Boardroom To Bedroom: His Darling Valentine / The Boss's Marriage Arrangement

As though he had read her mind Matt broke his silence to announce tersely, ‘This is a pretty rough area. Not one I would have thought safe for a woman living on her own.’

Yes, it was a bit of a rough area, and following an outbreak of violent incidents she felt increasingly worried about the fact that gangs of youths had begun to roam the local streets, and that if you possessed a car it was not considered wise to park it outside.

But the area still had a certain artisan quaintness about it, and—even more important to Harriet—her little house was affordable and within public transport distance of the office.

She also liked the fact that she had a local butcher and grocery shop, and that most of her elderly neighbours had been born and bred there and so were full of stories of how the area had once been. But now she was seeing it through Matt’s eyes, and what she was seeing made her feel both angry and uncomfortable.

Outside a local take away a gang of youths were scuffling and exchanging obscenities. Harriet could see the look Matt was giving them.

She felt obliged to defend them. ‘They’re only young.’

‘And that gives them licence to be foul mouthed?’ Matt challenged her. ‘Aren’t your family concerned about the kind of area you’re living in?’ he demanded.

Mutinously Harriet turned away from him, pretending not to hear. The truth was that her parents had been dismayed when she had shown them her new home—but she had managed to talk them around.

One of the reasons she had returned home at the weekend had been to wave them off for her father’s lecture tour of America. Since her brother and his family lived in New York, Harriet knew how much her parents were looking forward to their visit, and being able to spend some time with their grandchildren.

‘Harriet…’ Matt began ominously, and then stopped as he turned into her narrow street and they both saw the police car and the ambulance, lights flashing, outside her elderly neighbour’s home.

Her own feelings forgotten, Harriet pressed her hand to her mouth in anxiety. Mrs Simmonds was in her late eighties, and had a fund of interesting stories about the past, but Harriet was aware that she had a weak heart and had taken to surreptitiously checking on the elderly lady every day in a way that meant that she did not hurt her pride.

‘Oh, no!’

‘What the—’

They both spoke at the same time, and Matt stopped his car.

‘It’s Mrs Simmonds,’ Harriet told him shakily as they watched two burly ambulancemen carrying the old lady into the ambulance on a stretcher.

A police officer was already approaching the car.

‘What’s happened?’ Matt asked.

‘I’m Mrs Simmonds’s neighbour,’ Harriet told him, and got out to join Matt and the policeman. ‘I know she has a weak heart…’

‘Some young thugs broke into her house,’ the policeman told them angrily. ‘Ransacked the place, they did, and made so much noise that someone across the street rang us. We don’t know yet how bad the old lady’s injuries are. She’s had a very nasty shock, so they’re taking her into hospital to keep an eye on her for a couple of days.’

‘Why would anyone break into her house? She doesn’t have anything to steal,’ Harriet protested, pale with alarm. ‘She…’

The policeman gave her a pitying look. ‘It will be a drug-related crime, miss. They get that desperate for it they’d rob their own grandmother—and often do—’

Harriet shuddered.

The ambulance was already drawing away, and the policeman turned to return to his own car and waiting colleague.

‘Right—that’s it,’ Matt announced as soon as both vehicles had gone. ‘No way are you staying here on your own! I’m going to give you two choices,’ he told Harriet grimly. ‘Either I stay here with you tonight or you come back to my place with me. I don’t care which choice you make, but let’s put it this way. I only have one bedroom!’

Harriet felt a jolt in her stomach as though someone had kicked her. One bedroom! Already her body was reacting to the sensual mental fantasy she was creating! What would Matt say if she told him she wanted the second option?

‘I mean what I say, Harriet!’ he said sternly, oblivious to the erotic meanderings of her wayward thoughts.

She wished! Oh, how she wished!

Her heart was bumping uncomfortably against her ribs—and not just because of the effect Matt was having on her.

Her own honesty compelled her to admit that the attack on her neighbour had shocked and frightened her. She was extremely apprehensive at the thought of spending the night alone, worrying that the attackers might decide to come back!

‘I don’t have much of an option, do I?’ she asked Matt, saccharine-sweetly. ‘But I warn you my spare room is very small and has a single bed. A very small single bed.’

‘I’ll live,’ Matt answered laconically. ‘Give me your keys.’

Idiotically she handed them to him, her heart giving a funny little skip beat at the intimacy such an action suggested. And then it gave a much stronger kick as Matt’s hard, warm fingers closed around her own. Inside her head she had a sudden mental image of him enfolding her hand within his own and them sliding his fingers between hers, and inside her body she had an immediate and explicit surge of aching heat.

Hot-faced, she dragged away her hand and then berated herself mentally for being so vulnerable and weak-willed as Matt let them both into her small, cosy home.

And Harriet’s home was cosy. As cosy as a small, neat and warm little nest. Her little front room was painted cream, to match the cream rugs on the polished floorboards, and Harriet had made the curtains herself, in a natural woven fabric. Her log-burning stove was her pride and joy, a bargain buy from a scrapyard, and the small terracotta linen-covered sofa had been cadged from her parents and reupholstered for her as a moving-in present.

Harriet could see Matt staring around the small room before following her into the kitchen, with its dining area in the conservatory addition.

Harriet had painted the cheap flat pack kitchen units herself, after bullying Ben to help her assemble them, while her dining room furniture had been junk shop finds which she had patiently restored.

As he looked around the comfortable kitchen, with its cream painted units and earthy-toned décor, Matt acknowledged that it took far more than an expensive designer to create a home—and, moreover, whatever it did take Harriet had it in spades.

To Harriet, though, his silent inspection of her small home spoke of arrogance and even possibly contempt. After all, she had heard all about Matt’s state-of-the-art expensive penthouse from Ben.

‘You don’t have to stay here,’ she told him fiercely. ‘It was your choice. Not mine. My home may not compare with yours—’

‘No, it doesn’t.’ Matt stopped her grimly.

His rudeness momentarily silenced her.

What would Harriet say if he told her how much he had grown to detest the sterile bleakness of a place that not even the most charitable person could call a home?

Broodingly he roved around the kitchen whilst Harriet watched him resentfully. What was he doing? Trying to make the point that her small home made him feel confined?

‘Look, there’s really no need for you to stay here,’ she said. ‘I can always ring Ben and ask him to come over.’

Immediately Matt swung around. ‘Oh, yes, you’d like to do that, wouldn’t you? Like hell you will, though! Hasn’t anything I’ve said to you sunk in? The whole purpose of this…this…’

‘Farce?’ Harriet supplied bitterly for him.

‘This exercise,’ Matt continued, ignoring her, ‘is to put a barrier between you and Ben, not give you the excuse to invite him to share your bed!’

‘He would not be sharing my bed!’ Harriet protested, rushing into impetuous denial. ‘When he stays here he always sleeps in his own room.’

‘His own room?’

Harriet could understand the hard edge to Matt’s voice, but not the white line of tightly reined in emotion around his mouth.