The Secretary's Bossman Bargain Read Online Free PDF Page B

bug in your fist and it still didn’t mean you would enjoy it. But Allende—a transport company on its last breath, flailing for help—had his name on it.
    It was his. To resuscitate or to murder.
    Virginia drew up beside him and he went rigid, inhumanly aware of her body close to his. She was a subtle, scented, stirring presence.
    Without so much as moving his head, he let his eyes venture to the front of her sweater. The fabric clung to the small, shapely, seductive swells of her breasts. A wealth of tenderness flooded him. Virginia had come dressed as his assistant in the sweater, her typical knee-length gray skirt, the simple closed-toe shoes with no personality. “I’m afraid this won’t do,” he murmured.
    A smile danced on her lips as she tipped her face up in bewilderment. She seemed animated today, no more the worried siren begging for his assistance last night. “What won’t do?”
    Virginia. With her perfect oval face, creamy, elegant throat and bow-shaped morsel of a mouth that invited him to nibble. It really seemed easier to stop breathing than to continue saying no to those marshmallow-soft lips. “The sweater,” he said quietly, signaling the length of her body with his hand. “The skirt. The sensible shoes. It won’t do, Miss Hollis.”
    She set her coffee cup and napkin on a side table, then tucked her hair behind her ear. “I did pack a few dresses.”
    “Did you.” His eyebrows furrowed together as he surveyed her pearls. “Designer dresses?”
    “Why, no.”
    He raised his hand to the pearl necklace. “How attached are you,” he whispered, trailing his finger across the glossy bumps, “to wearing these?”
    She watched him for a moment, a telling wariness in her voice. “They were Mother’s.”
    “Pretty. Very pretty.” The pent-up desire that blazed inside him textured his voice. “You see, my lover…might wear something else.” He was playing with fire. He didn’t care. “My woman—” he plucked a pearl between two fingers “—would wear Tahitians. Diamonds. Emeralds.”
    Her eyes danced. “Are you afraid I won’t look presentable?”
    He dropped his hands and shot her a dead-serious look. “I’m afraid you will look too much like my assistant and not my lover.”
    But she kept on smiling, kept on enchanting him. “I see.”
    He frowned now. “Understand me, Virginia. If I’d wanted to be seen with my assistant, I’d have brought Mrs. Fuller.”
    This made her gasp, and the gasp did not make his scowl vanish. He nodded towards the Falcon. “Your new wardrobe is in the plane. There’s a room in the back. Change.”

    Three
    Of all the highhandedness, of all the arrogance, of all the bosses in the world—she had to be in debt to Marcos. Undoubtedly the most complicated.
    While the jet motors hummed in the background, Virginia slipped into the slinky patterned dress inside the windowless little room at the back of the plane. Damn him. She had agreed to his request, but how was she supposed to reply to his autocratic commands? Worse, the clothes were divine. She couldn’t in her right mind stay annoyed at a man with such exquisite taste. Her knight in shining armor.
    Enthralled by how slight and satiny the dress felt against her body, she ran three fingers down the length of her hips, wishing there was a mirror to let her visually appreciate the dress’s exquisite, plunging back. And how is this necessary to his plan? she wondered.
    Gathering her courage with a steady intake of breath, she forced herself to step outside.
    Throughout the tasteful wood and leather interior, the air crackled with the suppressed energy of his presence. His head was bent. His powerful, well-built body overwhelmed a cream-colored, plush leather seat, and his hair—abused by his hands during the flight—gleamed in the sunlight as he read through a massive leather tome. He was clad all in black, and the short-sleeved polo shirt he wore revealed tanned, strong forearms corded with