скачать книгу бесплатно
All Bets Are On
Charlotte Phillips
Ask Alice Ford to shine in the boardroom and it’s a done deal. Ask her to go on a first date, however, and she’s a quivering mess! So, discovering that she’s the target of an office bet? To get her into bed? It’s her professional nightmare!Office legend Harry Stephens is her unlikely saviour. He even volunteers to teach her just how to avoid a heartbreaker. After all, it takes one to know one… But what is Harry really after?And when his kisses throw a curve ball into the situation, is Alice ready to gamble everything for love?
The stakes are high, but the prize is worth it!
Ask Alice Ford to shine in the boardroom and it’s a done deal. Ask her to go on a first date, however, and she’s a quivering mess! So, when she discovers that she’s the target of an office bet—to get her into bed—it’s her professional nightmare!
Office legend Harry Stephens is her unlikely savior. He even volunteers to teach her just how to avoid a heartbreaker. After all, it takes one to know one….
But what is Harry really after? And when his kisses throw a curveball into the situation, is Alice ready to gamble everything for love?
ALL BETS ARE ON
“If you’re thinking about dating again, maybe you’d like to go for a drink,” he said.
“With you?”
The question exploded from her lips in the form of a laugh. Because it was laughable, wasn’t it? That after her past experiences she would look twice at someone like him?
“Your amusement could be construed as an insult, you know,” he said mildly.
“I can’t,” she said. “Sorry.”
In Harry Stephens’s world, of course, no meant maybe. He realized it was a simple matter of finding the right approach. Start small. And, most important of all, offer some kind of incentive. Make her think he could be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
“Just hear me out,” he said. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“What kind of proposition?”
The upset tone had slipped from her voice. He could almost hear the ticking over of her mind. Her attention had been raised because he’d given his question a detached work-style tone.
“I’m exactly what you need,” he said. “To help you get back out there.”
Dear Reader,
In my former life, I worked in a number of offices and I was always intrigued by the melting pot of personalities you get in that environment. People with different backgrounds and lives, who are thrown together and have to find a way to get along. The idea of writing an office romance really appealed to me, and I thought hard about the types of people I’d encountered at work over the years. I had a boss like Alice once. She was completely absorbed and focused on work to the exclusion of everything else, she had no social life and kept everyone at a professional distance. I found myself wondering what could have happened to drive someone to take refuge in their work like that.
Ten years ago a dodgy photo in unscrupulous hands might have been flashed around a table in a bar or shown to a few mates. In the world of social media that we live in now, dodgy photos have the potential to go viral at the click of a button and, once out there, can be impossible to get back. Tearing up a photo is no longer an end to it. What might have been a short-lived joke ten years ago can be a massive betrayal now.
What would it be like to find yourself “out there” on the internet, your privacy compromised by someone you trusted? Under those circumstances, it might make perfect sense to throw yourself into work, an area of your life where you are responsible for your own success or failure and where you can easily keep people at arm’s length.
Then imagine what might happen if someone irresistible came along and challenged that safety?
From these thoughts, Alice and Harry’s story grew.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Charlotte
All Bets
Are On
Charlotte Phillips
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT CHARLOTTE PHILLIPS
Charlotte Phillips has been reading romantic fiction since her teens, and she adores upbeat stories with happy endings. Writing them for Harlequin® is her dream job.
She combines writing with looking after her fabulous husband, two teenagers, a four-year-old and a dachshund. When something has to give, it’s usually housework.
She lives in Wiltshire.
This and other titles by Charlotte Phillips are available in ebook format—check out www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
This book is for Libby, gorgeous daughter,
lovely friend and expert brainstormer. With all my love.
Contents
Chapter One (#uf63815d5-2099-54c2-952c-a898cfb7b39b)
Chapter Two (#u06e86409-5850-5845-ae2c-95a6f5c8bfd7)
Chapter Three (#u69123272-a2da-517f-a1fb-15ca7a153bad)
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 Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE
Alice Ford opened the top drawer of the spare desk in the office, searched for a pen and found a bombshell.
With her temper tested because her entire team was late back from lunch, she was relegated to answering the telephone when she should at this very moment be leading a meeting on how to move forward with the biggest account Innova Brand Management had yet won.
Add to that the absence of her own work station with its colour-coordinated filing system, pen pot, To-Do list and diary managing every moment of her day. This desk was a paper-strewn, disorganised mess from hell, used as a dumping ground for filing by everyone else in the place. Not a pen in sight, hence the need to claw through goodness knew what in the rubbish-filled drawers just so she could note down a phone message. There were crumbs under her fingernails. Bleurgh. And then exasperation spilled over as she looked in disbelief at the crumpled sheet of paper in her hands.
An innocent-at-first-glance grid. Columns filled out with the names of colleagues, amounts of money. Understanding kicked in, swiftly followed by irritation. Why was she even surprised?
Yet another office betting ring.
Seriously, what was it going to take to instil a proper work ethic into these people? Leading by example clearly wasn’t enough. She ran a sensibly short and neutrally lacquered nail down the list of names. The whole office wasn’t here, not by a long stretch, but all the usual suspects were. Exclusively male. Obviously feeling the need to confirm their masculinity by indulging in this kind of primitive-caveman pastime.
She wondered what it was this time. Maybe something to do with Roger from Accounts—she’d heard he was giving up smoking again. Too much to hope that it might be in aid of a charitable cause.
Then she caught sight of the few sentences at the top of the page and sudden cold horror flushed through her, accompanied by the disorienting sick sensation of sliding backwards in time. The heat of humiliation rose in her cheeks.
‘Who can land Ice-Queen Ford? Proof required. In event of a tie, cash prize to be split equally.’
Alice swallowed hard and dug her nails hard into her palms until the prick of furious tears at the back of her throat subsided. Two things were clear:
Her male colleagues were betting on the dismal state of her love life, staking money on who could successfully have a crack at her.
The reputation she’d thought she held here was non-existent.
Far from being perceived as someone to look up to, she was apparently viewed as a dried-up frigid old spinster, enough of a challenge to wager money on, the perfect butt of a joke. Proof required? What the hell would that consist of? An item of underwear?
Humiliation had been long dead and resigned to the past, so she’d thought. But after three years of self-inflicted singledom, during which she’d taken control of every tiny facet of her life and had reinvented herself as career-woman-extraordinaire with no room on her list of priorities for a man, it seemed humiliation was alive and well and living in London.
Alice Ford was gossip-central.
Again.
* * *
Harry Stephens glanced around the bar, having just bought a round of drinks for the entire team. Correction. Almost the entire team. Despite the graft she’d put in to win the prestigious new contract, Alice Ford was a no-show yet again.
He finished his drink quickly and made his way across the bar, nodding at colleagues along the way. Fortunately Arabella had chosen to sit at a table close to the door. Perfect for the swift exit he intended to make the instant he finished speaking.
‘Harry!’ she said with real pleasure as he approached, loudly enough to draw glances from adjacent tables. The three other junior assistants sitting with her looked his way with interest. He was dimly aware that the redhead to Arabella’s left must be new. Worth a second look, just not today. He filed her away in his mind for future consideration.
Arabella ran her fingers through her long blonde hair, twirling the ends lightly as she smiled at him. He kept his eyes on her face. The expression of adoration wasn’t the only thing putting him on edge. The half-dozen texts she’d sent him so far today also needed to be considered along with the following facts:
1. she’d only left his bed at seven a.m.,
2. it was still only lunchtime, and
3. they worked in the same building.
The increasingly urgent texts along with the smile told him all he needed to know. It might have only been one night, but it was still time to jump ship.
Best to do it quick. Short, clean break before she had the chance to big it up in her mind into more than it was. Just sex. Just fun. No letting it run on too long—that led to all kinds of trouble as he’d recently discovered. And he was having none of it.
Keeping his voice deliberately detached, he reached into his inside jacket pocket.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he said. ‘You left your earrings at my place.’
He held them out, found this morning in his bathroom. She didn’t take them, a light frown touching the perfectly arched eyebrows.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I realised when I got to work. I just thought I’d pick them up next time I saw you. Maybe tonight—did you get my texts...?’
She trailed off, eyes fixed on his face, and he literally saw the click, saw her face begin to redden as she caught on. She wouldn’t be visiting his place again. Her time there was done.
Smile gone now, she stood up, pushed past the redhead and joined him a few feet away by the door.
He held out the earrings again and this time she took them. She looked back up at him with a confident smile that was a bit too small to be pulled off.
‘What’s going on, Harry?’
He made his voice light, surprised.
‘Nothing’s going on. Last night was fun but I told you, I’m not interested in anything serious right now. I think it’s best if we just call it quits, go back to being workmates.’ He paused. ‘Friends.’
He could tell from her face that ‘friends’ was going to be a bit of a big ask. All smiles had gone.
‘You’re dumping me? After one night?’
He heard the crack in her voice. He was so right to get out now.
‘We both knew it was just a laugh,’ he said.
Her gutted expression told him that he might have known that, but she’d had much bigger plans. She opened her mouth, undoubtedly to argue the point further and he cut in quickly. Getting into a debate was a bad move; he knew that from experience.
He gave her upper arm a friendly squeeze, making sure he was well clear of her personal space.
‘I’d better get back to the office,’ he said. ‘Thanks for a great night.’
He left quickly, secure in the knowledge that he’d been honest. He was not responsible for Arabella’s feelings. He’d been up front with her from the start, made no promises, had made it crystal clear at all times where they both stood.
The fact she’d read more into the situation was nothing to do with him.
* * *
The outside line began ringing on various phones across the deserted office, but Alice was oblivious to the noise. Her eyes slipped to the bottom of the paper and her stomach gave another sickening lurch.
Page One.
There’s more than one page?
