His Cinderella Mistress

It was testament to how troubling she found the situation that she hadn’t even given the man Max a second thought until she went into the almost deserted piano-bar and found him sitting there chatting to John, the barman!

For some reason she had assumed Max would only be staying at the hotel the previous night. Erroneously, as it turned out.

‘Ah, January.’ Max turned to look at her with mocking blue eyes as she went straight over to the piano to arrange her music for the evening. He strolled over to stand only feet away from her. ‘I believe there was some sort of confusion last night as to where we were to meet each other at the end of the evening?’

He believed no such thing, knew very well that she had deliberately slipped away through another door in order to avoid meeting him.

‘Was there?’ January raised her head to look at him, her gaze steady—despite the fact that she felt an inner quiver of awareness at the physical impact of his attractiveness in the lounge suit and blue shirt.

He really was a very attractive man, and January would be deceiving herself if she denied responding to that attraction. It was his sheer intensity of personality that she found a little overwhelming.

‘I like to think so.’ He smiled, a pulse-jumping, heart-stopping smile.

As if to give lie to her wariness of his previous intensity… ‘Maybe we can do better this evening?’ he suggested mildly.

He really was trying to lighten up, wasn’t he? January accepted with an inner amusement. But not hard enough to conceal the fact that he was still determined to spend time alone with her…

‘Perhaps,’ she returned noncommittally. ‘If you’ll excuse me? I have to start my first session,’ she added to take the bluntness out of her previous statement.

‘Of course,’ he accepted lightly, moving back slightly to allow her to seat herself at the piano, before bending forward, his mouth only inches from her ear. ‘You’re looking even more beautiful this evening than you did last night,’ he murmured huskily, the warmth of his breath stirring the tendrils of hair against her cheeks.

January swallowed hard, tilting her head back slightly to look up into his face. A face still only mere inches away from hers… ‘Thank you,’ she accepted softly.

Max straightened, that smile back on his lips as he looked down at her admiringly. ‘Very graciously said,’ he told her appreciatively.

January gave a mocking inclination of her head, determined not to let him see that his proximity was unnerving her. Even if it was! ‘I like to think so,’ she dryly returned his own comment of a few minutes ago.

He chuckled appreciatively. ‘I’ll have a drink waiting for you at the bar when you have your break. John tells me that you usually prefer a sparkling water.’

She gave an irritated frown at the thought of this man discussing her likes and dislikes with a third person, even someone as innocuous as John. ‘The whole point of my having a break is to give me a few minutes to relax.’ Something she certainly couldn’t do around him!

‘Then we won’t talk,’ he promised lightly.

No one could have accused him of being a chatter-box the previous evening! But this man didn’t need to say anything to totally disrupt her equilibrium; just having him sitting there staring at her was enough to make her nervous.

‘Fine,’ she accepted tautly.

Max looked at her consideringly for several long seconds. ‘The last time you agreed with me so readily you made an escape out the back door,’ he said slowly.

January felt the guilty colour warm her cheeks; she had said and done exactly that, hadn’t she…?

‘Well, this time I won’t,’ she assured him impatiently. ‘Okay?’

‘Okay,’ he acknowledged with a slight inclination of his head. ‘By the way…’ he paused before leaving ‘…you have the most incredibly sexy voice, speaking or singing, that I have ever heard,’ he told her softly before walking away.

Oh, very conducive to calming her already frayed nerves—she didn’t think!

Better, Max, he congratulated himself as he resumed his seat on a stool at the bar. Much better. Just the right balance of humour and determination. All he had to do now was keep it up for the next few hours!

All! When January had walked into the room a short time ago wearing that figure-hugging black dress, showing a long expanse of shapely legs beneath its knee-length, he had literally stopped breathing for several seconds, the blood singing heatedly in his veins, and as for the rest of his body—! That sort of response just at the sight of a woman hadn’t happened to him since he was a raw teenager!

But he had regrouped, he assured himself, had spoken to her confidently and yet not too forcefully, infusing humour into the banter they had exchanged.

And then he had told her how sexy he found the sound of her voice!

Okay, okay, so he had slipped back a little there. But it had been worth it—if only to see the warm colour that had suffused her cheeks, the sparkle in those incredibly beautiful grey eyes!

At thirty-seven, Max had known many beautiful and accomplished women, been involved with several of them, but those women had been far too worldly-wise themselves to blush at something that was said to them; it was refreshing to know that January wasn’t such a sophisticate.

How old was she? he wondered. Mid-twenties, probably, he decided. Not too young that he felt guilty over this single-minded interest he had found in her, but not too old that she had forgotten how to blush at a compliment.

‘Great girl, isn’t she?’ The barman spoke admiringly as he stood polishing glasses in preparation for the busy evening ahead, obviously having followed Max’s line of vision. ‘Not in the least stand-offish like some of the singers we’ve had in here in the past,’ John added with a pointed grimace.

Max sensed that John could be a great source of information about January. If Max chose to pursue it. Which he didn’t…

For some reason he felt a great need to get to know January for himself, to unpeal each protective layer, until he knew her totally. Like that parcel in the children’s game where you took one wrapper off at a time as the music stopped, until at last you arrived at the treasure within.

Once again he thanked his lucky stars that his good friend Jude wasn’t about to witness his interest in January; he had no doubt that the other man would have found it highly amusing to see Max floundering around in the throes of this unexpected attraction!

Amusing? He doubted Jude would be able to stop laughing for a week!

Although Max’s total lack of success so far in the main reason for his being here would probably wipe that smile from the other man’s face, Max conceded with a frown as he thought of his meeting earlier today. A more stubborn, unyielding—! Not that he had given up, not for a moment—it was just going to take a little longer to accomplish what he had come here to do than he had at first supposed. But now that he had met January, that delay certainly wasn’t a drawback, as far as he was concerned!

He had the distinct impression that January was going to be an even harder conquest than the business deal he had come here to complete on Jude’s behalf!

The piano-bar slowly filled up as the sound of January singing drifted through to the other reception rooms, a rather noisy party of young men obviously on a stag-night part of the crowd that now stood at the bar, several of those young men obviously ogling January in her sexy black dress. Giving him the hitherto unknown feelings of jealousy at the thought of any man looking at her but him!

Which was ridiculous, considering her choice of career; the way she looked was as much a part of that career as her sexily attractive voice.

All well and good, Max, he derided his own logic—but that still didn’t stop the need he felt to get up and wrap his jacket around her so that she was hidden from any other male eyes but his!

‘Whisky,’ he turned to order from John grimly. ‘Make it a double,’ he added harshly as one of the young men strolled over to chat with January as she turned the music over between songs.

John gave him a quizzical look as he set the whisky glass down in front of Max. ‘January knows how to take care of herself,’ he offered lightly by way of advice.

Little comfort, when Max wanted to take care of her himself. Take care of her! He wanted to pick her up in his arms, carry her up to his hotel suite and make love to her until they were both too weak to do anything else but lay satiated in each other’s arms. And then he wanted to start all over again!

She was laughing up at the young man now, completely relaxed in his company. But it was too much for Max, just too much, when the young man bent his head to give January a less-than-brotherly kiss on the lips!

He wasn’t even aware of crossing the room, let alone having grabbed hold of the collar of the other man’s jacket as he pulled him forcibly away from January, his face only inches away from the young man’s as he glared down at him.

‘Max…?’ January gasped softly from somewhere behind him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she snapped incredulously.

Max narrowed his gaze briefly on the younger man before he turned to look questioningly at January. ‘He was bothering you—’

She was standing now, shaking her head frowningly. ‘Josh is a friend, Max,’ she murmured as she gently released his hand from the other man’s jacket. ‘He’s marrying my cousin Sara next Saturday,’ she added pointedly.

That may be so, Max accepted grimly, but the kiss he had given January had looked far from ‘cousin-in-lawly’ to him!