His Christmas Acquisition Read Free

she could see the wildly extravagant length of his eyelashes and the hint of tawny gold in his dark eyes. He was so close, in fact, that by simply raising her hand a couple of inches she would have been able to stroke the side of his face, touch the faint growth of stubble, feel its spikiness against her fingers.
    Assaulted by this sudden wave of crazy speculation, Jamie fought down the sickening twist in her stomach and carried on looking at him squarely in the face although she could feel her heart beating inside her like a jack hammer.
    ‘What
I’d
like to know,’ he said softly, ‘is what the hell you found so funny. What I’d really like is for you to share the joke with me.’
    ‘Sometimes I laugh in tense situations. I’m sorry.’
    ‘Pull the other one, Jamie. You’ve been in tense situations with me before when I’m trying to get a major deal closed. You’ve never burst out laughing.’
    ‘That’s different.’
    ‘Explain.’
    ‘Why? Why does it matter what I think?’
    ‘Because I like to know a bit of what’s going on in my personal assistant’s head. Call me crazy, but I think it makes the working relationship go a lot smoother.’ In truth, Ryan didn’t think that it would be possible to find anyone with whom he could have worked more comfortably. Jamie seemed to possess an uncanny ability to predict his moves and her calm was a pleasing counterpoint to his volatility.
    Before he had hired her, he had suffered three years of terrific-looking fairly incompetent secretaries who had all developed the annoying habit of becoming infatuated with him. His faithful middle-aged secretary who had served himwell for nearly ten years had emigrated to Australia and he had followed her up with a series of ill-suited replacements.
    Jamie Powell really worked for him and it had nothing to do with the mechanisms of her mind or what she thought about him. But suddenly the urge to shake her out of her cool detachment was overwhelming. It was as though that shadow of a snicker that had crossed her face earlier on had unleashed a curiosity in him, and it took him by surprise.
    He pushed himself away from her and walked across to the low sofa that doubled as a bed for those times when he worked so late that sleeping in his office was the easiest option.
    Reluctantly, Jamie swivelled her chair in his direction and wondered how many billionaire bosses would be sprawled indolently on a sofa in their office in a pair of jeans and a faded jumper, hands clasped behind their heads, work put on temporary hold while they asked questions that were really none of their business.
    Again that finger of apprehension sent another shiver down her spine. After a succession of unsatisfactory but emotionally important temp jobs, would she have taken this one if she had known the nature of the beast?
    ‘I’m not paid to have thoughts about your private life,’ she ventured primly in a last-ditch attempt to change the subject.
    ‘Don’t worry about that. I give you full permission to say what was on your mind.’
    Jamie licked her lips nervously. This was the first time he had ever pinned her down like this, the first time he hadn’t backed off when his curiosity had failed to find fertile ground. Now, like a lazy predator, he was watching her, gauging her reaction, forming conclusions.
    ‘Okay.’ She looked at him evenly. ‘I’m surprised that this is the first time one of your girlfriends has seen fit to storminto your office and give you a piece of her mind. I thought it was funny, so I laughed. But quietly. And I wouldn’t have laughed if I had left your office when I had wanted to, but you gestured to me to stay put. So I did. So you can’t blame me for reacting.’
    Ryan sat up and looked at her intently. ‘See? Now isn’t it liberating to speak your mind?’
    ‘I know you think it’s funny to confuse me.’
    ‘Am I confusing you?’
    Jamie went bright red and tightened her lips. ‘You don’t seem to have any