[In Bed With The Boss]

dense green umbrella that sheltered and concealed the exotic mysteries of the forest floor. At any other time she would have been captivated by the wild, b

ces. Power and money.’ The pilot fingered the controls and then glanced towards her. ‘You don’t look like his usual type.’ His usual type? Wondering how anyone could possibly mistake her for a billionaire’s girlfriend, Grace almost laughed. ‘I have a meeting with Mr Cordeiro. His company put up the original investment for my business.’ And that investment had changed her life. ‘He’s what they call a business angel, but I expect you know that, given that you work for him.’ ‘Angel?’ The pilot convulsed with laughter and the helicopter swooped alarmingly close to the treetops. ‘Rafael Cordeiro—angel?’ ‘It’s an expression. It means that he invests in small businesses that interest him.’ And he’d been interested in hers. Until recently. The sick feeling in her stomach was suddenly back and Grace lifted her briefcase onto her lap and stroked the surface, trying to solder her fractured confidence. The pilot was still laughing. ‘Angel. I don’t know what he does to make his money but I can tell you one thing,’ he fixed his gaze on the horizon and fiddled with the controls, ‘the man is no angel.’ Refusing to let him frighten her, Grace straightened in her seat. ‘I don’t believe everything I read in the papers.’ ‘Obviously—’ he glanced towards her and the smile on his craggy, weathered face was faintly pitying ‘—or you wouldn’t be here. I can see you’re a gutsy girl with a mind of your own and that’s good, it will get you a long way out here in the jungle.’ ‘There’s nothing gutsy about attend

f nowhere?’ Grace turned her head and looked out of the window and only then did she see the lodge—a building that seemed to consist of nothing but glass domes and smooth, weathered wood, it blended into the forest so cleverly that it seemed almost to have grown naturally amongst the trees. ‘Oh.’ She looked at the walkways suspended high above the forest floor. ‘It’s stunning. Amazing.’ The pilot was laughi

hed. ‘You obviously don’t know the first thing about him. He lives here because it’s that dangerous, baby doll. He has a low boredom threshold. Likes to live life on the edge, so to speak.’ Baby doll? The careless way he’d diminished her to nothing irritated Grace sufficiently for her to forget her nerves. All her life she’d been patronised and underestimated. All her life people had doubted and dismissed her. And she’d proved them wrong, over and over again. She’d fought against the odds and she’d succeeded. Until now. Now she was in danger of losing everything she’d worked for. And she wasn’t going to let that happen. This was probably the most important fight of her life and she was going to win. She had to win. And to win she had to forget that she was probably the worst person in the world to be given the responsibility of talking numbers with the Brazilian billionaire with the computer brain. She had to forget everything except the consequences of losing. And the people depending on her. If she failed then they lost their jobs, it was as simple as that. If Rafael Cordeiro called in his loan, then it was all over. The humid, oppressive heat wrapped itself around her like a thick, suffocating cloak and she pushed a damp strand of hair away from her face, her eyes drawn upwards, following the straight lines of the trees that rose to such impressive heights. It was like being in a remote, exotic paradise and it was hard to remember that cities like London and Rio de Janeiro even existed. ‘Isn’t he afraid, living out here?’ ‘Cordeiro?’ The pilot chewed on a piece of gum and gave a grim smile. ‘He isn’t afraid of anything.’ Knowing that if she heard any more