The Mistress Contract

Jerry’s nice brown eyes focused on her face, and she found herself nodding somewhat frantically, like one of those toy dogs with bobbing heads in the backs of cars. ‘It’s all right, Jerry. It really is all right. Please, you go in. I mean it.’

She could feel the bunched muscles under her hand as she hung on to Conrad’s arm and she knew it wouldn’t take much for the situation to spiral way out of control.

‘We’re…we’re just going to go for a drive,’ she improvised rapidly. ‘Conrad has come to pick me up.’

‘Followed by dinner,’ Conrad added silkily. ‘Right, Sephy?’

He didn’t miss a trick! Sephy forced a smile as she kept her gaze on Jerry, sensing the younger man was still concerned. ‘And to get something to eat,’ she agreed as steadily as she could. ‘Please, you go in. You’ll get frozen out here.’

‘Well, if you’re sure…’ Jerry muttered unhappily.

‘She’s sure.’ It was icy-cold and dismissive, and in the next instant Sephy found herself being steered towards the waiting Mercedes.

She had assumed Conrad was driving himself, as he did when the mood took him, so it was something of a shock as she neared the car to see the impassive figure of James in the driving seat. Oh, great! Just great! He probably hadn’t heard anything but he must have gathered plenty from the little scene outside the window, Sephy thought tightly. It didn’t take much for rumours to start at work and she’d lay good money on what the next one would be!

Conrad opened the door for her and she slid into the rear of the car with as much dignity as her dripping state would allow. He followed a second later, and she forced herself not to stiffen or react in any way as his dark bulk seemed to fill the Mercedes.

‘Back to t

he office, James.’ His voice was expressionless, uninterested even. ‘And then you can go; I’ll get a taxi home. Pick me up in the morning at…’ He considered for a second. ‘Nine. Okay?’

‘Yes, Mr Quentin.’

Very nicely done. Sephy kept her eyes on the back of James’s immaculate neck as she sat stiffly at Conrad’s side. To all intents and purposes he had picked her up to go back to the office to work; his consideration of her reputation was priceless in the circumstances!

She didn’t know whether to feel angry or touched that Conrad had bothered to try and protect her good name, but in view of all he had said regarding his openly predatory designs she decided on the former. Hypocrite! She repeated the word a few times for good measure, feeding her outrage.

He thought he had manoeuvred things all his own way, as usual, but she was blowed if she was going to be relegated to that section of his mind labelled ‘crumpet’, along with all the others. If nothing else he would remember Sephy Vincent as the one who wouldn’t play ball when he snapped those impossibly arrogant fingers.

She sat quietly at his side as the powerful car cut its way through the late-evening traffic, and Conrad made no effort to break the silence. She was hotly aware of him; the big black overcoat on the perimeter of her vision, the intoxicating sensual smell of his aftershave, the animal warmth of his big body in the limited confines of the car. But she forced herself to stare out of the side window as though his presence didn’t disturb her at all. He didn’t have the monopoly on cool remoteness!

James stopped outside the main entrance of Quentin Dynamics, and after Conrad had thanked the chauffeur and told him to stay in the car he walked round himself to open her door.

‘Thank you.’ She exited with her head held high and her eyes straight ahead, although the rat’s tails hanging round her face spoilt the effect somewhat.

The building was all but deserted when they entered it, just a few cleaners going about their business in the empty offices, and as Conrad began to walk towards the lift Sephy stopped him in his tracks as she said, ‘You don’t need to call a taxi for where we’re going to eat; it’s only a few minutes’ walk away.’

He stopped, turning very slowly to face her, and piercing blue eyes narrowed. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning this is my treat,’ she said brightly, wondering if he knew how devastating he looked when he adopted that forbidding, sexy, masculine expression.

‘Your…?’ He stared at her as though she’d spoken in Chinese.

‘Treat, yes.’ And put that in your pipe and smoke it. ‘If I remember rightly you gave me dinner at your home the last time, so it’s only right I treat you now. There’s a great little Italian place that Jerry found—’ She stopped abruptly as the blue gaze became laser-bright. ‘Where a bunch of us go to eat quite regularly. It’s clean, the prices are reasonable and the cannelloni ripieni is out of this world.’ It was also extremely basic, and not at all the place a multimillionaire would ever be found dead in.

‘And it’s your treat,’ he said very flatly.

It was sticking in his craw, and much as she loved him Sephy relished the fact. She nodded briskly as she said, ‘Take it or leave it.’

‘Oh, I take it. I most certainly take it,’ he drawled lazily, something in his eyes making a tiny shudder of sensation curl through every vein and sinew and remind her that she was playing with fire. And fire had a way of getting out of control too fast.

‘Good.’ She gulped silently. ‘It’s halfway between here and the flat, so it’s only a five-minute walk.’

He glanced over her shoulder, surveying the weather, which had worsened—if that was possible—in the last few minutes, and then let his eyes run over her wet hair, which was drying in tiny curls around her face where it had become loosened from the knot at the back of her head. She didn’t flinch at his mocking perusal.

‘I’m sure Reception won’t miss this.’ He bent over the beautifully stained wood desk that ran in a large semicircle at one side of the lobby and extracted a huge courtesy umbrella from its hiding place. ‘There’s room enough for two under here.’

The words were innocuous enough; it was the tone of his husky voice that made her shiver.