His Very Personal Assistant

In Love with Her Boss #9

by Carole Mortimer

When Kit was hired as personal assistant to Marcus Maitland, she was ready to resist him — if her sensible suits, glasses and severe hairstyle didn't do it, then her cool, untouchable manner would.

However, during a working weekend away, Marcus started getting very personal with his assistant. Without her glasses and prim clothes, Kit felt naked — which suited Marcus just fine!

Genres: Harlequin, Harlequin Presents, Romance, Contemporary Romance, Harlequin Romance, Fiction

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 2005

About the author

I have written almost 250 romance novels in contemporary and Regency.

I am a USA Today Bestselling Author and recipient of the 2015 RWA Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014 I received a Pioneer of Romance Award from Romantic Times in the US and in 2012 I was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II for my 'outstanding service to literature'.

I am very happily married to Peter with six sons, and live on the Isle of Man

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice office romance with the typical trope of the gorgeous red headed heroine disguising herself with thick glasses, pulled back hair and shapeless clothes so her boss doesn’t chase her around the desk lol. Naturally we have the moment where heroine takes the pins out of her hair and the bifocals out, dons a black bikini and voila! Insta-love from the hero!!! The B plot of this story took over the romance. Heroine has a long estranged, hard as nails, grandmother who happens to be her boss’ business rival and the time she spends with her makes her boss suspect she is selling corporate secrets to her. Anyhoo all is well that ends well with rainbows and unicorns and marshmallow kittens. The reason I can’t rate this higher is because Emma Darcy’s Pattern of Deceit is the standard by which I judge all other stories with this trope. It was so well executed that all the other Harlequins I have read in this genre come up short. But, overall, it was nice :)

[*CJ* · Rating 2 out of 5]

"His Very Personal Assistant" is the story of Kit and Marcus.
An assistant heroine who dresses herself in drab due to her past experience with a leech boss..
A playboy hero..
A trip which forces her to reveal herself..
Loads of OW/OM attacks..
Extreme family drama..
Love?
HEA.
I mean this book felt just plain incomplete. Low on angst and passion, this is just an average time killer.
Meh.
2/5

[Mtve41 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Glad to put it out of the way. Certainly nothing to write home about. In fact I’d considered to DNF a few times. Extremely flat writing and boring conversation between the MCs. I also don’t prefer a few triggers, aka the h was quite tall and not exactly a school girl.

The h has the hots for her boss who is obv a man ho. Tbh he sounded like a decent enough nice guy, I didn’t get any devilish feels from him. He wasn’t even a stuffed shirt and was quite chatty.

The dialogues were basic and their chemistry was MIA. Bummer cuz I was excited, workplace romance and all!

[iamGamz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kit worked for Marcus as his assistant. After a bad experience with her last boss, she deliberately made herself unattractive to protect herself in the office. Until Marcus asked her to accompany him to a colleague’s house for a weekend. The goal was for her to be his date for the weekend, but to use her assistant skills to ferret out any info about how his company secrets kept getting stolen.

Well, things didn’t go as planned. Not only was her old boss there, but the head of the company that kept benefiting from the stolen info. The weekend started off badly and quickly went downhill.

The weekend also brought about a significant change in Kit and Marcus’ relationship after he saw what she truly looked like.

There was a lot of stuff happening in this book, but the author wove it all in beautifully. It was easy to read and kept the reader engrossed.

I loved the ending. A really wonderful HEA.

[MissKitty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda corny and mildly disappointing.

The Hero fell in love with the heroine too abruptly, in fact only when she dropped her disguise. So in essence, well, he only fell for her looks. There was absolutely no evolution to the sudden shift in their relationship.

The big reveal fell flat, not enough development and the explanation and reconciliation seemed weak at best. Plus a super abrupt ending.

So over all, read if you have nothing else.

[JillyB · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Carole Mortimer, but this story was just ok. This was more of 2.5 stars rounded up. It had a lot of things that could have been an angsty mess, but it just didn’t quite get there. I also thought the sexy scenes were lacking. They never did come fully together before the end of the book, although the H, Marcus , was able to show the h, Kit, he knows how to get her soaring even if he is still left on ground control.

Ok, so 26 year old heroine has been working as the 39 year old H’s PA for 6 months. It sounds like she has loved him for 6 months minus 1 minute(it takes at least a minute to do a proper looksy)She fell in love with him even though he put the play in playboy. His relationships do not have a long shelf life, but they do have biddable bodies and blonde hair. Of course, our H never looked twice at his capable PA because…..yep, she does the whole ugly suit, big glasses, scraped back hair thing to detract from unwanted advances by her boss. Her last boss was very handsy. This scenario has been played out before, but most recently I read it with Deceptive Love which I liked much better.

It seems that the H’s latest goodie has spoiled for him so he dumps her and then tells the h she needs to accompany him to a weekend business retreat at a wealthy businessman’s house. He also tells her she needs to ditch the ugly threads and demeanor. Of course, she does and the playboy is ready to play with his statuesque, red headed beauty. Later he tells the h it was love at first sight for him, at least when he saw the real her.

They attend the weekend retreat, and it becomes quite the circus. Here are the party goers:

First, we have the h’s ex boss. He is quite certain that absence has made the h’s heart grow fonder and that she probably can’t wait to try on her ex boss. Our h is verbal several times with the ex boss Mike informing him that it is not happening:

Are you totally thick, or just plain stupid?’ she chal- lenged, annoyance easily overcoming her fear. ‘I do not find you attractive. I have no intention of becoming involved with you. In fact, I’m sure I’ve made it per- fectly plain that I don’t even like you!’ she finished frustratedly. .

He really doesn’t get it and must have attended the HP school for OW’s. Speaking of OW’s….

Andrea(OW) is also at this weekend retreat using some other man(free sex for him so he was probably ok with it). She was the woman our hero was ShaggingSleeping with less than a week before and then dumped to tell her he was taking his pa to this shindig. (Ok so this lost a star right here for me, I am not immune to the manwhores in HP land, but for goodness sakes, I do want the bed sheets to have more than one washing before he starts to snuggle up to our heroine) Anyhoo, our ow tries to finagle her way back on the H’s arm whenever she can, and likes to drop innuendos as long as the h is in earshot.

3)The host
of the shindig is on marriage 3. This aging lothario comes off as happy go lucky, but all he really wants is his 20 something wife back as he finally found the one. He cries on the h’s shoulder, (recognizing a woman with her own love issues) as she is a good sounding board. (He gets his wife back in the end thanks to the H and h)

4) Catherine Grainger,

arch nemesis and bitter rival of our hero. She seems to get the jump on several of the H’s contracts. For some odd reason the h tries to avoid this 67 year old corporate diva….and so the plot thickens.

The party is a complete mess with possible bed hopping, fist/verbal fights, and possessive ex bosses who should go to jail for assault. The h and H leave early the next day, cutting the weekend short. She goes to visit her parents despite the H wanting to take her out on a date.

When she returns back to work on Tuesday, everything hits the fan and we have our black moment. Our h is accused of corporate espionage when she is found leaving Catherine Grainger’s office(she is the h’s estranged grandma)and is fired, the H feels betrayed. The h’s mom has to have emergency brain surgery with a 50/50 chance, we also find out her dad is old enough to be her grandfather, and is also a famous artist, oh and the the grandma has her own love gone wrong story and that is why she was gunning for the H’s company. The H makes an appearance and becomes the rock the h needs to lean on. He is scared she won’t forgive him for doubting her.

IN the end the H makes amends for his misjudgment of the h. He proposes to her on bended knee and is the first to say ILY.

Honorable mention goes to Penny the h’s flatmate who gives the H a huge piece of her mind cutting him off at the knees.

Meant to be moment: The H bought a painting many many years ago of a red headed young lass looking at the turbulent sea. It so happens the lass was the h and the painter was her dad.

If you read my spoiler, then you will understand why I had a hard time connecting with the story. There was way too much drama for this llama. Too many secondary characters. I think the romance loses focus on our h and H and that is why the angst doesn’t come off.

The relationship took 6 months and approximately 1 to 2 weeks to lead to a proposal. The first six months are discounted as the H really didn’t see the h until the glasses came off. Hmm, it seems that she has the same optometrist as Clark Kent and Diana Prince.

[BarbarAzza Brioscina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Va beh meno peggio

[Ashima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!!

[Anuradha · Rating 4 out of 5]

An office romance with a touch of humour. The guy is a business tycoon with a notorious play boy image. The girl lands up working for him. Just to keep the guy at arm's distance, she dresses like a drab school marm. That keeps him focused on work all right !

But soon, they need to go on a weekend official trip and her true looks comes out. And that sets the play boy alarm ringing loud and clear. Now he pursues her in right earnest.

But there is a small confusion because the heroine seems to be meeting his arch business rival a little too often. Suspecting a bit of office conspiracy and at the same time being attracted to her, the poor play boy is seriously conflicted.

He does figure out what the matter is. And all is well.

Good , simple office romance. I liked it.

[Readitnweep · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda meh which was surprising as I used to enjoy her books. I didn’t feel the angsty emotion that I look for, and his anger at her seemed lukewarm. While I like the idea of the connection between Catherine and Kit, the story seemed a bit choppy and short of feeling.

Also, why did Kit deny her full name was Catherine when he asked her? Meh.

[Aimee Stanaland · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Different Aporoach

I really like Carole Mortimer and I liked this one because of the different relationship the guy had with the girl (without spoiling anything). It was a really good book to read. All of her books have been enjoyable.

[Nikki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh, not very well written. The 'love' comes out of nowhere. The plot moved the characters around alot though nothing was happening in these new locations.

[effin surrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remembered reading this years ago from my mum’s books shelf. Classic

[Yakeen Radiat · Rating 5 out of 5]

it's good

[Hada · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.1 ★

Jajajaja, no sé lo que acabo de leer...

Que historia tan básica...
Y que mal que cayeron todos.

Bueno... leeré más por masoquismo y porque son historias cortas jajajaja

[CANDEN333 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn’t wowed by this book. The storyline of the pretty secretary hiding her looks has been done so much!
The mmc was really thick and horny! The secret back story…soap opera for sure!

[Mnms · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very 90s!
It was nice to see a couple in love acting like civilized adults, even when tempers fly. It's a good story with really good dialogue.

[Cecilia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This definitely had potential. The hero is a little more cheerful than what you normally see in Presents. At least, that's what I gather from his repetitively being described as saying things "happily." But then, he's also repetitively described as saying things as "hardly," so he's clearly still an alpha. The heroine is highly competent at her job, and in that sphere doesn't take any crap, but when you mix her personal issues in (such as the fact that her estranged grandmother is the hero's business nemesis and someone has been selling his business secrets to her) then all of a sudden, she's a dope. So the characters are inconsistent, and on top of that, the narrative just has a choppy, going-through-the-motions feel to it; the conflicts and 'surprises' were entirely predictable. It was a tolerable read, but not great.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't too keen on this. I found it really quite weird to read as the hero was very negative from the get go and aside from keeping her safe from a predator he wasn't very well redeemed in my eyes and I didn't get how she came to the conclusion she was in love with him..

Not extremely impressed with this one.

[Putri Septiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't really grasp the story. I found the words too confusing sometimes that my mind start wandering so I had to reread the previous pages again.

[Maura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kit was hired as Marcus Maitland's personal assistant six months ago and has steadily been falling in love and in lust with him. But she knows she's not his type, especially since she dresses in frumpy clothes, pulls her hair back and wears glasses. He's never shown an ounce of attraction for her. When he decides to take her along on a weekend "business trip" posing as his girlfriend, he forces her to drop the disguise and is shocked to find that she's beautiful. Now he's interested and he's also determined to learn all her secrets. She's a very private person and isn't willing to divulge them really - especially the one that gets her into serious trouble with Marcus, having to do with the woman who is sabotaging his business.

This is sort of a makeover story, only Kit has always been beautiful and tries to downplay it. Then when she doesn't, she finally nabs her boss's attention. And that bothered me quite a bit - that he had absolutely no interest in her physically and most of all had no inclination to try to get to know her until he discovered she was beautiful. And even putting aside that maybe it took that to initiate an interest, he even admits that he thinks he fell in love with her the first time he saw her without the disguise and that he loved her because she was beautiful, desirable and adorable. Oh please! That isn't love...that's attraction. So I had trouble buying his supposed feelings. He was also completely unprofessional with Kit, but that's romancelandia for you. No sexual harassment suits here - nope. Well, except for with the villain... I didn't have a problem with Kit - she was rather likeable overall. The relationship between Kit and Marcus was rather tempestuous, with a lot of arguments, jealousy and periodic makeouts, but no sex in this one. There's a scene involving breasts, but that's about it.