Millionaire Under The Mistletoe: The Playboy's Mistress / Christmas in the Billionaire's Bed / The Boss's Mistletoe Manoeuvres

‘You only think that because you’re her brother,’ Darcy retorted. Jealousy tightened its grip on her—Reece wasn’t Clare’s brother.

Darcy tucked her hair behind her ears and stood back to get the full effect of her decorative efforts. She heard the door open behind her.

‘Switch on the lights, will you?’ she called without turning around. She gave a satisfied sigh as the tree was illuminated. ‘It’s a bit lopsided.’

‘It’s got character,’ a very familiar deep voice replied.

Darcy gave a startled yelp and dropped the bauble in her hand as she swung around. ‘What are you doing here?’ Her body temperature seesawed wildly at the sight of the tall figure, as did her emotions.

‘Do you give all your lovers receptions this warm and welcoming?’

Lovers. A sensual shudder rippled down her spine. ‘Hush!’ she hissed, reaching up and pressing her hand to his lips. ‘Someone will hear.’

His disdainful expression was that of a man who didn’t care what other people thought. Darcy would have taken her hand away, but he caught hold of her wrist and held it there against his mouth. The giddiness that had begun to recede came rushing back with a vengeance as his lips moved along her flexed fingertips, then equally slowly returned to the starting point.

Reece couldn’t get over how incredibly fragile her bones were as he circled her wrist with his fingers. With the utmost reluctance he removed her hand from his lips, but not before he’d touched the tip of his tongue to the palm of her hand and felt her shiver with pleasure.

‘And that matters…?’ The shiver inclined him towards indulgence.

‘How did you get here?’

He got the impression from the way her eyes were darting wildly around the room that she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had announced he had materialised out of thin air. The truth was far more prosaic.

‘I knocked on the door and was kindly directed this way.’

‘Who by?’

‘A twin; which one, I wouldn’t like to say.’

‘Oh, I thought maybe Clare had brought you?’

‘I brought myself, and who might Clare be?’

‘She’s my sister.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Tall, blonde, persistent…?’

He’d missed out ‘beautiful’, which was tactful of him. ‘You’ve met.’ Of course they had—when Clare set her mind on something she didn’t hang around.

‘Not met precisely. I saw her through the window; she was knocking on the door.’

‘You don’t have a door.’

The bed to make love to her in, the door to keep out the world—he was a man who believed in prioritising.

‘I do now.’ A few phone calls had improved the conditions to bearable. ‘I also have electricity. If I’m staying around I see no reason to suffer unnecessarily.’

How big an ‘if’ are we talking about here, she wondered, and do I have any influence on it?

‘Why didn’t you answer the door?’ she puzzled abruptly. One sight of Clare would have most men tripping over themselves to let her in.

‘I came here to escape people.’

Darcy knew what he’d come to escape, and she also knew that memories were not so easy to shake as flesh and blood people. It wasn’t her place to share this with him—if he’d chosen to confide in her it might have been different, but he hadn’t.

‘I thought it was just Christmas,’ she reminded him as with a grin she draped a strand of tinsel around his neck.

‘Slip of the tongue.’

It could slip in her direction any time. ‘Freudian…?’

‘You tell me; you seem very well-versed.’ His expression didn’t suggest his opinion of psychoanalysis was high.

‘This is Christmas.’ Her gesture took in the room. ‘And I’m people,’ she reminded him.

He reached out and cupped her chin in his hand. ‘You’re a special person,’ he contradicted firmly.

The breath caught in her throat. It didn’t mean anything; there had only been one special person in Reece’s life and he had lost her.

Darcy had promised herself she wouldn’t allow herself to fall into this trap. When he wasn’t here it had been easy to tell herself she wasn’t going to see desire in his face and read love. Now he was here she had to keep reminding herself he was out for a good time and that was all; she had to accept that because the only alternative to not seeing him at all was even less acceptable—wasn’t it…?

‘Why are you here, Reece?’

An alertness flickered into his eyes. ‘Here as in this room? Or are we talking bed…life…?’ His voice hardened. ‘What’s happened, Darcy?’

‘Nothing.’ Nervously she withdrew the hand he held and nursed it against her chest.

‘Then why won’t you look at me?’ He took her chin in his hand and forced her face up to him. ‘Look at me, Darcy,’ he commanded. His eyes scoured her face, reading each line and curve. ‘Someone’s told you about Joanne.’

Joanne…so that had been her name. It struck her afresh that his perception was nothing short of spooky.

‘Nick,’ she admitted, half-relieved. ‘I’m so sorry, Reece.’

‘And now you want to comfort me, offer me solace and make me forget…’

It was hard not to recoil from the arid harshness in his voice.

‘You’ll never forget; why would you want to? I’m sure you have a lot of precious memories.’ She could almost see the barriers going up—she had to do something to stop him retreating behind them. ‘And actually,’ she improvised wildly, ‘I’m concerned about getting…involved with someone who has so much unresolved…’ Her underdeveloped lying skills deserted her.

‘Angst…? Baggage…?’ he suggested with a quirk of one dark brow.

Darcy had the distinct impression he was relieved by what she’d said.

‘I don’t mean to be callous.’ It horrified her that he found it so easy to believe she was that shallow.

‘Don’t apologise for being honest, Darcy.’

Ouch!

The lines bracketing his sensual mouth suddenly relaxed. ‘Sorry.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What for?’

‘I get defensive.’

And I’m not defensive enough, she thought, staring longingly up into his strong-boned face—she loved every inch of it.

‘I was afraid at first you might be the sort of girl on the look-out for marriage and children.’

It was coming over loud and clear that he didn’t want either—at least, not with her!

‘Me…?’ she gave a jaunty laugh and shook her head. ‘That’s not on my agenda for years and years yet!’

‘It’s hard to timetable these things. Sometimes it happens when you least expect it.’

‘Is that how it happened…with you and your wife?’ She seemed to have tapped into some hitherto unsuspected streak of masochism in her nature. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’

His taut jawline tensed. ‘Jo and I were as good as brought up together; her parents and mine were… You know the sort of thing.’ Darcy nodded. ‘She proposed to me when we were seven.’ For a moment his expression softened and grew distant. ‘I did the proposing the next time. Keep your eyes wide open, sweetheart,’ he recommended gently. ‘It would be a shame to miss a once-in-a-lifetime experience because you were concentrating on your career.’

The irony was exquisitely painful. ‘You think it only happens once?’

‘I know it only happens once.’

Darcy’s thoughts drifted to her mother and Jack; they might not seem to be the world’s most perfect couple just now but she had total faith in their love for one another. And significantly both of them had had previous marriages. It was hard to bite back the retort that hovered on the tip of her tongue.

‘And if, like you, something happens to…?’ she probed clumsily.

‘Then that part of your life is over,’ he bit back abruptly. ‘There are other things…’ his restless eyes wandered hungrily over her trim figure ‘…like sex.’

He was condemning himself to a very bleak future—not to mention herself. Despite the rebellion which she sensed building up inside her, Darcy had no control over her physical response to the smoky, sensual invitation in his eyes.

‘And that’s enough for you?’ How sad—how horribly sad. Is that what she wanted to be? A distraction to temporarily fill the gaping hole in his life?

‘You sound like my mother.’

A person that Darcy was beginning to have a lot of sympathy for. How did you help someone who didn’t think he needed helping?

‘It’s not enough for me, Reece.’ Fundamentally you couldn’t change yourself, not even for love. It was a relief to recognise that she’d only be pretending to let him think otherwise, and, as tempted as she was to take what he had to offer, she knew that in the long run it would be more painful.

With a sinking heart she watched his expression shifting, growing harder and more remote.

‘I thought you enjoyed uncomplicated sex.’

His tone wasn’t quite a sneer but it was painfully close to it. Darcy flushed and lowered her eyes. Letting her mind drift back over her recent uninhibited behaviour, she wasn’t surprised he’d arrived at this conclusion.

‘At the time, but not later on.’

‘That morning-after-the-night-before feeling—you’re very frank.’

‘It’s no reflection on you, on your…’

His mobile lips curled as she floundered. ‘Technique?’ he suggested. ‘Don’t fret, Darcy, I’m not plagued with doubts in that direction.’

‘You might be a nicer person if you were!’

‘Would it make any difference to your decision if we were to put this arrangement on a more formal footing?’

‘Formal!’ she echoed, startled.

‘Formal as in exclusive.’ He hadn’t planned to say this and in fact had been almost as surprised to hear himself say it as she appeared to be. Now he had, he could see the practical advantages of the idea—the idea of her being with other men was one he’d been having major problems with.

‘As in, you don’t sleep with anyone else?’

‘As in, neither of us sleep with anyone else,’ he corrected blandly. Darcy’s eyes widened. Was that a hint of possessiveness she was hearing, and, if it was, what did that mean?

‘That would be a major sacrifice.’ Did the man think she cruised the single scene in a bid to add fresh scalps to her belt?

He seemed to find her sarcasm encouraging. ‘It makes sense; we both want the same things…you’re not at the stage where you want a commitment, and I’m past it.’

Darcy gazed up at him, speechless with incredulity. You dear, delicious, deluded man, she thought bleakly.

‘Are you still worried I’m a loose cannon, emotionally speaking?’

I’m the only emotional basket case around here. ‘You seem to have got your life on track very successfully,’ she choked. ‘Your work-life, anyhow.’

Reece’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘Nick again…’

‘He mentioned you didn’t take any time off after the…accident.’

‘Very tactfully put,’ he congratulated her. ‘A certain section of the Press never forgave me for ruining a great tragic story by not falling apart in public. I’m not comfortable with the role of tragic hero,’ he explained, a spasm of fastidious disgust crossing his face. ‘After Joanne died the Press had a field-day. The public appetite for the personal tragedy of people who have a high public profile is almost limitless. They wheeled out the experts to pontificate on the grieving process, interviewed every person I’d ever said good morning to…’

Darcy could feel the pain behind his prosaic words. It must have been agony for a very private man to have his grief dissected and analysed.

‘And when you were working you weren’t thinking.’

Reece shot her a startled look. ‘That was the theory—it didn’t always work,’ he admitted wryly. ‘After Jo’s death the Press pack were their usual rabid selves, and my lack of co-operation only increased their appetite. Of course when I didn’t oblige them by drowning my sorrows in a gin bottle they were even less happy. Chequebook journalism being what it is, any ex of mine can look forward to making a tidy profit—several have.’

Darcy’s face froze. ‘Is that meant to be an incentive?’ she breathed wrathfully.

‘Hell, no, I didn’t mean you!’ he exclaimed—she seemed to be remarkably lacking in avarice.

Darcy’s hands went to her hips as she tossed back her hair. ‘You’d better not.’

‘I’ve made you mad, haven’t I?’

‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ she snapped sarcastically.

‘Let me take you to dinner; we can talk more.’

Darcy didn’t want to talk more—she’d already had more talk than she could cope with. ‘I c-can’t go to dinner with you,’ she stuttered.

‘Why not?’

‘Well, I’ve got a lot to do.’

‘You have to eat.’

‘And it’s Clare’s first night home.’

He looked palpably unimpressed by her clinching argument. ‘The table’s booked for eight-thirty.’ He consulted his watch. ‘That gives you twenty minutes to get ready.’

‘Do people always do what you say?’

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