Helen Brooks - Mistletoe Mistress

Copyright© 1998 by Helen Brooks.

'Hey, what's with all the long faces? There hasn't been a major disaster while I've been away, has there?' Joanne's bright smile dimmed and then faded altogether as her antennae picked up the waves radiating from her office staff.

'You…you haven't heard?'

'Heard what?' Joanne's wide honey-brown eyes narrowed slightly as she repeated, 'Heard what, Maggie?'

'About what's happened.'

'Maggie.'

'About the takeover, and Mr Brigmore, and… everything.' Maggie wriggled slightly in her typist's chair and half turned in the seat to include the rest of the office of six, all of whom patently ignored the silent plea for help, their faces clearly stating that Maggie had started this and she could finish it.

'The takeover? Maggie, I haven't got a clue what you are talking about,' Joanne said as patiently as she could. Brusqueness never helped with Maggie; she flustered very easily. 'And where does Mr Brigmore come into all this?'

'He doesn't, not any more.' Maggie's plump plain face was very earnest, and Joanne knew she wasn't deliberately trying to be obtuse, but something of the urge she felt to wring her junior's neck must have shown on her face because Maggie added hastily, 'Mr. Brigmore's gone-early retirement or something. It all happened last Thursday, when the takeover was announced; he went the same day. I left a message on your answer machine-'

'I haven't been back to my flat yet; I stayed overnight with a friend…' Joanne's voice trailed away as the enormity of what Maggie was saying hit her. 'Are you telling me Mr Brigmore was axed?' she asked faintly. 'Because if you are I can't believe it Who's stepped into his shoes, then?'

'A relation of the mogul who now owns the firm.' Maggie's voice was full of meaning and Joanne nodded silently to what remained unsaid. So, nepotism was alive and well at Concise Publications, was it? And all this had happened during the month she had been gaily backpacking round Europe on a reunion with old university friends?

She had heard about these savage 'off with the old, on with the new' mergers, where the new ruling directorate were merciless in their desire to sweep clean, but she had never actually experienced one first-hand in her eight years of working life. And Charles, of all people…

Suddenly the anger was there, hot and fierce. Charles was the fatherly figure who had given her the sort of chance, five years ago, that she had been craving since leaving university, choosing her above a host of other more qualified applicants who had been eager for the post of publishing assistant to the managing director of Concise Publications.

He had been her mentor, her champion, but most of all her friend-he and his wife, Clare, taking her under their parental wing and giving her her first real glimpse of family life. And he had been replaced? By some young upstart, no doubt, who probably didn't know one end of a book from another.

'Male or female?' Her voice was quivering, but it was with sheer fury, not weakness.

'Male.' Maggie knew how much her superior thought of their ex-managing director, and she took a deep breath before she added, 'His name is Mallen. Hawk Mallen.'

'Hawk Mallen?' Joanne's voice was scathing, her emotion blinding her to the fact that Maggie had suddenly become very still and very quiet, her eyes no longer focused on Joanne's angry face. 'What sort of name is that?'

'My sort of name, Ms…?'

The deep male voice was not loud, but the timbre was such that Joanne felt liquid ice run over her nerves. She didn't turn for a good thirty seconds from her position just a few inches into the room, and when she did move it was with the knowledge that she had blown it-good and proper, as Charles would have said. And she cared. Oh, not because of her job, precious and important as it had been to her up to this minute in time, she told herself bitterly, but because she had wanted to fling her resignation into the lap of this faceless bureaucrat and walk away with her head held high-not be caught out like a child telling tales out of school.

'Crawford.' Her chin was high, her golden eyes shooting sparks as she looked up into the hard dark face of the big man standing in the doorway behind her. 'And it's Miss.'

'Ah…yes, of course. Charles's elusive publishing assistant. How nice to meet you.' On face value the words were polite and courteous, but, spoken as they were, in a dark cold drawl that was both menacing and patronising, they were anything but. 'Perhaps you'd like to come through to your office so we can discuss recent events in comfort?'

He meant without the twitching ears and avid interest of the outer office, Joanne thought tightly, but for once the professionalism she prided herself on had flown out the window. 'Is there any point?' she asked stiffly, knowing she was glaring but quite unable to help herself.

The suit this man had on would have paid her salary for months, she thought bitterly, and was indicative of his sovereignty somehow. He reeked of wealth and power; it flowed out of every pore and was in every gesture he made. This was a man who was used to being obeyed without question. Well-tough. There was no way she was going to be intimidated by the man responsible for sacking the only person she had any real affection for in the whole wide world. Well, there was Clare too, she qualified hastily as a little stab of disloyalty to Charles's wife made itself known; she loved her too, but Charles was Charles…

'Every point, Miss Crawford.'

When, in the next moment, her elbow was taken in a firm, uncompromising grip and she found herself all but flying through the outer office and into her small but comfortable little oasis, she was too surprised to make a sound. Until the door closed behind them, that was. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' The explosion was in line with the vibrant chestnut-red of her hair, its glowing colour a clue to the volatile temper she had battled with all her life. 'How dare you manhandle me-?'

'I'm trying to stop you making a bigger fool of yourself than you have done already,' he said with a grimness that was insulting.

'Now look-'

' No, you look, damn it !' It was more of a pistol shot than a bark, and as her eyes widened with shock he pushed her none too gently into the seat in front of her desk, propping himself against the dark wood and staring down at her with blazing, piercingly blue eyes. Beautiful eyes, she thought inconsequentially, before the rage took over again. 'I'm trying to do this the nice way-'

'Like you did with poor Charles?' she cut in testily, the colour in her cheeks vying with her hair…

'Give me strength…' He shut his eyes for an infinitesimal moment, raking a hand through his jet-black, very short but expertly cropped hair before saying, in a tone that was very flat and very hard, 'Do you want me to gag you? Because so help me you're a moment away from it.'

'You wouldn't dare.' But he would-she knew, without knowing how she knew, that he would.

'Try me. Just open that delectable mouth one more time before I finish saying what I want to say and try me. The pleasure, as they say, would be all mine.'

She opened her mouth to fire back an equally caustic reply, glanced at the blue silk handkerchief he had just drawn out of his breast pocket, and shut it again. The pig! The arrogant, overbearing, stinking swine-

'And I dare bet I fit most of the names that are swirling through your head right at this moment,' he drawled easily, temper and composure apparently perfectly restored, 'but unfortunately that's where they'll have to stay-in your head. Now, where were we? Oh, yes, I was trying to save you from looking ridiculous…'