The Billionaire Boss's Bride. Cathy Williams

fault, Dad!’ She stood back and gestured to all the carrier bags that had been summarily relegated to the ground the minute she had laid eyes on the unexpected sight of her father. ‘I’ve been shopping!’

      She ducked down to the bags strewn on the ground and, in the intervening pause, Tessa made her way to her desk and asked him crisply how the trip had gone, whether it had been successful.

      The lifeless computer screen sent another jab of guilt at the extended length of time she had been out of the office. It was unheard of. She had never, but never, sidelined her duties in favour of something frivolous. The work ethic was so deeply ingrained in her that she very rarely even made personal calls from work, so skipping off on a three-hour jaunt was almost beyond the bounds of belief. Worse was the fact that she had been caught out.

      ‘Very good.’ Curtis was watching his daughter with amused indulgence, perched on the desk, arms folded.

      He was wearing faded jeans and a long-sleeved cream jumper, the sleeves of which he had pushed up to the elbows. Tessa took it all in as she industriously switched on the computer and sat down.

      His mouth was curved into a smile of loving expectation as he looked at his excited daughter. Improbable as it seemed, given his relentlessly single image, he was a doting father. He didn’t often make it to any school things, Anna had told her, but, she had quickly excused, that was because he was always so busy at work. When he did visit her at school, he invariably arrived with armfuls of gifts, and of course he was always the centre of attention. Her friends swooned over him. She had related this with great pride in her voice, never implying that she had ever longed for anything else. Reading between the lines, just having Curtis as her dad gave her some kind of indefinable street cred amongst her classmates.