Buttoned-Up Secretary, British Boss by Susanne James Page B

standing there beside her. If his manner and approach were anything to go by he couldn’t be less like Alexander. Even at the very beginning Sabrina had always felt relaxed and comfortable with her boss, which was not how she was feeling at the moment.
    ‘Well, well, perhaps you’re a good influence on him,’ Bruno said languidly. ‘Maybe a fresh face…and a fresh figure…was what he’d needed all along,’ he added with heavy emphasis.
    By now, Sabrina’s nerve endings were really beginning to tingle. Any minute, Bruno McDonald was going to make a pass at her, she thought.
    As she busied herself with preparing his drink, she turned and glanced back at him, changing the subject.
    ‘I think we’re having what they call an “Indian summer”,’ she said casually. ‘For October it’s really warm today, isn’t it?’
    ‘It certainly is,’ he agreed. ‘And I, personally, love warm weather because it encourages all you lovely girlies to dress in your scantiest, most revealing clothes.’ He paused, deliberately staring at Sabrina again; shecringed, wishing that she’d not chosen to wear her rather low-cut top this morning. But it was the coolest one she owned, and it was sometimes rather hot working upstairs in the study.
    ‘Of course, in winter,’ he went on, ‘you all insist on covering yourselves up in layers and layers of thick things. Which is such a shame for all us susceptible males lusting in the wings for a glimpse or two of the female form.’
    If he doesn’t shut up , Sabrina thought, irritated, I’m going to tell him where to go.
    She was moving across to the cupboard where they kept the biscuits, standing on tiptoe to reach the tin, when Bruno immediately came up behind her. With one hand on her shoulder, he leaned across her and took the biscuits down from the shelf. With his face close to Sabrina’s now, he looked down at her solemnly, and she could smell alcohol on his heavy breath.
    ‘Now, Sabrina, if you had eaten up all your greens when you were a little girl, you would have grown a bit taller,’ he said reprovingly.
    Then, unbelievably, he slipped his hand from her shoulder and cupped it deliberately over her breast, squeezing it gently for a second. To which Sabrina’s immediate response was to dig her elbow hard into the most vulnerable part of his solar plexus so that he staggered back, only just managing to stifle a painful, ‘Ouch!’
    For a few moments, Sabrina stood and glared at him, her eyes like jewelled daggers ready to strike, when thankfully the door opened and Alexander stood there. He looked first at Sabrina, then at Bruno, then back at Sabrina—and he could see straight away that something wasn’t right. The atmosphere was undeniably charged,and he’d never seen an expression on Sabrina’s face like that before.
    Standing there in his shorts and T-shirt, his hair damp and tousled, he said, ‘What’s going on, Sabrina?’
    ‘Oh, it’s all right…it’s nothing, really,’ she began, her voice clearly unsteady.
    But that tremulous remark of hers only confirmed Alexander’s understanding of the situation, and for a dramatic moment he had difficulty in not punching his brother squarely between the eyes. Bloody Bruno!
    ‘Alex, dear boy!’ Bruno said, totally unfazed by his brother’s arrival, or indeed by the thunderous look on his face. ‘I thought I’d chance my luck that you might be able to see me for half an hour,’ he said. He looked back at Sabrina. ‘Your delightful secretary is just making me a coffee, which is sweet of her.’
    But Alexander McDonald was nobody’s fool, and he knew his brother. He went over to stand between Bruno and Sabrina. Putting his arm lightly on her shoulder, he could feel her shaking. ‘Get out, Bruno,’ Alexander said in a way that brooked no argument. ‘I’m busy.’
    ‘Oh, but I was hoping to show you this latest thing I’m interested in,’ Bruno began. ‘Hoping for your…input, Alex.’
    ‘I repeat—get