Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Boss?
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!Toni 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!
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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.
Parents. We love them dearly, but sometimes they pass on a heritage and family expectations that we cannot shake offâno 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 sisterâs gap year, with something left over for the university fees. Toni has taken care of her sister since their parentsâ 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 Mappingâand give him hope for a second chance at love.
I do hope that you enjoy travelling 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
NINA HARRINGTON grew up in rural Northumberland, England, and decided at the age of eleven that she was going to be a librarianâbecause 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 realise her dream of being a fiction writer. When she is not creating stories which make her readers smile, her hobbies are cooking, eating, enjoying good wineâand talking, for which she has had specialist training.
Other Modern Tempted⢠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.millsandboon.co.uk
Contents
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 didnât 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.
