Mistletoe Mistress. HELEN BROOKS
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never had she felt so inadequate. ‘What is it?’
‘A Cizeta-Moroder V16T.’ The piercing eyes flashed over her face for a moment before returning to the windscreen.
‘Oh.’ She was no nearer and it showed.
‘It’s an Italian car, designed by Marcello Gandini,’ Hawk said easily. ‘I like the power, the body style, and it’s beautiful and fast. When I drive I like to enjoy the experience, besides which I wanted a car which would take me from A to B in as short a time as possible.’
‘And this certainly would.’ She glanced round the interior of the two-seater coupé which was as dynamic inside as out.
‘I also like unusual things, not necessarily unique but things that haven’t been . . . cheapened by overuse,’ he continued softly.
There had been a thread of something in his voice she couldn’t quite place, but as she glanced at the dark profile again it gave nothing away, his features relaxed and quite expressionless.
She couldn’t believe she was sitting in the sort of car one only saw in the movies, being driven to the most fashionable nightclub in London by a dark, handsome—No, not handsome. She caught her thoughts abruptly, sneaking another glance at him. Handsome was too weak a word somehow for Hawk Mallen; it suggested pretty-boy good looks, traditional appeal, and the lean, hard face, penetrating blue eyes and cruel, sensual mouth were anything but that. She shivered suddenly, in spite of the perfectly regulated temperature within the car.
What on earth was she doing here? She must be mad. Her thoughts did nothing to calm her racing heartbeat. And the Maltese Inn, of all places. It was all Diors and diamonds there, and here was she in her little black dress and off-the-peg jacket... She felt a moment of nausea as her stomach turned right over. She was going to stand out like a sore thumb—
‘Look, could you just try and think of me as friend and not foe for an hour or two, at least until the meal is over?’ The deep, gravelly voice had amusement at its core; she could hear it curling the edges. ‘Good food is life’s second greatest pleasure...’ The piercing gaze swept over her flushed face for one brief moment but it left her in no doubt as to what he considered the first, and she felt herself blush even more fiercely. ‘And I’d prefer to enjoy the meal tonight without indigestion at the end of it.’
‘I don’t know you, Mr Mallen—Hawk,’ she corrected hastily as he made a growl of annoyance in his throat, ‘so how could I possibly regard you as foe?’
‘I’ve been involved with a good few women in my time, Joanne, on a business level and otherwise,’ he said quietly, ‘and one thing I’ve learnt along the way is that your sex doesn’t need a reason for anything it feels like doing.’
‘Well, that’s a sexist remark if ever I heard one,’ she retorted scathingly, forgetting her nervousness and apprehension as he pressed the fire button. ‘You’re one of those men who think women are empty-headed little dolls, good for one thing only?’
‘Did I say that?’ he drawled softly.
‘You didn’t have to.’ She was trying to give the impression of being as controlled and calm as he was, but it was difficult—more than difficult. She might have known he’d be a male chauvinist pig on top of everything else; this was getting worse by the minute.
‘You might have been able to read Charles’s mind but not mine, Joanne,’ he said calmly, ‘so please don’t make the mistake of thinking you can. And I wasn’t insinuating anything about Charles, before further crimes are laid at my feet. I’m quite aware of the platonic relationship between you both—“a father and daughter affection” were the words used to explain it, I think,’ he said easily, ‘by none other than his wife.’
‘You asked Clare about me?’ she screeched, her voice reverberating around the car’s plush interior and causing the man at the wheel to wince visibly. ‘How dare you?’
‘Who better to ask?’ His sidelong glance took in her scarlet face and he actually chuckled before adding, ‘Calm down, Joanne, calm down; it wasn’t like that. On the way to pick you up this evening I called by Charles’s house with some papers for him to sign, and it was Clare who mentioned you as it happens. They’re very fond of you, aren’t they?’ he said quietly. ‘You’re quite one of the family.’
She wasn’t sure if he was being nasty or not but her temper was still at boiling point and she didn’t trust herself to speak anyway. What an impossible man, she thought angrily. If ever she had needed confirmation that her decision to leave Concise Publications had been the right one, she’d just had it. Working as Charles’s publishing assistant had been nothing but pleasure, but as Hawk Mallen’s . . .
‘Did you enjoy your job, Joanne?’ It was as though he had read her mind, and she noted the past tense with a little flutter in her stomach. So, she was out on her ear, but then why this dinner tonight? she thought bitterly. So he could gloat, was that it?
‘Yes, I did.’ In spite of all her efforts to the contrary she couldn’t quite keep the thread of antagonism from showing. ‘It was interesting, exciting.’
‘And from what Charles tells me your input was considerably more than one could normally expect from a publishing assistant; would you say that was fair?’ he asked mildly.
She shrugged carefully. ‘I’ve no personal commitments so there was no need to clock-watch if that’s what you mean.’
‘Not exactly.’ The sleek, low beast of a car had just growled reluctantly to a halt at some traffic lights, and he stretched in the leather seat as he waited for amber, the movement bringing powerfully muscled thighs disconcertingly into her consciousness as she glanced his way. Her head shot to the front as though she had been bitten, the colour that had just begun to recede surging into her cheeks again.
What was it about him? she asked herself helplessly. Sexual magnetism? The aphrodisiac of wealth and power and authority? Sheer old-fashioned sex appeal? It was all those things and more, and it was devastating. He would have been dynamite on the silver screen, she thought ruefully. Pure twenty-four-carat box-office dynamite.
He didn’t speak again as the Cizeta-Moroder sprang away from the lights, but as they travelled along the well-lit London streets her nerve-endings were screaming at her awareness of him, and she had never felt so out of her depth in all her life.
When they drew up outside the refined elegant building of the Maltese Inn he uncoiled his big body from the low-slung car with easy animal grace, moving to the passenger side in a moment and opening her door for her.
‘You aren’t going to leave it here?’ She stared at him in surprise once she was on the pavement, but in the next second a massive uniformed doorman, who looked more like a prize fighter than anything else, was at their side.
‘Keys, Bob.’ Hawk dropped the keys into the man’s outstretched hand with a warm smile along with a folded banknote. ‘Look after her.’
‘As always, Mr Mallen, as always. Good evening, miss.’
‘Good evening.’ Joanne smiled into the big ugly face with a naturalness that had been missing in her dealings with Hawk, something the piercing blue eyes noted and filed.
There was another doorman ready to open the gleaming plate-glass door into the entrance lobby, and another who ushered them through that and into the area beyond, where the reception area, powder rooms and cloakrooms were, the nightclub itself being up a flight of wide, graciously curved stairs that would have done credit to any Hollywood movie.
Having divested herself of her jacket, Joanne was painfully conscious of the plainness of her dress and jewellery as she joined Hawk, the surrounding area seeming full of glittering women, with diamonds on their wrists, throat and ears, and all wearing dresses that must have cost a small fortune.
She was aware of the subdued buzz that Hawk was drawing, especially from the female contingent, as they walked towards the stairs, and it took all her will-power to keep her head high