One Night with Her Boss by Noelle Adams

This is steamy novella in the ‘One Night’ series of novellas by Noelle Adams, which explores how everything can change in just one night. Here, Anne has been working for ex-professional surfer Jake as his personal assistant for the last seven years. For the last two of those years she has been madly in love with him, but sees no reciprocation on his part. Whether he isn’t interested because they work together or he just isn’t interested full stop she doesn’t know.

“She’d worked for him for years, and he’d never showed her the slightest sign of real interest. An intense look now and then didn’t mean anything. Besides, he was her boss, and he would never make a move on her – simply because of that.”

However, today things have changed; Marketing graduate Anne wasn’t able to get a job in Marketing when she graduated because of the downturn in the economy which is how she ended up working for Jake, but now she’s just been offered just the type of job she wants. The only downside for her is not being able to see Jake any more, but she can’t hold back on her career just for that:

“Anne nodded, feeling better and determined now to give notice this afternoon, to make it real, to get it over with. “It’s about me. And a great job. And finding a guy who actually wants me.”

When Anne tells Jake that she’s resigning he seems desperate to keep her as his assistant, which doesn’t bode well for Anne’s feelings towards him. She knows that Jake prioritises his business over everything else and this just underlines her determination to leave. Jake and Anne have to go out of town on business that evening, and she finds that her roommates were correct, Jake does see her as more than just part of the office fixtures and fittings...

I’ve enjoyed all of this series and this one was no exception. Anne was a loveable lead and Jake quite the emotionally repressed alpha male until he realised what he was about to allow to slip through his fingers. This is a quick read, but if you wanted a quick, steamy read then I’d recommend it, and in fact any of the others in the series.

The rest of the One Night novellas can be bought separately or in a combined volume, ‘One Hot Night’:

One Night with her Bodyguard is about Claire's night with her bodyguard. Claire has extreme social problems; she describes herself as shy but I would say it’s more than that. The bodyguard has been part of her life for six years and knows her well, but she barely knows him at all...

One Night in the Ice Storm introduces us to Rachel, who was heartbroken by being dumped with no explanation by David 8 years previously. She's visiting her family and he is still friends with her brother and has dropped by to pick something up. The storm closes in quickly, leaving them trapped overnight, and giving Rachel a dilemma. She is still very attracted to David, despite how he let her down. Can she resist him? Only minor thing re. this one is that I felt that something would have been said between them sooner, although to be fair reasons are given as to why nothing was said by either of them. Of the three stories in the collection this story stayed with me the longest afterwards.

One Night with her Best Friend - This story sees Kate and her best friend Aaron. Kate's early life was chaotic; she hates change and tries to control all aspects her life. Can she come to see that not everything needs to fit into her life plan and try and take a chance on something unexpected?  I really enjoyed this story, both Kate and Aaron are likeable protagonists, although she has been missing what's been right under her nose for years! This is a novella I’ve read quite a few times, I can’t give much higher praise than that.

These three stories are all enjoyable, only thing I would say is that if you read them in one sitting there are some similarities but they are all about the same theme so that makes sense.