Desired By The Boss. Catherine Mann

for making out in the kitchen.’

      Long minutes later they came up for air, and April lifted her fingers to her thoroughly kissed lips as Hugh finally walked away.

      ‘Agreed,’ she said, as the front door clicked shut.

      The conference call was endless.

      Hugh sat back in his chair, letting the wheels roll him back a small distance from his desk.

      He’d docked his laptop, so the other attendees’ faces were displayed on the large slender screen before him. Everybody else allowed their faces to be shown, so Hugh could see each of them: the red-headed product manager in Ireland, his gaze focused on his keyboard, the dark-haired user experience manager in Sydney, her attention focused on the slides that the senior developer, also in London, was showing them...

      The developer was talking directly into his camera as he discussed some of the technical difficulties his team was currently encountering, his purple dreadlocks draped over his shoulders.

      Of course, Hugh’s face didn’t appear.

      Hugh still insisted upon that, despite the recommendations of the digital collaboration expert he’d engaged to improve the effectiveness of his widely dispersed team. Yes, he could see how a video feed might—as the consultant had advised—improve both rapport and communication, but no matter how large his company became he was still in charge. Hence—no cameras. For him, anyway.Even now, so many years later, old habits died hard. Because, of course, it wasn’t about him. He didn’t care if his colleagues saw him and his slightly too long hair and three-day-old beard.

      It was about his house. Everyone on the conference call was in their home. This meeting had a backdrop of contrasting wallpapers and paint colours, of artwork and photographs, of bookcases and blinds and curtains.

      Hugh wasn’t going to contribute his home to that landscape. He didn’t let anyone into his home. In any way. Ever.

      Except April.

      It seemed April had become the exception to several things.

      Such as his structured approach to dating.

      It had been timely that he’d received an alert from Ryan’s dating app mid-kiss with April. It should’ve been a reminder that he already had a tried and true approach to meeting women. And that kissing an employee in his mother’s kitchen was not his modus operandi.

      Instead, he hadn’t even bothered to open the profile of the woman he’d been so carefully matched to.

      After all, he’d just experienced a kiss that made his pulse beat fast and his body tighten simply by the act of thinking about it. It had been all-consuming: a hot, intense phenomenon of a kiss. Which was, after all, the point. He dated. He liked women. He wanted to meet women who liked him. And he definitely wanted that spark of attraction. April ticked each and every one of those boxes. Except the spark was more like a bonfire.

      So—why not?

      If the parameters were made as clear to April Spencer as he always made sure they were with other women, what was the problem?

      Logically, none.

      Although somewhere right at the edge of his subconscious doubts did twinge.

      But they were easily overcome. At the time he’d simply had to look at April to forget anything but his need to touch her again. Now he just needed to recall the shape of her waist and the heat of her skin beneath his palms.

      When he did that there was no need to analyse it further.