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Keep it in proportion, Eve. It’s been a tough week and it isn’t over yet, she reminded herself as she averted her gaze from the long scarlet nails that were possessively stroking his sleeve.
Her heart was thudding so hard that she could hardly hear her response to the woman almost as famous for her rich and famous boyfriends as she was for her perfect body. If he was Sabrina’s latest that made him rich…well, that explained the arrogant air of smug assurance that really got under her skin and, as for famous, well…these days who wasn’t? Even she could type her name into a search engine and have pages appear.
‘Hello, Sabrina.’ She acknowledged the tall stranger from earlier with an unsmiling nod while she struggled against the effects of his brain-mushing charisma.
‘Eve, it’s so good to see you.’ Eve got a whiff of heavy perfume as the air either side of her face was kissed. ‘And perfect timing too. I can tell you in person…’ The dramatic pause stretched a little too long before her announcement. ‘I’m available.’
Eve always hated the feeling of walking into a conversation halfway through. Was she meant to know what the woman was talking about…?
Draco watched the expression on Eve’s face; it was clear she didn’t have a clue what the blonde was talking about. He fought a laugh with more success than he had fought the gut kick of lust he had no defence against when he had recognised the petite figure who, unless he was mistaken, had been about to make good an escape.
Draco wasn’t used to women who crossed the road to avoid him—they did the reverse occasionally—and he wondered what he’d done to make her look down her elegant little nose at him. His ego remained intact—it was pretty robust most of the time—but his interest was piqued. What would it take to melt that stern disapproval into uncritical adoration? He was setting his sights too high, he realised; he didn’t want adoration from her, just a smile. Although adoration might be nice after a long night getting to know her better…?
‘You are?’ Eve asked Sabrina.
‘Yes, but my agent said he is still waiting for a call back from your office about the new campaign…so-o-o exciting. He said something about you not using models this time.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘But I told him it’s obvious you think I’m still committed to the supermarket people, but the thing is I decided to call it a day with them as they were just going so down market and not the sort of thing I want to be associated with at all.’
‘Sorry, Sabrina, but I’ve been out of the country so the agency has been doing all the recruiting.’
‘But you’ll have the final say…right?’
Eve was tempted to say she’d be in touch but her innate sense of honesty won out. It would be unfair to string the other girl along. ‘Actually your agent had it right; we’re not using models, just real women…not that you’re not real, but you’re not ordinary. What I mean is—’
‘She means, Sabrina, that normal women can never aspire to looking like you do.’
Had anyone else made the intervention Eve might have felt grateful, but instead she found herself biting back a childish retort of Don’t tell me what I mean.
‘You’re so sweet.’ Sabrina pressed a soft kiss on his lean cheek.
Eve rolled her eyes and thought perleeze just as, above the model’s head, the dark eyes found her own. His sleek ebony brows lifted and he smiled, the sort of smile that she imagined a fox might produce when contemplating a defenceless chick.
Eve narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin in silent challenge. She was not defenceless or stupid enough to smile at a man who could flirt with one woman while another was kissing him!
As she pulled away the model’s complacent expression faded. ‘But isn’t that the idea? They all think if they buy the product they will look like me,’ she said, looking confused.
Eve heaved a sigh. She had neither the time nor the inclination to explain herself to this woman whom she ungenerously stigmatised as totally self-centred. Her eyes slid of their own volition to her tall, arrogant companion…not a case of opposites attracting in their case, she decided waspishly, but like meeting like. ‘Sorry, but I must run…lovely to bump into you…’ She could hear the insincerity in her voice but didn’t hang around to see if anyone else had. Head down, she headed for the entrance to the underground car park.
The brief encounter had left her feeling… She laughed, the sound echoing around the concrete shell, and shook her head. If there was ever a moment when she was allowed to feel weird it was today! Ignoring the fact her hand was still shaking, she fished her key ring out of her bag.
She had enough to deal with today without analysing the skin-tingling effect of a sexy stranger who represented pretty much everything she despised in a man. She was jet-lagged, facing the prospect of biting her tongue while her mother threw away her life and freedom and—she rubbed her shoulder and grimaced—she’d just had minor surgery. She was definitely permitted a little weird.
* * *
‘I’m curious, why do you keep running away from me?’
Eve started violently, nearly losing her grip on her keys as she spun around. How on earth could someone that big make so little sound? He was standing a few feet away just beyond a sleek gleaming monster that was the motoring equivalent of him. If she cared about cars she would probably know what it was, but she didn’t so in her head she simply grouped it under the heading of look at me I have loads of money.
She lifted her chin. ‘There are laws against stalking.’ She knew perfectly well that none of the adrenaline pumping through her body was the result of fear…which was too worrying to think about just now.
‘And quite right too; speaking from experience it can be—’
Her hoot of derision cut him off. ‘God, it must be so tough being irresistible to the opposite sex.’ She only just stopped herself hastily adding she was not one of that number, but then actions always spoke louder than words and she hoped she was channelling contempt and not lust. There was no way in the world that he could know about the shameful heat at the juncture of her thighs.
‘I’m flattered—’
‘Not my intention.’ She sounded breathless, and she definitely felt breathless as she fought to hold onto her defiance in the face of the suggestion of a smile her retort had produced.
She didn’t know him.
She disliked him.
She had never felt such a strong reaction to a man. Ever.
‘Relax, cara, this is my car.’ He pressed his key fob and the monster’s lights flashed.
Calling herself every kind of a fool—sure, you’re so irresistible every drop-dead gorgeous man has to follow you, she thought scathingly—she wrenched her own car door open.
‘Would you like dinner sometime?’
Draco was almost as surprised to hear himself make the offer as she looked to hear it. It had been an uncharacteristic impulse kicked into life by the sight of her getting in that car and the knowledge he would never see her again.
‘Well, it seems like such a waste…all this…’ his long fingers moved in an expressive gesture that encompassed the space between them ‘…chemistry.’
Draco felt satisfied with this explanation for his uncharacteristically impulsive behaviour. She looked—he studied the small heart-shaped face lifted to him—less so.
The soft flush that covered her skin and the angry sparkle in her luminous green eyes made him tip his head in a nod of approval. There was passion there. He knew he’d been right about the chemistry.
‘I’m assuming it’s an ego thing with you…you have to have every woman your willing slave.’
He adopted a thoughtful expression as though considering the charge, then slowly shook his head. ‘Slave suggests passive,’ he purred, staring at her mouth with an expression that made her stomach quiver with a mixture of anger and lust she refused to acknowledge. ‘I find passive boring.’
‘Well, I find men who have massive egos boring!’ she jeered, and slid onto the driver’s seat. ‘And there is no chemistry,’ she yelled, before slamming the car door.
She could hear the sound of his low throaty laughter above the metallic scream as she crunched the gears before finding reverse.
CHAPTER TWO
THE TWO YOUNG women who stood waiting in the bedroom were both in their mid-twenties but there the similarity ended.
The girl who sat on the edge of the four-poster, one slim ankle crossed over the other, was an elegant, tall, blue-eyed blonde. The other one, who had spent the last five minutes prowling restlessly up and down the room, her heels making angry tapping sounds on the age-darkened polished boards, was neither tall nor blonde, and, even though the two women were dressed identically, she was somehow not elegant.
She was five three without heels and had chestnut-brown hair. Making no concession to the occasion—the dress was enough—she wore it as she always did: scraped into the heavy knot on her slender neck. It was not a style statement, though it did reveal the length of her neck and the delicate angle of her rounded jaw, just convenient. When exposed to even a sniff of moisture it fell into a mass of uncontrollable kinky waves and Eve liked control in all aspects of her life.
There had been a period when she had struggled to emulate her friend Hannah’s effortless elegance, but no matter how hard she tried it just didn’t happen. She always ended up looking as though she were dressing up in her mother’s clothes. Gradually Eve had found her own style or—as an exasperated Hannah put it—uniform, which was a little unfair. Not all Eve’s trouser suits were black—some were navy—and who had time to shop anyhow when they had a business to run? You couldn’t afford to relax in this competitive world.
‘Ouch!’ She tripped over the skirt of her duck-egg-blue silk bridesmaid dress and banged her knee on the window seat. The pain made her green eyes film with tears.
‘Well, if you’d come to a fitting it wouldn’t be too long.’ Harriet gave an affectionate smile and shook her head. The frantic last-minute pinning meant that Eve’s dress had a sort of waist but the neckline of the fitted bodice still had a tendency to gape and slip down a couple of inches if Eve moved too quickly—and Eve moved quickly a lot. Her friend was never still mentally or physically, and just watching her made Hannah feel tired.
Eve gave another hitch accompanied by a hiss of exasperation. If she’d been more naturally blessed in the boob department it wouldn’t be a problem, but even with the tissues tucked into the strapless bra that was chafing the partially healed scar on her shoulder blade she was one cup size short of keeping the bodice up.
On the plus side, while she was focusing on not exposing herself she wasn’t thinking about her mother throwing herself away on a man who didn’t deserve her! The furrow in danger of becoming permanent in her wide brow deepened because, impending wardrobe malfunction or not, she was thinking about it and had been ever since her mother had rung excited as a schoolgirl with the glad tidings. A week was not a long time but Eve had prayed her mother would come to her senses.
She hadn’t.
‘The measurements you sent must have been way off. Sarah said you’ve lost weight since she saw you last,’ Hannah commented.
Eve felt a stab of guilt that intensified when Hannah made excuses for her.
‘I know Australia is a long way to come for a fitting.’
‘I didn’t go there to avoid my mother!’ Eve protested.
‘I never thought you did.’
Until now, thought Eve, wishing she could keep her big mouth shut. ‘I don’t see what all the big hurry is for anyhow.’ The way Hannah was looking at her made Eve frown. ‘Well, do you?’
Hannah pressed a protective hand to her stomach, reflecting on how odd it was that Eve, who was super smart and intuitive in so many ways, could not have at least suspected. She had often felt a little intimidated by her friend’s quick brain and focused drive, but for all her ability there were times when Eve couldn’t see what was right under her nose and this was one of those occasions. Hannah swiftly changed the subject; now was probably not the time to voice her suspicions.
‘Well, you made it back in time, which is the main thing. I’d have loved you to be at my wedding too,’ Hannah added wistfully.
‘I didn’t get an invite.’
‘I barely made it there myself.’
‘Fine, be mysterious,’ Eve grumbled, thinking that whatever the full story behind her friend’s marriage to the Prince of Surana she had never seen Hannah looking happier or more beautiful—she was positively glowing.
‘But you must be happy, Evie; this is what we have always wanted. For us to finally be a family.’
Eve swallowed the retort on the tip of her tongue.
She could hardly say to the man’s daughter your dad is a sad loser and I never wanted him to marry my mum. I wanted her to wake up to the fact he was using her and end the sordid, secret affair.
She had no idea what had happened to make Charles Latimer, not only acknowledge the long-term affair with his cook after years of hiding it, but propose to her and then invite half the world to the wedding. She glanced out of the window at the sound of another helicopter coming in to land—another VIP, she thought sourly. Charles Latimer certainly moved in glittering circles.
Her jaw set as she turned away. ‘What’s keeping her?’ As far as Eve was concerned it was a disaster!
When the silence stretched Hannah’s expression grew anxious. ‘It’s very romantic.’
Eve’s brows lifted. ‘You think?’
‘You know, I agree with you totally that Dad has behaved very selfishly over the years to Sarah, but your mum is the best thing that has happened to him,’ Hannah said earnestly. ‘I’m just glad he’s woken up to it. I can’t wait for Sarah to be my mum.’
‘She’s a good mum to have,’ Eve said, a lump forming in her throat as she thought of all the sacrifices her single mum had made over the years. She deserved the best and she was getting Charlie Latimer. Eve’s small hands tightened into fists, her nails inscribing half-moons into her palms. ‘I think she already thinks of you as a daughter.’
‘I hope so.’ Hannah’s blue eyes filled with emotional tears, which she blinked to clear as the door to the interconnecting room opened to reveal the bride.
Her face almost as white as the dress she was wearing, Sarah Curtis stood for a moment framed in the doorway before taking a step and almost immediately grabbing onto a table to steady herself. Reacting faster than Eve, Hannah was on her feet in an instant, her beautiful face creased in lines of concern as she rushed to supply a steadying hand to the older woman.
‘Are you all right, Sarah?’
Eve blinked. She wasn’t seeing her mother’s pale face as she was transfixed by the miles and miles of tulle her mother was wearing. The first sight of the outfit on its hanger earlier had rendered her literally speechless and it had been left to Hannah to make the necessary congratulatory noises. Somehow she had managed to sound totally sincere.
Hannah had to be a better actress than she had previously thought because the get-up was quite memorably awful and—what was worse—inappropriate. Eve didn’t know what had possessed her mother to suddenly decide to channel her inner princess!
Sarah gave a wan smile. ‘All I need is a bit of blusher.’
Hannah threw her a knowing look, her hands on her hips, and the older woman sighed heavily, suddenly looking sheepish. ‘All right, I wasn’t planning to tell you girls till later because I’m not quite twelve weeks yet and—’
It had to weigh a ton, Eve thought, sizing up the intricate beading on the mile-long train that was many a girl’s dream. But not hers; she had never dreamed of wearing such an elaborate get-up. Did that make her weird? If so she was glad, she decided defiantly! How did a woman in her forties think that it was in any way appropriate to wear a white meringue wedding dress?
She dragged her gaze upwards just as Hannah, looking totally regal in her beautifully fitting dress—actually she was a princess for real these days, a fact that Eve still hadn’t got her head around—walked over and hugged her mother. Both women were crying, to Eve’s confusion. Had her mum finally realised that the dress was a disaster?
‘You could always ditch the train,’ Eve suggested, trying to remain practical and upbeat for her mother’s sake. She knew she just had to suck it up today and be there for her mum in the future when things went sour with Charles, as they inevitably would.
Sarah, sniffing, laughed. ‘I wish it were that simple. I didn’t have any morning sickness at all with you, darling, but this time…’ She rolled her eyes and accepted the glass of water that Hannah passed her.
Playing mental catch–up, Eve blinked. Morning sickness…? She must have misheard. You only got morning sickness when you were…pregnant!
A stunned vacant expression clouding her green eyes, she felt herself hit a mental brick wall. The impact made her mind go blank and she sat down with a gentle thud on the window seat. Paler even than her mother, she sat there not even breathing until finally her chest lifted in a long shuddering sigh and her lashes swept down in a concealing curtain. She stared at her hands and waited for the dull metronome thud in her ears to subside, but it didn’t.
‘There, that’s better—all you needed was a bit of colour.’
A hand absently rubbing the nape of her neck, Eve looked up as her friend applied a finishing flick of blusher to the older woman’s cheeks.
‘You’re p-pregnant, Mum. H-how?’ Two sets of raised eyebrows turned her way and Eve blushed. She was regressing; she no longer stuttered or blushed. ‘Well, I suppose that explains it.’
‘Explains what, Eve?’ Sarah asked.
Eve shook her head and thought why the rich scumbag Charlie Latimer had suddenly decided, not only to make his secret affair with his cook public knowledge, but to marry the woman who had been his mistress. It didn’t involve a sudden attack of respect or love for Sarah; it was all about the possibility of an heir.
Not that Hannah looked as though she minded the possibility of being disinherited—her friend looked delighted.
‘I knew it,’ Hannah said smugly as she dabbed the moisture from around her soon-to-be stepmother’s eyes. ‘Whoever invented waterproof mascara deserves a medal—not that you’d know about that, Eve.’ She flashed her friend, who had been blessed with naturally thick dark lashes that required no embellishment, an envious smile before turning back to Sarah. ‘I said to Kamel last night that I thought you might be but he said that just because I’m—’ She stopped and covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I wasn’t meant to say anything until Kamel has told his uncle because of all this protocol. You won’t breathe a word, will you…?’
‘Oh, Hannah, darling, Kamel must be thrilled!’ Sarah’s waterproof mascara was once again being put to the test as she reached up to hug Hannah.
‘We both are, but Kamel is acting as though I’m made of glass. He won’t let me do a thing, and the man is driving me crazy,’ Hannah confided with a laugh.
The expression in her friend’s eyes when she said her husband’s name made Eve look away feeling uncomfortable, almost as though she had intruded. Eve was prepared to like the prince her friend had married because he was clearly as potty about Hannah as she was about him, but the cynic in her wondered how long the honeymoon period would last.
‘You’re both having babies.’ Eve was still playing mental catch-up.
Looking mistily ecstatic, Sarah clapped her hands. ‘Isn’t that incredible? Our family is growing, girls.’
‘A real family,’ Hannah chimed in.
Eve cleared her throat. It was obviously her turn to respond, but what to say…? She managed a faint and unimaginative, ‘Incredible.’
She’d moved a long way on since she had lain awake at night wishing she had a real family. Eve had pretty quickly realised that not having a father, at least not one willing to acknowledge she existed, was actually a blessing, not a curse. Unlike the majority of her classmates she had been spared the trauma of seeing her parents going through an ugly divorce or separation.
Her mum had not even had boyfriends until she came to work for Hannah’s father. Hannah had caught on much sooner than Eve and she had been more concerned by the secrecy than the relationship itself.
For Eve, it hadn’t just been the secrecy, it had been everything, and the longer the affair had lasted, the deeper her anger had grown as she’d watched helpless to do anything while her mother allowed history to repeat itself as she had become what amounted to the plaything of man who treated her like the hired help in front of his rich and powerful friends.
Charles Latimer might not be married but in every other way he was her own father—a selfish loser who used and humiliated her mum. Of course, back then Sarah had been a young impressionable student on her first holiday job—easy pickings for her unscrupulous rich employer.
What Eve could not understand was how her mother could let it happen again when she was now an independent, intelligent woman. How could she allow herself to be used and humiliated like this…? Where were her pride and self-respect?
Did Mum realise that he was only marrying her because of the baby? Eve wondered. Well, at least he was one step up the evolutionary scale of slime from her own father, whose contribution when he had learnt of her had been to write a signed note that included the words get rid of it.
Eve had never told her mum she had found the note while searching for her birth certificate, and she’d never let on she knew the identity of her father. Instead she had carefully folded it and put it back in the box that held her birth certificate.
‘Having a baby at your age…’ She sensed rather than saw Hannah’s look of warning. ‘Not that you’re old, obviously.’
Her mother managed a wan smile at the retrieval. ‘Always the soul of tact, Evie.’
Eve watched as Hannah and her mum exchanged a look. She didn’t resent the rapport that her mum and her friend had but, though she rarely acknowledged it, there were occasions when she did envy it. Eve was her daughter but Hannah was a kindred spirit.
‘I just meant…’ She paused and thought, What did you mean? ‘Couldn’t it be dangerous…for you, and the baby?’ But not for Charlie Latimer. Eve felt the anger and resentment she had always felt towards the man deepen so that they lay like an icy block behind her breastbone.
‘Loads of women in their forties have babies these days, Evie.’ Hannah proceeded to tick off a list of well-known celebrities Sarah’s age and older who had given birth recently.
‘And I’ll have a lot more support than I did last time around; your father has been marvellous, Hannah.’
Too little too late, Eve thought, before the guilt kicked in; it always did when she thought about all the things her mum had given up to be a single parent. She finally deserved some happiness but was she likely to find it with Charlie Latimer…?
Eve clenched her jaw. No, her mum deserved more—she deserved better after all the sacrifices she had made.
Wanting to give her mum the things she deserved had been behind Eve’s choice to reject the prestigious university scholarship she’d been offered and instead start her own firm. It hadn’t been easy. All the banks had turned the inexperienced eighteen-year-old away and in the end it had been a charitable trust set up to promote youth enterprise that had been convinced by her business plan and the rest, as they said, was history. Nowadays she was held up as one of the trust’s success stories, and regularly mentored young aspiring entrepreneurs and helped raise funds.
It had been a year ago that Eve had been able to go to her mother and triumphantly tell her she didn’t need to work for Charles Latimer, and that she, Eve, was able to support her while she did what she wanted: a university course, open her own restaurant…anything.