The Boss's Proposal Read Online Free PDF Page A

sure something will turn up.’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t know. Jobs in typing pools are thin on the ground. ’Course, you’ll have no trouble getting something much better paid with infinitely more prospects, but who needs that sort of work?’
    There was a veiled amusement in his voice that only made her more addled and crosser than she already was.
    â€˜Look, why don’t we go inside? I’ve got time for a cup of tea and you can tell me all about Australia.’
    â€˜There’s nothing to tell.’ A telltale pulse was beating rhythmically in the hollow of her neck and the little bud of panic that had begun to sprout the minute she’d heard his voice flowered into full bloom.
    They couldn’t possibly go inside. Chloe wasn’t around, but signs of her were everywhere. He didn’t know that she had a child and that was the way she intended it to remain. It had been the only piece of sheer luck since meeting him. She’d answered the advertisement and had sheepishly omitted to mention Chloe simply because she had gleaned from several sources that a child in the background prompted awkward questions about childcare and being a single parent; this was the road to certain rejection by any company. School and Betsy, the lady who helped her out in the evenings sometimes, meant that there were no problems on the childcare front, and she reckoned, naively, that if she ever got offered a job she would inform her employers at that point and hope that they would take her on the strength of her interview, even once they knew of Chloe’s existence.
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    Max looked down at her and confusingly wanted to do a number of things at the same time. First, he wanted to clear out, because he had no idea what had possessed him to go there in the first place. Unfortunately, and much to his immense frustration, he also wanted to stay put, because seeing her again had somehow managed to render him even more intrigued than he’d been on their first encounter. He also wanted to brush some of that dirt off her face, if only to see what her reaction would be. In fact, the urge to do just that was so powerful that he clasped his hands behind his back and purposely looked away.
    â€˜Actually, I haven’t just dropped by,’ he said eventually, resenting her for putting him in a position where he was about to embark on an out-and-out lie and resenting himself for his own pathetic weakness that had brought him here to start with.
    â€˜Oh, no?’ she asked warily.
    â€˜It’s to do with your house, as a matter of fact.’
    â€˜What? What’s to do with my house?’
    â€˜Why don’t we go inside and talk about it?’ He didn’t think that he had ever been so bloody underhanded in his life before, and all because he hadn’t been able to get this chit of a girl out of his head. She had fired up his interest, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, and now here he was, behaving like some shady character in a third-rate movie. He had never, but never , done anything remotely like this in his entire life because of a woman, and he could hardly believe that he was doing it now. Conniving like a two-bit criminal.
    She didn’t say anything. Instead, she headed towards the house, leaning forward into the wind, which looked as though it might just lift her off her feet and sweep her away if she wasn’t careful. Max followed behind by a few paces, his teeth clenched in exasperation as she told him to wait outside until she’d tidied herself up.
    He raised his eyebrows in amusement. ‘Why outside?’
    â€˜Because,’ Vicky said coldly, ‘it’s my house and that’s what I’m telling you to do.’ Upon which she promptly shut the door in his face before he could open his mouth to protest further.
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    She had never moved with more speed. The house was thankfully clean, and in under three minutes she’d managed to stash away all