
‘You see, Matt, this is a well organised attack!’ he suddenly heard, and, starting, came back to the present, to look at Rod.
Matt nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’
Rod sighed heavily. ‘I’ve got a list of share transfers that have already been shifted by the big investors, the pension funds and companies.’ In his flat London accent Rod began to read his list out like someone reading the names of mourners at a funeral.
He paused, looked up, said grimly, ‘And in charge of organising the bid, and co-ordinating the buying in of major company shares, Bianca Milne, Forward Planning Director of TTO.’ Rod placed a large colour photo on the desk and everyone stared down at it.
Jack Rowe gave a low wolf whistle. ‘Hey, I could go for her!’
Andrea felt a quiver of envy. If only she looked like that! She would swap her own brown hair for that sleek, smooth blonde chignon any time, and as for that face… Oh, it wasn’t fair. Some women had it all.
Matt had heard of Bianca Milne, but had never actually set eyes on her. He leaned forward and picked up the photograph, his mouth twisting.
‘Not my type at all, Jack, and I’d hazard a guess you wouldn’t get anywhere with her, either. She’s the don’t-touch-me type—look at those eyes. Cold as ice.’
Andrea’s smile spread. He was so good at reading character in a glance!
‘How old is she?’ somebody asked. ‘She looks too young to be heading a take-over bid.’
‘She’s not as young as she looks,’ said Rod. ‘She’ll be thirty in a month or so, it seems.’
‘I call that young,’ Jack said gloomily. ‘Wish I was thirty next month.’
‘Married?’ Andrea asked, hopefully.
Rod shook his head. ‘No. And currently without a man. Gossip has it that her last relationship was with Lord Mistell’s son, young Harry Mistell, who worked for one of the merchant banks her company supplied with the latest electronic hardware.’
Matt’s eyes lifted to consider Rod’s face. ‘Who broke off the affair, her or him?’
‘Her. They earned millions out of that deal, and Bianca Milne handled the sale. She stopped seeing young Mistell a few weeks later.’
Matt did not look surprised. He just nodded.
‘She was dating him just to make the sale?’ Noelle said, frowning. ‘That’s horrible.’
Rod shrugged. ‘Whether she was using him, or their break-up was a coincidence, who knows? But that’s how the gossip goes. She’s been with TTO for nine years, climbed rapidly up the company. The way she looks must have helped, but apparently she’s also clever, tough and very ambitious. She has a strong power base there. There is a rumour that she has a secret affair going with Don Heston, the chief executive of the company, but again I don’t know how true that is.’ Rod paused, added softly, ‘Heston is married.’
‘And has kids,’ said Matt and Rod nodded.
‘Two, a boy and a girl in their teens. Heston is nearly fifty, but looks younger. Nobody ever sees his wife. She stays in the country with the kids—they’ve got a big house in Buckinghamshire. Heston mostly jets around the world. Bianca Milne often goes with him.’
‘Hence the rumours, of course,’ Matt said briskly. ‘And who could blame him if he did mix business with pleasure with someone who looks like that? Okay, give us the background on TTO’s current market position, Rod. Concentrate, everyone. We need to find any chinks in their armour, any weaknesses. I’ll set up a meeting with Heston in the next few days to find out what sort of war this is going to be.’
His eyes fell on the photograph again. Bianca Milne had a cool, remote, Madonna-like face—but what sort of mind lay behind those big green eyes? A woman more ruled by her head than her heart, obviously.
Matt thought of his dead wife, who had been warm and funny and sweet, a woman ruled by her heart, never her head. God, he missed her. Day and night. Especially at night when his bed was cold and empty.
Pulling himself up, he pushed his memories away, staring at the photo of Bianca Milne. Rumours didn’t come from nowhere. Had she slept with Lord Mistell’s son just to get that contract? Was that the sort of woman she was? Rod had heard she was Heston’s mistress as well as his right-hand woman.
The girl with that purity of countenance and coldness of eye must have a few weaknesses, which could be useful to know. And maybe she was Heston’s weakness? It could be even more useful to know that.
Bianca was dictating to her secretary when Don rang. ‘Ready?’
He rarely wasted words or time. She wasn’t surprised by his curt tone.
Looking at her watch, Bianca was surprised, however, to realise it was already twelve o’clock. It had been a busy morning; she had lost track of time, deep in concentration, trying to get as much work as possible done before she left for this very important lunch appointment.
‘Yes, of course. I’ll see you downstairs in two minutes.’
Don rang off in his usual curt fashion and Bianca quickly finished dictating.
‘Get those into the computer, and printed, Patricia, and I’ll sign them before I go home tonight.’
Patricia stood up, her shorthand pad in one hand, checking the pages of notes, the number of letters to be done, her face gloomy at the thought of all that work. She was a small, dark girl who didn’t really enjoy her job. She had been engaged for six months and was counting the days to her wedding, after which, she’d frankly told Bianca, she meant to have a family as soon as possible and give up work for ever.
Bianca had drily said, ‘What an old-fashioned attitude. Two incomes are better than one, you know, especially during the first year or so of a marriage. Can you afford to give up work and live on one salary?’
But it seemed that Patricia’s future husband was a financial analyst who earned six times what Patricia could earn. Her income would not be important to them.
Smiling smugly, Patricia had told her, ‘We don’t have to worry about money; Tony earns more than enough for two and he wants to have kids as much as I do. He’s thirty-five, his biological clock is ticking loudly. So is mine. I love kids and I want to have a lovely house and garden. That has always been my ambition. I’ve never been married to my job, you know, the way you are.’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed you don’t enjoy your job,’ Bianca had said flatly. ‘Let’s hope you enjoy being a housewife. I think you’ll discover housework isn’t exactly fun, either. Well, give me plenty of notice so that I can find a replacement for you.’
Next time she meant to make sure she got a livewire secretary who put a bit more into her job, enjoyed what she did; not a lacklustre girl only interested in clothes, her own appearance and her private life.
Walking to the door now, Patricia asked over her shoulder, ‘What time do you think you’ll get back from lunch?’
‘No idea. It depends how the Hearne people react. We could have a short, nasty exchange and break up early. Or we could go on all afternoon. Just make sure those letters are ready for me to sign when I get back.’
