The Billionaire Boss's Innocent Bride by Lindsay Armstrong Read Free Book Online Page B

Nemo.’
    Alex shook her head as she absorbed all this and the words started to make sense. Then she flew up as she heard Max Goodwin swear graphically, and, without bothering about her shoes, ran out of the green room to make her presence known. The effect was electric. The two people in the foyer moved convulsively.
    ‘I—I’m so s-sorry,’ she started to stammer.
    But Max Goodwin said murderously, ‘What the hell are you still doing here?’
    And Cathy, probably one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful women Alex had ever seen, murmured, ‘Without her shoes? I wonder. But you always did have good taste in women, Max.’
    That was when, as Alex stared at the other woman incredulously, a very harassedlooking Margaret stepped out of the lift.
    ‘He’s fine, he’s asleep,’ she said immediately to Max, ‘but I just remembered Miss Hill. She looked so peaceful I let her sleep, but I didn’t get a chance to tell anyone and when you and Ms Spencer—’ she gestured towards Cathy ‘—decided to come upstairs to—well, discuss things, I suddenly thought I should do something…’ She trailed off awkwardly.
    At eleven o’clock the next morning, Alex waited nervously in Max Goodwin’s outer office.
    It had been Margaret who’d called a taxi for her last night. A perturbed-enough Margaret to lose some of her infinite discretion and even murmur distractedly,
    ‘How could she just turn up with him? I couldn’t believe it. And he won’t be parted from Nemo.’ Margaret’s expression as she’d said the last bit had been full of a sort of helpless, horrified apprehension.
    Alex had not asked for clarification; most of the dramatic events of the evening had become clear to her anyway. She did think that if the boy refused to be parted from his pet fish, that was not so serious, but everything else she’d overheard caused her to share Margaret’s sentiments. How could a mother behave like that?
    She had no idea what else had transpired overnight, but she’d half expected a call this morning, terminating her services. Not that she felt she was in any way to blame for overhearing what she had, but it did place her and Max Goodwin in an awkward situation.
    Nor was she too sure he didn’t blame her for eavesdropping. He hadn’t said much to her before she’d left, but he’d still looked and sounded murderous. She looked down at herself. She was wearing a cocoa-brown linen trouser suit over a fawn silk blouse with a Chinese collar, and fawn leather high heels. Her badge was pinned to her suit collar. Her hair was perfect—she’d taken advantage of Mr Roger’s offer to comb it for her and since Mary, the make-up girl, had been free, she’d done her make-up.
    It had been rather relaxing, Alex had thought, to be pampered, and she’d realized that she needed relaxing. The events of the night before had left her feeling tense and she’d had trouble sleeping. Cathy Spencer’s lovely face had been hard to get out of her mind…
    She would be in her late twenties or early thirties, Alex had decided, with long dark hair and a heart-shaped face with a wide, smooth forehead. She had blue eyes herself, although not as dark as Max Goodwin’s, but with sweeping dark lashes, a full, provocative mouth and a long, slender neck.
    You would not have known she was a mother—her waist was narrow, the curves above and below highlighted beneath a fitted oyster satin blouse tucked into a short, straight biscuit linen skirt. A pair of very high heels had emphasized her slender ankles.
    But no amount of describing her shape and her colouring could capture the—what was the right word?—passion, the spark, the living, breathing warmth and vitality of Cathy Spencer, Alex had decided during her wakeful night.
    The other thing that had kept her awake had been her own confusion. Could one day have produced more issues for her, in fact?
    There’d been the physical impact of Max Goodwin, the width of his shoulders, the strength of his