At His Service: His 9-5 Secretary: The Billionaire Boss's Secretary Bride / The Secretary's Secret / Memo: Marry Me?. Michelle Celmer

she demanded, her blue eyes flashing. ‘Isn’t this slightly hypocritical? You’ve let Anna turn you into someone else, someone you were never meant to be. Oh, you can prattle on about life changing and shaping us and all that waffle when it applies to you; that sounds quite lofty. But, where I am concerned, it’s ruining my life. Well, let me tell you, Harry, I don’t intend to let my life be ruined, but I think yours has been. You’ve become selfish and shallow, without anything of substance to offer a woman beyond the pleasure of your company in bed. And that wouldn’t be enough for me, not by a long chalk.’

      She stopped, aware she’d said far more than she had intended. The silence seemed to stretch for ever until Harry finally spoke. ‘I take it that’s a no, then,’ he said acidly.

      Her eyes snapped up to his, but she could read nothing in his expressionless gaze. His face had become the bland, smooth mask he adopted at times, a mask she hated. It spoke of withdrawal and control, and it was forged in steel. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have expressed myself quite that way, but you shouldn’t have pushed me.’ Her voice was calm now, but a part of her was dying inside. For it to end like this—it couldn’t be worse.

      ‘I see. It’s all my fault.’ He nodded. ‘I had no idea your opinion of me was so low.’

      She watched him stretch out a hand for another piece of toast, as though the opinion he’d spoken of mattered not a jot. Slowly she took a sip of her tea. It was cold. Like his heart, she thought, a little hysterically. ‘It’s an opinion formed from the image you project,’ she countered shakily.

      He seemed to consider this for a moment, his features in shadow as he leant back in his chair. Gina was glad she could tilt her head and let her hair fall in a curtain as she concentrated on the puppy; the angle of her chair cause the light to fall directly on her, and she needed some help in hiding her turbulent emotions.

      After a while, when he remained silent, she sighed inwardly. This was awful. So much was going on in this room that the air was crackling. She’d offended and annoyed him, and she couldn’t take this deafening silence one more moment.

      She opened her mouth to speak, but he was there a second before her. ‘The image isn’t all of me,’ he said gruffly.

      She knew that. The man she loved was a hugely complicated human being. Enigmatic and cold, funny and warm. The sort of man who could slaughter an opponent on the telephone with a few well chosen, crisp words, and yet who would stop to rescue four little breathing pieces of flotsam and jetsam the world had abandoned.

      The first time she’d accepted her heart was irrevocably his was when she’d discovered he’d delved into his own pocket to pay the rent arrears of a house one of their ex-employees lived in. The man had a drug problem, and had worked one day in five in the couple of months before Harry had sacked him. When the man’s wife had come to the works hoping to find him—and it had transpired he’d been even less at home that he’d been at work and she hadn’t seen him for weeks—Harry had taken her home to find three young children were also in the equation. He’d paid the rent arrears, found the woman a job at the works, and arranged for nursery care for the children.

      She bit her lip and tried to control the tears that were threatening. ‘I didn’t think it was,’ she said. ‘But you have to understand where I’m coming from, Harry. In the matter of love, relationships, togetherness—call it what you will—we’re aeons apart. I—I don’t want to waste any more time on hopeless liaisons.’ That was the truth at least. ‘I—I want my heart to be my own again, and I’m the sort of woman who couldn’t sleep with anyone, even once, without being involved. It … well it wouldn’t be a fun thing for me. At least, it being fun wouldn’t be enough without love as well.’

      She saw him nod. ‘I’d like to know his name, just to be able to tell him what a damn fool he is,’ he said so softly she could barely hear him.

      Gina gulped. ‘I’m a fool as well. I knew what I was getting into but I couldn’t find the brake. I don’t think I ever will. That’s why I need to move away. I don’t want to become someone I don’t like.’

      ‘You love him very much.’

      It was a statement, not a question, but Gina answered anyway. ‘Yes, I do.’

      ‘Life’s not all it’s cut out to be at times, is it?’

      It was fine until he’d come along. The puppy had never really settled since she’d half-strangled it, and now it began to squirm with definite intent. ‘I’ll put her back with her sisters.’ She stood up, aware of him following her as she walked through to the utility room.

      Outside the window, the first pink streaks of dawn were beginning to creep into a charcoal sky, and the dawn chorus was in full song. It was going to be another beautiful spring day.

      After depositing her charge with the other sleeping puppies, Gina left the utility room and walked through to the kitchen where Harry was waiting for her. ‘We might get in an hour’s kip before the alarm goes,’ he said, half-smiling. ‘Or they wake up.’

      She tried to match his easy manner. ‘I don’t have an alarm.’

      ‘I’ll bang on your door, don’t worry.’

      When they reached the landing, he paused with her outside her room, his voice soft as he said, ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, Gina.’

      ‘What?’ For an awful minute she thought he had guessed.

      ‘By rubbing salt in the wound about this guy.’

      Her limbs turning fluid, she managed to say fairly coherently, ‘You didn’t,’ as relief flooded her.

      ‘And you’re not a coward. Far from it.’

      She had leant against the wall when he’d first spoken, needing its support, and he’d propped one arm over her head, his fingers splayed next to her hair. She was aware of the faint lemony smell of shower gel, the same make as she had found in her ensuite, presumably, but mixed with Harry’s body chemicals it was altogether more spicy, sexier. Summoning brain power from some deep reserve, she murmured, ‘Leaving is more an act of self-survival, Harry.’

      He nodded. ‘I’m beginning to understand that. And if you need a friend, any time, any place, call me, OK? I’ll be there.’

      He wasn’t a man to offer empty platitudes. Touched and very near to bursting into tears, she didn’t dare to attempt to speak. Instead she leaned forward on tiptoe and kissed him swiftly on his cheek.

      She heard his quickly indrawn breath, but he remained quite still as she slipped under his arm and opened her bedroom door. It was only when it was shut that she let out her breath, her heart pounding.

      She stood frozen inside the room, her ears straining to hear any sound from the landing, but it was absolutely silent. After some minutes she walked over to her bed, the tears streaming down her face, but her mind too weary to struggle with the reason why. With the robe still intact she pulled the duvet over her, shutting her eyes as the tears continued to seep under the lids.

      She fell asleep within a minute, her face damp and salty, and her body and mind utterly spent.

      CHAPTER SIX

      HARRY stood for some time on the landing, shaken to the core. Which was crazy, he told himself vehemently once his racing heart had begun to steady. It had hardly been a kiss, for crying out loud. And Gina had been quite unmoved, sailing into her room and shutting the door as though she hadn’t just turned his world upside down.

      No. No, it hadn’t been.

      Yes, it had.

      He groaned softly, raking the hair out of his eyes with an unsteady hand and padding to his own room at the far end of the shadowed landing. Once inside he began to pace the floor, his brows drawn together in a ferocious scowl.

      What the hell had happened out there? And downstairs; why had he asked her to stay around when he’d promised