Helen Brooks - Mistletoe Mistress

It was at the end of the afternoon she spent with Hawk's grandfather, after he had taken her on a slow tour of his fifteen-bedroomed mansion and they had had tea in the sumptuous and stylish drawing room, that he mentioned Hawk again.

'My grandson is wealthy and powerful and often pursued by predatory women; you are aware of this, Joanne?' he asked mildly, straight after a conversation spent discussing his fine antiques. 'Some of them have a mind of sorts, others are nothing more than empty-headed dolls, but they all have one thing in common- a desire to be seen with, and bedded by, Hawk Mallen. You are not like that. You are aware Hawk wants you?'

She had learnt enough during the afternoon about this amazing old man not to duck the question, but her cheeks were pink as she replied, 'Yes, I know he wants me.'

'But you don't want him?'

He wasn't hostile, but Joanne still had to take a deep breath before she said, 'I…I don't think just wanting is necessarily enough, not without-without…'

'Yes?' He had moved forward in his chair, and now his voice was quiet and his eyes steady as he said, 'You can be honest with me, my dear, and you can also rest assured our conversation will go no further than these four walls. I will respect your confidence. What more is there beyond wanting?'

'Love,' Joanne murmured quietly, hot with embarrassment.

'Love. A small word but a big concept.' He leant back again, sighing deeply. 'I have loved two people in the whole of my life, Joanne; do you find that hard to believe?'

'No.'

She raised soft honey-brown eyes to his and he nodded slowly as he said, 'No, of course you don't; you have been hurt too.'

She waited, not knowing what to say, and after a minute had ticked by he said, 'I had an unhappy childhood, Joanne. I will not bother you with the details but suffice to say I did not love my parents. I met my wife when I was a nobody and she was a great lady, and we both knew instantly we were destined to be together. Her parents were horrified at the notion, obviously…' His voice was not bitter, merely matter-of-fact.

'She waited for me as I knew she would, and our marriage produced my son, Hawk's father, and took her life. I have often asked myself if my rage and bitterness at losing her so soon affected my relationship with my son, but I truly don't think so. I simply didn't like him. He was very like my own father in nature-cold, shallow, selfish-whereas Hawk's mother was a sweet girl, too sweet in retrospect. She allowed my son to get away with far too much.'

He paused, shifting his position in the chair again before he continued, 'I love my grandson, Joanne. I love him very much and I do not consider that emotion a weakness.'

'Hawk does.' She spoke before she could help herself, all her anguish and pain in the two words.

Jed looked at her for a few moments without speaking and then rose stiffly from the chair, standing with his back to her as he gazed into the leaping flames of the fire. 'I'm going to tell you a modern-day tale,' he said softly, 'a black fairy story if you like, and then it is up to you what you do with it.'

She said nothing, sensing that whatever he was about to do he wasn't doing lightly.

'Once upon a time a baby boy was born to a couple who appeared to have everything. There were no more children, so when the couple die in an accident, when the boy is a man, he has no siblings to stand with him in his grief. His sorrow at this time is not normal, because he has learnt things about his parents, dark, hidden things-things that have rocked his very foundations. Their death increases his already considerable wealth substantially, taking him into the super bracket and attracting women of the more…avaricious type. But he is not a fool, this man; he has lived with riches all his life and he knows their drawing power. However, one female comes along who is more clever than the rest, more…cunning. You follow me so far?' he asked quietly.

'Yes.' Her heart was thudding so hard it was echoing in her throat.

'He falls for her-lock, stock and barrel, as you English say. He needs someone at this time, someone who is wholly his, someone to take away the pain and uncertainty that came with the shock of his parents' untimely death and the subsequent revelations that were even more of a shock. And she knows this-oh, yes, she knows it all right-and she plays him like a virtuoso in the art of love-which indeed she is.'

She couldn't bear to hear it and yet she needed to hear it all; it explained so much.

'He asks her to marry him and she accepts-prettily, of course-and the invitations are sent, the presents begin arriving. And then he visits his best man one afternoon with some details about the wedding arrangements-he has known this friend since boyhood and he is more like a brother-and what does he find but his fiancée and friend flagrante delicto, in fact in the very act of copulation.'

Jed turned to face her then, the sapphire-blue eyes that he had passed on to his grandson blazing with rage in spite of it all being so long ago.

'The ultimate triangle-perhaps even funny if it wasn't so tragic. But worse is to come. Once word gets around about the broken engagement-and word gets around very fast in the sort of high-society circles this man moves in-several of his close friends are brave enough to tell him what they feared to say before-that it is not the first time this lady has been embroiled in a scandal. She has been involved with married men, had many lovers, both before and since knowing this man. It is not something a proud young man of twenty years of age wants to hear.'

'And…and this man-what does he do?' Joanne asked numbly.

'I think you know,' Jed said quietly. 'He becomes disillusioned, cynical, he takes the world by the throat and plays the game by his own rules, and in the process hardens and becomes cold, very much…very much like his grandfather,' he finished softly. 'But there is still the need to love and be loved there, hidden deep in the secret recesses of his heart, buried where no one can see it.'

'You believe that?' Joanne asked with painful directness.

'Don't you?'

'I…I think Hawk wants me because I am unattainable.' Joanne shifted restlessly in her seat. 'You have said yourself he is chased by some of the most beautiful women in the world-successful, rich women, women who are used to his lifestyle and enjoy it. Perhaps he just wants the thrill of the chase for once, to pursue rather than be pursued?'

'The man I was telling you about, the man in the story, is not a fool,' Jed said slowly. 'Perhaps when the one perfect jewel comes along he will recognise it for what it is.'

Joanne stared hard at the handsome face in front of her. Was he really saying he thought she was the right partner for his grandson, or was this incredible conversation a subtle suggestion to the contrary? If she was this 'jewel', Hawk certainly hadn't acknowledged it in the months she had known him and Jed Mallen must know that. Oh, she didn't know what to think, how to feel. She had enough problems struggling to keep her head above water with one cold, hard, enigmatic man, without taking on his grandfather too!

'I have enjoyed this afternoon immensely, but I must be going.' She stood up as she spoke and was going to hold out her hand for a formal farewell, but something in Jed's face-a fleeting sadness, a loneliness too deep and real for words-prompted her to lean forward on tiptoe and kiss his cheek. 'Thank you for sharing the…the story with me,' she said softly.

'Think about it,' he countered quietly. 'Please?'

'Yes, I will.'

She thought about nothing else as Jed's chauffeur drove her back to Hawk's home, but was left with nothing more concrete than a string of impossible questions.

Could anyone break through the ice that encased Hawk's heart? And if they did, would he want them for a lifetime, or just for a short while, until he became bored and restless? Could any female handle Hawk now that he had become so cynical and cold? She didn't feel she could, even if he wanted her for more than a brief fling. She didn't have a stable background to draw from, a well of family, or even worldly, knowledge. She wasn't clever or cosmopolitan or wealthy; she was just…herself. And it wouldn't be enough, wasn't enough.