The Mistress Contract

For Conrad Quentin? Absolutely not. ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ Sephy said, with what she considered admirable calm in the circumstances, resisting the temptation to nip to the ladies’ cloakroom. All the titivating in the world wouldn’t make any difference to the medium height, gentle-eyed, dark-haired girl who would stare back at her from the long rectangular mirror above the three basins.

She wasn’t plain, she knew that, but she was…nondescript, she admitted silently as she followed Pat out of the office and along the corridor towards the lift for the exalted top floor. Her honey-brown eyes, shoulder-length thick brown hair and small neat nose were all pleasant, but unremarkable, and to cap it all she had an abundance of freckles scattered across her smooth, creamy skin that made her look heaps younger than her twenty-six years.

‘Here we are, then.’ They had emerged from the lift and Pat was being deliberately hearty as she led Sephy past her own office and that of the company secretary and financial director. Conrad Quentin’s vast suite took up all the rest of the top floor, and to say the opulence was intimidating was putting it mildly. ‘Your home from home for the next little while.’

‘I said an afternoon, Pat,’ Sephy hissed quietly as the other woman opened the door in front of them. Sephy had visited the top floor a few times—rapid calls which had lasted as long as the delivery of files or whatever had necessitated—and she found the lavish surroundings somewhat surreal. ‘He’s bound to treat me the same as the rest.’

‘And how, exactly, did I treat the rest, Miss…?’

Sephy heard Pat’s sudden intake of breath, but all her senses were focused on the tall, dark man who had obviously been about to leave the room when they had opened the door. She had spoken to Conrad Quentin a few times in the six years she had been working at the firm—brief, polite words at the obligatory Christmas party and on the rare occasions their paths had crossed in the lift—but she had always been overcome with nerves at the prospect of saying the wrong thing and had escaped at the earliest opportunity. But now she certainly had said the wrong thing, and there was no retreat possible.

She stared desperately into the hard, chiselled face; the piercing blue of his eyes threw his tanned skin into even more prominence, picking up the ebony sheen in his jet-black hair, and she saw his straight black eyebrows were lifted in mockingly cruel enquiry.

And it did something to her, causing anger to slice through her body and tighten her stomach, and before she knew she had spoken she said, her voice tight and very controlled, ‘You know that better than me, Mr Quentin,’ and held his glance.

Pat looked as if she was going to faint at the side of her, and for the first time ever Sephy heard the company secretary’s cool dragon of a secretary babbling as she said, ‘This is Seraphina, Mr Quentin, from Customer Services. She’s been with us six years and I thought she would be suitable for temporarily standing in for Miss Watkins. Of course, if you think—’

The man in front of them raised an authoritative hand and immediately Pat’s voice was cut off. ‘You think I treat my staff unfairly, Seraphina?’ he asked silkily.

All sorts of things were racing through Sephy’s frantic mind. She couldn’t believe she had spoken to Conrad Quentin like that, and her heart was pounding like a drum even as tiny pinpricks of sheer, unmitigated panic hit every nerve and sinew. This could be the end of her extremely well-paid and interesting job. And the end of her job could threaten the new flat she had just moved into, the flat it had taken so long to find. And if she left with a black mark over her, if he refused to allow Mr Harper to give her a good reference, how soon could she get other work?

Conrad Quentin was the ultimate in ruthlessness—everyone, everyone knew that—and people didn’t talk back to him! People didn’t even breathe without his say-so. She must have had a brainstorm; it was the only explanation. Maybe if she grovelled low enough he’d overlook the matter?

And then something in the icy sapphire gaze told her he knew exactly what she was thinking and that he was fully expecting her to abase herself.

In the split second it took for the decision to be made Sephy heard herself saying, ‘If everything I have heard is true it would appear so, Mr Quentin, but not having worked for you personally I can’t be positive, of course.’ And she raised her small chin a notch higher as she waited for the storm to break over her head.

As he stared at her she was aware that the hard, masculine face—which just missed being handsome and instead held a magnetic attractiveness that was a thousand times more compelling than any pretty-boy good looks—was betraying nothing of what he was feeling. It was unnerving. Very unnerving. And she would dare bet her life he was fully aware of just that very thing.

‘Then we had better rectify that small point so that you can make a judgement based on fact rather than hearsay,’ he said smoothly, inclining his head towards Pat as he added, ‘Thank you, Pat. I’m sure Seraphina is capable of managing on her own.’ The tone was not complimentary.

‘Yes, of course. I was just going to show her where everything is…the filing cabinets and so on… But, yes, of course…’ Pat had backed out of the doorway as she had spoken, her one glance at Sephy saying quite clearly, You rather than me, kid, but you asked for it! before she shut the door behind her, leaving Sephy standing in front of the brilliant and eminent head of Quentin Dynamics.

He was very tall. The observation came from nowhere and it didn’t help Sephy’s confidence. And big—muscle-type big—with a leanness that suggested regular workouts and a passion for fitness.

‘So you have worked for Quentin Dynamics for six years?’

His voice was deep, with an edge of huskiness that took it out of the ordinary and into the unforgettable. Sephy took several steadying breaths until she was sure her voice was under control, and then she said quietly, ‘Yes, that’s right. That’s one of the reasons Pat thought you would prefer me to a temp.’

‘I don’t use temps.’

The laser-blue eyes hadn’t left hers for a moment, and Sephy was finding it incredibly difficult not to give in to the temptation to drop her gaze. ‘Oh…’ She didn’t know what else to say.

‘My secretary always 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.’