His Irresistible Darling

  Falling for her boss…

  Pippa can’t believe her luck. Not only has she landed a job as a PA in a Dubain firm for her final year at uni, but she’ll also be working for Jumal—an old friend of her brother’s, who she’s had a childhood crush on since for ever. It should be perfect—twelve months of sun, sand and swooning over the boss!

  The reality isn’t quite so glamorous. Not only is her employer demanding and uptight, he’s also considerably older than her and engaged to somebody else. It’s hopeless. He’s weighed down by expectation and responsibilities, while she is feisty, carefree and full of fun. They are simply not supposed to be together.

  But when Pippa’s twenty-first birthday night out ends unexpectedly in a sinister twist, Jumal knows he has to protect his friend’s little sister at all costs. When he moves her into his apartment to keep her close, could filing for the boss turn into a fling with him after all?

  His Irresistible Darling

  Sarah Randall

  www.CarinaUK.com

  SARAH RANDALL

  lives with her family in Lancashire and firmly believes that woman can survive on a diet of hot bubble baths, chocolate, red wine and a good romance book—preferably all at the same time.

  To my husband, the finest runner of bubble baths, procurer of chocolate and pourer of the vino. I love you like orange Smarties.

  For the written record, I accept full responsibility for the police incident in France. Je suis tres desole!

  Can’t wait for our own senior “gap” year and I promise to keep the helpful driving suggestions to myself.

  To my Mum and Gemma – the best Guinea Pigs ever!

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Title Page

  Author Bio

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Endpages

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “PIPPAAAA!!!”

  In the chart of “Pippa Darling’s Top Ten Bad Decisions” this one was right up there. Not number one, oh no, but definitely right up there and definitely ahead of number five, featuring the time she’d borrowed her brother’s ten-day-old Porsche for a trip into Leeds for an evening lecture and introduced it to a beautiful ancient oak tree. The car was a write-off, she was fine, but the proud oak still bore the scars and she insisted on yelling an apology to him each time she drove by. In at number four was the time she ignored her mother’s warning and decided that DIY tanning was absolutely the way to go before her high school graduation prom. A non-mover at number three consisted of a teenage break-up with Jimmy Stears (as a direct result of the aforementioned DIY tanning incident) and a night where a bag of giant chocolate buttons, a tube of Smarties (okay, three tubes of Smarties), a jug of premixed mojito and a mobile telephone were never going to be a good combination. Drinking and dialling: lesson learned. A new entry at number two would be her decision to come and spend months away from her home and her family in the oppressive heat of the Middle East, truly bonkers for a country girl more used to the frigid winds of the North York Moors, but still not enough to take the coveted number one spot held by a non-mover for the last, oh, four-hundred-odd weeks. Arguably a crush wasn’t really a conscious decision though…right? It was just an annoyance, like that Bryan Adams song—

  “PIPPAAAA!!!”

  Pip rolled her eyes and let out an exaggerated sigh as she pushed back from her computer desk with both hands and briefly looked to the heavens. Over the last couple of months, she’d grown to hate her name when it was being yelled at the top of her boss’s voice. Even if said voice, when not bellowing at her, was the sexiest panty-wetting accent she had ever heard and could cause her body to have chills even in the aforementioned heat of the midday sun. Damn the man, aka “The Crush”.

  “Huh,” she said, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and peering over her desk at her friend and co-worker sitting opposite. “Care to take a guess at what I’ve done or haven’t done this time?” Standing, she straightened her pencil skirt and grabbed her pad and pen. “Do you think if I ignored him he might go away?” she asked wishfully, tapping the pen against her chin.

  Melina looked up from her screen and offered a supportive tight-lipped smile. “Good luck, honey. We’ve got an office sweep going on who’ll kill the other first and with what office implement, so don’t let me down. I went with Miss Darling, in his office, with a blow to the head using the hole punch!”

  She strolled down the short hallway, passing the large glass-fronted boardroom and pondered why she’d ever reasoned that working for Jumal Aldabbagh would be such a coup. Maybe she’d hit her head harder than she thought when she’d fallen from her horse last Christmas. It would explain a lot, like why she couldn’t stop having naughty thoughts about the bloody annoying man, despite her best efforts. Was there a pill to take for it?! Seriously, weren’t crushes supposed to be over and done with once you were out of your teenage years?

  She let out a short humourless laugh and shook her head as she recalled their meeting last December when she’d used her powers of persuasion and excellent negotiation skills to convince Jumal to take her on for her year working in industry as part of her degree.

  “Please, please, please, please, pretty PURLEEEASE, Jumal,” she’d begged, while jumping around him like a caffeine-addicted Tigger.

  “No,” he’d responded curtly.

  But no Darling would give up that easily.

  Unperturbed, she’d continued, “But you’d be getting an almost business graduate as your PA for free, and I know Greta’s left you in the lurch.” She’d tilted her head. “Please.” She’d batted her lashes shamelessly.

  “No.”

  “Why not?” she’d pressed, hands on hips, stepping directly in front of him to stop his escape.

  “Because I don’t want to and I don’t have to explain myself.”

  She’d continued to bounce around him as he’d tried to dodge her and walk away.

  “But it would be good PR for your company. You know, a good deal and you being supportive of young business talent.” So okay, she’d been blowing her own trumpet slightly, but she’d continued undeterred. “And it would show everyone who hates you—” she’d paused at his icy questioning stare and held her hand up “—in a purely business sense of course,” she’d added quickly, “that you are in fact human.”

  She’d grabbed his forearm to stop his long stride. “Please, you won’t regret it. I promise.”

  She only had herself to blame, she thought, coming back to the present and taking a deep, soothing breath, not bothering to knock as she entered his large office. “You called, sir?” She knew he hated it when she called him “sir” so of course she did it all the time. She pushed her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose in a useless attempt to distract herself and calm her racing pulse. The glasses made her look even younger than she was, or so she’d been told. She just hoped that it meant he wouldn’t yell at her for quite so long this time. She closed the door behind her so that the whole office wouldn’t have to hear today’s rant. Then again, an open door would give her a quicker escape route…

  “What’s this?”

  She jerked her head back up to see Jumal pointing to his laptop screen, not even bothering to look up and acknowledge her presence.

  Look at me,
notice me, she begged silently, but quickly cut off her ridiculously needy thoughts.

  She closed the distance, ignoring the fabulous twinkling of the Persian Gulf vista from the top of his glass empire. At times when Jumal was out of the office, she loved standing at his floor-to-ceiling tinted windows to try to make out the tall buildings of Dubai across the Gulf. Dubai was always busy with a mixture of smaller local fishing boats, dwarfed by the larger luxury yachts of the fabulously wealthy inhabitants of Dubain and its close neighbour. There were huge super tankers ferrying oil from the terminals, and of course the city-sized naval ships in the docks of JAA Enterprises just up the coast.

  Just a few more months then you’re done, she chanted to herself. And then you can cause him bodily harm, she added with satisfaction, knowing that Luke, another one of her brother’s friends, who was reputed to be the best criminal lawyer in London, would surely enter a successful plea of diminished responsibility.

  Jumal finally lifted his head and narrowed his eyes in annoyance, interrupting her murderous musings. “What are you smirking at?”

  “Oh. Er, sorry, sir. What did you say?” she asked, shaking her head.

  “I said, ‘What. Is. This?’” He emphasised each word individually, pointing at the screen again like she was an imbecile.

  She bit her lip and managed to stop herself from replying, “Why, it’s a C.O.M.P.U.T.E.R, sir.” Instead she continued around to his side of the desk.

  She peered over his shoulder, lowering her head to see his work calendar. “What am I looking for exactly, sir?” God the man smelt divine. She was powerless to do anything but close her eyes and just breathe him in. Was that just his soap?? She pried her eyes away again, trying to ignore the way his dark hair curled ever so slightly at the collar of his crisp white shirt. Gripping her hands tightly together to stop them from unconsciously reaching out to run her fingers through the dark curls, she guessed he was about due for a haircut. She made a mental note to arrange it.

  “Why have you booked Mr Ansari to see me at four today? Why didn’t you check with me first? I have plans,” he barked at her, as he finally turned his head and really looked at her for the first time since she’d walked in. She lost all conscious thought for a moment. Surely she shouldn’t be noticing the specks of gold in his dark green eyes? Shocked, she jerked her head up and away from him. She’d often wondered where he’d inherited his green eyes from until she’d met his mother, a classical European beauty, whilst Jumal’s father had the classic dark hair and brown eyes of most Arab men. Pip had always thought that Jumal was the perfect mix of the exotic and… Oh right, yeah, he was waiting for her to reply.

  She cleared her throat in an effort to get her mind off his glorious genetics.

  “Well, I er, didn’t know that you had plans. There was nothing in your diary when I made the appointment for Mr Ansari,” she countered, nodding towards his screen. “And he was very appreciative of you seeing him at such short notice. Did you know that it’s his—”

  “That’s not the point, Pippa,” he interrupted gruffly, swinging his chair around so that his knees bumped her legs.

  She startled and straightened her posture, taking a defensive step back, still clutching her pad to her chest as armour… Or was that a weapon perhaps?

  She bit at her lip. “Should I cancel him?” she asked, bowing her head slightly, silently pleading that she wouldn’t have to call and cancel the appointment. Her mother had always laughed at her young daughter’s need to make people happy, but of course she had never known the real motivation behind her daughter’s actions. Pip had always hated confrontation. It brought back painful childhood memories she’d fought long and hard to hide from her family. She would try everything to avoid feeling the disappointment of others, and since arriving on the small independent Gulf island of Dubain, she’d already taken a real shine to Mr Ansari and his large, exuberant and friendly family. They reminded her of her own family, before life had been so cruel to the Darlings.

  She slowly raised her eyes from the floor to watch his face closely as he contemplated his decision. Tick tock.

  He let out a quick breath. “No. Leave him in the diary. I’ll see him,” he finally agreed. “Just check with me before making any more diary appointments over the next week or so. I’ll be in and out of the office for the next few days tying up the Dubai deal.”

  “Yes, sir, of course.” She nodded and turned to leave.

  “Oh, and Pippa.”

  Damn it, freedom had been so close. She turned back to him defensively, still clutching her pad to her chest, and raised a brow.

  He now rested his elbows on the arms of his leather chair and steepled his fingers together across his chest. “I know you call me sir just to annoy me.”

  “Sir?” she asked innocently, tilting her head to one side.

  “Just so we’re clear, you don’t need to call me sir to get under my skin.”

  The inference was clear as she saw him try to hide what appeared to be a wry smile creeping to his lips. She was mortified to feel her cheeks redden in embarrassment. A smile on his face? Nah. Impossible.

  She reached for the door handle but turned back, still holding the knob. “Do you have a hole punch, sir?” she asked lightly, tilting her head again.

  He opened the desk drawer. “Yes, here. Why?” He held up his hole punch proudly.

  “Oh no reason,” she said, shaking her head and smiling sweetly. “Just good to know where you keep it. You never know when I’ll need to punch something.” She turned and skipped back to her desk.

  ***

  As soon as his office door closed Jumal dropped his head into his hands and raked his fingers through his hair. It was becoming a regular feature of his post-Pippa meeting analysis.

  He was pretty confident that banging his head on the table wouldn’t help ease some of the pent-up tension and would simply give him more of a headache. A trip to the gym it was then. He reached to loosen his tie and ended up taking it off entirely and opening up his top button.

  Since arriving on Dubain last October, Miss Pippa Darling was slowly, but oh so surely, turning his well-ordered life upside down. In fact, if he was being honest with himself, she’d been doing it since he’d met her again the previous Christmas at her family estate in Yorkshire.

  A meeting still etched in his mind, and readily available for repeat viewing like a scene from a favourite film. He and Matt had been looking over his newborn foal when her sultry voice had interrupted from the stable entrance…

  She had quite literally taken his breath away. At first sight he hadn’t known who she was, yet his entire focus had been drawn to her. A sledgehammer hit to his heart, and yes, a certain lower part of his body too. BAM. He’d had to force himself to turn away from her to greet Ana, Matt’s then girlfriend, now wife. He still couldn’t believe his oldest friend was married, very happily so, judging by how fast the pair had celebrated the birth of their first child.

  When his friend Matt had introduced Pippa as his sister he’d felt his heart and stomach plummet, together with the aforementioned lower part of his body. Yes, he’d known that Matt had a younger sister but it had been years since he’d seen her and she’d only been twelve or so. He’d struggled to accept that the femme fatale who had stood before him and hijacked his ability to breathe properly was the same one he’d last seen wearing her dark brown hair in bunches, sporting a mouthful of braces and following her elder brother around like a lost puppy begging for scraps.

  “Enchanté, Phillipa.” He remembered, as if it was only yesterday, her shy smile and blushes, the way she’d brushed her hand through her hair and fiddled with her glasses as she had reminded him of their earlier meetings. “Well you have certainly grown into a beautiful swan.” He’d denied remembering her at the time. He couldn’t very well flirt with Pippa. It was Pippa for God’s sake, and there were some lengths even he wouldn’t stoop to, despite his reputation as a ladies’ man. A reputation he wasn’t sure he entirely d
eserved. Oh good Lord, had he really compared her to a swan… Would he ever learn?

  Thankfully Ana had saved him from digging an even deeper hole, one which Matt would no doubt have thrown him into without much debate if he’d been aware of his friend’s carnal thoughts towards his little sister.

  Pippa was young, very young, and his friend’s sister. Two facts which, when put together, equalled stay the hell away from her. He’d been trying to keep to that plan ever since, probably the sole reason for his increasingly frequent bad moods and dependency on cold showers. Of course the fact that she was now working for him and would be doing so until June meant that he hadn’t been entirely successful in his campaign to stay the hell away.

  Her goddamn perfume drove him wild. As she’d peered over his shoulder to look at his computer he’d had to put his hands under the desk to refrain from acting out his desire to grab her and pull her onto his lap. Her breasts had been right in line with his mouth. Great, now he was getting hard…

  “Who’s a swan?”

  Distracted yet again by Miss Darling, he hadn’t heard his friend and finance director, Malik, come into the office. He raised his head and sat back in his chair.

  “I knocked but you didn’t answer,” he continued.

  “So you thought you’d just come in anyway,” Jumal challenged, but his tone was light.

  “Yep,” he said, taking a seat opposite Jumal and popping his foot up to rest on his other knee. “So, do I even need to ask who has managed to cause our great leader to drop his head in his hands and mumble to himself about, er, stuff?”

  “Nope,” Jumal replied, closing his eyes briefly, then looking up and shaking his head.

  Malik laughed. “Well she certainly keeps you on your toes and the place has never been so lively. The rest of your staff love her, my friend.”

  He met his friend’s gaze while considering how much to admit. “She drives me crazy, Malik. It’s not funny. I can’t concentrate.” He cursed inwardly. He hadn’t meant to say that last part and be quite so open about the effect Miss Darling had on him. He never showed weakness and Miss Darling was starting to be a weakness. He reached for his glass of water.