Barbara Wallace – Beauty & Her Billionaire Boss (страница 1)
Sisters Patience and Piper Rush might not have had much growing up but they
In June 2015 …
Patience finds herself falling for the
man of her dreams in
A Millionaire for Cinderella
And
In September 2015.
Piper’s heart is captured by her brooding
Parisian boss in
Beauty & Her Billionaire Boss Only in Mills & Boon® Cherish™!
Beauty & Her Billionaire Boss
Barbara Wallace
BARBARA WALLACE can’t remember when she wasn’t dreaming up love stories in her head, so writing romances for Mills & Boon® Cherish™ is a dream come true. Happily married to her own Prince Charming, she lives in New England with a house full of empty-nest animals. Occasionally her son comes home, as well.
To stay up-to-date on Barbara’s news and releases, sign up for her newsletter at www.barbarawallace.com.
To Pete—Your patience and support are a gift for which I can never say thank you enough.
And to M.G.—for giving someone that dose of common sense when we most needed it.
Contents
THERE SHOULD BE a law against a man looking so good in a tuxedo. Staring at the man asleep in the chair, Piper felt an appreciative shiver. Monsieur Frederic Lafontaine had shed his jacket and untied his tie, yet he still looked like a million dollars, what with the way his shirt pulled taut across his linebacker-sized shoulders. She had to start using his dry cleaner. The guy must have been sprawled here for hours, and yet his clothes didn’t have a single wrinkle. Piper’s uniform wouldn’t last five minutes. In fact—she ran a hand down the front of her black skirt—it hadn’t.
Then again, she didn’t have cheekbones that could cut glass or thick brown hair that begged to be touched, either. Maybe perfection came in bundles.
Taking a deep breath, she touched his shoulder and tried not to think about the broad muscles beneath her fingers. Eight months of working for the man, and she still hadn’t shaken her attraction. “Monsieur? You need to wake up. It’s after seven o’clock.”
When he didn’t respond, she shook his shoulder again, this time a little more aggressively. The motion did the trick. Slowly, his eyes opened, and he blinked unseeingly. “You fell asleep in the chair,” she told him.
“Oh.” His voice was thick with sleep, making it deeper and rougher than usual. “What—what time is it?”
“Seven fifteen.”
“What?” He bolted to his feet, arms akimbo, his right hand connecting with the cup of coffee Piper set on the end table only seconds before. The cup took flight, sending coffee over everything.
“Dammit!” he hollered as the hot liquid splashed his shirt. He immediately started pulling at the cloth, lifting it from his skin. “How many times have I told you, you must tell me when you put something within reach? You know I can’t see anything put to the side.”
It was hard to say much of anything seeing as how he jumped up before she had a chance to open her mouth. “I’ll get you a towel.”
“Don’t bother.” He’d already yanked the shirt free from his waistband. “Clean up the rest of the spill before it stains the carpet. I’m going to take a shower.” He turned to head upstairs.
“Wait,” Piper called.
Moving this time before he could speak, she scooped up the cup from where it had fallen on the carpet, half an inch from the toe of his shoe. “You were going to crush it,” she said, holding the china teacup in front of his face.
If he appreciated her heads-up behavior, he didn’t say so. “Tell Michel when he arrives that I will be ready shortly. And make sure my briefcase is by the front door.
Not that she would actually move the thing. Put out or not, she wasn’t so petty that she’d pick on a blind man—or half-blind man as the case may be. Truth was, nitpicky as they were, monsieur’s “rules” served a purpose. When she took this job, it was made very clear his limited field of vision required everything in the house to be just so. Chief on the list was that nothing should be set to the side without his knowledge. His lack of peripheral vision might cause a mishap, he’d explained. Most of the time, the system worked. There were times in fact, such as when he crossed the room with his slow, purposeful strides, that Piper forgot the man had trouble seeing.
After double-checking on the briefcase—which was on the left as always—she headed for the utility closet. “So goes another fun-filled day in Paris,” she said as she marched into the kitchen for her cleaning supplies. Naturally, the coffee had fallen on the handmade Persian carpet. That meant instead of using the nice handy carpet-cleaning machine in the closet, she had to get the stain up with water and a vinegar paste.
This was not how she expected her year abroad to go. Her year here was supposed to signal the start of a new and exciting life. The wonderful moment when she stopped being dumpy Piper Rush and became Piper Rush, chef extraordinaire who dazzled the culinary institute with her skills and enthralled French men with her American wit. In short, the complete opposite of her life in East Boston.
She should have known better.
Didn’t take long for her to realize that Paris was exactly the same as Boston, only in French. Which actually made it worse than Boston. Despite spending hours shoulder to shoulder with a dozen other people, she hadn’t made a single close friend. Everyone was too busy trying to impress Chef Despelteau. In a way, you’d think the fact that she couldn’t impress the man if she tried would help her cause, but no. Yesterday, after she didn’t use enough confit to brown her chicken, he declared her cassoulet flavorless and spent ten minutes lecturing her on the importance of taste, even when making “peasant food.” All her classmates did was snicker. City of Lights, her foot. More like the City of the Unfriendly.
Even Frederic barely paid attention to her, unless there was an errand to run, or she needed to wake him up. He was too busy lecturing at the university or heading off to some fancy social event.
The perpetual loneliness she fought to keep under wraps threatened to wedge free. She had to swallow to keep it from rising up and choking her. God, what she wouldn’t give for someone to talk to.
Out of habit, her hand reached for the cell phone tucked in her apron only to leave it behind. It was still the middle of the night in Boston. Her sister, Patience, would still be asleep. Patience—the only reason she was sticking things out to completion. Her sister was convinced Piper was living the dream, and considering how much Patience had sacrificed so Piper could actually have a dream, she didn’t dare disturb the fantasy. Besides, her sister had issues of her own. She and her boss’s nephew were doing some kind of back-and-forth that had Patience on edge. The last thing she needed right now was a whiny baby sister burning up the data package complaining because her year abroad wasn’t all sunshine and roses.
She carried her supplies into the salon, pausing when she reached the front window. A few blocks away, the Eiffel Tower loomed tall, reminding her she really had no right complaining. She might be lonely, but she was a lonely person living in luxury. Instead of monsieur’s mansion, she could be living in some ratty apartment battling roaches for breakfast. Or worse, living on the streets. Been there, done both. She didn’t feel like doing either again.
If only she had someone to share Paris with, then things wouldn’t be so bad. It wasn’t going to happen, though. If she hadn’t found a kindred spirit yet, she wasn’t going to. She was simply going to have to suck things up, the way she always did.
Speaking of sucking, she had a carpet to clean. Staring at the stain darkening the beige carpet, she sighed. This better not be a sign of how the rest of her day was going to go.