CAROLINE FORBES paused in adjusting the curtain behind her desk to screen the January sun, and for a few moments admired the view. The building where she worked was a quite modern multi-storey one, and past the shops and offices of Manhattan's heart the New York harbor sparkled in the morning sunlight, with Sandy Hook rising gracefully from its waters in the distance.
Hayley, the secretary Caroline shared with Jenna Sommers, The Women's editor, poked her curly head around the door, and Caroline turned.
"He's here!" Hayley hissed dramatically. "The New Mikaelson! He's just gone into Jenna's office."
Hiding slight alarm, Caroline said, "Well, he can't eat us, can he?"
"Can't he, though?" Hayley asked cryptically. Glancing behind her as though forestall being pounced on, she said, "They say he's a terror." Muttering that she had better look busy, she shut the door.
Wryly, Caroline reflected that "They" had been saying so ever since the news broke that Petrova & Company, publishers of several magazines, had been taken over by Mikaelson Associates. Rumour said the firm had British connections. The new managing editor, a son of the original Mikaelson, was suppose to have spent several years in England and picked up some high-powered business methods there.
There did seem to be some basis for Hayley apprehension about the new boss, Caroline supposed. No one at The Women had as yet met the man, and Caroline strove to keep an open mind. But such was the reputation that had preceded him that it became increasingly difficult not to have preconceived ideas. Klaus Mikaelson left his mark, and those on whom he left it so often described him in adjectives ranging from dynamic to ruthless – that the entire staff was in a state of nervous tension waiting for his first descent upon them. After news had filtered through from some of the other magazines' staffs of probing questions, drastic re-shuffles of staff and one or two early retirements, it was inevitable that some not-very-original wit would coin the nickname of "New Mikaelson" for Klaus Mikaelson. 'Home Depot' and 'Travel News' had been thoroughly shaken up, by all accounts, and 'Living Up', the grapevine said, was likely to 'get the chop'. Now, apparently, it was 'The Women's turn for a visitation.
Caroline, although noted for her calm efficiency, was not entirely immune to the air of apprehension that hung over the offices, and although she tried to be open-minded about the changes that had taken place in the firm, she had a distinct feeling that life was going to be less pleasant with Klaus Mikaelson in charge.
Determined not to allow the knowledge of his presence in the room next door to change her normal routine, she took up the small copper watering-can which stood on the filing cabinet in the corner of her office and carefully watered the kumara plant which trailed its heart-shaped leaves along the wall from its pottery container. To her annoyance, she jumped almost guiltily when the intercom on her desk buzzed as she was engaged in this task, and a small trickle of water landed on the carpet.
"Yes?" she said rather more crisply than usual, as she placed the can on her desk.
"Mr Mikaelson is with me, Caroline," said the Editor's voice. "Could you come in and help me to—to explain how we work?"
Help you to deal with the ogre, you mean, Caroline thought humorously, detecting a slight note of appeal behind the words. Jenna Sommers had steered The Women from undeniably shaky beginnings to the position of the most successful of Petrova & Company's publications, holding second place among the national magazines aimed primarily at women. Caroline was convinced she had nothing to fear from the New Mikaelson, but as Jenna's assistant editor for the last year, she had learned with surprise that the older woman was unexpectedly lacking in self-confidence, although she usually hid it well.
Quickly she checked her appearance in the full-length mirror built into the inside of the narrow closet in one way. Blonde curly hair was neat and glossy, framing an oval face, lightly made up to gloss a faint summer tan. Eye make-up discreetly highlighted deep blue eyes feckled with gold and grey in close-up, and accentuated naturally dark lashes and nicely shaped brows. Her lipstick looked fresh and clearly outlined a mouth that was attractive enough. Her white shirt-style blouse and simple dark grey skirt looked neat and businesslike, like her medium-heeled light tan shoes.
Satisfied that she looked like an efficient assistant editor, she tapped on the door to Jenna Sommers's office and went in.
Her first thought was that he had been bullying Jenna, for the editor's eyes were anxious, and her cheeks faintly flushed. Her next thought, as she turned a rather hostile gaze on him, was that he didn't look like an ogre. His face was calm and quite good-looking.
Then, as Jenna introduced them and he stood to shake her hand, she saw that he was taller than she thought, probably a head taller than her. It wasn't apparently until one stood close to him, perhaps because he had a relaxed, though not stooped, stance. Broad shoulders set off a well-proportioned masculine frame. A good tan enhanced his undoubted attraction.
His hand was firm and warm, and as she looked up to give him a cool smile of greeting, she had an inkling of what "they" meant when they spoke in slightly awed tones about this man. There was nothing startling about his features, although she noticed fleetingly that his mouth looked well-defined and firm, red lips, but his eyes met hers with an impact that startled her. They were green and very probing, and when she stepped back as he released her hand, they made an impersonal but very thorough assessment of her from head to toe and back again. His mouth moved a little at the corner as his eyes returned to her slightly defiant stare, and he gave a little nod of seeming approval, which instantly antagonized her, and told her mildly to sit down.
The antagonism grew over the next hour. He was nothing if not thorough. He took them over every aspect of the magazine production—policies, methods, deadlines, layouts, artwork, readership, advertising. There seemed to be nothing he did not want to know, although the financial aspect was apparently already at his fingertips, judging from some of the questions he asked.
He made very little comment, and if anything his face gave away less of what he was thinking as the morning progressed than it had at the beginning. But Caroline was not stupid, and the trend of the questions showed the way his mind was working.
How much had the circulation increased in the past year or two? His dark-blonde head nodded impassively as he digested the answer, and Caroline had an intuitive feeling he had know. Only one women's magazine outsold The Women, after all…Defending her chief, Caroline reminded her that.
Yes, he said smoothly, and mentioned by how much. He certainly did his homework, Lee admitted silently.
And the final, deadly question. How long had Miss Sommers been editing The Women?
Caroline, who had braved a few razor-sharped glances from his cold green eyes to divert his attention from Jenna's flushed and flustered face and reply to some of these questions for her, could not answer this. She longed to hear her chief say something cutting like, since you were in short pants, young man! For he would be in his middle or late twenties, and she was forty, as Caroline happened to know.
But in answer to his soft-voiced question—and Caroline acknowledge that there was nothing hectoring in his manner, in fact his voice seemed to grow more gentle as his queries became more lethal—Jenna said unhappily, "Fifteen years."
"That's an impressive record," Klaus Mikaelson said quietly. And he smiled. The smile was quite startlingly attractive, making deep dimples and showing very nice teeth. It even seemed to warm his eyes. But although Jenna smiled back in a slightly bemused way, Caroline sat stiffly way, and she didn't like him, and she was very sire that the smile was as the smile on the face of a tiger.
Hayley brought in cups of tea, and Caroline noted the slight, amused quirk at the corner of his mouth as the visitor—except, she reminded herself, that he wasn't a visitor, he was their new boss—was handed one of the dainty china cups and invited to help himself to milk and sugar from a matching jug and sugar basin. She was sure he was seeing them as a symbol of the out-of-date magazine they were producing.
Forgetting the tentative attempts she had made herself to bring a more modern approach to parts of The Women, she was possessed of a lively indignation that led her to stir her sugar into her tea with more vigour than was warranted, so that it slopped into the saucer. She glanced up to find Klaus watching her with apparent interest, and was further annoyed because he had noted her small clumsiness. He, she noticed, didn't take sugar at all. He wouldn't! she concluded with unnecessary venom. Sweetening would be the last thing he wanted.
Later they showed him round and introduced him to everyone, and then Jenna remembered an appointment, explaining in what Caroline considered to be quite unnecessary detail that it was a business appointment, and exactly why she couldn't cancel it.
Klaus was perfectly polite about it, almost soothing in fact, and Jenna went off, leaving him, with an apologetic glance, in Caroline's office.
Not having the faintest clue what to do with him, Caroline said briskly, "Won't you sit down, please, ?"
She saw him glance at the copper watering-can that still rested on her desk, and she moved it back to the filing cabinet as he looked around the rest of the room, his gaze coming back to her as she sat down behind the desk.
"Is there anything else you would like to know?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, immediately. "I would like to know what your ideas are on improving the magazine."
"Mine?"
"That's right." He seemed quite at ease in the chair opposite hers, his hands resting lightly in its upholstered arms.
Realizing she was avoiding his eyes, she raised hers to his face and said, "I don't see why you want my ideas."
He said softly, "I don't need a reason"—and she supposed that was a reminder that he was the man in charge now—"but if you want one, you're young and presumably you didn't get to be assistant editor by being dimwitted; you looked reasonably with-it and from the little I've seen this morning I'd say that far from being dim, you're highly intelligent and full of light. So I'm very sure that you must have some ideas of your own."
"When I do, I'll pass my suggestions on to Miss Sommers," she said stiffly.
"Who doesn't take them."
"I didn't say that," she said coldly.
"You didn't have to. It's perfectly obvious that no really innovative changes have been made in the magazines for the last ten years of more."
"If you have a successful formula," she said, "why change it? You do know that The Women is the firm's top seller?"
He said, with the first sign of impatience she had seen, "Yes. Also the country's second best seller in the field. Second-best might be good enough for Petrova—Mikaelson like to be first."
I'll bet they do, she thought. And you're going to make sure that they are. She took another look at his impassive face and revised her fist opinion of it. He might not be wonderfully handsome, but his mouth and chin had a definite cast of power, and no one could ignore those compelling eyes. At the moment, surprisingly, they held a gleam of humour that was echoed in the small tug at the corner of his mouth.
"So—" he said, apparently reading the expression on her face. "You don't like me, Miss Forbes. Too bad. But if you want to keep your job you'll just have to grin it and bear it, won't you?"
"I don't think I've given you any reason to think that—"she began, shaken by his brutal frankness, but determined not to show it.
"My dear sweetheart," he said with something approaching boredom, "it sticks out a mile. Your lovely face, in case you didn't know, is very expensive."
Her lovely face? Caroline wondered if that was an unthinking cliché, because certainly nothing had led her to think that he admired her.
"Oh yes, I had noticed," he said softly, the gleam in his eyes intensifying. "Beauty, intelligence, and loyalty for starters," he mused, openly enjoying her astonishment now. "I wonder what else lies under that nun-like outfit." His eyes passed faintly disparagement over her clothes.
"Scepticism!" she snapped, because in spite of herself he was disturbing her, and she strongly suspected his motives.
He glanced at the handsome wrist-watch he wore and suddenly stood up. "Supposingly I take you out to lunch and find out," he said, coming to her side of the desk and pulling out her chair so that she had no choice but to stand too. She couldn't tell whether it was by accident or design, but when she rose the chair was behind her at an angle that made it impossible to pass by it. Klaus was standing between the desk and the wall on the other side, fingering a leaf of her kumara plant. She took a tentative step that brought her close to him, expecting him to move back out of her way, but he didn't. He turned his head instead and said, "Is this the reason for the watering-can?"
"Yes," she said, not moving back because that would have looked silly. He wasn't touching her and there was no reason for her breath to be catching in her chest, but it was, and she was very much aware of the masculinity of the hand that finally stopped fingering the leaf and dropped to her waist to guide her before him as they went round the desk.
"Is this a business lunch?" she asked bluntly, moving away from his light touch and turning to face him.
She received the full force of his smile, which was really unfairly devastating, considering she didn't even like the man.
"What else?" he said smoothly. "Don't you have me down as a hard-headed businessman whose every move is calculated to increase my wealth and power?"
"Just as long as I know," she said, taking her bag from the closet and hanging it over her shoulder.
He gave a low laugh as he opened the door for her.
They ate salad and seafood in a good restaurant close to the office, and he ordered wine which Caroline drank sparingly. When she put her hand over her glass he said softly, "Are you afraid I'm plying you with wine to pry confidences from you?"
She shook her head, smiling a little, because he was being a good company and the food and wine must have mellowed her a little towards him. "It makes me sleep, and I have to work this afternoon."
"Conscientious," he murmered, with such patent approbation that she had to laugh.
He leaned back in his chair and watched her, his own glass in one hand. Perhaps it was the wine, but his eyes were far from cold now, and she felt warmth flood through her at the look in them. "Of course, I could give you the afternoon off," he said.
Coupled with the look in his eyes, she wasn't at all sure what they meant, and was immediately wary.
"And give you the excuse to sack me?" she said lightly. "No, thanks, Mr Mikaelson."
"I wouldn't sack you," he said. "I brought you out for lunch because I want you to keep on working for the firm, and I hoped it would help you overcome your dislike of me."
By overwhelming me with your fatal charm? she wondered. Aloud, she said, smiling, "I can't be bribed with food and wine, Mr Mikaelson."
"Incorruptible, too," he commented, his eyes faintly mocking. "Or does the qualification mean you can be bribed with suitable inducements?"
"I don't really know," she said. "No one has ever tried."
"Well, that's honest, anyway." He look became slightly speculative. "You tempt me to try," he added.
"I didn't intend to," she assured him, sure that to tempt this man in any way could be a dangerous game, although the tiger claws were well sheathed at the moment. She would prefer them to stay hidden.
Back at the office, Hayley looked up with slight surprise as they entered together. She had already left for her own lunch before they went out.
Although he was right behind her, Caroline didn't wait for Klaus to open the door of her own office, and as she went through the doorway rather quickly, she was halted with a jerk when the strap of her shoulder bag caught on the handle. Her companion cannoned into her, his hard body almost knocking the breath from hers. Then his arm was about her waist to steady her, and his other hand freed the bag and slid the strap from her shoulder as he took her with him into the room and shut the door. It all seemed to happen in the space of a second and she had no chance to move out of his hold before her bag thudded softly to the floor and his other arm encircled her and turned her fully to him.
Then his mouth was on hers, firm and warm and undeniably sensual. He held her very closely, and the thin shirt under her hands did little to mute the warmth of his body against hers. She found that she wanted desperately to respond to the insistent lip moving against her mouth, and to stop herself, she pushed against him with her hands.
Briefly his hold tightened, then he let her go, quite without haste. He was smiling a little quizzically as she stepped back from his embrace, and there was an underlying satisfaction in his eyes that annoyed her intensely.
Automatically she picked up her bag and as he watched she dumped it on top of her desk and took out a tissue and wiped her mouth, trying to think of something cutting to say. She was twenty four and couldn't claim never to have been kissed, but she was a great believer in kisses being part of a real relationship rather than a simple flaring of physical attraction between people who had only just met. Besides, she had a distinct feeling that this had been somewhat of an experiment on his part, though she was not at all sure what he had hoped to prove.
"Do I take it this is another of the things I have to 'put up with' if I want to keep my job?" Baiting the tiger was foolish, but her pride demanded it.
The spark of anger in his eyes was hidden so quickly she might have imagined it. But the quality of the smile he gave her was definitely nasty. "Not at all," he said smoothly. "You could call it an attempt to find other inducements. But obviously I don't turn you on."
"No," she lied cooly.
"You wouldn't believe, I suppose, that I simply gave in to a natural impulse on finding a very attractive young woman in my arms."
She didn't believe for a minute that he was a man who gave in to impulse without a second thought, and she let him see her disbelief in her face. "I shall take care that you don't 'find me in your arms' again," she said tartly. "Thank you for the lunch."
He laughed softly. "I think I'm going to enjoy having you working for me."
"I'm thinking of resigning," she said.
"Rubbish! You love your job—that much I discovered over lunch."
He had, too, she realized. He was, in fact, exasperatingly clever.
When he left to go in search of Miss Sommers, she was profoundly relieved, but as the tension ebbed from her it left her feeling decidedly flat. It might not be easy working under the New Mikaelson, but it promised to be remarkably stimulating, at least.