‘Every point, Miss Crawford.’
When, in the next moment, her elbow was taken in a firm, uncompromising grip and she found herself all but flying through the outer office and into her small but comfortable little oasis, she was too surprised to make a sound. Until the door closed behind them, that was. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ The explosion was in line with the vibrant chestnut-red of her hair, its glowing colour a clue to the volatile temper she had battled with all her life. ‘How dare you manhandle me—?
‘I’m trying to stop you making a bigger fool of yourself than you have done already,’ he said with a grimness that was insulting.
‘Now look—’
‘No, you look, damn it!’ It was more of a pistol shot than a bark, and as her eyes widened with shock he pushed her none too gently into the seat in front of her desk, propping himself against the dark wood and staring down at her with blazing, piercingly blue eyes. Beautiful eyes, she thought inconsequentially, before the rage took over again. ‘I’m trying to do this the nice way—’
‘Like you did with poor Charles?’ she cut in testily, the colour in her cheeks vying with her hair.
‘Give me strength...’ He shut his eyes for an infinitesimal moment, raking a hand through his jet-black, very short but expertly cropped hair before saying, in a tone that was very flat and very hard, ‘Do you want me to gag you? Because so help me you’re a moment away from it.’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’ But he would—she knew, without knowing how she knew, that he would.
‘Try me. Just open that delectable mouth one more time before I finish saying what I want to say and try me. The pleasure, as they say, would be all mine.’
She opened her mouth to fire back an equally caustic reply, glanced at the blue silk handkerchief he had just drawn out of his breast pocket, and shut it again. The pig! The arrogant, overbearing, stinking swine—
‘And I dare bet I fit most of the names that are swirling through your head right at this moment,’ he drawled easily, temper and composure apparently perfectly restored, ‘but unfortunately that’s where they’ll have to stay—in your head. Now, where were we? Oh, yes, I was trying to save you from looking ridiculous...’
She spluttered, gulped, but was forced to admit silently to herself that she didn’t dare call his bluff.
He had raised dark eyebrows at her mini paroxysm but when no verbal abuse was forthcoming smiled nastily before continuing, ‘Charles has left messages for you over half of Europe, there is a letter explaining the full details of the merger with Mallen Books sitting on your doorstep at home, which is repeated at length on your answer machine, but I presume, from your rather undignified outburst out there, you haven’t received any of them?’
She didn’t reply, and he didn’t seem to expect one as he went on, ‘I suggest you go home and read the letter, pop round and see Charles, do whatever it is that women do to cool down, and then we’ll go from there.’
‘You’re dismissing me?’ she asked with icy hauteur.
‘Don’t you ever listen?’
She had got under his skin. For all his apparent equanimity she had definitely got under his skin, she noted with some hidden satisfaction as she watched him take a deep hard pull of air before shaking his head slowly.
‘You’re a very intelligent woman, Miss Crawford; I know that much from your file and all that Charles has told me about you. I’ve seen some of your work and it’s impressive, damn impressive, so what’s happened during this jaunt round Europe to that noteworthy brain of yours? Are you really determined to throw your job—and the considerable salary that goes with it—to the wind on little more than a whim, a temper tantrum, because you weren’t in the know when all this happened? I know Charles respects both your work and you as a person, but he had to make a fast decision on our offer and you simply weren’t around to confer with. Okay?’
He thought her reaction was petulance because she hadn’t been consulted about the merger? She stared at him in amazement, unable to believe she was hearing right.
‘Okay?’ he said again, his voice cool and biting.
‘Mr Mallen, I couldn’t care less if you took over this firm and a hundred others besides every day for a month,’ she said furiously. ‘That’s not the issue here.’
‘Really?’ He smiled a smile that wasn’t a smile at all.
‘Yes, really.’ She had never wanted to wipe a smile from someone’s face so violently before. The only thing that concerns me is the way you’ve got rid of Charles. This firm was his lifeblood, his reason for living, and don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about,’ she warned testily as he opened his mouth to interrupt. ‘I know Charles—I know him better than you for a start—and to leave this firm would be like leaving his own child. He built Concise Publications up from nothing, sacrificed for it, lived his life around it, and now you sweep in and throw him out as though he’s nothing.’
‘You’ve got this all wrong—’
‘Oh, spare me.’ He wasn’t used to being spoken to like this, and his displeasure was evident in the narrowing of the brilliant blue eyes and hard line of his mouth. A sensual mouth, firm and full, with a sexy bottom lip—She caught the thought as it materialised, shocked to the core at its inappropriateness, and it made her voice harsh as she went on, ‘You’ve got rid of Charles and I don’t doubt for a minute that he won’t be the last to go. Well, I’ll make it easy for you, Mr Mallen, and resign right now. I’ve no wish to continue working under the new administration, okay?’
The last word was said with exactly the same emphasis he had placed on it a few moments earlier and spoke of her utter disgust more strongly than anything she had said before.
‘I don’t believe I’m having this conversation.’ As Joanne went to rise he pushed her back down in the seat with a mite more force than was necessary. ‘And sit still, damn it,’ he growled angrily. ‘I haven’t finished yet.
‘But I have.’ This time when she rose he let her, his eyes unblinking as she smoothed down the pencil-slim skirt over her hips and tugged the matching jacket into place with shaking hands. He was a brute of a man, a cold, arrogant tyrant. She’d seen plenty of the same since coming to London from her university in Manchester eight years ago, and had never stopped thanking the guardian angel who had led her to Concise Publications and the Brigmores. She couldn’t have wished for a better boss, and Clare had become more than a friend, almost a mother...
‘How can someone who looks so fragile be so impossible? ’ he asked with a quietness that had all the softness of tempered steel. ‘I’ve met some troublesome females in my time but you take the biscuit hands down.’ He had straightened as she’d stood, and now she became fully aware for the first time of his considerable height and bulk, his broad-shouldered, lean body towering over her five feet six inches in a way that made her feel positively minute. And she was aware of something else too, something . . . undefinable, magnetic that pulsed from the hard male frame with a drawing power that was formidable, and it was this that made her swing round on her heel and make for the door without another word.
‘Is that it?’
In any other circumstance, with any other man, the look of utter surprise on his face as she turned round would have made her smile; as it was she stared at him for a moment before she said, ‘There’s no point in continuing this, is there?’
‘You really intend to throw in the towel because you consider Charles has been hard done by?’ He surveyed her cynically, his mouth hard. ‘What sort of relationship did you have with your departed boss anyway?’ he added silkily, his meaning plain.
‘I