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'But Mr Mallen is having dinner at the Sandersons',' Conchita said brightly, before stopping abruptly and casting a glance at Joanne that clearly stated she was worried she had made a gaffe.
'Oh, yes, I remember now.' Joanne found herself speaking as easily and naturally as though she lied with every other breath, and the fabrication must have been convincing because Conchita relaxed again, bustling away quite happily a few minutes later.
The Sandersons. She remembered the Sandersons: Mr and Mrs Sanderson, filthy rich and full of their own importance, and Victoria Sanderson-elegant, beautiful and clearly crazy about Hawk. They had been at the Christmas Eve party, and Victoria's black looks had left Joanne in no doubt at all as to how the ravishing blonde viewed Hawk's house guest.
So he had rushed off to seek solace with the voluptuous Victoria, had he? She found she was grinding her teeth and it shocked her, bringing her shooting out of her seat as though she were on springs. It didn't matter, it didn't; she wouldn't let it.
By the time Conchita brought the dinner tray at seven o'clock, Joanne had phoned the airport and made a reservation on a night flight to France; mercifully there had been a cancellation and a seat was available. It was the coward's way out-she knew that, she told herself miserably as she forced herself to swallow a few mouthfuls of the delicious dinner-but there was no way on this earth she could endure seeing Hawk tomorrow and travelling back to France with him as he had arranged. Besides, by relieving him of his duty towards her he could spend a few more days basking in Victoria's adoration if he wanted to, she thought painfully, bitter anguish making her as white as a sheet.
She was waiting in the hall when the taxi arrived, and slipped out quietly after leaving a note for Hawk thanking him for his hospitality, but saying in the circumstances she thought it better to leave at once. She also left the ruby pendant and bracelet.
She slept a little on the flight home, but the jangled nightmarish dreams were frightening and more exhausting than trying to stay awake, and by the time they landed, in the early hours of a cold and rainy Paris morning, she felt ill with a mixture of reaction and jet lag.
Once back in her apartment she fell into bed without bothering to undress, but in spite of falling into a deep, dreamless sleep as soon as her head touched the pillow she was awake again within a couple of hours, her brain dissecting every word that had passed between her and Hawk until she thought she would go mad.
She had showered, dressed, and left the apartment before eight, driven by a nervous tension so acute that she walked most of the distance to Bergique & Son, only riding the metro for the last part of the journey.
For the first time since she had been living there Paris looked dull and dismal, the Parisians colourless and drab; in fact the very air seemed heavy and lifeless and defunct It frightened her if she thought about it-this inert, joyless stupor that seemed to have taken her over since the conversation in Hawk's car-and so she was almost glad when, arriving at the office a day early, much to Antoinette's consternation, she found Pierre in her office rifling through the filing cabinet which had been locked when she'd left, and pure fury replaced the deadness.
'What are you doing?' It wasn't a time for social niceties and they both knew it.
The heavy-set Frenchman had swung round at her entry into the room, dropping the file he had been holding so the papers flew in a whirling arc about their feet, but he recovered himself almost instantly, the ingratiating smile she had seen once or twice before stitching itself in place. 'Joanne, we weren't expecting you-'
'Je suis désolée, Pierre-'
'Never mind saying you are sorry to him!' Joanne swung round so violently as Antoinette spoke behind her that the French girl actually backed away a step. 'It should be me you are apologising to, Antoinette. What on earth are you thinking of to let someone have access to my filing cabinet anyway?' she asked furiously.
'I can explain, Joanne.' Pierre's smile hadn't wavered. 'This is just a mistake.'
'I agree, Pierre, and I think you are the one who made it,' Joanne said cuttingly. 'You have no right to be in this building and you know it; I saw the contract Hawk made you sign and it is crystal-clear about that very thing. What is this file anyway?' She bent and picked up some of the papers from the floor, and in so doing missed the nod Pierre gave to his ex-secretary to close the office door so the three of them couldn't be overheard.
Joanne recognised the papers instantly; she had been working on the Netta Productions file prior to the Christmas break, and had begun to be very concerned about the matter before Hawk had whisked her away so abruptly. There had been the smell of something very nasty about the case but the facts had been buried in masses of red tape, and it had required patient and tactful digging to unearth the truth. Looking at Pierre's face as she raised her head, Joanne suddenly had the feeling she was staring at all the answers.
'Well?' Joanne stood up slowly, and it was only then that something very cold and very dark trickled down her backbone as she saw the look in the Frenchman's eyes.
'You stupid, arrogant Englishwoman.' He spat the words out of his mouth, following them with a string of profanities that were all the more menacing for being spoken so softly. 'You poke and you pry, do you not? You cannot leave anything alone.'
'You were responsible for that firm going bankrupt, weren't you?' Joanne said slowly, her intuition putting the last piece in the jigsaw. 'It wasn't their managing director who orchestrated the fraud, it was you, and you let an innocent man kill himself when the finger was pointed at him.'
'He was a weak fool.' Pierre's voice held not the slightest compassion. 'Now give me the papers, Joanne, and if you know what is good for you you will forget this conversation ever took place. I have many friends- friends who are invisible and can come and go at will; it would not be wise to cross me.'
'You're threatening me?' She couldn't believe it, she thought wildly. This was the sort of dialogue that belonged to an old second-rate movie, not an up-market publishing company at nine-thirty in the morning of a working day.
'But of course, this is one of the things I do so well.' Pierre flicked his head at Antoinette, indicating for her to leave the room, which she did with an alacrity that told Joanne the French girl was as scared as she was.
'You have only to say nothing and this whole unfortunate matter will die a death,' Pierre continued softly, walking across the room to stand in front of her, his dark eyes gleaming as he looked down into her pale face. 'That is not so hard, is it?' He put out a hand and raised her chin a little.
'Don't threaten me, Pierre.' His touch banished the fear that had had her in its grip, and put steel in her backbone. 'I won't be intimidated by you or anyone else. And don't touch me either.'
'No?' He considered her angry face with a slight smile. 'Perhaps I have underrated the little English girl, eh? Then what would you say to a more…agreeable solution? Perhaps a little thank-you in anticipation? Shall we say a figure of…?'
He mentioned a sum of money that brought her eyes wide open and her mouth slack, before she found her tongue. 'You think everyone is for sale, don't you, Pierre?' she said with icy and scathing disdain. 'Well, this may come as something of a surprise but I am not. These papers will go to the authorities, along with a report of our conversation today, and I think you might be viewing most of the new year from the inside of a prison cell.'
'I can't let you do that, Joanne.' His hands shot out to grasp her upper arms in an iron-like grip that was meant to terrorise. 'Don't make me hurt you-'
'Take your filthy hands off her.'
Pierre just had time to raise his head before he was plucked bodily into the air, and flung across the room with enough force to send him crashing against the far wall, where he landed with all the finesse of a stunned elephant.
