The Mistress Contract

She ran quickly up the stairs to the flat, but once inside in the small neat hall she stopped still, staring at her reflection in the charming antique mirror her mother had bought her for a housewarming present.

Anxious honey-brown eyes stared back at her, and it was their expression she answered as she said, ‘You might well be worried! As though working with him isn’t bad enough you have to agree to go with him tonight.’ He obviously wouldn’t have dreamt asking the beautiful Caroline to do anything so mundane, but Sephy Vincent? Well, she was just part of the office machine, there to serve and obey. She grimaced at her reflection irritably.

What had he said? Oh, yes—Caroline de Menthe was not the sort of woman you took to a hospital to visit your secretary. She—clearly—was. Which said it all, really.

The soft liquid eyes narrowed and hardened and her mouth became tight. Okay, so she wasn’t an oil painting and she never would be, and she could do with losing a few pounds too, but no one had ever suggested she walk round with a paper bag over her head! And Jerry fancied her.

The last thought brought her back to earth with a bump. What was she doing feeling sorry for herself? she asked the dark-haired girl in the mirror with something akin to amazement in her face now. This wasn’t like her. But then she hadn’t felt like herself all afternoon if it came to it. It was him, Conrad Quentin. He was…disturbing. And he was also waiting outside, she reminded herself sharply, diving through to the bedroom in the same instant.

She threw off her crumpled work clothes and grabbed a pretty knee-length flowered skirt she had bought the week before, teaming it with a little white top and matching waist-length cardigan. She didn’t have time to shower, she decided feverishly, but she quickly bundled her hair in a high knot on top of her head, teasing her fringe and several tendrils loose, and then applied a touch of eyeshadow and a layer of mascara to widen her eyes.

The whole procedure had taken no more than five minutes and she was out in the street again in six, to find him lying back indolently in the seat with his eyes shut and his hands behind his head as he listened to Frank Sinatra singing about doing it his way.

Very appropriate, she thought a trifle caustically. If only half the stories about Conrad Quentin were true he certainly lived his life by that principle.

His eyes opened as she reached the car and he straightened, glancing at his watch as he murmured, ‘When you say five minutes you really mean five minutes, don’t you?’ before leaning across and opening the passenger door for her to slide in.

‘You find that surprising?’ she asked unevenly as the closeness of him registered and all her senses went into hyperdrive.

‘For a woman to say what she means?’ He half turned in his seat, the brilliant blue gaze raking her hot face. ‘More of a minor miracle,’ he drawled cynically, one black eyebrow quirking mockingly as he started the engine.

Sephy would have liked to come back with a sharp, clever retort, but the truth of the matter was that she was floundering. She’d never ridden in a Mercedes before for a start, and the big beautiful car was truly gorgeous, but it was the man at the wheel who was really taking her breath away.

The office—with plenty of air space, not to mention desks, chairs and all the other paraphernalia—was one thing; the close confines of the car were quite another. They emphasised his dominating masculinity a hundredfold, and underlined the dark, dangerous quality of his attractiveness enough to have her sitting as rigid as a piece of wood.

She tried telling herself she was stupid and pathetic and ridiculous, but with the faint smell of his aftershave teasing her senses and his body warmth all about her it didn’t do any good. This was Conrad Quentin—Conrad Quentin—and she still couldn’t quite believe the whole afternoon had happened, or that she was actually sitting here with him like this.

She felt a momentary thrill that she didn’t understand and that was entirely inappropriate in the circumstances, and reminded herself—sharply now—that she had to keep her wits about her after the episode of the keys if he wasn’t going to think she was utterly dense. She was a useful office item as far as he was concerned—like the fax or the computer—and he expected cool, efficient service.

He was a very exacting employer, and it was well known that he suffered fools badly—in fact he didn’t suffer them at all! And that was fair enough, she told herself silently, when you considered he paid top salaries with manifold perks like private health insurance and so on.

He was the original work hard and play hard business tycoon, and until today she had never so much as exchanged more than half a dozen words with him, so it wasn’t surprising she was feeling a bit…tense. Well, more than a bit, she admitted ruefully.

And then, as though he had read her mind, she was conscious of the hard profile turning her way for an instant before he said softly, ‘Relax, Seraphina. I’m not going to eat you.’

Her head shot round, but he was looking straight ahead at the road again and the imperturbable face was expressionless.

It took her a second or two, but then she was able to say, her voice verging on the icy, ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr Quentin,’ even as she knew her face was burning with hot colour.

‘The suggestion that you accompany me to the hospital was purely spontaneous,’ he said mildly, without looking at her again. ‘I’m not about to leap on you and have my wicked way, if that’s what’s worrying you.’

‘Nothing is worrying me,’ she bit back immediately, horrified beyond measure, ‘and I wouldn’t dream of thinking you intended…that you would even think of—’ She stopped abruptly, aware that she was about to burst into flames, and took a deep breath before she said, ‘I’m quite sure you are not that sort of man, Mr Quentin.’

There was a moment of blank silence, when Sephy felt the temperature drop about thirty degrees, and then he said, his dark voice silky-soft, ‘I do like women, Miss Vincent.’

This was getting worse! ‘I know you do,’ she said quickly. ‘Of course I know that; everyone does. I just meant—’ She wasn’t improving matters, she realised suddenly, as she risked a sidelong glance at the cold rugged face.

‘Please, do continue.’ It was curt and clipped. “‘Everyone” takes an interest in my love life, do they?’

Oh, blow it! He was the one prancing about with a different woman each week! What did he expect for goodness’ sake? ‘I was just trying to say I know you like women, that’s all,’ Sephy said primly, her face burning with a mixture of embarrassment and disquiet.

‘Right. So my sexual persuasion is not in question.’ There was liquid ice in his deep voice. ‘That taken as read, why would it be so unlikely that I might have ulterior motives in asking you to spend the evening with me?’

The evening? They were going to visit poor Madge Watkins, that was all! Afterwards she would realise she could have answered in a host of ways to defuse what had become an electric moment: he was not the sort of man to mix business and pleasure would have been a good one; she was aware he was dating someone at the moment could have been another. What she did say, the words tumbling out of her mouth, was, ‘There has to be some sort of a spark between a man and a woman, doesn’t there? And I’m not your type.’

‘My type?’ If she had accused him of a gross obscenity he couldn’t have sounded more offended. There was another chilling pause, and then he said, ‘What, exactly, do you consider my “type”, Miss Vincent?’ as he viciously cut up a harmless, peaceable family saloon that had been sailing along minding its own business.

She couldn’t make it any worse. She might as well be honest, Sephy told herself silently as the two ‘Miss Vincents’ after all the ‘Seraphinas’ of the day registered like the kiss of death on her career. ‘Women like Miss de Menthe, I suppose,’ she said shakily.

‘Meaning?’ he queried testily.

He didn’t intend to make this easy. ‘Beautiful, successful, rich…’ Spoilt, selfish, bitchy…

The grooves that splayed out from either side of his nose to his mouth deepened, as though she had actually voiced the last three words, but he remained silent, although it was a silence that vibrated with painful tension. Finally, he said coldly, ‘So, we’ve ascertained my type. What is your type, Seraphina?’

At least the Seraphina was back, although she didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing, Sephy thought feverishly as she clasped her hands together so tightly the knuckles showed white. And her type? That was funny if he did but know it. In the age of the Pill and condoms being bought as casually as bunches of flowers, she must be the only girl in the whole of London whose sexual experience was minimal to say the least. But that was the last thing she could say to a man of the world like Conrad Quentin. He’d laugh his head off.

The thought brought the door in her mind behind which she kept the caustic memories of the past slightly ajar, and as the image of David intruded for a second her stomach turned over. And then she had slammed it shut again, her mouth tightening as she willed the humiliation and pain to die.

She forced herself to shrug easily and kept her voice light as she said, ‘I guess I’m not fussy on looks; dark or fair, tall or short, it doesn’t matter as long as the guy is a nice person.’

‘A nice person?’ he returned mockingly, with a lift of one dark eyebrow, his large capable hands firmly on the wheel as he executed a manoeuvre that Sephy knew wasn’t exactly legal, and which caused a medley of car horns to blare behind them as the Mercedes dived off into a side-street to avoid the traffic jam which had been ahead. ‘And how would you define a nice person?’

A man who could accept that one-night stands and casual sex weren’t obligatory on the first date? Someone who could understand that some women—or certainly this one at least—needed to be in love before they would allow full intimacy, and who was prepared to think with his head and hopefully his heart rather than that other vital organ some inches lower. Someone who cared about her just a little more than their own ego, who didn’t mind that she hadn’t got a perfect thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six figure, with fluffy blonde hair and big blue eyes, someone…someone from her dreams.

Sephy twisted in the seat, knowing she had to say something, and then managed, ‘A man who is kind and funny and gentle, I suppose,’ and then cringed inside as he snorted mockingly.

‘And that’s it?’ he asked scathingly. ‘You don’t want a man, Seraphina. Your average cocker spaniel would do just as well. And the lovelorn guy back at your flat, does he fit all the criteria?’ he added before she could react to the acidic sarcasm.

‘Jerry?’ she asked with a stiffness that should have warned him.

‘Is that his name?’ He couldn’t have sounded more derisory if she’d said Donald Duck. ‘Well, it’s clear Jerry’s got it bad, and he looked a fine, upstanding pillar of the establishment and impossibly kind and gentle, or am I wrong?’

She didn’t often get angry, but around this man she seemed to be little else, and now the words were on her tongue without her even having to think about them. ‘I wasn’t aware that my job description necessitated talking about my friends,’ she said with savage coldness, ‘but if it does you had better accept my resignation here and now, Mr Quentin.’

There was absolute silence for a screaming moment, but as Sephy glared at him the cool profile was magnificently indifferent. He’d make a fantastic poker player, she thought irrelevantly. No wonder he was so formidable in business.

‘The name’s Conrad.’

‘What?’ If he had taken all his clothes off and danced stark naked on the Mercedes’ beautiful leather seats she couldn’t have been more taken aback.

‘I said, the name is Conrad,’ he said evenly, without taking his eyes from the view beyond the car’s bonnet. ‘If we are going to be working together for some weeks I can’t be doing with Mr Quentin this and Mr Quentin that; it’s irritating in the extreme.’

She wanted—she did so want—to be able to match him for cool aplomb and control, but it was a lost cause, she acknowledged weakly as she sank back in her seat without saying another word. Game, set and match to him, the insensitive, cold-blooded, arrogant so-and-so.

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