SEXY ROMANCE

M&B RIVA

 

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Never mix business…with cocktails!

Hannah is PA to the smart and gorgeous adventurer and TV presenter Bradley Knight. Together they make the perfect professional partnership – they’re both ambitious, super-organised and don’t own an off-button! So when Hannah heads back to Tasmania for her sister’s wedding, and back into the family craziness she had run from years before, the last thing she wants is for Bradley to come too. He sees it as a perfect shooting location; she just wants to shoot herself if he sees her in less than a super-human professional light. How can she stay zipped up and professional when karaoke and flowing mojitos are the wedding entertainment?!

Mills and Boon says: "If you like Harriet Evans and Miranda Dickinson, you’ll love this."

‘You’re him!  Aren’t you?’

The gorgeous specimen of manhood in the dark sunglasses at the pointy end of the squat, pale-pink fingernail sat stock still.  To the eclectic, late afternoon, Brunswick Street crowd rushing past the sidewalk café he would have appeared simply cool.  Collected.  Quietly attentive behind a half smile so effortlessly sexy it could stop traffic.  Literally.

Hannah knew better.

Hannah, who worked harder, and with longer hours than anyone else she knew, would have bet her precious life savings on the fact that even while he was so conspicuously tall, broad, and darkly handsome he might as well have been wearing a neon sign around his neck that said “Gorgeous Guy This Way!”, behind those ubiquitous dark sunglasses he was hoping, almost desperately, that the older woman on the other end of the finger might quickly realise she had mistaken him for someone else.

No such luck.

‘You are!’ the woman continued, flat feet planted determinedly on the uneven cobbled ground.  ‘I know you are!  You’re the guy who makes Voyagers.  I’ve seen you in magazines.  And on the telly.  My daughter just loooves you.  She even considered going into training once so she could be one of those regular-type people you send off into the wild  and up mountains with nothing but a toothbrush and a packet of Tim-Tams.  Or however it goes.  And that’s saying something!  It’s all but impossible to get that girl off the couch.  You know what?  I should give you her number.  She’s quite pretty in her way and unquestionably single...’

Sitting - with apparently ninja-like invisibility - on the other side of the rickety table that served as the Knight Productions office those times the boss felt the need to get out of the confines of their manic headquarters, Hannah had to cover her mouth to smother the laugh threatening to bubble to the surface.

Any other time of day or night her boss was so like the mountains he had famously conquered before turning his attentions to encouraging others to do the same on TV.  He was colossal, tough, unyielding, indomitable, enigmatic.  Which was why seeing him wriggle and squirm and practically lose the power of speech under the attentions of an overtly loving fan was always a moment to relish.

It had taken Hannah less than half a day of the year she’d worked for Bradley Knight to realise that overt adoration was her boss’s Achilles’ heel.  Awards,, industry accolades, gushing peers, bowing and scraping minions all turned him to stone.

And there were fans.  The many many many fans who knew a good thing when they saw it.  And there was no denying that Bradley Knight was six feet four inches of very good thing.

Just like that the laughter tickling Hannah’s throat turned into a small uncomfortable lump.

She frowned deeply, cleared her throat and shifted on her wrought iron seat, redistributing the balance of her buttocks.  And more importantly her train of thought.

The very last thing her boss needed was even the smallest clue that in moments of overworked, overtired weakness, he’d even given her the occasional tummy flutter.  And sweaty palms.  And hot flushes.  And raging fantasies the likes of which she wouldn’t dare share with even her best friend whose good-natured ribbing about Hannah’s constant proximity to their gorgeous boss had come all too close to hitting the mark on a number of occasions.

The beep of a car horn split the air and Hannah flinched out of her heady daydream to find herself breathing a little too heavily and staring moonily at her boss.

Hannah frowned so hard she pulled a muscle in her neck.  

She’d worked her backside to get there, to take any job she could get in order to gain experience before finally finding the one she loved.  The one she was really good at.  The one she was meant to do.  And she wasn’t going to do anything to risk that career path now.

Even if that wasn’t reason enough, pining after the guy was a complete a waste of time.  He was a rock.  He’d never let her in.  He never let anyone in.  And when it came to relationships Hannah wasn’t prepared to accept anything less than wonderful.

Don’t.  Ever.  Forget it.

She glanced at her watch.  It was nearly four.  Phew.  The long weekend looming ahead of her – four days away from her all-consuming job, and her all-consuming boss – clearly could not have come at a better time.

Still on the clock, she turned her concentration back to the woman who may as well have had her boss at knife-point he was sitting so eerily still.

She scraped her chair back and intervened before Bradley managed to perform the first ever case of human osmosis and disappeared through the holes in his wrought iron chair.

The woman only noticed her existence when Hannah slung an arm around her shoulders and none too gently eased her to the curb.

‘Do you know him?’ the woman asked, breathless.

Glancing back at Bradley, Hannah’s inner imp took over.  Leaning in she added, ‘I’ve seen the inside of his fridge.  It’s frighteningly clean.’

The woman’s still glittering eyes widened and she finally focussed fully on Hannah.  She was very thorough in her perusal of the kinks that always managed to appear in Hannah’s straightened hair by that time of the afternoon.  The countless creases in her designer dress.  The chunky men’s diving watch hanging loosely around her thin wrist.  The cowboy boots poking out from beneath it all.

Then the woman smiled.

With a none too comfortable flash of realisation it hit Hannah that she was being compared unfavourably to the daughter who never got off the couch.  Her inner imp limped back into hiding.

Eight hours earlier she’d looked the epitome of the personal assistant of Australia’s most successful television producer, even despite the little odes to her tomboy roots.  You could take the girl out of small-town Tasmania but...

But she didn’t say any of that.  With a shrug she admitted, ‘I’m Mr Knight’s personal assistant.’

‘Oh.’  The woman nodded, as if that made so much more sense than a man like him choosing to spend time with her and not just because when he said jump she knew how high without even having to ask.

After a little more shop chat Hannah turned the woman in the opposite direction, gave her a little push and waved goodbye as like a zombie the woman trudged off down the street.

She brushed off her hands.  Another job well done.  Then she turned, hands on hips, to find Bradley  running long fingers beneath his eyes, sliding his sunglasses almost high enough to offer a teasing glimpse of the arresting silvery-grey eyes beneath.  But not quite.

Then, slowly, achingly slowly his rigid body began to unclench.  Slowly, muscle by hard-earned muscle, limb by long strong limb, down his considerable length and until his legs slid under the table and his large shoes poked lazily out the other side.

The apparent languor was all an act.  The efforts of a private man to restrain whatever it was that drew people to him like moths to a flame.  Unfortunately for him it only made the restrained power seething inside of him more obvious.  More compelling.  A familiar sweep of sensation skipped blithely across her skin again - a soft, melty, pulsing, feeling.

Even the fact that she knew she was about to bear the brunt of the dark mood he’d be in after the one-way love-in, it didn’t make her immune.

At least it hadn’t yet.

Time was what she needed.  Time and space so that the boundaries of her life weren’t defined by the monstrous numbers of hours she spent deep inside Bradley’s overwhelming creative vision.  Thanks heavens for the long weekend!

Time, space and meeting a guy.  One who might actually stand a chance on hell of feeling that way about her.

He was out there.  Somewhere.  She was sure of it.  He had to be.  Because she absolutely wasn’t going to settle for anything less than everything.  She’d seen first hand what settling looked like in the first of three of the marriages her mother had leapt into after her father passed away.  It wasn’t pretty.  In fact it was downright sordid.   That wasn’t going to be her life.

She blinked as her boss’s beautifully chiselled face came into such sharp focus her breath caught in her throat.  He was something.  But any woman who hoped in Bradley Knight’s direction was asking for heartache.  Many had tried.  Many more yet would.  But nobody on earth would topple that mountain.

She grabbed a wayward swathe of hair flickering across her face and tucked it back into her messy ponytail, plastered a smile across her face and bounded back to the table.  Bradley didn’t look up.  Didn’t even flicker a lash.  He probably hadn’t even realised she’d left.

‘Wasn’t she a lovely lady?’  Hannah sing-songed.  ‘We’re sending her daughter a signed copy of last season’s Voyagers.’

‘Why me?’ Bradley asked, still looking into the distance.

‘You were just born that lucky,’ she said wryly.

‘You think I’m lucky?’ he asked.

‘Ooh yeah.  Fairies sprinkled fortune dust on your cradle as you slept.  Why else do you think you’ve been so ridiculously successful at everything you’ve ever set your heart on?’

His head swung her way.  Even with the dark sunglasses between them the force of his undivided attention was like a thunderclap.  Her heart rate quadrupled in response. 

His voice was a touch deeper when he said, ‘So in your eyes, my life has nothing to do with hard work, persistence, and knowing just enough about man’s primal need to prove himself as a man?’

Hannah tapped a finger on her chin and took a few seconds to damp down her own latent desires as she looked up at the cloudy blue sky.  Then she said, ‘Nah.’

The appreciative rumble of his laughter danced across her nerves, creating a whole new wave of warmth cascading through her.  Enjoying him from the other side of the mile high walls he wore like a second skin was imprudent enough, enduring the bombardment of his personal attention was a whole other battle.

‘If you really want to know why you are so lucky give that lady’s daughter a call.  Take her to dinner.  Ask her yourself.’  She waved the piece of paper with the woman’s address and phone number on it.  ‘Talk about a PR windfall.  Bradley Knight dates fan.  Falls in love.  Moves to suburbs.  Coaches little league team.  Learns to cook lamb roast.’

Behind his sunglasses she could feel his eyes narrowing.  He then took his sweet time sitting upright.  He managed to make the move appear leisurely, inconsequential even, but the constrained power pulsing through every limb, every digit, every hair was patently clear to anyone with half an instinct.  She could feel her blood pumping through her veins.

‘At this moment,’ he said, his voice a deep dark warning, ‘I am so very very glad you are my assistant and not in charge of PR.’

Hannah slid the paper into her overstuffed leather diary and said, ‘Yeah, me too.  I’m not sure there’s enough money in the world that could tempt me to take on a job whereby I’d have to spend my days trying to convince the world how wonderful you are.  I mean I work hard now, but come on...’

Frown lines appeared above his glasses he leaned across the table til his forearms covered half the thing.  He was so big he blocked out the sun – a massive shadow of a man with a golden halo outlining his bulk.

Hannah’s fingertips were within touching distance of his.  She could feel every single hair on her arms stand to attention one by delicious one.  Her feet were tucked so far under her chair so as to not accidentally scrape against his she was getting a cramp.

‘Aren’t we in a strange mood today?’ he asked, his voice dropping so quiet, so very low, and so very much only for her ears she felt it hum in the backs of her knees.

He tilted his chin in her direction as he asked, ‘What gives?’

And then he slid his sunglasses from his eyes.  Smoky grey they were, or quicksilver, entirely depending on his mood.  In that moment they were so dark the colour was impenetrable.

The man was such a workaholic. , he never looked to her without a dozen instructions ready to be barked.  But in that moment he just looked at her.  And waited.  Hannah’s throat turned to ash.

‘What gives,’ an intruder shot back, ‘is that our Hannah’s mind is already turned to a weekend of debauchery and certain nookie.’

Hannah flinched so hard at the sudden intrusion she bit her lip.

 v

 

From "THE WEDDING DATE " by Ally Blake
Mills and Boon RIVA March 2011

ISBN:  978-0-263-88370-1

 

Text Copyright: © 2010 Ally Blake

Cover Art Copyright © 2011 Harlequin Enterprises Limited.

Permission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Books S.A.  Cover art used by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises Limited.  All rights reserved.  ® and ™ are trademarks owned by Harlequin Enterprises Limited or its affiliated companies, used under license.

  

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This one’s for white chocolate raspberry muffins and macadamia choc chip cookies.  Or more specifically, the super staff at the fabulous local cafes who let me write this book in their welcoming warmth and know my order by heart.

Faking It to Making It  |  When Honey Got Married....

The Secret Wedding Dress  |  The Rules of Engagement  |  The Wedding Date  |  Millionaire Dad's SOS  |  Getting Red-Hot with the Rogue

Dating the Rebel Tycoon  |  A Night with the Society Playboy  |  Hired: The Boss's Bride  |  The Magnate's Indecent Proposal

Falling for the Rebel Heir  |   Steamy Surrender  |  Millionaire to the Rescue  |  Billionaire on Her Doorstep

Getting Down to Business  |  Meant-To-Be Mother  |  Wanted: Outback Wife  |  A Father in the Making  |  The Shock Engagement  

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