The Seduction Business. CHARLOTTE LAMB

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      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      THERE were four men and two women gathered in the boardroom by ten o’clock that bright May morning. They took their seats around the wide mahogany table occupying the centre of the room, in order of seniority and custom. The sales director, Jack Rowe, in the centre, looked pointedly at his watch. ‘He’s late. You’d think he’d be early today, of all days, wouldn’t you?’

      ‘He’s been on the phone non-stop since eight o’clock,’ the publicity officer, Noelle Hyland, said sharply, resenting the other man’s tone. She leaned forward to stare at Jack with dislike, her spiky hair bright gold in the sunlight, making her look like a blonde hedgehog, especially as she was wearing a dark grey knitted wool suit which had a faintly fuzzy look to it.

      ‘He looks dead tired,’ said the female personnel director, Andrea Watson, sighing. Plump and cuddly in a pink angora sweater and white skirt, she also resented Jack Rowe’s carping over their managing director, to whom she was totally loyal.

      Normally she smiled a lot, was full of fun, warm-hearted, enjoying life. Today, like her colleagues, she was serious, worried, a little pale.

      Pausing in the doorway, Matt Hearne surveyed them before they noticed his arrival. Was one of them a Judas, ready to sell him and his company out?

      Somebody inside the firm had to be involved, his lawyer, Leigh Hampton, had said to him ten minutes ago. ‘You must have a Trojan Horse there, Matt—find out who it is and get rid of them fast.’

      Matt did not want to believe it.

      His bright blue eyes skimmed their faces, wishing he could read them like a balance sheet. If only human beings were that easy. How many of them had secretly been offered jobs if this take-over went through?

      Anger burnt deep inside his chest. He had worked hard to build this firm up; it had been his life for ten years. He had put everything he had and was into it.

      Now someone was trying to take it away from him.

      Well, they weren’t going to succeed, no matter what he had to do to stop them. He would never have thought of himself as a ruthless man, but he could become one, if he had to. He believed you could always do what you had to.

      He walked forward and the others all looked up, immediately alert, trying to read his expression to find out how he felt.

      Andrea gave him a trusting, hopeful smile. She thought he was brilliant. Utterly wonderful. Cleverer than any man she had ever met, and sexy with it. Even though she was happily married with ten-year-old twins, Matt could make her heart flutter. Her husband, Gary, had noticed her watching Matt at a dinner party last winter, her eyes glowing with admiration, and teased her.

      ‘You’re wasting your time, love. Computers turn him on, not women. What makes you females go dreamy over the guy, anyway? What’s he got that I haven’t got?’

      ‘Nothing, darling, not a thing,’ she had quickly said, because the last thing she wanted to do was hurt Gary’s feelings. But the truth was that although she loved her tall, burly husband, even in his old torn jeans and rugby shirt, gardening on a Sunday and covered in mud and grass-stains, Matt was gorgeous; more like a film star than a boss. Every other female in the office thought the same. She knew Noelle adored him. In fact, she had never yet met a woman who didn’t love his warm, blue eyes, that pale brown, floppy, silky hair, his lazy, charming smile, and laid-back, lounging way of walking.

      At lunchtime, in the coffee shop next door to the company’s offices, where they all ate salads and jacket potatoes, the women who worked for him spent hours talking about how sexy Matt Hearne was and wishing he would look their way.

      He never did.

      There had been no woman in Matt’s life at all since his wife, Aileen, died three years ago, giving birth to a premature baby girl. Andrea had seen Matt the next day and been shocked by how old he suddenly looked. His marriage had been a very happy one. He and Aileen had known each other from their school days. Aileen’s death had hit him badly. She had tried to comfort him, but he had said brusquely, ‘You’re very kind, but I don’t want to talk about it, Andrea.’

      White, drawn, haggard, he had walked away and hadn’t been seen in the offices for ten days. When he’d come back he was a different man. From then on he had buried himself in his work. He had lost a lot of weight, hardly spoke, became grim and taciturn.

      Everyone had been worried about him, but a hardness in his eyes made them all afraid to say a word. Matt the charming, Matt the light-hearted had become surly and dangerous. They were scared of him for months.

      Thank heavens, that harshness had slowly died away. Over the past couple of years, to their relief, he had gradually returned to his old self. He laughed again, smiled often, chatted to them all casually, was approachable again, but in the blue eyes somewhere the shadow of heartbreak remained when he did not think he was being watched.

      Andrea had often seen him gazing out over the steel-grey River Thames, below his office, his face set in lines of sadness, and wished she could say or do something to lighten his mood, but was afraid to offer comfort in case