Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Boss? Read online

  Enemies make the best lovers…

  Scott Elstrom craves freedom, adventure and exploration…so leaving the wilds of Alaska behind to save the family company isn’t top on his list of priorities! And getting the traditional CEO portrait painted by one feisty, quirky, sexy fireball? Not in a million years!

  Antonia Baldoni needs this commission. Just because the new boss won’t play along, it doesn’t mean she’ll back down! But suddenly Toni’s not sure if it’s determination that’s got her pulse racing—or something altogether less appropriate! Trouble is, this battle of wills is not so much hard work—it’s a lot more like fun!

  SNEAK PEEK EXCERPT FROM

  Who’s Afraid

  of the Big Bad Boss?

  His gaze locked on to her face and stayed there, unmoving for a few seconds, before the corner of his mouth slid into a lazy smile.

  The corners of those amazing eyes crinkled slightly and the warmth of that smile seemed to heat the air between them. And at that moment his smile was for her. And her heart leapt. More than a little.

  In that instant Toni knew what it felt like to be the most important and most beautiful person in the room. Heart thumping. Brain spinning. An odd and unfamiliar tension hummed down her veins. Every cell of her was suddenly alive and tuned in to the vibrations emanating from his body.

  Suddenly she wanted to preen and flick her hair, to roll her shoulders back so that she could stick her chest out.

  It was as if she had been dusted with instant lust powder.

  Dear Reader,

  Parents. We love them dearly, but sometimes they pass on a heritage and family expectations that we cannot shake off—no matter how hard we try.

  Antonia Baldoni knows about expectations. Toni is the fourth generation of the Baldoni family of artists to paint the portrait of the CEO of Elstrom Industries. She needs the money to help pay for her younger sister’s gap year, with something left over for the university fees. Toni has taken care of her sister since their parents’ death.

  Only the new CEO is not the academic cartographer Lars Elstrom but his adventurer son Scott. Scott Elstrom has been brought back from Alaska to take over the company because his father is ill.

  Scott certainly does not have time to sit around long enough to have his portrait painted! He might be the last of the line but he is not going to let two hundred years of heritage go down without a fight.

  The one thing he does expect is that quirky and stubborn Toni Baldoni might just be the girl he needs to help him save Elstrom Mapping—and give him hope for a second chance at love.

  I do hope that you enjoy traveling with Toni and Scott on their journey to discover how they can put the past behind them and move forward together to a new life.

  I would love to hear from my readers, and you can get in touch by visiting www.ninaharrington.com.

  Nina

  WHO’S AFRAID

  OF THE BIG BAD BOSS?

  Nina Harrington

  About Nina Harrington

  Nina grew up in rural Northumberland, England, and decided at the age of eleven that she was going to be a librarian—because then she could read all of the books in the public library whenever she wanted! Since then she has been a shop assistant, community pharmacist, technical writer, university lecturer, volcano walker and industrial scientist, before taking a career break to realize her dream of being a fiction writer. When she is not creating stories that make her readers smile, her hobbies are cooking, eating, enjoying good wine—and talking, for which she has had specialist training.

  Other Harlequin® KISS™ titles by Nina Harrington:

  The Secret Ingredient

  Trouble on Her Doorstep

  This and other titles by Nina Harrington are available in ebook format from www.Harlequin.com.

  Contents

  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

  Excerpt

  ONE

  Scott Elstrom looked out across the sea ice and squinted as the Alaskan sun rose over the horizon and made the light covering of snow suddenly turn brilliantly white.

  It was so beautiful that for a moment he forgave the brutal biting wind that came with crossing the frozen sea. There was no cover for himself or his team of nine sled dogs and he could feel his cheeks burning with frostbite under the mask covering his face.

  Reaching up with gloved hands, Scott turned off his head torch to save the batteries and, stepping off the sled, he ran a hundred paces on the thick plate of ice to get some warmth into his body and then jumped back onto the sled, much to the amusement of the dogs. The lead dog, Dallas, actually looked back and seemed to grin at him.

  The dogs loved this weather: bright sunshine and a clear trail ahead across the sound to the base camp on the other side of the bay.

  The fact that they had only crossed this stretch of sea ice once before didn’t matter. They were happy just to be out and doing what they did best. Running.

  He had been out with his dogs for thirteen days, taking mapping and geo readings at each of the twenty stations the ecological survey company had established. Sometimes that meant staying in a small town along the way but often the station was a simple wooden house or shack where he would be alone with his dogs, checking their feet and feeding them. He loved this way of life and the gentle routine that they had settled into.

  Out here in the silence he felt a kinship with all of the explorers who had used Elstrom maps in the past to find a route to new worlds as well as to hunt and fish.

  Now that routine was shattered. The message from his sister, Freya, had been short and to the point.

  Their father was in hospital. He had suffered another stroke and, although it was a small one and the doctors said that he should make a good recovery, his father wanted to talk to him. Urgently. Come home, Scott. We need you here.

  Scott rolled his shoulders and fought back a sense of guilt at his resentment at having to go back to what passed for civilization a week earlier than he had planned.

  They needed him. Well, that was new!

  It had been two years since his father had handed over the management of their family business to his stepbrother, Travis. And look how well that decision had turned out! Now Travis was long gone and his father had been fighting for months to save what was left of Elstrom Mapping.

  For their father to even admit that he needed Scott was astonishing.

  That was why Scott had taken the decision to cross the open water instead of travelling inland and taking the slower route through the frozen forest and rivers to the station where he would find a snow machine and a lift to the local airstrip.

  There was no other choice. He had to cross the frozen sea ice to get to the base camp to the airbase in time to catch the weekly cargo plane—it would take too long any other way.

  But crossing open salt water ice was a serious commitment. The sea froze in huge cracked and floating plates which moved and heaved under the sled, making progress slow and dangerous. The ice was always unstable and never more so in the unusually mild Alaskan February.

  Scott looked over the sled and, to his horror, he c
ould see the ice ridges flexing and cracking. A giant piece of ice had broken away and was floating out to sea. He was driving across the frozen-over thinner layer.

  One crack in a weak spot and the weight of the sled would drag him and the whole dog team underwater to their deaths, never to be found again.

  There was a low grunt from his lead dog, Dallas, as she picked up a scent and set off at a steady pace onto the thicker ice, the other eight dogs behind her panting and settling into a trot from months of training and working together. They would run all day if he asked them, without complaint.

  * * *

  The blinding sunlight made Scott squint and glance sideways towards the open water of the sea.

  For the last twenty-four hours he had been travelling and had barely dozed in the wooden trappers’ cabin for the the four or five hours while the dogs rested. Now, as the sun rose higher and warmed his skin, and the dogs moved steadily forwards, his mind drifted seawards.

  The only sound was from the movement of the sled on the ice and the comforting panting noises of nine dogs moving as a team.

  Beautiful. Unique. Mesmerising.

  This was his life now. Not central London and everything that went with it.

  He had waved goodbye to that world two years ago and would quite happily not see it again unless he had to. The technology he was using for his mapping and surveying meant that he could talk to his sister and his father, if he chose to, most days and at least once a week.

  Of course Freya had tried to persuade him to come home for Christmas but what had been the point?

  His quiet academic father had never understood how his son preferred adventure sports and a hard outdoor life to the quiet study of the maps and charts that had made Elstrom Mapping a familiar name around the world.

  The only common thing holding them together had been the mapping company, and when his father had decided that Travis could be trusted to lead the company that link had been swept away, leaving nothing but regrets and harsh words behind.

  The weather had closed in during December and made travel impossible for anyone at the research station, so he had a perfectly valid and very convenient excuse to stay in Alaska.

  Way too convenient an excuse according to his sister, who’d ended up coping on her own for the holidays, being bounced between divorced parents who had drifted away from one another for years before their mother finally gave up trying to make a family with a father who was never home. Freya had spent New Year’s with their quite happily settled mother and her new boyfriend—a lawyer with a fine selection of colourful bow ties.

  Scott chuckled to himself deep in the back of his throat. Freya would make him suffer for that one. He looked up and was just about to check his GPS position when his world shifted.

  He felt the sled shudder and slip underneath him.

  They had hit a weak spot in the ice.

  Instantly every cell in his body leapt to attention, adrenaline surging through his veins.

  While he had been thinking about London firesides, Dallas had slowed down, her tail high and in the shape of a question mark instead of hanging straight down. And her paws were dancing.

  Scott’s heart almost stopped.

  He couldn’t swim in five layers of thermal clothing and, even if he could, the water was so cold he wouldn’t last more than a few minutes. He would go down with the sled and the dogs.

  The dogs would die because his father had given up the fight.

  No way. Not while he still had breath in his body.

  Scott snatched up the solid grab rope and dropped off the back of the sled onto his stomach, his legs spread wide so his body weight would be spread over the thin ice. ‘Dallas. Gee right. Gee right. Dallas.’

  Dallas knew that this was the instruction to turn right to safety and she tugged and tugged as the team fought her, the other eight dogs desperate to run hard and straight. But she did it and after a few terrifying minutes Scott felt a ridge of hard ice under his stomach and they were back on the older solid pan ice.

  The broken shards of ice ripped his right glove to shreds and his fingers instantly turned numb and blue. Frostbite. But he managed to haul himself back onto the sled and the dogs sped on to safety as the shapes of the cabins on the other side of the bay grew clearer in the growing early morning light.

  He was going to make it home in time to hear what his father had to say after all.

  But one thing was for sure. This was his chance to prove to his father that he was a better man than Travis could ever be. And nothing was going to stand in his way and stop him from making that happen. Not this time.

  * * *

  ‘So let me get this straight. Those G-strings are edible?’

  Toni pulled away the wrapping paper from the pink and black gift box that her sister Amy had given her and started reading the instructions on the back.

  ‘Of course.’ Amy shrugged and flicked the fluffy feather end of her pink whip against the packing. ‘Why else would you want to wear something that uncomfortable?’

  ‘I have just had a vision of what happens when those candy pieces come adrift and where they might end up in my lady parts. Amy, I love you and you are my only sister but I may save modelling this particular birthday pressie for another day.’

  Amy giggled and shook her head. ‘Those knickers are not for us to ogle at. Save it for that hunky boyfriend you’re going to meet.’ She knocked her on the head with the feather whip again. ‘Very soon.’

  ‘Well, in that case I might as well put the box in the freezer right now and stick to eating supermarket chocolate bars.’

  Amy sighed out loud and collapsed down on the arm of the dining chair next to Toni. ‘Now don’t be like that. It has been a whole year since you got rid of that skanky Peter and what did we agree? He was totally not worthy of your luscious magnificence. Right? Of course right. This is a new year and a new you, remember?’

  Toni smiled and hugged the present to her new burgundy satin bra. ‘When did you get to be so clever? I’m going to miss having you around. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course. That’s why I’ve loaded up all these fancy gizmos on my tech so that we can talk every week!’

  Amy wrapped one arm around Toni’s bare shoulders and rocked from side to side. ‘It’s only a few months and I’ll be right back in time to start university in September.’ Then she slid back and sniffed once. ‘And, for the record, I’ll miss you too but I’ll work hard to block out my pain by having the best gap year trip this world has to offer.’

  Then she pointed the whip at Toni. ‘All thanks to the lovely Christmas present from my darling sister.’ She nodded over her shoulder. ‘The gals still cannot believe that you bought me a round-the-world plane ticket. Magic!’

  ‘How else could I get you out of the house long enough to get the plumbing fixed?’ Toni grinned. ‘You’re welcome. But you do remember that there’s one condition. You have to enjoy yourself and not spend the whole time digging up bits of ancient Peru.’

  ‘I can guarantee it. Oh! Looks like I’m getting the signal. I think more birthday cake might be almost ready. Be back soon.’

  And with that Amy got to her feet and sashayed off as though she always wore a black laced-up pink and cream frilly basque and feather-trimmed mules around the house.

  Toni sat back in her hard wooden chair and swayed a little from side to side as her whole crew of pals and colleagues from the media company where she worked joined in a very loud and very out of tune version of an old hit song about an uptown girl which was playing at full volume in her honour.

  There was cheap Prosecco and white wine spillages and pizza and cheesy biscuit breadcrumbs all over the tablecloth, and probably the new plum lingerie that Amy had squeezed her into as the star of her Birthday Goddess sexy party special. At some point s
he had lost her shoe under the table when she sat down after all the toasts had been made.

  Then Amy had presented her with a crown she had made from gold paper and wire and insisted that she wear it as a party princess. At a jaunty angle, of course.

  Worse. Her make-up was probably a wreck after a brief but intense crying jag when Amy had said some incredibly sweet things about how lucky she was to have her as her sister and that leaving home for the first time was not going to change a thing.

  The waterworks had started again when Amy gave her a bound book of their mother’s sketches of them as children and told her how proud their late parents would have been of her and what she had achieved, which had everyone in the room reaching for the tissues, paper napkins or, in more than one case, the corner of the tablecloth. There was not a dry eye in the house. Even Amy the Strong ‘accidentally’ dropped her napkin on the floor and had to drop out of sight for a couple of minutes to find it.

  Good thing that the birthday chocolate iced cupcakes had arrived just in time to prevent a meltdown of nuclear proportions.

  Toni glanced up across the tables and clusters of women spread out around the room. It didn’t matter that she looked a mess and that her guests were in great danger of trashing the dining and living room of a house she was borrowing from Freya Elstrom. Not to her friends, who had come out on a cold February evening to help her celebrate her birthday.

  Amy had a lot to answer for. She had told Amy for weeks that she did not want a birthday party. It would only remind her of what had happened on her last birthday, when she had found her so-called boyfriend in the shower with the Brazilian lingerie model who turned out to be his real full-time girlfriend.

  The one he had so conveniently forgotten to mention during the previous few weeks when he had been dating her.

  That had not been one of her life’s finer moments.

  Especially since she had already stripped off and was ready to make sure that Peter was washed in all of his important places.