Page 6 of The Powerful Boss She Craves

Jago sent him a tight smile. ‘Last time I checked, we own this company and we set the policy. Screw the board. I’ll start sharpening the swords.’

Back in her office, Ella dropped into her chair, placed her elbows on her desk and pushed her fingers into her hair.

What on earth had happened out there? Instead of reading Micah Le Roux the riot act, instead of tearing off ten strips of skin, she’d caved and in fits and starts, told him the whole story.

Where had her fire gone? While she’d been waiting for him to appear, she’d built up a huge head of steam, but as soon as she looked into his Persian blue eyes her anger had faded and embarrassment strolled in.

Oh, she wasn’t embarrassed about what had happened with Pillay; none of that was her fault and she refused to take any blame for any part of his appalling actions. But she felt embarrassed that her first conversation with Micah Le Roux had revolved around her being sexually accosted. She hadn’t wanted him to see the tears in her eyes, to hear her halting voice.

She would’ve far preferred the big boss to be eighty years old and portly, not young, fit and gorgeous. She would’ve liked their first conversation to have happened at a bar, over a glass of chilled champagne, or at a restaurant over perfectly grilled fish. Or at a club with a sexy beat pulsing in the background.

All of which was insane. Even if Pillay was a choir boy, there would’ve been no chance of her meeting Micah Le Roux! She was just another working woman, one of the millions in the city; he was South African royalty. Their paths were never destined to cross again so why was she thinking about clashing gazes across champagne flutes, dancing with him in a nightclub or sharing getting-to-know-you dinners?

Why was she fantasising over his lovely blue eyes, his masculine face and stunning body? Maybe because she’d had so little to fantasise over lately...

But she should focus on his reaction which, to be honest, had been surprising. She’d expected him to find excuses, to play down what happened to her, but he’d seemed genuinely angry—completely horrified, in fact. Ella did not doubt that her claims had been a surprise to him: she’d seen his shocked, then furious, expression.

But what she did doubt was his promise to fix the situation. She didn’t believe him, she couldn’t. She’d been let down too often by too many people to put her faith in a stranger, even if he was rich and sexy, made her stomach pitch and roll and her heart flutter.

Besides, what would he fix? Sure, he could fire everyone who’d ignored her claim—not a likely scenario, admittedly—but there was little he could do about Neville Pillay, as going after him would be a PR nightmare. He was a very popular entertainer, known to be a loving family man, and nobody would believe that a snake lurked beneath his designer clothes. Micah publicly accusing him of sexual harassment would damage the Le Roux brand and that wasn’t something a successful billionaire businessman would do. Not on the word of one mid-level employee.

It was done and she should just try to put the last few months behind her. There wasn’t anything more she could do and it was obvious that she’d never see Micah Le Roux again.

It was time to focus on the future, to make a new life somewhere else. She just needed to hang in here a little longer. If she did, she’d be paid her bi-annual performance bonus. She’d endured so much already. She could handle another fifteen working days spent in this cramped and stuffy room.

Two days later, Micah was back at Le Roux Events. After checking that Winters’ office was empty, he walked up the stairs to the second floor, ended up in a dull grey hallway and looked at the numbers on the doors in front of him. Ten, eight... He was going the wrong way. Ella Yeung was in room sixteen, so he changed direction, ignoring the curious glances from people behind their glass half-walls. Twelve, fourteen...

Sixteen...

At the sound of his quick rap on her open door, Ella turned and a long, lovely leg caught his attention. He was tempted to look for longer—and couldn’t help noticing her white skirt and emerald-green sleeveless top—but he knew he had to rein in his admiration and act as professionally as possible, even if there was something about Ella Yeung that made his head spin.

With her, given what she’d recently endured, he had to be ultra-professional. Difficult when all he wanted to do was run his eyes over her...

He lifted his eyes to her face and was happy to see some colour there.

Judging from the curiosity in her still cool eyes, she’d heard that Winters and the HR guy were gone and was perhaps wondering how that had come about. She was the only person who was entitled to some answers.

‘Can I come in?’ he asked, after greeting her.

‘Sure,’ she replied, gesturing him inside her office. She walked past him to sit on the edge of her desk. He wasn’t invited to take a seat, he noticed.

Micah looked around her space and noticed the stack of dusty boxes in the corner, some old chairs and two broken filing cabinets. A laptop rested on the surface of a scarred wooden desk.

He’d learned a lot about Ella Yeung over the past forty-eight hours and the thought of her being banished to this dreadful office, wasting her considerable talent, annoyed him. Thank God Winters was gone or else he’d have fired him just for that.

‘I thought I’d give you a personal update on the changes here,’ he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Hands that wanted to touch her hips and her butt, hands that wanted to cradle her face, cup her breast. Of all the women in the world, he had the luck to be fiercely attracted to someone who was completely, solidly off-limits.

He’d heard the emotion in her voice the day before yesterday when she’d recounted her awful experience but he’d been impressed by her strength and admired her determination to stop Pillay’s reprehensible actions. Ella Yeung had hidden depths...

Depths that would remain unexplored.

‘The office gossip has been working overtime,’ Ella replied. ‘They’re saying that Ben took early retirement, but I suspect you fired him.’

‘I did.’ And he’d do it a hundred times over. During the man’s exit interview, Micah had ascertained that Winters was a raging misogynist. When he’d suggested that Ella had ‘asked for Pillay’s attention’, Micah had nearly lost it. Micah refused to condone his repulsive world view by allowing him to take early retirement instead of having his employment terminated.

He’d also fired their Director of Human Resources, and the Le Roux Events Human Resources officer, as he told Ella.

Ella nodded, folded her arms and tapped her fingernail against her bicep. ‘Thank you.’

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