Sandra Marton - No Need For Love

‘Are you busy this evening, Miss Lewis?’

Hannah blinked. ‘Busy?’ she said, looking up again. He was still watching her that same way, dammit, as if he were a scientist and she were a new and hitherto unidentified species of bacteria.

‘Yes.’ He smiled pleasantly. ‘Did you have plans, I mean?’

‘No, sir. I can work late, if you——’

‘Work?’ MacLean’s smile grew, until it was a grin, the first, she thought suddenly, that she’d ever seen on his face. ‘Well, yes, Miss Lewis, I suppose you could call it that.’ He leaned back against his desk, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked straight into her eyes. ‘You see, I’m in desperate need of your services tonight.’

‘Yes, sir. Will you be dictating, or——?’

This time, he laughed aloud. But there was no sharpness to it, only a softness that made the laughter almost a purr, and it made the hair rise on the back of Hannah’s neck.

‘Miss Lewis. Hannah, I mean. I think, considering the circumstances, I should call you by your given name, don’t you?’

Hannah took a deep breath. Something was happening here, something she didn’t understand, something—something dangerous.

MacLean leaned away from the desk, then came slowly towards her and held out his hand. She stared at it in silence, then at him, and after a moment he reached out, clasped her fingers in his, and drew her to her feet.

Then he smiled, and Hannah’s heart almost stopped beating, for the smile transformed him, turning him with blinding speed from the scourge of Longworth, Hart, Holtz and MacLean into an incredibly sexy male.

‘After all, sweetheart,’ he said softly, ‘only a damned fool would use such formal terms with his mistress.’

CHAPTER TWO

HANNAH stared into the grey eyes a scant few inches from hers. This was a joke, she thought crazily. Her boss was telling a joke with a long delay before the punchline.

But that cocksure grin was still curved across his mouth, and all at once she knew that the only funny thing in this office was her foolishness in having told him that she was a divorced woman. Not that she hadn’t been down this road before. Many men thought women like her made easy targets—even, it seemed, a man like Grant MacLean, who had, she was quite certain, never until this moment even noticed that she was female.

Her lip curled in disgust. ‘Let go of me,’ she demanded.

One dark brow rose in a questioning curve. ‘Of course,’ he said, his hand falling away from hers.

She clasped the wrist he’d held and rubbed at the skin as if she were trying to eradicate his fingerprints. ‘Just who do you think you are?’ she said in a low, furious voice.

MacLean stared at her, perplexed, and then, suddenly, he began to smile.

‘Miss Lewis—Hannah—I think you’ve misunderstood me.’

‘No. I haven’t misunderstood you at all, Mr MacLean. But you’ve certainly misunderstood me.’ Her eyes met his. ‘I am not the least bit interested in your—your proposition.’

His smile broadened. ‘Let me explain before you——’

‘You’re wasting your time.’

‘I don’t think so, Hannah.’

‘Believe me, you are.’ She stared at him a second longer, then turned and marched stiffly to the door. ‘If that’s all, sir,’ she said, flinging the word like an insult over her shoulder, ‘I’ll go back to my office and finish my work on the——’

‘Hannah, dammit, wait a minute!’

‘—the Gibbs case.’ Her hand closed on the doorknob and she yanked it open. ‘I’ll print out my notes and leave them on your desk before—’

He came up behind her with an amazing swiftness for a man of his size, and the knob was wrenched from her hand as he slammed the door shut.

‘Open that door,’ she said. Her voice shook a little, not so much with fear as with righteous indignation. How dared he? How dared he? ‘Dammit, Mr MacLean——’

‘You’re being a fool, Miss Lewis.’

The humour had fled his voice. His tone was sharp, his grasp unyielding as he caught her by the shoulders and hauled her around to face him. Hannah met his cold gaze with one of her own.

‘Stop now,’ she said quietly, ‘and I’ll forget this ever happened.’

MacLean’s eyes narrowed. ‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you that it can be dangerous to make threats?’

‘Or do you prefer that I report you?’

‘Listen here, young woman——’

‘No, sir, you listen here. I am not interested in—in fun and games, do you understand? I’m not interested in destroying your career, either, but if you persist in...’ Her words faded to silence. He was smiling again. Smiling, damn him! ‘I assure you,’ she said through her teeth, ‘there’s nothing funny about this.’

‘Fantastic,’ he said softly. ‘Five months of “Yes, Mr MacLean, no, Mr Maclean,” five months and never another word out of you, and now here you are, threatening to bring the roof down on my head.’

‘And I will, if you don’t——’

‘I am not trying to seduce you.’

Colour stole into Hannah’s cheeks. ‘I can hardly disagree with that,’ she said. ‘Seduction is supposed to be subtle, but this approach of yours is——’

‘Thank you for the clarification, Miss Lewis. I’m sure it will prove useful in my relationships with women. Now, if you’d just pay attention to me for a minute——’

‘I’ll count to three,’ she said, folding her arms over her breasts, ‘and then——’

‘Shall I put it more bluntly?’

‘You’ve been blunt enough. If I were you——’

‘If you were me,’ he said, his tone frigid, ‘you would know that you are the last woman on earth I’d ask to be my mistress, Miss Lewis.’

‘One. Two. Th...’ Suddenly, his words penetrated. She stared at him. ‘What?’

His smile vanished; his brows drew together in a harsh frown. ‘You’re my assistant, for God’s sake. You’re not a woman.’

The breath puffed from Hannah’s lungs. ‘Oh,’ she said, her voice small and puzzled.

MacLean nodded. ‘All I’m interested in,’ he said, stroking his finger across his chin, ‘is a bit of harmless deception.’

She shook her head in confusion. ‘I—I don’t understand.’

He turned and strode across the room. When he reached the windows, he rocked back on his heels, stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets, and paid rapt attention to the view.

‘I’ve a party to attend this evening.’

‘Yes, I know. The reception for the principals in the Hungarian deal. I noted it on your calendar myself.’

‘An hour of ridiculous chit-chat,’ he said coldly, ‘fuelled by pricey champagne that flows like water and enough canapés to feed an army, then a five-course meal catered by Julia Childs’ latest guru, all interspersed with a dozen turns around the dance-floor...’

Hannah couldn’t help but smile. ‘How terrible for you.’

MacLean swung towards her. His scowl had deepened so that there were two harsh curves rimming his mouth.

‘I’m sure my distress stirs your heart, Miss Lewis. But I assure you, it will be a horrible few hours. Oh, I can survive the food and the drinks, I suppose, and the dance band. But an evening of Magda Karolyi...’ A shudder went through him. ‘God, that’s more than any man should have to bear!’

‘Magda Karolyi?’ It sounded like an exotic dessert, but from the look on her boss’s face it was bound to be more than that.

‘The sister of the head of the Hungarian group. We met in Budapest last year, when I was there putting this deal together.’

‘Mr MacLean.’ Hannah cleared her throat. ‘This is all very interesting, sir. But——’

‘She’s a very attractive woman.’ A slow wave of colour beat up under the tanned skin that lay across his high cheekbones. ‘And she’s—she’s taken an interest in me.’