The Billionaire's Bride of Convenience
Sydney was, after all, the most expensive city in Australia to live in. Houses came at a premium. So did interest rates. She wasn’t about to fall into the trap of having too large a mortgage which they wouldn’t be able to pay back, once she left work to have a baby.
Neither she nor Daryl had well-off families to fall back on in times of financial difficulty. In fact, neither of them had any family to fall back on. Both of them had come from troubled, single-parent households. Each had seen what little close family they had finally being snuffed out through drink, drugs and disease.
But where Kathryn’s background had formed her into a careful, highly organised, money-wise character, Daryl was more impulsive and not good with money at all. Still, he was very good at his job, being a top sales representative for a successful office-supplies company. His salary was excellent and he had a company car. Kathryn felt sure she could rein in his tendency to be extravagant, once they were married.
He was going to make a good husband and father. In time.
Right now, however, he was being a right pain in the neck, his jealousy not having been helped by her temporary promotion. Already he was complaining about the extra hours she was working. Last night, when she’d arrived home at seven-thirty— the preparations for today’s board meeting had been endless—he’d demanded she hand in her notice.
‘After we’re married,’ she’d hedged.
‘You’re just saying that,’ he’d retorted. ‘I know you. You like working for that rich bastard. You fancy him. I know you do.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she’d snapped, tired of their endless arguments about her job and her boss.
‘I’m not being ridiculous. I’m not blind, you know. He fancies you too. I saw the way he looked at you at the Christmas party.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ she’d exclaimed with considerable exasperation. ‘Now you’re being even more ridiculous! In all the months I’ve worked for Hugh Parkinson, not once has he ever done or said anything remotely out of line. He does not fancy me. Never has, never will.’
Which was probably what was adding to her irritation today, Kathryn accepted with a flash of feminine insight: Hugh’s lack of male interest in her.
No girl liked to be looked straight through all the time the way Hugh did her, as if she was part of the wallpaper.
Not that any of the offices in Parkinson Media had wallpaper, especially this one. It was wall-to-wall wood panelling in here, totally different from the sleekly modern open-planned offices which filled the floors before. The big boss’s suite of rooms was straight out of an élite English men’s club, all the furniture antiques, the carpets richly patterned, heavy silk curtains framing the windows.
Kathryn’s office-cum-reception area was ridiculously large, with a plush sitting space, along with its own powder room and cloakroom as well as a small kitchen where she could prepare coffee or tea. Her desk was a huge leather-topped slice of solid walnut with carved legs and more drawers than she could ever fill. The computer and printer occupied less than a quarter of the available work surface.
In truth, she preferred her other office and her other desk.
But she wasn’t about to complain, not with the additional money she would earn over the next four weeks. She was already planning what she could buy with it: some extra-nice sheets, for starters, Egyptian cotton. She might be frugal by nature but she liked nice things. Quality things, that lasted.
Take her clothes, for instance. She didn’t have a huge wardrobe but she bought good clothes. Not top designer-wear, she couldn’t afford that, but well-made suits and real silk shirts and camis in mix-and-match colours, along with genuine leather shoes and bags. None of that cheap vinyl stuff. Her jewellery was minimal but quality too, not too expensive since she preferred silver to gold.
She was admiring the delicately designed silver watch which she’d treated herself to at Christmas when the phone on her desk rang, the security man downstairs informing her that a delivery guy was on his way up with a food order.
‘Not the same guy as yesterday,’ he added. ‘I had to give this chap instructions on how to get to your office.’
‘Wow!’ the spotty-faced youth exclaimed when he finally arrived. ‘This is some place. The view must be fantastic!’
‘Quite,’ she said coolly. ‘Thank you, Ken.’
‘You know my name!’
She pointed to the name tag on his shirt pocket.
‘Oh, yeah,’ he said, flushing. ‘I forgot. It’s my first week. Not used to it.’
Mine too, she almost said to make him feel better. But didn’t. She’d found it best, over the years, not to be too familiar with delivery guys. The older, better-looking ones didn’t seem to need much encouragement.
After he left, Katherine carried the food into the kitchenette and arranged the oversized sandwich on a proper plate on a tray, whilst leaving the steaming coffee in its takeaway cup, Hugh liking his coffee very hot and very strong.
He rarely asked her to make him coffee, though she would have, quite happily. She wasn’t one of those silly PAs who thought making coffee beneath her. She’d always understood that her job as a personal assistant was to assist her boss in any way she could. She didn’t object to collecting his dry-cleaning, or buying presents for his mother. She didn’t even mind covering for him, occasionally.
But only up to a point and only if he deserved it.
Hugh deserved no such consideration, she decided as she carried the tray into his father’s super-huge office and placed it on the super-huge desk which sat in front of the super-huge window. The only son and heir to the Parkinson fortune was spoiled and lazy and never on time, she thought irritably as she glanced at her pretty watch and saw that twenty-five minutes had passed since she ordered his lunch.
So where was he?
She glared at the determinedly shut door on her far right, the one which looked like any of the wood-panelled doors which led into and out of the office. This one, however, concealed a secret alcove where there was a private lift to the penthouse above. You needed a special keycard to get into both, security a must for mega-rich men like Hugh and his father.
Kathryn almost gasped when that door was suddenly wrenched open and in strode her boss, looking breathtakingly handsome in a suit she’d never seen before, dark charcoal-grey in colour, with a single-breasted and superbly shaped jacket. The casually elegant style suited him. His dazzlingly white shirt highlighted his blue eyes, his olive skin and his dark brown hair, which looked extra-dark, since it was slightly damp.
And then there was his tie…
Hugh had a thing about bright ties. This one was scarlet and striped with silver…very eye-catching.
‘So what do you think?’ he shot at her as he walked behind the desk. ‘Will I do?’
Kathryn kept her expression cool. If he expected her to rave about his appearance, then he had another think coming. Some kind of compliment, however, seemed reasonable.
‘You look very…smart,’ she said.
Hugh’s eyebrows shot upwards. ‘You mean, I have your seal of approval? For once,’ he added with a wry laugh as he removed his jacket then draped it over the back of the large leather desk chair.
His partial undressing perturbed her for some reason. Silly, really. She’d seen him without a jacket often enough. She’d also witnessed him in casual clothes, even shorts on the day when he’d rushed into the office after spending the morning sailing on the harbour.
She already knew he had a great body, his tall, broad-shouldered frame not needing to be bolstered by excessive padding.
Perhaps it was the whiff of something spicy and exotic which the removal of his jacket had sent her way. She’d never smelled this particular cologne on him before and it was very…sexy.
‘So is everything ready for this afternoon?’ he asked her as he sat down, then swept one half of the club sandwich up to his mouth.
His eyes questioned her as he munched away with relish.
‘I…I think so,’ she said, annoyed with herself for sounding less than confident. But it was the first time she’d had to organise a board meeting, although Elaine had left her excellent instructions on her computer in a special file.
Everything Kathryn might need to know during the next month was on that computer. Elaine had also left behind her personal mobile number, in case she was in doubt about anything. Kathryn had given in and called her yesterday, just to check on a few things.
‘Yes, everything’s ready to go,’ she reiterated more firmly. ‘The boardroom’s all set up for the meeting, with copies of all the monthly reports set out in front of each chair. Apparently, I don’t have to take down any minutes—it’s not a quarterly or annual general meeting. But Elaine suggested I still tape proceedings. She said I should also stay in the room in case any of the directors want anything, like coffee or tea. I will be putting jugs of iced water on the table shortly, along with the glasses. But Elaine said, if the meeting goes on too long, some of them will want something hot to drink. And possibly a biscuit or two. Of course, I won’t be sitting at the table itself. I’ll stay in the background.’
‘Sounds like you have everything well in hand. As for the meeting going on too long, I’ll do my best to make sure that won’t happen. And afterwards?’
‘I’ve arranged for finger food and drinks in the reception room next to the boardroom. I’ve hired the usual catering company. They’ll arrive around four. You shouldn’t be finished before that.’
He nodded. ‘Excellent. What’s your estimated time of departure for the directors?’
Kathryn shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve never been to one of these before. You have, though, didn’t you say?’
‘Not for ages. From memory, it was the most ghastly bore.’
‘I’m sure you’ll handle it all extremely well,’ she said. For all Hugh’s faults and flaws he could schmooze anyone, if and when he chose to.
‘A second compliment, Kathryn?’ he said drily. ‘Watch it or I’ll think you’re beginning to approve of me.’
As if, Kathryn thought tartly. ‘It is not my job to approve or disapprove of you, Hugh,’ she said coolly. ‘As I have said before, my job is to help you do your job.’
‘At which you are invaluable,’ he said, picking up his coffee and watching her over the rim as he sipped.
His eyes—his very beautiful blue eyes—were not as carefree as usual. They bored into her, stripping her, not of her clothes but the self-contained façade which usually kept her safely immune to her boss’s considerable charms.
Suddenly a fierce awareness of his sex appeal swamped Kathryn, making a mockery of the way she despised other women’s often swooning reaction to him. She actually felt weak at the knees, a physical phenomenon which she’d never experienced before, and which brought a bitter taste of shame to her mouth. How could she possibly be attracted to him?
Her teeth clenched down hard in her jaw as she struggled to recover her usual calm. But the unwanted sexual responses which had just flooded her traitorous body had left her feeling flustered, and confused.
She did the only thing she could do, under the circumstances. Said she had something to do and left the room.
CHAPTER THREE
‘THAT’S a great girl you’ve got over there.’
Hugh followed the direction of Max’s eyes and his gaze landed back on Kathryn; something he’d been trying to avoid all afternoon. Not too difficult a task during the meeting itself when she’d chosen to sit in a chair in a corner behind Hugh’s left shoulder.
At the moment, however, Kathryn was working the reception room, chatting away to a group of the more elderly directors, bringing a smile to even the stuffiest of the gentlemen.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘She is.’
‘Better than Dickie’s secretary. More intelligent. More stylish, too. I hope you’re paying her well. You wouldn’t want to lose her.’
‘I’m afraid that might not be my call. Kathryn’s engaged to be married.’
‘So? Married women work all the time. She doesn’t look the type to stay home and play happy families. She has too much chutzpah!’
Too much of everything, Hugh wanted to say as he stared at her once more.
‘Really, Max?’ he said instead, somewhat impatiently. ‘How can you possibly glean the measure of a woman’s chutzpah from across the room?’
‘I was talking to her earlier and happened to make some critical remark about the recent rise in interest rates. She took me to task and told me in no uncertain terms that if I thought the reserve bank was wrong, I didn’t understand the effects of inflation on the economy. She didn’t pander to my position, my sex or my age. She said it as it is, without fear or favour.’
‘Kathryn does have a tendency to speak her mind,’ Hugh said drily.
Max chuckled in his beard. ‘Sounds like just what the doctor ordered for you, young man.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning I would imagine that the majority of the opposite sex panders to you something rotten.’
‘That is a burden I have to bear,’ Hugh remarked in droll tones. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Max, I really should mingle.’
It was a full hour later before Hugh accompanied the last of the directors to the lifts. When he returned to the reception room, the caterers had almost finished cleaning up and Kathryn was frowning down at the screen on her mobile phone.
‘That’s just so typical,’ she muttered.
‘Something wrong?’ he asked.
Her head whipped up, her eyes showing a most uncharacteristic consternation at finding him there.
‘No, not really. Daryl was going to take me out to dinner tonight. But…um…something has come up and he can’t.’
Hugh couldn’t imagine anything making him break a dinner date with Kathryn. Not if he was assured of having her for afters. Which her fiancé was. They did live together, after all.
‘In that case, why don’t I take you out to dinner?’ he said, whilst thinking he was a masochistic fool.
Her eyes rounded as her finely arched brows lifted sky-wards.
Hugh could appreciate her surprise. He’d never offered to take her to dinner before. Or even lunch. The occasional coffee break in the café on the ground floor was the extent of their socialising outside the office. Other than last year’s Christmas party, of course, which had been held in the ballroom of the Regency Hotel.
What a wretchedly frustrating night that had been. He could not stand seeing Kathryn with that good-looking smoothie she was engaged to. In the end, he’d zeroed in on the second sexiest girl in the room, the newest in the stable of attractive female lawyers his father invariably hired. He’d left the party earlier than he should have and taken Kandi— a name more suited to a hooker than a lawyer, in his opinion— to a room upstairs for the night.
And, whilst Kandi had proved to him that she would probably be a success in either profession, Hugh had not asked her out again.
That was the norm with him these days. One date per woman was all he could tolerate, his rampant desire for Kathryn having temporarily spoiled him for any other female.
‘Don’t tell me you’re not hungry,’ he jumped in before she could make some feeble excuse. ‘You didn’t eat a single bite of finger food that I could see.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m not much into finger food.’
‘I have to agree with you on that score. I prefer to eat sitting down. Come on. I’ll take you to Neptune’s.’
‘Neptune’s! But that’s one of the most expensive restaurants in Sydney.’
His smile was wry. ‘I think I can afford it, Kathryn.’
‘But don’t you have to book in advance? I’ve heard it’s very difficult to get a table there.’
‘Not so difficult on a Thursday night. And not if I ring now. It’s only half-past six.’ He didn’t like to say that the maître d’ at Neptune’s would find him a table at any hour on any night, a perk of being a billionaire.
Which he was already, courtesy of his paternal grandmother, who, not impressed with her own son’s string of wives, had willed her personal fortune in a trust for her grandson. By the time Hugh gained control of this trust at the age of thirty, his grandmother’s superbly invested millions had more than quadrupled. Since then, under his own management, and despite some years of economic upheaval in the stock market, his personal fortune had increased, which gave him considerable satisfaction.
Hugh knew people thought him lazy. But he wasn’t. He could work hard, when required. He worked very hard at doing things he enjoyed, like golf and sailing and, yes, sex.
Or he had, till recently.
It frustrated him to death that his extremely enjoyable lifestyle was being ruined by one very irritating female who couldn’t even be persuaded to go to dinner with him!
Because she was going to say no. He could see it in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, confirming his guess. ‘But I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
Damn it, but he really wanted her to say yes to him. Just this once! Even if it was only for a meal.
‘It’s not unusual for a grateful boss to take his PA to dinner, Kathryn,’ he said in a brisk, businesslike fashion. ‘I’m sure your fiancé wouldn’t mind.’
Oh, yes, he would, Kathryn thought.
But she didn’t like to say as much, didn’t like to confess that Daryl had this jealous thing about her working for Hugh.
Kathryn was tempted to go, seriously tempted.
Neptune’s! She’d never been there. She’d never dream of going to somewhere so expensive; eating in five-star restaurants had never fitted into her budget. Daryl knew better than to take her to a restaurant which wasn’t bring-your-own, with reasonably priced meals. Tonight, they’d been planning to go to their local Chinese.
Kathryn suspected that Daryl’s last-minute letting her down to go out drinking with his mates was a kind of punishment for her coming home late last night. He could be petty at times. And quite vindictive. It was a trait that worried her sometimes.
What would he do if she actually went to dinner with her boss, to a place like Neptune’s? He probably wouldn’t talk to her for a week. Or make love to her. He’d give her the cold-shoulder treatment, knowing full well how much that would hurt her.
She couldn’t bear it when he shut her out.
Of course, if she didn’t tell him where she’d gone, he would probably never know. His mates always drank at a hotel in Burwood, which was a fair way from the centre of the city. It was also highly unlikely that anyone in their small circle of friends would see her dining out with her boss in a place like Neptune’s.
‘I refuse to take no for an answer, Kathryn,’ Hugh pronounced firmly.
‘But I’m not dressed for going out to a fancy restaurant,’ she protested. Though rather feebly.
‘Rubbish. You look fine. Now, go get your handbag whilst I make the necessary call.’
A still hesitant Kathryn watched him fish out his latest, hitech mobile phone, the one which could do just about anything short of autopiloting a plane.
‘Hugh, I don’t think—’
‘For pity’s sake!’ he interrupted with a flash of frustration in his eyes. ‘I’m not asking you to go away with me for the weekend. It’s just a simple bloody dinner.’
Kathryn felt somewhat chastened by her boss’s outburst. He must think she was a fool, making such a big deal out of his really very nice offer.
‘You’re right. Sorry,’ she said swiftly. ‘Just give me five minutes to fix my face.’
Exactly five minutes later Kathryn was standing in the powder room, staring at her fixed face in the mirror and thinking she was, indeed, a fool.
She should have stood her ground. Should have said no thank you, I really need to be getting home. Instead, here she was, with her lips freshly glossed, her hair taken down, her jacket unbuttoned and her heart going like the clappers.
Never, till today, had Kathryn allowed herself to surrender even in the slightest to her boss’s infamous charm. She’d kept herself immune by ignoring his good looks and focusing on the real man underneath.
He was a playboy: spoiled and superficial, without depth and possibly even without decency.
The passing parade of beautiful young women in Hugh’s life so far indicated a lack of moral fibre which Kathryn found deplorable. She thought it even more deplorable that women continued to chase after him the way they did.
Sometimes she despaired of her own sex. Didn’t they have any pride? Any common sense? Hadn’t they worked out yet that bachelor playboys like Hugh Parkinson only used them as sex toys, disposing of them quite ruthlessly when they tired of their charms? There was no future with them. None at all!
It pained Kathryn that she could feel even the slightest excitement over going to dinner with such a man.
But she did, there was no denying it. Her cheeks were flushed and there was a definite glitter of excitement in her eyes. In the last few minutes she hadn’t give Daryl a second thought. And now that she did, all she felt for her fiancé was a fierce resentment. He should not have put her in this awkward position. He should not have let her down. He should have taken her out to dinner, as they’d arranged.
‘Shake a leg in there, Kathryn,’ Hugh shouted through the powder-room door. ‘The caterers have just left and I have a booking for seven. You wouldn’t want us to be late, would you?’
Sarcastic devil, Kathryn thought, but with a smile pulling at her mouth.
It startled her, that smile. And worried her.
She could not go out there smiling at him. It just would not do! Neither would her hair being down. Too telling, that. And potentially humiliating. She could not bear the thought that Hugh might think she was attempting some kind of cheap flirtation.
‘I’ll just be another minute,’ she called back. ‘Having some trouble with my hair.’
Back up it went. Not in a French roll—that would take too long—but a knot, wound very tightly on at the back of her head, then anchored with pins. She buttoned her jacket up again, then grabbed a tissue and blotted her shiny scarlet lips into a more sedate red.
There wasn’t much she could do about her racing heart. But then, he couldn’t see that, could he?
CHAPTER FOUR
HUGH didn’t know exactly what to expect once Kathryn finally came out of the powder room. But during the extra minute she took, he began picturing her performing one of those transformations when the office girl turns from virgin to vamp in the twinkle of an eye by shaking down her hair, popping on some screw-me shoes, then flooding herself with an exotic perfume.
No such luck, he realised when the door opened and out came the Kathryn he’d become very used to, the one who didn’t actually need to do any of those things to turn him on.
What had taken her so long? he thought with a savage burst of irritation. Her hairstyle was slightly different, he supposed, though still scraped back severely from her face with not a single lock escaping its imposed prison. As he glared at her hair, he suddenly itched to run his fingers through it, to pull it down and spread it out over her shoulders. Her very naked shoulders, preferably.
Cool it, Hugh, came the sharp warning from that part of his brain which was not connected with his male hormones.
‘The caterers gone?’ she asked, glancing over his shoulder.
‘Yep. No one left here but us. Come on, let’s go.’
Hugh resisted the temptation to take her elbow on the way to the lift. He could already feel himself hardening. This could get mighty uncomfortable. On top of that, Kathryn would not appreciate any physical familiarity. He knew enough about her to know that. Some women were touchers but she very definitely wasn’t.
Again, perversely, he liked that about her. Liked the way she protected her personal space and her air of self-containment.