Page 3 of The Powerful Boss She Craves

Would anything change? Probably not. Would she get an apology? That was wishful thinking. But Micah Le Roux would know exactly what she thought about his company, his managers and their abysmal attitude towards sexual harassment.

And maybe, just maybe, something she said would cause him to review their HR policies; to take the subject seriously.

She sent Janie what she hoped was a confident smile. ‘Wish me luck.’

Janie’s eyes widened. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Ambush Micah Le Roux and give him several pieces of my mind.’

If he did nothing, changed nothing—as she expected him to—then she could leave this job and city, knowing she’d done everything she possibly could to prevent the same thing, or worse, happening to another woman.

Micah only allowed his smile to bloom, the first in days, when he knew he was out of sight of the gorgeous brown-eyed woman. A woman who knew a thing or two about cars, which upped her sexy factor by a good ten per cent.

He also liked her feisty attitude. He’d been firmly put back into his box and he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. As a Le Roux, one of the most powerful businessmen on the continent, that didn’t happen often.

Or at all.

He’d felt her eyes on him the moment he’d left his car, had clocked the prickle on the back of his neck, the tingle in his palms. He’d scanned the building and quickly found her, standing at a window on the second floor.

He hadn’t meant anything when he’d flashed her a smile and saluted her. He’d been acknowledging her presence but she’d taken it as him being flirtatious... Hell, maybe he had been. It was just what he did, a part of his charming persona. His twin, Jago, was meant to be the stand-offish and temperamental one, whereas Micah was seen to be more laid back, charming and personable.

That couldn’t be further from the truth, though. He was the one who had to keep his temper leashed, his impulsivity in check, his quick tongue tempered. Charm and geniality were a cloak he could pull on and remove at will.

The woman at the window hadn’t appreciated his casual, flirtatious attitude. Her eyebrows had pulled together, her wide mouth had thinned and she’d gripped the edge of the window sill a little tighter. He’d just stood there like an idiot, head tipped back, unable to walk away, entranced by her loveliness.

She was a startling combination of cultures—Chinese, white and maybe Indian. Her straight hair was the rich, deep, dark brown of imbuia wood. Her cheekbones were high, her mouth sensuous and her chin stubborn. Her body, the little of it he’d been able to see, was thin but curvy. She looked young—twenty-four, twenty-five—but her confidence and wit suggested she was older, probably in her late twenties or early thirties.

As he walked to the entrance, he wondered who she was. That she was one of his employees was indisputable—she was in his building, on a floor occupied by Le Roux Events staff. He didn’t expect her to recognise him; few at this level did. Was she a clerk, an event planner, an accountant or did she work in admin? Did she like working at Le Roux Events? How long had she worked for them?

The urge to stop, to log into the Le Roux International server—the one that only he, Jago and a couple of their most senior and trusted employees had access to—and pull up her file was almost overwhelming. Since this small subsidiary only employed thirty or forty people, he’d find her quickly. In five minutes, he could know her age, her history, her credit score, her salary and see her work reviews.

Micah shook his head and ran his hand up and down his jaw. He’d never—not once since he’d started working for his father after graduating university—used his power and access to spy on an employee. Doing that would be a serious breach of trust. It was his and Jago’s view that they only pulled an employee’s record when they had damn good reason to.

And that reason had never occurred because they’d never interfered in the day-to-day running of the companies they owned. He and Jago had too many enterprises to do anything but look at company performance and balance sheets. He was only here because he had a very specific problem: he needed to find a new wedding venue for his sister’s prestigious wedding in two months’ time.

He didn’t have time for an out-of-the-blue attraction, neither did he have the inclination. He had a company to run, deals to do, money to make. His responsibilities at Le Roux International required him to work sixteen-hour days as it was. Micah had no idea how he was going to fit in the search for a wedding venue on top of his insane workload. But he was, once again, taking responsibility for a problem that wasn’t his...

But that was what he did, who he was. Whenever anything went wrong with his family, because of what he’d done twenty years ago, he assumed the responsibility of fixing the problem. Because he couldn’t fix what had happened to Brianna...

Micah felt his breath catch in his throat and, needing a minute, he changed course and walked away from the entrance and down the side of the building, slipping round the corner and into a small alley between his and the next building. He leaned his back against the red brick wall, lifted his foot and placed it on the wall, tipping his face to the sun.

This month would be Brianna’s twentieth year of being in a persistent vegetative state, two decades of being non-responsive. She’d spent nearly seven thousand, five hundred days in that hospital bed on a feeding tube.

And it was his fault. He’d put her there.

Why the hell had he phoned her when he’d stormed out of Hadleigh House? Why had he dumped his hurt and anger on her? He knew the answer to that question: because she’d been the one person, besides Jago, who understood the screwed-up dynamics of the Le Roux family, and Jago hadn’t been around. Their parents had been long-time friends. She’d grown up with Jago and him and had been part of the family. She’d seen Theo’s temper, his need for control, and had often told Micah that his frequent fights with his father would end in tragedy.

She’d been right but she’d been the one who’d paid the price for his lack of control and blinding anger. Because she’d loved him, because she’d needed to rescue him, Brianna had followed him, and on a busy Johannesburg road had met her future. Or non-future.

The events of that night had changed everything. By far the worst consequence was Brianna’s catastrophic head injury. But there’d been other consequences too: for the Pearson and Le Roux families, for his siblings and, obviously, for himself.

Naturally, he’d personally taken more than a few major hits. In the aftermath of the incident, he’d drunk far too much, flirted with drugs and had looked for any respite from the swamping guilt and unrelenting pain. Jago had got him some professional help—his father and stepmother hadn’t bothered—and he’d cleaned up his act. He’d learned to control his temper and reckless streak, and had vowed that he’d do anything and everything to make life for his siblings flow smoothly—he’d be polite to his stepmother but she could take care of herself—vowing he’d never disappoint Jago or Thadie again. He’d also promised himself he’d never hurt another woman, in any way, ever again. As a result, he only ever engaged in shallow affairs, one-night stands.

Brianna had wanted the big family, the husband and the picket fence. At one point he’d wanted the dream too, but he didn’t deserve to have what she couldn’t, what he’d taken from her.

Guilt was his constant companion, his ever-faithful friend.

Micah gripped the bridge of his nose and squeezed. Standing here, thinking about the past—how he’d messed up so many lives—wasn’t going to get his immediate problem solved.

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