The Mistress Contract. Helen Brooks

aligns her holidays with mine and she is rarely ill,’ he continued coolly. ‘It doesn’t fit in with my schedule.’

      The sweeping pretension brought her thickly lashed eyes widening, before she saw the mocking glint in his own and said weakly, ‘You’re joking.’

      ‘Many a true word is spoken in jest, Seraphina.’

      They were standing in the outer office, part of which was kitted out as a small reception area. Deep easy seats were clustered around a couple of wood tables laden with glossy magazines, to the side of which were lush potted palms and a water chiller. Now he turned and walked past the sitting area to where his secretary’s huge desk and chair stood, just in front of the interconnecting door to his office.

      There was a row of superior filing cabinets in an alcove at the back of the desk, and he flicked one tanned wrist as he passed, saying, ‘Acquaint yourself with those immediately. The more confidential files are kept in my office, along with data and documents relating to my other interests outside Quentin Dynamics. There are two sets of keys.’ He turned in the doorway to his rooms and again the blue gaze raked her face with its cold perusal. ‘I have one set and Miss Watkins has the other. Hopefully it will not be necessary to retrieve those from her; I am anticipating she will soon be back at her desk again.’

      Not as much as she was, Sephy thought with a faint touch of hysteria. Suddenly Mr Harper and her battered little desk in Customer Services took on the poignancy of an oasis in the desert and she felt positively homesick.

      Mr Harper might be work-shy and somewhat somnolent most of the time, and his personal hygiene was distinctly iffy on occasion, but he was rotund and genial and utterly devoted to his wife and children, and their ever-expanding family of grandchildren.

      Conrad Quentin, on the other hand, was like a brilliant black star that kept all the lesser planets orbiting it in a perpetual state of fermenting unrest. It wasn’t just the knowledge that he was a multimillionaire with a well-deserved reputation for ruthless arrogance, who demanded one hundred per cent commitment from his employees—it was him, the man himself. The harsh, flagrantly male features and muscular physique had a sensualness about them that was overwhelming.

      His virile maleness was emphasised rather than concealed by the wildly expensive clothes he wore, and the unmistakable aura of wealth and power was so real she could taste it. He was everything she disliked in a man.

      Still, she didn’t have to like him, she reminded herself sharply, as she became aware he was waiting for her reply. She managed a careful, impersonal smile and said politely, ‘I’m sure she will, Mr Quentin.’ No, she didn’t have to like him, and with any luck the resilient Madge, who was about four-foot-ten and looked as if a breath of wind would blow her away but must have the toughness of a pair of old boots to have lasted this long with her high-powered, vigorous boss, would be back at her desk within the week.

      Not that she had much chance of lasting a week—half a day would be doing pretty good, Sephy thought ruefully.

      He nodded abruptly, closing the interconnecting door as he said, ‘Twenty minutes, Seraphina, and then I’d like you in here with the Breedon file, the Einhorn file and notebook and pencil.’

      Pat, Pat, Pat… As the door closed Sephy leant limply against Madge’s desk for a moment. How could you blackmail me with friendship into this position?

      And then she straightened sharply as the door opened again and he poked his head round to say, ‘Why haven’t I seen you before if you’ve worked here for six years?’ as though she had purposely been hiding in a cupboard all that time.

      It was on the tip of her tongue to answer tartly, Because I’m not a model-type femme fatale with long blonde hair and the sort of figure that drives men wild—the type of woman Conrad Quentin usually went for if the newspaper pictures were to be believed—but a very ordinary, brown-haired, brown-eyed, slightly plump little nobody. But she felt that would be pushing her luck too far. Instead she gritted her teeth, forced a smile, and said quietly, ‘You have seen me, Mr Quentin. We have spoken on at least two or three occasions.’

      ‘Have we?’ He frowned darkly. ‘I don’t remember.’

      He clearly considered it her fault, and she was prompted to retort, with an asperity it was difficult to temper, ‘There’s no reason why you should, is there? You’re a very busy man, after all.’ He was often abroad on business, and Quentin Dynamics was only one of his many enterprises, all of which seemed to have the Midas touch, and it was to this Sephy referred as she added quickly, ‘You can’t know everyone who works for you, and the way you’ve expanded over the years…’

      ‘I trust that is a reference to my business acumen and not my waistline?’ And he smiled. Just a quick flash of white teeth as he closed the door again, but it was enough to leave her standing in stunned silence for some long moments. The difference it had made to his hard cold face, the way his piercing blue eyes had crinkled and mellowed and his uncompromising jawline softened, had been…well, devastating, she admitted unsteadily. And it bothered her more than anything else that had happened that day.

      But she couldn’t think of it now. She seized on the thought like a lifeline and took a deep, shuddering breath as she glanced towards the filing cabinets. She was here to stand in for the formidable Madge and she had to make some sort of reasonable stab at it. She had been used to looking after Mr Harper for four years and virtually carrying that office at times; she could do this. She could.

      Twenty minutes later to the dot she knocked at the interconnecting door, the files and her notebook and pencil tucked under one arm.

      She wished she had worn something newer and smarter than the plain white blouse and straight black skirt she had pulled on that morning, but it was too late now. They were serviceable enough, but distinctly utilitarian, and because she had overslept she hadn’t bothered to put her hair up, as normal, or apply any eye make-up.

      Oh, stop fussing! The admonition came just as she heard the deep ‘Come in’ from inside the room. Conrad Quentin wouldn’t be looking at her, Sephy Vincent. He wanted an efficient working machine, and as long as she met that criterion all would be well.

      She opened the door and walked briskly into the vast expanse in front of her. The far wall of the room, in front of which Conrad Quentin had his enormous desk and chair, was all glass. Before she reached the chair he gestured at, Sephy was conscious of a breathtaking view of half of London coupled with a spacious luxury that made Mr Harper’s little office seem like a broom cupboard.

      ‘Sit down, Seraphina.’

      That was the fourth or fifth time; she’d have to say something. ‘It’s Sephy, actually,’ she said steadily as she sat in the plushly upholstered armless chair in front of the walnut desk, crossing her legs and then forcing herself to look at him. ‘I never use my full name.’

      ‘Why not?’ He had been sitting bent over piles of papers he’d been scrutinising, but now he raised his head and sat back in the enormous leather chair, clasping his hands behind his head as he surveyed her through narrowed blue eyes. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

      The pose had brought powerful chest muscles into play beneath the thin grey silk of the shirt he was wearing, and at some time in the last twenty minutes he had loosened his tie and undone the top buttons of his shirt, exposing the shadow of dark body hair at the base of his throat.

      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