The Mistress Contract. HELEN BROOKS

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      Sephy cleared her dry throat. ‘It doesn’t suit me. Even my mother had to agree she’d made a mistake, but I was born on the twelfth of March, and on the calendar of saints Seraphina is the only woman for that day.’

      He said nothing, merely shifted position slightly in the black chair, and now she was horrified to find herself beginning to waffle as she said, ‘Mind, it could have been worse. There’s a Gertrude and a Euphemia in the next few days, so perhaps I ought to be thankful for small mercies. But Seraphina suggests an ethereal, will-o’-the-wisp type creature, and I’m certainly not that.’

      He leant forward again, the glittering sapphire gaze moving over her creamy skin, soft mouth and wide honey-brown eyes, and he stared at her a moment before he said, his tone expressionless, ‘I think Seraphina suits you and I certainly don’t intend to call you by such a ridiculous abbreviation as Sephy. It’s the sort of name one would bestow on a pet poodle. Have you a second Christian name?’

      ‘No.’ It was something of a snap.

      ‘Pity,’ he said laconically.

      She didn’t believe this. How dared he ride roughshod over her wishes? she asked herself silently. She was searching her mind for an adequately curt response when he switched to sharp business mode, his eyes turning to the papers spread out over his desk as he said, his tone keen and focused, ‘How familiar are you with the Einhorn project?’

      As luck would have it she had been dealing with the problems associated with this particular package over the last weeks, and she had just spent ten of the last twenty minutes delving into the file to see if there were any confidential complications Customer Services hadn’t been privy to. ‘Quite familiar,’ she answered smartly.

      ‘Really?’ He raised his dark head and the hard sapphire gaze homed in. ‘Tell me what you know.’

      She considered for a moment or two, trying to pull her thoughts into concise order, and then spoke quietly and fluently as she outlined what had been a disastrous endeavour from the start, due to a series of mistakes which Sephy felt could be laid fair and square at Quentin Dynamics’ door.

      He looked down at his desk as she began talking, a frown creasing his brow as he listened intently without glancing at her once. As she finished speaking the frown became a quizzical ruffle, and he raised his head and said, ‘Brains and beauty! Well, well, well. Have I found myself a treasure, here?’ And then, before she could respond in any way, ‘So, you think we should take the full hit on this? Reimburse for engineering call-out charges as well as a free upgrade for the software?’

      It probably wasn’t very clever to tell him his company had made a sow’s ear out of what should have been a silk purse within the first half an hour of working with him, but Sephy took a deep breath and said firmly, ‘Yes, I do.’

      ‘And Mr Ransome’s report, that recommends we merely reduce the cost for the new software?’

      Mr Ransome was trying to cover his own shortcomings with regard to the whole sorry mess, but Sephy didn’t feel she could be that blunt.

      She didn’t answer immediately, and the blue eyes narrowed before she said quietly, ‘He’s wrong, in my opinion, and although the firm might save a good deal of money in the short term, I don’t think it will do Quentin Dynamics’ reputation any good in the long term.’

      He gave her a long hard look. ‘Right. And you think that is important?’

      ‘Very.’ Now it was her turn to hold his eyes. ‘Don’t you?’

      He folded his arms over his chest, settling back in his seat again as he surveyed her thoughtfully. The white sunlight streaming in through the plate glass at the back of him was picking up what was almost a blue sheen in his jetblack hair, and Sephy was aware of the unusual thickness of the black lashes shading the vivid blue eyes as she looked back at him.

      He had something. The thought popped into her consciousness with a nervous quiver. Male magnetism; a dark fascination; good old-fashioned sex appeal—call it what you will, it was there and it was powerful. Oh, boy, was it powerful!

      ‘Yes, I do,’ he said quietly. He stared at her a moment more and then snapped forward, speaking swiftly and softly as he outlined various procedures he wanted put into place. ‘Internal memos to Customer Services, Marketing and Research,’ he added shortly. ‘You can see to those, I presume? And a letter to Einhorn stating what we have decided. And I want a complete breakdown from Accounts of all costs.’

      ‘You want me to write the memos and the letter?’ Sephy asked quickly as he paused for breath.

      ‘Certainly.’ The piercing gaze flashed upwards from the papers on the desk. ‘That’s not a problem, is it? I need my secretary to work on her own initiative most of the time, once I’ve made any overall decisions. I can’t be bothered with trivialities.’

      Sephy nodded somewhat dazedly. She could see Madge earnt every penny of her salary.

      He continued to fire instructions and brief guidelines on a whole host of matters for some few minutes more, and by the time Sephy rose to walk back to Madge’s desk she felt as though she had been run over by a steamroller.

      She had enough work to last her two or three days and she had only been in there a matter of minutes, she told herself weakly as she plopped down on her chair. He was amazing. Intelligent—acutely intelligent—and with a razor-sharp grasp of what was at the heart of any matter that cut straight through incidentals and exposed the kernel in the nut.

      And he scared her to death.

      She worked solidly for the rest of the afternoon, her fingers flying over the keys of the word processor as the pile of papers for signature grew. Apart from telephone calls and a brief stop for coffee—delivered on a silver tray from the small canteen at the basement of the building by one of the staff and drunk at her desk—she didn’t raise her head from the screen, and it came as something of a shock when she glanced at her wristwatch just after half past five.

      She quickly gathered up all the correspondence awaiting signature and knocked at the interconnecting door, hearing the deep ‘Come in’ as butterflies began to flutter in her stomach.

      He glanced up from his hand-held dictating machine as she entered, his expression preoccupied. He had been running his hand through his hair, if the ruffled black crop was anything to go by, and the tie had gone altogether now, along with a couple more buttons being undone, which exposed a V of tanned flesh and dark curling body hair.

      The butterflies joined together in an explosive tarantella, and Sephy forced herself to concentrate very hard on a point just over his left shoulder as she smiled brightly and walked across to his desk. ‘Correspondence for signature,’ she squeaked, clearing her throat before adding, ‘The post goes at six, so if you could look at them now, please? I didn’t realise what the time was.’

      He glanced at the gold Rolex on his wrist. ‘Hell!’

      ‘What’s the matter?’ Sephy asked guardedly.

      ‘I’ve a dinner engagement at seven,’ he muttered abstractedly. ‘Look, ring her, would you? Explain about Madge, and that things СКАЧАТЬ