by Helen Brooks
'I think so, Mr—' She stopped abruptly. She couldn't call him Luke, she just couldn't, but he would think she was being awkward if she insisted on Mr Hawkton. 'I think so,' she repeated carefully. 'And of course if you'd prefer me to stay over then I will. You're the boss.' She had wanted the last three words to sound light, but they had merely sounded petulant.
'That I am, Josie,' he said quietly, his voice very dry. 'Now, a car will be at the entrance to your block of flats at eight on Monday morning with my secretary, Emma, inside. All you need to bring is your passport, an overnight bag and, of course, the details on the project. I have informed Mike and Andy of the arrangements, incidentally.'
I just bet you have, she thought tightly, before giving herself a mental slap on the hand. What was the matter with her, for goodness' sake? The man was going to spend a small fortune on this damn launch; he had every right to expect her one hundred per cent commitment. 'That's fine.'
She injected a note of enthusiasm into her reply. 'I'll see you on Monday, then.'
'Goodbye, Josie.' Was that thread of sardonic amusement always in his voice, or had he guessed the extent of her reluctance? she thought tightly. If he had, he had clearly taken great delight in commanding her obedience. Oh, stop it, stop it, she told herself desperately. She had to take hold of this unwarranted hostility to a man she knew nothing about and bring logic and reason to the situation.
Luke Hawkton was a respected, powerful multimillionaire, with business interests in more concerns than most of London put together. He had chosen her proposal, hers, not Mitchell's or one from the other firms he had checked, and there was everything to thank him for. That was fact. These… feelings of hers were irrational, unjustified and in the circumstances downright dangerous if they began to jeopardise her professionalism.
With the benefit of hindsight she could see that Peter Staples had been a wastrel of the first order, a spoilt, vain megalomaniac with something base and vile at the bottom of him—a man who was actually unable to feel any sense of remorse or contrition. He had stood in court after the accident and lied so convincingly, and with such conviction, that if she hadn't been in the car herself she would have believed every word he'd spoken. He'd got off scot-free, or as near as dammit, and had walked away from the whole mess without a thought for the two dead men and the ruined life—hers—that he'd left behind him.
But… She shut her eyes for a moment as she bit on the underside of her lip, her teeth nibbling agitatedly at the soft flesh. But there was still something—the enormous confidence, perhaps, the unswerving faith in their own ability and power—that linked the two men in her mind.
Peter Staples had changed the course of her life, her whole future at fifteen. His cruelty had turned her into something dry and desolate, her body into a barren place that would forever be unfruitful, empty. They had all told her she was lucky to be alive, that she had so much to be thankful for in that the only scars she had didn't show, but they didn't know. They didn't understand how it felt to be in her head, to know that she was a woman on the outside only, a mutilated shell irrevocably flawed.
She had refused to go to counselling sessions after a few weeks; the motherly little woman with a photo of her grandchildren on her desk hadn't helped much. And then had followed a period of blackness, deep, primitive blackness, from winch she had eventually pulled herself inch by inch when her mother had become ill just as she had started her two-year college course. Nursing her mother and coping with her extensive studies had left her with no time to brood on her dark thoughts, and on the night her mother had died she had made a vow to herself.
No chasing rainbows, no hoping for the moon, no happy ever after. She was on her own now, and on her own she would remain. She would never ask any man to accept second best. She had raised her chin proudly and stared into the mirror through eyes drenched in tears. Her career would be her life and she would go for that one hundred percent.
It wasn't the life she would have chosen, but her options had been ripped out of her with the surgeon's knife. There would be no romance in her life; she couldn't risk getting close to someone only to shatter their hopes. No, she would make the best of what she had. She would. And cut the self-pity from that moment on.
And she had. Almost. She opened her eyes and stared round the pretty, well-furnished room. She was very, very fortunate. She was. And this chance now to go still further was welcome, marvellous.
But in spite of Luke Hawkton's munificence, in spite of the fact that he had been nothing but generous so far, she didn't like him. Illogical, unreasonable, absurd—yes, it was all that and more, but nevertheless something linked him in her mind with Peter Staples, and she couldn't do anything about it.
CHAPTER THREE
'Josie. How nice to see you again. I trust you had a good flight?' The deep, dark voice trickled over her nerves like liquid fire.
'Fine, thank you,' she responded carefully.
As Luke took her small hand in his, his large fingers swallowing hers whole, she forced herself to betray none of the agitation that had gripped her as soon as he had stridden into the hotel's small conference room.
On arriving in Germany, she had been met at the airport by an impressive limousine that had swept her in style to the luxurious first-class hotel where she was to be staying. There she had been greeted with a deference that had left her nonplussed, until she'd realised she had come undo: the umbrella of Hawkton Enterprises.
Her room was the last word in opulence, the lunch that had been provided five minutes after her arrival simply superb, and the ground-floor conference room that had been reserved for her alone had meant she could spread out all her countless pieces of paper and continue working in comfort while she waited for the great man to put in an appearance.
And now he was here. And he looked very, very big. The beautifully tailored suit and grey silk shirt and tie he was wearing sat well on the hard male body, but couldn't disguise the muscled strength in the broad shoulders and chest. He was uncompromisingly virile, in fact menacingly so, and again that strange little shiver of sensation snaked down her spine as she felt his warm flesh against hers.
'You have been busy.' In spite of the fact that he had let go of her hand almost immediately, the burning memory of his hard hand gripping hers remained with her for several seconds before she could erase it and bring her mind under control sufficiently to reply.
'Yes.' She nodded with what she hoped was cool aplomb. 'I've sketched out a few rough ideas on different angles for the fair and the ball later. There's a Victorian look, or perhaps you'd prefer an Edwardian style? And we need to determine pretty early on whether the period you choose for the fair will run over into the ball, because if so your guests will need some considerable time to get appropriate clothes ordered for both. The ice rink will be expensive to construct, of course, and we will have to provide a vast number of boots in different sizes—'
A discreet knock at the door broke into what was fast becoming a gabble, even to her own ears, and a second later a waiter entered, carrying a tray containing coffee and cakes.
'Thank you.' Luke's voice was cool and calm, and once the waiter had left, leaving the tray on the table at their side, where Luke had indicated it should go, he turned to her, a slight smile curving the hard mouth. 'Do I make you nervous, Josie?'
'What?' The word escaped before she could draw it back, and she knew she was blushing a bright red as she qualified it hastily. 'No, not in the least. Of course not.'
'Of course not.' He repeated her words with slow, laconic disbelief, his dark eyebrows slightly raised as he leant back in his chair to survey her through narrowed eyes. 'There is no need to be nervous, I do assure you. You have the job. It is, as they say, in the bag.'
'I know.' If only it was just the job in hand that was the trouble, she thought silently. If only. 'And there's no problem, really,' she said brightly, willing the hard, astute man in front of her to believe the lie.
'Good.' The piercing s
ilver eyes remained trained on her face for one more moment before they dropped to the papers in front of him and he waved his hand at the tray. 'Would you care to be mother?'
It was an old phrase, and one that she had come up against many times in the last few years, but it still had the power to hit her in the stomach like a hard fist and she was glad that that glittering gaze was no longer on her.
'Milk or cream?' she asked carefully as she poured the coffee.
'Black, please.' He didn't look up as he spoke. 'And I'd like a piece of that disgustingly rich fruitcake while you're about it. Lunch seems a distant memory, and I can see we'll be tied up here for an hour or two. Dinner at eight suit you?'
'Dinner—?' She stopped abruptly. She somehow hadn't expected to have dinner with him, although, thinking about it now, maybe she should have. But she had supposed he would be busy with other high-flying tycoons—the ones he had come out here to see, presumably.
'You do eat?' he drawled quietly, still with his eyes on her work.
'Yes.' In spite of all her good intentions—and she had been repeating them to herself ever since waking very early that morning—her stomach clenched in protest at his faintly mocking tone. 'And eight would be fine.'
'The food here is more than adequate, but I know a little restaurant that is excellent if you don't mind a drive?' The devastating gaze swung to her face before she had time to school her features into an acceptable mask, and she saw his eyes narrow as they fastened on her tight mouth.
'I don't mind—really,' she said hastily. 'Whichever you'd prefer.' She passed him the coffee and cake as she spoke and then almost dropped the plate as a tingle shot up her arm at the touch of his fingers.
If he noticed her little start of surprise he said nothing, accepting the coffee and cake with a polite word of thanks and then transferring both his gaze and his energies to the job in hand.
And Josie found, after a few seconds had slipped by, that the razor-sharp mind and intimidating intelligence of the man in front of her called forth all her powers of concentration—so much so that she was absolutely amazed when, some time later, Luke glanced at his watch and announced that two hours had slipped by.
'I think we've covered the initial groundwork.' He smiled at her as he stretched with animalistic grace, his hard muscles flexing under his clothes. 'Certainly enough to give the thing a kick-start, anyway.'
She nodded quickly in reply, forcing a polite smile to her lips. He had been absolutely right, of course. There was no way the majority of this could have been sorted out by faxing or telephone calls or anything else. It had needed a one-to-one discussion; she had been stupid to suggest anything else. As it was she was going to have her work cut out to keep to the schedule they had drawn up; every day, every hour would count from now on.
'Let me take those.' When she'd finished packing all her sketches and papers into her large black briefcase and leather folder he took them from her, tucking them under his arm as though they weighed nothing at all. 'Your room is just down the corridor from my suite. I'll call for you at eight and we'll drive to that restaurant, OK? I'd like a decent meal after the last day or so.'
He gestured for her to walk through the door he had just opened, and as she did so the realisation that she was being controlled by a superior force, one that represented danger, was so strong that she could taste it. And along with that disturbing knowledge came the fact that she was vitally aware of every single movement of that big, powerful male body, that she had been even when immersed in facts and figures and calculations. Even then her subconscious had registered every slight gesture, every action, however small. It was humiliating, mortifying, but her mind and body seemed determined to respond to this man in a way she couldn't control, and she didn't like it at all.
The first few months after the accident had been a dark nightmare as she had struggled to come to terms with the loss of her father and also the end of all her girlish dreams of marriage, a husband, babies. Babies. For a time it had seemed as if the whole world revolved around babies. Every television commercial, every programme or magazine featured wide-eyed infants, be they blade, brown or white, and each one had screamed her deficiency at her, the fact that she was hopelessly, irreversibly flawed.
Babies had become a terrible and wonderful fascination for her, a whip with which she beat herself daily, an ob-session she couldn't overcome. She had spent hours in front of a mirror with a cushion in front of her stomach under her clothes, the tears streaming down her face as she had cried her desolation from the black void where her heart had been.
But then, slowly, she had begun to claw back her mental stability, forcing herself each morning, minute by minute, hour by hour, to count her blessings. She had become nurse as well as daughter to her mother, and in a strange way that tragedy, following so hard on the heels of the accident and her father's subsequent death, had settled her emotions. She hadn't had time to dwell on her own grief as she had sought to make her mother's last days happy ones, and unbeknown to herself it had been therapy for them both.
When her mother had died she had been almost seventeen, but she had felt like an old, old lady as she had determined the path her life would follow. A fulfilling and interesting career, and a destiny that she and she alone would control, with no emotional or romantic commitment of -any kind. Her parents' death, coming so soon after Peter's cruel treatment of her adolescent adoration and its devastating conclusion, had turned the word 'love' into something that meant agony, misery, suffering and bereavement.
She had determined to be strong, mentally and physically. She would be in control of both her emotions and her fate from now on. No more being tossed about by the waves on the sea of life; no more crying for what had been taken so brutally from her. She would make her place in a world in which children rarely featured and learn to be content with that. She would.
And now? She was aware of Luke just a step behind her as they walked to the lift. Now, for the first time in all those years, that control had been shaken. And she was having dinner with him tonight! Was she mad? Before she had time to consider her next words, she turned round so sharply that he almost walked into her.
'Mr—Luke, I really think I would prefer to have a meal in my room tonight,' she said hastily to the dark, hard face above her, stumbling slightly over his name, which seemed as though it had burnt her lips. 'It will give me a chance to go over a few of those calculations, and I'm really very tired…'
She found her voice dwindling away as he stood looking down at her, his silver-grey eyes gleaming in the dull artificial light overhead and his face perfectly still. Even whoa he wasn't speaking, perhaps especially when he wasn't speaking, the cold, compelling aura of the man was fiercely strong.
'You don't lie very welt—unlike most of your sex, I might add,' he said thoughtfully after a few tense moments had passed. 'You'd really find my company so hard to take?'
'I— It's not that. I'm just—'
'Tired?' He cut into her red-faced mutterings with cool composure as the lift doors glided silently open, and she knew her legs were trembling slightly as she stepped into the carpeted box. 'Josie, you are twenty-eight years of age and as free as a bird—no demanding husband in the background, no little infants hanging on your coat-tails and interrupting your sleep, not even a live-in lover, from what I can determine. You are young, beautiful and healthy, right?'
The glittering gaze was as sharp as finely honed steel as it swept over her and the lift doors slid shut. 'Now, in view of all this are you seriously trying to tell me that you are so exhausted you can't make dinner tonight?'
'How do you know all that?' She forgot the matter of dinner as she glared at him across the small space, anger competing with the warning her brain was giving her to go steady, to keep cool. 'All that about my personal life.'
'Is it inaccurate?' He was leaning against the lift wall as he spoke, muscled arms crossed over a broad chest that wouldn't have disgraced a prize wrestler.
&nb
sp; 'That's not the point,' she replied hotly, her face burning as she frowned up at him, her tiny, delicate frame taut and her honey-gold eyes flashing green sparks. 'My private life is nothing to do with you or the job.'
'Don't be so ridiculous,' he said coolly.
'Ridiculous?'
'Yes, ridiculous.' Now the hard face had set into pure granite, and there was a chill emanating from the silver-grey gaze trained on her face that could have frozen molten lava. 'Hawkton Enterprises is a large and varied organisation, as I'm sure you are aware, but as I think I explained to you Hawkton Marine is particularly important to me.'
Because of his father? Yes, she remembered as the lift deposited them at their floor, the doors gliding open to reveal a hushed, scented corridor with ankle-deep carpeting and hothouse blooms perfuming the still air.
'The person I chose for the Night Hawk project needed to be mentally and emotionally on the ball—a quality that can't always be determined at first glance,' he added cynically. 'I had no intention of employing someone with a messy or complicated private life, and if that offends you— tough.'
'So you spied on me?' she asked in disbelief, her voice high.
'Spied on you?' he asked, in a voice that resembled splintered ice. 'I control Hawkton Enterprises, for crying out loud, not the Secret Service. You've been reading too many novels, young lady. I merely made enquiries as to whether you were free to put in the number of hours this job would entail or whether there were personal ties in your life that would make it difficult. If you had had a husband and children you would have seen little of them over the next five months, and although that may be fine during the initial euphoria it very quickly palls, believe me.'
'And you'd have made the same enquiries about a man?' she asked tightly as they came to a halt outside her door.
'Most certainly.' He looked at her steadily. 'I don't go in for sexual discrimination in any shape or form. I've been accused of many things in my life, but chauvinism is not one of them. Could you say the same?'