A one-night stand with a sexy stranger seems like a great idea, until he turns out to be my new billionaire boss... On her last night in Auckland, Heidi meets an attractive man in a bar who invites her to go back to his hotel room. Despite her reservations, she agrees to a one-night stand given that she's leaving the city the following day. The night turns out to be the most intense and passionate experience of her life, and she leaves the next morning feeling disappointed but excited to start anew. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned. She can't find a permanent secretarial position in Wellington, so she has to take up temp work. The only room available for rent is damp and tiny, and to make matters worse, she ends up with an unexpected complication from her fling. Feeling like she's hit rock bottom, she starts a new temp job, only to discover that her mystery man from Auckland is her new boss. Oddly enough, he doesn't seem to recognize her and acts as if they've never met. It isn't until later that he reveals he's actually the CEO.
Chapter 1 1
Heidi
It's Tuesday the twenty-sixth of July, the first week of the English school summer holidays, and I'm in the kitchen making bread when my phone vibrates in the back pocket of my jeans, announcing the arrival of a message.
Assuming it's another unwanted text, my heart sinks as I take the phone out with floury fingers. I do a comical double-take when I see it's a Facebook message from Lawrence Oates.
I feel a wave of relief, then a flutter of pleasure deep inside. My heart racing, I go over to the sink and wash my hands, then pick up the phone and bring up the message. It's short but sweet.
Your Royal Highness! Don't suppose you'd be around for a Zoom call at 8 p.m.?
I laugh at his greeting. My full name is Heidi Rose Huxley, and the first time we met, he commented that my initials were HRH.
Still smiling, I sit on the kitchen chair, bring up his Facebook profile, and study his picture.
His real name is Lawrence, but everyone calls him Titus. He got the nickname from the Antarctic explorer of the same name who sacrificed himself for his teammates in 1912 by going out into a blizzard. That Lawrence Oates was nicknamed Titus after the English priest who invented a conspiracy to kill the English king, Charles II, in 1678.
How do I know all this? Because when I was sixteen, tipsy on one glass of sparkling wine at my brother Oliver's twenty-first birthday party, I asked his gorgeous mate for a kiss. Instead of getting exasperated with the irritating young teen who was trying to pretend she was sassy and sophisticated, he proceeded to kiss the living daylights out of me. Shy and innocent, I'd never even had a boy kiss me on the cheek before, so to be French kissed by a gorgeous older guy completely blew me away.
After the kiss, I found out everything I could about him, convinced I'd found my Prince Charming and that we were destined for a happily ever after.
We weren't, of course, and unsurprisingly after the party he didn't contact me and declare his undying love. We did see each other relatively frequently over the years, either at Oliver's business club or at my parents' house. Every time our gazes met with a mischievous smile as we both clearly recalled that kiss, although we never spoke of it openly.
We've been friends on Facebook for some time, although we've never communicated on there. Two years ago, I moved to England, and I haven't spoken to him since. He was the first guy to burst my girlish, romantic bubble, but he wasn't the last. Einstein said insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I think, from that definition, I'm pretty bonkers, as the English like to say.
His profile picture is an old one, taken when he was at university, of him with his arms around Oliver and their friend Mack. It's a bit blurry and doesn't do him justice. I remember him as tall, dark, and handsome, and being impressed because he'd been approached to play rugby for the Auckland Blues. The only other thing I remember about him is that his mother is Scandinavian, and he has Viking tattoos down each arm.
As I scroll down through his Facebook feed, I can see why I've never read any posts from him-he hardly ever goes on there. Oliver has mentioned him in passing when I've spoken to him on Zoom over the past two years, but I don't know anything about what he's been up to, apart from that he works with computers.
Why on earth does he want to talk to me?
Then it comes to me-it must be about Oliver's wedding. Oliver is marrying his girlfriend, Elizabeth, next month, and I'm flying to New Zealand for it. Maybe Titus is organizing something he wants me to be a part of. Yes, that would make sense. Much more sense than him deciding he wants to chat up the tipsy teenager he snogged eight years ago.
Blowing out a relieved breath, I reply to his message.
Hey Titus! Sure! 8 p.m. your time or my time?
He responds almost immediately:UK time.He includes an invitation to the Zoom call, then says:Great, speak to you tonight.Wow. Captain Concise.
Putting the phone aside, I return to making the easy-bake bread, adding a can of beer to the flour with the baking powder. I mix it all up and tip it into the loaf pan.
Then I scoop it back into the bowl, add the salt and sugar I'd forgotten, and put it back into the loaf pan again. I top it with grated cheese and salt and pepper, and slide it into the oven.
Then I remember I haven't added any olive oil, take it back out, drizzle the oil over the top, return it to the oven, and set the timer.
Even though it's clearly not a romantic call, he has me all flustered.
I huff an irritated sigh at myself and check the time on my phone. It's nearly ten a.m. now, and I'm due to have another Zoom call with my sisters. I go into the living room and collect my laptop, then take it out of my tiny cottage into my even tinier garden, and set it up on the plastic table under the umbrella.
I've learned that summer in England can be extremely variable, especially where I live, in the county of Devon in the southwest, where the hills of Dartmoor generate mild, wet weather. Last year, it rained the whole of July and a good part of August. This year, June proved to be one of the wettest on record, but the weather has miraculously cleared up for the start of the school holidays, and today the sky is the color of bluebells.
I click on our Zoom link and discover that two of my three sisters-Chrissie and Evie-are already there, waiting for me. There's a moment of delay, and then their pictures spring up on the screen.
"Hey!" They smile and wave as they see me, and I grin and wave back.
"Hey you lot!"
"Ooh, it looks like a lovely day there," Chrissie says.
"It's a beautiful summer morning," I reply.
Evie shakes her head. "It must be so weird to have summer in July!"
"You get used to the seasons being reversed," I tell them. "Christmas in winter wasn't as strange as I thought, because our cards Down Under tend to feature wintry scenes despite it being in summer. And it makes sense that Easter takes place in spring here, with all the lambs and chicks being born."
"I guess," Evie says. "But Halloween in autumn? That's just weird."
I smile. I can't imagine that either Evie or Chrissie would take to living in England. There's a tendency for Kiwis to think of the English like cousins because so many of us have relatives back in the UK, but the fact is that the two cultures are very different.
Chrissie is thirty-three and, like me, a schoolteacher, although she teaches science at a large secondary school, which is a world away from my position teaching five-year-olds at a tiny Devon primary school. Evie is twenty-seven and a police officer, bossy and no-nonsense. They're both quite frank and outspoken, and I think they'd struggle with the way most English people are reticent and reserved.
"Where's Abigail?" I ask, referring to our oldest sister.
"She's in the South Island with Sean at the moment," Evie says. "They decided to have a weekend away to celebrate their third wedding anniversary, so she won't make it tonight."
"Oh, that's a shame. Have they taken Robin with them?" Their little boy is eight months old.
"No, they've left him with Mum and Dad," Chrissie replies.
"I can't wait to see him," I say longingly. Robin is my first nephew, and I'm desperate for a cuddle.
"Not long now," Evie says cheerfully. "It'll be great to see you. We've missed you so much."
"Yeah, me too. It's going to be such fun. Hey, do you know if Titus is organizing something for Oliver?"
Chrissie shrugs. Evie says, "What do you mean?"
"I don't know. I've just got a message from him asking if I'm free for a Zoom call tonight. I assumed it was something to do with the wedding."
"Are they having a stag do?" Evie asks Chrissie.
"Not as such. Hux says he didn't want one," she says. Even though his first name is Oliver, everyone calls him Huxley or Hux, except me. It always feels odd to me, especially as my surname is Huxley too. "He says he's too respectable," she adds. Evie and I snort. Chrissie grins. "When we go to Lake Tekapo, the night before the wedding, the guys and the girls are having some kind of separate wine and whisky event. That's all he wanted, as far as I know. And Mack's organizing it, so it's nothing to do with Titus."
"Hmm." Now I'm puzzled. "What do you know about him?"
"He's got a big knob," Evie says.
My eyebrows shoot up as Chrissie bursts out laughing. "Jesus," I say. "Evie!"
"What?" she grins. "You asked."
"I meant, you know, his personality, what he does for a living."
"Oh... sorry."
"How do you know how big his knob is, anyway?" Chrissie asks. "I didn't think you were in the knob business."
"Claire referred to it once," Evie says, ignoring the jibe, used to her sister's teasing about her sexuality. "She's his ex," she explains to me. "They were together for a couple of years, but they broke up a while ago. I met her at Huxley's club one evening. She was absolutely out of her tree, and she told us she called his dick 'Sir Richard' because it was so big."
"Oh my God," I say, as Chrissie dissolves into giggles. "Now I'm not going to be able to think about anything else while I'm talking to him."
"I wonder what he wants," Evie says curiously.
"He works with computers, doesn't he?" I ask.
"He doesn't just work with computers," Chrissie says. "He's the CEO of NZAI. New Zealand Artificial Intelligence?"
"Oh. Wow."
Chapter 1 1
03/08/2023
Chapter 2 2
03/08/2023
Chapter 3 3
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Chapter 4 4
03/08/2023
Chapter 5 5
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Chapter 6 6
03/08/2023
Chapter 7 7
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Chapter 8 8
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Chapter 9 9
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Chapter 10 10
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Chapter 11 11
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Chapter 12 12
03/08/2023
Chapter 13 13
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Chapter 14 14
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Chapter 15 15
03/08/2023
Chapter 16 16
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Chapter 17 17
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Chapter 18 18
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Chapter 19 19
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Chapter 20 20
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Chapter 21 21
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Chapter 22 22
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Chapter 23 23
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Chapter 24 24
26/08/2023
Chapter 25 25
07/11/2023
Chapter 26 26
07/11/2023
Chapter 27 27
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Chapter 28 28
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Chapter 29 29
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Chapter 30 30
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Chapter 31 31
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Chapter 32 32
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Chapter 33 33
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Chapter 34 34
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Chapter 35 35
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Chapter 36 36
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Chapter 37 37
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Chapter 38 38
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Chapter 39 39
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Chapter 40 40
21/11/2023
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