Mistletoe Mistress

'You really intend to throw in the towel because you consider Charles has been hard done by?' He surveyed her cynically, his mouth hard. 'What sort of relationship did you have with your departed boss anyway?' he added silkily, his meaning plain.

'I don't even intend to acknowledge that with the favour of a reply,' she said icily, her eyes wishing him somewhere very hot and very final as she glared at him one more time, before opening the door and sweeping into the outer office with a regality that wasn't lost on Hawk Mallen as he watched her go.

He liked her style. He watched her cross the outer office and exit without turning her head or faltering in her purpose. Yes, whatever else, she had one hell of a way with her.

Once in the corridor outside, Joanne set her face in a practised smile and made for the lift, passing the other offices on the exalted top floor of Concise Publications without looking to left or right. There were three floors in all, and as the lift took her swiftly downwards Joanne found she had gone into automatic, her whole being concentrating on getting out of the building and into her car without the humiliation of breaking down. One of Charles's editors-no, not Charles's any more, she corrected herself painfully-was in Reception and raised a hand to her as she passed. 'Everything all right?'

'Fine, fine.' She smiled and nodded but didn't stop, her mind registering the stupidity of her reply in the circumstances.

Once in her snazzy little red car she sat for a whole minute just breathing deeply before she could persuade her shaking hands to start the engine. Her whole life, the interesting, vital life she had fought for so hard, had just been turned upside down and the shock waves had her head buzzing.

She should have phoned Clare and Charles last night-she had meant to-but her flight from France had been delayed and when Melanie had offered her a bed for the night, rather than her having to drive right across London in the rush hour to her flat, she'd accepted gratefully. And then she had had a bath, and they'd eaten, and consumed one of the bottles of wine they'd brought back between them…

'Damn, damn, damn…' She turned and glanced at her huge rucksack in the middle of the back seat, surrounded by bags of wine and boxes of Belgian chocolates she'd brought back as presents, and then slipped off the jacket to the suit she had borrowed from Melanie and flung it on the seat beside her as she started the engine. Well, it was too late now; she had quite literally walked into the lion's mouth and definitely come off the worse for wear, but the main thing was to touch base with Charles and see how he was. It was so ironic that all this had happened during the first real holiday she had had in years, she thought miserably as she steered the car out of her reserved space in Concise Publication's small car park, and on to the busy main road.

The urge to see Charles was overwhelming, and as his house in Islington was on her route home she headed for there, forcing herself to concentrate on the morning traffic rather than her jumbled thoughts that were flying in all directions. The September day was balmy and mellow, the warm sunshine pleasant but lacking the fierce heat that had characterised July and August, but Joanne was oblivious to the weather as she drove through the London streets in a turmoil that made her soft full mouth tight and stained her creamy, sun-tinted skin an angry red.

It was ten o'clock when she drew up outside Charles and Clare's large three-storeyed terraced house in its wide and pleasant street, and by five past she was seated in a cushioned cane chair in the garden with a box of tissues at her elbow and a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cry on you…'

Clare, who was sitting on the arm of Joanne's chair, pulled her closer to her maternal bosom as Charles tut-tutted from his vantage point opposite. 'It's our fault, Joanne; it must have been such a shock to you,' Clare said worriedly. 'But apart from leaving a message for you to ring us when you got home, and the letter, of course, we didn't know how to contact you. The postcards kept coming from somewhere different every few days. Did you have a nice time?' she added as an afterthought.

'Lovely.' Joanne dismissed the month of fun and laughter in one word.

'And you only found out about the merger when you went in this morning?' Clare enquired anxiously.

Joanne nodded. She had only been able to blurt that much out on the doorstep before bursting into tears, from which point it had been all action.

'And did Hawk Mallen explain it fully?' Charles asked now. 'I couldn't have refused, Jo; offers like that don't come every day. Besides which…' He paused, glancing at Clare who nodded encouragingly. 'I haven't been too well recently and this seemed to present itself as a chance to get out of the rat race and have a few years enjoying ourselves before we're too old.'

'What do you mean, not too well?' Joanne knew Charles; he would rather walk through coals of fire than ever admit he was less than one hundred per cent fit It was something she and Clare, along with the couple's three children, called his obstinate streak.

'We haven't told the children, for the same reason we didn't tell you-you'd all worry yourselves to death. But that time three months ago when Charles had a week off with flu-it was a minor heart attack. Very minor,' Clare added hastily as Joanne's eyes shot to Charles's sheepish face, 'but I've persuaded him to take it as a warning, and when this offer from the Mallen Corporation came along it seemed like the answer to everything.'

'Why didn't you tell me about the heart attack?' Joanne asked faintly. 'I could have helped.'

'I wanted to,' Clare said quickly, 'but you know Charles. He loves you like one of our own, Joanne, and he didn't want any of you worried-'

'Or fussing,' Charles cut in wryly. 'Clare did all the fussing that was necessary, believe me.'

'How long has this takeover been in the offing?' Joanne asked numbly, feeling as though the ground was moving under her feet. Charles was ill, with heart trouble? Charles?

'There has been the odd feeler there for a couple of months,' Charles said quietly, 'but the thing only crystallised the week you left for Europe. The Mallen Corporation is huge-I don't know if Hawk explained to you, but the publishing side is just one of their interests. When the offer became concrete I jumped at it, it's as simple as that really, and I decided to cut the umbilical cord in the process.'

'Hawk Mallen is old man Mallen's grandson and right-hand man; apart from knowing everything there is to know about publishing, he's a brilliant businessman and entrepreneur-something I've never pretended to be,' he added drily. 'He's the future, I'm the past; if I had stayed I would have got in his way and that wouldn't have been good for either of us. He's a ruthless so-and-so, but he's got what it takes, Jo; you can't fault the man on business acumen.'

'I see.' As Charles went on, explaining the details of the transaction and the part everyone had played in it, Joanne's heart sank deeper and deeper.

It had been Charles who had insisted on the opt-out clause, Charles who had wanted to walk away at once without any long-drawn-out and heart-rending, mentally exhausting valedictions. And she'd accused Hawk Mallen of… She inwardly squirmed as she remembered the exact charges she'd laid at his feet. Oh, what a mess, what a terrible, almost laughable mess. Thank goodness she could rely on Charles for a good reference because she sure as eggs wouldn't get one from the eminent Mr Mallen.

If he wasn't as mad as hell at her, he'd be laughing his head off, and of the two options she'd much prefer the former, she thought painfully as a pair of piercingly blue cold eyes set in a hard, uncompromising face swam into the screen of her mind. But fortunately she'd never know one way or the other anyway, having burnt her bridges so completely.

And now she would have to tell Clare and Charles…

They were upset, horrified, bewildered-blaming themselves, Hawk Mallen, anyone but Joanne-but by the time she left their tranquil home, after an alfresco lunch under the clear September sky, she had their solemn promise not to try to get her reinstated in any way.

She had made her bed and she would lie on it, she thought determinedly on the drive home, and maybe it was time for a change anyway. She was twenty-nine years of age, and after the years of exams and striving for her degree she had only had two jobs-one of which was Concise Publications-and had hardly seen anything of life. The trip round Europe these past weeks had opened her eyes to the fact that there was a big wide world out there, just waiting to be explored, and perhaps this was the nudge she needed to get moving?

She had been happy and safe the last few years, Charles and Clare's open-armed drawing of her into their family going some way to heal the hurts of the past, but whilst she was cocooned in such a protected environment she would never reach out for more. And she wanted more.