Her Impossible Boss Read Online Free Page A

insert her key into the front door and there she was, pulling open the door, her face alight with curiosity.
    What did she think of Matt Strickland? Tess tried her best to sum up a guy who represented everything she so studiously avoided. Too rich, too arrogant, too stuffy. When her mind strayed to the peculiar way he had made her feel, she reined it back in.
    ‘Can you believe he didn’t want me showing up in tight clothing?’
    ‘He’s your boss. He can dictate your wardrobe. Do you think
we’re
allowed to show up to work in ripped jeans?’ Claire pointed out reasonably. ‘Move on. Impressions of the apartment?’
    ‘Barely had time to notice.’ Tess sighed. ‘I’ve never had such a long interview. I could tell you all about his office, but that’s about it. Oh—and the kitchen. I
did
notice that his apartment is the size of a ship, though, and I’m not sure about his taste in art. There were lots of paintings of landscapes and random strangers.’
    ‘That would be his family,’ Claire surmised thoughtfully. ‘Classy.’
    ‘Really? You think?’
    ‘And finally impressions of the daughter?’
    No one had known that he even
had
a daughter, so private was Matt Strickland, and so far he hadn’t brought her into the office once!
    Tess wondered what there was to tell—considering she hadn’t actually met the child. She had waited in the kitchen for what had seemed an unreasonable length of time, and Matt had finally returned in a foul temper and informed her that Samantha had locked herself in her bedroom and was refusing to leave it.
    Tess had sipped her tea, distractedly helped herself to her fifth biscuit, absentmindedly gazed at her feet, which had been propped up on a kitchen chair in front of her and pondered the fact that, however powerful, self-assured and downright arrogant Matt Strickland was, there was still at least one person on the face of the earth who was willing to ignore him completely.
    ‘You shouldn’t have locks on the doors,’ she had informed him thoughtfully. ‘We were never allowed to when we were growing up. Mum was always petrified that there would be a fire and she would have no way of getting in.’
    He had looked at her as though she had been speaking another language, and only later had she realised that he would have had no real experience of all the small details involved in raising a child.
    ‘So, Monday looks as though it’s going to be fun,’ she finally concluded now. ‘Samantha doesn’t want toknow, plus I have to be there by seven-thirty. You know how hopeless I am at waking up early…’
    Which earned her a look of such filthy warning from Claire that she decided to back off from further complaints on the subject. Of course she would do her very best to wake at the crack of dawn. She would set her alarm, and she would set her phone—but she knew that she might easily sleep through both. What if she did?
    She still remembered all the choice words he had used to describe her, and her fact was still worrying at the problem when, the following evening, she answered the landline to hear Matt’s dark, smooth voice at the other end of the phone.
    Immediately Tess was hurled back to his apartment and that first sight of him, lounging against the doorframe, looking at her.
    ‘You’ve probably got the wrong sister,’ Tess said as soon as he had identified himself—as though there had been
any
chance of her not recognising that voice of his. ‘Claire’s having a bath, but I’ll tell her you called.’
    ‘I called to speak to you,’ Matt informed her smoothly. ‘Just to remind you that I’ll be expecting you at seven-thirty sharp tomorrow morning.’
    ‘Of course I’m going to be there! You can count on me. I’m going to be setting a number of gadgets to make sure I don’t oversleep.’
    At the other end of the line Matt felt his lips twitch, but he wasn’t about to humour her. He got the distinct impression that most people humoured Tess Kelly. There