Mistletoe Mistress

'Bergique & Son. We've arrived.' They had just drawn up outside the three-storeyed, endlessly long structure, set in one of the great boulevards that had Paris's unmistakable stamp about it, and as Joanne gazed through the car window she felt a little shiver slither down her spine.

This apparently innocuous building was where she was going to prove herself over the next few months, or fail miserably, and after all that had happened earlier that day it was suddenly a matter of life or death that it was the former prospect.

She had to prove she wasn't a naive, ingenuous type of individual, but an intelligent career woman who was as much in charge of her private life as her career, that she knew exactly where she was going and how to get there. Because Hawk Mallen would be looking on, for sure, albeit from a distance, assessing, judging, probing. He was…formidable.

'Joanne?' Her head shot round to meet his; there had been that certain note in his voice she had heard just a few times before-soft, caressing. 'I want you to succeed here; I'm not your enemy.'

'I…I know.' She tried to sound convincing.

'No, I don't think you do.' His blue eyes had turned to glittering silver in the sunlight streaming through the car window and his mouth was rueful, sensuous, turning her limbs liquid and sending the blood racing through her veins. 'I want you, I have no intention of pretending otherwise, but that doesn't mean I'll behave like a sulky little boy if you don't want to share the warmth of my bed. You can rely on my backing, one hundred per cent, for anything you see fit to do within Bergique & Son.'

'Thank you,' she murmured quietly. She didn't know what to think; did anyone know what to think around Hawk Mallen? 'You must see it's better we keep our relationship on a business footing?'

'Must I?' He was watching her intently, his narrowed eyes roaming over her flushed face as her gaze fell from his. 'Why?'

'Because it wouldn't work; I'm different to you,' she said firmly.

'It's the difference that has me up at two in the morning having cold showers,' he said huskily.

The confession was unexpected and as her gaze met his again she saw raw hunger in the dark male face.

'Hawk, I'm going to be based in France, and you…you're all round the world You just want an affair, some fun when you visit-'

'No, you are wrong; I want more than that,' he said softly. 'You have got into my head, my bones, my blood; I have never trodden so carefully with a woman before, Joanne.' She stared at him, knowing that the punchline was going to follow, and it did.

'But I have to be honest too,' he said with a curious flatness. 'Women always complicate things by talking about love, when what they really mean is passion, desire, and I have learnt it is kinder from the outset to lay down the rules of play.'

He meant it; he really thought he was being fair, ethical in his cold-bloodedness, she thought faintly. She paused a moment, and then took a deep breath before she said, 'You don't believe two people can fall in love and live happily ever after?'

The driver of the firm's car, a long black limousine with lusciously soft leather upholstery, had been waiting outside to open Hawk's door for the last few moments, and now Hawk wound down his window and told him to carry the cases into the building, before rewinding it and turning to Joanne.

'I don't believe in happy ever after, no,' he said quietly, the devastatingly attractive face deadly serious. 'Look at the statistics, for crying out loud. I can believe in the power of obsession, sexual or otherwise, and I know desire and passion are real, but the notion of two people promising to stay together for the rest of their lives is pure folly, Joanne. Men and women can have good strong relationships, but inevitably that first sexual thrill dies and then, if they are locked into a marriage contract, one or the other of them will cause misery by sleeping with someone else.'

He stared at her unflinchingly, his sapphire gaze hard. 'The best relationships are the ones unclouded by any messy emotion,' he said evenly, 'where both partners have their eyes wide open.'

The basic idea behind Hawk's words-that love was an elusive dream without real form or credibility-was so near everything she had told herself in her youth and miserable teenage years that for a moment the past was more real than the present, and she felt the shock of it jolt her heart violently; but then an inner voice made itself heard.

She might have been sceptical, wary of love and the promises that went with it, but that time was past. Something had happened and she knew what she believed now-that there was something finer, more noble, more lasting than mere sexual involvement and an agreement of minds, or cold-blooded business arrangements where men and women slept together to further their careers.

Something of what she was feeling must have shown in her face because Hawk turned to look straight ahead, and now his profile was cold. 'It's dangerous to let yourself be fooled, Joanne,' he said flatly.

'I can't agree-'

'When my parents died so unexpectedly I had to go through their papers, personal and otherwise,' he said levelly, interrupting her as though she hadn't spoken. 'I found my mother's diaries…' There was a pause and then he said, 'They were a catalogue of despair and heartache and bitter grief. It would seem my father had had affairs from their fourth or fifth year of marriage, and they had broken my mother's heart, destroyed her self-esteem and turned her into someone she clearly didn't like.'

She didn't dare make any sound or movement; besides, she wouldn't have known what to say.

'The diaries acknowledged he still cared for her in his own way,

as a friend, companion, but she wasn't enough for him; that was the truth of the matter however he tried to explain the other women away. My grandfather knew what was happening; in fact it had caused a final wedge between him and my father that was insurmountable and was a further complication between my parents.'

'But your grandfather didn't agree because he had loved his own wife so much,' Joanne said gently. 'Surely that must tell you that love is a real emotion?'

'They only had two years together before she died,' Hawk said quietly. 'Who knows what would have happened if my grandmother had lived?'

'Do you believe that-really believe it?' she asked huskily.

He turned his head and met the honey-brown gaze, and for a long moment, as he looked into the velvet orbs, he said nothing.