Читать книгу The Billionaire's Ruthless Affair - Miranda Lee - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

THE ARRIVAL OF the brunette with his order of coffee and bagels could not have come at a better time, giving Alex the opportunity to hide his peeved reaction to Harriet’s somewhat scoffing reply to Dwayne’s accusation. A perverse reaction, in a way, considering he didn’t want any woman falling in love with him. But it wasn’t very flattering for Harry to tell him that her falling for him would be stupid!

His throwing the waitress one of his super-charming smiles was more the result of a bruised ego than his desire to capture the girl’s interest. He’d been right when he’d said she wasn’t his type. She’d been way too eager to please. As much as Alex liked to date pretty young things—and the brunette was just that—he preferred independent, spirited girls who didn’t gush or grovel, and who didn’t have a single gold-digging bone in their bodies. Alex had known immediately that the brunette was not of that ilk.

‘Is there anything else you’d like, sir?’ the brunette asked after carefully placing the coffee and bagel on the table, her attention all on him, not having cast a single glance in Harriet’s direction.

‘No, thanks,’ he said and resisted the impulse to give her a tip. Harriet was already looking seriously irritated.

As the waitress departed, Harriet sent him a droll look.

‘Yes, I know,’ he said drily. ‘It does happen to me all the time. But she’s still not my type.’

‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t have flirted with her.’

Alex clenched his teeth hard in his jaw whilst he struggled to control his temper. ‘And perhaps you should tell me why you find me so unlovable,’ he retorted, still smarting over her earlier remark.

She blinked at his sharpness before dropping her eyes, taking a few seconds to pour the sugar into her coffee and looking up at him again. ‘I never said you were unlovable, Alex. I said I would not be stupid enough to fall in love with you. That’s an entirely different concept.’

Alex’s bruised ego was not to be so easily mollified. ‘Would you care to explain that last statement further? Why would it be so stupid for you to fall in love with me?’

‘Aside from the fact that I’m your PA, you mean?’ she threw at him.

He had to concede that that was an excellent reason. It was never a good idea to mix business and pleasure, something which he was in danger of forgetting.

‘Point taken,’ he said. ‘Is that the only reason, then?’

She gave him a long, searching look that he found decidedly irritating. This was a Harriet he wasn’t used to. Up till today she’d been the perfect PA, never complaining or criticising, calmly obeying his every wish and command. She’d never before looked at him in such an assessing and possibly judgmental fashion. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit.

Frankly, he preferred the Harriet who’d wept in his arms.

‘You’re not eating your bagel,’ she said as she coolly stirred her flat white. ‘And your coffee will get cold. You know how you hate lukewarm coffee.’

‘I also hate not having my questions answered,’ he ground out, sweeping up his mug of black coffee and glaring at her over the rim.

* * *

Harriet knew she had annoyed him; knew he’d taken her statement as a personal criticism. It had been seriously foolish of her to tell him about Dwayne’s accusation. But it was too late now. Somehow she had to explain her remark without offending Alex further.

Make light of it, girl. Turn it round so that it’s your failing and not his. And don’t, for pity’s sake, repeat the word ‘stupid’ in context with falling in love with him. No wonder he took umbrage!

‘The thing is,’ she said in a lighter, less emotional voice, ‘I realised a few years back that if I wanted to get married and have children...which I did; which I still do, actually...that I had to stop dating a certain type of man. I—’

‘And what type is that?’ Alex interrupted before she could go on.

‘Oh, you know. Your type.’

‘My type?’

Oh, dear, she’d done it again. She’d opened her big mouth and put her foot in it. ‘Well, not exactly your type, Alex,’ she said with a ‘butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth’ smile. ‘You are rather unique. As you are aware, I’ve worked in real estate ever since I came to Sydney when I was twenty. Girls usually date men they meet at work. It was inevitable that I would end up dating real-estate salesmen. Invariably, they were tall and handsome, with the gift of the gab, but not exactly the most faithful kind of guy.’

‘I see,’ Alex said thoughtfully. ‘Go on.’

Harriet was glad to see that Alex had lost his disgruntled expression, his blue eyes no longer cold and steely.

‘By the time I turned twenty-seven, I decided I was wasting my time on men like that. So I sat down and made a checklist of what I wanted in a husband.’

‘A checklist?’ he repeated, looking both surprised and amused.

‘Find it funny if you like. Emily certainly does.’

‘Who’s Emily? Your sister?’

‘No. Emily’s my best friend. She’s an English teacher who flatted with me for a while. It was through her that I met Dwayne.’

‘I did wonder how you two met. Frankly, I never thought you were all that well suited. Still, Dwayne must have met your checklist to begin with.’

Harriet sighed. ‘I thought he did, till he moved in with me and eventually showed his true colours. I now appreciate that it’s impossible to know a man’s true character till you live with him. Dwayne certainly met the first three requirements. When I made up my checklist, I decided that I wouldn’t even go out with a man till he ticked those three boxes. That way I hoped to avoid falling in love with any more Mr Wrongs.’

* * *

Alex’s mind boggled over what those three requirements might be. Harriet was right about his finding the idea of a checklist funny. He did. Though he shouldn’t have. Didn’t he have a checklist of his own when it came to the girls he dated? They had to be in their early twenties, pretty and easy-going. He had a feeling, though, that Harriet’s checklist would be a lot more fascinating. And, yes, very funny indeed.

‘Do tell,’ he said, trying to keep a straight face.

‘Promise me you won’t laugh.’

‘I promise,’ he said, but the corners of his mouth were already twitching.

‘Okay, well, the first requirement is he can’t be too tall or too short. Whilst I find tallness attractive, I’ve found that too-tall men are often arrogant, whilst too-short men can suffer from the “short man” syndrome.’

Alex realised that at six-foot-four he probably came into the ‘too tall’ category.

‘Do you think I’m arrogant?’ he asked.

‘A little. But not in a nasty way.’

‘Thank God for that. And requirement number two is?’

‘He can’t be too handsome or too ugly.’

Well, Dwayne had certainly been on the money there. As for himself... Harriet would probably label him in the ‘too handsome’ category.

‘And number three?’

‘He can’t be too rich or too poor.’

‘Right.’ Well, that certainly ruled him out as a prospective date for Harriet. Not that he would ever ask her out. He’d have to be mad to date Harriet.

But, as he looked into her big brown eyes, Alex was struck by the startling realisation that that was exactly what he wanted to do. Take her out, then take her back to bed.

Bad idea, that, he thought and busied himself stuffing his mouth full of bagel whilst trying to work out where such a potentially self-destructive desire had come from. After all, Harriet didn’t fit his own checklist for dating candidates any better than he fitted hers!

Still, it didn’t take Alex all that long privately to admit that he’d secretly wanted to take Harriet to bed since the day he’d interviewed her ten months ago. The attraction had been there from the moment she’d walked into his office, looking deliciously nervous but beautifully turned out in a sleek black suit which had followed the curves of her very feminine figure. Her dark brown hair had been up in a professional and somewhat prissy style, but her lushly glossed mouth had betrayed her true nature. He’d immediately made the decision not to hire her, despite her excellent résumé—till he found out she was safely engaged, at which point he’d fooled himself into thinking he could ignore his hormones.

And he had, up till now.

They would have remained in control, too, if she hadn’t broken up with Dwayne; if she hadn’t cried and he hadn’t hugged her. That had been the catalyst which had started the chemical reaction which saw him now being tempted to do something seriously stupid.

Thank God it was still just a temptation. He didn’t have to act on it. Didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of Harriet rejecting him, not just because he was her boss, but because he was too tall, too handsome and too rich.

His sudden laughter brought a reproving look into her velvety brown eyes.

‘You promised you wouldn’t laugh,’ she chided him.

‘Sorry. Couldn’t help it.’

‘In that case, I won’t tell you the rest of my checklist. You’d probably crack up entirely.’

‘You could be right, there. So I’ll save up the rest of your checklist till a later date. Now, I think we should finish up here and get back to work.’