Free New Boss New Year Bride by Lucy Clark

tried to keep his tone strictly professional. ‘Of course I like her. She’s a colleague.’
    ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it. You like like her. I saw you both before, in the corridor, making googly eyes at each other.’
    Joss closed his eyes for a moment, unable to believe Dex had witnessed those few intense moments. But it was true, and there was no use denying it to his friend because Dex knew him far too well.
    ‘This is good, Joss. You haven’t been interested in any woman since Christina.’ Dex leaned forward on the desk. ‘If you like her, mate, you should do something about it.’
    ‘She’s your sister. She’s a colleague. She’s here to work. She has a year-long contract and I don’t want anything to go wrong.’
    ‘What if everything goes right? What if she’s your Ms Right? You could marry her and we could end up being real brothers! That would be cool.’
    Joss shook his head, knowing his friend was only joking. ‘Funny. Very amusing,’ he remarked without humour.
    ‘But seriously, this is a good time for you to let go of the past and move forward into the future.’
    ‘Hmm.’
    ‘You need to let Christina go, Joss. Everything that happened to you all those years ago is gone. Finished. Done. I never believed the allegations brought against you, and neither did your family. You were cleared of any charges and you moved on with your life—geographically, but not emotionally.’
    ‘You’re one to talk,’ Joss commented. ‘You haven’t spoken to your family in how long?’
    ‘This discussion isn’t about me. It’s about you. When, since you left Perth, have you ever been this interested in a woman? I’ll tell you—never.’
    ‘It’s why I came to Didja in the first place. To get away from women. Besides, what if Melissa turns out to be like Christina? Ever think of that? What if she’s all nice and lovely on the surface, but dig a little deeper and I might find something I don’t want to know about?’
    ‘Excuses, excuses. Believe me, I’ve used them all in my time. But this isn’t about me; it’s about you. You like her. You’re attracted to her. That alone is enough of a reason to get to know her a little better. The past doesn’t matter any more, and Christina wasn’t any good for you anyway.’
    ‘Apparently not.’
    ‘You needed friends—true friends—to help build you up again, to support you.’
    ‘And you were there.’
    ‘That’s right. And now you can be there for me by agreeing to do the house-calls this week.’
    ‘Nice segué.’ Joss shook his head and grinned at his friend. ‘But my answer is still no.’
    It had to be. He had to get his life back onto the nice even keel it had been in three days ago—before he’d ever laid eyes on Melissa Clarkson.
    Dex’s mobile phone rang and he broke off their debate in order to answer it. Joss mentally cooled his heels whilst he waited, going over the arguments in his mind. It was imperative he succeed. When Dex ended the call, he grinned very slowly at his friend.
    ‘You look like the cat who ate the cream.’
    ‘Oh, I have. I don’t usually play dirty, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’
    Joss’s skin started to prickle with apprehension at his friend’s words. ‘Who was that on the phone?’
    ‘The Watkinsons.’
    Joss closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands, his shoulders instantly slumped in defeat. ‘Oh, no.’
    ‘Well you may cry, “Oh, no”, my friend, because they’re coming to Didja tomorrow. They’ll be here for a whole week—and you know what that means.’
    He wished Dex would keep quiet—that he’d go away. ‘Can’t you just gloat in private?’ he asked, his words still muffled behind his hands.
    ‘Nope. Besides, gloating is done much better in front of the person you wish to gloat about. I don’t make the rules, mate, I just follow them. What a darn shame that the Watkinsons chose this particular weekend to come to Didja. What a darn shame