His Secretary Mistress. Chantelle Shaw
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lawyer she had imagined her new boss to be.
‘Out of interest,’ Alex drawled, ‘we parted company over half an hour ago, and it took me less than five minutes to reach the office. Where did you go for a new pair of tights? Scotland?’
Jenna felt the first stirrings of temper at his sarcasm, the shock of the attack, coupled with her surprise at the identity of her new boss, making her feel sick and shaky. ‘I was mugged,’ she said slowly. ‘At least I wasn’t—a woman on the pavement in front of me had her handbag snatched by a cyclist. He was wearing a balaclava,’ she added, as if the information would explain everything. ‘I couldn’t see his face.’
‘Perhaps he was working undercover?’ Alex suggested dryly, his tone plainly skeptical, and Jenna felt hot colour flood her cheeks.
‘You don’t believe me?’ Suddenly she was at boiling point. The cyclist had been the lowest of the low, but this man, with his sardonic smile and barely concealed cynicism, was the bitter end. The fact that he looked utterly gorgeous and made her feel like a self-conscious teenager only added fuel to her anger. ‘I’m not in the habit of lying, Mr Morrell, but obviously I’m wasting my time here. I’ll inform the employment agency that you decided I was unsuitable.’
‘I may well decide that you’re unsuitable, but I’ll do it in my own time—which, I might add, is extremely valuable.’
Gone was the urbane charmer from the coffee shop, in his place a hard-faced criminal lawyer whose ruthlessness in the courts was legendary. His arrogance set her teeth on edge.
‘I’ve already wasted an hour this morning, and I don’t have time to run through the niceties of office politics with you now. There’s a notepad on the desk. I assume you can take notes in shorthand?’
Jenna bit back a retort and seethed silently. She needed this job, she reminded herself. This was her way out of the mountain of debts that had hung over her since Lee had left; her chance to forge a better life. Before she had known his true identity, she had told Alex Morrell that she would work for the devil for the right price; it seemed as though her flippant remark was about to come true.
‘Were you injured by this mystery mugger?’ Alex could not quite hide his incredulity.
In all honesty he didn’t know what to believe, but a career spent weeding out the truth from a web of lies had taught him that people were prepared to invent the most fantastic stories to defend themselves. He would have respected Jenna Deane more if she had simply explained that she had got lost, which was a far more likely reason for her lateness; she had admitted that she had a terrible sense of direction. He was fortunate enough not to need the services of public transport, but he was a fair man, and he could sympathise with anyone who was dependent on the notoriously unreliable train network. Miss Deane appeared windswept, but had no injuries as far as he could see, and her tale of having witnessed a mugging seemed fantastical to say the least. However, the law decreed that everyone was presumed innocent until found guilty, and he glanced at her enquiringly, prepared to be convinced.
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Jenna snapped, throwing him a look of acute dislike. And to think she had thought this man fanciable! In all honesty that air of raw sexiness seemed even more intense in the confines of the office, but there was no way she would let him see that he captivated her.
‘Take five minutes to tidy yourself up,’ Alex advised coolly, unfazed by the storm he could see brewing in her grey eyes.
She suddenly looked very fragile, a small, forlorn figure in her rumpled suit, her red-gold hair falling in a tangle around her face. He had been unable to banish her from his mind, could hardly credit that he had been prepared to throw his tight schedule into disarray simply so that he could buy her coffee, and he could not shake off the faint disappointment that she had refused his offer.
So this was Margaret’s choice, he mused. Jenna Deane would be his secretarial assistant while Pippa took six months’ maternity leave. And as he flipped open the case notes on his desk he could not dispel a frisson of anticipation.
Jenna felt like a recalcitrant child, sent to the cloakroom to tidy herself up, as Alex had so tactfully put it, but one glance in the mirror brought a gasp of dismay as she discovered just what a mess she looked. Her skirt and jacket were inexpensive, and looked decidedly limp after a soaking in the rain, but at least she was able to change out of her laddered tights.
Her hair had been cut into a shoulder-length bob, so fine and silky that it was difficult to put up, but she jammed a handful of pins into her chignon and prayed that it would stay intact. With a dash of pale lipgloss she was ready to face Alex Morrell once more and she determined that she would not allow him to intimidate her, holding her head high as she pushed open the door to his office. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee assailed her, and as she walked across the room Alex placed a mug on the desk.
‘Help yourself to cream and sugar,’ he offered, adding neither to his own mug, and she sank into the chair opposite him with a grateful sigh. The caffeine was a welcome boost, and it was only then that she acknowledged how frightening the scene on the street had been.
Her shoulder throbbed, the pain running up her neck so that it was difficult to turn her head, but Alex was studying her with quiet intensity, as if summing her up, and she refused to make a fuss about an incident he didn’t even believe had occurred. It was galling that he should think she had been lying. She prided herself on being reliable and trustworthy, and as she picked up the notepad she flashed him a glance.
‘There is just one thing,’ she murmured, and his brows rose enquiringly.
‘What?’
‘Well, when we were sheltering from the rain and I told you that I was late, you were late too.’
Alex sat back in his chair and surveyed her in silence for several minutes, until she was squirming and wishing she’d kept quiet. He was not used to his actions being questioned, but she had sounded so indignant that he had struggled to prevent his lips from twitching.
‘I’d been up since six and already put in a couple of hours’ work on the computer before I left home. Being the boss does give me certain privileges. You were just late.’
His tone was amiable, but she sensed that he did not expect to argue the point any further and she bit her lip in impotent annoyance. She had also been up at dawn, had made breakfast, packed her small daughter’s bag ready for day nursery, put the washing on, fed the cat, and panicked over the fact that there were only some very tired-looking sausages in the fridge for dinner that night. It was a miracle she had made it to the station on time, and the unjustness of her train being cancelled still rankled. As to the mugging, she had to admit that it did sound far-fetched, but she hated to be labelled a liar—especially, for some reason, by this man.
‘If you’re ready, we’ll start.’ Alex’s voice broke into her thoughts and she held her pencil poised, ignoring the sharp pain that shot down her arm as he started to dictate.
He was testing her, she decided, when at last he stopped talking and she was able to rest her aching wrist. It was impossible to believe that he covered such a huge volume of work ordinarily, or dictated so fast. Her pencil had literally flown over the paper, and she was thankful for her excellent shorthand skills. If his intention had been to prove that she was unsuitable for the job he would be disappointed, she thought smugly, and she smiled at him as professionally as she could across the desk.
‘Will that be all, Mr Morrell?’
‘For now. And make it Alex. I prefer informality in my office. I’d like those letters ready before lunch, they need to catch the afternoon post. Thank you.’
He barely lifted his gaze from his computer screen and, realising that she had been dismissed, Jenna returned to the central office, wondering what had happened to Margaret Rivers. She could do with an ally, she thought wryly as she smiled tentatively at Katrin and received a cool stare in response. She had taken an instant liking to Margaret, who had interviewed her with the explanation that the senior partner of the law firm, Alex Morrell, was busy in court.
‘The